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Making Maryland a Democracy Leader |
JANUARY 23, 2009
The legislative session has started in Maryland and there are real opportunities to build on True Vote's recent successes. Thanks to your help, we won the battle to end paperless electronic voting and are transitioning to a paper ballot-based voting system. But, there is more work to do.
True Vote is working with allies like Maryland Common Cause, Fair Vote, the Maryland Ballot Access Coalition and Save Our Votes to push for several key pieces of democracy reform legislation.Top on our list is finishing the job in putting in place a voting system Marylanders can trust. One last piece of legislation is needed to ensure that votes are counted accurately, a mandatory audit of each election. An audit is a transparent counting of a small percentage of paper ballots by hand and comparing the results of the optical scan machine count. The major advantage of optical scan, in addition to lower cost, is that it produces a paper ballot confirmed by the voter. Optical scan machines are computers that can make mistakes. The way to ensure that votes are counted accurately is to require a mandatory audit.
Related to the transition to optical scan machines, Maryland needs to learn from its experience with the Diebold (now Premier) contract. True Vote supports an Election Warranty Bill that requires a private contractor to warranty their work and make changes that reflect state election reforms. We need election equipment that does the job and is not flawed like the current paperless electronic machines of Premier. Maryland currently has an $8.5 million pending against Premier to recover money used to repair problems with the voting machines sold to Maryland in 2001.
The other area we want to focus is reducing barriers to voting, in particular around voter registration. True Vote favors universal voter registration - where every citizen of legal age is automatically registered to vote. There are two steps we can accomplish this year to move toward that goal. First, allow voters to register on Election Day. It is not a new idea, Minnesota has had Election Day Registration for thirty years. In addition, the states of Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming allow Election Day Registration and Rhode Island allows it for presidential elections. This is a proven reform that increases voter turnout by reducing barriers to voting.
Second, building on the success of a recent court decision, lowering the registration age (not the voting age) to 16 years old. A significant disparity exists between the percentage of young people registered to vote, 55.8%, compared with the percentage of Maryland's general population, 72.7%. The current system creates confusion. In odd years, all 17-year olds and some 16 year olds can register. In even years some 17-year olds and no 16-year olds can register. This creates confusion in schools and at the Division of Motor Vehicles. Let's make registration easy, not complicated by allowing 16 year olds to register.
Finally, to give voters more choices True Vote favors making it easier for independent and third party candidates to get on the ballot. Maryland should reduce the number of signatures required for a new party to qualify from 10,000 to 5,000, and also to cut the number of independent candidate signatures in half, from one percent of the registered voters eligible to vote for that office to one-half percent, with a statewide cap of 5,000. Voters need to hear new ideas from outside the two party system in order to advance policy beyond status quo interests.
These reforms are steps toward making Maryland a leader in developing a strong and vibrant democracy.
Please send a letter to the legislature supporting these reforms today. Click here to send a letter now.
And, please make a donation to True Vote today so we can continue our work toward a stronger democracy in Maryland. |
