Not Quite a Blog

Link: http://groups.ischool.berkeley.edu/podcast/audio/edley-pew-2008.mp3

The high-point of last weeks' Pew/JEHT conference, "Voting in America", was seeing the Dean of Berkeley Law, Chris Edley, give a keynote during dinner on Tuesday. With his permission, I am making available audio from his address. Find it here (30 minutes long and 18MB in size):

Chris starts by talking from the perspective of being part of the Obama transition team and to what extent election reform will be a focus. He then goes on to describe his views on federalism vs. localism in election administration, building a consensus vision for election reform and how we need to spark desire for election reform by arguing in terms of fundamental values.

Read on for my summary of his talk...

Disclaimer: any errors in the summary below are my own, and apologies for the few instances of side-talk in the audio.

In terms of the transition, he comes out the gate saying that there are, undoubtedly, more pressing matters demanding the incoming Presidents attention (i.e., the economy, national security, energy & climate change, health care, education and immigration):

I don't expect weekly meetings with the President to talk about election administration. Frankly, we probably don't want him to be having weekly meetings about election administration given [this list of priorities].

He then went on to the meat of his remarks, describing a few areas where he thinks reform should go forward.

He first talked about the divided philosophies at work in election administration. He was surprised in previous work, with the US Commission on Civil Rights and the Carter-Ford Commission, that many people involved with elections "think of the franchise as this precious jewel box that they have to guard carefully... and be very careful about who can hold it, open it and polish it." This is in contrast with people who consider voting as "something that should be shared widely so that democracy can flourish." Bridging this divide is one important assignment for election reformers... in his words: "The distinction between election administration and voting rights should disappear, and we should be united on an agenda of election rights."

Chris then went on to describe the complexity of the politics surrounding elections: "Our governance strategy for election administration [...] puts us in a situation where the infrastructure of our democracy is competing with potholes... and parks... and prisons... and health care... and pensions... and education." Federalism, often ends up protecting election officials when they make wacky, disparate decisions about the administration of elections. In Edley's view:

I would suggest to you that our aspirations for democracy in the 21st century are not the same as they were in the latter part of the 18th century. The strategy for bringing about the quality of democracy we want, I think is going to require some compromises on our commitments to localism in this arena. [...] I think we passed a milestone [in Florida 2000] in which localism is going to be increasingly forced to deal with the demands of a national sense of what is fair, what is efficient and what is truly democratic.

Edley then described how the real problems we have are in terms of inequality: the huge disparities in spoiled ballots, purged voters, waits in lines, etc.:

The question is whether the quality of the democratic infrastructure is coded to your ZIP code or your color. The next great challenge is to think of Bush v. Gore, not in the technical sense but in the aspirational sense, that everyone in the polity deserves the same quality of support for their effort to engage in the political process.

Edley does recognize that "fairness" is a large gray area, but that there are real problems in how "fair" our election experience actually is. Referencing the Governor of Virginia's comments that people wait in lines for other things---why not voting?---and the Secretary of State of Florida's similar comments that day about waiting in line at Disney World:

This is not Zimbabwe. We should not create a new poll tax in the form of a 2, 3, 4 hour wait to cast a vote.

That is, for example, large disparities in wait times within a jurisdiction are patently unfair. We need to work to address these sources of unfairness.

So, what are the next steps in Edley's mind? He made the point that national voter ID is not seen as an anathema in other countries. This is to say, by example, we need to use technologies to give us leverage to improve the process and promote fairness where we can:

[On the Carter-Ford Commission,] the reason were were enthusiastic about touchscreens is that we sensed the potential for assisting language minorities and people with disabilities. We sensed the potential of making voting as flexible as getting money out of an ATM; the possibility that the technology, wherever you were in the country, could flash on the screen the ballot appropriate for the jurisdiction in which we reside.

We should decide collectively what is that vision---5, 10, 15 years from now---so that we're moving in the same direction on multiple paths. That consensus-building effort is the single most important thing we can do in the next two years.

Edley then talked briefly about voter fraud. From his perspective, he sees largely unfounded claims about the extent of voter fraud. So he called for a substantial research investment in understand the characteristics of vote fraud.

He wraps his talk up about talking about fomenting reform via attention to nuts and bolts versus focusing change in terms of values:

What we have to do is not to improve the quality of election administration, what we have to do is be advocates for, be warriors for election rights. It's making people believe that they have a right to world-class infrastructure for this democracy. To let people believe they have a right to be able vote with ease and have their vote counted and have their officials be accountable. It's not just about public administration: it's about our freedoms, it's about our character and it's about our hopes. Now, that's sex.... and it's a hell of a lot more important than potholes.