Rep. Toby Nixon (R-45) the ranking Republican member of the House Committee on State Government Operations and Accountability and the point man in the House Republican caucus on election reform, e-mails:
I thought I would summarize, for the benefit of SoundPolitics readers, the significant things that the two major election reform bills actually do, and what I think remains to be done in enhance the security, integrity, and accuracy of our election system. I know some people wonder why many Republicans voted Yes on the bills, when they fell short of what we hoped to achieve. I think you’ll agree after reviewing the lists below that what passed is an improvement over current law in several areas. There is still much work to do, of course. I will be preparing legislation for the 2006 session during the next few months, and I’d love to receive suggestions regarding what else people think still needs to be done. My email address is nixon.toby .AT. leg.wa.gov.
· Requires provisional and absentee ballots to be visually distinguishable from poll ballots and not countable at poll-site counting machines.
· Updates and strengthens provisions absentee and provisional ballot outer envelopes.
o Requires clear statements on envelopes saying it is illegal to vote if you’re not a citizen, or if you are a felon who has not had your right to vote restored, or to vote or sign on behalf of someone else.
o Requires a place for the voter to voluntarily provide a phone number for later verification (since the law now requires auditors to notify voters by phone in case of problems, and many people have unlisted numbers)
o Requires outer envelopes to have a secrecy flap to reduce identity theft concerns.
o Requires returned envelopes to be kept in secure locations until opening.
· Requires that provisional voters have a way to determine whether or not their vote was counted.
· Requires establishment of statewide signature verification standards, and training, testing, and certification for election staff who verify signatures.
· Standardizes procedures for curing missing or mismatched signatures.
· Prohibits curing a mismatched or missing signature during a recount.
· Extends the general election certification period to 21 days to provide more time for military and overseas ballots to arrive.
· Prohibits ballot enhancement (actually, prohibits marking on the original ballot at all), and sets standards for duplication of ballots.
· Clarifies handling of write-in votes, including when the bubble next to the write-in line is not filled in.
· Allows inclusion of previously excluded ballots during a recount only in case of election worker error, but not voter error.
· Requires more complete reconciliation reports, and transmission of them to the secretary of state at time of certification.
· Secretary of State may require all recount abstracts to be submitted on the same day.
· Election challenges must be filed within 10 days of certification, rather than ten days after issuance of the certificate of election.
· Destroying, altering, discarding, etc., a completed registration form or provisional ballot signature affidavit is a gross misdemeanor.
· Double voting is a class C felony.
· Requires a study of requiring judges to always be on the general election ballot even if they receive a majority of the vote in a primary.
ESSB 5743 – Voter Registration
· Requires a person to be asked if they are a U.S. citizen and if they will be 18 on election day, and get affirmative answers to both, before asking if they want to register to vote.
· Requires the registration application form to include a checkbox asserting U.S. citizenship.
· Requires the application form to clearly and conspicuously state that you must be a U.S. citizen to vote, have a clear warning that it is a class C felony to register illegally, and require registrant to sign that they are eligible, and acknowledge that they will be reported to state and/or federal authorities if found to have voted illegally.
· Requires checking against statewide database for duplicate registrations before registration.
· Codifies provisions current found in WAC and court decisions regarding voter registration for persons with non-traditional addresses (i.e., homeless).
· Requires scanning and updating of the statewide voter registration database at least quarterly.
o Requires scanning WSP, AOC, and other databases for felons.
o Requires DOL to provide full access to driver’s license signature and image database.
o Allows coordination of the database with other states for finding duplicates across state lines.
o Must scan for persons who have declined to serve on juries due to not being citizens.
o Must scan for persons who have been declared legally incompetent to vote.
o May scan against FBI, federal court, bureau of prisons, USCIS, and others, for felons and non-citizens.
o Must retain information on previous successful appeals to avoid repeated cancellations.
· Date of birth must be available from voter database (helps with database matching).
· The existing biennial address verification program mailings must include a postpaid return envelope.
· Requires convicted felons to be informed at time of sentencing that they have lost the right to vote and how it can be restored, and acknowledge in writing that they understand the information.
· Restores felon right to vote automatically upon completion of sentence, community confinement, and LFOs, without having to go back before a judge for a certificate of discharge.
· Registering to vote while knowingly not qualified is a class C felony.
What Remains to be Done
· Require proof of citizenship at time of registration, to enforce constitutional requirement that only citizens are allowed to vote.
· Strengthen the requirement for photo ID at time of registration, to insure that no person can register twice under different names.
· Require full legal name in the voter database to prevent duplicate registrations and facilitate matching against other databases.
· Require statewide updating of registrations to apply the above requirements to existing registered voters.
· Require registration at least 30 days before the election, rather than the current 15 days, to provide auditors sufficient time to prepare poll books and mail absentee ballots.
· Strengthen the requirement for photo ID at the polls, to insure that the person presenting themselves to vote is the registered voter they claim to be, and allow comparison on the spot of the signature on the ID to the signature in the poll book.
· Extend auditing and reconciliation record-keeping requirements for all ballot types, accounting for all ballots printed, sent or handed out, returned, counted, and rejected, and requiring balancing. Every vote should have a voter.
· Require an automatic revote if the margin of error exceeds the margin of victory.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 24, 2005 08:21 AM | Email ThisWhat is left out of Rep. Nixon's summary is the clause that will enable counties to have all mail elections. As I understand this was retained in the Senate form that allows it to be the choice of the county. We all know that this means all mail ecections in King County. I would rather see all poll elections, but again this is what we can expect with democ-Rat majorities in both houses.
I hope the legislature gets a change to re-visit the timing og the primariy again, but next time I would prefer a June date over the August one they chose for this round. Too many people take their vacation in August.
Posted by: DeadWood on April 24, 2005 08:42 AMHaving said that, there's NO WAY that Berendt, CG, SoS, or any of the western lawmakers will EVER let this happen.
One must produce ID to a police officer that asks to see it on the street, yet I am sure that CG will cite constitutionality questions with regard to voting and let it die.
Posted by: Patches Pal on April 24, 2005 08:48 AM
"Extend auditing and reconciliation record-keeping requirements for all ballot types, accounting for all ballots printed, sent or handed out, returned, counted, and rejected, and requiring balancing. Every vote should have a voter."
Seems this should have been the heart of the entire matter....having a balance requirement before the county may certify its election and the ability of the SOS to delay Statewide certification subject to County reconciliation’s.
It certainly would have helped put faces on the "on demand" printing of ballots KC put into their ballot box stuffing efforts
- the security flap line isn't clear.
How about: No voter specific information shall be on the exterior of the outer envelope - the signature can go on the inner side of the flap.
- The voter registration database shall be backed up and presented to the public at the two-week-before-vote deadline. If we're responsible for vetting voters, then we need to know who is available. By far the easiest way to commit fraud in this election was to back date when exactly a voter registered.
- The voter crediting database must be online with no more than a day's delay between any voter being credited and appearing in the online record of such.
- Complete purge of the voter's rolls.
- Re-enumerate that filling out a ballot for someone you know to be legally incompetent is illegal.
- 'May scan against FBI' seems too lax. 'Must' seems to stringent.
- The 'Date of birth' can be just a _year_ of birth.
- Define 'margin of error' so there's no wiggle room. "The margin of error shall be the sum of the absolute value of every item in this list: voterless ballots by precinct, ballotless voters by precinct, suspected unreconstituted felon votes, suspected non-citizen votes, challenged voters, all voters whose registration was approved within the 30 day preelection window, any unreconciled ballot discrepency. The county responsible for the greatest percapita error is responsible for the revote costs."
In practice that would make the 'margin of error' on this particular election around 5000, and give the bill to King County.
- If we're going to be voting mostly-absentee, have a two digit PIN on the voter registration card as the check that the ballot wasn't submitted by a mailbox-raider.
- The ballots (of all types) should all be printed in sealed, bound, numbered lots of 100. Any procedure that authorizes someone to have one of these packets for any reason requires them to sign it out and fill in the same sheet a poll worker would have to fill out as to the disposition of each individual ballot. The remainder must be signed back in.
- No 'on demand' printing of any sort.
- All spoiled ballots shall be marked SPOILED in black marker letters larger than 2 inches high, but retained for the reconciliation process.
- Every election worker, volunteer or partisan or whatever, in any position shall be given a one page summary of the election laws pertinent to their position and sign off that they are competent to follow those rules.
Posted by: Al on April 24, 2005 09:07 AMIn every aspect of society on has to prove who they are. My laptop hard disk blew up recently and my password file is not on my replacement yet. The wife said I had to get some important files to work on the flight back to Seattle so connect through the airport RF system. There is a T-Mobile hotspot in the SF Airport that I found and connected into. Since I could not remember my UID or Password, I called T_Mobile Support Services. I had to prove to them over the phone who I was, Puddybud! After 5 minutes I successfully gave them enough ID information for proof so I could log on.
Our SSID is used almost everywhere in the US. Many people talk about having to prove who you are when renting movies. How about when you pay for car repairs, or buy things on your credit card? Yet for voting you don't need specific ID information. How strange that is. But then we do live in Washington State, home of the PC, Tree Hugging, Salmon Ladder needing, Dam Busting, CAO loving, Bullying Law creating Democratically controlled legislature and senate.
I wonder what the trolls think of the election remedies so far? Probably to strict for Nelson, et. al.
Too bad they didn't think about the take home empty ballots isses in this law. Amazingly, it didn't come out until the depositions. I can understand the timing issue of not alerting the public until now, but I think we could have used that as an issue against the MSM for not digging to find that out also. Another stab into the heart of the Slimes and Puke-Indigestioner for their sloppy work.
I am now going to see what Goldy is saying on "look at my horsesass" blog.
NOT NUFF SAID YET!!!!!
Pudster
Posted by: Puddybud on April 24, 2005 09:10 AMThe WORST judge in the state was elected in Thurston county. This guy literally invents the law as he goes along and plays sissy to the feminists special interests. There were several challengers in the primary which spread the votes across all of them. The final vote was actually pretty close. With more education on what this guy was about, the outcome would have been different.
Posted by: Andy on April 24, 2005 09:32 AMRead Fraudoire's Election Reform report from meetings all over the state for what the people want!!
You don't have to explain yourself.
Republicans caved yet again!!!
Posted by: Norm on April 24, 2005 09:32 AM- Acceptable forms of photo ID shall be limited to:
Washington State DL, WA non-driving ID card, US Passport, Military ID.
I think there's other sorts of federal ID that is accepted for other things, but they should be sufficiently competent to get a WA state ID card, yes?
The new WA driver's licenses have bar codes, as do passports -> there could be a requirement to scan/verify the ID right there on the spot before signing.
Posted by: Al on April 24, 2005 09:37 AMI work in a health care facility. When a DSHS patient comes in for care and registers, we ask for a copy of their DSHS card and a, get ready, PICTURE ID. They all have them. Some are not driver's licenses, but they all have photo ID.
That is a bogus argument and as others here have stated, it takes forever to prove you are who you are for much less important things than voting.
Can you cite the section and bill you refer to, please?
I read SSB 5743, Section 1, Subsection 6, and none of the things you state applies to registration. And, moreover, there is nothing to indicate that a Matricula Consular would be a disqualifying factor.
Suffice it to say, an affirmative indication to the question of citizenship REQUIRES the prospective voter to be registered, regardless of eligibility. Grunts, nod of the head (despite a 'deer in the headlight', noncomprehending look counts, people.)
And that's the way Cantwell and Gregoire want it!
Posted by: Patches Pal on April 24, 2005 09:56 AMOh... Cool!
On board with that. Count me in!
Posted by: Patches Pal on April 24, 2005 10:02 AMYou ever think of running for SoS? You've got my vote!
Posted by: TB on April 24, 2005 10:10 AMProof of citizenship to register.
Full legal name in voter database.
Photo ID to register AND to vote.
Apply new rules to EXISTING registered voters.
No ballot-less voters or voter-less ballots.
I like Al's list; and agree that what constitutes an acceptable photo ID needs to be explicitly defined.
Another thought:
Since 5499 and 5743 do implement a fair number of things, I would guess that the 'volume' of verbiage required to specify the most important items that remain outstanding might be short enough that it could fit on the back on an initiative petition.
Because of the blizzard of sometimes-overlapping bills and amendments to bills and amendments to amendments: Does anybody have or have access to comprehensive documentation on the desired 'end-state' of the election-related RCWs; taking into account what WAS done by 5499 and 5743 and focusing on what is left. Since Rep. Nixon was the point man for the House (R)s on election reform, maybe he does ??..
If we could get comprehensive language that has already been vetted by the Code Revisor (every bill that is formally submitted goes thru the Code Revisor first; at least they are supposed to), it would be trivially easy to file an initiative (been there, done 'dat).
Methow Ken
In response to Deadwood, I didn't include points on the mail ballot election option bill because I focused on the voter registration bill (5743) and the election reform bill (5499). There were many bills passed that had some impact on election and campaign laws, including 1130, 1132, 1447, 1749, 1754, 1876, 5034, 5395, 5499, 5564, 5565, and 5743 (and there may be some I missed). And changing the primary date (HB 2027) isn't dead yet. If people like, I could provide summaries of all of them.
-- Toby
Thanks for keeping us informed.
Posted by: VCRW on April 24, 2005 03:34 PMI did a quick check on the Legislature's web site, and at least as of what is up at 12:00+ early Monday morning Governor-4-now Gregoire has only signed one of all the bill Rep. Nixon listed. Just having that list is VERY helpful.
9 March 2005 was the first day to file Initiatives to the Legislature, so there are still over 8 months to file and gather signatures on that initiative variant (30 December is last day to deliver sigs this year). Since 8 July is the 2005 deadline for filing sigs for Initiatives to the People, as a practical matter that is already too late (besides which it is very difficult to file on something that is actively being modified by the Legislature until sine die; to be sure there are not a lot of changes underneath what is filed with the SOS).
Once it becomes clear which bills will and will not finally get signed into law, then I sure hope we the people can collectively get serious about improving on what the just-ended session of the Legislature did...
Methow Ken
How about a law requiring elections officials to enforce election law? (I'm amazed I even have to suggest this, but apparently that's what it's come to!)
Posted by: Michele on April 25, 2005 11:28 AMhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1589642,00.html
This is a promising field. The church has opposed many new technologies throughout its history. And many men were put to death by the church for faling to yield to the official word of the church.
Let's hope that we don't let religion extinguish all of the wonderful possibilites for a promising new technology.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 4, 2005 02:30 PM