by Robert Rackleff

One focus of the work of Carnegie Corporation of New York is on reducing barriers to civic and electoral participation. This report looks at whether those barriers rose or fell during the 2004 presidential election, in which many other state and local offices were also on the line.

The 2004 general election results answered most of the nation’s over 3,000 state and local election administrators’ common prayer, which goes: “Lord, please let the vote not be close.”

President George W. Bush defeated Senator John F. Kerry decisively to win a second term—286 to 251 in electoral votes, and 62,028,719 to 59,028,500 in popular votes. Who won the presidency was beyond serious challenge and there was no repeat of the grueling five-week Florida recount battle of 2000 by which Bush won that state’s electoral votes and the presidency by only 537 votes out of nearly six million cast statewide.

State and local elections officials avoided this dreaded ordeal in 2004—with a few exceptions, most notably in statewide races in North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Washington State. In the latter, Democrat Christine Gregoire was sworn in as governor after a two-month recount found her the winner by 129 votes out of some 2.9 million cast.

However, there were enough election problems around the nation to show the need for more improvements in the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election results, and other election laws. While HAVA achieved significant progress, the remaining (and new) problems of 2004 have generated numerous calls for more reforms. Says Geri Mannion, chair of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Strengthening U.S. Democracy program. “In the aftermath of both the 2000 and 2004 elections, it is apparent that the struggle—and debate—continues about how to increase voter turnout and interest, expand and secure the right to register and vote, and how to ensure that all citizens’ votes are fairly and accurately counted.”

Moreover, numerous nonpartisan organizations and public officials are poised to help develop those improvements, which center on proposed uniform national standards for voter registration, provisional ballots, statewide voter databases, voter identification requirements and alternatives, and reliable, secure and auditable voting machines.

Other improvements include increased funding for the federal Election Assistance Commission’s program to develop voting machine standards; improvements to poll worker recruitment and training; full funding for the state and local-level improvements required by HAVA; and declaring election day a national holiday to improve voter convenience.

What Went Right
The presidential election results were not only decisive, the surge of new voters reversed a recent trend of declining voter turnout. Fully 60.7 percent of eligible voters cast ballots by November 2, 2004—the highest turnout rate since 1968, when 61.9 percent voted. The 2004 voters totaled 122.3 million, up from 105.4 million in the 2000 presidential election. Not only that, 71 percent of all eligible citizens were registered to vote, the highest since 1964, according to Curtis Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

“This year, 2004, was a good year for participation in American politics,” says Michael McDonald of George Mason University. He notes that turnout soared in the 16 battleground states to 65.3 percent of eligible voters, 7.7 percentage points higher than turnout rate in the same states in 2000.

McDonald attributes this to the intensive organizational efforts to register and turn out voters—as well as the public attitude that this would be a close and important election— especially in battleground states. “The 2004 election may be a watershed,” he says, because parties learned the importance of face-to-face contact between campaign workers and potential voters.

Gans acknowledges this mobilization effort, but believes that motivation was more important. “The substantial increase in turnout was due largely to the deep emotions surrounding the presidency of George W. Bush,” he wrote in a post-election analysis.

By most measures, HAVA helped improve election systems. Some problems remained with voting machines, but they were not as widespread as in 2000. Some new federal standards and funding through HAVA helped replace many of the error-plagued punch-card and lever-machine voting systems with more accurate optical-scan and touch-screen systems. By January 1, 2006, all states receiving HAVA funds are required to eliminate punch cards and lever machines.

Voters made substantial use of expanded early voting opportunities, such as absentee ballots and in-person voting at selected polling places open up to two weeks before election day. Improved procedures for overseas balloting for civilian and military voters apparently enabled increased voting for those groups, as well.

The widespread use of provisional ballots vindicated the decision to require this remedy for voters otherwise unable to vote on election day, despite problems caused by conflicting standards for their use from one jurisdiction to the next. As required by HAVA, all who showed up at a poll, but found ineligible by poll workers, could sign a written statement of
eligibility and cast their vote, subject to verification later by election officials. Voters cast over 1.2 million such ballots nationwide, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project.

Improved voter registration databases in numerous states also helped many clear that potential hurdle to cast ballots. One sign of effectiveness was the lower number of provisional ballots cast in states with such databases, where it was easier to verify that persons were properly registered to vote. By 2006, HAVA requires all states to use such databases.

Also positive was an unprecedented level of outside election monitoring in the months leading up to, during and after the general election, involving a small army of election observers, monitors and lawyers from, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice, political parties, nonpartisan organizations and even international organizations, especially in battleground states. For example, the Election Protection Coalition of over 80 organizations deployed nearly 25,000 volunteers in the field and operated a telephone hotline that received some 39,000 voter complaints. Common Cause and several other organizations set up a national voter alert line that received nearly 210,000 telephone calls.

Partisan polling place observers were out in force, as well. “Republicans were watching Democrats, Democrats were eying Republicans,” election.org stated in a post-election report. “All were watching poll workers and hearing from voters.”

Even some watchdog groups were impressed by the improvements. “It is now abundantly clear that Election Day 2004 was a success,” wrote Doug Chapin of the Election Reform Information Project, adding, “Record numbers of voters went to the polls, and while there were isolated problems across the nation, these problems were largely scattered and none of them provoked the kind of meltdown that made the headlines in November 2000.”

Next page: The varying results of 2004 provisional ballot procedures, according to a Business Week editorial, “raise a fairness question: Why should a vote count under one state’s rules but not under another’s?”

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