Activists Worry Election Reform May Wane

ROBERT TANNER

Associated Press    16 November 2004

Sure, there were hours-long lines, temperamental electronic machines and some old-fashioned misplaced ballots, but America's democracy worked well enough on Nov. 2 to elect a president.

Now, some voting activists worry that the pressure that fueled four years (and billions of dollars) of work to fix the election system is on the wane. Others say that skeptics should just admit it: While not perfect, the system is getting better.

"Overall, things went well," said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse on election reform. "Rather than being focused on how broken the system was, or how unsure we were about the winner ... (the nation took) a tremendous step forward from 2000."

That's not enough for some activists, who worry any momentum the reform movement had will now fade away.

"There is a risk that, because the election was not perceived as close as it once was, people say `Whew, we took care of that, election reform, that's over,'" said Elliot Mincberg, vice president at People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal group active on election, court and education issues.

His group and others are trying to keep the pressure on - pushing for a comprehensive review of the election.

And there is no shortage of glitches to review, among them:

_ An electronic voting machine in suburban Columbus, Ohio, gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a precinct where only 638 voters cast ballots. The error wasn't large enough to affect Bush's 136,000-vote victory in the swing state.

_ In North Carolina's Carteret County, some 4,500 early ballots were lost because of outdated software.

_ Some 33,000 ballots initially went uncounted in a county south of Utah's Salt Lake City, equal to roughly one in five voters. A programming glitch in the punch-card machines was blamed.

But in the end, some say those problems were relatively minor.

"Were (the elections) perfect? They never are. But overall, did the voters have a good experience with this? Absolutely," said Doug Lewis, who works with local and state election administrations at The Election Center, a Houston-based nonpartisan group.

He and others say credit is due to money from the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act that helped improve the system; local and state election officials who put new machines in place and made more comprehensive efforts to educate voters; and the public itself, as tens of millions of new voters turned out.

Advocates of electronic voting machines declared vindication, too. "The machines were reliable, they were accurate, and they did provide all of the benefits that people hoped they would," said Alfie Charles at Sequoia Voting Systems, one of the largest providers of voting equipment.

Broader theories about widespread election problems gained currency on anti-Bush Web sites and blogs, but most experts dismissed them.

One pointed to Florida counties that brought in more votes for Bush than registered Republican voters (many vote Democratic for local races, but Republican for president, experts countered). Another claimed that early exit polls showing a Kerry victory were more accurate than the actual vote counts.

A handful of Democratic members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate new technologies used in the election, citing the Florida results, long lines in Ohio and Florida, and other troubles.

Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist and one of the most prominent critics of electronic voting machines, said the complaints missed the point that he and others made about the inability of most electronic voting machines to verify the results.

"I am disturbed by all of the accusations of conspiracy theories. The people who are doing that are taking away all the credibility from those who are rational," Rubin said. "If there was a problem and the election was stolen, it was done very well. And that's the problem with this technology. ... Do I think the election was stolen? No. Do I think it could've been? Yes."

This year's glitches and the possibility of another 2000-like postelection muddle are reason enough to make sure that the efforts to improve voting systems don't flag, said DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission.

So far, the federal government has given states $2.4 billion of a promised $3.8 billion for election reform, with much of that to be spent in the next few years on improving statewide voter registration systems. Beyond that, officials aim to strengthen the system of poll workers, and to resolve the doubts about electronic machines and their ability to conduct credible recounts.

Working on specific problems will "be easier because we won't have this presidential race looming. It'll be easier because we won't have this contentious partisan climate," Soaries said. But making sure the election issue continues to get attention "will be harder, because people won't be watching."