Anderson@Large

Meet Al Green

Later today, the executive committee of the South Carolina Democratic Party will consider the protest filed by Vic Rawl, who lost to Alvin Greene in the Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate.

Rawl claims reports of “extremely unusual incidents” place “a cloud over Tuesday’s election.”

The State Election Commission says baloney:

… [W]e want voters to know that we are confident in the integrity of our state’s voting system and that security of South Carolina’s voting process has always been - and will always be - a primary focus of the State Election Commission. Our state has a proud history of safe, secure and accurate elections and South Carolinians can be assured and confident in the system’s ability to perform in the Runoff as it has thousands of times before - accurately and reliably.

Circa 2003, I was among the first to sound the alarm about the perils of paperless voting machines. But I think allegations of widespread voting irregularities are unfounded.

The problem in South Carolina was not computer glitches. It was human error.

Still, I agree with my colleagues at the Verified Voting Foundation that South Carolina’s embarrassment is a teachable moment:

Whether specific reports of irregularities in this election are confirmed, the most important fact about South Carolina’s voting system is that most ballots cannot be effectively audited or recounted. Serious concerns about the integrity of the primary (and of other elections conducted using the same technology) are inevitable, and legitimate (italics in original).

[…]

Whatever the outcome, we strongly urge citizens and policymakers in the state and in the nation at large to use this moment to insist on their right to voting systems that demonstrate trustworthiness rather than demand trust. Congressman Rush Holt’s and Senator Bill Nelson’s Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act would require that all Federal elections employ a system of paper ballots marked by the voter, with random hand-counted audits to check electronic tallies of the ballots. There has never been a better time for Congress to pass this critically needed legislation. The voters and the public deserve no less.

Meanwhile, meet the Al Green who has my vote.

South Carolina Paper Chase

Folks, forget about a paper trail. In South Carolina, some Republican primary voters cast their ballot on paper towels.

Unreliable electronic voting machines proved to be, well, unreliable. In Horry County, e-voting machines in 80 percent of the precincts malfunctioned. Predictably, election officials tried to hide behind the hoary catchall “human error” to dodge responsibility for disenfranchising voters.

Since the machines were not programmed properly, the problem should be characterized as a programming error so that those responsible are held accountable.

Unlike Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised black Americans, the shift from the ballot box to the black box has put all Americans at risk. Jim_Crow.com is an equal opportunity threat to democracy. E-voting is wreaking havoc at the polls and eroding confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.

The voting irregularities occurred in a John McCain stronghold. Thousands of voters reportedly were turned away from the polls. Before being declared the winner, the McCain camp was "still weighing our options.”

Does anyone doubt that McCain would have challenged the results if, say, Mike Huckabee had been declared the winner?

Voices of the Electorate

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Our vote is our voice. Seven years after the Florida election debacle and more than five years since President Bush signed into law the Help America Vote Act, Electionline.org reports:

But the public's lingering concerns over electronic voting, partisan disputes over voter ID and other issues continue to plague America's election system.

For more than 30 years, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation has fought to ensure our voices are heard in the democratic process. On Wednesday, it will hold its 6th annual Voices of the Electorate Democracy Symposium, "Engaging Minorities and New Americans in the Democracy Reform Movement and the 2008 Election Cycle."

The symposium will feature opening remarks by Melanie Campbell, the National Coalition's CEO and Executive Director. Rep. Artur Davis will update election reform and voting rights legislation in the 110th Congress.

I will moderate a roundtable discussion on the changing face of American democracy and strategies for increasing minorities' and new American citizens' civic engagement.

The symposium will be held tomorrow from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm at the U.S. Capitol in Room HC-7. The event is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

To reserve a seat, send an email to Kevin Parker or call 202/659-4929.

A live webcast of the symposium will be available here, starting at 10:00 am ET.

Election '08: Why 'Florida' Still Matters

The 2008 election is now less than a year away. Democrats hope to ride a wave of voter discontent to hegemonic control of the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.

But Democratic presidential candidates should hold off measuring the drapes in the Oval Office. The election outcome will turn on voter turnout. With an evenly divided electorate, every vote will count. And therein lies the rub.

The 2000 election debacle, and John Kerry and John Edwards' broken promise "that in this election, every vote would count and every vote would be counted" undermine voter mobilization efforts. African American voters will be particularly disillusioned given that Kerry conceded before all the votes were counted in Ohio. And without a high black voter turnout in Ohio, Florida and other battleground states, Democrats don't stand a snowball's chance of winning.

Republican operatives will make political hay out of the stories of black voters who waited in lines up to five hours for a presidential candidate who conceded before their votes were counted. Kerry's flip-flop on the importance of counting every vote gives Republicans an effective message to demobilize Democratic base voters: Remember Ohio.

At the same time, voters remember "Florida," which has become a metaphor for voter disenfranchisement, voting irregularities and unreliable voting machines.

In 2000, the American public met Chad. In 2006, Chip took center stage in Sarasota County, where paperless voting machines lost more than 18,000 votes in the election to fill the Congressional seat vacated by former Secretary of State Katherine Harris. The election was decided by 386 votes.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has since tossed out the state's electronic voting machines. Last month, the General Accountability Office released a preliminary report on what happened. The GAO said it could not conclusively eliminate the paperless voting machines as the cause of the 18,000 undervotes.

While the GAO gave DREs a little more time, the American people don't think e-voting will ever be ready for prime time. As Time magazine reports:

After the initial excitement, it didn't take long for voters to lose trust in the new system, as they increasingly deemed DRE too complex, unreliable and insecure; the only thing worse than a confusing paper trail, it turned out, was no paper trail at all.

The high black voter turnout in 2000 exposed the underbelly of Florida's electoral infrastructure. Seven years later, Florida still matters. And because it does, Sen. Bill Nelson recently introduced the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007," which would ban e-voting machines in federal elections by 2012. Sen. Nelson said:

The bottom line is we have to ensure every vote is counted – and, counted properly. Citizens must have confidence in the integrity of their elections.

The Pew Research Center found there is a partisan and racial gap in voters' confidence their vote will be accurately counted. While 79 percent of Republicans have confidence their vote will be counted, only 45 percent of Democrats are sure. The percentage of black voters who express little or no confidence their vote will be counted has doubled since 2004, from 15 percent to 29 percent.

It doesn't take a computer scientist to know there is a correlation between voters' confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and voter turnout. The bottom line: If Democrats fail to address voters' distrust in the machinery of our democracy, they do so at their own peril.

Telling Our Story

Today at noon, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation will convene a post-election briefing at the National Press Club.

There will be two panel discussions, which I will moderate.  The first panel will focus on what happened on Election Day, what didn’t happen and why.

With nearly 35,000 calls to the two national election protection hotlines, what didn’t happen was that the election went “smoothly.”  At least not by the standards of folks who believe that every voter has the right to vote and to have his or her vote counted.

True believers like Melanie Campbell:

It’s been six years since the Florida election debacle and $3 billion spent to upgrade the basic machinery of our democracy. And sadly, election reform is still a work in progress.

Black voters were far more aware of their rights and what to do to make their votes count during this election cycle. Distrust of the electoral process shouldn’t be the primary concern on Election Day. Americans should be able to focus on electing the candidate of their choice and not have to worry about the voting process.

The second panel will look ahead to the 110th Congress and what black folks should expect – and demand – from a Democratic-controlled Congress. They will also look beyond the midterm elections and propose a framework for black civic participation and political empowerment in the 21st century.

The briefing, “Impact of the Black Vote on the Midterm Election Cycle,” will be held from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., in the Holeman Room of the National Press Club. To RSVP, call Nancy Harvin at (202) 659-4988 or click here.

Election Day: All Souls to the Polls

Today’s the day to take your soles to the poll.

For polling hours and photo ID requirements, click here.  To find your polling place, click here.

If you experience any problems, call the National Voter Hotline at 1-866-MYVOTE1 (1-866-698-6831).

Now go vote and make your voice heard!   And if you want to share your voting experience, click here.

Check back throughout the day because I'll be posting updates on what's happening in the field.

Be Careful How You Vote

After countless opinion polls trying to predict what voters will do on Nov. 7 (here and here), we’re just hours away from the opening of the only polls that count.

To ensure that your vote is counted, please heed Sunnyland Slim’s advice and “be careful how you vote.”   And know your rights.

Tomorrow I’ll be in DC, where I’ll be blogging live from the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s War Room.  National black leaders, political analysts and voting rights experts, including Clayola Brown, Unity '06 Convener Melanie Campbell, Dr. Joe Leonard, Marc Morial, Prof. Charles Ogletree, Dr. Ron Walters and Reg Weaver will track in real-time what's happening on the ground.

They will provide reports on black voter turnout and their voting experiences (read: voting while black) in key states, including Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virgina.

So, we will tell our story.  At the same time if folks get stupid (here and here), we’ll run and tell everyone we know.

To RSVP for the Election Day media conference call briefings scheduled for 1:30p, 4:30p and 8:30p (ET), contact Nancy Harvin at (202) 659-4929 for the call-in number and pass code.