voter ID

State Rep. Joe Dorman from Oklahoma was an ally in demanding there be a student ID prevision in the Voter ID bill that Oklahoma's Republican House passed a few weeks ago. He was elected in 2002 as a former young elected official and member of Gen X. His district borders Cameron and University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma. We are grateful to have his perspective here. --Sarah

A recent commercial I saw during the NCAA tournament stuck with me even longer than most of the exciting games I watched.  In this commercial, a group of cable executives are looking for a catchy slogan to help win over customers.  One of the people comes up with the slogan to "Youthenize" their viewership.  While this was meant to be play on words with "euthanize" or be a slam, I see where this slogan can easily be translated positively into politics.

For centuries, there has been a "Good Old Boy" system run the affairs of our states and the nation.  With recent changes to law in fifteen states, we have seen term limits implemented and drive out many of these long-term officials.  While this is an issue that can be argued good and bad, the end result has often given younger elected officials an opportunity to serve, therefore "youthenizing" the various public forums.

Unfortunately, the result has often not been consistent with voting for issues affecting the youth of our nation. Party politics too often has driven the focus on many votes.  We have seen many key issues driven by national interests to stipulate policies that frequently disenfranchise voters and various groups.  One area in particular is voter identification; it has been questioned as a system that will disenfranchise elderly and young voters alike.

In Oklahoma, we have been fortunate enough to have an author of this bill, Rep. Sue Tibbs of Tulsa, who has agreed that college identification should be considered valid.  This will take care of at least one aspect to allow voters from other states to legally cast a vote even if they do not have a local drivers license. Too often, students will register where they are enrolled in school, and the last thing we want is a poll workers turning them away should the student not have an in-state license.

While we have many younger elected officials who have had the opportunity to serve in Oklahoma, we have also seen a trend towards less accountability though their actions.  The ability to manipulate the message with their own agendas has been growing stronger.  Many younger politicians master the Internet to publicize forums, issue press releases and promote opportunities for voters to meet them (as I even do on Facebook and Twitter). Too often, the public buys into this message as factual and forgetting that these are generated by the politicians or paid staff assigned to make them look good.  Further, there is less accountability from the media, the "fourth branch of government" in these changing times and especially with the financially strapped situations their outlets have faced.

Fortunately, many advocates have stepped up to the plate. One such is Mr. Brown, a gentleman from Singapore, who has blogged about local and international politics and has gained worldwide appreciation for his efforts in accountability.  We have also seen individuals in Oklahoma spread awareness on issues such as autism coverage and seek out support through various outlets which has brought in a new audience who formerly paid little attention to politics.

Another example of issue awareness is the interview of CNBC's Jim Cramer (host of Mad Money) done by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show which I saw on a blog because I missed the original airing. This was a brilliant interview about our financial problems and should be seen by everyone. I'm glad I had a second chance due to a blog posting.

The best part of all this is that blogging has piqued the interest of a younger generation who formerly felt like they could make very little difference in the political system. It has brought them together on message boards, in chat rooms, and using social media to show them that they are not alone in this crazy, mixed-up world.

While "youthenize" might sound like something bad if you are listening to this instead of reading it, I hope you will believe me when I say that it is exactly what our current system of government needs. The next step is to move away from the keyboard, get active and maybe even run for office yourself. Even if you do not win, you are advocating the message which is important to you.

If we are to bring back a heart and a conscience to politics and empower a generation that is seeing opportunities unlike any other before, we have a lot of "youthenizing' to do to the system and to the "Good Old Boys" politicians.

Editor Note: You can add Joe on Facebook and Twitter

Cross-posted to Project Vote's blog Voting Matters.

By Nathan Henderson-James

Today Wired Magazine published an in-depth look at potential Election Day problems associated with voter registration data matching, list maintenance, provisional ballots, and shadowy interstate compacts through which member states cross-check their voter registration lists and purge supposedly duplicated voters. Titled "Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands", the piece, written by Kim Zetter, starts this way,

Electronic voting machines have been the focus of much controversy the last few years. But another election technology has received little scrutiny yet could create numerous problems and disenfranchise thousands of voters in November, election experts say.

This year marks the first time that new, statewide, centralized voter-registration databases will be used in a federal election in a number of states.

The article presents an in-depth discussion of the potential problems associated with the creation of the centralized databases and their potential to disenfranchise thousands of newly and currently registered voters in state after state.  

But election experts say the real concern is how states are conducting database matches of new voters under HAVA.

The law requires each voter to have a unique identifier. Since 2004, new registration applicants have had to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number to register (voters who don't have them are assigned a unique number by the state). States are required to try to authenticate the numbers with motor vehicle records and the Social Security Administration database.

But databases are prone to errors such as misspellings and transposed numbers, and applicants are prone to make mistakes or write illegibly on applications. The Social Security Administration has acknowledged that matches between its database and voter-registration records have yielded a 28.5 percent error rate.

Disturbingly, despite these kinds of error rates, several states have joined secretive interstate compacts that allow them to share their registration databases with each other and purge voters who supposedly show up on more than one list.

[Project Vote Executive Director Michael] Slater cites another troubling trend emerging with the implementation of statewide databases.

Several states have begun comparing databases for duplicate records of existing voters, then purging voters they believe have moved and registered in another state. The problem, Slater says, is the methods used can yield false positives, and officials are deleting voters without contacting them to verify that they've moved, or waiting for two federal election cycles to pass, which are requirements under the National Voter Rights Acts of 1993.

In 2006, Kentucky's attorney general successfully sued his state's board of elections after officials compared their list to ones from South Carolina and Tennessee and purged about 8,000 voters who appeared to have registered in those states at a later date than their registration in Kentucky and were presumed to have moved.

Project Vote is investigating Kansas, Louisiana and South Dakota for similar activity. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska have also been comparing lists.

"That is a trend that will accelerate, but there are inadequate safeguards, and I think it's very, very dangerous," Slater says.

For more information, Project Vote has created materials on database matching, maintaining voting rolls, provisional ballots, and voter ID requirements.

Bumped. -Craig

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog Voting Matters

By Nathan Henderson-James

Just yesterday we noted the right way to report on charges of voter fraud and the wrong way to go about it. We explained how the news media had been gamed by people with a partisan interest in the outcome of elections to gin up hysteria to engage in voter intimidation and voter disenfranchisement efforts.

Well, the partisans are back at it in Wisconsin, but this time the press is following the lead of Virginia journalists and scrutinizing the claims rather than simply reprinting the press release.

Here’s the backstory. The community organization ACORN has recently completed a voter registration drive in Milwaukee aimed at historically disenfranchised populations like low-income folks and African-Americans. The drive assisted voters complete some 35,000 cards. So far so good.

However, some of ACORN’s canvassers were caught forging cards in order to get paid for not doing the work. Under Wisconsin law all cards filled out, completely or incompletely, fraudulently or not, are required to be turned in. Out of the 35,000 cards, ACORN and Board of Elections officials estimate that about 1500-2000 of them had problems. The bulk of those were simple incompletes, but about 200 or so were clearly attempts by canvassers to defraud both ACORN and the state of Wisconsin by submitting false cards.

The traditional media has actually done a fairly good job reporting the story, going into great detail on how the cards were caught, the quality control procedures used by ACORN, and the context of the numbers involved versus the total number of cards submitted. This reportage has been ably supplemented by bloggers like Cory Liebmann at One Wisconsin Now and Capper at Cognitive Dissonance.

But, of course, this situation has served as an opportunity for conservative partisans to immediately pick up their calls for voter disenfranchisement policies such as voter ID. Such a policy would ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, actually push down the voter participation rates among those folks who most rely on voter registration drives to bring them into the civic participation process.

Here’s choice quote from Pete DiGaudio who writes as The Texas Hold ‘Em Blogger,

“Well, yes, I actually do support voter suppression. I am in favor of suppressing the vote of dead people, nonexistent people, convicted felons, illegal aliens, people voting more than once, et al. Every time one of these people votes, it cancels out my legitimate vote.

A simple thing like photo ID for voting would eliminate these fraudulent voters when they showed up at the polls.”

Project Vote’s report The Politics of Voter Fraud (PDF) has consistently pointed out that there simply isn’t widespread voter fraud in the United States and any fraudulent voting has never been tied to voter registration fraud, which is what has partisans so breathless and hyperbolic.

But the rush to point to a solution like voter ID seems not to be bothered by facts. Like the fact that the so-called fraud every partisan points to is always centered on voter registration cards. Well, voter ID isn’t going to stop canvassers from wanting to get paid for not doing the work and it isn’t going to stop states like Wisconsin from requiring that every card be turned in regardless of its accuracy, completeness, or legitimacy and it’s definitely not going to help elections officials catch bad cards.

The truth is that the laws as written and enforced catch such problems. The mere fact of this story in the media means the system in Milwaukee works the way it is supposed to, catching problem cards. Voter ID, on the other hand stops something called “voter impersonation”, which just doesn’t happen in the Untied States. Of the 24 convictions won by the US Department of Justice between 2002 and 2005 for voter fraud, most of them were for problems with submitting false or illegal absentee ballots. Voter ID laws do nothing to fix this problem. But what they are great at is stopping otherwise eligible voters from casting ballots.

And that’s how it works – raise loud cries of outrage over an illegal act that was caught using the safeguards that were put in place for just that situation, raise questions about the integrity of the entire elections system, and offer a solution that would not stop the identified problem and would, in fact, stop significant numbers of specific groups, generally groups who are already the most disenfranchised, from participating in elections.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

We spend a lot of time in these news updates showing how charges of voter fraud are used to discredit voter participation efforts and prime the pump for voter suppression efforts, such as the passage of voter ID bills, pushing for proof of citizenship, engaging in draconian voter purge efforts, and imposing sever restrictions on voter registration drives. We have also spent a lot of time carefully delineating the politics behind these efforts, starting with our March 2007 report The Politics Of Voter Fraud and continuing on in these diaries to name but two venues.

What is striking about how the process of disenfranchisement and voter suppression works is how much it relies upon the media to repeat and amplify the breathless and hyperbolic accusations of so-called voter fraud against voter registration drives. If journalists were to spend any time at all investigating the sensational claims - often made by people with a direct partisan interest in the outcome of an election - they would find that the accusations are mostly taken out of context, are limited to a few instances, and have never, ever, been proven to have resulted in any fraudulent vote being cast.

Sadly, the history of this issue shows that it has been bereft of this kind of basic journalism, even through the 2006 mid-term elections. This is important because haphazard reporting of partisan claims of voter fraud without checking the facts is how the media helps these voter suppression efforts. These stories not only deter potential voters from getting on the rolls, but, as noted above, inspire bad election reforms aimed at disenfranchising voters, particularly those that are currently underrepresented in the electorate.

A prime example of this kind of lazy journalism in recent weeks comes from Las Vegas where local reporters simply repeated accusations of fraud made by the Clark County clerk against ACORN without even bothering to contact ACORN to see how their drive was being managed.

The group's registration drive has reached one million voters nationwide [Full disclosure – it is run under a Joint Effort Agreement with Project Vote. –ed.] and, according to one article, election officials see “rampant fraud” in the 2,000 – 3,000 cards submitted by the group each week in Las Vegas. This week, the Associated Press reported that the state set up a “voter fraud task force” to look for “election irregularities and instances of questionable voter registration and intimidation,” directly citing issues with voter registration drives. Neither of these Nevada reports provided the facts of voter fraud, what it is and how it relates to the voter registration process. Most importantly, neither reports cite real examples of the intentional casting of an illegal ballot – the real definition of voter fraud – in the state.

However, it may be that the hard work Project Vote and others – including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, DEMOS, and the Advancement Project - have engaged in over the past few years debunking the voter fraud myth is beginning to change the way journalists approach these stories.

This week, several publications broke this trend by debunking recent Virginia GOP allegations of widespread voter fraud as a result of massive voter registration drives that primarily target youth, low income and minority communities – constituencies that have a long history of being underrepresented on the voting rolls and in the voting booth.

Since the beginning of the year, an unprecedented 147,000 people - “almost half under the age of 25” - registered to vote in Virginia, according to Monday's Washington Post lead editorial. Pointing to a recent incident where three members of the Community Voting Project were arrested for falsifying voter registration cards, Republican Party chairman, Del. Jeffrey Frederick of Prince William County claims widespread voter fraud is a hidden agenda in voter registration drives.

Remarkably, however, this time the press decided to investigate this inflammatory accusation. This charge is “utterly baseless” and is “unsupported by election officials, police or prosecutors,” the Post notes in the editorial. In fact, the Post described the accusation as an exercise in “fear mongering” by Frederick, amplified by his allegations that citizens who register with these drives are also vulnerable to identity theft, a claim that amounts to nothing more than “a classic attempt to suppress votes,” the Post editorialized.

Bob Bauer, at his Web site, www.MoreSoftMoneyHardLaw.com, takes the critique one step further, looking at both the accusations and the Post’s coverage. “And the Post omits mention of another feature of Fredericks' suppression gambit,” wrote the election law attorney. “He also called for an 'investigation,' well understanding that his words would creep into the press on his remarks and filter out into the electorate.”

In a prime example of the kind of journalism that should happen as a matter of course when these kinds of serious allegations are made, a Virginia reporter for the Danville Register & Bee reached out to local registrars to get a real idea of the voter registration process and how unlikely it is to lead to voter fraud.

“'It's not easy to falsely register somebody,' said Pittsylvania County Registrar Jenny Saunders, who explained that in addition to the registrar going over the application for obvious errors (like missed questions), there's a statewide database all applications are checked against.”

Partisans out for political gain perpetuate fear about the integrity of the election system, something that the media often picks up unfiltered. “In fact,” the Post wrote, “it is groundless accusations and cynical fear-mongering such as Mr. Frederick's that are injecting the real venom, and the true threat, into the elections.

Below are some important facts to consider when writing (or reading) reports on voter registration fraud:

Voter Registration Drives Rev up in Presidential Election Years

The fact that young people and minorities are expanding the voting rolls this year does not indicate that something is awry with voter registration drives. Indeed, most large-scale drives target those populations least represented in the electorate. Further, in high interest election years, especially presidential, more people are motivated to help register voters or get registered themselves. Stories about so-called voter fraud should be evaluated in terms of the number of cards thought to be fraudulent versus the total number of cards the registration drive is gathering. In Virginia, a handful of fake cards were found in a drive that could register more than 30,000 people.

Voter Registration Fraud Does Not Lead to Voter Fraud

“We have the checks and balances...to makes sure the wrong person doesn't get registered and the right person does,” said Va. election official, Saunders in the Register & Bee.

Further, professionally-run drives expect almost a third of all applications to be duplicates or incomplete, no matter how well-trained the canvasser or volunteers are. This does not mean they are all illegal. However, the registrar is required to ensure all applications contain accurate information “including whether the applicant is a citizen, their Social Security number, date of birth, full name, valid residence, whether they've been convicted of a felony, or whether they have been determined mentally incapable...If any of that is left off...the application is denied,” according to the Register & Bee. Note: Not all states require Social Security number information to be filled out on a voter registration card. For more information on your state's requirements on registering to vote, visit ProjectVote.org.

Allegations of Voter Fraud are Often Motivated By Partisan Gain

“If you're not winning at the ballot box, try your chances in the registrar's office, or in court,” the Virginia Pilot editorialized. “[That's] [h]ardly democratic.”

Following the success of voter registration drives that have increased registration among low income, minority and young people, almost all claims of rampant voter fraud have come from Republican leaders, despite lack of substantiation of a real problem. The most vicious and corrupt efforts made were part of what has become the US AttorneyGate scandal that subsequently exposed the widespread politicization of the Department of Justice and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. All of that unraveled because former US Attorney David Iglesias refused to make false accusations of voter fraud against ACORN’s 2004 voter registration drive in New Mexico.

The fact is between 2002 and 2005 – when the Department of Justice carried out the most intensive investigation of voter fraud in US history – only 24 people were convicted of illegal voting nationwide. However, partisans still made public allegations and the press, in many instances, ran these claims with out real evidence. Armed with these published anecdotes and buoyed by manufactured public outcry about the possibility of their votes being canceled out by illegal voters, legislators fought to pass laws that disenfranchise certain classes of voters. As a result, states like Indiana and Georgia have implemented some of the most draconian voter ID laws despite the lack of any evidence of actual voter fraud.

Reporters practicing ethical and rigorous journalism should recognize that merely using the “rhetorical hand grenade” of voter fraud - without an explanation of how voter registration and elections are administered or an investigation into the evidence of voter fraud - is the real threat to democracy.

Quick Links:

Minnite, Lorraine. “The Politics of Voter Fraud. ”Project Vote. March 2007.

Voter Registration Guides and Surveys [By State]. Project Vote

In Other News:

A voting penalty after the penalty – Birmingham Press-RegisterAnnette McWashington Pruitt watched her 18-year-old son graduate from high school this May. She proudly tells people that he is going into the Navy, following in the footsteps of his older brother (who is serving in Iraq) and his grandfather (who was in the Air Force).

Voting Rules Create Land of Disenchantment: Advocacy groups are battling New Mexico's strict voter registration laws as election looms – Miller-McCune
Jo Ann Gutierrez-Bejar remembers volunteering for the annual voter registration drive in Albuquerque, N.M. She remembers the camaraderie as the group of usually 30 to 40 volunteers headed out in the morning, clipboards in hand, to knock on doors and register new voters.

Denogean: 97-year-old voter can't prove she's a citizen: On deathbed, father told her to vote Democratic – The Tucson Press
Shirley Freeda Preiss of Surprise is one ticked-off little old lady. And who can blame her? The 97-year-old retired schoolteacher and onetime traveling showgirl has voted in every presidential election since 1932 when she cast a ballot for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But thanks to the state's voter identification requirements, it's looking unlikely that she'll be able to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Watch your (official) language - Stateline.org
Missouri, a key presidential swing state and home to one of the most hotly contested gubernatorial races, will test what some see as voters’ attitudes toward immigrants this November with a ballot measure to make English the only language of state government.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In 2000, Florida’s disastrous effort to purge former felons from voter rolls resulted in the disenfranchisement of hundreds if not thousands of legitimate voters and clearly influenced the outcome of the presidential contest in that state. History may repeat itself this November with states taking potentially reckless and unlawful measures to clean voter rolls before Election Day.

Voter purges are one of several problems in the administration of elections that could not only bar legal voters from the polls, but could potentially influence the outcome of close races. Project Vote is monitoring this practice across the United States and sees what could be an alarming trend of illegal purging emerging. The New York Times and Mississippi's Clarion Ledger both reported on voter purging problems in the South this week.

Keeping accurate and current voter rolls is an important legal mandate for election officials. Under the National Voter Registration Act, states are required to contact voters directly through forwardable mail. If the voter does not respond, the state must wait two federal elections before removing the voter from the rolls. However, many states have begun to compare their voter rolls with those of neighboring states and pro-actively canceling a voter's registration based on a positive “match” rather than following the list maintenance procedures of NVRA.

Project Vote has recently expressed concern to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne over the state's method of removing voters from rolls, as reported in the Times on Tuesday. Project Vote has learned that Louisiana compares voter lists with other jurisdictions, purging voters solely upon apparent database matches of first name, last name and birth date. With millions of people living in a multi-state region, it is not uncommon to find more than one John Smith born on the same day. Additionally, the possibility of human and typographical error that occur in all large databases creates a greater risk of unjustified disenfranchisement.

“A spokesman for Louisiana's secretary of state said that all voters found to have duplicate registrations were sent at least one warning letter and sometimes two, but that the last such actions were done some 13 months ago,” the Times reported.

“'We're specifically not doing it right in front of an election,'” said Dardenne's spokesman.
Election officials in Madison County, Miss. have recently decided to forgo a potentially illegal mass mailing process as part of their effort to purge the county’s voter rolls after the U.S. Justice Department and others warned against it, according the Clarion Ledger Tuesday. Last week, Project Vote sent a letter to the elections commission out of concern that their mass mailing plan violated the Voting Rights Act.

“They are doing something that is understandable when you have a voter roll that appears to be out of proportion,” said voting rights lawyers who works with Project Vote, Estelle Rogers. “But there are a lot of Ps and Qs that must be followed.”

County supervisor Karl Banks repeatedly voted against the mass mailing, saying that “his understanding of the law was that commissioners needed a reason to believe that a voter's information may not be accurate.” He argued that in this presidential election year, the commission should focus on making sure elections run smoothly, such as informing people of their correct precinct.

“The mildest things confuse people and can ultimately disenfranchise people during elections...Here we are wanting to disenfranchise people because they don't send a card back?”

The emerging trend of state compacts to compare voter databases and engage in aggressive efforts to purge their voter rolls is troubling for both its opacity – the public is not informed of the criteria for being purged nor are purged voters offered the chance to remedy the situation – and its reliance on strict matching criteria. Large databases are riddled with errors, therefore the sole reliance on exact matches virtually guarantees that legal voters will be knocked off the rolls and denied the right to vote.
The Florida example from 2000 should be instructive on on how these practices could affect the outcome of closely contested races on Election Day.

Quick Links:

Contact:

Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne

Madison County (Miss.) Board of Supervisors

Reports:

“Maintaining Current and Accurate Voters Lists.” Project Vote. Dec. 22, 2006.

“A Summary of the National Voter Registration Act.” Project Vote.

“A Summary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Project Vote.

In Other News:

Federal judge weighs challenge to AZ voter id law - Tucson Citizen [Ariz.]
PHOENIX (AP) -- A federal judge is weighing a challenge to Arizona requirements for voter identification and proof of citizenship for registering to vote.

County voter drive blocked: Fewer New Citizens Registered After US Agency Changes Rule - Mercury News [Ca.]
It was a procedure that produced a bumper crop of new voters: Just before Santa Clara County immigrants were sworn in as U.S. citizens, they got voter-registration cards and were shown how to fill them out. At the conclusion of the naturalization ceremony, most new citizens had signed the cards and handed them in to become registered voters.

State Says It May Sue VA - Associated Press
Connecticut officials say the state might sue the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs if it continues to block efforts to educate and register voters in federal veterans' facilities.

Voter-sign-up drive targets 16-year olds - Miami Herald
Voter registration for next month's primary election will end Monday, and the push now is aimed at teens who are too young to cast a ballot

Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).