Blog
Voter Registration Drives
By Renée Paradis – 04/17/08
The week of April 15 is a nice occasion on which to reflect on deadlines and what people tend to do in the face of deadlines, which, of course, is wait until the last minute before frantically rushing to get that form in on time. This is as true with voter registration as it is with taxes: the single biggest day of the year for voter registration is the deadline before the general election. And, under federal law, states are required to hold that deadline no earlier than 30 days before the election, which leaves elections officials with a deadline of their own: they must somehow process the deluge of forms in order to finalize pollbooks for use on Election Day. The days before deadline are difficult ones for election officials who have to go through mountains of forms while also setting up polling locations, training poll workers, distributing and collecting absentee ballots, testing machines, running early voting, printing ballots. In short, what March and April are to CPAs, October is to elections officials.
Last week, however, an elections worker in Muncie, Indiana got a little too hot under the collar during form-processing season. The Delaware County Election Board called a meeting to figure out how to deal with the flood of new registrations they had received for the presidential primary—including 1,500 on the primary deadline itself, out of a citizen voting age population of only around 90,000. Apparently the 1,500 forms were collected by the Obama campaign, which has made voter registration drives a focus of its efforts with student populations in particular. The Delaware Elections Board was operating at reduced capacity already because, under state law, the Board, which must have the same number of Democratic and Republican employees, is short a Republican—so they're down two whole workers. (Partisan election administration is a blog post for another day.) Will Statom, a Republican board employee, was apparently so angry that this meeting was called without complying with an Indiana public meetings law, he started a fight with a reporter for the Muncie Star-Press, which Statom claimed had "promoted" the "illegal" meeting. Statom shoved Nick Werner into a wall, tried to choke Werner, and then ended up punching Barry Welsh, a candidate for Congress, in the eye when Welsh tried to break up the fight. Statom was charged with misdemeanor battery, but returned to work the next day-the office needed his help to process all those registrations. (He has since been given a three-day suspension).
In 2004, elections officials in swing states also received many more forms than they were expecting—in large part because of the success of voter registration drives that registered a bunch of new voters and pulled more people into the process—something that's already happening this presidential year. Sometimes, those forms simply couldn't be processed in time, and voters had to cast provisional ballots. Other places, voting machines were distributed before all those voters registered, meaning long lines for some on Election Day. Ultimately, though, there was record registration and record turnout levels—something we can all agree is good, right?
Maybe not. Afterwards, some officials responded like Statom—they got angry, or ended up punching the wrong person. States across the country passed restrictions on these drives. Instead of giving counties all the money and capacity they needed to hire as many people as they could to process forms and ensure all voters new and old were able to vote, these dates decided to restrict the inputs—to limit drives' ability to reach new voters. States claim these laws are necessary because groups "hoard" forms—save them till the last minute and then turn them in all at once. But as tax day tells us (and as a study we did in Florida demonstrates), that's what voters do anyway—all groups do is increase the overall number of people who register to vote. Here at the Brennan Center, we've challenged these laws—successfully—as unconstitutional in Ohio and Florida. But they're still on the books in a number of states as we head towards the fall registration season. Rather than giving a black eye to new voters, states should figure out ways to process the form of every American who wants to register and vote.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter Registration Drives
By Myrna Pérez – 04/08/08
Iowa's
online voter registration forms can no longer be published in any language other than English. So said a ruling on March 31 from a state district court judge in Polk County ending Iowa's Secretary of State's commendable practice of providing voter registration forms online in four languages in addition to English. The main instigator of the lawsuit was U.S. Representative Steve King (R-IA), the same person who introduced Iowa's English-Only legislation while a state Senator. If you've ever wondered what our members of Congress have been spending their time on lately, the answer is: trolling a state agency's website to find grist for a lawsuit, one to make voting more difficult, no less.
Thirty-one states, in whole or in part, are required under federal law to provide voting materials in the language of specified language minority groups that reach certain numerical thresholds. Iowa is not one of those required states. So the actions its leaders were taking to promote broad political participation were especially meaningful and laudatory—a best practice among states for expanding voting opportunities.
But no more. After the judge issued his ruling, Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro removed the voter registration forms in all languages other than English. Ironically, while the Bush Administration's Department of Justice brags about filing more cases since 2001 in support of minority language rights in voting than in the previous 26 years, Rep. King sues Iowa merely for providing some non-English forms on a website.
It is shocking that a member of Congress could justify spending his time on ending a practice that at its best, expands electoral participation to more citizens, at worst, is innocuous. It's certainly not an issue of money. Iowa spent a grand total of $630 on non-English voter registration material. That was in 2006. On the other hand, Rep. King's lawsuit no doubt cost taxpayers, in terms of expenses and government and judicial resources, much, much more. It is hard to argue that this lawsuit in any way served King's constituents. It was simply a mean-spirited and divisive attempt to make it difficult for some eligible citizens to register to vote.
Rep. King had this to say about the lawsuit: "The English language unites us as a state and as a nation. E Pluribis Unum—out of many, we are one—with a common language."
He's wrong. We are a diverse nation. Our citizens have connections to countries all over the world and speak many different languages at home. Despite our differences, the commonality eligible citizens have and should jealously guard is the right to cast a meaningful vote. Even though voting participation in the recent months has hit record highs, electoral participation is far from universal. It is shameful and disappointing that such a well-intentioned and low-cost way of including more people in the democratic process could not be left alone.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues, Voter Registration Drives
By Myrna Pérez – 03/10/08
Things are looking pretty grim for Mississippi citizens who want to exercise
their right to vote. Recently, Mississippi
Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann advocated a plan that would have scrapped all
existing voter registrations and required everyone to reregister. Then came news that approximately 11,000
registered voters were illegally purged from the voting rolls just one week
before tomorrow's primary.
But, that's not all. Secretary
Hosemann is concerned that the Mississippi Constitution does not go far enough
in disenfranchising people with past criminal convictions. Currently, state law lists ten kinds of crimes that will result in
a person losing their voting rights. The
remedy he supports, House Bill 969, disenfranchises all persons convicted of
ANY felony until two years after the person fully completes all terms of the
sentence and satisfies other conditions.
It is estimated that right now, more than 146,000
Mississippians are disenfranchised - more than 92,000 of them are African
Americans. About 121,000 of those people
are not incarcerated and are living, working and paying taxes in their communities. During a time when the rest of the country is
excited about how many people are participating in our electoral process, the
chief elections officer of Mississippi
is supporting a proposal that will make even more people ineligible to vote.
Not only is this bad public policy, it is inconsistent with
the existing trend of expanding franchise opportunities for persons with
criminal convictions. Indeed, even in Kentucky - one of only two
states that permanently disenfranchises everyone with a felony conviction
unless the governor grants an individual clemency application - Governor Steve
Beshear announced that he is removing some barriers in the application process
to restore voting rights to convicted felons.
In just over ten years, sixteen states have reformed their policies to
bring more people with past felony convictions back into the democratic
process.
Secretary Hosemann explains his support for expanding the list of disenfranchising crimes with a statement that reveals how out of touch this kind of proposal is: "All of the nine states
fully covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act disenfranchise felons or suspend
their right to vote upon conviction." To
be "fully covered" by the Voting Rights Act means that the state's voting
practices history is so discriminatory that the entire state is still required
by law to obtain permission from the Department of Justice or a court before
certain election changes are allowed to be made. Mississippi
is one of those covered states. With
that group being the benchmark, the progress we can expect out of Mississippi is not
encouraging.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, State-Based Advocacy, Voting Rights & Elections, Purges, Voter Registration Drives
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, Other Voter List Issues, Purges, Voter Registration Drives
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 Drives
By Renée Paradis – 01/24/08
The Department of Justice was originally created during
Reconstruction with the intent of protecting the rights of newly freed
slaves. Then in the 1960s, when Congress
reawoke to its responsibility to protect the rights of African-Americans, it
placed the charge of enforcing this country's marquee civil rights statute, the
Voting Rights Act, into the hands of the Department of Justice. Given this history, the Bush-era DOJ's complete
capitulation of its obligation to enforce the Voting Rights Act is particularly
appalling.
The latest injustice is the approval (or preclearance) of
three changes in Florida law, including restrictions on third-party voter
registration drives that help minority voters register, a limitation on what
kind of identification voters can use at the polls, and a shortening of the
time voters have to verify provisional ballots.
The Voting Rights Act is actually a collection of provisions,
but its key provision requires all changes in voting procedure to be precleared
by the DOJ. States and local
governments—mostly in the old South—have to submit any changes they make to the
Department, to make sure they won't make minority voters any worse off (that
the change isn't "retrogressive").
Congress did this because they had tried for ten years
through less intrusive means to make sure black citizens in the South were able
to vote. They had outlawed certain
practices, created certain procedures, gave federal agents more power—and none
of it worked. As Congress said when it enacted
the Voting Rights Act, "Indeed, even after apparent defeat registers seek new
ways and means of discriminating.
Barring one contrivance too often has caused no change in result, only
in methods."
The amazing thing is, the VRA basically worked: by the end of 1967, black voter registration in Mississippi, which was
at 6.7% in 1963, increased to 60%. In Alabama, registration
rose from 24 to 57 percent. These numbers were echoed all over the South. The DOJ, even under subsequent Republican
administrations, dutifully enforced the law.
And then, the current
administration came into power. There's
been a lot of detailed press coverage about the
problems in the Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division of the
Department, and how Bush political appointees have essentially dismantled the
Section, which I won't rehash here. But
there's every reason to suspect preclearance decisions coming out of the Section.
One of the changes the DOJ
precleared this week—the changes to the rules governing third-party voter
registration drives—comes out of a case I've helped litigate with the Brennan
Center, along with the Advancement Project and the law firm Kramer Levin. Florida
placed heavy restrictions on third-party registration drives in 2005 that
forced the League of Women Voters to stop registering voters for the first time
in their 70 year history in the state. When
a federal court struck down the law as unconstitutional, the state
legislature went back and instead of getting rid of an unconstitutional law,
they reenacted the law with a few changes.
That new law is what the DOJ approved on Thursday.
Under the VRA, the state is required to prove that the
change it's making won't hurt minority voters.
Here's how Florida
tried to prove its law wouldn't hurt minority voters: they submitted a copy of the new law, the old
law, a description of the law, and a statement that the new law
"will apply equally to all voters, regardless of racial or language minority
status." Even the DOJ recognized further
investigation might be necessary and asked for more information—particularly,
any statistics Florida had showing how
minority voters in the five Florida
counties covered by the VRA registered to vote, whether through drives or other
means.
They asked
that question in response to a letter the
Brennan Center and the Advancement Project sent in September, showing that
in Florida
statewide black and Hispanic voters and voters from Spanish-speaking households
were twice as likely to register to vote through drives as white voters or
voters from English-speaking households, based on Census data. So how did Florida respond? By submitting statistics that don't even
track how people register to vote by race—in other words, evidence that didn't
even come close to rebutting the Census data we submitted, much less prove on
their own that shutting down voter registration drives, which traditionally
target minority voters, wouldn't violate the letter as well as the spirit of
the Voting Rights Act.
On its face, Florida's submission
didn't even come close to bearing its burden of proving that its law change
wouldn't hurt minority voters. Except,
it appears, in the looking-glass world of the Bush Justice Department.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter Registration Drives
By Renée Paradis – 01/15/08
Last Friday, January 11, was the last day to register to vote in New York's presidential primary, scheduled for February 5. But if you're registered as an independent and wanted to vote in a presidential primary, you would have had to change your party enrollment status three months ago, on October 26. This "secret" registration deadline will prevent quite a few people from voting in what is turning out to be that rare thing-a New York presidential primary with real consequences, regardless of your party affiliation or lack thereof.
Here's how the deadline works: a change in your party enrollment doesn't go into effect until after a general election. Change your party now and it goes into effect on November 5, after the Presidential election. If you wanted to change party enrollment and have your registration be effective for this election, well, that's something you should have thought about last October.
The same rules apply in non-presidential primaries. So voters in September 9's primary will be governed by the same October 26 deadline. That's almost a year-long voter registration deadline.
Some other states have similar laws-Connecticut's "secret" deadline was November 5 for a February primary; Rhode Island's in December for their March primary-but many states don't require these long periods of "disaffiliation." (Interestingly enough, while New Hampshire allows election day registration for new voters, and has an open primary in which independents are allowed to pick up either party's ballot, voters already registered with one party must have disaffiliated by last October 12 to vote in another party's primary.)
We should care about this because we know -- intuitively and empirically -- that the further away a registration deadline is from Election Day, the more likely it is people will miss the deadline. The last person I met who missed a voter registration deadline is a volunteer on a presidential campaign and a New York lawyer-someone in a great position to know about these kinds of tricky laws. But she missed the deadline last October, because even she wasn't thinking about the presidential race then. I work on voter registration rules as my job and I probably would've missed the deadline if I hadn't registered with a party when I last moved. It is for exactly this reason that federal law prohibits states from imposing voter registration deadlines that are more than 30 days from the date of a general election. Why? The obvious reason: Most people don't get involved in an election until much closer to when it happens. (Political junkies reading the Brennan Center's blog are an obvious exception.)
All of this begs the question that underlies party registration rules: how far in advance should you have to decide you're a "member" of a party in order to vote in a primary? A lot of people register "independent" these days out of frustration with the system; should these people not be allowed to help choose the presidential candidates? It's a tough and interesting question-who is a party member? How much does party membership matter in a presidential primary? Should nonaffiliated voters be shut out of deciding who the major party candidates will be-one of whom, if history is any judge, will inevitably be the winning candidate? And can there really be said to be one cohesive "party" determining the nominee when independent voters in so many states can participate, if the state has an open primary?
Even though the presidential primary race is in many ways just getting started, it's too late for many voters in this key state, at least, to have a voice in who the nominees will be. Just another way that a small election administration rule can have a big role in shutting people out of the process.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter Registration Drives
By Michael Waldman – 07/10/07
*Cross-posted from The Huffington Post
As progressives prepare for the political season, we might rue the "one
that got away." There's a rare chance to reform voting laws to expand
the electorate and strengthen democracy, not just next year but for the
next decade. But election reform in 2008 must start in 2007 -- and time
is slipping by.
Voting is the heart of democracy. Yet millions of Americans face
huge obstacles when they try to register, cast their ballot, or have it
counted. We now know that last year partisans waged a frenetic effort
to disenfranchise voters -- orchestrated, remarkably, by the Justice
Department itself. Happily, a growing grassroots voter protection
movement pushed back. (The Brennan Center for Justice, to cite just one
example, stopped the disenfranchisement of some 300-700,000 voters,
with lawsuits and advocacy.) That was needed, and right, but ultimately
defensive.
Now we can go on the offense: to change voting laws and reform
election administration, in states across the country. Why the
opportunity? The new Congress, of course, but even more, twelve new
secretaries of state elected on voter protection platforms; sixteen
states with potentially sympathetic Democratic governors and
legislatures (up from eight); in some places, competition among both
parties to be "pro reform." Rarely do the stars align as now. Key
goals:
* Keeping eligible citizens on the voter list. State officials
routinely purge voters from the rolls -- a secret process prone to
partisan manipulation. A purge list of "potential felons" in Florida in
2004 included 22,000 African-Americans and only 63 Hispanics, in the
one state where those blocs vote for different parties. (What a
coincidence!) Now we can end the system of secret and partisan purges
of the voter rolls. Several Secretaries of State are preparing to
reform their own systems. And the Brennan Center plans lawsuits in
other states to force standards and accountability.
* Ending felony disenfranchisement, an ugly relic of Jim Crow.
Florida's new Republican governor, Charlie Crist, with a stroke of a
pen created the chance to restore the vote for about 500,000.
Virginia's laws disenfranchise for life one out of three black men. The
Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, could -- and should -- do what
Florida's conservative Republican governor did, and change the state
forever.
* Allowing Election Day Registration. States with EDR have 5-7%
higher voter turnout. That's an astounding jump, far higher than even
the best voter registration or GOTV drive could muster. Recently Iowa
and Montana joined six other states with EDR, and North Carolina is
poised to be the ninth. Drives are underway in a half dozen other
states.
* Fixing electronic voting. A Brennan Center task force of the
nation's top computer scientists concluded emphatically that every one
of the nation's electronic voting systems is insecure. Next week, the
U.S. House of Representatives votes on the bill introduced by Reps.
Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Tom Davis (R-VA), a strong measure that would ban
touchscreen machines that lack an audit record, require random
auditing, and prohibit wireless components in voting machines. Numerous
states can be pushed to require paper trails and audits.
* Stopping onerous ID requirements. An individual is more likely to
be killed by lightening than to commit voter fraud. The U.S. Attorney
scandal has revealed the "voter fraud" scare for the political witch
hunt that it is. But it has proven a highly convenient way for
partisans to push for proof of citizenship and other ID requirements
that are end up preventing voting, not fraud. (The necessary paperwork
can cost up to $200. By contrast, the notorious poll tax was $8.97 in
current dollars when it was declared unconstitutional in 1966.) For the
first time in years, civil rights proponents are able to push back --
which helps clear the field for pro-enfranchisement reform.
It all adds up to a rare opportunity for lasting change. But
progressives must be truly strategic. In 2004 they spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to register and mobilize voters. Activists plan
similar, even larger efforts next year. Voter mobilization is vital.
But this time there's a difference: a fraction of that significant
investment, sharply targeted, can help sweep away barriers to civic
participation. Soon it will be too late. Most state legislatures will
finish their work just a few months into next year, and the polarized
political season looms. For needed changes to have a chance to empower
voters in November 2008, the activism must start now.
Stakes are achingly high. Voting rights should be a nonpartisan
issue, but not everyone got the memo. In a moment of candor about just
one obstacle to voting, the former Political Director of the Texas
Republican Party told the Houston Chronicle "that requiring
photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic
voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote." That's an affront not
to a party, but to democracy.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections, Other Voter List Issues, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives, Voting Technology
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