Ballot Boxing
By Miles S. Rapoport
May 1, 2003
KEY EXCERPT:
"What should election-reform advocates be seeking from this
process? The first and most concrete priority of reformers is to make sure
that the machine replacements and other procedural fixes maximize
participation opportunities. The machines must work and meet HAVA
requirements. They must permit citizens with disabilities to cast private votes.
Machines should also be programmed in such a way that they can easily provide
language assistance to voters with limited English proficiency and can
accommodate forms of ranked voting such as instant runoff voting.
Sufficient funds need to be set aside to complete a computerized list process that
provides access and real-time updating for officials at the precinct
level. And training programs need to be provided for an expanded and
more knowledgeable pool of election workers. "
FULL ARTICLE
Six months after the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) --
whose passage was sparked by the disputed 2000 presidential vote -- became
law, the action on election reform has shifted to the state level. State
governments are now charged with implementing the legislation, and while
that poses the danger that some states will take the opportunity to cook up
new methods for voter suppression, it also offers advocates of election
reform the best chance in a long time to improve the way elections are carried
out in the states. The issue of election reform has unfortunately received
little attention as the drama has moved out of Washington and into
state capitals. But the dangers and opportunities presented by HAVA make it a
topic that liberals ignore at their own peril.
When HAVA -- which earmarked $3.8 billion to the states over
the next three years for improvements in voting technology and election
administration -- passed in October of last year, its complications and
contradictions were at once apparent. On the one hand, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.),
the chief legislative sponsor, said the law "will make the central
premise of our democracy -- that the people are sovereign -- ring even more
truly in the years to come." Common Cause hailed HAVA as "the first major
piece of civil-rights legislation in the 21st century." And the NAACP
described it as "a large step in the right direction."
At the same time, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law announced that HAVA "not only fails to solve many of the
problems of the 2000 elections, but also creates new barriers to voting." And
the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said the law will
"create new barriers to voting for eligible citizen Latino voters." It
doesn't take a genius to realize that this is a complicated piece of
legislation -- and one whose ultimate impact will depend on what state governments
do over the next few years.
The bill's detractors have focused principally on the voting
identification requirements, which Republicans insisted upon as the price of a
bipartisan bill. Indeed, HAVA requires that first-time voters who
registered by mail show identification -- such as a driver's license, government
ID card or other specified documentation -- in order to vote. A new voter
must either produce such documentation at the polling place or take the
potentially more complicated step of including copies of the identification
with his or her voter registration mail-in card. In addition, when they
register, voters must give their driver's license number or -- if they do
not have a driver's license -- the last four digits of their Social
Security number (if they have one). In cases where the state can verify these
numbers, new voters who registered by mail and provided one of these numbers
would not have to show identification at the polls.
Critics say these provisions will heighten the opportunities
for confusion and voter intimidation. Some envision partisan operatives
fighting for victories with "Ballot Security Squads"; others worry about the
role of election officials, who, as a group, have a long history of
suspicion or outright hostility toward new voters, particularly voters of
color and newly naturalized citizens. Some states have already introduced
legislation to enact even more rigid identification requirements in the
guise of complying with HAVA. The Iowa House and Senate recently
approved a bill that would distort the federal law by requiring all voters to
show ID prior to casting a ballot. Similar bills are quickly moving through
the legislatures in Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, South
Dakota and other states, and they may soon land on the governor's desk in
those places. Civil-rights groups, democracy-reform advocates,
election officials and legislators who care about increasing participation will
have to fight hard -- probably in court, ultimately -- against provisions
that would discriminate against poor voters, voters of color, young people
or new citizens.
But all this is by no means the full story. HAVA contains some
elements that should improve the election process greatly. These
include requirements that states allow voters to correct mistakes in
their ballots and allow them to cast provisional ballots if their names do
not appear on the registration list or -- for first-time voters who
registered by mail but whose driver's license or Social Security number was not
verified -- if they do not have IDs. HAVA also includes requirements that
polling places have at least one fully accessible and private voting machine
for voters with disabilities, and it requires machines that will allow
voters to utilize an alternative language in places that are required to
by Sec. 203 of the Voting Rights Act. The bill requires states to lower the
frequency of machine errors in counting ballots below specified levels,
and to create integrated, computerized, statewide voter registration lists.
It also allows federal funds to be spent on better training of poll
workers and voter education.
Of course, the key to successful implementation of all these
requirements is the carrot of substantial federal funding. Here the news is
a little mixed, but, on balance, good. For the first year of the
bill's implementation, $1.5 billion has already been appropriated.
While this is only 70 percent of the first-year funds called for in the bill,
it is still far more than some observers of congressional budget
maneuvering believed would be possible. It will likely take an annual battle to
ensure that Congress comes up with the funds necessary to prevent any
element of the bill from being given short shrift. Already, for instance, the
level of funding allocated to the disability portion of the bill is far
less than originally called for.
Another important feature of the bill is the mandated
participation process. In order to apply for federal funds, each state must
develop a plan detailing how the state will comply with HAVA mandates and
improve elections. This plan is to be developed by a commission,
appointed by the chief election official in each state, which in most states is
the secretary of state. This commission must include the chief
election officials of the two largest jurisdictions in the state,
representatives of the disability community, and "other stakeholders and
citizens." The commission must develop a plan and offer opportunities for
public comment prior to submitting it to the federal government. In addition,
the governor must sign off on the plan, and every legislature will
undoubtedly have to act to bring the state into compliance with HAVA's provisions
and procedures. There is no specified time limit for the
commissions to be formed. Already some states are shining while some are failing
miserably. In New York, when the Board of Elections appointed a broadly
representative commission, Gov. George Pataki named a new chief election
official and created a small, tightly disciplined committee. On the other
hand, in Connecticut, Illinois, Rhode Island and Texas, good and diverse
commissions have been formed -- and, in Rhode Island's case, the commission
committed to a series of six public hearings to be held around the state.
In many states the commission is not yet formed, and there is still a
great opportunity for reformers to be on the commissions or to
respond to the initial plans.
What should election-reform advocates be seeking from this
process? The first and most concrete priority of reformers is to make sure
that the machine replacements and other procedural fixes maximize
participation opportunities. The machines must work and meet HAVA
requirements. They must permit citizens with disabilities to cast private votes.
Machines should also be programmed in such a way that they can easily provide
language assistance to voters with limited English proficiency and can
accommodate forms of ranked voting such as instant runoff voting.
Sufficient funds need to be set aside to complete a computerized list process that
provides access and real-time updating for officials at the precinct
level. And training programs need to be provided for an expanded and
more knowledgeable pool of election workers.
The second major challenge is to ensure that the newly
created voter-identification processes meet federal requirements
without adding additional hoops and burdens. It is especially important that
state laws provide for acceptance of the kinds of identity documents that
poor people use, such as Social Security check statements, Section 8 rent
statements, homeless shelter ID cards and Electronic Benefit Cards -- not
just drivers' licenses and student IDs. In addition, there must be a
recognition that the databases used to verify a voter's identity are not completely
accurate -- whether because names have been changed by marriage, or because
names of Asian American voters have been inverted, or because common
names can be held by more than one person. It is therefore crucial that the
ID requirements be implemented in a scrupulously nondiscriminatory
way.
But even beyond these two fights, reformers have an opportunity
to raise broader issues of participation. For instance, the federal
funds available for "voter education" could be used to create a program within
the judicial and correction departments to ensure that citizens with felony
convictions know of their rights to vote after leaving prison or completing
their sentences. Federal funds can be used to pay for the additional
poll workers needed to adopt a program of Election Day Registration (EDR),
in which voters can register and vote at the polls on election day.
States with EDR have turnouts 8 percent to 15 percent higher than the national
average. EDR would also cut down significantly on the number of provisional
ballots cast, assuring voters that their ballots will be counted while
saving election officials the time and cost of verifying thousands of
provisional ballots. Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, West Virginia and North
Carolina are all considering EDR as part of their election-reform debates.
In addition to EDR, every state has its own election-reform ideas that have
been discussed for years but not acted upon. This is the chance to
move them.
The jury is still very much out on what the long-run impact of
HAVA will be. But what is crystal clear is that this is a moment when
state-level work can truly lead to change. Groups in the national
civil-rights and voting-rights communities, under the auspices of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights, have been working together to encourage the
best possible implementation of the law, beginning with the appropriation of
the full amount of funds authorized by the legislation. The real battle,
however, will be in the states. Effective organizing for an expansive
and inclusive democracy over the next several months will create genuine
new opportunities to expand the vote -- but there is no time to
waste.
(Miles Rapoport is president of Demos, a national research and
advocacy organization. He was Connecticut's secretary of state from 1995
to 1999 and served 10 years in the Connecticut legislature. )
For more information, check out the HAVA implementation section
of the Demos Web page -- which will track developments in the states,
share best practices and materials from state to state and connect state
advocates to appropriate national partners -- and the Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights Web site.