For the fourth straightnational election cycle ? counting the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 and the congressional elections of 2002 and now 2006 ? the specter of a fiasco at the polls looms over Nov. 7.
Congress in 2002 enacted the Help America Vote Act, designed to modernize the mechanics of voting throughout the 50 states to avoid some of the problems spotlighted in the contested Bush-Gore election of 2000. But the follow-through over the last six years has been erratic at best.
Some of the same disputes that arose in Florida in 2000, involving voter qualifications and certification, ballot counting and malfunctioning voting machines, cropped up again in 2002 and 2004. In the Bush-Kerry race of two years ago, Ohio replaced Florida as the target of allegations of malpractice, and as the decisive state in another narrow election.
The widespread introduction of mechanical advances, such as use of touch-screen devices to replace paper ballots, some with the dreaded chads ? dimpled, hanging or other variety, was supposed to avoid the post-election chaos of those earlier elections.
But the failure in many states to use a reliable backup system, such as paper ballots counted by hand, worries reformers of both major parties. Democrats particularly continue to argue they were shafted by Republican chicanery in 2000 and 2004.
A survey of state voting processes last month by Salon, the generally liberal online publication, produced a list of six states ? Florida and Ohio again, plus Arizona, California, Indiana and Missouri ? where, Salon said, “voter suppression could cost voters their voice ? and Democrats the election ? in 2006.”
Two notable Republican targets of the criticism on past voter practices are themselves running for office on Nov. 7 ? Rep. Katherine Harris of Florida, seeking a U.S. Senate seat, and Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, running for governor. Both are considered underdogs,with Harris thrown to the dogs by party leaders after a vain search for another candidate.
In a rare example of bipartisanship, two former governors, Republican Richard Thornburgh of Pennsylvania, an attorney general in the Reagan administration, and Democrat Richard Celeste of Ohio, jointly wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post recently, warning of the next potential election fiasco. They co-chaired a study on electronic voting by the National Academies? National Research Council.
Noting that “for many jurisdictions, the 2006 elections will see the first large-scale use of electronic voting systems,” Thornburgh and Celeste said experience says their use will “virtually guarantee big surprises and unintended consequences: sudden system crashes, corrupted data or painfully slow systems.”
Deadlines set by the federal act for deployment have made it impossible, they wrote, for many states to conduct adequate tests of their new equipment. That?s why, they said, it is “essential this year that jurisdictions have backup and contingency plans that will anticipate a wide range of possible failures.” Among the problems they cited were various software and hardware malfunctions. Thornburgh and Celeste suggested that states “make preparations to fall back to paper ballots if necessary” or at least “paper trails” that record votes as cast. “But paper trails themselves have potential problems, such as jammed printers,” they wrote, “and voters might be confused by the introduction of an unfamiliar element into the election ?”
What their observations don?t address, however, is the fact that the federal act did not impose any standard on all the states to use the same method and machinery for voting ? a practical notion resisted by many of the states. So despite their bipartisan warning, the prospect remains that after all the disputes and disappointments generated by the most basic exercise of citizenship in this land since 2000, voters will have to settle for an inadequate system once more in another critical election.
With control of Congress at stake and consequently the likely direction of the nation?s politics in the last two years of the George W. Bush presidency, it?s folly that such an outcome must still be tolerated ? along with the outcry that surely will follow if the results are as close as they were in 2000 and 2004.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He has covered national affairs from Washington for more than 50 years and is the author of 11 books, and co-author of five others, on American politics and history.
