Congress should revamp our broken voting system

We have less than two years to get it right — and I don't mean Iraq, which will only continue to go further wrong.

I mean voting.

Our national voting system (or non-system) is badly broken, and people simply do not have confidence their vote will be properly counted. And with good reason.

Nothing is more vital to a democratic system, yet we have conducted our last two presidential elections under a dark cloud that lingers in 2006 in some of the same problem areas, Florida and Ohio in particular. Voting problems have become a big item in the blogosphere, and errors will be called to public attention.

Elections are run by state and local officials, but there is federal oversight in such areas as civil rights and, most recently, a federal mandate to use electronic machines. To add to the distrust, that federal law was pushed through Congress by Rep. Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who lobbied for the law.

Although King County still doesn't seem able to get it right, our problems are tame compared with areas such as Florida and Ohio, which could benefit from poll-watch teams from Venezuela or Iraq. Controversy persists over George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 victories in those states, and similar problems continued in 2006. In Florida's 13th Congressional District, electronic machines recorded a huge under-vote (no vote cast) in a county carried by Democrat Christine Jennings. Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner with a 369-vote margin.

"Machines don't make mistakes," said the county elections supervisor, but she failed to add that machines can be programmed or hacked to make mistakes, which is the fear haunting the electronic system.

Electronic machines are only part of the problem, and perhaps not the worst of it.

The new Congress really should immediately do a major investigation and do what it can to revamp the fractured system.

At the very minimum, there should be uniform regulations across the country, including several key items:

• Require a paper trail on every voting machine. The close Virginia race for the U.S. Senate, which gave Democrats control, could not be properly recounted because there was no paper trail for much of the state.

• Protect elections officers from partisan supervision. Secretaries of state, usually the top elections officers, are elected on a partisan basis. Many (probably most) try hard to separate themselves from partisanship, but others (again, Florida and Ohio stand out) serve as leaders of partisan campaigns for which they count the votes. Elections officers should be appointed in a bipartisan manner for terms that extend beyond four years. Richard R. Hasen, who supports this idea on his Election Law Blog, notes that Canada and Australia use this system.

• Require systematic rotation of names on ballots. Credible studies have shown that names appearing first on a ballot gain as much as a 2-to-3-percent advantage, more in races that appear lower on the ballot. Yet, many states do not rotate names, and sometimes their process clearly benefits one political party.

• Establish a common voter identification, to avoid the Draconian rules of some states, reminiscent of the Jim Crow system in the South that disenfranchised blacks. Arizona requires a birth certificate or passport to register, a separate government document to vote.

• A common rule regarding voting rights of ex-felons should be part of this package; Florida's 2000 record of denying African Americans who had records but ignoring Hispanic (Cuban) ex-felons is Exhibit A.

I'm not one who sees the solution in mail balloting, although its popularity may dictate adoption. There are just too many ways to influence a mail ballot, and sooner or later every one will be utilized.

More promising, I think, is a combination of the basic reforms outlined above and the replacement of partisan elections officers with nonpartisan specialists whose only responsibility is to the electorate.

At least the most serious problems must be addressed at the national level. It is of little solace for states that adopt reforms to learn that the White House has been stolen by corrupt partisans in another state. We need to go to the polls knowing that we play on a level field, and that has not been the case.

Congress does have ultimate authority, for it must certify election results. If a state refusing to clean up its act knew its newly elected members of Congress might not be seated because of questions about its election, we might see some real reform.

Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor emeritus at Western Washington University, is a regular contributor to Times editorial pages. E-mail him at floydmckay@yahoo.com