Voters’ Rights and Election Protection

 

Federal and State: We have witnessed many flaws in the electoral process in our state and nation. Because of this, many citizens feel disenfranchised by the system. Many others doubt the accuracy of the results. Our goal is to have legal, efficient, and accurate elections; with participation in the election process accessible to all of the electorate.

• We support improved access to voter registration through the “motor voter” law enacted by Congress in 1993. The legislation requires state governments to allow for registration when a qualifying voter applies for their drivers license or applies for social services.
• We support transparency in our elections. This can be accomplished by paper ballots, or at least a paper trail for voting machines.
• We demand freedom of access to election information, and audits when requested.
• We support legitimate efforts to eliminate voter fraud wherever it is shown to actually exist.
• We oppose attempts to disenfranchise voters and to restrict or discourage voting under the guise of preventing voter fraud.
• We encourage early voting and absentee voting as much as possible to offset these problems.
• We support permitting voters to cast a ballot irrespective of voting location.
• We support focusing voter identification on verification of identity, not address.
• We support expanding the number of in-person early voting locations.
• We support limiting the reasons voters are required to vote a provisional ballot and increasing the instances where that ballot is counted.
• We support campaign finance reform which encourages small donations by individuals combined with public financing. We call for restrictions on political activity by for-profit corporations to the maximum extent permitted by law and for the Supreme Court to overrule its decision allowing such activity.