Problems at polls permeate U.S. political process

— -- When Sharonda Williams went to vote at her regular New Orleans polling place in October, she was surprised to learn that she would have to go to the precinct where her mail had been sent.

It didn't matter to election officials that she never left her home, which was unaffected by Hurricane Katrina two years earlier. Nor did it matter that her mail was going to her office only because of Postal Service problems. Home, she was told, is where the mailbox is.

So Williams voted in the wrong state Legislature districts for people who don't represent her. Her problem has since been resolved, she says, but "I'm just fearful that there are people who are still being forced to vote in the wrong precinct — or who have just given up and are not voting at all."

From Florida in 2000 to Ohio in 2004 and Louisiana in 2007, problems at the polls permeate American politics. Some are caused by technology, others by dirty tricks, others by human error. Many are caused by voter registration systems that are being computerized but remain dependent on the actions of applicants, bureaucrats, even postal workers.

The registration problems are driven home by two recent U.S. Election Assistance Commission reports. One shows vast differences in how states remove voters from their registration lists. The other shows differences in how those voters are handled at the polls and whether their votes are counted.

The move to computerize registration databases also is creating problems. Washington and Florida have been sued for requiring strict matches between voter registration forms and data from motor vehicles or Social Security offices.

Louisiana was sued by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for purging 21,000 voters from its list whose names and birthdates matched those in eight other states without waiting for approval from the Justice Department.

The matching process, says Kristen Clarke of the legal defense fund, is "unscientific, arbitrary and leaves room for tremendous discretion."

Thor Hearne, national election counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, says database matching stops voters from posing as someone else. "A bad voter roll, a voter roll that has dead people on it, is one that does in fact allow vote fraud to happen," he says.

Efforts to cleanse voter lists stem from the 2000 election, when about 3 million registered voters who did not vote later blamed registration problems, according to the Census Bureau. In Florida, hundreds — if not thousands — of people were incorrectly labeled as felons and purged before a presidential election decided by 537 votes.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was intended to fix things by creating statewide electronic databases. That was supposed to make it easier for election officials to find duplicate registrations and cull both felons and the dead.

But the law didn't tell states how to build their databases or make them interact with each other. As a result, there are 50 different systems. The deadline for having those systems up and running was extended from 2004 to 2006, making this year's election the first major test. Six states still are not in full compliance. Delays in New York, New Jersey, Alabama and Maine prompted federal lawsuits.

Computers not always the cure

Among the reasons for concern:

•Local control. Despite the advent of electronic databases, their accuracy often depends on how applicants fill out registration forms and how local officials process them. A survey by the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, which monitors election participation issues, found that nearly half the localities responding had no policy for removing voters.

In Maryland between 2004 and 2006, 60% of those culled from the rolls were removed because they had moved, compared with only 9% in Hawaii, according to data submitted by the states to the Election Assistance Commission. Deaths caused 74% of the reduction in Michigan but less than 5% in Utah.

•Dependence on mail carriers. States verify inactive voters' addresses by sending them non-forwardable notices and waiting to see if they come back. South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson says that doesn't work because mail carriers frequently deliver the mail even if they know a new resident lives at the address, or forward the mail because they know the voter has moved. When that happens, the mail isn't returned, and states cannot cull those names from their voter lists.

As a result, eight counties in South Dakota have more people registered to vote than they have residents, a problem that is also faced in Indiana and Mississippi.

"A big part of this is reliance upon the Postal Service to do their job," says Thomas Wilkey, executive director of the Election Assistance Commission. "They are in essence part and parcel of the registration process."

•Problems with matching data. Efforts to match voters' registration forms with motor vehicle, corrections or Social Security records can produce false results. Advocacy groups for the poor and minorities claim they are more likely to be taken off the rolls and less likely to battle their way back on.

"We worry that those who are poor or who have less education will be less able to fix the problem," says Justin Levitt, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

•No interstate requirement. Only six Midwestern states — Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota — integrated their systems in an effort to find people who have moved across state lines. The remaining states have no ready way to communicate with one another — something a national commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker recommended in 2005.

Dead voters remain on rolls

Despite the fits and starts, many county and state officials say the new electronic databases are helping to cleanse registration rolls that included voters who had long since stopped voting, moved away, committed felonies or died.

In Mississippi, the database has helped to purge about 100,000 names. "We're still working to clean up our voting rolls," says Kell Smith, spokesman for Secretary of State Eric Clark.

Montana checked its new database in 2006 and found no evidence of felons or dead voters, Secretary of State Brad Johnson says.

North Carolina is careful in seeking exact matches before removing voters who have died or moved away, Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett says. The Asheville Citizen-Times found in July that at least 347 deceased city residents remained on the rolls.

North Dakota has it easiest: It's the only state that doesn't require voter registration, so there are no lists to maintain. Voters just show up in small precincts and show identification to poll workers, who usually know them by name. "As a result," Secretary of State Al Jaeger says, "we never have dead people voting in North Dakota."

Contributing: Tim Evans, The Indianapolis Star; Lynn Hicks, The Des Moines Register; Julie Goodman, The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.; Karl Puckett, Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune; Jordan Schrader, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times; Ron Barnett, The Greenville (S.C.) News; Stuart Whitney, Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Heather Collura; Marissa DeCuir.