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. 

New registration policies may block voters at polls

Citizen advocacy organization Common Cause has identified a series of concerns surround the upcoming election.

“Probably the biggest problem we’ve seen this election is troubles with people’s voter registration, where they’ll be going to the polls thinking that they are registered and told ‘sorry, we don’t have your name on the list’,” said Derek Cressman, Regional Director of State Operations for Western States for Common Cause.

Cressman partially attributes this to new voter verification policies, such as Florida’s hardline policy which states that voter registration data must exactly match other state information.

According to Cressman, there have been some instances when voters have been wrongfully removed from registration lists.

“We’re also particularly worried that in the final days before the election we’ll see practices that are known as voter challenges, where there’ll be partisan operatives at polling places challenging a voter’s eligibility.”

Cressman said that the organization is convinced that there are thousands of legitimate voters that have been wrongfully denied the ability to vote.

President of Common Cause Bob Edgar says that the organization has mobilized against these threats by sending thousands to work for the cause of fair elections and establishing the hotline “866-OurVote”, where voters can ask questions and confirm their registration status.

The Democratic Party does not tolerate voter fraud

The Democratic National Committee held a conference that discussed the Republican hypocrisy of voter registration. In light of the arrest of Mark Jacoby, whose company Young Political Majors, has been accused of tricking residents of California into registering Republican, Jacoby has ties with the California Republican party and the Republican National Committee.

California Democratic Party chairman, Art Torres, said that the Democratic party does not tolerate voter fraud. Torres went on to say that “The RNC needs to immediately eliminate their ties with the committees that have been accused of voter fraud, and unfortunately, instead of doing so they have accused the Democrats of starting it.”

DNC General Counsel, Joe Sandler, brought up the issue that the RNC yells voter fraud against the Democrats, but when a Republican official is asked to list incidents of voter fraud, they are unable to do so. Sandler also criticized Republicans saying “The RNC needs to stop accusing the Democrats of voter fraud when most, if not all of the cases are on their side.”

With 14 days left until voting day, Sandler believes that this is not the last time the public will hear about voter fraud. “This is all the RNC has left, to yell voter fraud and blame it on the Democrats,” Sandler said at the end of the conference.

Voter fraud and the threat to American democracy

The Heritage Foundation hosted John Fund, author of the new book "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy." John Fund is a member of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board and discussed recent voter fraud and voter suppression allegations and their effect on the upcoming election.

Fund began the talk describing the hypothetical scenario of the election resulting in a tie which would take the decision away from the voters "and put it into the hands of courts." Fund argued that this scenario undermines the legitimacy of the electoral system as well as of the new President. America "needs the next president to take office with full legitimacy." The discussion highlighted the concept that if Americans are seeing voter fraud and suppression become more prevalent before the election, it may be a clue to the problems that will take place on November 4.

ACORN leaders: Don't be afraid of the McCain campaign

ACORN leaders held a press conference, trying to disprove the allegations of voter registration fraud. Reverend Gloria Swierenga, President of the Maryland ACORN, was concerned that these allegations made by the right wing would deter voters from the polls on November 4th. "We will not fall to those that have banded against us because of popularity in the national polls. We must unite through our ability to vote," Swierenga said at the press conference.

Kathryn Kolbert, Chair of the American Way, believes that there will be issues on election day voting day, but not the issues that the right wing keeps talking about. Kolbert said that people should not be shocked at the McCain camp for bringing up voter fraud because ACORN registers low-income citizens who usually vote for the democrat side. "The McCain camp has tried to suppress the lower income families for years and they believe this is the way they can succeed at it," Kolbert said at the press conference.

ACORN has claimed that they should not be blamed for voter fraud, it is not them who should be blamed for the fraud accusations but it should be the registration authority who should be blamed. ACORN also believes that the right wing media has fabricated everything on the voter fraud issue and they feel that the truth will be seen by November 4th.