TESTIMONY OF DOUGLAS A. KELLNER
TO THE NYC VOTER ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
December 7, 2004
Summary
There is good news. An objective comparison of election administration in New
York City between 2004 and 2000 shows that there have been substantial
improvements on a number of fronts. We have better poll workers.
Our voting machines, although 40 years old, worked better this time than
four years ago. Electronic ballot scanning of the absentee, affidavit and
emergency ballots has become second nature. While the Board of Elections
has come a long way, we could still do an even better job.
· Poll worker training still needs
improvement. Even more significantly, we need to implement systems to provide
feedback and additional training to poll workers who need it.
· While shortages of persons who are
willing to serve as poll workers have virtually disappeared, the Board needs to
be more selective of those who are appointed, particularly those who are not
nominated by political leaders.
· NYC must replace its lever voting
machines for the 2006 elections. Every day that passes without the
necessary authorizing legislation from Albany jeopardizes our ability to
implement the transition properly.
· VAC could play a greater role in
fulfilling its mandate to promote registration at City agencies.
· Campaign spending disclosure filed
with the NYC Board of Elections should be available on line.
· Voters should be able to determine
their poll sites and confirm their registration status on line.
Poll Workers
The public interacts with the election administration through the 30,000 poll
workers who staff more than 1,300 poll sites. These 30,000 poll workers, who
only work one or two days a year, must be recruited, trained and supervised by
the permanent staff of the Board of Elections. As the Election Law has
become increasing complex, the duties assigned to the inspectors have increased
substantially, adding substantial importance to the training of the poll workers.
The Board’s training programs have improved significantly over the last decade,
but more needs to be done. Most important, the Board needs to develop a
mechanism to screen out less qualified poll workers. In my view, there is
no effective system in place now.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the bi-partisan process of
recruiting poll workers. Election Law §§ 3-400 et seq. provide that poll
workers are appointed on the nomination of the county chairs of the two largest
political parties. Although I have not been able to obtain the exact
statistics, it is my impression that, in fact, only about half of the poll
workers are actually selected by the political parties. The other half
are recruited by the Board of Elections directly from the public and are
assigned from what is effectively a non-partisan list. Even more significant is
my sincere observation that the poll workers assigned by the political parties
are generally far superior to those assigned by the Board staff.
Where there are active district leaders and local clubs that take their role in
election administration seriously, local poll sites are far more efficient and
effective. This is because of the huge cadre of volunteer resources that
go into recruiting and supervising the local poll workers. They make sure that
every poll site opens on time. When lines get long because inspectors are not
well organized, the district leader or other activists from the club will make
sure that the personnel are reorganized or instructed to process voters more
efficiently. On the other hand, in neighborhoods where there is no active
political club, or the club does not view efficient operation of the polls as a
priority, the local poll sites clearly suffer.
Mayor Bloomberg’s observation that the structure of the Board of Elections is a
remnant of the days when Tammany Hall ruled New York is not entirely true. In
fact, the concept of bi-partisan administration of the election process was a
major anti-Tammany reform added to the State Constitution in 1894. But
bi-partisan administration does not mean that there should be a spoils system.
Election administration is an important function of city government.
What we must do is insure that the election officials, whether they be
poll workers or senior staff at the Board of Elections are qualified to perform
their jobs.
One of the problems is that “Tammany Hall” is only a vestige of its former
self. In many areas, the clubs are weak, non-existent or uninterested in
election administration. As a consequence, the responsibility for
staffing and supervising the local poll sites in those areas has fallen to the
Board of Elections. The Board needs to address this shift and to set up a
far better system to fill this lacuna. This will cost the City significantly
more than it is now spending to recruit, train, evaluate and supervise poll
workers.
Four years ago, the compensation of poll workers was so low that it was
impossible to fill all of the positions. Literally, the only
qualification to be a poll worker was the ability to appear at the poll site on
election day. Even still there were thousands of vacant positions. Mayor
Giuliani responded by significantly increasing poll worker stipends to $200 for
the 16-hour day. That has had a dramatic effect on the number of people willing
to serve. Although the Board could be more selective, it has not geared up a
system of evaluating poll workers so that only those who are qualified are
assigned. There are still a substantial number of poll workers who do not
attend training classes. I am also troubled by that fact that when I
travel to poll sites I observe poll workers who appear to be unqualified even
though they have attained passing scores on the “test” that is given after
training.
I have spent a great deal of time examining poll worker assignments in
Manhattan. Over and over again, I have found that the local clubs who care
about the process generally do an excellent job making poll worker assignments.
But when the Board makes assignments to fill the vacant positions not
assigned by party leaders, we do a terrible job. Part of the problem is the low
level staffing of the poll worker department in the borough office. In
Manhattan we have six persons (two administrative assistants paid approximately
$30,000 per year and four clerks paid $22,000 per year) responsible for the
recruitment, assignment and training of 8,000 workers. I am also
concerned that the 4,000 or so appointments that we make without
recommendations of local district leaders are done randomly, with virtually no
consideration of the individuals’ qualifications for the assignment.
There are at least a half-dozen other operational issues that I could address
to improve our poll worker pool, including better communication between the borough
offices’ poll worker departments and the poll workers regarding assignments
(poll workers are often unable to reach board staff to confirm assignments),
more efficient operation of election day standby worker pools, split shifts for
poll workers, addressing the shortage of Chinese and Korean interpreters, and
adjustments to the Poll Registration books to shorten the time needed to
process each voter.
To improve poll worker performance we need to upgrade the evaluation process
for potential poll workers and to develop a system where both the district
leaders and the Board are assigning only the best qualified persons for each
position. We also need to develop a meaningful system for evaluating job
performance on election day so we can avoid reappointing underperforming
workers. Few of these projects can be accomplished without the commitment of
additional resources.
Evaluation
We must improve the process of evaluating our performance in running elections.
We should make some effort to track the amount of time it takes to vote.
We should do more to identify election day problems. Even more
significantly, we need to do much more to act on those problems that are
identified to make sure that we learn from our mistakes.
The Board of Elections has already made substantial improvements in its system
for identifying and tracking election day problems. Unfortunately, there
are too few Board staff members who are assigned to the task of evaluating
problems and making sure that they do not recur.
A huge problem is giving constructive feedback to the poll workers. After
all, it is the 30,000 poll workers who are responsible for running our poll
sites. But right now, it is difficult to communicate with the poll
workers in a meaningful way to prevent many problems from re-occurring.
Because of the temporary and transitional nature of poll worker
assignments, it is difficult to let those poll workers know about problems that
have been observed at their poll sites. For example, there are several good
government organizations that do election day surveys to evaluate poll site
performance. The permanent staff at the Board do read those reports, but
often have no effective means of communicating the contents of the reports to
the poll workers who are in the best position to correct the problem. We
should build into our poll worker training programs for reviewing with
coordinators and inspectors the problems that have been identified. The
most common problems, such as inadequate or improper posting of signs, location
of door clerks, processing of affidavit ballots, displaying voter materials,
properly completing the canvass sheets and other materials used in closing the
polls could be easily corrected if there were a system in place to give
appropriate feedback to the individuals who are in the best position to solve
those problems.
Again, this would require additional staff and additional compensation for the
increased time commitments imposed on the poll workers.
New Voting Machines
The federal Help America Vote Act, 42 USC §§15301 et seq., will require
substantial changes in election administration for the 2006 elections. In
particular, 42 USC § 15481, sets minimum standards for voting machines.
Our lever machines satisfy all but one of those standards, that there be
at least one machine at each poll site that is “accessible for individuals with
disabilities, including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually
impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and
participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters.” 42 USC
§ 15481(a)(3). Although Connecticut has already determined that it will keep
its lever machines and simply obtain one electronic device for the disabled to
be used at each poll site, there appears to be a consensus that New York State
should replace its lever machines with a different system. The Legislature has
not yet decided what that system should be, or who will make that decision, and
who will actually be responsible for purchasing the new system.
The conventional wisdom is that federal HAVA funds will pay most of the costs
of a new system. I served on the Governor’s HAVA Implementation Task Force and
I also co-chair the HAVA Implementation Task Force of the New York State
Democratic Committee. I have also been in constant contact with
legislative leaders over the progress of legislation in Albany. It is
hardly clear to me that there will be sufficient federal funds to pay even most
of the cost of procuring a new voting system and it is clear that there is
virtually no federal money that will cover the costs of maintaining and
operating a more complex electronic system. One of the issues between the
Assembly and the Senate has been the formula for distributing the available
federal funds. If New York State were to prescribe use of one of the more
expensive electronic systems, such as a full-face touch screen machine with a
voter verifiable paper audit trail, there will not be sufficient federal funds
to cover the cost, particularly if we factor in the need for more machines
because of the longer time it takes each voter to use the machine. In addition,
there would be substantially increased operating and maintenance expenses.
The City of New York should more carefully follow the fiscal impact of
this pending legislation.
As an aside, I note that I have been advocating that New York acquire a much
less expensive system using on-site ballot scanning rather than touch screen
electronic machines. (Approximately 25% of jurisdictions across the country use
this system.) The acquisition, operation and maintenance costs are
significantly less than a touch-screen electronic system. So far, because
of the public conventional wisdom that we should go electronic, legislators are
concerned about the potential backlash of using a paper-based system. One
solution they have discussed is to delegate the issue of selecting a voting
system to the State Board of Elections, but that could further delay the
overdue decision.
I certainly agree with John Ravitz that every day that passes without the
Legislature making these important decisions seriously jeopardizes our ability
to procure and introduce a new system properly. The system for procurement
deserves particular attention. We need to make sure that we are not
locked into a particular vendor for the operation and maintenance of whatever
system we ultimately purchase.
We also need to recognize that new technology will not necessarily mirror the
way we have historically run elections. It generally takes longer to vote
on an electronic machine than it takes to vote on a lever machine.
Therefore, we need to re-evaluate the number of machines assigned to each
poll site. We also need to recognize that with new technology, there is
no longer a need to assign a single ballot face so that all of the voters in an
election district vote in the same congressional, state senate, assembly,
council and civil court district. Abolishing this requirement would give the
Board of Elections much greater flexibility in managing poll sites and could
make the operation of the poll site far more efficient.
Other Modernization Upgrades
The Board has already made substantial use of its internet web site. But
there is still much more that can be done to use this new means of communication
with the public. We need to have a system where any voter can identify
his or her poll site on the internet. Indeed, many election jurisdictions
allow a voter to check his or her registration status.
Campaign finance disclosure filed with the State Board of Elections and with
the NYC Campaign Finance Board is available on the internet. We should
also provide for electronic filing of those reports required to be filed with
the NYC Board of Elections.
Agency Assisted Voter Registration
A key mandate of the Voter Assistance Commission is to coordinate voter
registration activities at city agencies. In view of the very limited
resources provided, VAC has made an excellent start in this direction.
The largest gaps in voter registration are among young people, particularly
those who are 18-25 years old. The City could do a much better job in targeting
young people in voter registration efforts. In particular, I have
suggested that the Department of Education make voter registration a formal
part of the curriculum at the end of 12th Grade. (I note that several
Council members have done registration drives among 12th graders in their
districts). It is also essential that CUNY comply fully with its legal
obligations under both state and city law to provide voter registration
opportunities for each of its students.
I have also been a strong proponent of same day voter registration, which
requires an amendment of the State Constitution. There is no legitimate need to
require voters to register in advance of an election.
I have also been pressing the commissioners of the NYC Board of Elections to
follow the lead of most other counties in the state by including a voter
registration form on the affidavit ballot envelope. The Republican
commissioners have been consistently blocking this reform in New York City.
As a consequence, if an unregistered voter casts an affidavit ballot, the
voter still remains unregistered unless the voter sends in a voter registration
form.
I am also concerned that there is insufficient monitoring to insure that
agencies are complying with their legal obligations to forward completed voter
registration forms to the Board of Elections in a timely manner.
This year, we documented cases of voters who had completed voter registration
forms at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but were still not found on the
Board’s voter registration data base. Although I have been calling for
thorough investigations by both the City and State boards of elections to
attempt to identify how this could happen, so far there have been no meaningful
answers.
Conclusion
These are just some of the numerous issues where the Voter Assistance
Commission could have a positive effect in improving election administration in
New York City.
DOUGLAS A. KELLNER
Commissioner, New York County