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Election Day Issues
By Myrna Pérez – 02/26/08
Hailing from Texas, I've seen my fellow southerners come up with some great ideas—like adding creamy gravy to chicken-fried steak, for instance. But now comes Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann with an election "reform" proposal that has me scratching my head. The Secretary of State's plan includes a lot of things, but the provision that should inspire bipartisan outrage is the section requiring all persons who registered prior October 1, 2008 to
reregister. The Secretary is concerned that the voter rolls are bloated and apparently thinks starting from scratch is the way to fix the problem. Talk about the medicine being worse than the disease.
We should strive for accurate rolls. On this, no one disagrees. When voter rolls are accurate, turn-out numbers are more precise, and election misconduct is easier to detect. Problems arise, however, when the quest for accurate rolls eclipses the voter's actual rights. When eligible voters are removed from the rolls, they're silenced unless they're able to correct the problem in time to qualify for the next election. Unfortunately, many voters will not know or understand they have to reregister before it is too late.
The irony is that there is no need for extreme proposals like Secretary Hosemann's. Federal law sets forth a common-sensical approach that strikes a balance between voters' rights and accurate voter rolls. Under the National Voter Registration Act, sometimes referred to as the "NVRA" or "Motor Voter Act," if it appears from information provided by the Postal Service that a registrant should no longer be on the rolls, the officials are supposed to send a forwardable notice asking for a confirmation of the registrant's address. If that registrant does not respond, the registrant remains on the rolls for two federal elections. If the registrant shows up to vote in the interim, she or he can update the necessary information. Only registrants who fail to respond to the address confirmation notice AND miss two federal elections can be removed from the voter rolls.
Under Hosemann's proposal, registrants who vote in any election conducted between November 3, 2008 and December 31, 2009 and meet certain other conditions will be deemed reregistered. Everyone else who registered prior to October 1, 2008 will have to reregister in order to be able to vote in any election after December 31, 2009. The Secretary's proposal will disenfranchise too many voters in the name of minimizing registration roll bloat. The NVRA method is simple and inexpensive. Secretary Hosemann should be ensuring compliance with the NVRA, not putting forth a new proposal that, by design, jeopardizes the voting rights of Mississippians.
Upate, 2/27
Thanks to an amendment offered by Senator David Blount, D-Jackson, the Mississippi Senate passed a revised version of the bill which did not include the provisions requiring all voters to reregister!
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter Lists and Databases, Voter Purges and Challenges, Voter Registration
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 02/19/08
Tonight, judging from early reports from Wisconsin, the buckle of the Dairy Belt (if such a belt exists) and home to an "open" primary, it appears the state's presidential runoff ran relatively smoothly and with few delays. Prior to today, some raised concerns that a high voter turnout could cause long lines at the polls due to new registration guidelines and Election Day voter registration.
Turnout was expected to be 35%, the highest in 20 years according to the Associated Press.
Midday, we spoke to Kyle Richmond, spokesmen for the Wisconsin Goverment Accountability Board which oversees elections. He reported no delays or problems at the polls.
Similarly, Dane County clerk Robert Ohlsen told us voting was proceeding as planned. He conceeded, however, the morning turnout was lower than expected due to poor weather. Additionally, he went on to explain it was still before noon in the Midwest and that University of Wisconsin students, a large voting demographic in the Madison and Dane County area, generally cast their ballots much, much later in the day. So the opportunity for problems to arise still existed.
Reached for comment at 10pm EST, well after the polls closed, and UW students presumably made it out of bed and to the voting booth, Mr. Ohlsen claimed he had not heard of any major problems statewide though he did tell us that the Madison office needed more voter registration forms.
"Tomorrow we'll have a better indication as to whether or not there were any real problems," he continued. "You'd really need to check with the Madison office specifically to get a better read there."
Maribeth Witzel-Behl, city clerk of Madison, was still dealing with returns and far too busy comment when contacted. We hope to hear from her early tomorrow morning.
Regardless, both the major newspapers and Wisconsin Vote have yet to mention any problems caused by Wisconsin's open Voter registration laws.
Hopefully, no news is good news.
Let us know if you hear of anything: Thaddeus.kromelis@nyu.edu
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter Registration
By Justin Levitt – 02/01/08
From my home state of New Jersey, a court
ruled yesterday that some absentee voters will get a "do-over" in the coming presidential primary. Under the court's decision, if you voted for a presidential candidate who has since dropped out of the race, you'll be able to vote again. And given the substantial support in New Jersey
polls for both John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani, the decision may impact thousands of voters.
The court order is likely to be controversial. But whatever you think about the remedy, there's an important lesson to be learned from the problem the court was confronting.
A handful of states have recently tightened restrictions on voting at the polls — the most notorious example is Indiana, which stops you from voting in-person if you don't have a certain type of photo ID. A challenge to the law is now in front of the Supreme Court. Indiana has justified the restriction, in part, by saying that voters without ID can always vote absentee, where no ID is required.
As the New Jersey court order shows, however, absentee ballots aren't a perfect substitute for voting on election day. We already knew that absentee ballots can be risky because of administrative glitches: in Indiana last year, absentee ballots from legitimate voters weren't counted when an election official forgot to initial the envelopes before sending them out. And we already knew that absentee ballots can be risky because of delivery problems: in 2004, thousands of Florida absentee ballots were apparently mailed too late for voters to cast them in time. And of course, absentee ballots present a risk of coercion or inappropriate influence that isn't really an issue at the polls.
Now, the New Jersey order highlights another downside: absentee ballots force voters to make up their minds before all of the information is in. Sometimes, there is a late-breaking revelation about one of the candidates. Or, as happened on Wednesday, a candidate will drop out of the race. There's no way to prepare for this sort of thing ahead of time. And so voters who want to make sure that their votes are effective have an interest in waiting until Election Day.
More than a decade ago, Supreme Court Justice Kennedy recognized this very problem. In a case about the option to write-in a candidate's name on the ballot, he explained that the write-in vote can "serve as an important safety mechanism in those instances where a late developing issue arises or where new information is disclosed about a candidate late in the race."
The chance to vote on Election Day is an even more important "safety mechanism" to make sure that votes matter. Perhaps the New Jersey do-over will help make that clear to the rest of the Court.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter ID
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