Unstuffing the Ballot Box

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Bev Harris was another concerned voter who unleashed a firestorm after finding 40,000 files containing proprietary source code from Diebold Election Systems, a leading touch-screen voting machine manufacturer. Somehow, the information was freely available on the Internet; fittingly, the code revealed serious security flaws.

Harris' group, Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org), has since become a magnet for whistleblowers, including a California temp who funneled 500 pages of documents showing that Diebold's law firm had warned its client about using uncertified software in its election machines. Harris' group has inspired investigative reports in major newspapers and Diebold crackdowns by California and other states. Its website continues to feature detailed accounts of electronic shenanigans and the campaigns to stop them.

Established civic groups are also fighting back. FairVote (www.fairvote.org) is working to make the registration controversy moot by making it more automatic. One initiative, dubbed Leave No Voter Behind, pushes states to register all high school seniors so they can more easily cast their first ballot. The proposal mirrors the groundbreaking 1993 federal 'motor voter' bill that pushed registration at motor vehicle and social service agencies. A progressive example is already in place: Hawaii allows citizens to preregister at 16, and FairVote is leading a similar effort in Rhode Island.

The Sentencing Project (www.sentencingproject.org), which advocates more humane tactics to reduce crime, notes that more than 4 million Americans can't vote because they are felons or ex-felons-13 percent of all black males, the group estimates. The public generally supports restoring rights for those who have completed their sentences, and since 2000 three states have liberalized their laws: Nevada, Iowa, and Maryland now automatically let ex-felons vote (though Maryland requires repeat offenders to wait three years).

A number of fights loom. Retrograde states such as Georgia have tried to make nondriving voters pay for a new photo ID-a very real poll tax-and others are fighting proposed federal legislation (HR 550) to require electronic-equipment paper trails and regular voting-equipment audits nationwide. Some activists argue even this would not be enough. Certain states refuse to enforce 2002's federal Help America Vote Act reforms. For example, the act requires voters whose status is disputed to cast a 'provisional' ballot that can be validated later. However, Electionline.org reports that 18 states, including Florida, offer no provisional recourse for voters who registered but whose names were omitted from precinct rolls.

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