Be Part of the Solution

Published: October 11, 2004  New York Times

 The 2000 mess in Florida was supposed to make the nation more dedicated to ensuring that elections are fair, but it appears to have had the opposite effect. The chances of having an election in which all qualified citizens can cast votes that are counted accurately seems more remote than ever. Local election officials have been choosing electronic voting machines of questionable reliability that do not produce a paper record. Secretaries of state have been rejecting valid voter registration forms on technicalities. And rather than trying to attract supporters to their own candidates, some political operatives are concentrating on disqualifying voters on the other side.

As bad as things have been so far, the most vulnerable time for a democracy is Election Day itself. Polling places can be closed or moved at the last minute, with little or no notice. Registered voters arrive at polling places where they have been voting for years, only to find that their names are not on the rolls. "Ballot integrity" teams show up in heavily minority precincts, trying to intimidate people into leaving without voting. Voting machines fail to start up properly or develop troubling glitches.

Ordinary Americans can, and should, become more involved in monitoring the election process. National and state political parties, and candidates at every level, have a long tradition of sending out volunteer poll watchers to observe the voting on Election Day. These partisan poll watchers can play an important role in keeping elections honest - though it is important that they be committed to helping all citizens to vote, and not interfere with those who appear most likely to support the opposition. If there is a party or a candidate you feel strongly about, see if the group will send you to observe the voting in a precinct where problems are anticipated.

This year, for the first time, there is also a nationwide nonpartisan election-monitoring program being run by a coalition of public interest groups, which include the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and People for the American Way Foundation. Election Protection (www .electionprotection2004.org) will be putting volunteers on the ground in states like Florida and Ohio to distribute voters' bills of rights and identify and report problems at the polls. These groups say that volunteers will be trained to provide immediate help to voters who have problems, and will also have access to roving teams of lawyers, who will be prepared to go to court if necessary. Volunteer lawyers are also being recruited to staff a toll-free nationwide hot line (866-OUR-VOTE), answering questions and fielding reports of trouble. There is a special program coordinating law-student volunteers, Impact2004 (www.impact2004.org), which is providing them with low-cost transportation to the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Verifiedvoting.org, a leading critic of electronic voting in its current form, has started up an election protection program called TechWatch (www .verifiedvoting.org/techwatch), which hopes to sign up thousands of volunteers, particularly computer scientists. TechWatch says its volunteers will observe the pre-election "logic and accuracy" done on the voting machines, watch actual voting on Election Day and then monitor the postelection vote counting. The goal is not only to identify electronic voting problems in this election, but to also start developing a database that can be used to evaluate and improve electronic voting in the future.

We hope these election protection programs will have the added benefit of helping to bring about more serious consequences for election officials who flout the law. There have been widespread reports from all parts of the country of officials doing everything from insisting on photo ID from voters when it is not required to installing uncertified software on electronic voting machines. If monitors witness these things firsthand, their reports could help remove irresponsible election officials from their jobs, or even have them criminally prosecuted.

In a well-run democracy, the government would be running elections of such unquestioned integrity there would be no need for volunteer projects like these. But the mechanics of American democracy are deeply flawed, and Congress, state governments and local elections officials have been unwilling to do what is necessary to fix them. If this election is going to be a fair and honest one, concerned citizens will have to do their part to ensure that every vote counts.