[EL] Security issues with revealing residential location

[Susan Lerner]

Let's not forget that elections used to be run by the parties.  You used to have to buy your ballot from one of the parties.  The abuse was massive. You could only vote a party "ticket." Elections run by neutral government officials should result in more even-handed election administration, providing assurance that elections are run in a way that attempts to insure that everyone who is entitled to vote has open and equal access to the polls and that all votes properly cast are accurately counted. Just because we haven't successfully achieved that ghoal in all instances donesn't mean it isn't worth working for.

>From my experience here in New York, I can comfortably say that there are many excesses and abuses worse than neutral government administration of elections.  If elections are administered privately, that translates into political party administration and then there is no confidence that there is any objective standard at all.  As it is, our government administration of elections is too easily manipulated by those with political agendas. Privatizing will only increase the problems.

***************
Susan Lerner
Executive Director
Common Cause/NY
t: 212-691-6421
c: 917-670-5670



-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu on behalf of Jon Roland
Sent: Sun 9/11/2011 12:04 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Security issues with revealing residential location
 
Election administration only needs to know the voting precinct, not the street address.  And it is not necessary for government to administer elections. Elections can be and once were conducted by private citizens without government funding or direction. I have seen several such privately conducted but legal elections in my time.

It is not a reasonable compromise to presume persons with security concerns are a small minority who can receive special accommodation. Nor should we assume government is benign. I have visited countries where government agents were more of a threat than criminal gangs, where they indeed were criminal gangs. We should not imagine it can't happen here. It is already happening here. See as an example the 1972 Knapp Commission Report <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapp_Commission> .

When I registered in California my address was the intersection of two streets in my precinct, not a street address. I was taking advantage of a system set up to accommodate the homeless, but any voter qualification system needs to accommodate the homeless. We may all be homeless by and by.

On 09/11/2011 10:24 AM, Lori Minnite wrote: 

	Many states have provisions in their election codes for concealing the addresses of people who are crime victims and want to keep their addresses off the publicly available voter file.  Since elections are administered by the government, the government is going to need to know where voters live.



-- Jon

----------------------------------------------------------
Constitution Society               http://constitution.org
2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322           twitter.com/lex_rex
Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001  jon.roland at constitution.org
----------------------------------------------------------