electionline Weekly

In Focus This Week

Louisianans head to polls for first major statewide election since Katrina
Election preparation is business-as-usual, although thousands vote early and absentee

By M. Mindy Moretti
electionline.org

For the first time since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in late 2005, residents of Louisiana will head to the polls on October 20 for a statewide election to cast their ballot for positions including governor, members of the state legislature and local elections.

In 2005, the Secretary of State’s office undertook a massive voter outreach program to ensure that every displaced voter had an opportunity to cast a ballot in the Orleans Parish elections nine months after the hurricanes. Although the office continues to update its Web site, advertise election dates and provide toll free voter assistance there was not an all-over mobilization effort for this election.

According to Elections Commissioner Angie LaPlace, the state did continue to help Orleans Parish and others work to train and retain election commissioners from outside the area and the Secretary of State secured pay raises for commissioners as an incentive to return for future elections.

The 2005 election in Orleans Parish saw a necessary launch of vote centers; however, for this election the parish has returned to largely neighborhood polling places. Some polling places still combine as many as 15 precincts, but nothing like the 50 or so that were combined in 2005. In St. Bernard Parish all precincts have been combined into five locations.

Although the logistics of conducting the 2007 race have been smooth and fairly predictable, voter turnout particularly in places like Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes is decidedly unpredictable.

As of the beginning of October, nearly 3 million people were registered to vote in Louisiana which is actually an increase of about 2 percent from the last gubernatorial election in 2003. However, Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters Sandra Wilson told the Times-Picayune that she thinks more than 100,000 of the city’s voters have left and will ultimately be removed from the voting rolls.

While registered voter numbers may be up overall throughout Louisiana, the face of Bayou voters has shifted since the storms. Republican registrations are on the rise and Democratic registrations are decreasing.

So, while predicting voter turnout is a bit like predicting the weather, if newly introduced early voting is any indication, voter turnout for Saturday’s election could be high.

Early voting ended on Saturday, Oct. 13 and although votes are still being counted, at noon on Oct. 17, 137,610 registered voters had voted either early or absentee.

This year marks the first time that voters in Louisiana have been able to vote early without signing an affidavit saying they will be out of town on election day. The early voting period lasted for seven days and by all accounts was a rousing success.

“Early voting was very successful,” said LaPlace. “We also had a pilot program where we offered early voting in two parishes outside of the registrar’s office, in other public buildings, which were also very successful.”

Although some tried to point the finger for high turnout to voters wanting to avoid interfering with college football games and tailgating or the start of deer season in parts of the state, LaPlace said that state went to great lengths to advertise the option of early voting

“I believe the general population is starting to learn how easy and convenient it is and take advantage of the opportunity to vote without an excuse,” LaPlace said.

Voter turnout for the last gubernatorial election in 2003 was a little more than 50 percent.

In Focus This Week Pt. 2

House subcommittee debates expanded absentee vote
Partisan divide over access, security remains strong

By Evan Smith
electionline.org

On October 16, the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections held a hearing on “Expanding and Improving Opportunities to Vote by Mail or Absentee.” The focus of the hearing was H.R. 281, “The Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act of 2007,” introduced by Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), which would require all states provide no-excuse absentee voting in federal elections beginning in 2008.

In testimony before the subcommittee, Davis stressed that universal access to absentee voting would increase voter turnout, empower individual voters by allowing them to vote on their own terms, and provide a secure and convenient method of voting for the many Americans who are unable to make it to the polls on election day. “Do Americans that cannot make it to the polls have less of a right to vote than others?” Davis asked the subcommittee members.

The lone Republican at the hearing, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), took issue with Davis’ characterization of the many benefits of absentee voting, focusing instead on what he saw as increased opportunities for fraud.

McCarthy pointed out that despite the best intentions of election and postal officials, absentee voters do not have the many protections from intimidation and vote-buying available to voters at the polling place.

Ruth Y. Goldway, postal regulatory commissioner, testified that an ‘intelligent bar-code’ system currently being developed for bulk mailers could easily be modified for use with absentee ballots. All it would take, she said, was for local officials and the postal service to “work together” to get it done.

Using statistical information from his experiences, Santa Barbara County Clerk Joe Holland testified that the more absentee voters a county has, the higher the overall voter participation is. In Santa Barbara County for instance, absentee voting return rates are 70 percent, while voter turnout at polls on election day averages 52 percent.

Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz (D), a major proponent of the benefits of no-excuse absentee voting to Vermonters, highlighted the esteem in which both voters and election officials hold their system due to its convenience and ease of administration.

In both her written and oral testimony, Markowitz noted the exceptionalism of Vermont, being a “small and rural state with fewer than 450,000 registered voters,” where the majority of ballots are counted by hand and where personal relationships are relied upon as a means of securing the vote.

The only voice of dissent from witnesses came from Jonathan Bechtle, director of the Citizen and Governance Center at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

“Every flaw in the voter registration rolls becomes a potential illegal vote under a no-excuse absentee or vote-by-mail system,” Bechtle said in his oral testimony.

Although a date has not yet been set for when the subcommittee may send the legislation to the full committee for review, Chairman Robert Brady has already voiced his support of the legislation.

“I support the Subcommittee’s exploration of no-excuse absentee voting, early voting programs and vote-by-mail systems. These initiatives have been shown to increase voter turnout and participation, specifically in voter demographics that have been previously under-represented, such as women, the elderly and voters in rural areas,” Brady said in a statement. “While these solutions are not without ‘downsides’, they are representative of an important movement towards more response, user-friendly voting systems.”

Election Reform News This Week

The Miami-Dade County Board of Elections was forced to recall more than 3,000 absentee ballots after they listed the wrong candidates. According to the Miami Herald, the faulty ballots, sent to voters Oct. 12, affected the Nov. 6 Miami City Commission races where the candidates’ names were transposed from one district to the other. Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Lester Sola alerted the media on a Sunday to the error by his department — and publicizing the quick fix under way. ”I am confident no one will vote for a candidate they weren’t supposed to,” Sola told the paper. The department mailed out the new, corrected absentee ballots at 6 a.m. Monday with a letter explaining what happened. The mishap will cost the county about $1200. Sola blamed human error on the part of one elections employee who entered the wrong ballot information into department computers. Two other employees double-checked the ballots but didn’t notice the names were wrong.

A typographical error in a prominent newspaper sent South Carolina elections officials scrambling this week. In an article in the Oct. 13 issue of The State, the paper reported that the South Carolina Democratic party was considering moving their primary to January 22, just three days after the January 19 Republican primary. “Counties can’t do that,” Mike Young, Florence County director of voter registration and elections told a local television station. “We’re setting ourselves up to be the laughingstock” of this election. Fortunately for Young and his counterparts, the government editor at The State says it was merely a typographical error in Sunday’s newspaper. Currently the party is looking at either keeping its primary on the 29th, or moving it to the same day as the Republican primary on the 19th, which could save taxpayers about $800,000.

With the election season upon us, some elected officials are taking their oath to serve the public to new heights. In Butler County, Ohio, State Senator Gary Cates has signed up to be a poll worker for the upcoming November 6 election. Cates told the Journal News that he signed up to help raise awareness of the need for poll workers for the upcoming election. “There’s been an acute shortage here in Butler County as well as other counties,” he said. “Hopefully some other people will be like-minded and work the polls.” And like all poll workers, the legislator will make $116 for working a very long day at a local polling location. But he’ll donate the money to a local charity, he said. Cates said he learned a new respect for the job and the lengths poll workers go to make sure every vote is cast correctly. “The main reason our elections run as smoothly as we do is poll workers,” he told the paper.

Disgruntled voters in Argentina are offering their votes up for sale on several Internet auction sites. According to the BBC, voters who are unhappy with the choices for the upcoming presidential election are auctioning their votes off with opening prices that range from $.30 to $95. Argentina’s current first lady is the leading candidate for president in the October 28 election.