Content area
Full text
The 2000 presidential election was a wake-up call to elected leaders, public officials, and election scholars. The electoral fiasco-most prominent in Florida, but also taking place in states like New Mexico and Ohio-revealed many deficiencies in voting equipment (Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 2001). In addition to faulty equipment, registration mix-ups and problems with absentee ballots led to the loss of as many as six million votes (Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 2001). Confusing ballots, like the butterfly ballot in Florida's Dade County, were found to have led voters to vote incorrectly (Wand et al. 2001). While these problems have, no doubt, existed for a long time, the closeness of the 2000 presidential race and the fact that the number of lost votes had the power to change the election outcome have brought election administration questions to the forefront of policy making.
In response, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress on October 29, 2002, and was the first ever federal comprehensive law on electoral administration, as election administration has always been the purview of the 50 states and literally thousands of local administrators. HAVA provided for $3.9 billion to upgrade older election equipment, especially punch-card systems, and established the Election Assistance Commission and minimum election administration standards for the states and local governments who are mostly responsible for administering elections.
Despite the implementation of HAVA requirements in the presidential election of 2004, including the change in many states to electronic touchscreen voting, the problems continued. This time the focus was on Ohio, but no doubt the problems were seen elsewhere. First, there were problems with new electronic machines; there were anecdotal reports of machines over reporting votes, for example. Precincts in many urban areas lacked enough voting equipment, which lead to long voter lines and suggested a bias against minority voters. Exit polls in key battleground states showed large discrepancies with the actual vote outcomes, suggesting additional questions about the accuracy and fairness of the election process. Finally, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (2006) published an article in Rolling Stone Magazine that raised questions about the 2004 election outcome and that ultimately asked: "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Though election scholars could not find evidence of systematic fraud, the media...