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POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Civic Health
Policy Recommendation 6:
All state policymakers and elections officials can strive to make voting as accessible, convenient and secure as possible within the context of their election systems.
The Civic Health Subcommittee approved this recommendation, agreeing that states should be expected to make their election systems as secure, convenient and accessible as possible, while acknowledging that election statutes and systems vary from state to state.
State Examples
Hawaii Senate Bill 548 (2021) expanded opportunities for same day in-person voter registration and clarified rules for absentee voting.
House Bill 574 (2021), a bipartisan election reform bill in Kentucky, established three days of early voting (one day being a Saturday) and addressed election security concerns by requiring voting machines to create a paper trail of votes cast so that there is a physical record of every vote.
In 2021, Nevada passed Assembly Bill 321 making it the sixth state to adopt a permanent vote-bymail system. In effort to making voting more accessible, all active registered voters in Nevada receive a ballot in the mail that they can either mail back once completed or drop off at county drobox location. Voters are also able to track their ballots online to ensure their votes are counted.
Additional Resources
National Conference of State Legislatures Election Resources – 50 State Surveys — https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/election-laws-and-procedures-overview.aspx
RAND Corporation: Securing U.S. Elections – A Method for Prioritizing Cybersecurity Risk in Election Infrastructure — https:// www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA512-1.html
While the American public remains divided on general questions of how we should vote and whether the results of elections can be trusted,1 there are areas of significant common ground as demonstrated by polling. A large majority of Americans support measures including:2
Requiring electronic voting machines to print paper backups of ballots.
In-person voting available prior to election day.
Requiring some form of government-issued photo identification to vote or register to vote.
Allowing people convicted of felonies to vote after serving their sentences.
While the political context in each state matters and may change what the outcome looks like, members of this subcommittee support the idea that all states should be tending to elections systems that honor the principles of accessibility, convenience and security.
The Council of State Governments State Leader Policy Brief: Increasing Trust in Government — https://web.csg.org/csghealthystates/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2022/05/Healthy-StatesNational-Task-Force-Policy-Brief-Increasing-Public-Trust-in-Government.pdf
Endnotes
1 Monmouth University Polling Institute. (2021, June 21). Public Supports Both Early Voting And Requiring Photo ID to Vote. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_062121/
2 Pew Research Center. (2021, April 22). Republicans and Democrats Move Further Apart in Views of Voting Access. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/ politics/2021/04/22/republicans-and-democrats-move-further-apart-in-views-of-votingaccess/
