Weekly Voting Rights News Roundup
This an entry in a series of blogs to keep people informed on current election reform and voting rights issues in the news.
Featured Stories of the Week:
Form of same-day voter registration approved by Legislature – Associated Press
North Carolina’s Election Day Registration Bill HB 91 is finally ready to go to the Governor after recent delays caused by State Auditor Less Merritt’s “faulty” concerns of voter fraud and an “English only” Senate amendment. The bill was approved by the legislature on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
HB 91 allows residents to go to early voting sites where they may register and vote on the same day in the final 2 ½ weeks before an election. Currently, voter registration ends 25 days prior to an election. The bill, which passed the House on March 29, took most of the legislative session to get final approval by both chambers.
After passing the Senate despite heavy opposition, Project Vote posted this June 22 news roundup, outlining Merritt’s fallacious request to delay movement of the bill because he believed the state voter rolls were rife with voter fraud. Merritt claimed the rolls included numerous invalid driver’s license numbers and evidence of underage and dead voters. Gary Barlett, executive director of the NC State Board of Elections, refuted Merritt’s findings, saying a number of them were a “fundamental misunderstanding” of federal and state election laws and that Merritt’s office mislead the Board of Elections and rejected its help in resolving the situation.
The bill survived the unfounded voter fraud hoopla, but was still stuck in the legislature, battling a Senate amendment requiring the registration forms and ballots to be printed only in English. Ultimately, that amendment failed.
“If Governor Easley signs the bill into law, North Carolina would join seven other states to allow people to register and cast a ballot immediately before an election or on Election Day,” the Associate Press reported, not including “eighth EDR state,” Iowa, which passed its law on April 3. The rest of the states include: Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Voter turnout for these states – which register voters on Election Day and not just during the early voting period as North Carolina’s HB 91 would permit – show voter turnout increases of 10-12%, according to Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies.
This advancement is important to those who care about vibrant participation in America’s civic life because it helps bring all interested citizens to the polls, “even if they wait until Election Day to register.” See www.demos.org for more information on EDR.
“Even though the NC bill doesn’t allow registration through Election Day, it will have a big impact. There are some 200 early voting sites in the state, and a growing number of voters are using them: in 2004, over 400,000 North Carolinians — nearly 8% of the state’s registered voters — used early voting sites,” Kromm said.
Quick Links:
Institute for Southern Studies
“N.C. Senate approves same-day voter registration bill” – Associated Press
“Same Day Registration Approved in North Carolina” – Stateside Dispatch
In Other News:
Mississippi is keeping voter ID at the top of its agenda, despite opposition of a recent court ruling from advocacy groups saying it could disproportionately affect the elderly and minorities. Three candidates for Miss. Secretary of State spoke in Columbus Tuesday, making voter ID part of their platforms, according to the Commercial Dispatch. All candidates supported photo ID, including State Representative Mike Lott who said, if elected, he would work towards implementing it without delay.
Sarasota County officials “negotiated a $2.9 million deal with Diebold Election Systems to provide optical-scanning voting machines that will provide a paper trail starting August 2008,” reported Stacie Eidson of the Bradenton Herald. About 18,000 votes were unrecorded for either candidate in a congressional race last November, where the winner succeeded by just 370 votes. Critics blame the old voting machines for the under-vote.
“In May, Gov. Charlie Crist signed an election reform bill into law, saying “‘paperless voting in Florida is a thing of the past.'”
Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin received some heat from Chinese Americans in support of a phoneticized ballot outside the statehouse on Monday, according to the Associated Press. Galvin supports phonteticizing most of the ballot, in compliance with a voting rights agreement between the City of Boston and the Justice Department, but insists candidate names remain in Roman letters. He complained last month that full translations may lead to faulty interpretation, such as “Sticky Rice” in place of the name of presidential candidate and former Mass. Governor, Mitt Romney.
“‘We need a bilingual ballot; our voting rights are at stake,'” Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, said. “Transliteration, or phonetizing the names, is not that complicated.”Bilingual ballots are necessary, she said, because many Chinese citizens have difficulty reading English, despite being able to speak it.
Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).
