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Elections Should Be Fought by Parties, Not Refereed by Parties
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
Robert Wechsler
"As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?
--William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, 1871
see update below
Another of Boss Tweed's famous quotations is, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." His and other city bosses' way of controlling politics through parties led to the reform movements of the progressive era, first to the idea of a strong mayor, and then to the idea of nonpartisan town managers.
Recently, Boss Tweed's ways have turned sophisticated. Instead of games being played with pieces of paper in backrooms, games are being played with all elements of voting, and lawyers have replaced thugs as the guys (and now gals) to have by your side when trouble arises. According to Dahlia Lithwick's legal column in Newsweek today, both presidential campagns have thousands of lawyers ready and waiting, and the nonpartisan National Campaign for Fair Elections will have 10,000 volunteers at polling places on voting day.
A Republican Party suit against the Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which threw the suit out. And then, according to an article in yesterday's Washington Post, only a few days later President Bush asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 registered Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before November 4 (the subject of the suit). Update: According to a New York Times Caucus blog entry, the Dept. of Justice refused to require Ohio to do what Pres. Bush and the Republican party wanted Ohio to do. A factually distorted Ohio Republican Party ad went ahead and accused the Secretary of State of refusing to follow a court order (without mentioning that it was overturned by the Supreme Court) and of "concealing evidence" about "voter fraud" which even the Republican-controlled Justice Dept. has not required it to disclose.
Since voters have to show ID to vote in Ohio anyway, there is no reason for voters to go out of their way to reconfirm their registration information because it conflicts with some other list, such as driver's licenses. Typos are everywhere (according to a Politico article yesterday, a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that the matching process fails 20 percent to 30 percent of the time due to minor errors like database typos, use of nicknames, and multiple entries). I'm registered as Weghsler, or something like that, but it has never caused a problem, because I show ID and it's clear that I live at that address and someone made a typo. No big deal. But it would be a big deal if I and everyone else with typos in their registration data had to reregister this week.
137 years after Boss Tweed made it clear that parties should not have any involvement whatsoever in counting votes, it's time to call an end to this. This job has to be taken out of the parties' hands. Getting a president involved, even after the Supreme Court has spoken, shows that at least one party is incapable of doing the job responsibly. There are many possible alternatives, and they should all be discussed, their advantages and disadvantages analyzed and compared. But this has got to end. Let the parties fight the elections, and let other people referee them, at the local government level and nationally. Let's put Boss Tweed to rest, at last.
Update: Here is a Slate article by professor and Election Law blogger Rick Hasen about nationalizing the election registration system.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
see update below
Another of Boss Tweed's famous quotations is, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." His and other city bosses' way of controlling politics through parties led to the reform movements of the progressive era, first to the idea of a strong mayor, and then to the idea of nonpartisan town managers.
Recently, Boss Tweed's ways have turned sophisticated. Instead of games being played with pieces of paper in backrooms, games are being played with all elements of voting, and lawyers have replaced thugs as the guys (and now gals) to have by your side when trouble arises. According to Dahlia Lithwick's legal column in Newsweek today, both presidential campagns have thousands of lawyers ready and waiting, and the nonpartisan National Campaign for Fair Elections will have 10,000 volunteers at polling places on voting day.
A Republican Party suit against the Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which threw the suit out. And then, according to an article in yesterday's Washington Post, only a few days later President Bush asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 registered Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before November 4 (the subject of the suit). Update: According to a New York Times Caucus blog entry, the Dept. of Justice refused to require Ohio to do what Pres. Bush and the Republican party wanted Ohio to do. A factually distorted Ohio Republican Party ad went ahead and accused the Secretary of State of refusing to follow a court order (without mentioning that it was overturned by the Supreme Court) and of "concealing evidence" about "voter fraud" which even the Republican-controlled Justice Dept. has not required it to disclose.
Since voters have to show ID to vote in Ohio anyway, there is no reason for voters to go out of their way to reconfirm their registration information because it conflicts with some other list, such as driver's licenses. Typos are everywhere (according to a Politico article yesterday, a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that the matching process fails 20 percent to 30 percent of the time due to minor errors like database typos, use of nicknames, and multiple entries). I'm registered as Weghsler, or something like that, but it has never caused a problem, because I show ID and it's clear that I live at that address and someone made a typo. No big deal. But it would be a big deal if I and everyone else with typos in their registration data had to reregister this week.
137 years after Boss Tweed made it clear that parties should not have any involvement whatsoever in counting votes, it's time to call an end to this. This job has to be taken out of the parties' hands. Getting a president involved, even after the Supreme Court has spoken, shows that at least one party is incapable of doing the job responsibly. There are many possible alternatives, and they should all be discussed, their advantages and disadvantages analyzed and compared. But this has got to end. Let the parties fight the elections, and let other people referee them, at the local government level and nationally. Let's put Boss Tweed to rest, at last.
Update: Here is a Slate article by professor and Election Law blogger Rick Hasen about nationalizing the election registration system.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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