Reforming Elections Comprehensively
Quick Links:
The Count Every Vote Act of 2007 (CEVA)
Click here for a summary of the Count Every Vote Act of 2007, including its various titles and links to the House and Senate versions of the bill.
Forums on Election Reform
Forum One: Voting by Mail
Forum Two: Voting Machines
Forum Three: Intimidation and Deceptive Practices
Forum Four: Democracy in the Keystone State
Forum Five: New York Voting Machines
On May 1, 2006, People For the American Way held a forum called “Voting By Mail: The Big Picture and the Details"—a program that has been used for the last five years in all of Oregon’s elections. Moderated by PFAW Senior Vice President and National Political Director Mary Jean Collins, experts from across the country discussed voting by mail as a possible solution to voting machine problems, as well as the potential benefits and pitfalls of the program. Read more >>
On January 5, 2007, People For the American Way and PFAW Foundation continued their series of events focused on election reform with “Will Your Vote Count?: A Forum on Voting Machines and Voter Verification.” Moderated by Mary Jean Collins, voting machine experts and activists from across the country discussed how technology can help or hinder efforts to run safe, fair elections. Read more >>
On February 9, 2007, People For the American Way and PFAW Foundation joined with the NAACP and others to sponsor a Capitol Hill forum called “Voter Suppression in the 21st Century: What Happens and How to Stop It." It featured national experts, activists, and some of the people working in Congress to make intimidation and deceptive practices things of the past by 2008. Read more >>
On March 13, 2007, People For the American Way and PFAW Foundation joined with others to sponsor a Harrisburg, PA, forum called "Democracy in the Keystone State: Challenges and Opportunities for Election Reform in Pennsylvania." It featured panelists working on voting machine and voter verifiability issues, barriers to voting, deceptive practices, and more. Read more >>
On April 12, 2007, People For the American Way joined with others to present a New York forum called Vote 2008: Symposium on Election Reform and New York Voting Machines. Moderated by PFAW Northeast Executive Director, Andrew Stengel, the forum examined the role of voting technology in elections, present and future, as well as the importance of ensuring accessibility to these machines for voters with disabilities and minority language voters. Read more >>
Election Assistance Commission
PFAW Field Coordinator Sergio Lopez hand delivers Release the Report petitions to the communications director of the Election Assistance Commission.
On November 27, 2006, People For the American Way delivered petition signatures from 13,000 PFAW activists to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission demanding the release of a report that could obliterate the justification for right-wing voting restrictions that disenfranchise thousands.
The draft report—which elections experts had completed several months before, in May—disproves the myth of widespread individual voter fraud. It therefore belies the justification for restrictive voter identification laws and burdensome registration requirements, which deny the vote to primarily minority, poor, elderly, and student voters. The Elections Assistance Commission buried that draft report, which is available here.
Several days later, on December 7, 2006, the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) released the long-awaited voter fraud and intimidation report. That report could have helped inspired election reform, but it was quashed by partisanship and replaced with a vague mish-mash. It was deeply disturbing. In response, PFAW Foundation released an in-depth analysis of the flaws in the EAC's final report and the suppression of the draft report, reporting that "the discrepancies between the earlier draft and last week’s report raise the specter of partisan motives on a commission meant to provide bipartisan election review."
For example, while the EAC's final report claimed that there is "no concensus on the regularity of voting fraud and voting intimidation found" and that there is just "a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud," the draft report came to different conclusions. It found that "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud or at least much less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, 'dead' voters, noncitizen voting, and felon voters."
4/17/07 — Update: In the wake of criticism from "members of Congress, the media, and the public," who "have suggested that political motivations may have been a part of the Commission's decision making process," the "Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Chair Donetta Davidson today issued a formal request to the commission's inspector general," said an EAC press release, "to conduct a review of the commission's contracting procedures, including a review of two recent projects focusing on voter identification and vote fraud and voter intimidation."
4/17/07 — Update: Voter Fraud is the crime of casting a vote that one isn’t eligible to cast. Department of Justice officials have said that failure to prosecute voter fraud was one of his main reasons for the firings of several US attorneys. Before you take this explanation at face value, there are a few things you should know about voter fraud, like a voter is more likely to be struck by lightning than cast a fraudulent ballot.
4/16/07 — Update: The director of PFAW/F's Democracy Campaign, David Becker, visited the show of Air America's Rachel Maddow, who said, "Republican claims of voter fraud are ginned up. This is a deliberate strategy. As long as they can keep the myth of voter fraud alive, they can use it to keep the heat off themselves for voter intimidation. ... It also allows them to stymie get-out-the-vote efforts and voter registration drives." David replied that fraud's "just not worth it, and it just doesn't happen. Nevertheless there are laws being passed almost exclusively by Republicans and right-wingers that seek to suppress the votes of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions — all on this pretext of the existence of this mythical voter fraud."
4/11/07 — Update: News reports this morning drive yet another stake into the myth of widespread “voter fraud,” with the New York Times’ story on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s suppression of a report debunking allegations of widespread fraud at the nation’s polling places — and showing that the researchers were muzzled for political purposes. This is likely to have a significant positive impact on the election reform legislation now moving through Congress.
4/11/07 — Update: PFAW Foundation's March 29, 2007, analysis shows how voter fraud is being used as an excuse for the recent firings of U.S. attorneys. "Right-wing activists have posited that the reason these federal prosecutors were fired was that they failed to prosecute or investigate rampant voter fraud. Attorney General Gonzales claimed, 'The president recalls hearing complaints about election fraud not being vigorously prosecuted.'" But the facts demonstrate that the dismissed prosecutors diligently investigated claims of fraud, and found no evidence to prosecute any crimes. Virtually every academic study of voter fraud concludes that it is not close to being a substantial problem, if it exists at all.
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