Penn research on election reform may soon translate into federal law.
The Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, a committee co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, released its final report on the 2004 elections last week. The report included a vast amount of data gathered by Penn researchers.
The Fels Institute of Government at Penn, in conjunction with InfoVoter Technologies and MSNBC, conducted an extensive study during the 2004 election to examine the problems associated with voting in America.
Though Penn released the results of the study in June, the inclusion of these results in the official Carter-Baker Commission report means that the study's recommendations will most likely influence upcoming federal election reforms.
Fels Executive Director Chris Patusky said the information gathered by Penn is the first of its kind.
"Since we are the only ones that I am aware of that are pushing for these kinds of changes, we can take credit for these reforms when they happen," Patusky said.
The Fels Institute's report identified several major problems with the voting system in America.
By setting up a hotline available during the 10 days leading up to the 2004 elections and on Election Day, researchers were able to evaluate the specific election-related complaints filed by voters.
The hotline received 208,000 calls, compared to 700 received by the official federal voter hotline.
Patusky said that the hotline response revealed that the largest problems included voters who were not aware of their poll locations and were unable to seek help through local election boards.
"This tells us that the Help America Vote Act probably tried to solve the wrong problems with the voting system in America," Patusky said.
HAVA "was about buying new machines and giving people the opportunity to file provisional ballots, but it turns out ... the problems are that people don't know how to vote, and they don't know how to find out where to vote."
InfoVoter President Ken Smukler said the organizations conceived of the idea for the study after watching the 2000 elections unfold.
"When I was watching the 2000 elections, it became clear that if all we did was provide people with a hotline number that they could call with complaints ... then we would compute all the problems in real time as they were occurring on Election Day," Smukler said.
As a result of the research conducted by Penn, Patusky said that he expects to see legislative voting reforms in the near future.
"I think that what will happen is Congress will amend the Help America Vote Act, and they will require states to do really two things: to provide '800' numbers and Web sites that tell voters where they are supposed to vote by street location and that also give them their registration status," Patusky said.
He added that these are easy and cheap solutions to a serious national problem.
Telandria Boyd -- who graduated with her master's degree from Fels in May -- assisted with the logistical aspects of the study.
Boyd coded phone messages for content after Election Day and said she remembers one call in particular.
"A woman called in because she saw some cops telling youthful men that they would be arrested if they tried to vote," Boyd said.
