Speaking of votes.........Ballot troubles found across country
Minority votes undercounted
BY DAN BALZ
Washington Post Service
WASHINGTON -- Voters in congressional districts with low incomes and high percentages of minorities were far more likely to see their ballots discarded in last year's presidential election than voters in wealthier districts with fewer minorities, according to the first national study of error rates in the 2000 election.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read the
Herald series:
The report added that modern voting machines can significantly reduce the disparity.
The report, prepared by the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee and scheduled for release today, is the first comprehensive nationwide examination of voting patterns and error rates. It shows that what happened in Florida last year was not an isolated phenomenon.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who along with others in the House asked for the study, said he was surprised at the disparities between low-income and wealthier areas and hopes the findings will prod Congress to act.
``I think a lot of people thought the problem was a Florida problem and not a problem all around the country,'' Waxman said. ``This report shows it's a national issue and we need the federal government to step in.''
The report comes at a time when the momentum behind election reform legislation in Congress has flagged, caught up in partisan squabbling, although Democrats have said that with the Senate now in their hands, they may push harder to enact legislation this year.
But time is running out to upgrade outdated machinery before next year's elections.
The study builds on earlier analyses of Florida and elsewhere that documented higher rates of discarded or uncounted ballots in minority or low-income areas, as well as an earlier report by the minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee that showed the beneficial effect of introducing upgraded voting technology in Detroit.
A recently released U.S. Civil Rights Commission report said voters in Florida's black-majority precincts were 10 times more likely to have their presidential ballots rejected. An earlier Herald study said the rejection rate in Florida's black-majority precincts was four times greater.
The new study analyzed the problem more comprehensively. It examined results in 40 congressional districts in 20 states. Half of the districts were in low-income areas with high percentages of minority voters. The other half were in more affluent areas with relatively few minorities. No more than two congressional districts were included from any state.
Overall the study found that 4 percent of all ballots cast in the low-income districts were not tallied for the presidential race, compared to 1.2 percent in the higher-income districts.
In two low-income districts, roughly one in 12 ballots -- 7.9 percent -- were not counted in the presidential race, while the lowest error in one of the more affluent districts was 0.4 percent.
Most of the districts with low rates of uncounted ballots were areas with smaller percentages of minorities. But not in all cases. The 7th District in Alabama, for example, where 68 percent of the population is minority and 31 percent have incomes below the poverty line, had the lowest undercount rate, with just 0.3 percent.
The district, stretching from Birmingham to Montgomery along the western part of the state, uses optical scan machines and counts ballots at the precinct, a system that allows voters to correct mistakes before they leave the polling place.
In another low-income, minority district -- Louisiana's 2nd, which includes New Orleans -- voters use electronic voting machines that will not allow multiple votes for president and alert voters if they have not recorded a vote in a particular race. Using this technology, the voters in the district had a discard rate of 0.5 percent.
The study found that the better the machinery, the lower the discard rate in those low-income districts. For example, districts that used punch-card machines had the highest error rate at 7.7 percent; those with optical-scan machines had an error rate of 1.1 percent.
Overall the study found that the disparities between undercounts in low-income and in more affluent districts were reduced with better technology.
For example, where punch card machines were used, the error rate in the low-income districts was 7.7 percent compared to 2 percent in the more affluent districts, a gap of 5.7 percentage points.
When optical scan machines were used and counted in the precincts, the error rate was 1.1 percent in the low-income districts and 0.5 percent in the affluent districts, a difference of 0.6 percentage points.
The Florida Legislature recently passed and Republican Gov. Jeb Bush signed a measure that will replace older punch-card voting machines with optical-scan machines in time for the 2002 elections. Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, recently signed legislation requiring every precinct in that state to install touch-screen voting machines for the 2004 elections.
Advocates of election reform have urged Congress to enact legislation that would, among other things, help state and local governments pay for more modern voting machines.
``I think this report should wake us up to the fact that we need federal legislation to help local governments modernize their technology in conducting elections,'' Waxman said.
Despite dozens of bills introduced in Congress, neither the House nor the Senate has taken any action. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, held hearings on the issue last month and has pledged to push for enactment of legislation this year. |
