2010 Complete Election Coverage: 2008 could see turnout tsunami
- Election officials say 2008 voter turnout could shatter records, perhaps reaching "as much as 80 percent." AP Photo
“During the primary season, there were a number of jurisdictions within states that appeared to be surprised by the turnout,” said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, which tracks voting procedures and election administration. “It’s hard enough finding capable poll workouts for even a low turnout election. But in this kind of high interest election, the numbers just aren’t there. We anticipate there could be significant lines on election days, among other problems, based on what we’ve seen in the primaries.”
Though states have made significant strides since the 2000 Florida presidential election debacle, voting procedures are still deficient in many respects — even after passage of the Help America Vote Act, which directed the federal government to pony up money to prepare states for Election Day.
In the past week alone, distinctly different problems have arisen. In Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22, officials were forced to take down a website that allowed residents to fill out voter registration forms on their personal computers after learning that it was possible to use the site to view other people’s registration information, which included driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
In neighboring New Jersey, a group of county clerks asked the state’s attorney general to investigate voting discrepancies observed in e-voting machines used in the Feb. 5 primary. According to the state’s Constitutional Officers Association, about 60 of the state’s Sequoia Voting Systems e-voting machines produced discrepancies, usually a one- or two-vote difference, between the paper tape logged by the machine and the number of votes stored in the computer’s memory cartridges.
Even states considered to have strong election administration systems have experienced problems.
In New Hampshire, a GOP presidential primary recount requested by gadfly candidate Albert Howard showed vote discrepancies. While McCain was initially reported to have won the primary with 88,713 votes, a Feb. 11 recount decreased that total to 88,571. Second-place finisher Mitt Romney dropped from 75,675 votes to 75,546 (Howard’s vote tally actually increased from a grand total of 43 to 44.) Gardner blamed the discrepancies on problems with optical scan ballots used by some localities.
“Given how clear it was that there was going to be strong turnout this year, states and localities were woefully unprepared,” says Tova Andrea Wang, a Democracy fellow at the Century Foundation. “We know that turnout is probably going to be incredible in the fall. ... It would not shock me to see some of these same problems in the general election.”