[EL] poll worker discretion

[Lorraine Minnite]

Apropos below: 
http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-26/news/32870365_1_id-law-new-voter-identification-law-delco-election

>
>     The Problem of Pollworker Discretion in Implementing PA's Voter ID
>     Law <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=37605>
>
> Posted on July 26, 2012 3:13 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=37605> 
> by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> One of the themes of The Voting Wars 
> <http://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300182031/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1329286945&sr=1-2-catcorr> 
> is that it is dangerous when we give people charged with running our 
> election lots of discretion for interpreting rules for who can vote, 
> etc., because inevitably subconscious biases and ideas can sneak in.  
> I talk about that a lot when it comes to my recounting of the Florida 
> 2000 debacle.  It happened when county canvassing boards were deciding 
> whether or not to count votes for Gore, Bush or neither. It happened 
> when local election officials decided whether or not to use a faulty 
> voter purge list prepared by the state by DBT.  (It also happened when 
> the Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, and the 
> Democratic Attorney General, Bob Butterworth, gave conflicting 
> interpretations of Florida statutory provisions governing the election 
> protest period.)
>
> I was reminded of that when I read this portion of the ACLU-PA's recap 
> <http://www.aclupa.blogspot.com/2012/07/voter-id-day-two-statistically-speaking.html>of 
> today's testimony in the voter id trial, raising an issue wholly apart 
> from the question of how many people don't have the right i.d. or the 
> right documents to get that i.d.:
>
>     A buzz-word of the day, "substantial conformity" is the term PA's
>     voter ID statue applies to the similarity between a voter's name
>     on his or her photo ID and the name that appears on state election
>     rolls. The legislature included no definition nor criteria for
>     this term, and Ms. Oyler testified that, while the Department of
>     State may issue recommendations to the county boards of election,
>     those recommendations would be non-binding. Ultimately, the
>     question of substantial conformity, and the decision as to whether
>     two names match -- say, for example "James Smith" and "Jim Smith"
>     -- will be left to those individual boards of elections, and
>     ultimately to the individual poll workers.
>
>     Leaving such a subjective determination in the hands of so many
>     individuals raises significant questions. Substantive differences
>     in name are not uncommon -- particularly for recently-married
>     women, who are likely to have obtained a new driver's license, but
>     highly unlikely to have updated the election rolls. Voters whose
>     ID is rejected would have the opportunity to cast a provisional
>     ballot, but as they will have only six days to order and obtain a
>     corrected ID card, the odds that their vote will be counted are
>     slim. In his testimony, Baretto remarked that any voter who has an
>     ID with a name that is not an exact match with his or her name on
>     the voting rolls is "at risk" come election day.
>     A similar problem confronts the voter ID law's provision for
>     "indigent" voters. According to the law, voters who are "indigent"
>     are permitted to bypass ID requirements and instead complete a
>     special form, which must be submitted to the county board of
>     elections to accompany their provisional ballot. Once again,
>     however, lawmakers failed to define "indigent," and so it is left
>     to the county boards of elections, and ultimately to the
>     discretion of individual poll workers, to decide who is indigent
>     and who is not -- as well as to decide whether to provide the
>     indigent voter form on-site at the polling place, or to require
>     the voter to visit county election headquarters to obtain the form.
>     In short, under PA's new laws you're not only handing that poll
>     worker your photo ID card -- you're also handing over
>     unprecedented authority over whether or not you can vote. Try to
>     smile.
>
>  This alone raises some serious federal constitutional questions about 
> vagueness, due process, and impermissible discretion, issues which 
> were not addressed in the U.S. supreme Court's /Crawford/ case.
> Share 
> <http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D37605&title=The%20Problem%20of%20Pollworker%20Discretion%20in%20Implementing%20PA%E2%80%99s%20Voter%20ID%20Law&description=>
> Posted in election administration 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9> | Comments Off
>

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