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Election Day Issues

Massive Participation from “Inactives” Shows Voters Shouldn’t Be Ruled Out of Elections

By Jonathan Brater – 11/03/11

In September, we told you about Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s attempt to prevent thousands of duly registered Colorado citizens from voting in this November’s mail ballot election merely because they failed to vote in a single election. Fortunately, county clerk and recorders in Denver and Pueblo Counties took a principled stand against Secretary Gessler’s wrongheaded approach, and Denver won the right to send mail ballots to all duly registered voters. Other counties followed suit.

The reports of early returns are in, and the result is a huge win for voters and a decisive blow against Secretary Gessler’s policy of disenfranchisement. Media reports indicate that as of Monday night, in Pueblo County, an astonishing 16 percent of the County’s approximately 17,000 “inactive voters” had cast ballots: a total of roughly 2,700 voters. This represented nearly 9 percent of all votes cast in Pueblo County. In Pueblo’s District Two, an area with a disproportionately high number of low-income citizens, inactive voters constituted 23 percent of the total voting electorate. The statewide results, when available, will likely show that thousands more inactive voters cast mail ballots. 

Had Secretary Gessler’s attempt been successful, none of these duly registered voters would have been allowed to participate in the election by voting mail ballots. And indeed, due in part to Secretary Gessler’s efforts, thousands of registered voters in other counties that did not send mail ballots to inactive voters likely were disenfranchised on Tuesday. 

The dispute over inactive voters is not over. With the 2012 election looming, Secretary Gessler has indicated that he will continue to press for restrictive voting laws that would prevent registered voters who miss a single election from participating in elections unless they first submit to an administrative process to “reactivate” their status. The 2011 election turnout, welcome as it is for the citizens of Colorado, also places in sharp relief the stakes of the ongoing war on voting. Hopefully, these election results will show Secretary Gessler the folly of his policy. Either way, those fighting for free and open elections must remain vigilant.

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Ballot Access, Election Day Issues, Provisional Ballots, Purges

Know The Truth About Voting in Maine

By Megan Brown – 10/18/11

You may have heard the stories coming out of Maine – but we want you to know the truth. 

In July, a politician publicized a list of 206 students paying out-of-state tuition at Maine universities, calling the fact that they voted in Maine “evidence of voter fraud.”  The Maine Secretary of State investigated these claims and unsurprisingly found that these students did not commit voter fraud – out-of-state tuition status is simply not a bar to registering or voting in Maine. 

In early September, a state political party publicly “uncovered” the fact that 19 students had listed a hotel address on their voter registration cards.  However, at that time the hotel was operating as a dorm for students displaced by a hurricane.  Under Maine law, students may register to vote using their school address, whether it’s a dormitory, apartment, or house – so long as they consider it their home.  There is no evidence these students did anything other than vote where they lived.    

Now the Secretary of State has sent letters to Maine students paying out-of-state tuition – yes, the same students who were cleared of all wrongdoing in his investigation – and is asking them to obtain a driver’s license or car registration in Maine if they intend to vote there even though there is no standalone requirement to get a Maine driver’s license unless you intend to drive a car in Maine.  The targeted way in which this rule is being enforced against students is unwarranted. 

When the initial investigation was announced, we sent Secretary Summers a letter cautioning him against publicizing information that might wrongly intimidate student voters.  Today, the ACLU of Maine, along with other voting rights groups, sent a letter to the Maine Secretary of State urging him to stop this continued intimidation of student voters.

No eligible voter should be dissuaded from voting due to misinformation and innuendo.  We at the Brennan Center want students to have correct and complete information about their right to participate in the political process.  In order to know the truth about voting in Maine, you can refer to the Brennan Center’s Maine Student Voting Guide which provides descriptions of the latest ID, residency, voter registration, and absentee balloting requirements.

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Election Day Issues, Election Day Registration, Student Voting

State Legislatures Work to Restrict Voting Rights

By Nhu-Y Ngo – 05/26/11

The Big Picture

We’ve written much about the various voter ID battles in the states, but recent legislative attacks on voting rights go far beyond introducing restrictive voter identification requirements.

In fact, legislators around the country have been pushing bills that make sweeping changes to their election codes to limit the voting rights of students and movers, reduce early voting days, and restrict voter registration and “get-out-the-vote” mobilization efforts. 

Rather than making efforts to improve and modernize our election system and ensure that all eligible voters are able to vote, some lawmakers are instead trying to make voter registration and voting more difficult by effectively penalizing civic engagement.

Common characteristics of these bills, proposed by legislators in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, respectively, are that they are long, dense, and cover a wide variety of topics affecting access to the polls.  In Texas, the legislative attack on voting has been done through a series of bills, which is bound to confuse citizens who must sift through a pile of proposed laws. 

These bills are more than mere proposals of some overzealous legislators.  The Florida bill became law last week, and Governor Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s bill on Wednesday.  Bills in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are still under consideration.

We provide a summary of these restrictive laws and bills below.

Florida

Florida’s House Bill 1355, a mammoth 158-page omnibus bill that was signed by the Governor Rick Scott on May 19th, includes language that would:

• Require voter registration groups to pre-register every single volunteer or employee (by requiring each person to sign a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury) and turn in every registration form they get within 48 hours or face strict penalties and fees
• Eliminate Florida’s longstanding policy of allowing voters who have moved to update their new address at the polls on Election Day
• Reduce the early voting period from two weeks to one

As the Brennan Center’s Lee Rowland wrote earlier, the pre-registration requirement means a student council member can’t swap in to take a turn to pass out registration forms without first signing a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, with the State. The tight turnaround time means that registration groups will be unable to follow up with voters who leave forms incomplete and will incur high fines for going a minute over the deadline. 

The burdens of this bill will fall disproportionately on low-income and minority voters, renters, and students: eligible voters that already face the biggest hurdles to vote.  And the groups that try to register these voters, from student organizers to the League of Women Voters, could be penalized for their attempts to bring more eligible citizens into our democracy.

The bill was signed by the Governor on May 19^th despite urging from voting rights advocacy groups that the new law will only harm voters.

Ohio

Ohio, seemingly not wanting to be outdone by Florida, has a longer bill.  Coming in at 297 pages, House Bill 194 is definitely competing with Florida in an imagined voter restrictions dance-off, perhaps to “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, which was playing in the background of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s voter ID bill signing. 

This bill is not all bad.  Perhaps most importantly, it limits opportunities for unwarranted challenges at the polls that could be used to intimidate voters.  It also makes it easier for people who change their names (i.e., recently married women) to vote a regular ballot.

But there are a number of new restrictions including:

• Significantly reducing locations and times for early in-person voting
• Prohibiting counties from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters or sending return postage on absentee ballots
• Eliminating requirements that an election official must direct a voter who is in the wrong precinct to the voter’s correct precinct (which is especially crucial as provisional ballots only count if cast in the correct precinct)
• Eliminating the ability of provisional voters to provide additional information or identification to ensure their ballots are counted in the 10 days after they voted
• Discarding votes that the voting machine reads as “overvotes” (i.e., voting for more than one candidate in a contest), even when a subsequent review makes the voter intent clear

H.B. 194 does allow voters to electronically update their registration information online, which is a reform we support, but only if the voter already updated this information with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (meaning this will benefit far fewer voters than it could).

North Carolina

North Carolina has its own “Voting Integrity” bill, as it is short-titled.  Instead of securing the election administration process in smart ways, Senate Bill 657 would undo some of North Carolina’s best voting practices by:

• Cutting down the early voting period by one week
• Ending pre-registration for 17 year-olds, which has become an important way to promote civic participation among young people
• Repealing Same Day Registration (current law allows eligible voters to register to vote or update their registration information during the early voting period)

We are particularly troubled by the last two items. Eliminating Same Day Registration in North Carolina will discourage voters who already encounter other voter registration barriers from participating.  The motivation behind eliminating pre-registration is unclear and unfairly punishes young voters who are lawfully eligible to vote.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 7 is widely known as a bill that would require Department of Transportation-issued photo ID, a passport, military or tribal ID, or naturalization certificate in order to vote.  Student IDs could in theory be acceptable, but in practice, the ones that the University of Wisconsin currently issues would not be.  The University will have to issue new cards to all students at an estimated cost of millions if it wants its IDs to be accepted as appropriate identification for voting under A.B. 7.

In the bill, there are also provisions to:

• Extend the length of residency period before an eligible person may register to vote from 10 to 28 days
• Move the deadline for a late registration to the Friday before an election, rather than the day before an election

A.B. 7 passed in a hasty vote, during which Senate President Mike Ellis cut off debate and declared the bill passed before all members of the Senate could cast their votes.

See the video here:

WI Senate Vote on Voter Suppression Bill 5.19.11 by nicknice

After the vote, Governor Scott Walker tweeted his glee.  Walker signed the bill yesterday.

And then, there is Texas

Lone Star legislators did not seek to package their voting restrictions into one giant bill, defying the adage that everything is bigger in Texas.  But there is still reason to be alarmed by what’s happening in Austin.

Two bills would make it harder for persons to become deputy voter registrars.  There is even a bill that will slap you with a Class C misdemeanor if you help more than two voters in a day. 

Priorities in Texas seem a bit misguided.  For example, thanks to recently passed legislation, Texans will be able to legally “noodle,” the art of catching fish by hand.  The author of the bill, State Senator Bob Deuell, is quoted as saying, “I personally don't noodle, but I would defend to the death your right to do so.” 

No word on if he will defend to the death your right to vote.

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues, Student Voting, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives

Learning from 2010: Improving Our Elections

By Lawrence Norden – 04/04/11

Last Thursday morning, I had the opportunity to testify in Congress before a hearing of the Committee on House Administration on the 2010 elections. While a lot went right from the perspective of voting rights and election administration, 2010 provided plenty of examples of how even now, a decade after “hanging chad” became a household term and states all over the country began purchasing new, modern voting machines, we are still struggling to bring the way we run our elections into the 21st century.

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter Registration Modernization, Voting Technology

Voter ID a Misguided Effort

By Nhu-Y Ngo – 12/13/10

As many state legislatures prepare to convene in January, lawmakers across the country – especially the newly elected – are preparing to roll back voting rights.  For some, voter ID is the top priority, reflected in pre-filed bills this past month.  This is puzzling considering the great number of pressing problems facing the states and the fact that there is little evidence the kind of voter fraud targeted by ID laws is a significant issue. 

The Brennan Center has researched the impact of voter identification legislation and the frequency of the only type of voter fraud that voter ID bills have the potential to address: the impersonation of registered voters at the polls.  Our research has established that impersonation fraud rarely occurs.  Indeed, more Americans are struck by lightning each year.  But while there is no credible evidence that impersonation fraud occurs, reliable evidence proves that photo ID and proof of citizenship bills erect hurdles that prevent real citizens from voting.  The citizens affected are predominantly elderly and indigent voters, and citizens from minority communities.

Still, the legislative fixation on voter ID remains.

Voter ID bills have been pre-filed in Missouri (including a separate bill with a focus on proof of citizenship, which is certainly more onerous), Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Texas. Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle was so eager that she dramatically camped out inside the Capitol to be first in line to file voter ID legislation.

And in states with no current pre-filed voter ID bills, prepare yourself for the upcoming legislative avalanche. 

Secretaries of State-elect Matt Schultz (Iowa), Scott Gessler (Colorado), Dianna Duran (New Mexico), and Kris Kobach (Kansas) all made voter ID a big issue in their campaigns.  And all have publicly stated that they will lobby their respective legislatures to pass voter ID, and in the case of Secretaries-elect Gessler and Kobach, proof of citizenship requirements for voting as well.  According to other media reports, lawmakers in North Carolina, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are set to introduce respective voter ID bills this January. 

This focus on voter ID is unfortunate considering how much work is needed to modernize our voter registration system.  Experts, legislators and election officials across the country agree that our voter registration system is flawed and outdated.  As Brennan Center research has demonstrated, lawmakers and election leaders can improve election integrity and security without compromising the right to vote as they move to modernize their systems.  Modernization saves millions of dollars a year, boosts registration rates, and increases the accuracy of the rolls.  Because the system is much more accurate and because most voter registrations come in through direct contact with government officials, a modern voter registration system is also much more secure and reduces the opportunities for fraud and abuse – not only at the polls but throughout the system.  In other words, those concerned about fraud should follow the lead of pioneering state officials, like those in Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, and Washington, and work to upgrade our ailing voter registration system.

And there is promising news.  In this sea of restrictive measures, The Houston Chronicle reports that Houston State Senator Rodney Ellis has pre-filed six bills which make up the "Voter Empowerment Package" (Senate Bills 210 to 216).  The package includes measures to 1) designate every statewide Election Day as a state holiday, including primary Election Day; 2) allows eligible residents to register for voting during the early voting period at polling locations as long as the eligible resident provides certain documentation; 3) creates criminal penalties for certain deceptive or disenfranchising practices regarding an election; 4) allows eligible residents to register for voting on Election Day at polling locations as long as the eligible resident provides certain documentation; and 5) authorizes registered voters to vote by mail during the early voting period.

In Montana, a pre-filed bill would establish online voter registration in the state, which has proven incredibly successful in many other states.

In New York, lawmakers announced that they plan to introduce legislation to modernize the voter registration system.

These bills demonstrate the right kind of reform that is needed for our patchwork of state registration systems. 

But as long some remain fixated on voter ID, they must be prepared demonstrate the requirements are worth the harms they cause—a tough task given the lack of evidence of fraud, as Colorado Common Cause Executive Director Jenny Flanagan to wrote the Denver Post on November 25.  Legislators should also be prepared to carry the financial burdens of implementing voter identifications laws that meet constitutional requirements.  For if voter ID is to be implemented, states will have to provide ID cards free of charge to those who cannot afford them, to make sure that those cards are widely available, to undertake mass outreach and public education programs on the new requirements, and to include fail-safes and exceptions for certain categories of voters.  This adds up to a lot of money—at a time when state budgets are strained. 

State officials have a choice: they can improve election integrity, register more voters, and save money by modernizing their voter registration systems or they can push forward with restrictive voter ID requirements that will stress state budgets and contract the franchise.  The common sense answer is rather clear.  We certainly hope they choose the former and will be happy to work with them on such important reform.

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Election Day Issues, Voter ID, Voter Registration Modernization

Avoiding Intimidation at the Ballot Box

By Wendy R. Weiser – 11/02/10

Crossposted from The Hill's Congress Blog.

Voting is our most sacred civic ritual. Polling places are its temples. They should be oases of calm and reason, where voters can register their choices privately, free from the heat of election campaigns. But because of widespread mobilization around efforts to stop voter fraud this year, our “temples of democracy” are under threat of being converted into partisan battlegrounds.

It is important to understand the singularity of these so-called "ballot security" activities. Private citizens, working with political parties or groups, take it upon themselves to enforce the law. In those states that allow direct challenges to voters, citizens not only assume the guise of law enforcement, but that of prosecutors as well.

Compare ballot security drives to other areas of law enforcement. Many believe there is an epidemic of fraud on Wall Street, just as many claim there is massive voter fraud. Yet citizens rely on state and federal governments to enforce the securities laws. They do not post themselves on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, confronting traders each time they sense something wrong. If that were the case, traders involved in legitimate activity would never get their work done.

The same is true with voting. State and local election officials, and federal and state law enforcement personnel, have the legal responsibility to ensure that voting is fair and accurate. It is their job to protect against – and prosecute, if necessary – voter fraud as well as vote suppression. Judging from the extremely low rates of voter fraud in American elections, they do this job quite well. No one argues that these officials should perform their jobs without oversight. Citizen observation and monitoring can be a beneficial safeguard.

But the reality is that ballot security efforts are frequently disruptive to an orderly voting process. Far too often – especially in the emotionally heated environment of a hotly contested election – these efforts go awry, crossing the line into voter intimidation, discrimination, or vote suppression. And even if they don’t result in intimidation, discrimination or suppression, ballot security operations can slow down the voting process, creating long lines and confusion, and depressing turnout. They undermine morale too, creating an atmosphere of mistrust in the very places where Americans come together to participate in the defining act of self-government.

The downsides to ballot security operations are many, and there is little upside. These operations almost never uncover any voter fraud. And for good reason: the kinds of fraud that actually do happen, albeit rarely, cannot be detected at the polls. While “Mickey Mouse” may still be able to submit a registration form, unless he has valid government records or appropriate ID, he cannot vote. In any event, the answer to inaccurate voter rolls is modernizing our voter registration system, not obstructing the vote.

Other advanced democracies do not allow citizens to police fellow voters and challenge them at the polls. Citizens can comment on the voter rolls before Election Day, so that all concerns are resolved beforehand and all citizens can vote in peace. We should show the same respect for American voters.

Our most sacred rite of democracy should not turn into a battleground with citizens confronting and accusing one another at the polls. Those citizens who take the time to vote deserve peace and respect. The last thing voters need is to become unwitting pawns in a partisan struggle.

Tags: Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues

The Thin Line Between “Security” and Suppression

By Lee Rowland – 10/28/10

Election Day should reflect our democracy’s fundamental principle that every eligible voter should be able to cast a ballot that counts.  Instead, there is a real threat that partisan election monitors funded by political parties and independent groups will turn polling places into something closer to a political circus on November 2^nd.

Political parties, movements like the Tea Party, and corporate elections-related spending have created widespread, well-funded programs that – in the name of ballot security – place hundreds of partisan operatives at polling places.  Political poll monitors’ role is to challenge individual voters based on residency, age, or citizenship - and the concern is that the process is largely aimed at voters who do not share those monitors’ political beliefs.  As one U.S. District Judge noted with respect to certain challenges lodged in Montana before the 2008 election, “[t]he timing of these challenges is so transparent that it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery.”[1] 

These efforts carry a high risk of discouraging voters from casting valid ballots.  No matter how well-intentioned, throngs of partisan monitors clog already-taxed polling places and can create a climate of fear and uncertainty for voters.  Even under the best of circumstances, with political operatives jockeying for space in the polls alongside voters, there will be confusion and misapplication of poll monitoring laws.  The Brennan Center is very concerned that these targeted poll monitoring operations can and will cross the line into voter suppression. 

Unfortunately, these efforts are frequently concentrated in the most vulnerable voting precincts, and thus may disproportionately disenfranchise minority, low-income, and foreclosed voters on Election Day.  One federal court in Ohio found that under a challenge operation planned in that state for 2004, only 14 percent of voters in majority-white districts would be subject to voter challenges, while a stunning 97 percent of new voters in predominately African-American polling districts would face such a challenge.[2] Voter challenges based in whole or in part on race violate the federal Voting Rights Act – and we at the Brennan Center will be vigilant this election to monitor challenge operations to ensure they do not disenfranchise voters based on race.

Eligible voters should demand their right to cast a ballot that will count. If you experience intimidation, confusion, or discrimination at the polls, you can call Election Protection’s voter hotline to report any interference with your fundamental right to vote at 1-866-OUR-VOTE or, en español, 1-866-Ve-Y-Vota.  Voters may also report problematic conduct to the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice by calling (800) 253-3931.  You can read more about the Brennan Center’s concerns about suppressive voter challenges here and read about current reports of aggressive "ballot security" operations here. 

Every American has a right to cast a vote that counts.  Poll monitoring efforts based on race, or intended to disenfranchise eligible voters, are flat-out unlawful.  A fundamental requirement of our democracy is ensuring that eligible voters are not turned away from the polls.  To the extent that “ballot security” operations discourage eligible voters, they fail us all.

[1] Montana Democratic Party v. Eaton, 581 F.Supp.2d 1077, 1081 (D.Mont. 2008).

[2] Spencer v. Blackwell, 347 F.Supp.2d 528, 530 (S.D.Ohio 2004).

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues

Voter-registration reforms could diminish Ohio’s election disputes

By Lawrence Norden – 11/02/09

Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, 10/29/09

Elections in Ohio can produce controversy that is sometimes corrosive to the public's perception of the integrity of our electoral system. As long as Ohio remains a politically important and closely divided state, there will continue to be hotly contested election-related disputes. But changes to election law in Ohio can minimize the frequency and impact of some of these controversies by creating clearer and fairer laws that improve election administration, decrease burdens and costs on county election offices and put the voters first. The Ohio House Committee on Elections and Ethics is considering legislation that should make progress on all of these fronts.

In December and March, I chaired two summits on Ohio Election reform. Each involved a convening of ideologically diverse election officials, academics and voting-rights groups to reflect on ways to make Ohio elections run better. Those assembled agreed that, because of the hard work of election administrators, voting-rights groups and Ohio voters, the 2008 elections were largely a success. There was, however, consensus that more could be done.

The elections-enhancement bill sponsored by Reps. Dan Stewart and Tracy Heard, both Democrats from Columbus, takes many suggestions from the summits. It would improve laws related to early voting, provisional ballots, voter ID and ballot design -- all sources of problems in Ohio in the past.

But the current bill doesn't fully address flaws in the state's voter-registration system, which participants at both summits decried as inefficient and prone to error. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and the bipartisan workgroup she pulled together after the summit have proposed a way to fill that gap: an automatic and online voter-registration system.

This system would make it possible to automatically forward registration information from all Ohio residents who interact with a designated government agency to election officials, who could then include such information on the state's voter rolls of eligible residents. This would vastly increase administrative efficiency and reduce the stress on election officials from the typical last-minute deluge of voter-registration forms, smoothing out the flow of registration activity across the year and freeing up resources for other critical election-administration tasks. And, it would improve both the quality and security of voter-registration information and preserve registrars' traditional function of determining eligibility.

Research by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law shows that automatic voter registration could easily be developed from statewide voter-registration databases already in place. Delaware recently implemented automatic registration from its motor-vehicles agency; the state's elections and motor-vehicles officials have expressed great satisfaction with the results. Ohio's Bureau Of Motor Vehicles already participates in automatic registration for the Selective Service, and the same technology can easily be adapted for voter registration. Many other major democracies, including Canada, automatically register eligible citizens to vote, achieving far more complete and accurate voter rolls at lower cost.

The elements needed for an online registration system are firmly in place in Ohio. The state has a secure online interface that residents can use to check their existing registration status; currently, however, the state doesn't provide a way residents can correct or amend information. And, Ohio's Motor Vehicles Bureau already has digitized the information needed to register drivers to vote; they simply need legal authority to transfer this information to election officials.

Successful models are cropping up across the country. Arizona, for example, has an online system that's generated substantial savings. Officials there say that each online registration costs just three cents to process; paper forms costs 83 cents each to process. The system has also saved Arizona election officials tens of thousands of hours in time that would have been spent manually entering data.

And citizens report substantial satisfaction with the added convenience that online registration offers. It is no surprise that eight other states -- California, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Oregon, Utah and Washington -- recently authorized online registration, or that similar bills are pending in at least four other states.

In Ohio, the resources and political will are in place. Passing a version of the election-enhancement bill that incorporates voter-registration modernization reforms could make the Buckeye State a model of electoral reform.

Tags: Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Election Day Registration, No Match, No Vote, Voter ID