By John Fund
The need for greater transparency grows as we head toward 2012.
Its been over a decade since the Bush-Gore recount in Florida was supposed to spur a wholesale modernization of our election systems. But a stunning mistake made by a Wisconsin county clerk in a nationally watched state Supreme Court race reminded us of how far we have to go.
Wisconsin voters went to the polls on April 5 in an election that could have flipped the state Supreme Courts majority from conservative to liberal. On the morning of April 6 liberal challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory by a margin of some 200 votes. But the next day Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced that she had excluded some 14000 votes from the city of Brookfield when she gave her final tally to the Associated Press on election night. The revised tally put conservative incumbent David Prosser more than 7000 votes ahead of Ms. Kloppenburg and he has since been verified the clear winner.
Ms. Nickolauss error could have been easily avoided through transparency. She had ended the prior clerks practice of reporting election results for individual cities because it was not her responsibility and she didnt have the staff to enter all the dataan absurd statement given that many smaller counties post such data on their websites. Many states such as Kentucky offer user-friendly websites to track returns statewide.
Not so in Wisconsinand if we dont view this months mess as a wake-up call well have only ourselves to blame if next years presidential election turns into a rerun of Florida 2000. Americans know it could happen: The Brookings Institution reports that in a 2004 poll of 37 nations Americans were more likely than citizens of any country save Russia to say that their elections are very dishonest.
Mexicowhich has a national photo ID requirement for votingspends roughly 10 times more per capita than the U.S. and has virtually eliminated charges of voter fraud or incompetence. We can vastly improve our system with much smaller investments.
Our Constitution decentralizes our election procedures over 13000 counties and towns with each counting its votes in its own way. This basic framework is sound but local practices are too often unsound. In 2005 a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker issued 87 recommendations on how to clean up our system. Sadly most have been ignored or implemented only haltingly.
Fewer than half of states exchange updates on voter registration with other states and many never sufficiently check the accuracy of registration information. Most registration lists are inadequately transparentthey arent easily searchable and are clogged with ineligible or duplicate voters. Fewer than half the states require some form of post-election audit or manual recount.
The Carter-Baker commission noted that the electoral system cannot inspire public confidence if no safeguards exist to deter or detect fraud or to confirm the identity of voters. Eighteen of the 21 commission members called for voters to show photo ID at the polls and for more security for absentee ballots.
Some states have since adopted photo ID laws. But too many (like Wisconsin) still do not require any ID to vote. In a time of razor-thin election margins we can no longer afford such insecurity in our election process.
Also though one-third of all votes in 2008 were cast before Election Day safeguards against absentee ballot fraud are still spotty. In Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has proposed allowing voters to use a government- issued check or utility bill to prove their identity at the polls but requiring that absentee or provisional voters provide all nine digits of their Social Security number. Kansas now requires that absentee voters submit a drivers license number or a photocopy of their state ID along with their ballot. Kansas has also recently joined Arizona and Georgia in requiring new voter registrants to prove they are U.S. citizens.
The potential for noncitizens voting is real. A new study by the office of Colorados secretary of state Republican Scott Gessler has found that 11805 state residents who were not citizens when they obtained a drivers license were registered to vote.
Robert Pastor the former executive director of the Carter-Baker commission says his work on it made clear to him a sad irony: While Americans frequently demand observers and best practices in the elections of other countries we are often blind to the need to scrutinize our own elections. Wisconsins snafu reminds us that we still have time to address problems with our own voting procedures before finding ourselves in pitched partisan battles over the 2012 elections.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
