Election Officers who Block the Vote

January 10, 2012

By Robert M. Brandon – Many news stories have focused on efforts of new Republican majorities in state legislatures around the country to pass laws viewed as suppressing the vote of traditional Democratic constituencies.

But recent actions by some secretaries of state look even more disturbing, given their traditional role as a state’s chief elections officer, with a mandate to administer elections fairly.

The secretaries of state in Colorado, Kansas, Maine and New Mexico all used their office last year to throw doubt on their state’s election system. To support more restrictive voting laws, these officials called into question the eligibility of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of registered voters — though there is little evidence to support their claims of people illegally registering and voting.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler of Colorado, for example, asserted before Congress that as many as 11,000 noncitizens could be registered to vote in Colorado. He drew that conclusion by comparing people who used noncitizen documentation to obtain a driver’s license to voter registration rolls.

But the likely discrepancy, aside from clerical errors, is that those noncitizens became legal citizens after receiving their driver’s license. During the same time period, 32,000 people became legal citizens in Colorado.

New Mexico’s secretary of state, Dianna Duran, called into question 64,000 voter registrations as possible cases of noncitizens registering, after cross-checking voter registration files and the state motor vehicle database. Most experienced officials would know that mismatches are usually the result of clerical errors or imperfect matches.

Duran’s now monthslong investigation has failed to find strong evidence of the widespread voter fraud she alleged. Yet Duran, who favors a photo ID law, still fans the flames, saying, “New Mexico’s voter registration process is failing both citizens and noncitizens alike.”

In Kansas, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has long been an outspoken anti-immigration activist, played into fears of voter fraud by claiming his office “already has found 67 aliens illegally registered to vote in Kansas, but when the total number is calculated, it will likely be in the hundreds.”

He ushered through the Legislature a bill that makes Kansas the second state to require “proof of citizenship” to register to vote — difficult and costly documentation for elderly and low-income Kansans to produce.

Gessler promoted similar legislation in Colorado — but it failed.

In addition to igniting fears of voter fraud, these officeholders have advocated policies that will make it less convenient to vote in their states.

For example, this fall, Gessler ordered county election officials to stop sending ballots to eligible voters simply because they did not vote in 2010 election. County election officials had routinely sent mail ballots to “inactive voters,” assuming that these voters had merely skipped one election. Gessler sued the Denver county clerk after she refused to comply, and he lost in court. Denver County still mails ballots to all eligible voters.

Some secretaries of state have focused attention on young voters, who already have difficulties getting to the polls. In Maine, the GOP party chair questioned the eligibility of more than 200 college students because they paid out-of-state tuition. Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers launched an investigation.

Despite finding no evidence of voter fraud, Summers subsequently sent intimidating letters to dozens of students suggesting they should get Maine driver’s licenses and register their vehicles in Maine — or relinquish their right to vote.

Americans already vote at lower rates than many other democracies. Instead of discouraging voting, these secretaries of state should look for ways to make registration and voting more convenient – like Washington state’s Republican secretary of state, Sam Reed, who implemented online voter registration and pushed for all-mail elections. Washington had the third-highest voter turnout in 2010.

Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, John Husted, also proposed online voter registration. He bucked his own party by opposing a GOP-backed strict photo ID bill.

Policies to make voting more difficult have no place in the office of a state’s chief election administrator. The goal should be getting more citizens to vote, not fewer. We would be served better by secretaries of state who are more interested in modernizing election law and encouraging policies that ensure all eligible voters have equal access to the polls.

Robert M. Brandon is the founder and president of the Fair Elections Legal Network.