Clean and Fair Elections

When the U.S. Senate killed the auto industry rescue bill last week, some conservative commentators saw it as payback for Michigan voting the wrong way in the November election.  William D. Zeranski at the popular rightwing American Thinker site argued, "We know which way those 17 Electoral College votes will go.  So, how does helping bailout the Big Three help the GOP?" 

Local Michigan Republican leaders themselves began worrying that national party leaders would begin ignoring state concerns after McCain lost the Great Lakes states.   As Republican pollster Steve Lombardo said after the election, "It's a matter of worry...It may be that Republicans begin to write off Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota."  Of course, the writing off of all Michigan voters only makes sense politically because of the Electoral College.

The elections of 2008 served as a critical test of the nation's election systems.  With changes in voting machines and procedures, coupled with expectations of record voter turnout, election administrators held their breath and hoped their system wouldn't fail. 

While the system didn't fail, voters faced serious obstacles in exercising their right to vote.  Voter registration ended up being the problem that affected the largest number of voters.  Even before the first votes were cast, it was apparent that our voter registration systems were woefully inadequate.  While in other nations 90% or more of the eligible voter population is registered to vote, in the United States less than 75% of eligible voters are registered.

We can do better.

In last Tuesday's election, there was a dramatic demographic and geographic shift in who supported progressives all the way down the ballot.  These changes could lead to long-term electoral support for progressives if they deliver on the promises they made to voters.

This year election administrators, many of whom were fielding new voting equipment for the first time, faced record turnout.  After the pervasive problems with the previous two presidential elections and the fears of more election problems, both real and imagined, voters across the political spectrum faced the election with deep skepticism about its fairness and integrity.  Today we give a brief overview of whether the expectations for the election were born out, and what election day tells us about where to focus reforms.

Once the sleepy backwater of electoral politics, judicial elections have recently become a battleground where right wing and corporate groups spend large sums to fill the courts with jurists who will support their interests.  This is perhaps the most troubling example of money corrupting our politics, because instead of pay-to-play politics it gives us pay-to-win justice.  The independence of the judiciary simply cannot be maintained in an environment where jurists are competing for votes in high-priced, bare-knuckle political brawls. 

Direct democracy through popular intiatives and referenda began a century ago as a grassroots, progressive reform aimed at circumventing corrupt legislatures and increasing civic involvement.  The long history of this reform indicates that in the whole this experiment in direct popular participation in the legislative process has been successful as an avenue for passing populist policies that maintains the favor of the public over time.  However, throughout this history there have also been attempts, sometimes successful, to manipulate the process and the electorate into passing legislation that would not garner majority support had voters possessed an accurate conception of its content and effect. 

Fallout from Montana Voter Challenge Plan Continues:  Last week we highlighted the tremendous job that Forward Montana and other local advocates did in bringing a massive attempt to challenge voters in Montana to a stop.  In just a few days the plan was abandoned amid serious public backlash.  This week there has been additional fallout as the executive director of the state GOP has stepped down.  Clearly trying to keep people like deployed soldiers from voting wasn't a popular activity in the big sky state.

A couple of weeks ago, we outlined the rash of voter suppression activities cropping up, like clockwork, around the nation. This week we cover the new suppression efforts that have come to light since.

Voter purges, which became infamous in Florida in the 2000 election, seem to have become a consistent problem since then based on anecdotal evidence.  But few have looked across states to see how routine purges to “clean” the voter rolls of ineligible voters are actually carried out when they don’t make headlines.  The Brennan Center for Justice has investigated and what they report is troubling.  Their findings point to the critical need for vastly greater oversight, accountability and consistence in e

The biggest electoral dust-up this summer in Ohio has been the attempt to overturn Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s decision to allow voters to register and vote on the same day during a one week period from September 30th to October 6th.  This resulted from an overlap between the beginning of early voting and the end of voter registration, 30 days before the election.  The Ohio Republican Party, nervous that progressive groups planned to target get out the vote efforts during same day voting, sued in state court.  Their claim was that the practice would violate the state requirement that a person be registered 30 days before an election in order to vote.  The ACLU, in concert with a number of voting rights advocates, filed a counter-suit to enforce the Secretary of State’s decision in federal court.