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Election Reform

Ending the 'Voter Fraud' Debate

Christian Smith-Socaris on October 31, 2008 - 2:40pm
If you've been following the presidential campaign the last few weeks, you've probably caught a glimpse of John McCain going on one of his well-rehearsed rants about the community organizing group ACORN and how its voter registration campaigns may amount to "one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country."

Texas may face polling place mishaps

Christian Smith-Socaris on October 22, 2008 - 1:06pm

Texans could face major disruptions at polling places on Election Day because of voting machine breakdowns or massive turnouts that overwhelm local authorities.

So says a report by three nonpartisan voter advocacy groups that cited Texas and nine other states as having inadequate contingency plans for using emergency paper ballots.

Virgina, Pennsylvania, Ohio Not Prepared for Record Voter Turnout

Christian Smith-Socaris on October 22, 2008 - 1:02pm

Several battleground states are not prepared to meet the challenge of administering the general election on November 4th, where turnout will be unprecedented, According to a report conducted by Advancement Project, a national leading voter protection organization.

To assess, and help ensure, the nation’s readiness for the November general election, Advancement Project obtained public records and other public information on the allocation, at the precinct level, of voting machines (or, in the case of jurisdictions that use optical scan machines, voting privacy booths) and poll workers in the following states: Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Voter Registration Databases and Purges -- Part I

Christian Smith-Socaris on October 22, 2008 - 11:43am

Last month I published a story about new statewide voter registration databases and how federal rules governing how states must use the databases could disenfranchise thousands of new voters who have registered to vote for the first time since the law went into effect in 2004.

The story got a bit lost in all of the hoopla over the Sarah Palin e-mail hacker so I wanted to draw your attention to the piece again and add information about how the new federal rules are making it easy for political parties in some states to challenge the eligibility of voters to cast a ballot, seemingly in an effort to suppress their votes.

I also wanted to discuss a separate issue involving purges of existing voters from registration lists, which is affecting thousands of long-time voters in states across the country who may be surprised when they arrive at polls in November to find that their name has been inexplicably stricken from their state's voter roll. I'll discuss the issue of challenging eligibility in a post labeled Part II and will address the purges in Part III.