Sep 16 2009
Is Localism a Problem in Election Administration
In her book, The Democracy Index, Heather Gerken points to localism as one of the two obstacles to improving election administration in America. (The other, partisanship, will be examined in my next post.)
First, I’d contend that there is not an area of government administration that couldn’t use improvement. I’ve certainly voiced plenty of concerns about government administration in my 30 year political career, so I’m sympathetic to those who want to examine my operations. The criticisms of Gerken that I’d find valid, I likely would find valid in examining a host of other government agencies. I don’t Gerken presents a compelling reason to single out election administrators.
Gerken’s point on localism is that it impedes good election administration because locals are starved for resources and that because the administration of elections comes to the mind of citizens just once or twice a year, there isn’t much incentive to push for change. Gerken goes so far as to call it “failed federalism”.
But there’s not much to back up those concerns and not much to give hope that greater centralization would resolve her concerns. I can give a host of examples where localism improves the process. Can you imagine a federal or state agency trying to create a database of valid residential addresses? Can you imagine voter cards being turned in to a state election office in Springfield instead of to a local registrar? We make calls to local fire districts to confirm that a residence is in that district. We make calls to the Emergency Services Agency to verify an address.
Gerken also expresses concern that localism impedes the sharing of best practices. My solution there is to respond not with greater centralization, but to encourage greater collaboration. To her credit, Gerken acknowledges that in other parts of the book. What she doesn’t acknowledge is that harmful effects of centralized policy making that makes the job of election officials so difficult.
And in the area of best practices, centralized policy making has been an impediment. Federal and state regulations have made it challenging to keep our voter registration rolls clean. Some of the changes that I have implemented have needed to be worked around current state law. For example, our redundant recount after the election is limited by the precincts that the state picks for us. Left to our own design, we’d give the political parties the option of picking other precincts not selected by the State.
And once again, centralizing best practices offers little promise for local officials because there is widespread belief, often demonstrable, that those in central positions are just unaware of the challenges we are facing at a local level. Time and time again I’ve sat in rooms with elected and appointed policy makers who just don’t get it.
Here are a number of letters I sent to various Washington attorneys seeking clarification regarding the new rules for removing voters under HAVA. The lack of response coupled with responses that didn’t actually answer my question were remarkable. It was clear that no one in Washington really understood what was happening in our office and seemed either unwilling or incapable of addressing our concerns. We finally decided to implement a program that we knew to be fair and that in our estimation complied with the law.
Of course, you can find some examples of locals who are resistant to change, as Gerken suggests. You can also find some number of local jurisdictions where elections have gotten the short end of the funding stick. But are we really to believe that those issues can’t be found in other areas? For each of the local officials you can find that is resistant to change, I can find a Washington bureaucrat who exhibits the same problem. For every local election office that is underfunded, I can find a Washington bureau that is underfunded.
Centralization is no panacea for expanding best practices or for resolving funding problems.
Anyone ought to be able to imagine a federal agency preparing a database of valid residential addresses. The US Census Bureau works on that all the time, with help from the US Postal Service.
Yes, the Census Bureau works on it all the time. And it is a time consuming and expensive process. Anyone who has been a part of it knows. What the Census Bureau is not doing is tracking the various taxing districts that these addresses are in. There are over a 100 districts in Champaign County. Changes in those district lines are filed in my office of necessity for taxing purposes. I can’t imagine that somehow those will be better handled for election purposes at a national level.
Centralized control over elections is one of the worst (and most undemocratic) concepts we’ve got. Centralization of power is antithetical to democratic systems, which rely in part on diversification of power for stability.
And it doesn’t work. Following implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), an agency was set up, which was supposed to sunset after HAVA monies were disbursed. This agency, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), consists of four presidential appointees. The EAC has de facto control over which voting systems, and which vendors are used in elections. In effect, the EAC’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) creates design specifications and issues new requirements every 3-4 years, requiring hugely expensive new purchases that counties can’t afford and voters don’t need. The TGDC guidelines, in turn, are being used right now for proposed legislation, HR 2894, which will force every jurisdiction in America to purchase NEW voting machines, steering over $3 billion in new purchasing to a single privately owned vendor (ES&S), the vendor currently in hot water on anti-trust grounds for its purchase of Premier/Diebold Election Systems.
So what does this “centralization” really do for us?
1) Puts control over the essential mechanisms for voter lists and vote counting under a handful of White House appointees. Why is this considered safe, or even democratic, by anyone? By the way, the Constitution puts control under the states, and specifically NOT the federal government, to reduce centralization of power.
2) Allows any vendor with influence to do one-stop-shopping: Just influence that ol’ TGDC and their design specs will help you sell a product; send your lobbyists over to Capitol Hill and get requirements for your product written into federal legislation.
3) As pointed out here, the idea that the federal government would track current addresses for every citizen in the U.S. simply doesn’t work. Not only does it create a bureaucracy with redundant and non-matching databases, but it relies on often-shoddy technology sold by the lowest bidder — technology that often doesn’t work. Do you have an apostrophe in your name? A hyphenated name? A two-word last name? These ridiculous new databases often attempt to match your exact spelling with other databases, like driver’s license databases, and in Wisconsin, citizens found out just how bad this can be. One out of five names were rejected based on mismatches that were usually database design artifacts.
Local elections officials can more easily be watchdogged by LOCAL citizens. Once control gets into federal hands, not only will local elections officials hands be tied; local citizens efforts to oversee their government will hit roadblocks too.
If you really believe in democratic concepts, you believe in “the people” — a dispersed body of power — and you will be highly skeptical of any system that centralizes control, justifying it with “efficiency.”
Dictatorships are efficient. Democracies are messy. In a dictatorship, you and your work product is owned by the dictator. In a democratic system, you own the instruments of government you have created, which you fund out of your own pocket. Which would you rather have?
Bev Harris
Founder – BlackBoxVoting.org
P.S. — Hello to Champaign County. Used to live there. Glad to see this particular blog item.
[...] already written about localism and partisanship, the two reasons that Heather Gerken identifies as barriers to good election [...]
no i don´t think its a problem
Bev has it right! We need more clear thinkers like you!