How new technology is helping voters, one at a time

I took a call today from a very agitated and frustrated woman who wasn't sure if she is registered to vote or not.

She told me her story, how she moved, filled out a new registration card and mailed it in to Sacramento County, didn't get anything in the mail confirming she registered, then went to the registrar's office to find out what was wrong.

They told her her card came back as "undeliverable" (even though she provided the correct address). So she filled out another card, and submitted it, and it's been two weeks and she still hasn't heard anything and doesn't know if it's fixed or not.

She's called the Secretary of State, whose staff assured her her new application would cancel out the old one that had been deemed "undeliverable". And now she was calling us.

After calming her down a bit, I told her we could check online together. I went to the Sacramento County online registration lookup tool (one of 25 of 58 the California Voter Foundation links to on our County Election Office directory page).

I asked her her street number, zip code and birthdate and entered them into the online form. A message was returned that I read to her over the phone confirming a matching voter registration record was found. She breathed a sigh of relief and blessed me.

As this map shows, whether voters have access to online voter registration lookup tools depends on the county, and largely the region where voters reside. Voters in larger, coastal counties have access while voters in smaller, rural counties mostly do not.

Voters without online access (all the counties in grey) must contact their elections office in person or over the phone to during business hours to check their registration status or get answers to their registration questions.

Unfortunately due to delays in implementing a new statewide voter registration system, lookup tool access will not be available to voters statewide until 2015 at the earliest.

It is incredible that in a state as technologically advanced as California we can't make this simple technology available for everyone.

Why Super Tuesday is not equally super for all voters

Today is Super Tuesday, when voters in ten U.S. states get to weigh in on the Republican Presidential primary. 

But how voters vote, when they must register, whether they must show and ID at the polls, and how their votes will get counted toward the Presidential primary contest varies from state to state.

Across the country voters also have uneven access to online tools that can help them find their polling place, verify their registration status, and view their sample ballot before voting, all enormously powerful resources that help busy people make informed, confident choices.

Last year a Mellman Group poll of voters found that:

• A majority (57 percent) said they looked up what was on their ballot before voting most recently;
• Almost half (45 percent) sought out where to vote and voting hours (44 percent); and
• About a third (30 percent) verified that they were officially registered, while 29 percent looked up rules regarding photo ID requirements.

Whether voters can access the resources and tools they need to vote varies widely from state to state, according to a nationwide assessment of state election web sites conducted in 2010 for the Pew Center on the States.  A quick review of the ten “Super Tuesday” states’ election web sites demonstrates this unequal access to voter tools. 

Here’s a rundown:

• Voters in six of the Super Tuesday states  - Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia can verify their registration status and address on their states’ election web site, while voters in Massachusetts, Vermont and Oklahoma cannot.

• Voters in Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, North Dakota, and Virginia can use the Internet to check whether an absentee ballot has been received, while voters in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee and Vermont cannot.

• Voters in Georgia, North Dakota and Virginia can use the state’s web site to access a personalized sample ballot showing the contests that will be appear on a specific voter’s ballot. 

• Voters in all ten of the Super Tuesday states can use the state’s web site to locate their polling place. Access to polling place lookup tools is now near-universal, with 49 states providing this service to voters.

The increasing use of the Internet and lookup tools to help voters prepare for elections is a welcome trend, but not without its pitfalls. In some states, profiles of registered voters can be accessed using personal information easily found online. 

Georgia’s site, for example, requires a user to enter the initial of their first name, last name, county, and birth date. The return screen displays that voter’s registration status, along with his or her full name, full street address, gender, race, registration date and absentee ballot status. 

The 2011 “Being Online is Still Not Enough” study shows there is much room for improvement, particularly in my own state, California, which is one of only two states (the other being Vermont) whose election web sites currently offer none of the key voter lookup tools. 

Hopefully by this Fall more states will provide more online services to voters and also tighten up security and privacy practices involving voter data. 

In the meantime, voters in North Dakota and Virginia might feel grateful today for living in two of the ten states that provide all of the relevant lookup tools the state web site project assessed, tools that give those states' voters access to the modern conveniences that make voting feel less like a chore and more like a meaningful exercise.

More states collecting voter email addresses, providing to campaigns

According to a new report by Fox News, 19 states and the District of Columbia are now collecting email addresses from voters and providing those addresses along with other personal data to political campaigns. The number of states collecting emails has increased from just two in 2002, when the California Voter Foundation examined all 50 states' voter registration forms for our landmark 2004 study, "Voter Privacy in the Digital Age".

The Fox News story, by Kathleen Foster is available online, in both print and video. Excerpts are featured below.

Richard Michael, an Internet campaign advisor at GrassrootsPhonebank.com in Los Angeles, said email addresses "are fair game, no matter how you get them." 

"If someone puts their email on a voter registration, it's reasonable to assume they are amenable to receiving political messages," Michael said. 

Like phone numbers, email addresses are not required to register to vote anywhere in the United States. Giving the information is optional, but that may not be clear to the average voter. 

"I think this is really one of those untold stories. It's all going on behind the scenes," said Kim Alexander, president of The California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit organization which produced the study "Voter Privacy in the Digital Age." 

"People who are in the election business, people who are administrators, people who are in campaigns, they all know what's going on. The voters are in the dark, and that has got to change. It's disrespectful and it's deceitful," said Alexander. 

In 2008, Alexander helped redesign California's voter registration card to clearly mark the word "optional" in the form's email field. 

Eight of the states that collect emails fail to clearly mark the information as "optional" on their registration forms. Not one of the states that sells email addresses clearly explains on the voter form that emails could or would be sold. 

----- 

"Long before the Internet came along, long before identity theft became an issue, campaigns have been collecting data on voters and creating voter profiles," Alexander said. "Campaigns use this so they can target their messages more effectively to voters -- to say these people are environmentalists, these people support gun rights. They will often merge voter data with other data to create profiles to help them more precisely target their message to particular voters." 

Personal information about registered voters can be invaluable information to campaigns, but selling it is not a big moneymaker for states. 

A few states make it available for free, considering it a matter of public record. Some sell a statewide list of every voters' name, address and date of birth for as little as $25. Others offer regularly updated subscriptions for $5,000 per year. The most expensive statewide list Fox News found is in Wisconsin, at $12,500, which includes emails. 

Except for Iowa and Oregon, which charge a nominal extra fee, most states that sell email addresses include them in the price of a basic voter roll. 

What happened to CAL-ACCESS? Reporters ask, SoS explains

Over the last few days there have been numerous stories about the failure of the Cal-Access online campaign finance disclosure system, operated by the California Secretary of State. The LA Times quotes Derek Cressman of Common Cause calling for hearings, and the Sacramento Bee interviewed Secretary of State Debra Bowen who stated, "We want to get it up as soon as possible, but we also want to complete the fix that will be the most stable over time."

Today, Chris Reynolds, head of the Secretary of State's Political Reform Division, sent around a document explaining why their technical staff believes Internet access to the system went down and what they are doing to restore Internet access to the system as quickly as possible. His email also says the his office is available to assist people in the meantime by phone, email, fax, or in-person visit.  The main number is (916) 653-6224, email address is http://www.sos.ca.gov/webcontact/general/question.aspx, fax is (916) 653-5045, street address is 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Here is the memo:

---------

What happened to CAL-ACCESS?

CAL-ACCESS (the California Automated Lobbying and Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Search System) is a suite of applications developed in 13 different programming languages.  CAL-ACCESS runs on a server cluster and associated components that are more than 12 years old, and runs on an uncommon version of the Unix operating system called Tru64.

On November 30, 2011, the disk array controller experienced a physical memory failure that led to the loss of its disk array configuration and the loss of three physical disk drives.  The disk array contains a total of 90 disk drives with 15 disk drives installed in each of six drive enclosures.  (The array configuration defines which combination of physical disk drives form the logical disk drive that is presented to the operating system.)  When CAL-ACCESS was originally architected in 1999, it was common to locate the operating system on the disk array rather than on locally attached disks.  This configuration created a single point of failure in the array controller.

After replacing the failed memory equipment, staff were able to reconfigure a very small portion of the disk array that permitted the server cluster to start.  The portion of the disk array that houses the area where the databases reside was not immediately recovered since a more extensive amount of time was needed to remap the entire disk array.  To make the system available by Internet again as soon as possible, staff ported the server cluster to use an alternate network-attached storage device and used a backup to restore the data by December 7.  The configuration functioned for about 30 hours before it failed again on December 9.  Staff tried multiple approaches to recover this configuration throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday, December 12, staff initiated three concurrent recovery methods to restore services: 

1. Porting CAL-ACCESS off of the Tru64 cluster to a modern hardware architecture, which involves modifying the database and reprogramming websites and applications in as many as 13 different coding languages.

2. Virtualizing the Tru64 Unix environment to move off of the aged equipment, which includes building new servers and installing and configuring software that can emulate the DEC Alpha architecture to run on an Intel architecture.  Once this environment has been established the Tru64 operating system can be installed and configured to match the old production environment, and the databases and applications can be restored from backup.

3. Rebuilding the original disk array, which is expected to take 10 to 14 days.

Work on the first method started on December 12.  The second and third methods require contracted specialists and a state contract approval is expected by December 15. 

Then will CAL-ACCESS be permanently fixed?

Created in 1999, CAL-ACCESS is now very old and fragile, and few people in the United States are familiar with the antiquated technology used to build and operate the system.  The recovery efforts will make CAL-ACCESS stable and get it running, but it can never be more robust or feature-laden.  Ideally, we need a fresh start with an all-new CAL-ACCESS.  

State election websites assessed in new nationwide Pew study

Today the Pew Center on the States unveiled a new, nationwide assessment of state election websites, "Being Online Is Still Not Enough."

The California Voter Foundation was a major partner in this project and undertook much of the basic research, analysis, and writing, along with the Center for Governmental Studies and the Nielsen Norman Group. Together our three organizations conducted this assessment, which reviewed all 50 states' and the District of Columbia's election websites for content, lookup tools and usability.

An article I co-wrote for electionline.org, was published today, providing additional details about this important project. It's also available via CVF-NEWS.

Unfortunately, California does not score well in the assessment, primarily due to the fact that our state election website lacks all five of the voter lookup tools the project assessed (voter registration status, polling place, ballot information, and absentee and provisional ballot status).

While many other states have made great progress in recent years utilizing the Internet as an effective and efficient tool to help voters engage in elections, California is lagging behind. At CVF we are working with a number of individuals and organizations to promote a statewide voter registration status lookup tool and hope that someday soon California voters will have as good, if not better access to modern election tools as voters in other states.

It is our hope that this study will help states better understand how their election websites compare to one another, provide useful feedback and ultimately help more voters participate more effectively and meaningfully in the democratic process.

Remembering a hero of California elections

Yesterday a longtime friend and mentor, Tim Hodson, passed away. His departure will leave a giant hole in the fields of elections, government, voting, redistricting, and political reform. His long career in public service is covered by Robert Davila in today's Sacramento Bee.

I knew Tim in so many capacities - most recently as a member of the Fair Political Practices Commission, where he led a project to modernize California's disclosure laws.

Tim was that kind of quiet public servant who just assumed it was normal to work for the general public good - an attitude that stood out in a town where so many people are working for special, not public interests. That's one reason why Tim's commitment to public service stands out so brightly.

I knew Tim for many years, starting back in 1990 when I was working for California Common Cause and Tim was the senior consultant to the Senate Elections Committee. Tim always made time for me, and cared about the issues on our plate.

One of the best parts of my job with Common Cause was working with Ruth Holton, who would later marry Tim and end up living about a block away from my home. I'd sometimes run into Ruth or Tim at our neighborhood market and hear about their plans for dinner that night.

Those simple things, like enjoying a meal with a loved one, deserve to be cherished. Ruth urged her friends and family to treasure those moments and take joy in the simple pleasures of life. It's good advice. I'm going to try to remember it in Tim's honor.

Lively discussion marks 100th anniversary of CA direct democracy

We are rapidly approaching the 100 year anniversary of the California initiative process, an occasion celebrated by some and scorned by others. The centennial of the Golden State’s system of direct democracy is provoking many to rethink this process and consider whether it needs an upgrade.

Many groups are sponsoring polls, public forums and debates, conducting research and cooking up ideas for reform.  But probably no event will be like the one Zocalo Public Square sponsored with New America Foundationand the Bill Lane Center for the American West at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center last week.

I had the honor of sharing the stage with several people who, like me, have taken some time to think seriously (and occasionally humorously, thankfully) about how the initiative process works. Author and New America Fellow Joe Mathews moderated our panel and brought his lightening fast quips to our spirited discussion. My favorite Mathews line was when he compared enacting initiatives to “adding another room to the Winchester mystery house”.  

Bruno Kaufmann, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, traveled the farthest to participate. He is a strong proponent of direct democracy for Europe and is involved in the EU’s European Citizen Initiative. That’s why his observation that California is the only place in the world where we need less direct democracy was so astonishing to me. He also observed that California initiatives are about creating and mirroring conflict, not solving it, which I found to be a highly true and astute perspective, the kind you can only get from someone like Kaufmann who has studied direct democracy in many states and nations.

Perhaps the most surprising panelist was James Fowler, medical geneticist and political scientist from UC San Diego.  At first, I could not figure out what a medical geneticist might have to say about direct democracy. Plenty, it turned out. Fowler studies decision-making, has researched the genetic roots of political ideology, and discussed how social networking sites are extensions of real networks and may be the key in successfully moving toward an online signature gathering platform for initiative campaigns.

Perhaps the most enthusiastic advocate for California’s initiative process was Paul Jacob of the Citizens in Charge Foundation. His organization led term limits initiative campaigns in California and several other states, and he believes California’s process works well (particularly in comparison to the majority of U.S. states, which have no initiative process). But he is concerned about the future of California’s initiative process, especially the way our Legislature deals with it, which he called “vindictive” (his case in point, passing a last-minute bill at the end of session that would prohibit initiatives from being placed on Primary election ballots).

My comments focused on the need to move toward publicized disclosure, and how the California Voter Foundationpromotes reforms to ensure information about the top donors in initiative campaigns is readily available to voters when they are asked to sign initiative petitions; when they consult their ballot pamphlets; and when they cast their ballots. 

I also pointed out that on average only one in three initiatives pass, and we would serve voters better by treating the initiative process as the people’s lawmaking arena and ensuring voters have the access to the same kind of information lawmakers have when they vote on bills, such as knowing who the true sponsor of a measure is.

I anticipated a lively, engaged audience and was not disappointed! There were tons of great questions, and the discussion continued over cocktails and music well past the official end time.

Zocalo events aren’t over when the day is done. Zocalo staff write up a review of the session, called “The Takeaway”, post event photos, and make podcasts and video archives of every event. Zocalo deserves kudos for innovating a new kind of public forum for California’s communities that is engaging, interactive and much needed.

Patt Morrison Asks - LA Times interview

On Saturday I was honored to be featured in Patt Morrison's column in the Los Angeles Times. Excerpts are below.
-------

What's a nice girl like you doing in a mess like this?

I love elections; I grew up with elections. My dad ran for Culver City City Council when I was 7. Election night, we had a big party and my dad was the underdog and someone was on the phone getting the numbers and I [wrote] the numbers on the chalkboard. To me, politics has been about community service.

You also learned about the political version of trick or treat.

Someone showed up at the door with a $500 [campaign contribution] check. For a Culver City election, that was a lot of money. My dad sent him away. He said: "I don't know that man, I don't want to know him and I don't want him to think I owe him anything." My first lesson in how money in politics works!

We have former Secretary of State March Fong Eu to thank for banning pay toilets -- and for the California Voter Foundation?

[It was] an offshoot of the secretary of state's office, to raise charitable funds for extra voter outreach. By 1993, it was [defunct], out of compliance with various tax filings. In college I'd worked for Gary K. Hart when he ran for Congress. It was grueling: high stakes, consultants, opposition research -- that stuff is really unpleasant. I wanted to be for all the voters, not just some of the voters. So this opportunity to restart the California Voter Foundation fell into my lap.

Even voter registration has become politicized. Someone on a right-wing website wrote that it is "profoundly … un-American'' to register welfare recipients to vote.

It's unfortunate. In a lot of the world you're automatically [registered] when you become 18 and you're a citizen. Here we have this extra hurdle.

Across the country, voting rights are not shared among all Americans. In California there's a variety of practices between the counties, an unevenness. That's a big problem.

You almost weren't allowed to vote in 2008.

They told me my polling place had moved. I got my sample ballot and went back and said, "This is my polling place." They were turning other people away.

Elections are run as if they're one-day sales. We run polling places for 12, 14 hours, staffed by people with very little training working very long hours on a job they only do once or twice a year. We should have people vote over several days in an environment staffed by well-trained people. I think about elections year-round; most people only think about them for maybe two months. It's hard to sustain the momentum to implement election reform.
continued at www.latimes.com