By Kyle LaFleur— Talk Radio News Service
With November’s Midterm Elections looming less then three weeks away, the Brennan Center For Justice along with the NAACP and the National Association of Latino Elected Officials discussed what they believed to be the major threats to a fair voting environment Wednesday.
Voter registration problems are projected to be the biggest threat followed by trouble with voting machines and ballot security operations run by private political operatives.
“Voting matters, it is a fundamental right,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the Brennan Center, “It also matters because it can affect election outcomes. In 2008 many races were decided by a tiny margin, a tiny number of votes, far fewer votes then those potentially lost. This year many races are pulling within one percent.”
Voter registration tops the list of fears because it still relies on paper, fewer registration events are planned in this election then past ones and some voters are reportedly wrongly denied access to the list.
“In 2008, about 3 million people tried to vote but could not because of registration problems and millions more did not try because of registration deadlines and other residency requirements,”said Weiser.
Privately run efforts to investigate voter fraud has also been seen as a threat to the activists. The Brennan Center cited individuals standing at a polling place formally targeting potential voters and causing the poll workers to have to intervene. This would create long lines and result in lost votes, thus suppressing legitimate votes.
“We are worried this year that we could see large scale efforts to challenge voters at the polls or engage in other tactics supposedly designed to root out voter fraud. This is not something that we have seen for years and it raises significant risk for voters,”said Weiser.
Troubles with voting machines were the final challenge the groups found with creating a fair voting field. Usablility issues, the machines adding or dropping votes and miscounting by tally servers have been flagged as major problems.
“We have made significant progress in voting machine technology over the past decade but problems persist generating headlines each election and New York’s recent primary election fiasco is the most recent example,” said Weiser.