Election Reform: Going Anywhere?By Johnson, Wendy S.Wendy S. JohnsonVol. 23, No. 2, 2001 p. 3The thirty-five days following the 2000 presidential election
stunned a watchful and anxious nation as we learned about the severe
ineptness and unreadiness of an election process that could not handle
a closely-called election. Our attention riveted on the panhandle
state as the challenge to recount the presidential race in key Florida
counties moved from the elections board to the courts. Under a
national magnifying glass, a pattern of severe voter neglect began to
emerge, not as the exception, but the rule. Florida citizens' anxiety
turned to distress and anger when the news registered that many of
their votes had not been counted, had been thrown into doubt, or just
thrown out due to a host of inadequate
record-keeping oversights and voting machine failures. Nationally, the
Cal Tech/MIT Voting Technology Project, in a study released July 2001,
estimated that "between four and six million presidential votes were
lost in the 2000 election" due to problems with voter_registration,
polling place practices, and ballot flaws. The final blow to voter
confidence was wielded by the U.S. Supreme_Court with its politicized
decision to cease all recounts because of a lack of agreed upon
standards. In January as our new Supreme_Court-declared
President George W. Bush changed zip codes, legislatures across the
nation began their sessions with high expectations toward changing
election reform procedures and recapturing voter confidence.
In the ten months since the November 2000 election, a count of
another sort has emerged:  some 1,500 election bills were introduced
by lawmakers across the country.  Good. Change is imminent. But
wait. When you look more closely at the few bills that actually passed
and start asking questions about when implementation will take place
and what will be done, the responses are as weak as the bills
themselves. This edition of Southern_Changes
delves into the status of election reform in twelve states in the
American South.  This review comes at a time when the South is on the
cusp of yet another political transition. A time when two of the
staunchest symbols of Southern conservatism, Jessie Helms and Strom
Thurmond will not run for re-election. A time when voting districts
are being realigned due to the new Census counts with new seats gained
and old seats lost. Just as Congress has mandated that population
counts are made every ten years so that necessary corrections are made
to our voting districts, the November 2000 event demands multi-level
mandates that will provide extensive correction to our elections
process.Finger-pointing and excuse-making leave voters in many
states with nothing new to look forward to in November 2001 and
potentially 2002. Lisa Rab's "Budget Woes and Partisan Politics Block
Major Changes to Election Law," assesses election reform bills in
twelve Southern_states.  Catherine Wall's essay, "Elections
Reform Needs Prompt Federal Action," calls for leadership to enact
immediate and effective election standards. As federal intervention
runs up against states' rights, the fate of election reform is in the
air.  "The Florida and Georgia Experience" article examines the
strengths and limitations of two of the most comprehensive election
reform bills passed by Southern legislatures.  Many
legislatures have claimed a preoccupation with redistricting and too
much red ink as obstacles to any immediate and significant change. But
a cycle of opportunity has been squandered. Legislative uncertainty
and lack of will to make extensive corrections to our voting process
is unacceptable. The unfettered right to vote, a keystone of our
democracy, demands a higher respect and accountability. A
"political ordeal unlike any in living memory," wrote the Ford-Carter
Electoral Reform Commission about the 2000 election. Doing nothing or
not enough provides more reasons for citizens not to vote, thereby
deepening the public's alienation from the electoral process. As
states prepare for the November 2001 local and state elections, many
of the same questions and issues brought to light some ten months ago
will again confront voters. This issue of Southern
Changes benefited from the investigative, research, and
writing skills of two outstanding interns, Lisa Rab and Catherine
Wall. Rab is in her last year as a journalism student at Emory
University and Wall is a second year law student at the University of
Texas.  Feature articles by Rab and Wall yield a comprehensive
overview of the status of election reform, real and proposed, across
the American South.Wendy
S. Johnson is executive director of the Southern Regional
Council.
