Anderson@Large

Electoral College Daze

Five days and counting. But some voters aren’t waiting. They’re turning out in droves.

Barack Obama has a 19-point lead among early voters, but polls show the race is too close to call. In Florida, for instance, Obama has a two-point lead over John McCain.

Will history repeat itself? There’s already chaos at the polls, lawsuits are flying, and both parties have lawyered up. What if Obama wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College vote?

CNN’s William Schneider recently asked:

Why isn’t there more rage over the Electoral College because it violates democratic norms?

Schneider added:

There was so much rage over Florida, people didn’t think about the Electoral College. But if it happens again, twice within 10 years, it would be intolerable to Americans.

For African Americans, it would be more than intolerable. The New York Times reports:

Wounds have not healed here in Duval County since the mangled presidential election of 2000, when more than 26,000 ballots were discarded as invalid for being improperly punched. Nearly 40 percent of the votes were thrown out in the predominantly Democratic-leaning African-American communities around Jacksonville, a reality that has caused suspicions of racial bias to linger, even though intentional disenfranchisement was never proved.

Now, in a show of early election enthusiasm, more than 84,200 people have already voted in Duval County, surpassing the number of early votes cast in the last presidential election. Added to 33,800 absentee ballots collected so far, the numbers show that 22 percent of registered voters cast their ballots as of Oct. 27, county election officials said.

But amid excitement over Mr. Obama’s historic candidacy and the chance that the country might choose an African-American president within a matter of days, there is an unmistakable sense of anxiety among blacks here that something will go wrong, that victory will slip away.

DIY Voter Protection 2.0

Election Day is seven days away, but the specter of another “Florida” looms. There are unreliable voting machines, inaccurate voter databases, rejected military ballots, confusing ballot design and unlawful voter purges.

Florida is in the running to be the next “Florida,” along with Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

And Ohio. President Bush has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the status of 200,000 newly registered voters whose names were flagged as mismatches in a state database. If challenged at the polls, they will be given a provisional ballot.

In the 2006 election, as many as 20 percent of provisional ballots were not counted in some states.

Americans should be outraged that $3 billion later, states still are not ready. The 2002 Help America Vote Act was intended to help voters and restore confidence in the electoral process. Instead, vendors have helped themselves to taxpayers’ money.

Clearly, electoral reform must be on the policy agenda for the new Congress. But first we have to get through next Tuesday.

Already, the phones are ringing off the hook at the voter assistance hotlines. As reports of voting irregularities continue to come in, folks are getting jittery.

But some are twittering to protect the vote.

Beka Economopoulos, one of the organizers of the Twitter Voter Report, wrote:

Volunteers across the country are moving quickly to build a decentralized election monitoring system that will allow voters to use text messages to report incidents of voter suppression, long lines, broken machines, and other disruptions on Election Day. The Twitter Vote Report site will aggregate the reporting data, represent it in real-time on a dynamic web map, and notify voters, election monitoring groups, and the media, facilitating rapid response by poll workers and activists.

I asked Volunteer Coordinator Matt Cooperrider how folks can get involved:

If they just come to the page, they can help. There are lots of aspects. So no matter their experience, they can get involved. No technical knowledge is required.

For more info, go here.

Not Your Average Joe

In a presidential campaign replete with rock stars and rising stars, an ordinary citizen stepped out his front door, asked Barack Obama a question about his tax plan, and became “an instant star.”

A study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, drove campaign coverage last week:

It was during that debate that the legend of Joe the Plumber was born. And almost immediately, the press descended on the home of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who seemed to enjoy the exposure until reporters began probing his political views, employment status, and a tax lien filed against him. An October 16 ABC report declared that “the networks battled over him as if he were Britney,” adding that by the end of the week, “Joe was already feeling the flip side of fame.”

John McCain is exploiting Wurzelbacher’s celebrity, such as it is. His campaign is plumbing the depths with an “I’m ‘Joe the Plumber’” video contest. The best video could end up in a TV ad.

In one respect, though, Wurzelbacher is average. His name is misspelled in the voter database. He's been registered to vote since 1992 so he's not at risk of being challenged on Election Day.

But 200,000 newly registered Ohioans were nearly kicked off the voter rolls. A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice found:

Some states will not register voters or will purge them from the voter rolls if election officials cannot match their voter registration information against information in other government databases. The problem is the computer match processes states use are inherently unreliable. Between 15% and 30% of all match attempts fail because of typos, other administrative errors, and minor discrepancies between database records, such as a maiden name in one record and a married name in another or a hyphen in one record and not another. No match, no vote policies can block hundreds of thousands of voters through no fault of their own.

If the U.S. Supreme Court had not quashed Republicans' efforts to challenge voters whose name did not match with government databases, a lot of average Joes and Josephines would have been left standing in long lines – again.

DIY Voter Protection

Early voting is underway in 31 states, including Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia -- and Ohio, where the Secretary of State's website was hacked.

I normally don’t read advice columns but a recent “Dear Abby” column caught my eye. One of her readers, a poll worker, sent in this advice:

Before Election Day, voters should check the sample ballot they receive in the mail for their precinct number and the location of their polling place. Polling places can change for a variety of reasons. Often several voting precincts are housed in one location. If a person goes to the wrong location -- perhaps because they have voted there before -- it can take considerable time and effort to direct the person correctly. Nearly all these problems would be avoided if people read the information on the sample ballot and brought it with them on Election Day.

Also, the voting booth is not the place to review and make decisions about the candidates and issues. This should be done in advance (another reason for the sample ballot). The booth is for one purpose: to mark your ballot. It is inconsiderate to occupy the space for an extended period of time, especially near closing time.

For voting made easy, go here.

If you still have questions, call the voter assistance hotline, 1-866-MYVOTE1 (1-866-698-6831).

GOP's Nutty Myth of Voter Fraud

During Wednesday's presidential debate, John McCain brought up Barack Obama’s association with ACORN, a community organizing group which McCain says is “destroying the fabric of democracy”:

We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country.

The Associated Press reports that a “senior law enforcement official confirmed” the FBI has opened an investigation into whether ACORN has violated federal law by fostering “voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.”

In light of the FBI investigation, the McCain campaign released a statement:

Given the fact the FBI has launched a nationwide investigation into the questionable voter registration practices of ACORN, it is imperative that Barack Obama's campaign cooperate fully with this important investigation. To date, in public announcements including last night's debate, Barack Obama has attempted to conceal and distort his and his campaign's relationship with a group that is currently engaging in systematic voter fraud. Barack Obama's campaign must fully disclose the true nature of his association with ACORN, including:

• The total disclosure of all funds, including $832,000 from Barack Obama's campaign to ACORN and ACORN affiliations like Citizens Services, Inc.
• Any and all information the Obama campaign has related to ACORN's database of registered voters compiled during this election cycle.
• The total disclosure of coordination between Barack Obama's campaign, ACORN, and ACORN affiliations over the entirety of this election cycle. *
• The truth behind ACORN's hiring of get-out-the-vote workers on Barack Obama's behalf in Ohio during this election cycle.

In the spirit of a fair election Barack Obama should assist in this process prior to Election Day.

What’s old is new again.

Last night, I attended a panel discussion, “Stealing the Vote in 2008,” organized by Demos and the Institute for Public Knowledge, among others. Prof. Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the forthcoming book, “Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters,” observed:

Along with the efforts by the two political parties to take the public pulse and get out the vote, there’s another kind of party competition. That’s a competition to keep down the votes of the other party. It’s rarely acknowledged but it’s been going on by both parties since the 1830s…

It makes sense to try to win elections that way…You try to suppress those groups that are likely to vote for your opponent.

Voter suppression is institutionalized in the American voter registration and balloting system…It’s become important since blacks have become a voting bloc. The surge of blacks and young people is threatening to topple the Republican business machine.

Piven’s co-author, Prof. Lorraine Minnite, added:

The fraud is almost always in the count. It’s in the stuffing of the ballot box and the count…The fraud story is an ancient myth that’s deeply embedded in American political culture...

The story of ACORN and voter fraud is a classic case of using fraud to either block election reform or dampen down the vote. To sow confusion in people’s minds about what is going to happen.

And what is likely to happen is chaos at the polls. ACORN’s sloppy voter registration practices have gummed up the process. Some newly registered voters’ names may not appear on official voter lists by Election Day.

There will be confusion as poll workers try to figure out who’s eligible to vote. This will, in turn, lead to longer waits for all voters, some of whom may get discouraged and leave before casting a ballot.

To ease the tension, voters may be given a provisional ballot. But provisional ballots are a “trapdoor to disenfranchisement.” In the Ohio presidential primary, for instance, more than 123,000 provisional ballots were cast. Electionline.org found that only 80 percent of them were actually counted.

It bears remembering that the 2000 Florida presidential election was decided by 537 votes. So, from the nutty myth of “voter fraud” may come an election too close.

Ballot Box Blues

As I was checking out of the hotel on Friday, a USA Today headline caught my attention. Eight years after the Florida election debacle, election officials are still singing the blues:

Since 2000, states and localities have replaced punch-card ballots in fits and starts, in some cases reversing initial decisions to go to entirely paperless systems. As a result, a number of key areas — among them Cuyahoga County, Ohio — will be trying out new systems. In Colorado, a number of new voting machines failed a test run in December.

In addition to huge lines and new equipment, problems could arise with registration rolls. State officials are already struggling with a huge increase in forms to process. Come Election Day, many voters are likely to show up thinking that they are registered, only to find that they are not.

To minimize the number of voters who will be crying the blues on Election Day, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation Voices of the Electorate Democracy Reform Project will convene a symposium, “Election ’08: Still Not Ready,” on Tuesday, Sept. 23, from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Voting rights experts, voter empowerment groups and community-based activists will identify steps that election officials and voters must take to remove barriers to the ballot and ensure that every vote is counted as intended (disclosure: I am the project coordinator).

In 50 days, voters will go to the polls and make history. Either an African American will be the next occupant of the Oval Office or a woman will be elected vice president of the United States. But for some voters, history will repeat itself.

During the primary season, voters encountered malfunctioning voting machines, inaccurate voter databases, confusing ballot designs and instructions, untrained poll workers, burdensome voter ID requirements, uncounted ballots and ballot shortages from Palm Beach County to Los Angeles County.

In the Sept. 9, primary in the nation’s capitol, electronic voting machines counted thousands of write-in votes cast by phantom voters. While election officials said it was due to a “computer glitch,” the e-voting machines’ manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems, says they're not to blame.

In Florida’s Aug. 26, primary, more than 3,500 ballots were lost in Palm Beach County. The missing ballots have since been found. But get this: there now are 139 more ballots than were originally counted.

Voters must not wait until Election Day to protect their right to vote. This point was underscored by the Rev. Al Sharpton during the National Action Network’s weekly rally:

Waiting until something happens does not lead to progress…Otherwise you wait on Election Day for the same trick. You don’t sit up and wait for an accident to happen. You avoid it. Sitting around waiting for accidents that are avoidable is unconscionable.

The Voices of the Electorate symposium is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. Please RSVP by Friday, Sept. 20 to events@ncbcp.org.

For free voter information, including registering to vote, verifying registration status, early voting or polling place location, call the national voter assistance hotline, 1-866-MYVOTE1.

Voting in America: Picture This

A week from today, voters will go to the polls in North Carolina and Indiana. Voters in both states are eager to have their voices heard in the Democratic nomination battle. But voters in the Hoosier State, including the 300,000 who have registered since January, must bring more than enthusiasm to the polling place. They better bring a valid photo ID.

In the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s law requiring voters to present a current photo ID. The law was passed by Indiana's Republican-controlled legislature on a party line vote.

In a 6-to-3 ruling, the Supreme Court held the requirement did not impose an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote:

The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.

Never mind that there is no evidence of in-person voter fraud. But there is evidence that the ruling will have a disparate impact on elderly and low-income voters.

Mary G. Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters, said:

This is a disgraceful decision by a court that has no credibility on election issues. The court has shown once again that it does not respect voters.

Because of the procedural status of the case, there was no record on which the Court could judge how great the burden of a photo ID requirement would be on voters. Nonetheless, the three key justices found that the burden was not "excessively burdensome." This finding is "intellectually as well as morally bankrupt.

Wilson added:

There is a concerted effort in this country to disenfranchise legal voters and, unfortunately, this Supreme Court has joined those ugly efforts. …

We can no longer look to this Supreme Court to ensure fair elections.

The fight to protect voters and remove barriers to the voting booth continues.