[EL] vocabulary problems in election law

[Richard Winger]

I'm hoping members of this list can agree on a common definition of "ballot access".  For all my adult life, "ballot access" has meant the ability of a candidate or a party to appear on a ballot.  Just this year, I have noticed some reporters and others starting to use "ballot access" to refer to the ability of a voter to register to vote, or to obtain a ballot at the polling place.

Logically, "ballot access" can refer to either a candidate or a voter, I agree.  But because the term has such long use as meaning a candidate or party, I wish and hope there can be another term for problems for voters being able to vote.

I have seen the same vocabulary problem with "two-party system" for a long time.  That term first appears in print in 1911 in an article in the American Political Science Journal, and it meant a system in which two parties are far bigger than all other parties.  It was referring to the British party system.  But over the decades, usage has changed, so that it means a system in which voters and candidates are actively discouraged by the government from participating outside the two major parties.  And no one ever bothers to define the term.

Another vocabulary problem recently is "open primary."  Several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have defined the term, and it has always matched the way it is defined in academic writings on political party (such as "Voting at the Political Fault Lines").  It means a system in which all parties have their own nominees and their own primary ballots, but on primary day any voter is free to choose any party's primary ballot.

Unfortunately, most of the California press has been referring to a top-two system (in which parties don't have their own nominees or their own primary ballots) with the same term.  Washington state newspapers don't make this mistake; they know better, because Washington went from an open primary to a top-two primary in 2008, so Washington readers know the difference between the two systems.  A California Superior Court in 2004 ruled that a top-two system may not be described on the ballot or in the voters handbook as an "open primary" (Vandermost v Shelley).  Neither Prop. 62 in 2004, not Prop. 14 in 2010, was on the ballot as an "open primary".

Richard Winger

415-922-9779

PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Wed, 3/14/12, Lillie Coney <coney at epic.org> wrote:

From: Lillie Coney <coney at epic.org>
Subject: Re: [EL] Adventures in Voter ID
To: "Joseph Lorenzo Hall" <joehall at gmail.com>
Cc: "Election Law" <law-election at uci.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 5:54 AM

These are important reasons for reform of the poll worker model.  Phasing it out for a voter registration card and pass code similar to ATMs might be worth consideration. Ballot access could be controlled, limit poll worker voter interaction to what is necessary. Poll workers as gatekeepers has gotten more complex--new rules to learn and media focus on fraud prior to general elections make the work harder.

We also need poll workers that reflect the people served by the polling location: professional women, blue collar workers, new citizens, young and minority voters can help solve miscommunication and maintain equity in how rules are applied.

Getting employers to give credit for poll work like what is required for jury duty or employees to donate a couple of vacation days requires a culture shift from its a government responsibility to vital support for a healthy Democracy.



Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 13, 2012, at 12:04 PM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Edward Still <still at votelaw.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Being a poll official is a tough job. I know because I have served as one.
>> But it is made tougher by training that tells poll workers that the purpose
>> of an ID is to check my address.
> 
> I suspect this might be some combination of their wanting to see the
> address to look you up more easily in the roster (if it is
> address-indexed) and a complex slightly-adversarial social interaction
> where the pollworker noticed then that your ID was different from all
> the others they had seen that day... then they tried to get you to
> "fix" that condition by asking you to show them the version of the ID
> they had seen all day.  Training is hard and often the exact details
> of policy, procedure and technology (the format of an ID card) can get
> lost to pollworkers after they ingrain the very mechanical tasks they
> are assigned.
> 
> best, Joe
> 
> -- 
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
> Postdoctoral Research Fellow
> Media, Culture and Communication
> New York University
> https://josephhall.org/
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