Coalition Warns: Don't Give Away the 2004 Election!
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 10/13/2004
With the 2004 election less than a month away -- and warnings of problems at polling stations continuing to surface -- a coalition of civil rights and progressive organizations is urging voters not to be deterred from casting their votes on Election Day.The coalition, which includes the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the Center for American Progress, the Verified Voting Foundation, and MoveOn.org, among others, issued a joint statement that makes several recommendations for minimizing problems on Election Day and for boosting voter confidence. The recommendations target voters as well as election officials.
Much of the statement focuses on concerns that have been raised with the use of direct recording electronic (DRE) or "touch screen" voting machines. DRE systems, which will be used by approximately 30 percent of all voters this November, have been criticized by many computer experts as potentially insecure.
The issue has garnered widespread media attention in the past year, leading many voters to believe that their votes could be lost or even stolen through the use of such equipment.
The question of how to make DRE systems more secure has been a difficult issue for the civil rights community. Some groups have called for DREs to be equipped to provide paper records of ballots, but other organizations believe that such a step would make machines less accessible and cause administrative problems.
In late June, the Brennan Center for Justice and LCCR, in an effort to foster consensus, issued a report containing a number of recommendations that could realistically be adopted before the 2004 election. While critics and supporters of DRE systems alike strongly praised the recommendations, few states have implemented them.
As a result, many organizations are concerned that voters, having been exposed to numerous stories about possible vulnerabilities in DRE systems, will be dissuaded from voting out of fear that their votes will not be properly counted.
"The debate over electronic voting machine security has been a valuable one, because it is going to lead to better systems in the long run," said LCCR Executive Director Wade Henderson. "In the short run, however, there is a real danger that it will have a 'self-suppressing' effect on voter turnout. If voters are too worried that their votes will be stolen, they will be less likely to take the time to show up on Election Day. We can't afford for voters to get the wrong message from this debate."
In recent weeks, voters have also been exposed to an increasing number of stories about other possible problems on Election Day. For instance, many news articles now refer to provisional ballots, a key reform adopted by states under the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, as the "hanging chads" of the 2004 election - a reference to the punch-card ballots that marred the 2000 election with controversy.
In a last-minute effort to build up voter confidence, LCCR and the other organizations that issued the joint statement made several key recommendations to voters and election officials:
- Get Out and Vote, Vote Early ... and Don't Forget Your ID. Whatever type of voting machines are being used, there's no excuse for not getting out and casting your ballot. If your state allows early voting, take advantage of it.
- If you have any problems at the polling place, you should call the Election Protection hotline at (866) OUR-VOTE. Election Protection is a nationwide program run by civil rights and voting rights groups to safeguard your right to cast a ballot on Election Day.
- Election officials need to keep testing electronic voting machines from now until Election Day, especially in counties where the election will be close. Election officials should also make all decisions involving voting machines open to the public.
"In the next few weeks before the election, civil rights groups will be doing everything they can to keep this election from being stolen," said Rob Randhava, LCCR policy analyst. "But at the same time, voters shouldn't give it away, either."
