August 2001 Press
Release
Press Release
For Immediate Release Contact: Elizabeth Reaves
802-828-2148
August 13, 2001
Vermont Measures Up With Election Law Reform
Proposal
Secretary of State Deb Markowitz issues Report Card Reviews National Election Reform
Proposals
Montpelier –Secretary of State Deb
Markowitz today released her office’s review of the National Election
Reform Proposals proposals for election reform. "With all the recent
activity in Florida, it is clear that we need to take steps to protect
our democracy and fine-tune areas that need reform" said Secretary
Markowitz. Markowitz’s election reform package was presented to the
Senate Government Operations and House Local Government committees, and
includes proposals to create accountability, discourage voter fraud and
streamline the registration and election administration
process.
"Right now we cannot know whether individuals
are voting in more than one jurisdiction," said Secretary Markowitz. "We
must prevent fraud and promote voter confidence in our system by putting
in place meaningful penalties and by establishing mechanisms to allow us
to identify problems and prosecute when necessary." The Secretary of
State also recommends providing more time between the primary and
general election, streamlining voter registration processes to address
problems with the federal Motor Voter law, and updating provisions of
the election law to comply with modern election procedures and to
encourage absentee ballot voting.
"We need some common sense checks and balances
to help ensure the integrity of the vote" said Secretary Markowitz.
"This upcoming year there will be opportunities to make some of these
proposals into reality – with a national mandate likely with matching
funds to implement improvement in state elections administrations."
Markowitz will be working aggressively with
legislative members and the Town Clerks and Treasurer’s Association
during the 2001 session to bring her proposals to the full Legislature.
For a copy of Secretary Markowitz’s Election Reform Proposal, please
visit the Secretary of State’s web site at www.sec.state.vt.us.
The Goals of Federal Election
Reform:
The Carter-Ford Commission articulated six goals
of election reform. These goals make sense for Vermont as well as other
states. The commission stated that when we elect our president, senators
and representatives, the American people should expect all levels of
government to provide a democratic process that:
- Maintains an accurate list of citizens who
are qualified to vote;
- Encourages every eligible voter to
participate effectively;
- Uses equipment that reliably clarifies and
registers the voter’s choices;
- Handles close elections in a foreseeable and
fair way;
- Operates with equal effectiveness for every
citizen and every community; and
- Reflects limited but responsible federal
participation.
The Commission made ten specific recommendations
to help us achieve these goals. The following is an outline of the ten
recommendations and a brief statement of how we are doing in Vermont to
achieve these goals:
- Every state should adopt a system of
statewide voter registration. The statewide-computerized
voter file should be networked with and accessible to every election
jurisdiction in the state so that any level can initiate registrations
and updates with prompt notification to the others. It should include
provisions for sharing data with other states.
- Every state should permit provisional voting
by any voter who claims to be qualified to vote in that state or use
of Voter Affirmation Form. Provisional voting authorizes any
person whose name does not appear on the list of registered voters,
but who wishes to vote, to be issued a ballot. The ballot shall be
counted only upon verification by election officials that the
provisional voter is eligible and qualified to vote within the state
and only for the offices for which the voter is qualified to
vote.
- Another option, for states with
statewide computerized voting lists, would be to let
a voter who is not on the list
submit proof of identification and swear to or affirm
an appropriate affidavit of
eligibility to vote in that jurisdiction.This information could
then be used as an application
for voter registration and the voter list would be
amended accordingly. If
qualified, the voter could either be issued a regular ballot or,
if the state preferred, be
allowed to vote provisionally pending confirmation of
the voter’s
eligibility.
Policy Recommendation 3
Congress should enact legislation to hold
presidential and congressional
elections on a national holiday.
1. Holding national elections on a national
holiday will increase availability of poll
workersand suitable polling places
and might make voting easier for some workers.
2. One approach, which this Commission favors,
would be to specify that in even-numbered years the Veterans Day national holiday be held on the
Tuesday next after the first Monday
in November and serve also as our Election Day.
Policy Recommendation 4
Congress should adopt legislation that
simplifies and facilitates absentee
voting by uniformed and overseas citizens.
1. Each state should designate a responsible
official for absentee voting by uniformed and overseas citizens who are residents of that state. That
official should become the single
point of contact for the citizens of that state who are served by the
Federal Voting Assistance Program,
which helps such uniformed and overseas citizens.
2. In 1986 Congress passed the Uniformed and
Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act(UOCAVA) to help eligible members of the armed services and their
families, and other citizens
overseas, to vote. Utilizing standardized forms for voter registration
and absentee ballot requests, all
UOCAVA-covered residents from a home state should be authorized to mail these applications to the designated
official for their state. If that
state uses a statewide voter registration system networked to local
jurisdictions, as we have
recommended, the state official should be authorized to act directly on
these applications or to forward
them for action by the appropriate local jurisdiction.
States should accept one absentee
ballot application as a valid application for all
subsequent elections being held by
that state in that year.
3. The designated state official should be
authorized to accept either a voted ballot being returned for any jurisdiction of that state or a
standardized Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot that is an option for a UOCAVA-covered citizen.
States should be obliged to accept
and tally a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot for those contests in
which they determine the voter was
eligible to vote.
4. Properly filed absentee ballots should be
accepted if they have been received by the time the polls of that state have closed on Election Day. States
and the Federal Voting Assistance
Program should develop common standards for validation of ballots
that have been voted and mailed on
or before Election Day, even if they are received
after that
date.
Policy Recommendation 5
Each state should allow for restoration of
voting rights to otherwise eligible
citizens who have been convicted of a felony
once they have fully served their
sentence, including any term of
probation or parole.
Policy Recommendation 6
The state and federal governments should take
additional steps to assure the
voting rights of all citizens and to enforce
the principle of one person, one
vote.
1. Federal and state governments should
intensify efforts to enforce compliance with the several statutes guaranteeing the right to vote and
prohibiting various forms of
discrimination in voting and registration.
2. The methods for funding and administering
elections—from investments in equipment through voter education to procedures at the polling place—should
seek to ensure that every qualified
citizen has an equal opportunity to vote and that every individual’s
vote is equally effective. No
individual, group, or community should be left with a justified
belief that the electoral process
works less well for some than for others.
3. Federal and state governments should consider
uses of technology, for example when developing voting equipment system standards, that will make it
feasible to provide greater
assistance to language minorities.
Policy Recommendation 7
Each state should set a benchmark for voting
system performance, uniform in each
local jurisdiction that conducts elections.
The benchmark should be expressed
as a percentage of residual vote
(the combination of overvotes, spoiled votes, and undervotes)
in the contest at the top of the
ballot and should take account of
deliberate decisions of voters not to make a choice.
1. Benchmarks should consider the results
obtained by best practices within that state,
taking local circumstances into
account. In general, we suggest that the benchmarks
in the next election cycle should
be set no higher than 2%, with the goal of further
reductions in succeeding
cycles.
2. Each state should require its election
jurisdictions to issue a public report on the number of residual votes after every statewide election,
including the probable causes of
error, if any.
3. Each state should determine for itself how to
hold its election jurisdictions accountable
for achieving the
benchmarks.
Policy Recommendation 8
The federal government should develop a
comprehensive set of voting
equipment system standards for the benefit of
state and local election
administration.
1. Congress should grant statutory authority to
an appropriate federal agency to develop such standards in consultation with state and local election
officials.
2. The scope of the voting system standards
should include security (including a documentary audit for non-ballot systems), procedures for
decertification as well as certification of both software and hardware, assessment of human
usability, and operational
guidelines for proper use and maintenance of the equipment.The agency
should maintain a clearinghouse of
information about experience in practice.
3. Voters should have the opportunity to correct
errors at the precinct or other polling place, either within the voting equipment itself or in
the operational guidelines to
administrators for using the equipment.
4. Each voting tally system certified for use
should include, as part of the certification,
a proposed statement of what
constitutes a proper vote in the design and operation
of the system.
5. New voting equipment systems certified either
by the federal government or by any
state should provide a practical and effective means for voters with
physical disabilities to cast a
secret ballot.
6. In addition to developing the voting system
standards, the federal agency should provide its own certification and decertification of hardware and
software, including components in
voter registration systems.These federal certifications and
decertifications, like the
remainder of the standards, will be recommendations to
states which they can adopt or
not.
7. This federal service should include selection
and oversight of a federally supervised set
of independent testing authorities
who will apply the standards in assessing equipment.
After the federal agency develops
and approves the relevant voluntary voting system
standards in consultation with
state and local administrators, this further, technical task
should be delegated to the highly
regarded and relatively independent National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST)
of the Department of Commerce.
Policy Recommendation 9
Each state should adopt uniform statewide
standards for defining what will
constitute a vote on each category of voting equipment
certified for use in that state.
Statewide recount, election certification, and contest procedures should take account of the
timelines for selection of
presidential electors.
1. Statewide standards for defining a vote in
advance of an election should be uniform and as objective as possible.
2. Each state should reevaluate its election
code to consider adopting a predictable sequence of: a) vote tabulation and retabulation; b) machine or
manual recounts to encompass the
entire jurisdiction of the office being recounted, triggered by whatever
threshold the state may choose; c)
certification of a final count; followed then by
d) contests of the certification
limited to allegations of fraud or other misconduct.
3. In such a sequence, each state should allow
at least 21 days before requiring certification
of the final count. But we
recommend retention of a federal deadline under which the
"safe harbor" for conclusive state
determination of presidential electors will expire.
4. Each state should also develop a uniform
design for the federal portion of the state
ballot, for use in each of that
state’s certified voting equipment systems.
Policy Recommendation 10
News organizations should not project any
presidential election results in
any state so long as polls remain open elsewhere
in the 48 contiguous states. If
necessary, Congress and the states should consider legislation, within First Amendment limits,
to protect the integrity of the
electoral process.
1. In practice, this would mean that news
organizations would voluntarily refrain from
projecting the outcomes of the
presidential elections in any state until 11:00 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time (8:00 p.m.
Pacific Standard Time).Voluntary restraint is preferable
to government
action.
2. If news organizations refuse to exercise
voluntary restraint, Congress and the states
should consider prohibiting any
public disclosure by government entities of official
tallies in the race for president
and vice-president at the precinct level and above
until 11:00 p.m. EST (8:00 p.m.
PST), where such regulations are consistent with
existing provisions for public
observation of the vote tabulation process.
3. If news organizations refuse to exercise
voluntary restraint and other measures cannot
protect the integrity of the
electoral process, Congress should impose a plan for
uniform poll closing hours in the
continental United States for presidential
elections.
4. National television broadcasters should
provide, during the last thirty days of the
presidential campaign, at least
five minutes each night of free prime television time to
each presidential candidate who has
qualified for federal matching funds.They or
their local affiliates should
further make free time available for state and local election
officials to provide necessary
voter education.
Policy Recommendation 11
The federal government, on a matching basis with
the governments of the 50 states,
should provide funds that will add another $300–400 million to the level of annual spending on
election administration in the
United States.The federal share will require a federal contribution totaling $1–2 billion spread
out over two or three years to help
capitalize state revolving funds
that will provide long-term assistance.
1. These responsibilities should be apportioned
about 50–50 between the federal government and the states, so that the federal contribution has
the effect of raising the annual
federal and state level of spending on election administration by an
added $150–200 million.This is a
modest sum, lower than some other current estimates
about what is
needed.
2. The federal expenditures should be made in
the form of matching grants to the states, and the states should directly administer the disbursement of
funds for administration at the
state, county, and local level.
3. Instead of planning on permanent expenditures
of federal funds, Congress should instead consider leveraging temporary funding over a two- or
three-year period in an amount,
totaling perhaps $1–2 billion, that will be sufficient to capitalize the
federal share of state revolving
funds.These funds can leverage the initial federal contribution,
after it has been matched by the
states, to create a long-term source of federal and
state support to election
administration.The capitalization should be sufficient to
sustain our proposed federal
increment of $150–200 million of continued additional
spending on election administration
that, when matched by state contributions to
the funds, will reach the $300–400
million annual nationwide target.
4. Such state revolving funds would be used to
carry out flexible state programs, allowing the states to support a variety of election
administration activities undertaken by state, county, and local governments and do so with a
variety of financing options that can include grants, loans at or below market rates, loan
guarantees, and other arrangements.
States would assess relative needs among their election jurisdictions
and be accountable for maintaining
the fund.
5. Federal funds should be allocated among the
states in proportion to the electoral votes that each state will cast in the presidential election of
2004. This reflects a slight per
capita weighting toward rural states. Such a modest weighting is
appropriate, given the greater
average per capita cost of election administration in rural
counties.
Policy Recommendation 12
The federal responsibilities envisioned in this
report should be assigned to a new
agency, an Election Administration Commission (EAC).
1. The number of governing commissioners in this
agency should be small; the members should be distinguished citizens with a reputation for
integrity.
2. The commission should: a) develop federal
voting system standards in consultation with state and local election administrators; b) oversee the
implementation of these standards
in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology;
c) maintain a national
clearinghouse of information on best practices in election
administration; and d) administer
the limited federal assistance program to the
states.
3. Enforcement of other federal election laws
should remain a separate function, centered in the Civil Rights and Criminal Divisions of the
Department of Justice.
4. States that do not have them should also
consider establishing nonpartisan electioncommissions.
Policy Recommendation 13
Congress should enact legislation that includes
federal assistance for election administration,
setting forth policy objectives for the states while
leaving the choice of strategies to the discretion of the states. The Commission as a whole takes no position on
whether Congress should use the
powerful incentive of conditional grants or instead
establish requirements or mandates
wholly independent of funding. A majority of the Commission members suggests the approach described below.
However, a minority suggests a more
direct federal role as detailed in an additional
statement of views appended to this
report.
1. Congress should enact legislation to create a
new federal election administration agency, to facilitate military and overseas citizen voting, to
address a national election holiday, to constrain—if necessary—premature official disclosure
of presidential election results,
and to appropriate federal assistance in election administration.
2. To be eligible for federal assistance, states
shall: a. match the federal
assistance with an added contribution of their own in the
proportion fixed by Congress;
b. adopt legislation that will
establish a statewide voter registration system
networked to every local
jurisdiction in that state, with provisions for sharing data
with other states;
c. permit on-site provisional
voting by every voter who claims to be qualified to
vote in that state, or adopt an
alternative that achieves the same objective;
d. set a uniform statewide
benchmark for voting system performance in each local
jurisdiction administering
elections expressed as a percentage of residual vote in
the contest at the top of the
ballot, and require local jurisdictions to report data
relevant to this benchmark;
e. either agree to comply with the
federal voting system standards and certification
processes or develop their own
state voting system standards and processes that,
at a minimum:
i. give voters the opportunity to
correct errors, either within the voting equipment itself or in the operational guidelines to
administrators for using the
equipment at a precinct or other polling place and
ii. require that new voting systems
should provide a practical and effective
meansfor voters with physical
disabilities to cast a secret ballot; and f. adopt uniform statewide standards that define what will
constitute a vote on each category
of voting equipment certified for use in that state;
g. certify that they are in
compliance with existing federal voting rights
statutes.
3. Specific choices on how to comply with these
conditions should be left to the discretion of the tates.
4. States that qualify for federal assistance
should have broad discretion in how they disburse this money, so long as the money is expended on: a)
establishing and maintaining
accurate lists of eligible voters; b) encouraging eligible voters to
vote; c) improving verification of
voter identification at the polling place; d) improving
equipment and methods for casting
and counting votes; e) recruiting and training
election officials and poll
workers; f) improving the quantity and quality of available
polling places; and g) educating
voters about their rights and responsibilities.
For Americans, democracy is a precious birthright. But each
generation must nourish and improve the processes of
democracy for its successors. In the near-term, the
next three to five years for instance, we envision a
country where each state maintains accurate,
computerized lists of who can vote, networked with local administrators.
Using that system, qualified voters in our mobile
society would be able to vote throughout their state
without being turned away because of the vagaries of local
administration. Using the system we recommend here,
millions of military and other overseas voters would
find it easier to get and return their ballots. Election Day
would be held on a national holiday, freeing up more
people to serve as poll workers and making polling
places more accessible. Voting machines would meet a common
standard of excellent performance. Each state would
have its uniform, objective definitions of what
constitutes a vote. News organizations would exert necessary
restraint in predicting election outcomes. Every
jurisdiction and every official would obey the Voting
Rights Act and other statutes that secure the franchise and prohibit
discrimination. In all of this there would be a
delicate balance of shared responsibilities between
levels of government, and between officials and the voters they serve.
This report sets forth our recommendations for the
next, immediate steps on the road to attainment of
these goals.
MONTHS AFTER the Florida recount, an expert
consensus on how to fix the electoral system is gradually emerging. Last
week a commission headed by ex-presidents Carter and Ford presented a
blueprint for reform at a Rose Garden ceremony, and today a nonpartisan
group called the Constitution Project is releasing similar
recommendations. In Congress, however, consensus remains elusive. The
Senate is due to mark up a bill today that is unlikely to command enough
support to become law. If the debate hardens along party lines, the
hopes for practical reform may end up being stifled.
This week's reports differ on some points. One
recommends making elections a national holiday, while the authors of the
other one worry that people would enjoy a holiday so much that they
might neglect their civic duties. But the agreements between the two
reports are more striking. Both say that the federal government needs to
spend about $500 million a year to promote better voting machinery and
organization. Both agree that better registration lists are the best way
to avoid the Florida problem of voters who thought they had registered
being turned away from polling stations. Both agree that voters
whose names do not appear properly on lists should be
allowed to cast provisional ballots that would later be counted if their
right to vote is verified.
Moreover both agree that, if it is going to
work, reform must not be imposed by the federal government. At present,
elections are organized by state and local officials, and the system can
only be improved with their cooperation. Members of Congress, whose
reelection often depends on the support of activists back home, are not
about to vote for federal mandates that alienate local leaders. Both
commissions therefore propose that the federal government stop short of
ordering states to embrace reform, preferring that it offer money to
states in return for voluntary cooperation.
