[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Editorial: What Congress Should Do

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Editorial: What Congress Should Do

October 24, 2004
 


 

In Florida, voter registrations are being thrown out on
pointless technicalities. Missouri is telling soldiers to
send nonsecret ballots by e-mail through a Pentagon
contractor with a troubling past. Nationwide, eligible
voters are being removed from the rolls by flawed felon
purges. And nearly a third of this year's votes will be
cast on highly questionable electronic voting machines. No
wonder a large percentage of Americans doubt that their
votes will count. The election system is crying out for
reform. . 

After the 2000 election mess, Congress responded with the
Help America Vote Act of 2002, an anemic piece of
legislation. Its major promise was that any voter whose
eligibility was in doubt could cast a provisional ballot,
whose validity would be determined later. But that promise
is being broken, as states invoke legal technicalities to
throw out provisional ballots. The law failed to address
many other deep flaws in the system, like routinely
misapplying ID requirements and suppressing minority votes.


Congress has been reluctant to intrude on the states by
adopting uniform national standards. But these are federal
elections, for a president of the United States, senators
and representatives. Uniform national rules should apply,
and the states have failed miserably. Politically partisan
secretaries of state and state legislatures have routinely
adopted voting rules that appear to be intended to favor
their own parties, not the voting public. 

The lack of clear guidelines has turned this election
season into a legal free-for-all, in which courts have
produced a patchwork of rulings. A federal court in
Michigan ordered officials to count provisional ballots
that are cast in the wrong polling places. A Florida court
is allowing Florida to throw out such ballots. A federal
judge in Missouri has taken a confusing middle position. On
overseas and military voting, the Pentagon has been winging
it, and doing a poor job. 

One of the greatest sources of voter cynicism this year is
electronic voting. There has been a steady stream of
reports of manufacturers taking sides in the elections in
which they are also counting votes, of machines
malfunctioning during elections and of computer scientists
showing how easy it would be for these machines to produce
false vote totals, accidentally or intentionally. There is
a desperate need for strong federal standards, including a
requirement for a voter-verifiable paper record, so voters
can be sure that the vote recorded by the machine is the
one they cast. States like California, Ohio, Illinois and
Nevada have been in the lead in mandating voter-verified
paper trails. Congress should make it a national
requirement. . 

When the dust settles from this year's election, Congress
should begin drafting a new, comprehensive election reform
law that includes the following: 

1. Uniform national voter registration rules. Florida
decided this year to throw out voter registrations if the
applicants do not check a box saying they are citizens,
even though they swear, elsewhere on the form, that they
are. Ohio decided, briefly, to throw out registrations
filed on paper that was less than 80-pound stock. Arbitrary
rules like these needlessly prevent eligible people from
voting. Congress should put in place clear and simple
guidelines that err on the side of the applicant. 

2. Uniform national standards for voting roll purges. This
is the second consecutive presidential election in which
Florida tried to conduct a felon purge that would have
disenfranchised thousands of nonfelons. But Florida is
hardly alone. A study released by the American Civil
Liberties Union found that many states are conducting
unreliable purges that routinely remove eligible voters
from the rolls. Congress should come up with national
guidelines, including a requirement that purge lists be
made public and that voters be given advance notice before
they are removed. 

3. Clearer provisional ballot rules that take the side of
the voter. According to a recent report from Demos, a
pro-democracy organization, a majority of states will be
throwing out provisional ballots cast in the wrong polling
places, or otherwise undermining this new federal right.
Congress should make clear that provisional ballots must be
counted even if they are filed in the wrong polling places.
And contrary to a bizarre rule adopted this year in
Colorado, they should count in all races in which the voter
is eligible, not just for president. 

4. Voter ID rules that are not barriers to voting. Some
states have imposed voter ID requirements that make it
difficult for poor people, American Indians and other
groups to vote. And there have been numerous reports
already this year of these rules being misapplied by poll
workers to turn away eligible voters. Congress should
ensure that even Americans who do not have photo ID's can
vote, and that the ID rules are posted at polling places
and applied correctly. 

5. An improved program for military and overseas voting.
The Pentagon, charged with helping the military and
Americans living abroad to vote, failed to develop an
adequate system for doing so. It has favored military
voters over other voters and promoted voting systems that,
disturbingly, do not ensure a secret ballot. And it has
employed a contractor, Omega Technologies, with a history
of political partisanship and questions about its business
practices. Congress should take responsibility for voting
away from the Pentagon, which should play no role in
electing the president. It should put in place a
requirement for secret ballots in federal elections, and it
should ensure that both military and civilian voters
overseas get all the help they need. 

6. Tougher rules against vote suppression and vote fraud.
In recent years, there have been repeated instances of
blacks, American Indians, Hispanics and other groups being
intimidated or prevented from voting. And even before the
first vote was cast this year, there were charges of vote
fraud and misconduct, notably that partisan organizations
that were registering voters illegally had destroyed
applications from people registering for the opposing
party. Congress should pass new laws that take aim at vote
suppression and fraud, and that make prosecuting these
offenses a priority. 

7. Mandatory safeguards, including a paper trail, for
electronic voting. Election officials like to say that
electronic voting is as secure as it can be, but that is
false. Nevada regulators, for example, impose far more
stringent checks on slot machines than any state does on
electronic voting. Congress should impose much more
rigorous safeguards, including a requirement that all
computer code be made public. It should require that all
electronic machines produce a voter-verified paper trail.. 

This has been, in some ways, a breakthrough year for
election reform. With the public watching far more intently
than ever, there have been widespread calls for a better
system. Important changes have been made by some states and
courts, like mandating that ID rules be posted and
requiring voter-verified paper trails. But the current
patchwork of good and bad procedures is not acceptable. In
a close election, it will produce endless fights and
cynicism about the results. Only Congress, thinking
ambitiously and acting at the national level, can give us
the democracy we deserve. 

Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online
at nytimes.com/makingvotescount. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/opinion/24sun1.html?ex=1099633406&ei=1&en=e6ac5c141e61cafe


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