Voters deserve clearer picture of what's going on at the polls

by Patrick Gannon, Capitol Press Association, published in Greenville Daily Reflector, December 4, 2014.

With all of the noise from the left and the right about possible voter suppression and voter fraud, North Carolinians deserve a thorough, nonpartisan and unbiased assessment of voting issues ahead of the presidential election in 2016.

Will they get it? Probably not.

But the 2015-16 legislative session, which begins next month, offers a clean slate for lawmakers to deal with controversial election-related issues, of which there are many. Republicans who control the General Assembly have an opportunity to revisit changes they made to election laws the past couple of years and make adjustments that benefit all voters.

Last week, Democracy North Carolina, a liberal watchdog group based in Durham, released an analysis of last month’s elections, claiming that new voting rules — including the shorter early voting period and the elimination of out-of-precinct voting, straight-ticket voting and same-day registration — kept as many as 50,000 North Carolinians from casting ballots on Nov. 4.

The group found that voters stood in “excessively long lines” on Election Day in more than a dozen counties, and some left without voting. According to the report, thousands of voters were turned away because they showed up at the wrong precinct. It notes that nearly 6,000 voters cast valid out-of-precinct ballots in the 2010 midterm election, but less than 500 were accepted this year under the new rules.

Also, more than 21,000 voters registered and voted on the same day during the 2010 early voting period, but that option was eliminated by the General Assembly for this year.

The report also warned of “a disaster in the 2016 presidential election,” when many more voters will show up at the polls, if election law changes aren’t made, voters better educated and poll workers better trained.

Meanwhile, still hanging out there is a study released in April that suggested that hundreds, and potentially thousands, of voters may have cast ballots in both North Carolina and another state in the 2012 general election. Double voting is a felony.

The cross-check of voters from 28 states was conducted by the office of Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and a Republican political operative. Its results fueled comments from GOP lawmakers about possible voter fraud and the need for voter ID and other reforms to prevent it. But eight months later, no cases of alleged voter fraud have been referred to local district attorneys for prosecution as a result of the report.

In fact, as of a couple of weeks ago, the State Board of Elections, which is looking into the cross-check claims, hadn’t yet hired the investigators necessary to complete the inquiry.

Clearly, if the Democracy North Carolina report and the cross-check findings are accurate, glaring problems exist in our election system. If thousands of people who try to vote cannot, that’s a problem. And if people cast two ballots in a single election, that’s a problem, too.

Voters deserve a clearer picture of what’s actually going on at the polls, not just rhetoric from conservatives and liberals aimed at promoting their agendas. The integrity and accessibility of North Carolina elections demands it.

http://www.reflector.com/opinion/other-voices/gannon-examine-election-laws-2726107