I was intrigued to note in reading a few things this morning that the person with oversight over elections in the State of Ohio is Jon Husted, who seems like a decent enough guy but is a Republican politician.
I find it intriguing that the manner in which an election is actually run could be directly supervised by a partisan politician.
Is this the case in every state?
Suppose the people who make the voting machines in State X are, indeed, on the take; whose job is it to detect such things? Are they independent from politicians?
“The most common, and arguably the most important, function held by secretaries of state is to serve as the state’s chief elections official (although many states also have supervisors of elections, which are usually county elected officials). In 38 states, ultimate responsibility for the conduct of elections, including the enforcement of qualifying rules, oversight of finance regulation and establishment of Election Day procedures falls on the secretary of state.”
It appears that it’s not at all unusual to have an elected official in charge of elections. But then again, if they’re not elected, they’re probably appointed. By elected officials. Ultimately all public servants are elected or appointed, or are supervised by elected or appointed officials, whether directly or indirectly.
And labeling an appointed or elected position as “non-partisan” does not prevent it from being partisan. It simply means the candidates don’t directly claim affiliation with a party. But parties are still free to recommend the candidates they prefer.
It’s impossible to remove partisanship from positions of power. The typical American answer is to make the partisanship as transparent as possible, plus make the duties of office very delineated.
RickJay is concerned about the independence of American voting officials.
NorthernPiper discusses, with cite about Katherine Harris.
The obvious question arises (as mentioned above): How do you assure that any official is unbiased, even if their official post is officially non-partisan? I mean, anyone can personally have strongly partisan views, and use his office in some wrongful way.
Obvious answer: Have American elections overseen by the Canadians! It’s the only way! And it would quite probably be an improvement.
Well on behalf of my country I’d just like to say that we’d be happy to step forward and assist you with this problem. Of course it might be a tad difficult for us to staff, I don’t think we have enough adults to cover all your voting locations :smack:
And that illustrates one of the differences in Canadian and American political culture. In Canada, it is accepted and required that certain positions be non-partisan. The electoral officials are one of the prime examples: they are non-partisan and owe their duty to the public at large, not to a party or a candidate.
This begs a question, though: Even when an office is officially non-partisan, the person holding the office may be personally very partisan, and may attempt to use the powers of the office accordingly. So you still need maximal transparency to try to minimize that.
I know in Hawaii the rule is the person in charge of each polling station is someone registered with the party in power. That meant the Democrats when I worked the election while living in Hawaii. At the station I worked, it was an old retired guy who was very nice and extremely conscientious about doing a proper job. No irregularities on his ship, I can tell ya. We got along so well working the primary voting that he mentioned he thought he could get me my own polling station for election day, as he knew a slot was opening up. Someone had to step down for personal reasons. He didn’t realize I was not a Democrat but rather a registered Independent – you have to register as an Independent in Hawaii – and thus not eligible to run a station.
Yes, you need transparency, but you also need a culture where it is accepted that electoral officials should be nonpartisan. In the U.S., where such matters as redistricting are extremely partisan, that culture seems to be missing.
Pleonast used the word first in this thread ([post=15668431]Post #3 above[/post]) and you didn’t question the meaning then.
It means simply that the office-holder’s activities should be openly public, with little or nothing taking place under the table or behind closed doors. For example, in California, there are laws requiring elected officials to conduct ALL their business publicly and to do all their debating and deliberating in open public sessions, with only some limited exceptions. (See Brown Act and Bagley-Keene Act.)
In the USA, do the people running the elections work under and report to the government that is presently in power, or do they work under and report directly to the legislative body as a whole?
In the USA, does the person who is running elections have tenure/job protection?
In New York, there are two officials at each polling place: one Democratic and one Republican. This works as a balance: if a Democrat tries to do something wrong, you can bet the Republican will call her on it, and vice versa.
Both officials must certify the count. NY used to have mechanical voting machines so the counts could be checked and tallied. Now, they check the scanners.
The State Board of Elections certify candidates and results. It’s made up of two Republicans and two Democrats. The partisanship cancels itself out. If the Secretary of State is involved, his role is to rubber stamp what the Board certifies.
This really seems like the best solution to the potential problem. New York’s election practices were developed in response to the widespread fraud by Tammany Hall, so they know what they’re doing.
They say they’re non-partisan, so you must ask the question: how do you know?
In the U.S., we know they’re partisan, so instead we ask, how do we know they’re acting reasonably? (Part of the reason is because our free speech rights prevent the state from regulating who a political party can or cannot endorse.)
The answers are probably very similar. The office is transparent; that is, it’s actions are done in a publicly accountable way. And the office is delineated; that is, well defined in expectations and little scope for judgement calls.
Typically, if the Secretary of State (who is usually responsible for running elections) is elected, they are a constitutional officer and report to no one other than the voters at large. The people who do the grunt work ultimately depend on that position for their jobs, although most states have protection for civil servants.
Note that the provinces each have a similar body and personnel for provincial elections.
But I think this is why we’re having difficulty–because the concept of a partisan (and possibly elected) overseer, such as Pleonast and Bambi Hassenpfeffer describe, is completely foreign to us, where overseers are not answerable to any party or government, only to Parliament. I can believe that the American system works (well, most of the time; there was that hiccup in 2000), but I hope you can see–when we have what we have for our elections–where we’re having trouble understanding exactly how.
What exactly does “report directly to Parliament” mean? Does that mean communication or that the Chief Electoral Officer has to take direction from Parliament?
I do see how a “lifetime” appointment makes it is less susceptible to partisan influence. More similar to our Supreme Court, which is also non-partisan in theory.
I think part of the disconnect is shown by your comment “overseers are not answerable to any party or government”. Our elected Secretaries of State are not answerable to an administration, because they are elected independently. (And they are a part of the government. We use “government” differently than you do.)
And it’s not common to consider any American politician to be “answerable” to their party. Parties do not have that kind of power here. Each politician is elected to their own office. A party might give substantial help in that election, which creates a sense of obligation, but the party can’t make the politician do anything. That is, no elected office-holder depends on the party for their position.
