Mon. Mar 18th, 2024

From today’s USA Today:

In many ways, Election Day 2018 was a good one for American democracy. Millions of people turned out to vote. An unprecedented number of women are headed to Congress, including the first Native American women and the first Muslim-American women to serve on Capitol Hill. In Florida, voters restored voting rights to more than a million peoplewho had been disenfranchised for past felony convictions. In Michigan and Maryland, they approved same-day registration. In Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah, they said yes to fair legislative districts.

But at the same time, the election provided evidence of what many activists and experts have been saying for years: the machinery of our democracy needs serious maintenance. Together, aging infrastructure and resurgent voter suppression have jeopardized equal voting rights in the United States, turning what should be a source of national pride into cause for alarm.

The costs of poor preparation and outdated election equipment were plain to see. In downtown Atlanta, voters stood in line for more than three hours because only three voting machines had been sent to serve more than 3,000 people. In Richland County, South Carolina, voters reported that machines were changing their selections. Officials worked to address the issue, but the county elections director told the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that he only had one technician for every five polling sites. In Maryland, two precincts ran out of paper ballots; in Detroit and New York City, malfunctioning machines caused many voters to simply give up.

Read the complete article here.

By Editor