NYT: New Standards for Elections

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall () gmail com>
Date: November 7, 2004 1:14:54 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: NYT: New Standards for Elections
Reply-To: joehall () pobox com

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html

New Standards for Elections

The 2004 election may not have an asterisk next to it the way the 2000
election does, but the mechanics of our democracy remained badly
flawed. From untrustworthy electronic voting machines, to partisan
secretaries of state, to outrageously long lines at the polls, the
election system was far from what voters are entitled to.

It's patently obvious that presidential elections, at least, should be
conducted under uniform rules. Voters in Alaska and Texas should not
have different levels of protection when it comes to their right to
cast a ballot and have it counted. It's ridiculous that citizens who
vote in one place have to show picture ID while others do not, that a
person who accidentally walks into the wrong polling place can cast a
provisional ballot that will be counted in one state but thrown out in
another. States may have the right to set their own standards for
local elections, but picking the president is a national enterprise.

This is obviously a job for Congress, and it deserves the same kind of
persistent, intense lobbying effort that reformers have given the
issue of campaign finance. But improvements by the states may be
easier to achieve, and will clearly help prod Congress by their good
example. Advocates should push every level of government to be part of
the solution:

1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to
choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for
work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance
of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up
more qualified people to serve as poll workers.

2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages
people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient
for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time
to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to
voter intimidation.

3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting,
there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and
mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The
computer code should be provided to election officials, and made
public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of
the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines
in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file
with election officials.

4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as
some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who
cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of
voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that
waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.

5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state
routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and
themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted
should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or
supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their
employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or
contribute to political candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration
forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for
failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida,
or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules
should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on
the rolls.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida
once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its
rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be
clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in
advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and
posted online, well in advance of Election Day.

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional
ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered
voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the
wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such
ballots count.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly,
more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch
card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States
should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine
the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified
paper record. Election officials should get professional help to
design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to
vote because he is required to produce identification he does not
have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of
acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling
place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is
turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that
was not legally required.

11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in
place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified
minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More
must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at
minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor
neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are
ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which
disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their
states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee
ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year.
Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the
Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this
year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a
secret ballot.

This year's election, thankfully, did not end in the kind of breakdown
we witnessed in 2000. But that was because of luck. There were many
places in the country where, if the vote had been closer, scrutiny of
the election process would have produced the same sort of
consternation. In a closely divided political world, we cannot depend
on a margin for error when it comes to counting votes. We have four
years now to make things right.

Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at
nytimes.com/makingvotescount.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.)

--
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
UC Berkeley, SIMS PhD Student
http://pobox.com/~joehall/
blog: http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb2/

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