Cleaning Up the Election Process

With Norm Coleman and Al Franken locked in litigation over an election court decision to review another 400 ballots, and now the New York Congressional seat abandoned by Kirsten Gillibrand in contestation a day after the polls closed, the Dem is ahead by 65 votes, the seriousness of the state of America's election crisis should be front and center.

Although the myth of the Bush experiment in spreading democracy was that elections were all one needed to claim a victory for "our side," except if Hamas wins the popular vote, elections are not the key to democracy. They are only an act that if uncorrupted can help develop civic engagement and self rule. As we are seeing in Burma/Myamar, the 2010 elections that the military is now tauting will not permit women to run for high government office. What a democracy!

What I saw at the polls in November 2008 frightened me. The poll lists were not up to date and there were no computers at the polling station to secure access to the latest, most complete lists. Instead, because I had a cell phone and the telephone number to the Commissioner of Elections, I was able to have County workers check the state computer. Many of the people who weren't on the poll lists were indeed registered and entitled to vote. Thankfully I was trusted by the poll workers who allowed folks to vote on the machines and not merely on provisional ballots, but what would have happened if there hadn't been that personal relationship? And what about those touch screen voting machines, and the hanging chads that led to Bush v. Gore and eight years of the "war on terror."

Let the competition of the marketplace produce machines that are reliable, and then let an uncorrupted decision making process choose the best and least finicky. But cleaning up the election process is more than just the machines, it's also getting registration processes working properly. One county administrator admitted to me privately that registration forms that come over from Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Social Services often don't get included into the rolls. When political parties rely on volunteers to collect signatures on the street, they need to be better trained and screened for alterior motives.

There are very real reasons why Coleman isn't giving up, the Democrats will have a very large and effective majority in the Senate if Franken is seated (and we might have some more humor in the legislative process). But this fight over some 1000 votes exposes the real vulnerability of our election system. And we can't believe that the financing of American elections is uncorrupting. Money and elections shouldn't be connected.