WNT: Reforming the Voting System

N E W   Y O R K, Dec. 11 -- The confusing patchwork of voting methods causing such grief in Florida is just a small part of an even more confusing national patchwork.

Some counties around the country use chad-producing punch-cards, while others use paper ballots — some of which can be read by machines and some not. In other counties, you vote by electronic button or computer. And in still others, by out-of-date lever machines.

“Our voting system is basically from before the flood,” says Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) who is promoting a bill that would give the Federal Elections Committee a year to come up with one or more recommended voting methods. Congress would not require counties to use them, but would offer money to help those counties that do.

“The problem in Palm Beach County occurred because they looked for the cheapest voting machine,” says Schumer. “Those machines cost $250, and they got what they paid for.”

But the dean of Stanford Law School, Kathleen Sullivan, says Schumer’s plan would still leave the country searching for a solution:

“If we simply have Congress paying the states to experiment with different methods, we’ll still have a patchwork of different systems,” she says, “and the next election comes around and the same old problem again — if anything ever boils down to a dead heat.”

Proposing Power Be Given to Congress

Sullivan says the problem won’t go away until there are two ballots in each booth: a locally chosen form for local office and a uniform presidential ballot that is the same everywhere — which would probably require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Article Two currently gives Congress power to determine only the time of choosing presidential elections. Power over places and manner of voting for president would have to be taken away from the states and given to Congress.

But Schumer says an amendment debate would take years and only lead to more confusion: “If the federal government were to change its system of voting, then you would have two systems working in parallel tracks, and it would be complicated.”