Congress Urged to Reform Election Laws In Advance of 2010
Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 2
August 27, 2009
In July, Advancement Project Voter Protection Program Director Elizabeth Westfall testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration to recommend numerous reforms to broaden access to voting in advance of the 2010 federal elections.
The testimony is part of Advancement Project’s continuing effort to expand the franchise by removing burdensome and unnecessary laws that impede voting rights.
Westfall’s testimony focused on the need to establish effective Election Day safeguards to protect the voting rights of eligible voters whose registration status is unclear. She urged Congress to: establish uniform standards governing the administration of provisional ballots; clarify the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to prohibit needless barriers to voter registration and prevent unwarranted removal of voters from the rolls; and require states, where voters have been forced to endure long voter lines in recent elections, to offer backup paper ballots.
The recommendations follow the combined research of Advancement Project and two partner organizations, the NAACP National Voter Fund and Voter Action, which documents election and voting access problems that occurred during the 2008 general election. The issues were described in depth in the report, Uncovering Flaws in Election Administration: A Joint Report on the 2008 Election Based on CNN and MYVOTE1 Voter Hotline Data.
The report recounts illustrative calls received by two national voter hotlines from voters in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Based on the calls, the report urges Congress to adopt immediate measures to help protect voters in the 2010 election.
In 2008, Advancement Project worked in 10 states: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, to monitor the administration of registration and voting. Advancement Project found numerous inefficient and inequitable election practices and worked with state and local election officials wherever possible to reform those practices.
As part of the Watch the Vote 2008 Project – a project co-sponsored by Voter Action and the NAACP National Voter Fund – Advancement Project helped to monitor calls from Indiana, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania voters to the MYVOTE1 voter hotline during those states’ primary elections and, on November 4, 2008, it helped monitor calls to the CNN voter hotline. In response to the calls, Advancement Project and its partners provided voters with information to resolve their concerns and, in some instances, contacted election officials and requested their intervention.
“The joint report documents scores of calls from reportedly eligible, registered voters who were thwarted from voting due to disparate state election laws and practices, inadequate polling place resources, insufficient poll worker training, failures in voting equipment, and misinterpretations of federal voting laws,” said Westfall. “It is our hope that the report will spur Congress to dismantle these barriers and expand voting access well in advance of the 2010 federal elections.”
