The Help America Vote Act
In the wake of the 2000 election,
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) last October. HAVA mandates
that all 50 states upgrade many
aspects of their election procedures, including their voting machines,
registration processes and poll worker training. The specifics of implementation
have been left up to each state, which allows for widely varying interpretations
of the Federal law – and thus leaves open the possibility of
either progressive reforms or regressive erosions of voting rights.
The dangers and opportunities presented by HAVA make it a topic that
progressives ignore at their peril.
The most widely publicized criticism of HAVA revolves
around "paperless
ballots." A group of respected journalists and computer scientists
have raised an important red flag
about electronic voting machines being vulnerable to fraud and manipulation.
We should heed this warning, but we should not lose the opportunity to
engage other critical reforms. If we focus only on the risks of computer
voting, we reinforce the misunderstanding that HAVA is no more than "machinery
chicanery." If that happens, we will have squandered the unique
opportunity to influence all the other election reforms that are being
written, right
now, under our very noses.
For example, we should pay close attention to HAVA's voter identification
requirements, which Republicans insisted upon as the price
of a bipartisan bill. 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. 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.
These provisions may heighten the opportunities for
confusion and voter intimidation. Some critics envision partisan operatives
fighting for
victories with "Ballot Security Squads;" others worry about the role of
some election officials, who have been known to display suspicion or outright
hostility toward new voters, particularly voters of color and newly naturalized
citizens. Lawmakers in some states, like Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi,
California and Massachusetts, have introduced legislation to enact even
more rigid ID requirements in the guise of complying with HAVA. On the
other hand, election officials in some states are interpreting the law
in ways that will not dampen voting. Ohio, for example, plans to accept
many different kinds of IDs at the ballot box, so that no voters are needlessly
turned away from the polls. Those who care about increasing participation
will have to fight hard – probably in court, ultimately – against
ID provisions that would discriminate against poor voters, voters of color,
young people or new citizens.
HAVA also contains some elements that should improve the election
process greatly. The law mandates that voters
be able to correct mistakes in
their ballots, or to cast provisional ballots if their names
do not appear on
the registration list or if they do not have IDs. The law requires
polling places to have at least one fully accessible and private
voting machine
for disabled voters, and machines that can perform in other languages.Each state must create integrated, computerized, statewide
voter registration lists. HAVA also dedicates federal funds
for better training of poll
workers and voter education. ( The above highlight - voters able
to correct mistakes - was found in certain places to be used discriminately,
activated for some, de-activated for others. One could argue that
now it's mandated by law, but how much influence does law provide
over "broken machines".) ( Integrated or centralized
computerized voter registration lists, you mean like those used in
Florida to keep thousands of eligible voters - mostly minority and
democrats - from voting in the 2000 elections?)
Another important feature of the bill is the mandated "commission" process.
To get any federal funding, each state must form a HAVA commission that
will recommend how to implement the law. Some states have put together
representative, diverse commissions that reflect progressive concerns.
California's commission, for example, includes members from the NAACP,
the State Student Association, the Coalition for a Living Wage and the
United Farm Workers. Other states have stacked their
commissions with political insiders. In New York, when the Board
of Elections appointed a broad and
varied commission, Republican Governor George Pataki fired the
chief elections officer and named his own small, strictly controlled
commission. Once they
have been formed, progressives should hold these public boards accountable
to ideals of expansive and inclusive democracy.
HAVA also dedicates federal dollars to poll worker training
and voter education. These funds could be used for standard, non-partisan
voter
outreach, or
they could pay for educating often ignored communities, like
the eligible ex-felons. The money could pay to train poll workers
in
the details
of voting reforms like Election Day Registration
or Instant Runoff Voting, a system of ranked voting that eliminates
the "lesser of two
evils" conundrum. ( Or the money could be skimmed, providing
only the minimal of training, perhaps running off some Kinko
copied black& white flyers going largely ignored like those stuck
to your windshield at the super market.)
As HAVA plays its way out in the states, two other key reforms
have recently emerged as practical, achievable ways to help
America vote.
Since election
laws are administered by each of the 50 states, both reforms
are being pushed at the state level. As progressive activists
increasingly
take
their battles out of D.C. and into state legislatures, these
pro-democracy reforms
are a good place to devote some resources and energy.
Unlocking The Ex-offender Vote
One of the largest scandals in the Florida 2000 election involved "felony
disenfranchisement laws" – laws that strip voting
rights from people convicted of certain crimes. Florida's
disenfranchisement laws kept
over 600,000 citizen with felony convictions from
voting in 2000, even those who had fully finished their
prison
time, parole or probation. That's
more than a thousand times the 537-vote margin by which
Bush won the state. In addition, thousands
of Floridians with
clean criminal records were purged
from voter rolls because of a botched (some say manipulated)
voter registration database. ( Of course the
600,000 disenfranchised by Florida's "Felony disenfranchisement
law" does not include thousands more
ex-felon voters - mostly minority, mostly democrat - with
rights restored by other states, that Jeb Bush illegally prohibited
from voting in Florida. It does not include the list of
thousands provided to Florida's guv Jeb Bush by Texas guv
George Bush that was in complete error containing no ex-felons.
And as explained below, as computerized voting machines
and voter rolls will be mostly in place by 2004, don't
look for these outdated Jim Crowe laws to be changed anytime
soon.)( "Botched voter registration database" - integrated
or central computerized file in action, now discriminating
against nation-wide.)
Felony disenfranchisement laws are not limited to Florida.
Across the country, 4.65 million Americans cannot vote
because of criminal
convictions
in their
past. There are no federal guidelines about these laws,
so their harshness varies from state to state. The most
extreme
states – such as Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia – bar
ex-offenders from voting for life.
Who are all these disenfranchised citizens? Disproportionately,
they are people of color from low-income communities.
In Florida, almost
31 percent
of black men cannot vote due to a criminal conviction
in their past. Across the country, blacks are denied
the vote
because
of criminal
records five
times more often than whites. Latinos and Native Americans
face similar disenfranchisement rates.
This racially discriminatory effect is hardly an accident.
Like poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses,
felony disenfranchisement
laws
were intentionally crafted during Reconstruction
to exclude African Americans from the political process.
White lawmakers
in the
Jim Crow era were
not shy about their intentions. "This plan," said one delegate to
the Virginia convention of 1906, which established strict felony disenfranchisement
laws, "will eliminate the darkey as a political factor
in this State in less than five years, so that in no single
county ... will there be
the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the
white race in the affairs of government."
Fortunately, the American public is ready to throw
out these archaic, discriminatory laws. In a July
2002 Harris
Interactive
poll, 80
percent of Americans agreed
that ex-offenders who have completed their sentences
should be allowed to vote. Thirty-one U.S. senators
recently voted
for
a measure introduced
by Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Arlen Specter
(R-PA) to grant voting rights to ex-offenders in federal
elections. On a state
level, victories
against felony disenfranchisement laws are racking
up. New
Mexico – which
used to disenfranchise felons for life – now automatically
restores the vote to qualified ex-offenders. Connecticut
recently changed its law
to allow 36,000 citizens on probation to vote. Legislation
easing disenfranchisement laws has been introduced in Georgia,
Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New
York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin and,
yes, Florida.
This momentum has been harnessed into a strong,
multi-racial coalition (including groups like
the NAACP and ACLU)
that aims to change
America's felony disenfranchisement laws. Like
civil rights battles of the
past, these changes will not be won overnight.
But if we can keep our eyes
on the prize, felony disenfranchisement laws
will go the way of poll taxes
and literacy tests.
Election Day Registration
Election Day Registration, also known as "same day registration," allows
citizens to register and vote on election
day. Six states use EDR systems, and those six states have voter
participation
rates 8-15 percent higher
than the national average. The reason for
its success is simple. Many new voters get energized about an election
in the last few weeks of a campaign,
but most states cut off voter registration
20 to 30 days
before an election. If new voters have not
registered by then, they cannot participate, and
all that energy goes to waste.
"
The final weeks before an election – when the pressure is high, the
campaign is in full swing, and the newspaper endorsements are flowing – often
motivate new or undecided voters to cast their ballot if they have the
opportunity to register at the polls," says
Wisconsin State Senator Gwendolyn Moore.
She should know. Her state's
EDR system helped boost turnout
in Wisconsin to 66 percent in 2000, 15 points
higher than the national average.
Polls show that EDR resonates with the
non-voting population. In a May 2001
Medill School of
Journalism poll, 64
percent of non-voters
said
that allowing people to register on election
day would make them more
likely
to vote. Fully 56 million eligible Americans
were not even registered to vote in 2000.
If an EDR
system allowed
even
a small percent
of those people
to register, it would convert literally
millions of non-voters into engaged citizens.
By Miles Rapoport - ( italics mine)
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