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CDEM Director Robert Pastor with WCL's Humphrey Fellows on Election Day 2006 |
International Affairs
The Project Team Report—Three Years and One Hundred Programs Later
AU'S CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND Election Management (CDEM) has been engaged in numerous projects to bring attention to the work of the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform. The Commission, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter amd former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, and including a total of 21 distinguished Americans, was organized by CDEM and in September 2005 issued recommendations to improve U.S. election administration. The Commission's report, Building Confidence in U.S. Elections, can be found at www.american.edu/Carter-Baker.
CDEM has collaborated with state legislators, NGO representatives, and the Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights to craft model legislation for states to establish independent, professional, and nonpartisan state election commissions. This is a key recommendation of the report. Officials in Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, and other states are working on this legislation. CDEM has worked with U.S. Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) on his legislation to require voter verified paper trails and a system for random audits of electronic voting. CDEM also worked with U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) whose election reform bill is the first to mandate interoperability of state voter registration lists—a recommendation of the Carter-Baker Commission. In the 110th Congress, Feinstein is the new Chair of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
Supported by a U.S. Election Assistance Commission grant, CDEM recruited more than 100 AU students to serve as poll workers at polling places in the District of Columbia on Election Day last November. The project was a natural fit with AU's focus on service and a central element of CDEM's mission—to educate students about the importance of civic participation.
On Election Day, CDEM also collaborated with AU's Washington College of Law (WCL) to lead WCL's 2006–07 Humphrey Fellows in observing the elections in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. This year's Fellows, who are legal practitioners and academics from around the world, visited seven precincts to understand and compare the process at the different sites with other countries. Among their findings was that voter identification (ID) requirements and the use of provisional ballots varied widely among precincts in the same district.
While the fellows observed elections in the Washington area, Dr. Toby Moore of CDEM observed the election in Indianapolis on November 7. He found that despite prior concerns of voter confusion or disenfranchisement at the polls due to the state's new voter ID requirement, the requirement caused few problems. Because this was a preliminary observation, CDEM is conducting—with a foundation grant—a more systematic study of the impact of voter ID requirements beyond Indiana. Reports on CDEM's 2006 Election Day activities are available at www.american.edu/ia/cdem.
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