2002 Ad

National Voter, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Tracy Warren

After the 2000 elections, the Florida legislature quickly authorized $32 million to purchase new voting systems with high hopes for redemption in the 2002 elections. What did this investment buy them? What should have been a triumphant unveiling of new machines and new laws on primary election day turned into a disaster in Broward and Miami-Dade counties--polls didn't open on time when poll workers couldn't figure out how to start the machines and some of the machines totally failed. Many voters stood in line for hours. And at the end of that long day, some poll workers couldn't figure out how to get the final tally.

Broward and Miami-Date counties weren't alone. In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, poll workers ran into similar problems with new voting machines on primary election day.

In marked contrast, Georgia put new electronic voting systems into every precinct in 2002 and, thanks to a comprehensive, statewide implementation plan that covered every aspect of elections from ballot design and machine testing to poll worker training and voter outreach, voters experienced few problems.

Just two years earlier, election officials across the country acknowledged that Florida's troubles could have happened almost anywhere. In 2002, they saw in Florida a different but no less disturbing picture: the attempt to fix problems gave rise to a new set of problems. They saw the difference that effective implementation of election reform can make.

Passage of the Help America Vote Act

With the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which establishes new requirements for voting systems and the conduct of elections, every state will now face the same challenges that Florida, Maryland and Georgia confronted in the last election.

HAVA, approved by Congress in October, authorizes $3.9 billion for federal grants to help states meet the new requirements and creation of a federal agency to oversee the process. Now it's up to the states and localities to use these resources to address the problems revealed in 2000. How they carry out the new law--from the details of purchasing agreements for new voting machines to the content of the poll worker training manuals to the organization of the polling place--will make the difference between success and further erosion of voter confidence in the democratic process.

Despite the strong consensus in favor of Congressional action on election reform, the road to legislation was not an easy one. Congress was entering uncharted territory: for the first time, the federal government was contemplating setting nationwide standards for voting systems and election administration. Disagreement over the details of those requirements--most notably the requirement aimed at preventing possible vote fraud--and over how the new federal election agency would administer the law threatened to derail the reform effort. But, in the end, legislators kept their pledge to do what they could to ensure the events of November 2000 are not repeated.

Assessments of the potential impact of HAVA vary. The authorization of substantial federal funds as well as the creation of a new commission mark a historic increase in federal involvement in elections. In establishing "uniform and non-discriminatory" requirements for all federal elections, Congress has put its stamp on key components of the elections process that will affect what happens before, during and after an election. How the new systems and procedures will actually work is in the hands of state and local election officials.

The law is long and covers a wide array of topics ranging from military and overseas voting to the recruitment of students as poll workers. At its core, however, are new federal standards for voting systems, for registration and for polling place procedures. By making states accountable for implementing the new standards, the law will require state and local election officials to increase both coordination and cooperation.

League Conference on Issues Emerging from Federal Election Reform

In November 2002, the League of Women Voters and the McCormick Tribune Foundation sponsored a conference bringing together state and local election officials, congressional staffers, voting fights advocates and election experts to map out a course for implementing HAVA.

The participants--all of whom had worked intensively on election reform over the past two years--discussed what the law is supposed to do and the challenges it presents. The conference allowed interested parties from different "election communities," each with a stake in improving the election system, to shift from the legislative process, a process marked by contentious debate, to the next phase.

Beyond a discussion of nuts and bolts, the conference provided a rare and valuable opportunity for stakeholders to share and discuss ideas freely and work toward a collective vision of how the new law could revitalize our elections.

New Federal Standards for Voting Systems

Under the new law, voting systems will be required to have the following features: (1) they must allow the voter to review the ballot and correct errors; (2) they must be able to produce a paper audit: (3) they must be accessible to voters with disabilities (this requirement can be met by providing one accessible electronic voting machine per polling place); (4) they must be able to handle multi-lingual ballots; and (5) they must not exceed the machine error rate established by the Federal Election Commission.