Election Updates

A lot has recently been written about HAVA compliance across the nation, in particular how many states are well behind the curve in meeting the various HAVA deadlines. One particular problem is looming in California, where it is unclear whether most counties will have HAVA-compliant voting machines in precincts for our state's upcoming June primary.

Yesterday there was a hearing in Sacramento, where Senator Debra Bowen (a Democrat running for the Secretary of State's office) subjected the current (Republican) Secretary of State to serious questioning about the state's readiness for the June primary (who ever said that state election administration in California is not partisan??). The hearings were detailed in a story in this morning's Los Angeles Times. According to this news report, during the hearing yesterday it was revealed that only five of the 58 California counties have electronic voting machines that are ready for use in the June primary; the remaining counties hope to use electronic voting systems that are either not federal or state certified.

One option, that I wrote about earlier this week, is for the state to allow those counties with uncertified electronic voting systems to conduct the June primary entirely by mail. While a temporary solution to the delays in voting system certification, holding a major statewide primary election entirely by paper mail ballot is likely itself to produce a series of other problems. For example, there are the logistical issues associated with the production of party ballot forms for what is going to be an extensive statewide primary election --- and in many counties these ballots will need to be produced in multiple languages. There are also the issues of accessibility, and whether voters will get confused by the shift to an entirely by-mail election.

Other options include some type of expedited or conditional certification of those electronic voting systems that now are not certified. Given the current political context, and the on-going controversies associated with electronic voting equipment, it seems unlikely that these options will be pursued.

That leaves voters in 53 of California counties in an interesting position, given that the June primary is just around the corner. What is clear is that California is continuing to navigate a rocky road toward election reform and HAVA compliance. We'll keep you posted about future developments.

Here is a useful document (and a brief blog post!); a summary of the 2005 chaptered bills on voting and elections in California. Thanks to the LA County Registrar/Recorder Office for compiling the list, and Eugene Lee for forwarding it along to interested folks.

Those of you in the Southern California area might be interested in attending a workshop that will be held next week at USC. The USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics (CSLP) is hosting Donald Green, from Yale University, who is going to present two papers on his recent research on get-out-the-vote efforts. This will be a great workshop, as Donald Green is doing innovative research in this area and there will be top scholars from throughout Southern California in attendance.

For more on the January 24, 2006 Donald Green workshop on increasing voter turnout, visit the CSLP's "Challenges of Participatory Democracy Workshop" website. The two papers that Don will present are archived there, and there is additional information on attending the conference there.

Hope to see my Southern California colleagues next week at USC!

In the spring of 2005, the American Political Science Association (APSA) established a series of working research groups, loosely organized under the title the "Mobilizing Democracy Working Group". There were meetings at a political science conference in Chicago in April 2005, and paper presentations at the APSA meetings in September 2005; some of the papers presented at APSA in 2005 were the subject of earlier essays on Election Updates.

This weekend there is a conference in New York City, at the Russell Sage Foundation. Unfortunately, I'm unable to attend the conference, but Thad will be here --- and he has promised to write about the conference upon his return.

If you are a member of APSA, you can obtain see the papers that have been prepared for the conference by logging in to the APSA website, and then by clicking on the "GOTV-Mobilizing Democracy Working Group Page" under the "Access Areas" on your APSA membership page. Here is the direct link to the site. Hopefully after the conference is over, all of the papers will be available at this website, as there are some interesting scholars and research to be presented this weekend.

UPDATE, January 24, 2006:Paul Gronke alerted me that the APSA site seems to limit access to only members of this project. We'll have to wait for Thad's essay on the conference and the project for additional details. Many of the papers were presented at the 2005 APSA conference, and we'll get additional information about this project and these research papers up here as quickly as we can.

In an interesting turn of events, California's Alameda County is seeking state legislation to allow it to conduct the upcoming statewide primary election in June entirely by mail. And according to a story in this morning's Sacramento Bee, other county registrars in California are seeking the same permission for the June primary. As the state of California has seen strong growth in the use of absentee voting methods in recent elections, with over 3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2005 statewide election (of a total of almost 8 million, about 40% of votes cast), this is becoming a less and less radical idea in California.

Still, getting the state legislature to go along with this change is difficult. Carol Liu (who happens to be my state assembly representative, from the Pasadena/La Canada Flintridge area), tried to get the legislature to agree last year to permit a handful of counties to experiment with all vote-by-mail elections for the next few election cycles [AB 867]. In today's Sacramento Bee article, Liu noted:

She believes another vote-by-mail proposal would stand no chance of passage. Her plan required even fewer votes than the Alameda plan.

"Unfortunately, the political parties really don't like it because they want more control over who is voting," Liu said.

...

Liu added that some Democrats also are concerned that absentee votes tend to favor Republicans - conventional wisdom in years past - but she believes that is no longer the case.

Some also believe political consultants are opposed to mail voting because it makes strategy more difficult. Garry South, political adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis, said the sharp rise in absentee voting already has shifted the dynamics of campaigning.

The acting registrar from Alameda County is quoted in this same story as stating that an all by-mail election for the June primary could save up to a $1 million, of the estimated $2.7 million it may cost for that county to conduct the June primary election.

My guess is that without a groundswell of support in the state legislature, Alameda County's request will not make much progress --- and as state legislators (and their consultants) are wary of the uncertainty associated with moving to an entirely by-mail election, and the possible political ramifications of such a move, we are unlikely to see this happen by June. But if recent California trends in the use of absentee ballots continues, we might see primarily by-mail elections here in the very near future.

The Washington Post has reported that the Chair of the House Administration Committee and the coauthor of HAVA, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) is to step down from his chairmanship when Congress reconvenes later this month. The member with rank on the committee is Vernon Ehler's (R-MI). Under the rules of the House, the Speaker nominates his choice for chair of the House Administration Committee. This choice must be ratified by the House Republican Caucus.

There is an interesting proposal today in the Albany (New York) Times Union by Brad Williams. He suggests that New York literally put its money where its mouth is for failing to implement HAVA. He observes:

Since our state government has yet to uphold its moral and legal obligations to fully implement HAVA, I suggest that the state should demonstrate an interim act of good faith by immediately establishing a new program for New Yorkers with disabilities.

The "Fundamental Right" state income tax break would give qualified enrollees a two-fifths break on their state income tax. Only a person enrolled in the program could take advantage of the tax break. To qualify for the tax break, a person would have to:

• Be a resident of and registered voter in New York state.
• Have a disability, as defined under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Sign a sworn statement to verify that he or she cannot vote privately or independently at his or her designated polling site.

In return, participants in the program would agree not to file and pursue legal action related to their voting rights against New York state during the time that they are enrolled and take the tax break.

The tax break would end the year after the U.S. Department of Justice verifies that New Yorkers with disabilities can vote privately and independently, as specified under HAVA.

This would force New York to compensate disabled New Yorkers for their complete lack of competence in handling election reform. Williams starts his proposal by noting that Governor Pataki did not even bother to use his state of the state address as a bully pulpit to motivate the legislature--or state agencies--to get cracking and avoid making the mess they are in even worse. One has to wonder how big an example the Justice Department will decide to make of the state over HAVA.

Newsday reported today that Connecticut officials reviewed their state election code and discovered that, in fact, there is no requirement that requires a voting machine to show a full-face ballot. According to the article:

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said there is nothing in state statutes or regulations that require a voting machine to show a full ballot on the screen.

"It has never appeared in our law," he said. "There's no provision in the statutes or regulations that a full-faced ballot be part of voting machines."

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said her office started to wonder about the requirement after so few voting machine companies could produce a machine that could show voters the entire election ballot, as well as meet other requirements. Fifty companies initially attended a bidding conference to learn more about the state's needs. Seven applied and three finally came forward. In the end, none met the final specifications.

Bysiewicz said some of the voting machine vendors asked her office where the full-faced ballot requirement appeared in the state statutes. She said her office had always believed that the requirement existed since the 1930s. "We had, in our office, the precedence of interpreting the statutes that were passed back in the 1930s and we had been asked over the past seven decades about it and our interpretation has always been the same," she said.

Having spent the last month reading state election codes for the EAC's vote count and recount project, I can say that the problem in Connecticut is easy to understand. In many states, election laws are very complex, combining statutes dating back 100 years with modern statutes and this blending makes for very difficult interpretations and complex readings of multiple provisions in order to make an interpretation.