Election Reform in DC: A Model for the Progressive Administration of Elections

The District of Columbia, not commonly associated with innovative government, showed itself to be a real leader today with passage of far-reaching election reform legislation. The DC Council's vote today for the Omnibus Election Reform Act puts the District in the lead of states and localities with progressive election administration.

The legislation, sponsored by DC Council Member Mary Cheh, is a veritable goody bag of voter-friendly measures. Barring a mayoral or congressional veto, the District of Columbia now becomes the tenth jurisdiction in the nation to allow for Same Day Registration (SDR). DC residents will be able to register and vote at the polls on Election Day, as of the first election next year.

SDR can also reduce the need for provisional balloting. Instead of voting provisionally, would-be voters for whom no record of prior registration is found on Election Day can simply complete a new voter registration form and cast a regular ballot. Provisional balloting declined sharply in the two newest SDR states--Iowa and North Carolina.

Approximately 15,000 provisional ballots were cast in the District of Columbia in the November 2008 presidential election. We can expect to see these numbers drop by the next presidential election. A peculiarity of the Omnibus Election Reform Act is that it designates the votes of all same-day registration as “special” or provisional ballots, subject to residence verification by the DC Board of Election, until December 31, 2010.

Council Member Cheh's landmark legislation can also facilitate the registration of individuals involved with the criminal justice system. Her bill designates as voter registration agencies the DC Department of Corrections and the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services. With that designation, staff at those two agencies will offer eligible detainees or individuals under supervision an opportunity to register to vote, and assistance in the completion of voter registration forms if so requested.

The District of Columbia suspends residents right to vote during incarceration for a felony offense, and restores it upon their release from prison. Many persons subject to or employed by the criminal justice system are likely misinformed about the voting rights of ex-offenders, detainees, and others under supervision. The new law provides an opportunity to rectify these misimpressions, and welcome into the body politic a group of citizens with particularly low rates of political participation. Law enforcement officials, community leaders and enlightened policy makers all agree that the enfranchisement of these individuals is a powerful tool for their rehabilitation.

The obligation to offer voter registration at government offices, as required under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), can also lead to a tremendous increase in voter registration among hard-to-reach voters. That's one clear lesson of Demos' Public Agency Voter Registration Project. The new agency registration programs introduced at the TANF, food stamp, and Medicaid offices in states where we've worked have reversed sharp declines in agency registration since the NVRA first went into effect. Voter registration at Missouri's public assistance agencies jumped twenty-fold after those offices re-implemented the law. With similarly well-conceived programs, we would hope to see many new voter registration applications generated at the DC Department of Corrections and the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services.

Same Day Registration and expanded voter registration opportunities are just two of the voting reforms adopted with passage of the Council Member Cheh's omnibus bill. The legislation also provides for the following:

No-fault absentee voting;
Advance registration of 17-year olds;
Extended voting hours;
Poll worker training and certification;
Leave for government workers to staff the polls;
Voter-verified voting records;Voting system standards and review;
Independent evaluation of voting machine source codes;
Ballot auditing requirements; and
Reform of the DC Board of Elections.

The Omnibus Election Reform Act also directs the DC Board of Elections to study and report by May 1, 2010 on the feasibility of automatic voter registration (AVR) -- the gold standard of voter-friendly registration systems. AVR would shift the burden of registering eligible voters from individual DC residents to the board of elections.

The District of Columbia has now become a model for the progressive administration of elections. Let's hope that House and Senate Members down Pennsylvania Avenue will be inspired by their brethren in the DC Council and press for the next generation of federal voting reforms. That may have been the case last week when Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN) introduced Same Day Registration bills in their respective chambers.