Sep 11 2009
A Dangerous Proposal for Voter Registration
From the time students returned from summer break in late August of 2008, until the closing of the voter registration rolls about two months later, staff in the Champaign County Clerk’s office processed over 20,000 voter registration applications. That number was actually reduced for both the 2004 and 2000 election years. Nevertheless, it represented a monumental task that necessitated long hours for my staff. It seems that there is now a move afoot to that claims to reduce the burden on election officials by developing a process for automatic registration. As I’ve seen it presented, it’s a recipe for disaster.
According to the United States Census Bureau, fewer than one million people self reported a problem with their registration that caused them to be unable to vote. That number dropped from 1.1 million in 2004 and 1.3 million in 2000. Since this number is self reported, it is likely to be inflated. Of course, there is no registration problem that should result in a voter not being able to cast at least a provisional ballot. What constitutes a “registration problem” is ambiguous. If you asked me how many people in Champaign County were not able to cast a ballot because of “registration problems” I would put the number at under 10. As we would define a problem, it would allow a person to cast a vote provisionally. If the problem is more broadly defined and includes such things as “I forgot to put the form in the mail” or “I didn’t know I had to change my address when I moved” then the number of registration “problems” in the County would increase, although the responsibility for the problem obviously doesn’t lie with the election official.
The same Census Bureau survey reports that approximately 60 million citizens over 18 are not registered.
Now comes the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration. Their stated goal is two fold. The first is to relieve election officials of the task of inputting voter registration information. The second is to relieve voters of the responsibility of informing the election authority about where they live. While largely unstated, I believe that they have a third goal to put people on the voter registration rolls who to date have shown no indication that they want to be on the voter registration rolls.
To the first I’d say, thanks but no thanks. Each and every year we have made improvements in how we collect and process voter registrations. Yes, it requires work. But the work is worth it when it results in accurate voter registration rolls. Yes, we make mistakes and those bother us. But the mistakes are minimal, and the number of those mistakes is dwindling as computer programs and processes improve. Time and time again I have heard election reformers claim that certain parts of the election process are too important to let money stand in the way. Accurate voter registration rolls that reduce the burden for voters on election day are worth the efforts made by election officials.
Spend a week in our office and see how registrations are processed. You’ll see hundreds of forms that require decisions from trained staff in order to get the registration done correctly. Quite simply, no computer program can be created that can substitute for the sound and experienced judgement of election administration staff.
To the second, I’d say that a little voter responsibility is worth the benefit of greater accuracy and higher integrity. The system as envisioned by this committee would take information from various government databases and apply them to the voter registration database. If this happens, I anticipate provisional ballots increasing dramatically around the country. No doubt, some greater number of voters will be captured on the voter registration rolls, although it is doubtful that many of these will be people that will vote. On the flip side, millions of people will have their voter registrations updated in ways that they may not have anticipated.
To the third, I’d say that the Committee is attacking a symptom of a greater problem. There is no lack of registration opportunities for people. Certainly there is merit in looking at ways to create more opportunities to register. In our county, for example, we have developed a voter registration kiosk that is available in three different locations. But to force people on to the rolls is unnecessary. When combined with the certainty that you will be adding illegals to the rolls makes the proposition unwise. The near certainty that the process will improperly alter the registration status of people who have taken the time to register in other ways is unfair (and fraught with legal dangers).
Interestingly, there is little evidence that anyone is not registering to vote because of a lack of opportunity. In fact, it appears the Census Bureau, doesn’t even ask nonregistered voters why they didn’t register. So this proposal is made in the absence of any data identifying a problem.
Perhaps the most interesting and distressing aspect of this to me is that actual data may not be desired. Heather Gerken’s Democracy Index calls for better data. One of the chairs of the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration just coincidentally coauthored an oped in Roll Call magazine that endorsed Gerken’s idea. Here is one quote from their oped:
“With better data, we should be able to avoid fruitless discussions about the things that don’t matter and focus on the things that do. Reliable performance data, in our view, would make visible the costs associated with our current registration system, potentially moving us toward a system of automatic voter registration by states, which in turn would help eliminate the conflicts over the role of private registration activity.”
Apparently, these two, and others, have already decided what the data they have yet to collect will tell them. The desire to collect that data is not to help craft good policy. Rather it is to support their own agenda to dramatically alter our voter registration system. There are any number of pieces of data that could be collected that would probably doom this Committee’s proposal. For example, how many noncitizens are on the driver’s license rolls? How many people appear in the databases of two different government agencies? Will these two key pieces of data be sought? Automatic voter registration might result in a few more people voting. In addition however, it may result in as many or more not voting because of problems with their voter registration. It has a potential to reduce costs, but just as easily could increase costs.
My greatest concern is about the confidence of voters in the election system. We increase people’s faith in the system by having it respond to their actions. People want to fill in the oval on their ballot, and know that the vote was counted for their choice. People want to submit a voter registration, and know that it results in action by the election authority. The more times that voters have their actions overridden by either technology or the bureaucracy, the more they lose confidence that the system is working. A system that reduces voter control, which this proposal clearly does, is a system that will reduce confidence and increase cynicism.
What is your opinion of the voter registration sytems that Arizona, Washington, and Kansas have, that allow eligible voters who have a drivers license to register online?
More information regarding online registration is at http://www.fairelectionswi.com/Online%20Reg.htm
Thank you for this wonderful blog. Your explanation about the administrative and the human side of voter registration is very enlightening.
It is hard enough to meet the requirements of HAVA in trying to maintain an online VRD, especially since the social security database has a high rate of failure in matching. I’ve heard its about 20% in some places.
These committees exhibit an irrational exhuberance to declare something be done, without considering whether it is feasible.
I watched the linked video. Looks great. My first reaction is positive. I’m going to write more about this later, but one key here is the fact that not all DMVs track citizenship. I’d also be hesitant about some claims. every registration that comes through in this way, or any other way, will still have to be reviewed by staff to ensure that the person is put in the correct precinct and taxing districts and to catch any potential duplicate registrations. But as presented this could provide greater efficiency.
Mark,
I posted your article about Voter modernization to a list serve I’m on, and I got a strong reaction from one person.
Could you go further into how voter “modernization” as proposed would disenfranchise voters?
My state of NC used to have a “no match no vote” rule which in effect punished voters for the faults of the social security database, where voters failed to match about 20% of the time.
We did have a high success rate of matching with drivers license numbers.
Oh, and in NC, you have to present a birth certificate or other similar document to get a drivers license. You can’t just walk in to the DMV.
Also, in NC, we recently implemented same day registration for the early voting period only. Our early voting is well regulated and we have checks in place that prevent double voting. A person can try to double vote but only one vote will get counted.
I think at this time the public is satisfied with limiting same day registration to early voting but I also believe our SBoE wants to add it to election day.
That will mean further reliance upon electronic poll books, which our SBoE has promoted heavily across our state. Making elections more tech dependent will impact hiring of poll workers in some areas.
Joyce, I’ll be continuing to post. If you read my post about Driver’s Licenses and their inaccuracies it will give you some sense of the possibility for disenfranchisement.
Hello Mark,
Thanks for viewing the video regarding online voter registration. Your comment was very helpful. I added a new slide to the video explaining that a local election official wil review the registration to make sure the voter is assigned to the correct district and to avoid duplicate registrations. The draft for the Wisconsin bill includes this review. The updated video is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBENY8uAlGM
For your readers worried about security of online registration, they will learn in the video that online registration is limited to those who have a state drivers license or a state ID card.
Cheers,
Paul Malischke
Online voter registration sounds good, but there’s another aspect of security that wasn’t mentioned in above post – that of the security of the website interface and database used to register voters and house that information.
There are many security issues to consider when involving the internet in elections:
potential for “spoofing” where a citizen is misdirected to a false site that appears legitimate
potential for hackers and crackers to find a way into the site to tamper with the database
denial of services i.e through various means making the legitimate site unavailable
Before online voter registration spreads, we should consult internet security experts who are also versed on election transparency issues.
In the meanwhile, it is less risky to download voter registration applications from board of elections websites, complete the forms, and mail them in.
Hello Joyce McCloy,
There are also security problems with paper registration forms. Mailing in a form does not guarantee security. How many people handle the form until it gets to the right place? Will the data entry clerk enter it correctly and in a timely fashion? In some states, if you fail the HAVA check (perhaps due to your handwriting, perhaps due to a data entry error), you will not be on the poll list and may have to use a provisional ballot.
As I mention in my video, in 2004 one Wisconsin city had over 10,000 unprocessed forms on the day before the election. This is a “denial of service”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBENY8uAlGM
Spoofing – In each of the last two presidential elections, Wisconsin has had a handful of crooked “Special Registration Deputies” who were getting identifying information from registrants. How many hands did that paper form go through before being filed?
I suspect that every state in the union has extensive experience in web security measures to prevent against hackers. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation already allows drivers license change of address and 6 other functions online. The Wisconsin Elections Division already has Voter Public Access, which allows voters to look up their registration and polling place.
I am strongly against Internet VOTING because it is not a verifiable transaction, since we have the secret ballot. But Internet REGISTRATION can be verified a few days after you register online, or ultimately by finding your name in the poll book on Election Day.
We must continue to look for more efficient ways to handle commercial, personal, and governmental processes. Using the Internet is one of those ways. The voters will benefit, and election administrators will benefit.
TX. Computer problems tie up secretary of state’s business records
Public has been unable to obtain online documents from office since Thursday.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 Dillard said that the secretary of state’s elections databases were also affected but came back online Tuesday. During the outage, county elections officials were unable to update the statewide voter registration rolls, he said. “We are confident that voter registration data was not compromised,” Dillard said.
http://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/2009/08/12/0812sos.html
TX. As seen on Texas SOS website August 12, 2009
Notice: Progress is being made to restore SOS services that have been disrupted by a hardware problem preventing access to many of our databases…
https://direct.sos.state.tx.us/home/home-sitedown.asp
Screen shot
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i129/ncvoter/TX_SOS_DOS_Aug_12_09- 1.jpg
Sorry I hit the return button too quickly. My reason for posting the articles about Texas’ SOS website suffering several days disruption is to show that it does and can happen and just recently.
With internet registration, the system might be open to a full scale attack of all voter records, every single record, not just some paper records that someone can get their hands on.
Other important facets of our lives are online, such as bank and credit card accounts.
When your state institutes online voter registration, make sure that existing means of registration are not eliminated or made more difficult. Online registration should be a complementary method to existing methods. Many people will choose to register online. In Arizona, 60% of the registrants in 2008 used the online method.
Cheers,
Paul Malischke
[...] of my willingness to modernize. There is only one litmus test for modernization. It’s the Committee to Modernize. Anything less is [...]
When I registered to vote, I went to a deputy registrar, which this county has a myriad of in many public places — Library, etc.
I realize that on-line or automatic registration is faster, but the old-fashioned way is just as easy, and more than likely more secure.
Our county clerk’s office publicizes the location of these deputies; maybe not enough?
Have the people in this country become so time-conscious that a mere few minutes face-to-face with someone who has been properly trained in vogter registration is not worth the trouble?