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Election Day Issues
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
By Lawrence Norden – 04/23/09
Yesterday, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner released to Governor Ted Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly a "blueprint for enhancing Ohio's elections." This blueprint (click here to download) is the culmination of work that began immediately after the 2008 election, when Secretary Brunner convened the first Ohio Elections Summit, which I chaired. The bipartisan Ohio Association of Election Officials has expressed support for Secretary Brunner's proposal, and I'm hopeful that it will move the ball closer toward important improvements in Ohio election administration and law.
The December Elections Summit called by Secretary Brunner, in addition to a later conference in March, brought together voters, non-partisan and partisan election experts, election officials and state legislators, of both political parties. These events were deliberative and substantive. As I've blogged before, I would very much like to see more Secretaries of State follow Jennifer Brunner's lead and adopt similar processes in their states.
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Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Other Voter List Issues, Purges, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives, Voting Technology
By Adam Skaggs – 04/01/09
Looks like Minnesota's senate race isn't the only one that's going to keep us waiting for a winner: it'll probably be at least another two weeks before anyone knows who won yesterday's closely watched special election in New York's 20th Congressional district.
As the New York Times reports, after yesterday's balloting, a "mere 65 votes" separate the two candidates vying to fill the Congressional seat vacated by New York's newest Senator, Kristen Gillibrand. Given that razor-thin margin, it may not be possible to declare a winner until all the absentee ballots are counted—and that may not happen until after April 13th.
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Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Military and Veteran Voting, Voting Technology
By Lawrence Norden – 03/11/09
In December, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner called together some of the country's leading election experts and voting rights advocates, as well as a bipartisan group of state legislators and election officials, to review the 2008 election and offer suggestions for reforming the state's election policy. She asked me to Chair this summit and to prepare a report summarizing the views of those who participated, providing relevant background and data where needed. She called this the "first step" in a process to solicit the views of Ohio voters and experts as she developed her reform agenda.
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Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Other Voter List Issues, Purges, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives, Voting Technology
By Michael Waldman – 01/23/09
Cross-posted from Talking Points Memo Café. Click here to read this Special Feature with comments.
I don't know about you, but I'm still glowing. The sight of Barack Obama, standing tall, taking the oath—cheered by one, heck, two million flag waving Americans, was an epochal affirmation of democracy. The Mall seemed a Walt Whitman poem come to life. It would be easy for our minds to follow our hearts, and assume that American democracy is in robust health.
So what's the worry about American democracy?
Isn't the fact of Obama's election proof enough that the system works? And aren't there more pressing matters to occupy our attention?
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Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter Registration Drives
By Adam Skaggs – 01/07/09
Well after President-elect Obama’s electoral college victory was a done deal, the results of the presidential election in Missouri were still too close to call, as election officials pored over the almost 3 million ballots cast in a race decided by about 3,000 votes. But as the tallying continued, there was one group of ballots that wasn’t being counted: those cast by members of the armed forces stationed overseas. That’s one lesson from a report issued this week by the Pew Center on the States.
The report, No Time To Vote: Challenges Facing America’s Overseas Military Voters, brings into sharp focus an inexcusable situation we’ve written about before: the significant—and sometimes insuperable—hurdles that troops voting overseas must overcome if they want their votes to count.
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Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Military and Veteran Voting
By Lawrence Norden – 11/03/08
The Brennan Center provides a summary of state recount laws in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia
here.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 11/02/08
As the 2008 Election draws to a close, the stars are coming out to protetct voting rights. Last Friday, along with the Advancement Project, the Brennan Center produced several PSAs featuring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Russell Simmons. I've posted them below. Here's some of the release announcing the campaign
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Russell Simmons have teamed up with the Advancement Project and the Brennan Center for Justice on a voter education campaign in the key states of Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Colorado. The campaign kicked-off Saturday, with the release of Public Service Announcements, released to radio, which gave voters important information to bring ID and to contact 1-866-OUR-VOTE with any problems.
When voters show up at the polls and have their eligibility questioned, they may be asked to vote with "provisional ballots." Known as a fail-safe for voters who are being challenged or who are not on the rolls, provisional ballots should be treated skeptically.
Rules vary from state to state, but these ballots are often counted only if the voter appears in a voter registration database or if the voter can provide evidence of his eligibility in the days after the election. For this reason, many provisional ballots go uncounted. In the 2008 primaries, 40% of provisional ballots were ultimately rejected.
Listen to the recordings after the fold...
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Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Other Voter List Issues, Provisional Ballots, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives
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