DURHAM, NC--In North Carolina, extending poll hours for early voting has raised questions that might presage an inconclusive national election. In the words of one legal scholar, "we could create a similar situation as Bush v. Gore without a single hanging chad."
The essential question is who has authority to extend polling hours if voters cannot be accommodated. In North Carolina, after two counties requested to have their polls open for a few additional hours on Saturday, the state elections board determined that all North Carolina polls would remain open until 5pm unless local election officials from both parties agreed to close them in their county at the originally-scheduled 1pm.
Edward Foley, a law professor and the director of Election Law @ Moritz, called North Carolina's decision a "good move" because "the order was statewide and in fairness to everybody." He also pointed out that the decision was made administratively, rather than in response to a court order.
However well-handled, the decision to extend North Carolina's early voting hours might indicate a few unsettling factors in Tuesday's national election. One, voter turn-out is going to be through the roof. In North Carolina, many early voters have waited several hours to cast ballots, which is why more than half of North Carolina counties chose to remain open through late Saturday afternoon. Even with good preparation, it's unclear that every polling location can serve a flood of voters during a limited window on Election Day.
Two, the decision to extend voting hours--or make other last-minute accommodations, such as provisional ballots--risks being political and may appear to disenfranchise a particular group of voters. In Orange County, one of North Carolina's blue dots, county election officials decided not to extend polling hours on Saturday. The number of voters didn't support an extension, they said. Obama volunteers working the poll at the UNC Chapel Hill disagreed.
Hopefully by Tuesday the thirty states with early voting will have dramatically reduced the number of people who will wait in line. But states that haven't voted early--Pennsylvania, for example--could see tremendous back-ups. If so, who determines whether polls can extend their hours?
"There's a lack of sufficient guidance in state laws in how to handle that," Prof. Foley said.
Anticipating just such a problem, a few months ago Foley's own team ran a hypothetical scenario, in which a snowstorm hit Denver on the afternoon of November 4 and election officials asked to extend voting hours. The process, described on NPR, revealed that state laws didn't provide an answer. The case, called Obama v. McCain, was argued by a "distinguished panel," who eventually ruled in favor of Obama.
"The hypothetical scenario suggests that judges are going to be sympathetic to what's on the ground," said Foley.
Of course, the real hope is that none of this will be a problem. Alerted by the high volume of voters in the primaries, aware of the Obama's campaign's--and, to a lesser extent, McCain's--drive to increase voter registration, cognizant of the intense interest in this election, and confident that many people have already taken advantage of early voting opportunities, perhaps polling locations and election boards are perfectly prepared for voters on November 4.
Mike Ashe, the charismatic and optimistic director of elections in Durham County, wrote of the possibility of extending poll hours on Tuesday: "Don't even think about that!! It would be a superior court judge and there would have to be very strong evidence of wrong doing or serious problems. This has never happened in Durham and I don't expect it to be an issue. Life is good and getting better."
Rac hel Mad dow- stated that the long lines are in essence a poll tax- and it's true and something everybody knows about and still does not nothing to combat. I have two jobs, and children- how am i supposed to be able to vote by waiting in line for 2 -5 hours. I can't right- because I might lose my job- then what?
Only higher ups can afford to take that much time off from work to vote- the minimum wage worker doesn't have the leisure or sick time or personal day to accommodate such time loss nor could they afford not to work for the time anyhow.
This is a tactic to keep the worker away from the polls -- recall McCain's aid's response to Florida Governor Crist's extension of early voting hours "He just gave Florida to Obama." In other words, the McCain and GOP campaigns are factoring voter suppression into their game plans. And they were stunned when a Republican didn't follow the game plan.
The only chance to change this system is to elect someone who does not think the way other long-standing politicians think. So, no matter what it takes....
VOTE, BABY, VOTE !!!!
If you think we are not in a depression, wait until we can't trust the election process for a third time.
Now that is depressing!
If everyone's out early voting, and they only have five or six polls open around the county, of course it's going to be hard to handle them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf19H_sHMro&fmt=6
O for 08
A 1965 Voting Rights Act national radio campaign launched by president Johnson, with a Motown beat:
http://current.com/items/89434265_obama_2008_things_are_changing
Our voting laws need serious updating. The method of balloting should be consistent nationwide - some type of paper ballot that can be hand recounted if necessary. Population continues to grow - there are almost 5 million voters in South Florida alone, compared to what it was 10 or 20 years ago (between 1990 and 2000 we had a 23% increase statewide and it's estimated to have grown another 16% up since 2000).
Obviously, if you have double the population in the last 18 years, you have a significant increase in the number of people eligible to vote. What used to work over the course of one 12 hour election day doesn't work any more - hence early voting. But if only 40% of the people have voted by now, that leaves 60% still to vote on Tuesday.
We should have "election weekend" nationwide or, at the very least, Election Day should start at 12:01 a.m. and end at 11:59 p.m. - effectively 24 hours. Yes, we'd have to wait for results, but too many of the MSM jump the gun anyway. It drives me crazy when the AP or MSNBC or CNN "calls" a state 2 minutes after the polls close and not even 1% of the votes have been counted! I'd rather be right than first... premature verbal ejaculations just make us
When President Carter oversees elections in other countries, skewed exit polls always signal cheating. In the U.S. we let the Republicans brow-beat us into thinking we've lost. If we speak up we must be poor losers.
Why should any government, local state or federal ..literally have Anything at all to do with the two partys.
Our government is not supposed to be politicized by outside political parties themselves. These elections are NOT for them. They are for us. The people. If 98% of voters were registered independants, why should the two Major partys have any say regarding how state elections are run?
its insane that they allow outside private partisan partys do anything to the public with elections.
ALL rules should be set by the Federal Govt for ALL Elections.
....what if an enforcement authority in charge of making such decisions regarding the polls makes their decision...and then it is ignored at the more local level ???
Things such as this...the notion that there has to be some sort of standardization of voting rules across the nation...is something which I hope will be attended to in the Obama administration.
I spent five hours phoning registered NC voters today, as an Obama volunteer. Roughly half of those I actually spoke to refused to say whom they had or planned to vote for. Some hung up at the very question.
Hypothesis: those were McCain supporters. Yet, there was no animosity, more extreme caution in the voices.
I offered my phone number and address to prove my own identity. This seemed to soften some people but not entirely overcome their suspicion.
For the unstatistical record, all the others I was able to speak to directly had already or planned to vote for senator Obama.
When calling e.g. PA or OH, I never encountered this...fear? mistrust?