Land of the free, home of messy elections
October 29, 2008
By Kevin Zeese
Baltimore Examiner
For a country that considers itself the "greatest democracy on Earth," the U.S. sure does run messy elections.
This year about one-third the public is voting early (something Marylanders will be voting on in a referendum on Election Day), as a result we are seeing election meltdowns in slow motion. Here is a sample of what is occurring:
- Long lines. In many states people are waiting hours - some report as long as six hours to vote in early voting. A lot of the delay has been due to the move to touchscreen voting machines and electronic voter registration lists. These new technologies are slower than paper.
- Machine breakdowns. In West Virginia six counties have reported touchscreen machines switching their vote. Voters attempted to vote for Obama and they saw the screen switch to McCain. There have been similar reports in other states. A CNN poll found that 42 percent of Americans do not trust their votes will be counted accurately.- Voter deception. In Florida Democratic voters received calls falsely telling them they could call in their vote and avoid lines. In Philadelphia, fliers warn that people with outstanding tickets, child support payments and warrants will be arrested when they vote.
- Registration fraud. ACORN received a lot of attention for workers who registered the Dallas football team to vote in Utah, Mickey Mouse, telephone-book registration and one person registering dozens of times. It is hard to see how any of these false registrations will result in false votes - will Mickey Mouse actually vote? But there has been a lot of attention on this one.
- More registration fraud. A leader of a Republican registration drive, funded by the McCain campaign has been arrested on massive voter fraud.
Is any of this acceptable? The U.S. has a lot of serious problems with its democracy when the very basics -registration, voting and vote counting - is filled with flaws. While this election is looking more and more like a likely landslide, after it is over these problems need to be addressed. There are solutions to many of them:
- End registration problems. Universal voter registration for all citizens of legal age would solve many of the problems associated with registration and challenges to registration. If necessary, the Congress could require county boards of election to provide a free voter ID card with a photograph preventing the need for registration drives, challenges to registration and challenges to voters at the polls.
- No more machine voting. A majority of the House voted for Rep. Rush Holt's bill to fund paper-ballot-based voting with audits, but it needed a super majority and was not voted on in the Senate. Elections need an independent paper record with the paper ballot verified by the voter.
- Prosecute vote fraud. Illegal voting as well as suppression of the vote need to be treated as serious crimes. People who falsely vote and are not of legal age and citizenship should be prosecuted. Similarly, threats of arrest and provision of false information needs to be turned into a serious felony. Funds need to be provided to investigate and prosecute these offenses.
The basics – registering, voting and vote counting – are only the tip of the iceberg of election problems. Marylanders are the victims of the Electoral College. We already know our electoral votes are going to Obama because Maryland is a one-party state. This is true for forty states. Voters in these states are learning their presidential vote has little impact.
Partisan drawing of election districts makes removal of incumbents almost impossible. Rather than voters picking their candidates, elected officials pick their voters thereby assuring the result they want. Drawing of districts should be turned over to a non-partisan civil service and approved by the courts.
The system also means nearly half of the voters voting for Obama and McCain are voting for the lesser evil. They are trapped by a voting system limited to two choices. It is time for the U.S. to implement ranked choice voting that allows voters to rank their candidates and thereby vote their hopes and dreams and not their fears.
The U.S. can have the greatest democracy in the world, but we are far from it. After the election is time for people to get organized and demand it. On so many issues the U.S. strives to be a “more perfect union,” it has now become more evident that we need to strive to achieve our goal of a real representative democracy.
Kevin Zeese is the executive director of TrueVote.US.
Source: Baltimore Examiner
