But the process lacks transparency and occurs behind closed doors. The lists are riddled with errors and open to documented partisan abuse. In Mississippi voters were purged in the primaries; in Georgia 700 “felons” were kept from voting though they’d never served time in prison. In Louisiana, displacement caused by Katrina occasioned much confusion and opportunities for abuse, in that people forced out of the state faced many barriers, including sheer distance. But here there was a partial solution. Displaced Katrina voters were allowed to return and vote in their former precincts. In Colorado the Secretary of State admitted that 2,454 voters were illegally purged.
In a notorious and well-publicized case, Kevin Fury, about to go overseas to serve his country in the military, was told he couldn’t vote for this reason.
Home foreclosures in Michigan and Indiana, leaving the victims without official addresses, have also eliminated qualified voters from the polls. In Michigan Senator Barack Obama was able to litigate to prevent challenges to foreclosure victims.
Moreover, the deadline for purging lists honestly or otherwise, officially ninety days prior to Election Day, has passed, but the practice persists.
The third major barrier to fair elections, especially at the presidential level, is partisan voter challenges on Election Day. A voter may stand in line in the rain for two hours and then be told that he or she is not on the registration list. Actual situations have occurred in which, in a room serving four precincts, the eliminated voter might be in the wrong precinct line; the correct line may be a few feet away, but no one informs him or her about this oversight.
The solution in such cases? Provisional ballots, which Waldman called “a partial and inadequate solution.”
A provisional ballot allows a challenged voter to fill out a special category of paper ballot which may or may not be counted. Officials are supposed to verify the voter’s integrity in such instances—that Joe the Plumber is indeed Joe and no one else and that he is entitled to vote, and his voted should therefore be counted. Shamefully often, these votes are simply thrown out or otherwise declared invalid. Provisional voting holds up long lines with the required red tape.
In the case of long lines, emergency paper ballots should be provided. Sometimes in their absence voters are given provisional ballots from an ample supply of those and told that the vote will be counted as a regular ballot. But what if it isn’t? What if a staff member finds a pile of provisional votes and mistakenly or otherwise discards them, unaware or feigning unawareness that they are actual votes?
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