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Electoral lessons

Next Congress had better take another look at our elections

Rocky Mountain News

Published November 4, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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We can guess what you're thinking: Finally, it's almost over.

The 2008 election will make history - the nation will inaugurate either its first African-American president or its first female vice president Jan. 20. But as the campaign comes to a close, we're sensing more relief than celebration.

The national spotlight has been trained on Colorado in an unprecedented way, with Denver hosting the Democratic National Convention and the candidates coveting our swing state's nine electoral votes more than usual during this hotly contested campaign.

That said, the 2008 election hasn't always been a gratifying civic exercise, for reasons that have little to do with the quality of the candidates, the tone of the debate or even the length of the ballot. Among the problems:

* The embrace of archaic voting technology. Thanks to the Florida debacle of 2000, Congress began micromanaging the nuts and bolts of state election operations.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was intended to prevent replays of Florida by forcing states to adopt state-of-the-art voting methods that would count ballots immediately and reliably - and also make it easier for the disabled to vote without assistance. But activists distrustful of electronic voting essentially shamed or intimidated states into abandoning touch- screen technology and embracing an alternative straight from the 18th century: paper ballots.

As a result, even though the feds have spent more than $3 billion under HAVA purchasing new voting equipment for the states, a lot of it has been abandoned. Forty percent of voters will use a different technology this year than they did in 2004, and more than half the votes cast nationally in this election will be on paper, read by optical scanners.

We've always preferred electronic voting (with a paper trail). Processing paper ballots using optical scanners will take hours under the best of circumstances, while the tallies from touch-screen devices could be publicly available soon after the polls close.

Even though more than half of Coloradans voted early or by mail this election cycle, we still may not know the results in a number of races until early Wednesday, if then. That's unacceptable.

* Too many lawyers and judges. To its credit, HAVA tightened some gaps in voter registration law and required every state to clean up its records by creating a centralized electronic poll book for this election. The idea was to make sure that only valid voters were allowed to cast ballots.

Problem is, self-styled voting-rights groups such as Common Cause and the Brennan Center for Justice have sued, challenging state officials who were attempting to maintain reliable registration records - and some judges have unfortunately let the activists prevail.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge John Kane ordered Secretary of State Mike Coffman to reinstate 146 registration records that had been removed from the state's voter database over a couple of days last week because, among other things, the applicants were dead, had moved, or were already registered. The activists had actually suggested nearly 30,000 registration records canceled since May should be restored.

We think Coffman was doing his job, and hope none of those who should have been removed from the rolls casts an illegitimate ballot.

In a Speakout we published Saturday, Wall Street Journal writer John Fund noted that more than 15,000 lawyers from both parties and every ideological persuasion will be scrutinizing polling places. This lawsuit-happy environment only undermines confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and the public officials who are entrusted to manage elections.

* Untraceable fundraising. Barack Obama has exploited the Internet to both build a powerful grass-roots political operation and raise bucketfuls of campaign cash. But in the scramble to collect money online, Obama and other candidates have either been uninterested in monitoring their donors to make sure all contributions are legitimate, or they've been negligent.

Both Obama and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall in Colorado allow online donations from prepaid credit cards that mask the giver's true identity; their Republican opponents, John McCain and Bob Schaffer, do not.

As the Rocky's Ed Sealover reported last week, such contributions can be untraceable, making it impossible to know if a donor has exceeded campaign fundraising limits or if the donations are originating from foreign nationals or others who cannot legally give money.

We're not suggesting that either candidate would knowingly accept tainted funds. But donors can operate in the shadows by giving online.

Such untraceable contributions should be outlawed in future campaigns.

Trust in public institutions is waning, often for understandable reasons. Today's winners and losers should understand that while it's difficult to rebuild that confidence, a healthy democracy demands that they do.

Comments

  • November 4, 2008

    4:10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    eoj writes:

    The solution to the voting debacle that rears it's ugly head with EVERY election is computerized voting...
    If I can trade stock, transfer money, pay bills for many years without a single problem, what does that tell you?
    Yes and there is an auditable record...
    Just keep telling me paper ballots are better, I want all the miscreants hands off my ballot...

  • November 4, 2008

    7:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ghoax writes:

    correction the next congress had better start working for the people, stop the obstruction of energy production, stop the spending, stop wasting our hard earned money. It had better start doing its job. All of them should be required to take courses on the constitution, as well as basic math and simple economics.

    OUR ONLY HOPE WITH A democrat DICTATORSHIP is for the people to start HOLDING THE LEADERS of this fascist operation accountable to us and demand their resignation when they aren't.

    Examples of this, Congress spending too much causing inflation, Congress taxing energy producers or co2, raising our costs of everything, Congress voting to confiscate wealth, stifle economic growth, or to play politics with our money.

    No matter who wins, the pressure needs to be put on this crowd, those working against us, cannot be allowed to represent us.

    We need to create the people's version of the congressional gong show...

  • November 4, 2008

    12:18 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mbuna writes:

    Regarding electronic voting machines- they have been proven to be unreliable, easily hackable, and completely subject to political cronyism. Remember the CEO of Diebold guaranteeing the election for Bush in 2004? Remember that the entire election results in 2004 were routed through a republican political organizations server? Do you know that the software in voting machines is not subject to investigation because of federal law? Once those machines are delivered the programming inside cannot be touched and there is no way of really knowing how that software performs during a real election. There is an actual real video out of a voting machine switching votes in West Virginia.

    So let me ask the Rocky Mountain News a question- Either you are naive or you are in favor of elections being stolen. Which is it?

  • November 4, 2008

    12:33 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mbuna writes:

    One further comment- I could easily be in favor of electronic voting machines IF there was a way to manufacture and test them completely by independent sources prior to an election including submission of the software source code. They way it works now is a recipe for a stolen election either now or in the future. The way you so breezily laid out your presentation made me suspect of your motivations (or your naivete).

  • November 4, 2008

    2:36 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    enginerd writes:

    "... we still may not know the results in a number of races until early Wednesday, if then. That's unacceptable."

    Good grief! Does it really matter if the results are known by press time that night?! I am sure the country will survive, even if the outcome isn't known for weeks. Accuracy counts. Speed doesn't matter, as long as the final tally is in before December 15.

    Paper ballots are proven reliable, even if they don't meet some impatient people's desire for instant results.

  • November 4, 2008

    4:30 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    wbb writes:

    get ready. Compascism. January 20th: Day 1