By Michael Slater and Nathan Henderson-James
There has been a tremendous amount of time and attention paid to issue of electronic voting machines and their negative impact on the transparency and integrity of elections in the United States, and rightly so. In fact, this intense focus by organizations and advocates concerned with voter participation and the specter of stolen elections has led to substantial movement on this issue in Congress and the Statehouse. Recently New Mexico dumped their Direct Recording-Electronic (DRE) machines for optical scans last year and Florida is talking about doing the same thing this year. Other states and the Congress are moving to set touch standards for DRE, including mandatory audits and paper trails.
However, the actual system for enfranchisement of eligible voters is complex and contains many aspects that are much less transparent than even the rather abstruse world of electronic voting.
Maintenance and list matching regulations for the voter files are an example of this. Therefore, progressives and voting rights advocates shouldn’t feel like we’ve solved potential election problems through these reforms; many problems still exist within the system with potential to disenfranchise tens of thousands of legally eligible voters.
A close examination of the process by which people become registered voters, by which they cast their ballots, and by which their ballots are counted, indicate that the potential for disenfranchisement occurs at practically every step.
Barriers To Becoming Registered In The First Place
You can’t vote if you aren’t registered and statistics show that various racial and income groups vote at comparable levels once registered (according to a Census Bureau report from 2006, 89% of registered whites cast a ballot in 2004 while 87% of registered blacks cast one). However, the registration rates for various socioeconomic groups are wildly disparate. 75% of eligible whites are registered while only 69% of African-American, 58% of Hispanic, and 52% of Asian citizens are registered to vote. In households with less than $20,000 in annual income only 61% are registered to vote and only 48% report casing a ballot in 2004.
In this situation one would think that states would do their best to ensure as many eligible citizens as possible were registered, but one would be wrong. Numerous states have acted over the last 4 years to restrict the ability of eligible unregistered citizens to vote. Several states place severe restrictions on non-partisan voter registration drives including arbitrary limits on the number of voter registration cards that can be submitted at any one time and requirements that filled-out cards be turned in on exceedingly short timelines, as low as 48 hours in some cases.
States also use database matching to keep legally eligible voters off the voting rolls. So called "No Match, No Vote" policies keep eligible voters off the rolls because of typos and other mistakes. A Brennan Center study showed that some states have incorrectly implemented Help America Vote Act (HAVA – passed by Congress in the wake of the disputed 2000 election) requirements for database maintenance and refused to enroll eligible citizens unless their registration information exactly matched data in the state motor vehicle or Social Security systems. Citizens were barred from voting if their information did not match databases containing shortened first names or a newly married woman's maiden name. Clerical errors, such as misspelled names and transposed numbers, can cost citizens their right to vote.
Staying On The Rolls Once Registered
States have not taken the initiative to expand and specify vague HAVA requirements for conducting purges of ineligible voters from voter rolls. As a result, thousands upon thousands of eligible voters are removed from rolls based on poorly designed list maintenance efforts.
Purges based on computer database matching of voter information have a 10% error rate. Name matching creates an even greater risk of disenfranchising eligible voters who, when being matched among a large number of people, run the risk of having the same name as another voter. In addition, voters often do not have the opportunity to challenge a purge because the state doesn’t inform the voter they have been purged through this method.
Casting A Ballot And Having It Count
Elections in the United States are often poorly run, with inadequate quantities of voting equipment, poor distribution of those that are available, poorly trained poll workers, and inadequate protections for voters casting provisional ballots.
Overcrowded precincts where voters wait in line for hours due to poor machine distribution is a common issue. In the 2004 presidential election, an inner city precinct in OH never received the 17 extra machines that were ordered which sat, inexplicably, in storage.
Lack of effective training on how to handle ever-changing voting machines, an absence of paper ballots, checking certain IDs and regulating improper voter challenges often leave poll workers – and voters – confused.
Tardy and poorly trained Ohio poll workers deterred voters from casting ballots during the 2006 primary. About 20% of precincts opened late, forcing many early voters to leave. There were other cases where poll workers, frustrated by the new statewide use of electronic voting, would send voters home instead of offering paper ballots.
Confused poll workers, list maintenance issues, and inconsistent rules for counting ballots among other problems, often keep eligible voters off the rolls, mistakes that could be remedied with provisional ballots.
But, according to an Electionline.org report, provisional ballots aren’t used to their fullest potential. For example, most states would not count provisional ballots cast out of precinct and there were numerous cases of "in-state variation," where counties counted them regardless. States that count provisional ballots out of precinct have a higher percentage of provisional ballots counted (70%) than those that did not count ballots cast out of precinct (62%). And provisional ballots are counted in affluent areas at almost twice the rate of low-income communities.
Voter Suppression
And, of course, there are a number of tactics and techniques used to suppress the vote of registered voters. A Project Vote posting from last week at MyDD noted the suppression of turnout associated with Vote ID requirements based on research by the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University, done for the Election Assistance Commission and covered in the paper for the last two days.
Further there are a range of extra-legal tactics to suppress voter turnout used by people with an interest in blocking poor people and people of color from participating in elections. The abuse of "challenge laws" is one. State and Federal law prohibits challenges to voter eligibility at the polls based on race, religion, ethnicity or national origin, however it does not stop groups from intimidating would-be voters. Poll workers are often untrained on how to effectively handle such challenges, improper or not. Historically, minority districts have been overwhelmingly targeted by challengers. For example, 35,000 new voters in OH were challenged in the 2004 presidential election – a majority of which lived in majority-minority areas.
Other tactics such as distribution of misleading information and voter harassment have long been a way to disenfranchise or deter voters. Misleading fliers and automated phone calls about Election Day or voter registration challenges are common, especially in minority neighborhoods.
Some states are acting to curb such deceptive information by outlawing voter intimidation acts. In 2006, both Minnesota and Missouri passed laws making it illegal to purposely distribute false information about the election process.
Steps To Expand Access And Protect The Right To Vote
Project Vote has worked over the past several election cycles to systematically expand access to the voting rolls by fighting these and other attempts to restrict the ability of legally eligible citizens to register, cast their ballot, and have it counted. For the 2007-08 election cycle we have set-up a web site for tracking elections-related legislation on the state level. This information is being used by coalitions of local groups to fight restrictions on access to the voter rolls and promote policies that open the rolls to all legally eligible citizens. For more information please visit Project Vote's web site and the Election Legislation web site.
Project Vote is the largest voter registration organization in the US and a leader in the fight for voter rights. 1.6 million voters registered since 2003.
Michael Slater is the Deputy Director of Project Vote and the Director of its Election Administration Program.
Nathan Henderson-James is the Director of Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).