Counting the Votes: a New Priority

To the Editor:

I’m glad Mark Rosenman urges nonprofit leaders to get involved in campaign-finance reform and other issues that will encourage Americans to become more engaged in our political system (“Nonprofit Leaders Must Help to Restore the Nation’s Democratic Principles,” November 30). In addition to the specific issues he identifies, there is at least one more that demands immediate attention by grant makers.

Foundations that encourage citizen action, political engagement, or voter participation should immediately launch an intensive effort to improve the administration of elections so that the weaknesses that have been exposed in Florida over the past few weeks never occur again. We now know that all votes are not counted correctly. In most elections, where the margin of victory is wide, a few mistakes are inconsequential, but as the count in Florida shows, the current system makes it impossible to know for sure how many votes any candidate actually received. Even the winner of Florida has to concede this.

Foundations, which pride themselves on being able to respond quickly to emerging problems, having the financial resources to provide seed capital to new ventures, having the standing to convene key leaders from the community whose participation is essential if a problem is to be solved, and on being nonpartisan, have an opportunity to make great progress quickly.

The problems in election administration have been well known with the election-administration community for many years. When I was a program officer at the Markle Foundation in the mid-1980s, we funded several projects to improve the accuracy and reliability of voting. Our goal was to explore how new communications technology could encourage more people to vote, and how new voting technology could help citizens become better informed voters. One quick conclusion from our effort 14 years ago was that local governments were using out-of-date technology and should take advantage of new computer technology, especially to ensure that votes are counted reliably.

Foundations can start the process of improving voting technology by convening a fast-track commission that will bring together key people who help make elections succeed — or fail. This group would include county officials who run elections; state secretaries of state; local government officials such as county commissioners who fund election administration; manufacturers of voting equipment; federal officials, who have little to do with election administration but might be the source of needed money to finance rapid improvement in voting technology; experts on computer and communications technology who can help transfer the technology and know-how common in most other aspects of American life to this remaining outpost of outdated technology; and nonpartisan citizen groups.

The urgent task at hand is that at least one foundation, with a suitable reputation and financial base, begin this process, and that other foundations then become part of a coordinated effort that will lead to major improvements by November 2004, if not sooner.

Larry Slesinger
Chief Executive Officer
Slesinger Management Services
Bethesda, Md.