Make Voting A Right of Citizenship

By Elizabeth Conroy
Published September 23rd 2004 in Morning Call

The Morning Call was right to point out in a Sept. 20 editorial that we should ''still (be) jittery about trustworthy elections.'' Since the Help America Vote Act (which Congress passed to improve the quality of elections) is not mandatory, most states have disregarded it.

States independently set voting policies and procedures, such as ballot design (remember the butterfly ballot), polling hours and registration requirements, all of which have led to improper voter disenfranchisement and miscounted votes.

This leaves no reason to believe the electoral problems we faced in the last election will not repeat themselves.

However, there is a solution. We must urge Congress to pass an amendment to the Constitution to make voting a right of citizenship.

Such an amendment would establish minimum voting standards all states would be required to follow to ensure that all eligible voters could vote and that the ballot is correctly counted.

Elizabeth Conroy
Bethlehem
IRV Soars in Twin Cities, FairVote Corrects the Pundits on Meaning of Election Night '09
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers.  Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections;  the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.

And as pundits try to make hay out of the national implications of Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections, Rob Richie in the Huffington Post concludes that the gubernatorial elections have little bearing on federal elections.

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