Politics

A Call For Election Reform

February 2, 2001 / 4:54 PM EST / AP

Spurred by the memory of dangling chads, 37 of the nation's secretaries of state, but not Katherine Harris of Florida, are ready to recommend changes in the ways Americans cast their votes.

Keeping the prolonged 2000 presidential election in mind, the National Association of Secretaries of State will release a report on election standards Monday at its winter conference, hoping to avoid uncertain election results like those recently seen in Florida.

The report, read in its draft form to The Associated Press over the phone Friday by one of its authors, makes 11 far-reaching recommendations and asks that the federal government provide the money to implement them. The resolution, which will be sent to Congress, recommends that states:

Conduct aggressive voter-education programs.
Expand poll worker recruitment and training.
Adopt and enforce Election Day rules and procedures to ensure equal treatment of voters.
Upgrade voting machines, equipment and systems as necessary.
Ensure equal and nondiscriminatory access to the elections system for the elderly, disabled and minorities.
Maintain accurate voter registration rolls and promote cooperation and communication among state governments as well as between the states and the federal government.
Ensure the integrity of the absentee ballot procedure.
Adopt and adhere to voluntary federal voting system standards.
Provide for continuous training and certification for elections officials.
Collect data and election information regularly.
Provide local election officials with increased allocations to implement the recommendations.

Nowhere in the report are there discussions of national uniformity in regard to voting standards, what constitutes a vote or endorsement for a particular voting machine or technology.

"That would be a veritable impossibility because of the millions and millions and millions of dollars (required). And then, of course, for us to pick one machine, one standard machine, it just doesn't make any sense," said New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, a member of the task force that wrote the report.

She noted that the U.S. elections system comprises 200,000 polling places, 7,000 jurisdictions, 1.4 million poll workers and 700,000 voting machines.

Secretary of State Jim Bennett of Alabama, also a task force member, agreed that while uniformity is necessary within states, it is not vital across the country. "I don't necessarily think any one voting machine and any one ballot might be appropriate for the entire nation. But certainly within states, uniformity ought to be encouraged," he said.

The task force, which has four Democrats and three Republicans, includes secretaries of state from Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well as the head of the Houston-based Election Center and the National Association of State Election Directrs. That group also was meeting in Washington this weekend.

Absent from the conference was Harris, the Republican political ally of George W. Bush whose election decisions benefited him during Florida's five-week vote-recount saga. Her chief of staff said she had a scheduling conflict.

During the four-day conference, some secretaries of state also plan to meet with congressional leaders and review various proposals for election reform being offered on Capitol Hill.

The presidential nominee of the Green Party, Ralph Nader, considered by some Al Gore supporters as the election's spoiler, will address the conference Saturday, as will a representative of John McCain, who challenged eventual victor Bush during the Republican primary and made campaign finance reform a cornerstone of his candidacy.

During the same session, NAACP representative John Johnson will discuss issues facing black voters, many of whom felt disenfranchised in the election.

The secretaries of state conference, which is in Washington, includes an exhibit of electoral equipment in which several companies hope to sell new technologies to the state elections officials. Among those businesses is Web Tools International of Newport Beach, Calif., and Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb., both of which are showing systems that would allow voters to cast ballots by touching their selection on a computer screen.

Separately, the Federal Election Commission this week requested $3 million from President Bush and Congress to seed operations at the FEC's Office of Election Administration, which is in charge of helping state and local election officials develop standards.