Rethinking Voting Places

The Election Center recently released the report of the National Task Force on Election Reform. The complete report is available here as an Adobe® Acrobat® file. The file is approximately 2.17MB.

One of the recommendations of the Task Force is the creation of centralized voting centers. These centers would have all ballot styles used in the jurisdiction so that any eligible voter could vote at this new location rather than going to a traditional precinct polling place. The basic idea is that a voting center may be more convenient to voters, since it could be located in an area where people work or shop, and thus would enhance voter turnout. Additionally, collapsing multiple precincts into one polling place has certain economies of scale related to the requisite number of voting machines, poll workers, etc.

Jane Eisner is a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer. After reading her recent column on the voting place recommendation, I gave this issue some thought.

States and counties should not move to voting centers solely for the expectation of increased turnout. And while the Task Force report notes other benefits of voting centers, such as cost efficiencies, it seems to me that legislatures and election officials should be mindful of the purpose of elections first and foremost. Then, we can look at what the best ways to promote that purpose in the most cost effective way.

It's a balancing act to be sure. Many states and their counties are under tremendous fiscal pressure, pinched by increased costs and the lack of willingness on the part of citizens to give government more funding. In most areas of government, one can argue that programs can be cut or curtailed -- or even made less convenient to access -- as part of the budget balancing process.

However, election administration is a unique area of public policy. While we as election officials can look for ways to make better use of the limited funds available to us, we cannot very well cut or curtail our system of voting -- nor should we make decisions that have unreasonable adverse effects or inflicts unnecessary harm on citizen participation. We should not allow the goals of cost efficiency, cost effectiveness and balanced budgets to lead us toward new, although presumably - but not necessarily - less benign, barriers to voting.

Eisner stresses an important point which has been observed by others over the years: voting is an important act of civic participation that enhances and strengthens community. She stated, "[w]e don't vote only for ourselves, but to keep faith with those who preceded us and to help secure those who will follow." I would add that we also vote to keep faith with our fellow citizens today.

As I wrote in an essay last year, "The bedrock upon which America's great experiment in democracy rests is the notion of government based on shared goals and concerted effort. Not the power of 'one.'" (This essay was printed by the Birmingham News last year; you can read the full essay here.)

Voters isolating themselves by making voting just another quick stop like hitting Wal-Mart seems to undermine the idea of community -- and I would say does little, if anything, to promote concerted effort and shared goals.

Perhaps voters do not feel this sense of community in voting, especially considering that so many citizens do not even make it to the polls in the first place.

While voting centers, properly implemented, might lead to some increase in voter turnout, I'm not sure that the mere increase in turnout offsets the downside of further atomizing the voting public. Meanwhile, if improperly implemented, voting centers could become quite a barrier to voting in and of themselves.

Voting at its simplist level is a method for identifying public sentiment. However, it should should also help build community and understanding. It should build bridges as it legitimates the government that regulates and governs. States and counties that see benefits from voting centers would be well-advised to strike a balance between these various values - while also trying to find ways to make the most effective use of limited public dollars.

Election Administration and Personal Information

On Sunday, June 5, 2005, The Birmingham News printed my essay on election administration and the personal information that voters provide to officials when registering to vote. The article explains that the state should allow individuals the opportunity to exclude their personal information when the state or counties sell or give away information from the voter list to the public.

You can read the essay here. (The essay will open in a new window.)

Primary Elections, Freedom of Association, etc.

In May 23, 2005, the United States Supreme Court handed down its latest decision involving primary elections. In the case of Clingman v. Beaver (No. 04-37), the Court again visited issues related to the regulation of primary elections, including who may properly be permitted, or prohibited, to vote in such an election.

At issue in Clingman was whether the State of Oklahoma could properly prohibit registered voters of one political party from voting in the primary election of another political party. The Libertarian Party of Oklahoma (LPO) had requested that its primary election be open to voters registered with other political parties, such as Democrats and Republicans.

While Oklahoma law permits the political parties to open their primary elections to independent voters, Oklahoma refused the request by the LPO due the restriction in state law prohibiting political parties from opening their primaries to registered partisans.

As noted by Justice John Paul Stevens, one can make a compelling argument that the Court's majority was wrong in upholding the Oklahoma statute. Justice Steven's dissent, as well as the opinion of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, makes a strong case that political parties ought to be permitted to invite whomever they wish to participate in the primary election. Based on the application of associational rights, if the LPO wished to allow voters registered with other political parties to participate in its nomination process, then they should be afforded the ability to do so, Stevens and the lower court argued. Of course, the majority disagreed.

Clingman is the most recent in a line of cases analyzing the nexus between associational rights and the right to vote in primary elections. In this context, it's interesting to note the general assumptions that are explicit or implicit to these rulings.

First, though, a quick review of the U.S. Supreme Court's major cases over the years in this area. Independent voters do not have a right to vote in closed primary election unless a political party expressly invites their participation [Nader v. Schaffer, 417 F. Supp. 837 (Conn.), summarily aff'd, 429 US 989 (1976)]. A political party has the right to invite independent voters to participate in its primary election if it so chooses [Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 US 208 (1986)]. Conversely, a state cannot require a political party to conduct an open primary; the party has a right to exclude independent voters [Democratic Party v. Wisconsin ex rel. LaFollette, 450 US 107 (1981)]. Along these same lines, a state cannot require a political party to select its candidates in a blanket primary, since such a primary would permit voters unaffiliated with a party to participate in the selection of that party's candidates [Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 US 567 (2000)].

However, while acknowledging that political party members have associational rights that can be applied to primary elections, the Court has found that states may limit these rights due to their interest in ensuring the viablity and ideological purity of political parties, in addition to providing for stability of the political system. Thus, the Court most recently indicated that political parties do not have an absolute right to determine who may participate in its primary. As noted above, the Court, in Clingman stated that a state can preclude registered voters of one party from voting in the primary election of another party.

The common theme to these cases is that primary elections are political party functions and thus the primaries should further the purposes of the political parties. However, these cases have arisen in states that have incorporated party registration into its voter registration system. Individuals in these states are required to declare a political party affiliation when registering to vote or declare themselves as 'independent.'

One obvious observation of this case history is that states, with the Supreme Court's help, have created a subsidized nomination process for political parties and thus puts the power of the state (including the power benefit from taxes paid) at the service of the political parties. Secondly, the Court has not clearly addressed the application of associational rights to open primaries in states with no party registration requirement.

In states like Alabama, voters do not declare any party affiliation when they register to vote. The only time a voter is required to affiliate with a political party is on primary election day. Thus, the formal affiliation between voter and party lasts for a relatively minute amount of time. Should such a brief affiliation provide the basis for restricting a voter's choices on primary election day? Is such a brief affiliation meaningful at all?

In Democratic Party v. Jones, the Court stated that "[a]s for the associational 'interest' in selecting the candidate of a group to which one does not belong, that falls far short of a constitutional right, if indeed it can even fairly be characterized as an interest. It has been described in our cases as a 'desire' ..." [544 US 573–574, note 5].

Following this logic, no Alabamian has a 'right' to participate in a primary election if political party registration is the evidence of membership in a political party and, thus, the basis of the associational rights that permits the state to constitutionally limit the choices of a voter on primary election day. It would appear that Alabamians merely have merely an 'associational desire' on which to base their voting in a primary election.

Should such a 'desire' be the foundation for herding voters toward a Democratic Party primary ballot or a Republican Party primary ballot? The case history of associational rights and primary elections would suggest that the open primary in Alabama should be examined to determine if a legitimate basis exists for restricting a voter's choice in a state-subsidized nomination process.