Help America Vote Act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
Please help recruit one or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details.
Please consider using {{Expert-subject}} to associate this request with a WikiProject

The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

The Help America Vote Act Pub.L. 107-252 (HAVA) is a United States federal law passed on October 29, 2002. The bill passed 347-48 in the House and 92-2 in the Senate.^[1] Under HAVA, a new federal voter registration form was created, which has simplified as well as complicated the registration process. HAVA also guarantees the ability of individuals to cast a provisional ballot and have the validity of their registration checked later if they do not appear on voter registration rolls.

HAVA was drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Some have questioned its usefulness as it is understood to mandate electronic voting systems; automated systems were the cause of some of the problems at the last election. Others are concerned about the opportunities for vote tampering associated with the fluidity of electronic data.

With the new act, states now have powers that were originally distributed to counties. With this centralization of power comes the new federally mandated computerization of voter rolls. This is particularly troubling to critics of the voter roll cleansing that took place in the Florida election in 2000.

[edit] Criticisms

Critics of the bill point out that it imprudently attempts to solve one problem of punch-card voting machine errors seen in Florida in the 2000 election, by replacing them with expensive electronic voting machines that have no record of individual votes, and that it may represent an effort to help large electronic voting systems vendors such as Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, and Sequoia Voting Systems make millions of dollars throughout the country in selling electronic voting devices encouraged by HAVA.^[2]^[3]

Emphasizing the fragmentary nature of the solution of the provided digital record-less voting machines is that voting machines with no record have been in use for many years: the often familiar pull-handle voting machines. Why then would the digital versions lack a simple paper trail similar to Diebold ATM machines and Sequoia Touch-screen voting machines? Answer -- because the HAVA statutes do not require it, but they should have.

The bill has also been come under fire for the fact that the majority of the billions of dollars allocated to the states for HAVA has been for increased access for disabled voters, while the main goal of HAVA, avoiding the problems that plagued the 2000 elections in Florida, has been largely ignored. ^[4]^[5]

Critics also state that the bill contains some elements that complicate the voter registration process. For example, Section 303(a)(5) of HAVA provides that no state may accept or process a voter registration form for an election for Federal office unless the application includes "in the case of an applicant who has been issued a current and valid driver's license, the applicant's driver's license number." Critics say this is costing the country millions of dollars more for an election just to process the same basic registration form and confirm that they meet the HAVA requirements.^[6]

Critics have said that electronic voting systems in use in the United States will cause difficulties and confusion in the 2006 general election.[1] With each election cycle following the passage of the Help America Vote Act many municipalities and states have implemented electronic voting.