The upside of the chaos of the last two presidential elections has been an increase in mainstream public attention to the problems with our electoral system. The fact that Time Magazine has made the topic the subject of its cover article a week before the election is evidence of this growing attention.
Time’s list is spot-on if you ask me. It’s one of the most concise summaries of the biggest potential electoral problems of 2008. It’s not comprehensive, of course, but hits on most of the biggies.
The two problems on the list that are the biggest concern to me:
The Database Dilemma
The introduction of statewide voter databases has made it possible for voters to be disenfranchised en masse, due to typos and data entry errors. Registration records are required to be matched against other state data, such as driver’s licenses. If the match is not perfect, the voter could be erroneously struck from the rolls.
In Wisconsin, an August check of a new voter-registration database against other state records turned up a 22% match-failure rate. Around the time four of the six former judges who oversee state elections could not be matched with state driver’s license data, the board decided to suspend any database purges of new registrants. But database-matching continues elsewhere. In Florida, nearly 9,000 new registrants have been flagged through the state’s “No Match, No Vote” law. (Their votes will not be counted unless they prove their identity to a state worker in the coming weeks.)
I’m sure most people have heard by now of the 17 pregnant girls at Gloucester High School. Yes, that’s 17 soon-to- be-moms all under age 17! Many of the expectant teenage moms confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. One girl even fessed up that the father of her unborn child is a 24-year-old homeless guy! A homeless guy! Whatever happen to the days when teens avoided getting knocked up? Why are children purposefully having children?
