Count Every Vote 2004's mission is to strengthen democratic culture and deepen voter engagement with the electoral process by providing the skills and tools needed to protect the franchise in the southeastern region of the United States.

Count Every Vote 2004 (CEV2004) is a non-partisan project organized to protect a right guaranteed to every U.S. citizen by the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. CEV2004 is recruiting and training domestic monitors to observe, document and report on the election process in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Missouri. Our aim is to increase voter participation in the 2004 national election, especially the participation of under-represented and marginalized sectors of the population, by facilitating impartial oversight of the elections in selected states and counties. CEV2004's programs will contribute to the restoration of public confidence in the integerity of the elctoral process - confidence that was badly damaged as a result of the multiple irregularities of the 2000 presidential election.

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Count Every Vote
Preliminary Statement on the November 2004 Elections
Atlanta, Georgia November 5, 2004

Introduction

This statement of observations is offered by Count Every Vote, an election monitoring organization dedicated to safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process. The Southern monitoring effort was organized in cooperation with the African American Human Rights Foundation, the Women of Color Resource Center, the NAACP National Voter Fund, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and numerous non-governmental and community based organizations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Count Every Vote and supportive groups monitored over 700 precincts located in 27 counties in the seven focus states. The purposes of this monitoring effort were to express community interest in and support for an inclusive democratic election process in the Southeast United States. Of special concern to Count Every Vote was ensuring that equal access and participation for national minorities in the electoral decision-making process, at all levels, would not be interfered with by political parties or individuals acting on behalf of parties. The state and local monitoring operations were organized between September 1st and October 23rd. Count Every Vote conducted its activities according to international election monitoring standards and guidelines for nonpartisan election observation and U.S. voting rights laws. Count Every Vote made its observations and findings based upon: an analysis of the legal framework governing the elections; review of materials on various state electoral processes; media reports; and an analysis of information collected by hundreds of trained election monitors. Count Every Vote did not seek to interfere in the conduct of federal or state elections; it sought to assess the credibility and validity of the election process by observing the process and reporting on irregularities and challenges.

Summary of Observation

The United States of America is both a strong democracy and a flawed democracy. The November 2004 elections reflected both the accomplishments and challenges to the democratic process in the U.S. While there were improvements in some aspects of the election process over the 2000 US elections, while the elections in much of the South were relatively well administered, while the participation rate of voters and those who sought to increase voter participation were exceptionally high, and while the electoral results placed the elections above the "litigation threshold" for the presidential race, there were severe flaws in the process. The flaws centered on: weaknesses in the voter registration process that frustrated the desire of thousands of people to register to vote; blatantly politically partisan actions by a significant number of electoral officials that placed a cloud over the process in a number of states; lack of resources dedicated to densely polluted areas where national minorities are concentrated, particularly in African American communities, which placed unacceptable obstacles to realizing universal and equal suffrage; and voter suppression tactics in the pre-election period and in some places around election day. In many ways, the November 2004 elections marked a significant opportunity for the government of the United States to respond to the people’s desire for credible elections. Despite the important focus on the deteriorating confidence in the credibility of the process, the elections also revealed the need for new strategies to achieve full and effective equality in the political process as well as drawing attention to the key role that politicians and political parties can and must play in combating racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. According to accepted international principles for election observation, an accurate and complete assessment of any election must take into account all aspects of the electoral process. Among the factors that must be examined are the following:

1. the content of the legal framework for elections and conditions set up by that framework;
2. the adequacy of implementation of the legal framework;
3. the openness and fairness of processes in the pre-election period before and during the campaigning;
4. the inclusiveness and effectiveness of the registration and voting process;
5. the accuracy and transparency of the counting process and tabulation of the results;
6. the honesty and timeliness of the announcement of electoral results;
7. the investigation and resolution of complaints;
8. the prosecution according to due process requirements of violations of voting and other political rights and attempts at electoral manipulation; and
9. conditions surrounding the implementation of reforms as a result of identified problems.

The pre-election period, including electoral preparations, the political environment, and the degree of participation by all actors, must therefore be given considerable weight when evaluating the democratic nature of elections. Post-election processing of complaints and provision of effective remedies must be given substantial weight as well.

On that basis, the Count Every Vote monitoring effort noted several important positive factors in the electoral process which include the following:

1. Civic participation in the electoral process was outstanding and encouraging, exemplified by the unprecedented voter registration in a number of states and record voter turnout in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Also noteworthy was] the participation of thousands of domestic election monitors, as well as voter education and mobilization activists, through various voter protection efforts across the country.
2. Freedom of association and expression were generally guaranteed during the electoral process in spite of organized efforts to interfere with citizens' exercise of their right to participate in the political process in several southern states.
3. Youth engagement with the electoral process leading up to the elections was quite remarkable. Organized efforts targeting young people who encouraged participation in the 2004 elections were visible in hundreds of communities and on college campuses throughout the region.

These positive aspects notwithstanding, Count Every Vote noted several significant challenges to a free and fair electoral process including but not limited to the following:

Partisan Election Officials

The behavior of election officials led to frustration of unprecedented voter registration due to poor planning by election officials concerning how to process the volume of registrations in a timely manner that allowed citizens to correct technical deficiencies in the registration and to verify in advance of election day whether they were properly entered on the voter rolls. In some places the backlog meant that people did not appear on the rolls in time for Election Day, which caused substantial risks as to whether they received ballots that will actually be counted. In several states election officials gave the strong appearance of partisanship by making decisions that limited rather than expanded citizens’ access to the ballot. Examples include:

• Duval County, Florida, officials who located only one early voting site in Jacksonville, a county with a large voting-age population and large geographic area.
• The rejection of large numbers of registration forms in Florida on account of minor errors or inconsistencies.
• Waller County, Texas, officials who denied Prairie View A&M university students the right to vote in county elections on the basis of controversial residency requirements.

Unclear and Contradictory Procedures

As one media observer noted, US elections are characterized by the “lack of a unified voting system, the legacy of a patchwork of balloting technologies, regulations, partisan bickering and litigation.” There are unclear or contradictory procedures relating to critical aspects of the electoral process. For example:

• States and counties have different procedures regarding how to treat provisional ballots. There was wide variation in how local poll workers interpreted the circumstances in which voters should be given a provisional ballot.
• Ex-felons face different regulations in each state regarding whether they can regain their right to vote and the nature of the re-enfranchisement process. In states where re-enfranchisement is possible, the complications of the bureaucracy may stand in the way of ex-felons’ access to the ballot.

Widespread Intimidation of Voters

Controversies over the role of “challengers” took on a highly partisan cast, especially in Ohio, but also in Michigan, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi as evidence gathered that, rather than ensuring the integrity of the process, challengers might intimidate voters and impede their access to the ballot. Additionally, illegal, dirty tricks were evident in many locations: calls saying your polling station was changed, when it had not been changed, and giving the wrong place for the people to vote; calls or flyers saying that voting was extended until Nov 3; flyers/mailings saying that it is a felony if people go to vote without bringing numerous types of personal identification (which most people would not have) or telling people that outstanding parking tickets, back alimony and other matters must be cleared before going to vote.

Problems of lack of Adequate Resources

There were not enough voting devices or sufficient numbers of election officials in many densely populated areas, especially those with high percentages of poor and minority populations. Often this led to extraordinarily long lines in early voting and on election day. This discouraged some people from going to vote, caused some to leave polling places without voting and led to real possibilities for voters to make mistakes due to fatigue.

Problems with the Electoral Machinery

This election was characterized by both problems with electronic voting machines, and widespread lack of confidence in the integrity of electronic voting. Examples include:

• Touch-screen voting machines failed in precincts in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.
• Voters at precincts in Greenville, Mauldin and Georgetown counties in South Carolina used paper ballots after problems with touch screen machines.
• There were scattered problems with optical scanners breaking down and memory card failure in Tallahassee, Daytona Beach and Jacksonville in Florida
• 4,500 votes were lost in one county in North Carolina because local officials believed a computer storage unit could hold more data than it actually could.

Role of the State

The United States Justice Department had many more voting rights attorneys in the field than in previous elections. However, the Department made it clear that its principal focus was on discovering instances of voter fraud rather than ensuring equal and full access to the franchise.

Lack of access for nonpartisan election monitors

The United States is a party to international agreements that uphold the right of non-partisan domestic monitors to observe the electoral process. Despite this fact, there is no federal law guaranteeing this right and, at the state and county level, legislation is either non-existent or inconsistent. Thus, domestic monitors’ access to polling places is limited or denied, and their capacity to fully observe the electoral process is substantially circumscribed.

Lack of access for international election monitors

International election monitors from the United States observe elections worldwide and are normally given full access to election officials and electoral processes. International election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Pax Christi, and Fair Elections, here to observe the pre-election, election-day and post-election processes, were given only limited access to polling places in several states or were denied access altogether. This was particularly troublesome given that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was invited by the United States Government and deployed an Election Observation Mission from October 4, 2004.