Local election officials (LEOs) are critical to the administration
of federal elections and the implementation of the Help America
Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA,P.L. 107-252). Two surveys of LEOs were
performed, in 2004 and 2006, by Texas A&M University; the
surveys were sponsored and coordinated by the authors. Although
care needs to be taken in interpreting the results, they may have
implications for several policy issues, such as how election
officials are chosen and trained, the best ways to ensure that
voting systems and election procedures are sufficiently effective,
secure, and voter-friendly, and whether adjustments should be made
to HAVA requirements. Major results include the following: The
demographic characteristics of LEOs differ from those of other
government officials. Almost three-quarters are women, and 5% are
minorities. Most do not have a college degree, and most were
elected. Some results suggest areas of potential improvement such
as in training and participation in professional associations. LEOs
believed that the federal government has too great an influence on
the acquisition of voting systems, and that local elected officials
have too little. Their concerns increased from 2004 to 2006 about
the influence of the media, political parties, advocacy groups, and
vendors. LEOs were highly satisfied with whatever voting system
they used but were less supportive of other kinds. However, their
satisfaction declined from 2004 to 2006 for all systems except
lever machines. They also rated their primary voting systems as
very accurate, secure, reliable, and voter- and
pollworker-friendly, no matter what system they used. However, the
most common incident reported by respondents in the 2006 election
was malfunction of a direct recording (DRE) or optical scan (OS)
electronic voting system. The incidence of long lines at polling
places was highest in jurisdictions using DREs. Most DRE users did
not believe that voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPAT) should
be required, but nonusers believed they should be. However, the
percentage of DRE users who supported VVPAT increased in 2006, and
most VVPAT users were satisfied with them. On average, LEOs mildly
supported requiring photo identification for all voters, even
though they strongly believed that it will negatively affect
turnout and did not believe that voter fraud is a problem in their
jurisdictions. LEOs believed that HAVA is making moderate
improvements in the electoral process, but the level of support
declined from 2004 to 2006. They reported that HAVA has increased
the accessibility of voting but has made elections more complicated
and has increased their cost. LEOs spent much more time preparing
for the election in 2006 than in 2004. They also believed that the
increased complexity of elections is hindering recruitment of
pollworkers. Most found the activities of the Election Assistance
Commission (EAC) that HAVA created only moderately beneficial to
them. They were neutral on average about the impacts of the
requirement for a statewide voter-registration database.
General
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