Voting issues play out in court

October 19, 2008

Fraud suspicion has risen sharply since 2000 race

By Ronald J. Hansen
The Arizona Republic

With early voting underway in some states and with Election Day just over two weeks away, the 2008 race is proceeding in court as well as at the ballot box.

In Ohio, election officials got a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, sparing them a tedious battle over 200,000 newly registered voters with verification problems. In Michigan, lawyers are battling to ensure that qualified voters, including those who lost their homes to foreclosure, can still cast a ballot.

In Colorado, tens of thousands of people have reportedly been purged from the voter rolls by officials who, in trying to verify eligibility, relied heavily on a federal database with known problems.This is the new norm in American elections, experts say. The specter of voter and election fraud is perhaps unavoidable in the era following the hotly disputed 2000 presidential race. Democratic supporters routinely accuse Republicans of voter-suppression efforts. GOP supporters say Democrats inflate voter rolls and ignore evidence of irregularities.

"I would say 2008 is typical of recent election experiences, but on a much bigger scale," said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org. He doubts there is widespread ballot fraud and said definitive proof is miniscule.

Still, in a nation sharply divided along party lines, the complaints won't end anytime soon.

"Everything we see as indicators is more serious and earlier this time," said Jonah Goldman, a law professor at Georgetown University and director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections, a nonpartisan organization.

Some estimates put the number of disenfranchised voters as high as 6 million, he said.

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in response to the punch-card ballot problems in Florida in the 2000 election.

The law ushered in an era of minimum election standards and greater use of electronic voting machines.

Critics say the law encouraged states to adopt ID requirements that place a burden on the poor and enabled election officials to aggressively remove voters from the rolls. Both complaints have led to lawsuits across the country and more are possible after this election.

"The level and volume you have on this issue is a direct result" of 2000, Chapin said. "One of the things that 2000 did was wake people up to the reality that elections don't end on election night."

Source: The Arizona Republic