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Congress and the micromanaging of elections

Published May 28, 2007 at midnight

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In what has become an annual ritual, Washington may soon add another set of mandates to govern the local administration of federal elections. What's needed instead is a time out, because going into the 2008 presidential race, local officials will have enough to do figuring out what's already on the books.

That's why we hope that H.R. 811, which will face a House vote soon after the Memorial Day recess, never reaches President Bush's desk.

The legislation has its strong points, including several provisions already in Colorado law, such as a requirement that voters be able to review a paper version of their ballots before casting them electronically. But any benefits would be overshadowed by the way it piles on new mandates from Washington in a fashion that has now become a habit. In the case of H.R. 811, this would include precise thresholds that would trigger audits and recounts, and other mind-numbing details.

Until recently, decisions like this have wisely been delegated to local officials. So long as local rules did not infringe on the constitutional rights of voters, the principle was that the people who are closest (and most accountable) to voters should be responsible for running elections.

Since Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002, every year new edicts have come down that dictate the way local officials handle access for the disabled, acceptable balloting technologies, the type of paper backup that's required to verify vote totals, and so on.

Every presumed hiccup in a local election has led to calls for even-tougher mandates from Washington. These rules have morphed election governance from a straightforward administrative job into a 2 4/7 bureaucratic headache for cities, counties and states across America.

One-size-fits-all federal guidelines tend to stifle local experimentation in voting systems that could lead to technologies making voting easier, more precise and more secure.