Congress to Revisit Election Reform

BY MILES BENSON   22 November 2004
c.2004 Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON Problems at the polls and allegations of other irregularities in the Nov. 2 election are gaining serious attention in the nation's capital.

The House Administration Committee, which produced the Help Americans Vote Act (HAVA) after the disputed 2000 result, will hold hearings in the new year on how well the $3.9 billion reforms worked. The panel will examine a wide range of new allegations about fraud and mismanagement, according to Chairman Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio, and John Larson, D-Conn., the ranking minority member.

In some cases, the purported abuses could have helped re-elect President George Bush. In others, they might have benefited his challenger, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Ney said the hearings, which will start early after Congress convenes in January, "will be extensive."

In addition, the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, which was established under HAVA, will meet Tuesday to review complaints of voting "`anomalies" and plan further action, said Kay Stimson, a commission spokesperson.

"We have no investigative or rule-making authority, but we are tracking the anomalies and we are tasked with updating voting equipment standards. We have asked the states to provide us with information on what happened," Stimson said.

Most state election officials have not yet certified their election results, and the Electoral College will not meet to cast the official ballots in the presidential election until Dec. 13.

"This was far from a perfect election," said Kay J. Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters, who has called for an investigation into continuing voter registration problems and the long lines and delays that confronted many voters, particularly in Ohio, the pivotal state in determining the outcome.

Welcoming the House hearings and the Election Assistance Commission plans for follow-up, Lloyd Leonard, the league's advocacy director, said, "These are good first steps. They will have a lot of work to do."

He continued, "The election was badly underfunded and understaffed. Something was wrong at the polling places. It is unconscionable to wait two hours to vote let alone six hours, which is what happened in some places in Ohio. They should determine if those lines were only in some areas but not others and where there was any partisan pattern of unequal treatment."

Maxwell said states and localities should also pursue their own examinations of Election Day problems.

One area of intense concern among reformers is citizens' inability to verify the way their votes are recorded at polling places where new electronic systems are in use.

"We think every voting machine, whether electronic, optical scan, punch cards or level machines, should be verifiable so the voter can check his or her vote before it is cast," Maxwell said.

All these issues, and more, will be considered by the House Administration Committee.

"Overall, I think HAVA worked," Ney said in an interview. "We have been getting calls about different states and we will have hearings and we will listen before we say we have to revise the law."

Larson, who called for new hearings even before the election, said he saw trouble coming in voter registration procedures, identification requirements and purging of voter rolls. He said election officials in Florida, Ohio and Nevada should be called to testify, as well as federal officials from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security the latter because terrorism-related security measures may have slowed the vote in some jurisdictions.

Larson said he was concerned about "overly restrictive technical rules that disproportionately impact minority voters."

Ney said his panel also will look at the issue of felons voting, at cases in Ohio where "the dead registered to vote," and at cases where people who were paid by the number of people they registered "just started writing down names."

"I think HAVA worked decently, but we have to get all the facts," Ney said.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who cosponsored HAVA, said "I strongly support a comprehensive review of the 2004 election to see how it improved our system and what aspects still need strengthening. If the law needs to be reviewed as a result of what is learned at the planned House Administration Committee hearings, I am hopeful that Congress will proceed in the same bipartisan manner in which we crafted HAVA."