Congress Urged to Reform Election Laws

Advancement Project’s Elizabeth Westfall Urges Congress to Reform Election Laws

On Thursday, Elizabeth Westfall, Director of Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration, recommending a number of reforms to expand access to voting in advance of the 2010 federal election.

In 2008, Advancement Project worked in 10 states: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, to monitor the administration of registration and voting. Advancement Project found numerous inefficient and inequitable election practices and worked with state and local election officials wherever possible to reform those practices.

As part of the Watch the Vote 2008 Project – a project co-sponsored by Voter Action and the NAACP National Voter Fund – Advancement Project helped to monitor calls from Indiana, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania voters that came through the MYVOTE1 voter hotline during those states’ primary elections and, on November 4, 2008, it helped monitor calls to the CNN voter hotline. In response to the calls, Advancement Project and its partners provided voters with information to resolve their concerns and, in some instances, contacted election officials and requested their intervention.

Following the 2008 election, Advancement Project, the NAACP National Voter Fund, and Voter Action, prepared a report entitled Uncovering Flaws in Election Administration: A Joint Report on the 2008 Election Based on CNN and MYVOTE1 Voter Hotline Data that highlights and discusses illustrative calls received by two national voter hotlines from voters in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Based on the calls, the Joint Report urges Congress to adopt immediate measures to help protect voters in the 2010 election.

Westfall’s testimony focused on the need to establish effective Election Day safeguards to protect the voting rights of eligible voters whose registration status is uncertain. She called on Congress to: establish uniform standards governing the administration of provisional ballots; clarify the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to prohibit needless barriers to voter registration and prevent unwarranted removal of voters from the rolls; and require states where voters have been forced to endure long voter lines in recent elections to offer backup paper ballots.

To read Westfall’s complete testimony, click here.

ENDS

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