In both cases, Project Vote took action that helped end the practices. Notably, in Washington we led the coalition that helped the state adopt more flexible data-matching rules.
By passing legislation or regulations that encourage eligible voters to stay registered and by opening the process to public scrutiny, states can short-circuit behind-the-scenes attempts to manipulate the voter rolls for partisan advantage, avoid the disenfranchisement of eligible citizens, and begin to restore public confidence in election results.
As we embark on 2008, the mechanics of elections are gaining a higher profile in the media and in the minds of actors in electoral politics. Smart, well-managed list maintenance procedures are vital to maintaining accurate voter rolls and broad knowledge and understanding of them creates the kind of transparency that promotes trust. The recent new stories, on the other hand, promote hysteria and overshadow the facts, obscuring the real and pervasive issue of actual (not possible) eligible voters getting thrown off of voter rolls due to bad list maintenance policies. Though we are quick to acknowledge that we do not have deep expertise in Texas’ list maintenance procedures, any state should feel it has done its duty if its voter rolls show only a .4% error rate. Particularly a state with more than 12 million registered voters in its database.
Quick Links:
“Maintaining Current and Accurate Voting Lists.” Project Vote.
In Other News:
“LANSING — An independent group that angered some Michigan voters by sending voter registration forms to their pets or to wrong addresses apologized today for the mistakes.” Read more of this Associated Press report here.
“One of the issues left hanging as Congress is off on recess is the Holt bill to require voter-verifiable paper trails on all voting machines. Despite a robust number of co-sponsors, the bill remains mired in controversy, in part because of the opposition of sizable numbers of election officials who, after having sunk a bundle of money into touch-screen machines after the passage of the Help America Vote Act, are not inclined to change (and are also worried about deadlines and technical glitches).” Read more of this Nov. 26 Roll Call article here.
Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).
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