* Patchwork voting system
* “Not a time to restrict the franchise”
* Concerns about in-person fraud unfounded
By Scott Malone and David Ingram
BOSTON/WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Attorney General Eric
Holder said on Tuesday that U.S. election officials should
register eligible voters automatically and take steps to reduce
the long lines Americans encountered in national elections on
Nov. 6.
In a speech in Boston, Holder became the highest-ranking
official to call for voting changes since President Barack Obama
expressed exasperation with the hours-long lines during his
re-election victory speech last night.
“Modern technology provides ways to address many of the
problems that impede the efficient administration of elections,”
Holder said.
The United States has a patchwork election system, relying
on local officials in 50 states and the District of Columbia to
process the paperwork needed to register – without the use of a
national ID card that some other democracies use.
Registering to vote is a necessary step to be eligible to
cast a ballot in almost every U.S. state, and some jurisdictions
require the paperwork weeks before Election Day.
All the paperwork is handled at the local or state level,
and new paperwork is needed when someone moves.
The safeguards are in place to prevent a problem that
rarely, if ever occurs, largely because few people are willing
to risk felony charges to influence an election, Holder said.
“You can’t get groups of sufficient numbers of people that
are willing to face that possibility and try to influence an
election, which is why in-person voter fraud simply doesn’t
exist to the extent that some on the right have said that it
does,” Holder told a crowd of several hundred at the John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
REACHING ‘EVERY ELIGIBLE VOTER’
Holder said the current system was needlessly complex and
riddled with mistakes, resulting in 60 million adult U.S.
citizens not being eligible to cast a ballot in the 2008
presidential election because they had not filed the right
paperwork.
By coordinating existing databases, the government could
register “every eligible voter in America” and ensure that
registration did not lapse during a move, Holder said.
An overhaul would likely require approval from Congress, a
significant obstacle because of the view by many Republicans
that easing registration requirements could increase voter
fraud.
Obama spotlighted the subject hours after winning a second
four-year term. In his victory speech, he told those who waited
in long lines to vote, “By the way, we have to fix that.”
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a
hearing on “the state of the right to vote” on Dec. 19.
Holder, as the chief U.S. law enforcement official, has
limited powers to enforce voting protections.
The first black attorney general, he has called improving
the system a natural extension of the civil rights movement that
in the 1960s eliminated many barricades for black voters.
“The arc of American history has bent towards expanding the
franchise,” he said. “This generation must be true to that more
inclusive history. … it is not a time to restrict the
franchise.”
Holder, also recommended that polling places should have an
adequate number of voting machines and be open for additional
days – a challenge because thousands of local officials make
those decisions independently.
“We should rethink this whole notion that voting only occurs
on Tuesday, which is an agricultural notion from way back,”
Holder said. “Why not have voting on weekends?”
Holder declined to say how much longer he would remain in
the role that he has held since 2009, though he ruled out
staying for the whole of Obama’s second term.
“I am not going to be the Lou Gehrig, the Cal Ripken of the
Justice Department, the Janet Reno of the Justice Department,
who served two full four-year terms,” Holder said.
