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The Wrong Approach to Election Reform

The Ohio legislature yesterday a href="http://www.wtte28.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.oh/2b1965c4-www.wtte28.com.shtml"approved a bill/a (SB 380) that would eliminate the window for early registration and absentee voting, among other things. Here's a snippet from a href="http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/SB380Testimony.pdf"my testimony in opposition to the bill/a last week, which draws upon the "a href="http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/2005/051018.php"Moneyball Approach to Election Reform/a" that I've advocated in the past: blockquoteIn considering election reform proposals, it is vital that legislative bodies take a careful, studied, and deliberative approach, one that collects and considers all the relevant evidence and data from this state and other states on how existing election administration works and what if anything is likely to improve it. That has not been done in this case. What we have learned over the past eight years is that the worst way to do election reform is to rush through a bill with a party-line vote, without taking the time to collect data on existing practices and proposed reforms. Yet that, unfortunately, is precisely the faulty process that is being followed here. For this reason, I urge that the bill be rejected in its entirety./blockquoteThe bill now heads to the Governor.br /br /(Disclosures: I was an attorney for plaintiffs and amici in litigation seeking to preserve the window for simultaneous registration and absentee voting. My wife works in the Governor's office, though not on election matters.)

Full post as published by Election Law - Equal Vote on December 18, 2008 (boomark / email).