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While GOP Smears Franken Vote, Will Obama Help Repair Election System?
The never-ending Republican War on Voting continues apace, with the GOP launching new smears against Democrats and Senate candidate Al Franken for alleged voter fraud in the razor-thin race against incumbent Norm Coleman. The latest bogus rumor supported by the right-wing noise machine is the claim that missing ballots were being kept in a car by a Minnesota elections official. The real fraud, of course, involves the efforts to suppress minority and low-income voters and challenge election results by claiming widespread Democratic voter fraud.
Three Senate races -- including those in Minnesota and Alaska with still-uncounted votes -- could help determine if the Democrats achieve a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority.
At the same time, a media myth is growing that the election went smoothly with only some minor hiccups, and, among progressives, that all those long lines were just a welcome sign of a healthy democracy.
Yet as Nation Institute-backed reporting and other journalism have underscored, even Obama's victory shouldn't obscure the serious machine failures, long lines and disenfranchisement that undercut the integrity of the November election.
In fact, as Christopher Edley, Jr., the dean of the U.C. Berkeley Law School, notes, the unbearable long lines that disenfranchised the elderly and low-income voters are a time tax that should be banned as surely as the poll tax.
Rachel Maddow, the best-known national broadcaster covering election protection issues, put it well just days before the November 4th election:
"This is a poll tax. How much do you get paid for an hour of work? Do you have the kind of job that would be delighted to give you an hour, a half-day, a whole day off work because you were waiting in line at your precinct? Even if it won't cost you your job, can you afford to not work those hours? Are you elderly or disabled, do you not have the physical stamina for this kind of exertion? This is a poll tax... Who is not in those lines -- because they can't afford to be?" See her heartfelt plea for reform here:
Her concerns were well-founded. As I reported in the New Mexico Independent:
Just because there was no repeat of a nightmare scenario like the 2000 Florida recount doesn't mean there weren't systemic problems in the country's diverse electoral systems.
In Minnesota, problem-plagued ballot scanners threaten an accurate recount in the contest between Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken, according to Minnesota Independent.In Virginia, where Obama won easily, the Election Protection coalition's war room received reports from across the state about long lines, broken machines and thwarted access for elderly and disabled voters, despite the governor's claim that Virginia was prepared.
In Richmond, Judith Browne-Dias, co-director of the nonprofit voting rights group Advancement Project, charged that the city's election registrar, J. Kirk Showalter, allegedly violated federal law by apparently telling some polling place officials to turn away voters who weren't on the precinct's rolls without even offering them provisional ballots. Browne-Dias cited interviews she conducted with two top election "judges." When she asked one of them under what circumstances they offered provisional ballots to voters, one official replied, "When they're very persistent."
Showalter denied telling any poll officials to deny ballots to voters who claim to have registered to vote, except for those who are listed as being registered in another district. "The proof is we had a lot of provisional ballots issued," although the office hadn't finished counting them by the middle of last week.
In addition, there were thousands of complaints about voters dropped from voting rolls in Ohio and elsewhere. Civilrights.org picked up on reports of six-hour waits (or more) for voters in Missouri and Pennsylvania and Virginia. All told, the national Election Protection hot line received more than 200,000 calls of all kinds, including more than 80,000 on Election Day alone.
Obama's victory, said Michael Waldman, executive director of New York University's Brennan Center, "shows that there's a thirst for public participation. But we have a long way to go before we have a modern, user-friendly, inclusive voting system." Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, had a harsher assessment: "The American election system is broken," she said.
You don't have to believe in nefarious vote-stealing schemes to understand that something is seriously wrong with our election system.
For instance, even the upcoming run-off race between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin is open to question because most Georgia voters vote on paperless touch-screen machines, and lower-income voters are kept awy by a strict Georgia photo ID law. The dicey Alaska election, with its "fishy" results originally placing the convicted felon, Republican Senator Ted Stevens, ahead in the vote far ahead of pre-election polling, indicates just how difficult it is to get an honest and reliable election even today in the United States.
Without reform, as Ben Manski, a former Green Party co-chair who leads the pro-democracy Liberty Tree organization, points out, "Something stinks in America, and that something is not the American people. The reality is that the policies of the federal and state governments do not reflect the views of most Americans." The solution is a fair, accurate and honest election system.
But what's being downplayed in the post-Obama victory glow is just how close the GOP came to essentially stealing the election in Ohio and elsewhere, but the efforts were beaten back by legal challenges and an ovewhelming turnout by new and minority pro-Obama voters.
Will a fair election be guaranteed next time? Possibly, if there's another election with a hugely admired, charismatic, once-in-a-generation leader like Barack Obama who inspires the devotion of millions. But without those unique historical elements and a massive turnout of young and minority voters, don't count on it.
Many of this year's election problems followed in the wake of the GOP's foiled efforts to undermine, or even steal, the election with a series of failed legal strategies to suppress the vote -- and raise false alarms about voter fraud by smearing ACORN.
As I reported on Alternet, the fear-mongering threatened the lives and safety of ACORN workers while laying the groundwork for a series of legal and extra-legal schemes to cry "voter fraud" while deterring real voters. Even with Obama's victory, the disenfranchisement threat was all too real:
Despite Obama's ultimate victory, incidents of voter suppression mounted daily through Election Day -- from deceptive fliers and robo-calls to registrars thwarting eligible voters from casting their ballots -- so the GOP's overheated attacks about the specter of voter fraud and the menace of the community group ACORN bore fruit. As a top organizer for Arizona ACORN, Monica Sandschafer contended, "Senator McCain has been running a dirty campaign filled with false accusations about my organization, ACORN, and using these threats to try to suppress the votes of minority voters."
Only a concerted effort by attorneys affiliated with such non-profit groups as ACORN, NYU's Brennan Center and the Advancement Project helped thwart last-minute and ongoing GOP legal efforts seeking mass purgings and challenges, justified as fighting voter fraud.Now, voting rights attorneys, including the Advancement Project's Judith Browne-Dianiss, worry about the impact at the state level on voting rights and non-profit registration drives because of the spate of fear-mongering targeting ACORN. "We're going to see a slew of retrogressive legislation coming out in the wake of all the ACORN stuff," she predicts.
Ugly attacks against ACORN were a central element in the vote-limiting strategy that was a key to McCain's last-resort hopes for a Republican victory.
Most progressives believe that President-elect Obama, who sponsored legislation against deceptive
voting practices and worked on voting rights cases, will embrace election reform. But will it be a priority for his administration with so many other pressing crises he has to face? In the past, even with a majority of votes, Democrats in Congress have let all voting reform measures languish, from fixing unreliable voting machines to barring election-day dirty tricks.
For election reformers, the highest priority now, in order to clean up the countless roadblocks in the way of voter registration, is universal, automatic voter registration for U.S. citizens 18 and over.
Yet as election watchdog blogger Brad Friedman told the New Mexico Independent:
Brad Friedman, the prolific author of Brad Blog, is skeptical about Obama's commitment to sweeping election reform. He notes that the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee generally avoided challenging voter suppression and machine failures, as in Nevada, in order to avoid raising alarms among potential Democratic voters.
The president-elect "understands the front-end vote-suppression stuff, but not the back end with the machines," Friedman said. "Even if you help every legal voter to vote, what does it mean if a single person can flip the results [by hacking a machine] or the machine breaks down?"
Progressives won't see any reforms of the election system -- or on such critical issues as
health care -- unless they band together to keep the pressure on Congress and the incoming Obama administration. There are too many self-interested groups (and the GOP) seeking to oppose meaningful reforms for Obama supporters to fool themselves into believing that their new Congressional majorities somehow guarantee them victory.
Hear more about voting reform and a progressive agenda under an Obama administration on "The D'Antoni and Levine Show" on BlogTalk Radio, every Thursday at 5:30 p.m and archived on the web.
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Al Franken is Republican Light! How do we fix the electronic voting sytems when Franken says there is no problem? Jean Shaheen (R.L.) was Kerry's campaign manager. They could have gotten lots of publicity touring places with EVM's saying here is where yopur vote might be stolen! They didnt speak up after the vote was stolen. Shaheen wanted Kerry's cousin too win. SHAHEEN WAS APPOINTED HEAD OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPT OF HARVARD AS A PAYOFF FOR LOSING THE ELECTION!
As far as my understanding of this issue, a state abrogates its rights as a state when they fail to deliver free, open, and honest elections. The failure to protect voters from harrassment in line at voting locations is a disgrace, and a serious crime.
If you haven't noticed, most of the worst problems with failed machines and outright disenfranchisement and voter suppression occur in the "swing" states.
And if you look further, all the worst lies and frauds and manipulative robo calls and disinformation came right out of republican party offices.
I think most intelligent Americans know exactly what is going on.
Work now to fix every questionable registration.
Match every machine with a paper ballott.
Protect every voter from intimidation and threats of violence.
Anything less is a failure of democracy.
And, by the way, the Florida 2000 election results were not net determined by hanging chads or the notorious West Palm Beach "butterfly" ballot. While the press etc still woo-woo about the hundreds of votes afflicted by these problems, everyone conveniently ignores the fact that Ralph Nader pulled 97,000 votes from Al Gore.
St. Ralph put Florida's Electoral college votes in Bush's pocket. Nader became the ultimate swing vote. More than any other non-Republican "politician," he in his hubris brought us the Bush Administration.
Not to beat this to death, but I don't mean to blame St. Ralph exclusively. There were those 97000 voters who wanted to send the establishment message.
They sent us all a message, all right.
The messengers' names were George Bush and Dick Cheyney.
stop knocking ralph nader, he has just as much a right to run for office as any democrat or republican. nader won those voters fair and square. if there is any "blame" to go around it should land squarely on the florida voting system.
No clue why this comment keeps getting knocked out, but I remain intrepid:
There is a huge difference between problems and a "broken" system. 125,000,000 people successfully voted for the candidate of their choice last election. They managed to do this under the stewardship of a 99.99% volunteer force of election officials, most of whom were first timers as always.
Were there unacceptably long lines in some places? Was there some broken or malfunctioning equipment? Were there some polling officials who should have stayed home? Are there interesting options for voting that did not even exist a decade ago? You betcha. Has the conduct of elections deteriorated since, say, the 1960s. Absolutely, not. As someone who has observed elections in 23 different states since the '60s, I can state categorically that our election process has continuously improved. It's not perfect, of course. But then, it never will be.
If you are dissatisfied with how your polling places are run, I suggest you contact your local election commissioner and volunteer to help run them. If you don't the rules like under which elections in your area are conducted, mobilize to change them. As any informed voter should know, the conduct of elections is a local, county and state affair. Except in extreme circumstances, the Federal government does nought but supply national offices and candidates to vie for them.
The Answer Is:
Oregon's signature authenticated, vote by mail, no fraud problems process. Everybody gets to vote from the privacy of their homes, so no one is excluded who is a registered voter citizen. No one has to risk their job to vote. Also I'd like to see no voter purges allowed at all during the year of an election. People die and they can be purged as part of the death certification process, but no more arguing about American citizens voting. Whatever proof of who you are that is needed to get a driver's license should be enough to register to vote. In fact, I'd like to see every baby born given a social security number and be registered to vote at the same time. If you're born here or become a naturalized citizen, you get to vote. Period! Florida got in a mess with mail votes, but Oregon has worked out the wrinkles and have no fraud. No more lines. No hiring off duty cops to hang out around minority voting districts with their guns on. No more voting machines that flip your vote to another guy.
A paper ballot for every voter so we know that we can accurately trace a paper trail if we need to. And we need a much, much safer and better way to count the votes.
How about if we just make it a federal law and print a bunch of ballots before next time?
When you are losing at almost every turn, and to try to prove it MUST be someone else's fault; the game is crooked or fixed; the media is biased against us, they other party cheated. Maybe, just maybe the majority of voters just grew tired of you, your message, and your politics.
Want to get "out of the wilderness"? Stop insulting everyone who doesn't agree with your views, get candidate whose campaign will be for something, nor just against the other candidate. Look at the 2008 results......the few GOP candidates who won, at least, tried to campaign in the middle. The old Goldwater/Reagan strategy no long works.
Make it a national holiday.
It only happens every 4 years (or 2 years if you want to take it that far) and I think employers can adjust for that easily enough. Plenty of time to plan for it.
Move the election to a Saturday and make early voting (the preceding 5 days...at minimum) a nation wide policy. This will afford voters more opportunity, shorten lines and reduce conflicting schedules.
Ballot machines MUST leave a paper trail. This election has pointed that out clearly. The need to have physical proof is paramount to properly address recounts and patterns of voter intimidation in districts where they occur.
Something to consider...
Barak Obama waived the federal election financing. Given the amount of money he raised, it's a safe guess that future Presidential nominees will do the same.
A valid proposal would be for that little $3 check box on your IRS income tax forms still be optional, but the funds should be directed toward the election itself and not the candidates' campaigns. These funds would cover much of the cost for new and regularly inspected and maintained voting machines, election costs and recounts (if necessary).
To all the readers of this article, if you are concerned about the state of the elections system, might I suggest that you write your state legislative delegation to insist that more financial resources be allocated for election administration. We've been running a system on the cheap for decades and now we see the problems with that. Local governments run elections but when they have to provide health care, build roads, help house the homeless, and support other pressing needs, election administraton gets short changed.
Also insist on an expanded Early Voting system!
You can't run an error-proof, complex elections system with just a few professional staffers and an army of volunteers who get just a bit of training and who are used only once every couple of years. If you want reliable, fast, fair results, you have to have the financial and personnel resources in place - plus the elections laws - that facilitate that.
The media coverage and the new blogging capabilities for us common folks has brought so much of the political world out into the open that I don't know if I can take much more of it...I don't trust any of them. As a matter of fact, after this election, I don't know if I can trust anybody. This new generation of politicians have reached a new low.
Sorry about the double print.
The media coverage and the new blogging capabilities for us common folks has brought so much of the political world out into the open that I don't know if I can take much more of it...I don't trust any of them. As a matter of fact, after this election, I don't know if I can trust anybody. This new generation of politicians have reached a new low. ON THE LIGHTER SIDE...When North Carolina turned BLUE on November 4th, I have felt happy and hopeful since. I realize that Bush is like a little troll trying his best to completely destroy America from the core out so as to discourage and disrupt our President-Elect from having a snowballs chance cleaning it up. I have never felt contempt this strong until recent activities and speeches from Bush. I think I need to go to election rehab, but I also believe that I have to keep in touch with events because they do 180's in a matter of minutes. Will it ever calm down? Will we be able to get back to working for a dream? Sure, we will, but we have to pull together and work hard for the same basic goal. Hell, if it needs to be cleaned...clean it. If it needs to be worked...work it. If not, it is everybody fault and not the presidents.
Republicans are anti democratic...
They have to be in order to continue their purpose of destroying America's working and middle class and our nations sovereignty and independence...
Everything the Republicans actually stand for undermines that which made our nation strong prosperous and self reliant and independent...
They chose to serve the corporations over the America people, and the people are America..
Election day should be a national holiday.
It was at my house!
HI, A CORRECTION: IT IS LIBERTY TREE, NOT LEARNING TREE.
We should move to:
(1) A national standard voting machine with a paper trail.
(2) Federal versus State funding of voting machines with numbers supplied to voting districts in direct proportion to voting (to avoid long lines and provide equal access).
(3) Winner take all on a Congressional district by district basis, not on a State by State basis. This preserves the benefits of the Electoral College while moving closer to election by popular vote.
Start working on a constitutional ammendment. The constitution needs to be changed for that to happen.
No it doesn't. A few States already do proportional voting.
"Problem plague scanners in the Minnesota recount"...hmmmm its a hand recount and I heard they aren't using the scannners so whats with the blurb from the Minnesota Independant talking about?
Simple, no nonsense solutions:
1) Ban touch screen machines entirely. No paper trail, no auditing, too easy to mess with the results
2) Apply machine-per-capita rules. Require a functioning polling station per X number of people in the precinct. Of course, this would be easier and cheaper if safer technology, like scanners, are used versus expensive and often faulty touch screen machines.
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