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Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 09:41:58 -0400
To: Colleagues:
From: Neal Peirce <npeirce@citistates.com>
Subject: Column: Election Law Reforms --  A Federal Role Is Needed

  NEAL PEIRCE COLUMN    
  For Release Sunday, May 6, 2001


  ELECTION LAW REFORMS:
  A FEDERAL ROLE IS NEEDED
  
  By Neal R. Peirce

        WASHINGTON -- Have we learned nothing from the ugly, extended

disputes

of the 2000 election?  Are Congress and the state legislatures incapable of
reform?  Despite a reform bill just passed in Florida, are many states doomed
to repeat Floridaâs carnival of vote counting errors?
        A spate of April press stories, noting zero congressional action and
few state reforms, bemoaned an apparently golden moment of opportunity
lost.   
        Sharon Priest, president of the National Assn. of Secretaries of
State, warned: ãUnless thereâs a real uprising on the part of people in this
country who will call their congressmen and senators and say, ÎElections are
important to us and democracy comes at a price, and weâre willing to pay that
price÷do something!â then Iâm not sure, running into budgets now, that
anythingâs going to get done.ä
        But thereâs another way to scope the situation -- that we need to

act,

but only with care.
        Take Internet voting.  Just after the election, I wrote suggesting we
consider it.  But people I respect -- among them Mario Morino, who runs a
Northern Virginia-based think tank on technology -- wave a red flag.  The
Internet, they note, is a global communications system susceptible to hackers
and vote fraud efforts.  Conclusion: the Internet is too risky as a voting
tool until dramatically more effective safeguards are invented.  
        As for polling-place machines, we know whatâs worst -- the chad-prone
punchcards that Florida made infamous.  Paper ballots and mechanical lever
machines are falling into disfavor.  But they're still used in many areas. 
And now there's a question -- which class of newer voting equipment -- touch
screens or optical scanners, for example -- should local officials choose as
the least likely to be obsolescent soon?
        Touch screens, which operate like automated teller machines, cost

more

but seem especially promising.  They can be programmed to tally votes online
to a central server while preserving their results on disk or cartridge for
security assurance. The screens are already being used at some polling
stations with solid success-- Riverside, Calif., for example, starting in the
2000 elections. Abroad, theyâve provided high security and instant results in
such countries as Brazil, Italy and Costa Rica.
        Whatâs attractive is the screensâ flexibility.  After theyâre proven
at poll places, thereâs the option to place them as well in kiosks,
libraries, community centers -- still maintaining control of election
officials and thus immunity from the Internetâs virus and Trojan horse
threats.
        Georgia has led the post-2000 reform wave with a bill requiring
touchscreens in every precinct by the next presidential election.  Maryland
is on track to replace its mish-mash system with a uniform, touch-screen
system.  Itâs also ordering a statewide voter registration system that allows
provisional ballots for voters whose names canât be found on registration
lists.
        Florida has just passed legislation outlawing punch card ballots and
requiring that its counties, at a minimum, install optical scanners. The
legislation goes a step farther by setting procedures for recounts in close
elections and creating a way for people to vote even if their names arenât
immediately found on voter roles.
        Some Florida counties -- including Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm

Beach,

epicenter of the Î00 nightmares -- are going for touch screens.  The issueâs
money; Tallahasseeâs paying just a part of the cost and Florida would love
the feds to pay part of the bill.
        Mention money, and youâve hit a critical issue: What is the federal
interest in election integrity, efficiency, reliability? Should a cash-rich
federal government contribute at least some part of the cost?  Should it set
minimum standards?  Should it act as information clearinghouse on all the
issues swirling around elections?
        One can wish that President Bush, himself elected under a dark cloud
of legitimacy, would have led the push for a bipartisan, prestigious national
commission to examine that very question.  The good news is that some efforts
have begun, including the National Commission on Federal Election Reform,
sponsored by foundations and universities and chaired by Jimmy Carter and
Gerald Ford.
        Most promising among a spate of bills in Congress may be a Senate
measure that would set up a bipartisan federal commission to act as a
clearinghouse on election problems and potentials of new technology.  Combine
that with federal matching grants for states willing to modernize voting
systems, says Deborah Phillips, president of the Voting Integrity Project,
ãand youâd be there.ä
        Doug Lewis, executive director of the Houston-based Election Center,
argues even more broadly: ãWhy should the townships, cities and counties of
America be forced to bear the entire burden of elections?ä  Washington, he
argues, should help toward the cost -- maybe $10 or so a voter a year -- ãto
fund the cost of maintaining voter databases, advertising, staffing,
conducting and assuring the integrity of elections, voter education and
training, poll worker education and training.ä
        The argumentâs a sound one: Washington is reliant on the integrity of
elections for its own legitimacy.  High election standards should be as
critical an investment as aircraft carriers or interstate highways. 
        The issue isnât an absolutely uniform national system.  What we need
is clear information that drives higher expectations and local performance. 
And federal carrots to encourage reliable voting methods and vote counts
coast to coast.  If the carrots cost us something, we need to pay the bill.