Congress should leave elections to the states

Rebecca Vigil-Giron   San Francisco Chronicle

Monday, March 21, 2005
 
It has become quite fashionable to introduce federal legislation that changes the way we administer elections in this country. Members of this Congress have sponsored 10 election-reform bills since January. The problem with the new legislation, however, is that it has already been done.

After the disputed 2000 election, Congress passed a landmark election- reform law called the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was designed to improve election administration and modernize voting equipment. The law has already had a positive impact, even though it has not been fully funded and has been only partially implemented. According to a Cal Tech/MIT study released in February, the number of votes lost through administrative errors ped by 42 percent in 2004 compared to the 2000 election. HAVA is working because it is the result of a truly bipartisan, balanced compromise that respects states' inveterate rights to regulate elections.

To a striking degree, the legislation introduced in the 109th Congress would undercut states' rights and nationalize elections. It would require states to adhere to national standards for everything from poll workers to provisional ballots. In this case, uniformity does not equal the best possible election.

California is known for its pioneering spirit, and it is among the many states that have played a pioneering role in this country's governance. In fact, California has at times led the nation in election-administration practices. But for a state whose motto is Greek for "I've found it," there won't be another election-reform "Eureka" if Congress dictates uniform national-election procedures.

National criteria would require California and other very different states such as Pennsylvania or New York to hold identical elections. Nationalizing elections would destroy what former President Reagan heralded in his 1983 State of the Union address as the states' opportunity to serve as "dynamic laboratories of change."

California could be forced to sacrifice its innovative election practices: San Francisco might have to scrap its newly adopted Instant Run-Off Voting; Los Angeles County could be forced to abolish its new touch-screen early voting; and California may have to forgo its practice of counting provisional ballots if they are cast in the correct county but the incorrect precinct. Most states only count them if they are cast in the right precinct.

While not all of the states' experiments are deemed successful, they are certainly preferable to an unwieldy federal system that could become archaic overnight and be nearly impossible to change. And let's not forget that states enjoy a close connection to their residents that the federal government does not.

That connection allows state governments to best decide what works within their states. What works for San Francisco may not be right for Pine Bluff, Ark. HAVA maintains states' rights to make their own election-administration decisions. The states have embraced the law, and it should remain intact.

We have just held our first presidential election since the passage of HAVA. It goes without saying that the elections were not perfect nothing is. But they were much improved compared to 2000, and the states continue to take steps to make elections run more smoothly.

The House Administration Committee is tracking the progress states have made in implementing HAVA, and will hold the second in a series of hearings on the topic today. During the first hearing, Committee Chair Rep. Bob Ney, R- Ohio, concluded that "the 2004 election was a tremendous success, and there is growing evidence that this was due in large part to the bipartisan Help America Vote Act."

Congress should not start over with election reform. It should finish what it started with HAVA, fully fund the law and allow all of its mandates to come to fruition. Instead of asking for a legislative "do-over," Congress should stand by the law it passed in 2002 and uphold the states' rights to administer elections.

Rebecca Vigil-Giron is the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State and New Mexico secretary of state. The National Association of Secretaries of State is the nation's oldest nonpartisan association of elected officials.