The 2000 presidential election propelled America’s problems with our elections into the national spotlight in an unprecedented way. Americans, night after night, watched news stories exposing the many problems that are routine in elections but that receive little attention: confusing ballots that lead people to mark their vote for the wrong candidate, voter suppression aimed at minorities through voter registration purges, and weary election officials trying to discern voters’ intent on ambiguously marked punch card ballots.
In response the federal government passed the Help America Vote Act which funded wholesale changes in how Americans cast their ballots, most visibly by increasing the use of electronic voting machines. Reacting to the problems caused by electronic or so-called “black box” voting, a grassroots movement of citizens and legislative leaders across the country have been steadfast in their pursuit of secure and transparent voting systems. In cooperation with election reform organizations and prominent computer scientists, they have mounted a series of local and national campaigns that are steadily changing the debate on election integrity and changing the way people vote. This Stateside Dispatch will highlight how state leaders have sought to protect ballot integrity, create post-election audits that work to protect voters rights, and have fought the privatization of elections into the hands of potentially partisan and often incompetent corporations