Activists Worried About Major Threats To Fair Voting Environment

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. 

Hoyer Blasts Early Adjourning Rumors

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer knocked down floating rumors that suggested members of Congress may be leaving Capitol Hill as early as Friday to hit the campaign trail. 

“I don’t know where that report came from and the answer is no,” Hoyer said. “We’re going to be in next week. I don’t want to speculate on dates other than we’re going to be in next week. We want to try to get our work done.”

Hoyer asserted that there are a few things left on Congress’ table that need to be resolved before leaving to their respective states. He reassured reporters that the House will indeed be in session next week and will be focusing on key legislation to incentivize small business hiring and to ensure that Continuing Resolution, a resolution that keeps the government funded beyond the fiscal year, is passed.

The Leader did defend, however, the necessity for members of Congress to return to their home states as elections draw nearer.

“There’s nobody here that doubts that our members, Republicans and Democrats, would like to be in their districts talking to their constituents,” he said. “After all, they have to ask them to be rehired.”

GOP Plans To Unveil New "Contract With America"

The Hill is reporting that the GOP, with prospects of regaining the majority in the House, is pulling a compilation of items from its “America Speaking Out” program to create an agenda before November’s elections.

Republicans plan to unveil a “Contract  with America” in Virginia Thursday as a response to Democratic criticism that the party is lacking an agenda.  

The new “contract” is said to include a two-year tax freeze and a reduction in spending to 2008 levels as hinted by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Lawmakers on the right have also pushed for the repealing of healthcare reform, replacing it with a few reforms of their own and other GOP figures have also showed signs of repealing Wall Street reform as well. 

The GOP’s new “Contract with America” is said to be an attempt at reestablishing a 1994 “contract” that helped Republicans win the House and provided them with a base to hold the House majority until 2006. 

The unveiling of the new GOP agenda comes at crucial time and has led some Democrats to question why it took so long and argue that the timing is all too convenient.

A spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told The Hill that the GOP’s new agenda mirrors that which “caused the Great Bush Recession.”

“Washington Republicans are finally getting around to releasing an agenda for this Congress. What’s shocking is that it took them more than 20 months to repackage  a plan that is no different from the one that caused the Great Bush Recession,” he said. ” We have seen this movie before and the American people walked out on it, we don’t need a sequel.”