Large Democratic majorities in the next Congress might be able to enact meaningful, uncontroversial reform of our national voting system. Here's what I offer as a basic fix. Let's standardize ballots at the Federal level but avoid the issues of re-districting and campaign finance. (These are important, but fraught with controversy. Let's fix the easy stuff first.) And let's set up a Federal voter registry.
Congress has the Constitutional authority to specify the methods of election to Federal office (Article X). It should use this to establish standards for voting: how ballots are designed, what processes are required for the physical logistics of voting, what safeguards are necessary, how disputes are resolved. It can even establish a national voter registry, with identification standards.
Congress can provide funds to municipalities to reward them for applying these standards to non-Federal races. This incentive will encourage state and local offices to apply the same, defined standards across the entire process, but they are not required to (indeed, the Constitution does not permit the Federal government to mandate how local elections are conducted).
More after the fold.
A main problem in our elections is that there is no national model that local officials can use to evaluate their own procedures. Imagine that we had agreed-upon Federal voting standards for our federal posts of President, Senators, and Representatives. We could even offer choices: "These are acceptable, but these aren't." (Goodbye, butterfly ballots!)
We can compile research on what has worked well so far, and we can commission research to test new methods and compare current methods. There is nothing radical here -- the only test is "What works best?"
Happily, the pieces are already in place to accomplish these tasks.
Let's start by strengthening the Federal Election Commission. The FEC's 2008 administrative budget is $59 million. 38% goes to promoting disclosure of candidates' finances. 47% goes to enforcement of funding rules, and 15% goes to administering the public financing of Presidential campaigns. There isn't much else the FEC does.
We should expand its board from 6 to 10. I suggest 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 2 independents who are not members of any political party. The goal is to enhance its impartiality and make it more functional. (Right now it is crippled by the refusal of Bush and the Senate Republicans to allow votes on candidates individually.)
The FEC should develop non-partisan testable protocols and conduct user-tests. It can assemble data on which methods work best and which are confusing or cause problems. We're not talking a lot of money here: $20 million would be ample to do a good chunk of initial research and to summarize previous research.
Let's establish a National Voter Registry. This would be a voluntary database guaranteeing a citizen the right to vote in federal elections. Any citizen can send proof of citizenship and residence to the Registry. Once verified, the citizen would be guaranteed to be unchallenged at any single voting location. Most citizens would probably not register, but if anyone feels their right to vote is in jeopardy, they can get federal recognition of their right.
To accomplish this, establish a federal voter-qualification standard, and hire a staff to handle disputes. This will take a big burden off of local election officials.
The Post Office is an excellent resource for a voter registry. The voting system is based on street addresses, and that is the Post Office's entire business. If you fill out a postal change-of-address form, you should be able to change your voter registration at the same time. It should and can be automatic, reliable, and definitive (like one's social security number).
The good news: there are computers that already do work like this on essentially the same database! Before you snort at the competence of the Post Office, remember that they supply social security checks to more than 80 million Americans each month, very reliably. If they didn't, we'd know about it! And I can't speak for you, but I get my bills from Verizon, Comcast, and NStar every single month, like clockwork, without fail.
So if the Post Office can transmit check and invoices, they can supply reliable voter registration, and at minimal cost. They have both the technology and the database to accomplish this. Side bonus? We'll have another measure of their effectiveness to deliver the rest of the mail.
What do you think? Can we Americans develop a transparent, honest system of determining who can vote, where, and how? Should there be a national standard for what the "best" ballot looks like? Is the Post Office a useful tool to help in voter registration? I welcome your critiques.