Blog
Voting Rights & Elections
By Sec. Jennifer Brunner – 04/23/08
Post-election audits provide a boost to voter confidence in these times of uncertainty about the accuracy and reliability of modern election systems.
This will be especially important as the presidential primary elections season winds down and with what is expected to be a record voter turnout in this fall's general election.
Ohio is developing the use of random post-election audits as a way to ensure accurate vote totals in light of the state's massive study released in December 2007 that showed critical voting system security failures. With the state's tight budget, replacing voting machines before this year's presidential election is a difficult prospect.
Eleven of Ohio's 88 counties are taking part in a pilot program to conduct post-election audits of the state's March 4, 2008 presidential primary election. This program was devised by the secretary of state's office with the advice and suggestions of our Voting Rights Institute Advisory Council.
The county boards of elections who volunteered for the program follow required procedures to randomly select precincts for 7% hand counts, and if discrepancies exist of more than two votes, an additional 3%.
Failure to be within two votes in the additional 3% results in a county-wide hand count. Our office plans to work further with election officials, voting rights advocates and the academic community, including the Brennan Center for Justice, to further develop Ohio's audit procedure for statewide use in the fall.
There is an emerging national consensus that post-election audits are a best practice in elections. This is especially so in light of the new voting machine technology that has been tested by Ohio and other states with findings of security and performance problems and that have resulted in a number of states decertifying or discontinuing their use.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 04/22/08
Apparently the kids in my
neighborhood are so hopped up for voting they're vandalizing businesses (and riffing on
Robert Indiana no less) to encourage voter turnout. Heartening, indeed, unless that's your business they've spray painted I suppose. Whatever your opinion of graffiti, I took a quick picture this morning on my way to work and thought I'd share it.
In a similar vein of web/voting participation, and with the Pennsylvania primary in full swing, thought I'd also take this opportunity to recommend everyone head over to the Polling Place Photo Project when they have a moment.
Hosted by the NY Times, the Polling Place Photo Project (PPPP) is a forum where citizen journalists (read: voters with cameras) can post snapshots of polling locations and ballots. A Zagats of sorts, users are also encouraged to rate the quality of service, report delays and apparently comment on poll workers' wardrobes.
Much like the mixed bag you'd find on youtube, flickr and any other user-generated-content site, PPPP entries predictably run the gambit from the incredibly mundane to the bizarre—cutouts of the biblical fathers watching over voters for instance. Regardless, there are plenty of interesting snapshots to be found, payoff well worth the cost of spending a lunch break on the Internet.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues
By Erika Wood – 04/21/08
Cross-posted from Alternet.com
This is a big year for American democracy. Hundreds of thousands of new voters
are not only registering, but are actually showing up at the polls. States
whose primary races have never counted before are suddenly the center of
attention. Voters in Wyoming, Mississippi, North Carolina,
and Kentucky,
who have long gone ignored during primary season, finally find themselves with
a voice and a vote. This year they matter.
Despite this, our democracy still falls far short of its promise to be a
government that truly represents the will of its citizens. Across the country
there are 5.3
million Americans who are denied the right to vote because of a felony
conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of these people are not in prison; they
live, work, pay taxes, and raise families in our communities, but remain
disenfranchised for years, often for decades, and sometimes for life.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Voting Rights & Elections
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 Judith Joffe-Block – 04/02/08
Next month's Kentucky Derby isn't the only upcoming speed event to watch in the
Bluegrass State. With less than two weeks left in the state legislative session, a bill to reform Kentucky's restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws is in a race against the clock.
Last night, House Bill 70 passed out of the House in the eleventh hour with a triumphant 80-14 margin. The bill proposes a ballot referendum to amend the state constitution to automatically restore voting rights to people upon completion of sentence. Thankfully, the final version of the bill bucked almost all of its opponents' attempts to saddle it with regressive amendments that would exempt certain classes of offenders and make voting rights contingent on paid restitution. But the bill languished for so long in the House it will need to sprint through the Senate in under two weeks if there is any shot of this question appearing on the ballot this November.
Kentucky shares with Virginia the woeful distinction of having the most restrictive
disenfranchisement laws in the country. Kentuckians with felony convictions lose their voting rights for life and can only regain their rights by receiving clemency from the governor. According to a 2006 report by the League of Women Voters 90% of Kentucky's disenfranchised population is not in prison and nearly 70% have completed their entire sentence. Kentucky also has the highest African-American disenfranchisement rate in the country—nearly one in every four African Americans in the state is denied the right to vote.
After just a few months in office, Governor Steve Beshear has already made important strides by eliminating some of the clemency requirements instituted by his predecessor. Since H.B. 70 would make voting rights restoration automatic, rather than dependent on the Governor's approval on a case by case basis, the bill is a much-needed next step. The bill has already received deserved endorsements from The Courier-Journal
editorial board and from American Probation and Parole Association executive director, Carl
Wicklund.
Next November could be a historic opportunity for Kentucky's democracy if voters are able to go to the polls to ease the state's voting rights restoration process. The Senate should do all it can to ensure that the bill glides across the finish line in time.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, State-Based Advocacy, Voting Rights & Elections
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 Maggie Barron – 03/10/08
The media was atwitter over the weekend
with possible solutions to the Florida/Michigan primary problem. Can the Democratic
Party disenfranchise all those voters merely to prove a point? Did the states
miscalculate so wildy that there's a real chance they won't be able to seat any
delegates in one of the most important conventions in years? And who is going
to pay for another round of elections? As someone who works on voting rights,
it's hard to argue that those Florida and Michigan voters (who had
nothing to do with scheduling their rogue primaries) should be shut out of the
process. But the kid in me, reared on playgrounds and games like handball and
freeze tag, knows you can't change the rules in the middle of the game.
One solution bandied about by the Florida
Democratic Party, according to the Los Angeles Times, is a vote-by-mail
election, which would cost significantly less than another traditional primary.
"Under this scenario," the article says, "ballots would be mailed out to all of
Florida's
approximately 4.7 million registered Democrats in May or June," costing between
$4-$6 million (much less than the estimated $25 million for another traditional
primary).
But trying to implement a vote-by-mail
scheme so quickly is not the solution to get the Florida Democratic Party out
of this mess. Vote-by-mail might seem easier, and it certainly is cheaper, but sending
ballots out to 4.7 million voters is complicated and subject to errors that
could easily compound Florida's
primary woes.
Consider California, where officials were still processing
and counting vote-by-mail ballots weeks after its primary. According to the New
York Times, about 4.1 million Californians voted by mail. The practice
can be easier for voters, but it is labor-intensive for registrars and staff,
who must open all the mail, authenticate it, and sort it by precinct. In California, voting
officials literally ironed thousands of ballots that had been crumpled or
creased in the mail, in order to feed them into the vote-counting machines (the
appropriate setting to iron out a ballot, just so you know, is apparently
"silk.") This is part of the reason why,
two weeks after Super Tuesday, California
still had some 800,000 ballots to count.
And that's only considering the
vote-by-mail ballots that actually reach
eligible voters. In California
on Super Tuesday, the Election Protection Hotline reported numerous calls from confused voters who had requested vote-by-mail ballots
but had never received them. Project
Vote reminds us that vote-by-mail can only be as dependable as the mail
service itself, which is inconsistent in low-income and densely populated urban
areas, areas with non-traditional addresses, and when people move. So for people who live in housing
developments or remote urban areas, and who get there mail less reliably than
others, this is not a great solution.
Linking your ability to vote with the post
office's ability to reach you is a dangerous proposition. Voter
caging, the practice of sending out mass mailings and using the returned
mail to challenge voters' registrations, is notoriously inaccurate, which is
why there are currently bills pending in Congress to ban the practice. Voter
registration lists can be rife with simple errors in addresses that can make
mail undeliverable, and mail
often goes undelivered even when the voter at the address may be registered
and perfectly eligible.
While vote-by-mail shows promise as a means
of conducting elections in the future, it can't be implemented as quickly as
many election officials want it to be. As voting technology expert Larry Norden
explained in testimony in Ohio (which has been considering a vote-by-mail plan
for the November elections), delivering high-volume mailings in a secure,
accessible way is no easy feat, and it should not be adopted without good
planning and public education, especially right before a critical election (and
certainly not for a slap-dash do-over election like we may have in Florida.)
The cost of a vote-by-mail election is even
more attractive to the Florida Democratic Party, since it is getting no love, or
money, from DNC chair Howard Dean or Governor Charlie Crist. But the truth
is there will be no easy, or cheap, solution here. Unfortunately it will be
voters who will in some way pay for the party's mistake.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Other Voter List Issues
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