| CQ reports this morning that election administrators nationwide are awash in new registrations and that voters are likely to face long lines at polling places, despite record levels of participation through early voting.
If there is a year that even more than 2000 and 2004 makes the case for increased funding for election administration in America, it will be this one.
Just note the numbers: A number of key swing states around the country are reporting significant increases in voter registrations, an early indicator of how many people are likely to vote come Election Day. Among battleground states with the biggest gains in voter registration are Nevada, up 30 percent, Virginia, up 11 percent and North Carolina, up 9 percent.
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Ohio's Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland and its suburbs that has a history of election problems, has seen a 10 percent increase in registered voters compared to 2004 and St. Louis, Missouri is seeing the highest registration levels in a quarter century.
Overall, 13 battleground states have already received 3.4 million new registrations as of Oct. 14, compared to 1.8 million new registrations in 2004, according to Laura Quinn, chief executive of Catalist, which tracks voter registration for progressive organizations. This is certainly an issue in Montana. Since the primary in June, 31,000 net new voters have been added to the rolls. But this burden isn't shared equally among counties. Missoula and Gallatin each saw a 5,500 increase, while the larger Yellowstone County saw a 4,000 increase.
This was one of the major problems with the scurrilous voter challenges from the Montana GOP that caused a number of local Republicans who have some understanding of election administration upset -- they know that these hard-working county officials are already deluged and that dumping new work on their plates for ridiculous reasons was just mean in its effect if not in intent.
So here's the question -- why can't we effectively fund election administration in this country? It's a line item that not a ton of groups fight to increase, but after seeing these sorts of problems election after election, surely we can agree that funding upfront to avoid the problems later is worth it.
Consider it this way, both liberals and conservatives by their own arguments have pretty good reasons to support increased funding of election administration: - For conservatives who worry about both voter fraud and voter registration fraud, increased administrative capacity increases the chances of oddities being caught. That includes everything from Mickey Mouse being registered to vote to having time to make sure individuals' former election jurisdictions are notified when they move their registrations. At this point, many of these problems are capacity problems.
It's also no amazing feat of logic to think through the fact that election fraud of any sort is the sort of thing we're better off preventing than responding to. Some things, like larceny, can be handled just fine with reactive measures to provide restitution to victims and penalties to criminals. But with election fraud, you want to prevent the act from ever taking place because you can't provide restitution in almost any case. Additionally, a heightened chance of getting caught is a better disincentive to committing a crime than is a stiffer penalty, according to sociology research. So the focus should be on catching perpetrators, not simply on extending jail sentences.
Note: I write all of this believing both that voter registration fraud is very rare and that out-and-out voter fraud is exceptionally rare in this country.
- For liberals the key concerns with voting right now is that sometimes counties just can't process the deluge of information. If a county can't process your voter registration by Election Day, you can't vote in many states. If your polling location gets short changed on voting machines and turnout surges, you get to wait in line for an extra hour. You want to increase election participation? Increase election appropriations.
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