Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein

One of the most interesting and significant recent Supreme Court decisions concerned the Indiana voter identification law, in which the court by a 6-3 vote upheld the law despite zero evidence of in-person voting fraud in the state. In a major surprise, Justice John Paul Stevens led the opinion, saying the state’s interest in preventing such fraud justifies the Legislature’s action. Stevens did leave the door open to challenges to other states’ laws if they create too much of a burden on many voters.

Indiana’s law was better by far than the awful Georgia law that was overturned by the courts; in Indiana, the state would provide voters with the appropriate government-issue photo ID for free, while Georgia charged a significant fee, the equivalent of a poll tax. But Indiana’s requirements are plenty burdensome.

Elections need to be fair, and fraud is a real concern, especially in an era where the stakes are very high and the parties are close enough that many elections will be decided by razor-thin margins.

If a person cannot present a passport, driver’s license or other similar form of official identification, he or she must supply an official document, such as a birth certificate, to get the free ID, and getting a copy of a birth certificate is quite costly. The fact is that many elderly people and many poor people don’t drive, don’t fly and don’t have copies of their birth certificates. (more…)

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Posted in Election Reform, Voter ID requirements, Indiana | No Comments »

Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein

You readers may have noticed that there is a big election coming up in November. (If you hadn’t noticed, perhaps the Tuesday primary in Pennsylvania jogged your memory.) There are many things to be concerned about, some of which I addressed last week. But there is another large, uncomfortable issue that needs to be raised, one Congress really should consider in the coming months: What happens if there is a serious disruption of the election itself?

I have raised this issue before, namely in the months leading up to the 2004 election, and got some serious pushback. Some of it was focused on the idea that by raising the prospect of a disruption, I was notifying terrorists that this was a great target — putting up a flashing neon sign to invite an attack. The assumption here — that the terrorists out there are naïve or unsophisticated enough that this would give them a new idea — is almost absurd on its face, but should have been demolished entirely with al-Qaeda’s carefully timed attack to disrupt and influence the Spanish elections. Some of the response I got was simple bluster: We will never postpone or alter our election plans, no matter what!

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Posted in Homeland Security, Election Reform | No Comments »

Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is one of the good guys in Congress — smart, thoughtful, decent and hardworking. Now, fortunately, he is turning his attention and considerable energies to election reform, a broadly defined issue.

It is fortunate for two reasons: First, there are big issues out there and enough people distrustful of the electoral process or cynical about it to create a real crisis of governance the next time we have a very close election. Second, precious few lawmakers have decided to devote their time and attention to this topic.

Despite the emotions raised by problems with voting, this is not a slam-dunk winner of an issue politically. And those lawmakers who were instrumental in passing the Help America Vote Act in 2002 have either lost interest in the issue, are exhausted from it or believe we should wait awhile before acting again.

They are wrong. We do need to be careful about rushing to major reform without considering the costs and consequences; we are paying now for the rush to employ touch-screen devices known as DREs, or direct-recording electronic machines. And every major reform has to be absorbed by hapless election administrators who have neither the resources nor the trained personnel to make big changes on a frequent basis.

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Posted in Vote Centers, D.C., Why do we vote on Tuesday?, Election Reform, Election administration, WT? in the news, Existing laws, Weekend voting, Electoral College, Electronic voting | No Comments »

Of all the wild scenarios spun out for the 2008 presidential campaign, perhaps the least likely was the one we face: a Republican contest that was effectively over the morning after Super Tuesday, and a Democratic cage match that could go on and on and on — all the way to a tumultuous and unpredictable convention in August.

I, for instance, offered an unconventional convention scenario back in July, noting that the uniquely early start (called “front loading”) of the primary process, combined with the compressed schedule, could provide a formula for an extended, pitched battle, with no candidate getting close to a majority after Super Tuesday. But I made it clear that this was more likely to happen on the Republican side, where many plausible candidates were running against one another and none seemed to be getting more than tepid support.

The Democrats, on the other hand, already had a front-running candidate, highly regarded by most Democratic partisans, and an enthusiastic electorate that wanted to pick a nominee and get on with the big battle — ending the Bush era once and for all. (more…)

Posted in Super Delegate, Convention, Texas, Election Reform, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Election 2008, Primary schedule | No Comments »

One of the issues left hanging as Congress is off on recess is the Holt bill to require voter-verifiable paper trails on all voting machines. Despite a robust number of co-sponsors, the bill remains mired in controversy, in part because of the opposition of sizable numbers of election officials who, after having sunk a bundle of money into touch-screen machines after the passage of the Help America Vote Act, are not inclined to change (and are also worried about deadlines and technical glitches).

The drive to create a paper trail has come about because of the widespread public and expert unease with existing electronic machines. It should make Congress think more broadly about why these machines have bred such unhappiness and distrust. (more…)

Posted in Election Reform, Opinions, Electronic voting | 2 Comments »