Elections Should Be Fought by Parties, Not Refereed by Parties
<b>"As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?</b>
--William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, 1871<br>
<br>
<i>see update below</i><br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/165679" target="”_blank”">Dahlia Lithwick's legal
column</a> in <span>Newsweek</span> 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.<br>
<br>
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 <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR20081…; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's Washington <span>Post</span>,</a>
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). <b>Update:</b> <i>According to <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/ohio-vote-challenge-effor…; target="”_blank”">a New York Times Caucus blog entry</a>, the Dept. of Justice refused to require Ohio to do what Pres. Bush and the Republican party wanted Ohio to do. A factually distorted <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRtuvTMGycU" target="”_blank”">Ohio Republican Party ad</a> 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.</i><br>
<br>
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 href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14935.html" target="”_blank”">a Politico article yesterday</a>, 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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<i>Update</i>: Here is <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2203138/" target="”_blank”">a <i>Slate</i> article</a> by professor and <a href="http://electionlawblog.org/" target="”_blank”">Election Law</a> blogger Rick Hasen about nationalizing the election registration system.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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