10/31/2002 10:46:00 AM BRIAN PERRY/ Vote early and often
By BRIAN PERRY
Reasonable Right
A week before Election Day, President Bush signed into law The Help America Vote Act of 2002, saying, “Americans are a self-governing people, and the central commitment of self-government is free and fair elections.”
Bush continued, “The vitality of America’s democracy depends on the fairness and accuracy of America’s elections. Over two centuries our country has broadened the right to vote and sealed that right in law, making our government more accountable to the people, and more representative of the people. When problems arise in the administration of elections we have a responsibility to fix them. Every registered voter deserves to have confidence that the system is fair and elections are honest, that every vote is recorded, and that the rules are consistently applied.”
This legislation does a lot, but fails the Voter ID test. Thus, insuring that Mississippi politics remains interesting, and we can continue to debate common sense solutions to voter integrity problems. The law is a result of studies and suggested legislation from a national commission chaired by former Presidents Ford and Carter. The Bush Administration created the commission following the confusion of the 2000 Election. (Remember the Florida recounts with the hanging and pregnant chads?) While the law does not create exceptional means to prevent future confusion, it does form procedures to handle that confusion if and when it occurs. Essentially, it creates further legislation to argue over in Court.
Don’t get me wrong; there are many strong points to this law. Perhaps the most effective portion of the law is the financial empowerment of states to address their own local problems. The law provides $3.9 billion in federal grants to the states over the next three years to replace old ballot counting machines like punch card and lever voting machines, and to improve voter education and poll worker training.
Mississippi has eleven counties that use the punch card system and ten counties that use the lever machines. A bulk of the eighty-two counties use optical scanners either centrally scanned (fifty-three counties) or scanned at the precinct (seven counties).
Only Hinds County has moved into a new era of voting technology. After spending $1.5 million on 550 touch screen machines, Hinds County hopes to produce a more accurate election for her 123,000 registered voters. This coming election will be the first real use of these machines, though the Hinds County Election Commission has toured the county these past few months with the machines doing voter education.
Federal grants could assist other Mississippi counties in moving away from error prone machines and toward the next generation in voting technology. In other provisions, citizens registering to vote must prove their identification, though they do not have to do so again when they cast their vote. Each polling place must have at least one handicapped accessible voting machine. And beginning Jan. 1, first-time voters who register to vote by mail will have to provide identification at the polls the first time they cast a ballot.
By 2004, if someone shows up to vote and their registration is in doubt, poll workers must provide a “provisional ballot” which can be held until proper registration is verified. By 2006, states will be required to maintain computerized, statewide voter registration lists linked to their driver’s license databases. States will also be required to have voting machines that allow voters to confirm and if desired change the way they marked their ballot before finally casting it.
It remains to be seen what effects this legislation will have on Mississippi’s, Louisiana’s and Kentucky’s 2003 statewide elections. This federal law also creates new criminal penalties for providing false information in the election process, and punishes those guilty of conspiracy to deprive voters of a fair election. Under these national guidelines, every state must have a fair procedure for hearing and resolving voter complaints and insure that the voting methods are reasonably accurate and without error.
Closing the signing ceremony, President Bush explained, “The administration of elections is primarily a state and local responsibility. The fairness of all elections, however, is a national priority. And through these reforms, the federal government will help state and local officials to conduct elections that have the confidence of all Americans.”
Louisiana Gov. Huey Long would admonish supporters to vote early and often. Senator Lyndon Johnson’s get-out-the-vote campaigns in Texas were so effective they got the vote out of scores of citizens all registered to vote from, and residing in, cemeteries. Al Gore was confident that if the votes were recounted enough times, eventually there would be a result he would be happy with in Florida.
Voter irregularities are a historic part of the American election system. But it is a piece of history best left in the past. This legislation does not hold all the answers, but it is a decent first step, if just only in providing for modern voting machines and moving us toward a more comprehensive discussion of election needs.
Brian Perry is a columnist for the Madison County Journal and editor of MagnoliaReport.com.
