Elections Commissions

Who should and who should not sit on elections commissions? Other than land-use commissions (and, sadly, ethics commissions), elections commissions are probably the most abused in terms of membership.

Take the election commission in Hamblen County, according to the March 7-10, 2007 entries in the noe4accountability blog. It has five members. One has a son running for the county commission, one is the father of a mayor in the county (who is running again) and actively promoted the election of a county commission candidate, one is related by marriage to a county commission candidate, and another is a former county commissioner.

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The last person who should be on an elections commission is someone who is involved, directly or indirectly, in elections. In fact, it's not a place for politically active people. In order for its members not to have conflicts of interest, they should be people without strong political views, especially in the personal sense. An elections commission that seems biased undermines the community's view of fair elections. Imagine an elections commission consisting of racist people. Would minorities in the community trust elections? Well, why should the majority of non-politically active people trust elections run by the minority of politically active people and their families, apparently (if not in fact) in their own interest?

There is no good reason why elections commissions cannot consist of people who do not have family members running for election, who have not been candidates themselves, and who do not have government jobs. Most people have nothing to do with government or campaigns. Yes, most of them also don't want to, but how often are they asked? The simplest and best way to prevent conflicts of interest is to ask people you don't know to get involved, to go outside your circle of acquaintance, to advertise for positions to fill and also be proactive in getting recommendations of people from nonpolitical acquaintances and from community organizations of which you are not a member.

Elections are the core of our democratic process. If they are not run by people who are clearly without a personal interest in the outcome of an election, the entire democratic process in the community is tainted. The people elected in such an election go on to appoint their friends and family, to ignore ethics rules (since they control the ethics program), and to support the special interests that support their election or for whom they work. And even in communities where this is less true than in others, the perception is often the same. Seeking out uninvolved people, people without conflicts of interest, must begin with elections commissions, and not stop there. The more participation there is, the fewer the conflicts and the great the perception that government and community are one and the same.