Election reform bills deserve attention now

PACKET EDITORIAL, Aug. 21

   As we’ve remarked in this space before, we’re not enthusiastic about New Jersey moving up its presidential primary to February 2008.
   We’re not persuaded that giving more clout to high-rollers who bankroll presidential candidates by holding an earlier primary outweighs the additional expense of conducting yet another election — on top of the school board election in April, the nonpartisan municipal election in May, the regular primary in June and the general election in November, not to mention special fire district elections and school bond issue referendums.
   It seems to us at a time when we should be talking about reducing the number of elections in order to save tax dollars (a recommendation offered during last year’s special legislative session on property-tax reform), the decision to hold a separate presidential primary, and push it up to February — for the stated purpose of enhancing the influence of big New Jersey contributors — was indefensible.
   But that decision has been made, and we all have to live with it. What we don’t have to do, however, is allow the flaws and shortcomings in our state election laws to be exposed to a nationwide audience — not when the opportunity to reform those laws in advance of next February’s election has presented itself.
   The New Jersey Citizens’ Coalition to Help America Vote Act Implementation, a group of 30 organizations, has proposed a package of bills to improve the election process in the Garden State. (The Help America Vote Act, it may be recalled, was passed by Congress to avoid a repeat of the upheaval in Florida that tainted the 2000 presidential election.) Adoption of this package of bills would go a long way toward ensuring that New Jersey won’t distinguish itself in 2008 the same way Florida did in 2000.
   For starters, the coalition has crafted a bill that would establish benchmarks and procedures for mandatory audits of election results. The closer the outcome of a race, the more election districts (chosen at random) would be audited. The audit would be transparent, nonpartisan and completely independent of software, so that electronic voting machine irregularities would be detected.
   Another bill would improve verification procedures for voter registration — a frequent source of concern and conflict in some parts of the state. (As former Gov. Brendan Byrne is fond of joking, when he dies he wants to be buried in Hudson County, so he doesn’t have to give up his right to vote.)
   Two bills would require that in any voting district where 10 percent or more of the population is Asian, interpreters would be provided at the polling place and a section of the ballot would be printed in an Asian language. The rest of the package includes measures that would coordinate statewide training for poll workers and make it easier for people who have moved from one county to another to vote.
   While it would be encouraging to see all of these reforms adopted before next February’s presidential primary — or, better yet, before this November’s general election — the most crucial is the audit provision. Ballot verification was a tortuous process back in 2000 (remember hanging chads?); it could be even more convoluted in 2008, when technology, in the form of electronic voting, threatens to pose new and different kinds of problems in ensuring an accurate count.
   Election reform seems to have had its brief moment in the sun shortly after November 2000, only to slide back into the shadows thereafter. With the 2008 presidential primary coming up all too soon, it’s time once again to give this issue some much-needed exposure.