The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the electoral reform bill passed by Congress in 2002, is a mixed blessing. In These Times
provides a scorecard of the implementation of various HAVA provisions.
One thing they missed in their assessment is HAVA's basic failure
to address systematic election fraud. What happened in
Florida in 2000 was not the simple disfunction of antiquated machines
and poor counting techniques. Nor was it the result of "sloppiness", "mistakes", "incompetence", or "negligence".Rather, it was the purposeful, deliberate conduct of Republicans to steal an election. HAVA begins
from the premise that through negligence mistakes were made. That
is bullshit. Republicans intentionally and systematically stole the
election. It does not matter what kind of technology was used. HAVA
does include some positive gains, but those have suffered from foot
dragging and stalled implementation. Go here
to see the scorecard of HAVA implementation. GO here for a brief history of Florida 2000. By the way did you know
that in many European democracies 18 year olds are automatically
registered to vote?