ID, ID, ID

7:00 PM: I’m still here at the Election Protection operation, spearheaded by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and as we expected, there are problems throughout the country concerning voter identification.  In one Georgia precinct, a sign is posted saying "Vote Here - ID Required" in spite of the fact that the Georgia courts ruled the voter ID law was an unconstitutional poll tax.  In Maricopa County, Arizona, where many Native Americans live and in other border areas, we’re getting reports that voters may be getting turned away for lack of identification.  In Cook County, home to Chicago, EP has gotten numerous reports of voters being improperly asked for ID.  Similar calls have come in from Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee.  The press is reporting on improper demands in Iowa and Wisconsin too.  This is not surprising given all the press the right has generated about the bogus need for identification that poll workers are making these mistakes.

Check back frequently for Election Day updates from Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation's Democracy Fellow.

Even Governors Are Turned Away

3:31 PM: It’s all Prince Georges, Maryland all the time. Multiple problems in this heavily African American jurisdiction are being reported. As noted earlier, there were ID problems in the morning. Now we’re hearing about lines in some places of two to three hours, including at Bowie State University. Also in this part of Maryland, there have been numerous reports of sample ballots being distributed that purport to be Democratic ballots. They do indeed have all Democrats checked off—except the boxes for Ehrlich and Steele are also checked off. They are the Republican candidates for governor and senator respectively.

In the news, a very disturbing report out of hotly contested Virginia: ABC is reporting that it has obtained an audio wave file of a phone message left for resident and registered Virginia voter Tim Daly in which the caller claims to be from the Virginia Board of Elections and informs Daly that he is not registered in Virginia and that if he shows up at the polls to vote he would be criminally prosecuted. The FBI is investigating. And in Denver, Colorado, lawyers are seeking an extension of polling hours. Due to voting machine problems, lines have been so long there that some voters have been improperly turned away. And Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina was turned away at the polls because he did not have his voter registration card, even though he had his drivers license with his current address.

Check back frequently for Election Day updates from Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation's Democracy Fellow.

Machine Problems

12:05 PM: Let the games begin. The news of what we call deceptive practices has started to flow in. We’re hearing about flyers with misleading information being distributed in Maryland—voters will be faxing them to Election Protection Headquarters shortly. Meanwhile, lots of problems in good old Chicago—voting machine problems, and, somewhat more alarmingly, potential deceptive practices. We’re getting word of someone slapping stickers on Election Protection 1-866-OURVOTE door hangers that tell people to go to the wrong precinct. Election Protection Headquarters is expecting that to be faxed in too. Again, none of this is confirmed, and it may be happening for benign reasons. But if it is in fact occurring, it really is simply a continuation of what we saw tons of in 2004 and predicted would occur in 2006. Other than that it seems to be machine problems, machine problems and more machine problems.

Check back frequently for Election Day updates from Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation's Democracy Fellow.

We Told You So

9:18 AM: More from the department of we told you so. All over the country, we’re hearing about voting machine problems. Evidently in Dayton, Ohio voters are reporting that they are voting on the electronic voting machines for Democrat Sherrod Brown and the computer screen is showing that they voted for Republican Mike DeWine. This type of thing seems to be occurring in a number of places.

Also as predicted, people are being inappropriately asked for identification, particularly in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In one precinct in Prince Georges County, Maryland, everyone is apparently being asked for identification when they should not be.

Another problem that happens every election year is poll workers not showing up at the polls. In one county in Illinois, already they have announced that there will be extended hours for voting because poll workers did not show up to open up the polls in time. That’s the case in Delaware County, where according to the local television station there an apparent computer error prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts. Election officials plan to seek a court order to extend the voting beyond the scheduled 6:00 deadline.

Check back frequently for Election Day updates from Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation's Democracy Fellow.

8:20 AM: I’m at the Command Center of Election Protection in D.C., the central hub of 1-866-OUR-VOTE where volunteers are taking calls from voters having problems. The so-called “glitches” have started already..

“EP” has an incredible tool for anyone who wants to see the kinds of problems voters are encountering around the country.Click here to keep track. It’s a map of the country that tells you how many problems are occurring in which state, and what type of problems they are. And that’s in real time. Already, there are dozens of complaints that have come in from California, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Florida, and over 250 incidents in Ohio—127 in Franklin County alone.

In a troubling development, a few of the calls are from New Jersey—where there is an extremely tight Senate race and a history of voter intimidation—we’re already seeing challengers at the polls and problems with language minorities.

On another note, a story that would be amusing if it was not so disturbing came out last night. As I have noted elsewhere, Missouri enacted a very strict photo identification law that was then struck down as unconstitutional in the courts. I predicted that poll workers would not know they are not supposed to ask for such ID now. Well, yesterday, a pollworker demanded that the Secretary of State herself, Robin Carnahan, present photo identification when she went to vote.

Check back frequently for Election Day updates from Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation's Democracy Fellow.

Problems to Watch for on Election Day

Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation, 11/6/2006

As most people have heard by now, there is a potentially explosive combination of conditions brewing this election year that could boil over in some places on election day. The convergence of close elections, tremendous political ramifications, new voting machines and new voting rules could mean major problems both at the polls and after they close. What everyone wants to know is this: where are the biggest fires most likely to break out?

It’s impossible to predict with certainty where a major conflagration will occur—ask any election administrator anywhere and he or she will tell you of dark fears of being the "next Florida" or the "next Ohio." But there are some election administrators who should be losing more sleep than others tonight.

Maryland: Maryland's September primary was nothing short of a disaster. Because an elections worker forgot to include a necessary part to activate the voting machines, numerous polling sites were completely unable to operate for several hours.  The state was totally unprepared, causing some voters to simply walk away without voting, and others casting provisional ballots on backs of envelopes and even campaign literature!  This has led to the Republican incumbent governor encouraging people to vote absentee. Hence, a rush for absentee ballot requests that election administrators cannot keep up with and the possibility of thousands of flawed or late ballots and tons of paper that workers will have to count through the night.

All that in itself might not have gotten Maryland a spot on the front runners list, but a manual for poll watchers distributed by the GOP did. The manual tells watchers that challenging voters' right to vote at the polls is their most important job on election day, and gives them precise instructions on every conceivable way they can try to stop people from voting.  It instructs them to tell poll judges who resist their challenges that they are committing a criminal act by doing so.   

Ohio: Ohio once again will be at the epicenter of this election, given that there are several close elections happening there.  In addition, Ohio will for the first time have a voter identification requirement.  It has been demonstrated in court in Ohio that different counties have been implementing the identification rules completely differently from one another due to the vagueness of the new law. They have been interpreting "current" utility bill differently, some saying it has to be less than 30 days old, others saying 120 days; some have said "government issued" identification must be from the state or federal government, while others have accepted other government ID; some have accepted military ID with current addresses, some have not.  This all led to a temporary suspension of the law by the Ohio courts until the parties agreed to an order regarding statewide standards.  But this naturally begs the question of whether poll workers or voters will have any idea what is acceptable identification.

Moreover, given the problems counties in Ohio have had with their voting machines in the past, including this year's primary, and the likely strong turnout, Ohio observers are expecting long lines to be a problem again. In 2004, Ohio elections workers were so unprepared in some places that they had woefully insufficient numbers of voting machines to accommodate the turnout, and there are indications this could happen again in 2006. 

Missouri: Missouri has the closest senate race in the country.  Its legislature also passed one of the most draconian identification bills in the country.  After the Missouri legislature passed their misguided law, the state spent $680,000 on a campaign to tell voters they had to bring government issued photo identification to vote this year. Then, correctly and predictably, the courts held the law unconstitutional. So now voters do not need government issued photo identification to vote. As I pointed out in an earlier note, this is a very positive development—but do voters and poll workers know about the change? Or will poll workers be asking voters for photo identification? Will voters, who do not have such identification, believe they need it to vote, and therefore not go vote?  And given how important the race in Missouri is and the allegations of fraud that have perennially (often inaccurately) been made in St. Louis, it would not be surprising to see aggressive poll watchers at the polls.

Indiana:  Indiana is of huge concern for one very simple reason: voter ID. Indiana is the one state actually going forward with a rule requiring every voter to present government issued photo ID at the polls in order to vote.  There is no question there will be eligible voters who are unable to vote as a result of this law.  It is only a question of how many.  We may never actually know the answer to that question since some voters without the ID may simply not show up.  Indiana also engaged in some rather questionable purging of its voter registration list, leading to the possibility that some voters who think they are and should be registered will go to the polls and find themselves left off the list.  At the same time, with at least three very close House races, these disenfranchised voters might be the difference in control of Congress.

Florida: Florida is not on the list just because it's Florida.  There are new reasons for concern in Florida this year.  First and foremost is the fact that Florida's voter identification law is now almost as scary as Indiana's.  The only difference is that voters without ID can vote a provisional ballot (one-third of which historically are not counted), and the validity of that vote will be determined after the election.  There also have been ongoing, numerous machine problems in Florida, and a tremendous amount of controversy over the fact that the electronic voting machines there have no paper back up system.  And because Florida has no system for ensuring that sufficient numbers of voting machines are operating in the right places, there is a real possibility of long lines again.  Finally, Florida had a law fining civic groups for late submission of voter registration forms; the fines were so big that they put a complete halt to voter registration drives until the law was held unconstitutional by a judge.  These civic organizations are the heart of getting people, especially in poor communities, registered to vote.  Are there people who would have voted in Florida this year but for the time in which these rules were in effect?

Arizona: Arizona is home of some of the worst voting laws in the country, thanks to Proposition 200 passed in 2004.  Prop 200 required that voters prove their citizenship in order to vote, leading to the rejection of thousands of voter registration applications from perfectly eligible voters. When the new Arizona law first went into effect, election officials in the state's largest county rejected 75% of registrations. Although the rate has improved given two years of intense voter education, county officials still rejected 17% of new voter registration applications in 2006. Election administrators there have said that they think most of these registrants are eligible citizens who simply could not provide the necessary documentation. Are there thousands of voters who wanted and were eligible to vote but never made it through this registration process and now cannot? Are there voters who think they are registered and who will go to the polls only to find they are not on the list?

Prop 200 also requires all voters to present either photo identification or two forms of approved non-photo identification in order to vote. After a series of court battles over this new law the Supreme Court ordered the state to proceed with this very dangerous new rule. So just as elections officials, poll workers, and voters were preparing to go forward with the election under the rules Arizona had always followed for years prior to this new restriction on the right to vote (except for a low turnout September primary), the Supreme Court, in the name of avoiding voter confusion, two weeks before the election turned everything upside down again. Will we be surprised if voters and poll workers are totally unclear about what they have to do to gain access to the polls?

On top of all this, with nineteen ballot initiatives, Arizona is going to have perhaps the longest ballot in the country. Voter ID problems, registration problems and long ballots easily add up to long waits to vote—which some people, especially with jobs and kids they need to get to, will not be able to deal with.

As I said at the beginning, problems could crop up anywhere.  I have a whole second tier of hot spots that include Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.  We'll know more tomorrow.

To keep you up to date, I’ll be blogging from Election Protection Headquarters, the home of 1-866-OURVOTE, where volunteers will be assisting voters with voting problems all over the country. Check The Century Foundation Web site at www.tcf.org or our election site at www.reformelections.org throughout the day to find out if and where voters are encountering trouble and democracy is in jeopardy.

Tova Wang is a Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation.