|
Advocacy Blog
Thursday, January 03, 2008
New report examines elections in 5 Midwest states
A new report surveys the impact of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) on state and local election administration in five Midwestern states — Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio. From Registration to Recounts:
The Election Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States was written by Ohio State University Law election law scholars Edward Foley, Steven Huefner and Dan Tokaji. In addition to advocating specific policies for each of the five states, the authors make the following broader observations and recommendations:
- Statewide equality should generally trump local autonomy in order to ensure every citizen has the right to vote.
- A strong state elections authority is critical to ensure statewide consistency and support local election officials.
- States should work to improve both access and accuracy by relaxing barriers to registration and complying with existing federal laws governing registration. A particularly promising reform is Election Day Registration (EDR).
- States should provide clear guidance on provisional ballots
- States should consider in-person early voting instead of expanded absentee voting
to reduce fraud and error.
- Election integrity efforts should focus on "insider" fraud not institute barriers to voter participation in the name of preventing fraud.
- State and local officials must continue to enhance poll worker recruitment and training. Larger, economically depressed communities are more likely to lack a sufficient number of trained poll workers.
- States should reexamine their post-election procedures, to ensure the evenhanded and prompt resolution of disputes.
- Congress should revisit the statute governing presidential election disputes.
Posted by Katie Clabby
|