Guest blog: Good elections require accountability and transparency
by Tom Perez and Rob Richie
After Maryland finally finished counting ballots after its September 12th primary, the finger pointing about responsibility for that day's chaos at the polls began in earnest. Dozens of polling places failed to open on time, others opened without their voting machines working, new electronic pollbooks kept crashing and after polling hours were extended for an hour in two major counties, even more problems developed based on many pollworkers not learning of the extension or how to handle it.
With critical elections for nearly all of Maryland's highest offices expected to be closely contested on November 7th, the Keystone Cops nature of the primary elections was all the more troubling—and sadly reflective of the state of affairs in our elections nationally. Not only did inept election administration cause hundreds of people to lose their right to vote entirely and frustrate thousands more. It increased community distrust in the basic functioning of our democracy at a time when participation is more important than ever.
Americans must see their elected officials and election administrators taking bold, clear steps to reassure them that our state can run secure and fair elections. What we must do is uphold two fundamental principles of running elections well: accountability and transparency. The blame game among state elections officials, county board chairs and county election staff and various political leaders only increases voter cynicism – and points to policy changes demanded next year in Annapolis.
Let's start with accountability. We expect each county elections director to accept full accountability for what happens in November. For the moment, our counties are responsible for key decisions such as hiring, training and paying pollworkers, setting up polling places, establishing systems of Election Day communication and handling breakdowns in electronic machines and poll books.
But we not only must trust, but verify. Every election director should make public in a timely way for public review and comment their county's plan for running elections and a full checklist of what they plan to do in preparation for elections. We need utter transparency for decision-making that all too often is made behind closed doors.
Looking at a concrete example, one of the most astounding breakdowns in our home county of Montgomery in Maryland was with Election Day communication. Once pollworkers in dozens of polling places found they didn't have the access cards necessary to start up their electronic machines, many had no clue what to do – and then were on hold for the central office for half an hour.
When polls were extended, many pollworkers never learned about it from the county, while others botched the process by failing to allow people in line before the original poll-closing time to continue to vote on the electronic machines. It's hardly rocket science to develop efficient means for people to communicate with one another. A simple requirement that poll workers call in every 90 minutes by cell-phone to staff at headquarters will eliminate situations where poll workers are unaware of court rulings extending poll hours.
But changes in state policy are also needed. We must review our elections from top to bottom. We should increase funding for such basic systems as obtaining and training pollworkers, take steps to protect voting rights and secure voting in city elections and ask whether new electronic technology for voting and checking in voters has created more problems then it has solved – we should move to new, simpler, voting machines that have paper trails and can handle democracy innovations like Takoma Park, Maryland's, new instant runoff voting system that will be used in its city elections in 2007.
Resolving accountability is the most fundamental demand.
The international model, one last year proposed by a national commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, is to establish a nonpartisan state elections chief with the authority to direct local elections boards. After appointment by the governor and confirmation by a supermajority in the legislature, this official would have real independence from political pressure – but just as importantly, they should have strict accountability to standards of performance, combined with transparent processes in planning for elections and transparent evaluation of performance after the election.
Our current decentralized structure is a recipe for mutual fingerpointing. In a hearing before the Montgomery County Council, the head of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, acknowledged "human errors" within her office, but mostly blamed the state for the primary election debacle. Meanwhile, the head of the State Board of Election blamed local elections boards and even "the system" for the failures. Does "the system" have a name, a phone number or an office address? Our fundamental problem is not simply human error, but our inability to answer the simple but critical question: "who's in charge?"
Democracy is not only a goal for export. We must bring it home. Let's run better elections this November and then establish clear accountability and transparency through policy changes next year.
Tom Perez serves on the Montgomery County Council in Maryland. Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote, www.fairvote.org and co-founder of new state reform group FairVote Action Maryland, www.fairvotemd.org.