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Demos and its Democracy Program has been at the center of national election reform activity since the 2000 election debacle. We have analyzed long-standing obstacles to voter participation and tracked recent efforts to enhance political participation. In examining developments in the states and in Washington over the past four years, Demos has identified five key factors on which the upcoming election will turn.
The Media Primer includes information on provisional ballot voting and identification requirements, election fraud, felon disenfranchisement and the purging of purported felons from voter lists and the registration of low- and moderate-income Americans. The Primer introduces reporters to our democracy experts, and also includes a list of related resources from other organizations and sources.
Demos has amassed a wealth of knowledge on these and other central issues of our electoral process and democracy and, advanced an agenda for reform. For more information, contact Ellen Braune (212-633-1405 ext. 532 / ebraune@demos-usa.org) or Timothy Rusch (212-633-1405 ext. 407 / trusch@demos-usa.org).
Press Members: to sign up for our releases this week, email kbui@demos-usa.org.
The 2000 election highlighted basic flaws in our electoral system. Millions of eligible voters were unable to cast ballots, millions of citizens were denied the most basic right of citizenship, and thousands of others were foiled by faulty machinery or incompetent election administration. Many others suffered outright discrimination and intimidation.
Four years later, a very familiar stage is being set. Whether by virtue of partisan bickering, bureaucratic intransigence, technological challenge or political manipulation, many states and counties around the nation will be unprepared to handle a surge in voter interest and turnout.
Some, like former President Jimmy Carter, foresee irregularities of a scale that will call into question the very legitimacy of the electoral process. Writing in the Washington Post three weeks ago about recent developments in Florida, Carter found that basic international standards for fair elections were absent in that state:
It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps to only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.
As he noted, citizens of differing ethnic or economic status might have vastly different experiences registering to vote and casting their ballots. Questions also arise about whether all legal voters will actually have their votes counted, and whether the overtly partisan actions of election officials will mar the electoral outcome.
In Securing the Vote, one of our earliest election reports, we explore voter fraud, a hotly contested topic in current public debates about electoral reform. Opponents of efforts to make voting easier and more accessible often cite the potential for individual voter fraud as a reason to oppose reforms. Our findings indicate that problems with individual voter fraud are a distraction from the more important issue of systemic problems including widespread voter suppression, partisan election officials and improperly compiled "purge lists" among others. In Securing the Vote, we find that:
- The incidence of individual election fraud is minimal across the 50 states and rarely affects election outcomes.
- Efforts to make it easier to register and to vote are compatible with the prevention of election fraud. Fears of election fraud should not inhibit electoral reform efforts aimed at addressing the problem of low voter participation.
With passage of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, Congress promised to fix many of the problems associated with the last Presidential race. One reform that has drawn increased attention this election season is provisional balloting. As of the first federal primary election this year, any voter whose name was omitted from the voter rolls or who could not show identification at the polls would be permitted to vote provisionally. These ballots would ultimately be counted once election officials substantiated the individual's eligibility to vote.
In Placebo Ballots: Will "Fail-Safe" Voting Fail? Demos found that several hundred thousand citizens may again be sent home from the polls without casting a vote this year. Over half of all states are adopting an overly cramped approach to provisional balloting.
- Idaho and Minnesota will not offer provisional ballots to first-time, newly registered voters who can not show identification. Ten other states will provide, but automatically invalidate, provisional ballots cast by voters who do not present identification.
- Thirty states and the District of Columbia will invalidate provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct--even when voters are selecting candidates for President or statewide offices, where polling place error is immaterial.
The removal of eligible voters from the voter rolls in Florida and elsewhere due to erroneous felon records was another prominent feature of the 2000 election. Florida was set to repeat that mistake this year until it was forced to abandon its new and again seriously flawed felon purge list this summer.
In Purged! How a Patchwork of Flawed and Inconsistent Voting Systems Could Deprive Millions of Americans of the Right to Vote, Demos, the ACLU and the Right to Vote Campaign found that millions of eligible voters may again be prevented from casting their ballots on November 2 due to flawed felon purges.
- None of the 15 states surveyed requires its officials to use any specific or minimum criteria to ensure that an individual with a felony conviction is the same individual being purged from the voter rolls.
- Two-thirds of the states surveyed do not require election officials to notify voters purged from the voter rolls, denying these voters an opportunity to contest erroneous purges.
These felon purges raise broader questions about the wholesale disenfranchisement of Americans with felony convictions. Given the overtly discriminatory roots of these laws, their exclusion of almost five million citizens from the political process positions the U.S. as an outlier among modern democracies. As reported in Democracy Denied: the Racial History and Impact of Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States:
- Like poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses, felony disenfranchisement laws were intentionally manipulated during Reconstruction to exclude African Americans from the political process. Current felon voting restrictions are firmly rooted in these Jim Crow-era policies.
- Given current rates of incarceration, 3 in 10 of the next generation of African-American men will lose the vote at some point in their lifetimes.
Some of the problems that may arise in the upcoming election predate the scandals of the 2000 election. In 1992, Congress directed that every applicant for public assistance, food stamps and WIC benefits be offered the opportunity to register to vote, as Americans are at departments of motor vehicles. Working in partnership, Demos and Project Vote have found that these agency registration provisions of the so-called "Motor-Voter Law" have been roundly ignored.
- On average, states register only 6 percent of their food stamp applicants.
- If all states subject to the agency registration requirements fully complied with them, hundreds of thousands of new voters would be registered each year.
- Many needy Americans will remain unregistered and uncounted this November because they were never offered the chance to register to vote when applying for public benefits.
Demos has amassed a wealth of knowledge on these and other central issues of our electoral process and democracy, and advanced an agenda for reform. For more information, contact Ellen Braune (212-633 -1405 ext. 532 / ebraune@demos-usa.org) or Timothy Rusch (212-633-1405 ext. 407 / trusch@demos-usa.org).
Publications
Placebo Ballots
Will "Fail-Safe" Provisional Voting Fail?
October 28, 2004
Demos' Ari Weisbard examines the practice of provisional balloting after the implementation of the Help America Vote Act.
Purged!
Will Eligible Voters Be Purged From Election Rolls?
October 27, 2004
Purged! provides an in-depth analysis of the confusing, disorganized and often partisan process used to "purge" voter rolls and deny eligible Americans the right to vote.
Divided Citizens
How Inequality Undermines Trust in America
May 1, 2004
An exploration of the importance of social trust in U.S. society and troubling ways in which rising economic inequality since the 1970s has helped to decrease trust between Americans.
Democracy Denied
The Racial History and Impact of Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States
February 26, 2004
This brief examines the relationship between criminal justice practices that disproportionately target people of color, and disenfranchisement laws that deprive citizens convicted of felonies of their right to vote.
Punishing at the Polls
The Case Against Disenfranchising Citizens With Felony Convictions
November 24, 2003
Political scientist Alec Ewald sheds new light on the fundamentally undemocratic nature of felony disenfranchisement laws. Tracing the history of these laws from ancient Europe to their racist application in the post Civil War U.S., Ewald concludes that felony disenfranchisement laws are in profound conflict with America's best ideals of fairness and traditions of democracy.
Securing the Vote
An Analysis of Election Fraud
April 14, 2003
An in-depth study of election fraud issues and the policy requirements of the Help America Vote Act.
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