5

-5-
[first column]
siderably more important and appealing than others, were at stake. This factor tends to mute the findings and conclusions drawn from the study. It is reasonable to conclude then that the findings contained in this report might be an understatement of the problems citizens experience when participating in presidential elections.

It is also important to review the findings within the framework of the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to vote of every eligible citizen. This means that although some figures pertaining to a given administrative obstacle to voting may be less than 50%, the finding may nevertheless be highly significant to the extent that it indicates that thousands or hundreds of thousands of citizens are possibly being disenfranchised.

Within this context, then, the study documents the fact that the current system of registration and voting functions inefficiently for citizens throughout the United States. Both supportive evidence and specific recommendations for administrative changes are included in this report.

A LOOK AT THE PRESENT SYSTEM
During the next six months, much public attention will focus on the principal candidates and issues of the November presidential election. It is doubtful, however, that very much concern will be given to the electoral process itself - that system of registration and voting procedures Americans must use in order to express their choice on the candidates.

Most citizens show little interest in the process not because they dismiss its importance but simply because they do not recognize the extent to which the current election system impairs the right of all Americans to engage in self-government. The public generally believes that the system has worked well for them in the past and that it will work well for the 140 million Americans of voting age in 1972.

Regrettably, the present election system has not worked well. It still bears the mark of forces which originally gave it birth at the turn of the century: fear of the then-widespread corruption and fraud at the polls and a desire to control the voting participation of millions of European immigrants who threatened the political status quo. Although these particular forces have largely ceased to exist, the system remains saddled with many unnecessarily restrictive laws and exclusionary procedures. It has become an administrative maze in which many of the abuses it was designed to prevent can, in fact, be more easily hidden and through which the average citizen must painstakingly grope in order to exercise his fundamental right to the franchise.

Fear of fraud is often advanced in opposition to proposed reforms of the present election system. It could be argued, however that such abuses are a function of community mores and will exist in some communities no matter what election procedures are established. More noteworthy, it would seem, is the fraud perpetuated on the American people by a system which excludes millions of eligible voters from the electorial process in the name of preventing a few dishonestly-cast votes.

Indeed, the system works poorly for all Americans. In the case of minorities, the poor, the uneducated and the aged, who are unable to meet its complicated requirements easily, the system naturally imposes more heavily than it does on the average main-stream American. These groups can be even further excluded from the electoral process by the arbitrary and uneven application of administrative procedures which, while legal, can be manipulated to serve the political advantage or philosophy of those who control them.

Such misuse of administrative practices is

[second column]
not new to the institutional life of our society. What is notable about the established election system is the extent to which, barring misuse of any kind, it denies the rights and infringes on the convenience of hundreds of thousands of Americans regardless of their racial or economic background.

In the presidential election of 1968, 73 million Americans or approximately 60% of the total population of voting age actually voted for a candidate of their choice: 47 million or approximately 40% did not cast a ballot. Compared with other democratic countries, this voting rate of American citizens is embarrassingly low. [penciled in text right hand margin- Italy Canada W. Germany are penciled in] For example, the rate at which voters in Italy have participated in elections in the last 10 years has regularly approached 90%. Canada records a voting rate of approximately 75% to 80%, and in the last 25 years, West German citizens have voted at rates which range between 78% and 87%.

It is the contention of this report that millions of Americans citizens fail to vote not because they are disinterested but because they are disenfranchised by the present election system. Ironically moreover, many of them lose their right to vote not because they are poor, black, uneducated or uninterested but because they are part of the mainstream of American society. Moving to a better neighborhood, accepting a company transfer, going to college, getting married, serving their country and exercising other rights, freedoms and obligations to their county too often has had the effect of denying citizens their right to vote.

Undoubtedly, the present election system will contine to disenfranchise million of Americans of every economic and social background unless improvements are made at both the administrative and legislative levels.

THE POWER OF THE LOCAL OFFICIAL UNDER CURRENT ELECTION LAWS
To what extent can electoral reform occur within the context of existing law? To what degree do current state election laws affect the administrative behavior of election officials?

In a few areas of registration and voting, the law is specific. Residency requirements and closing dates for registration are examples. Although the capacity of administrators and local officals to act independently is considerably limited in these instances, they can determine the impact of these laws by the vigor with which they make these requirements known and encourage citizens to meet them.

Most of the laws concerning registration and voting, however, are not specific. In many cases, the law only establishes broad minimum requirements, thereby leaving a great deal of discretion to local officials. For instance the law may require that a central registration office be located in each city of the state but not specify how clearly that office shall be identified. In fact, 52% of approximately 300 registration places observed in this study were not clearly identified. Again, the law may state that registration lists must be available to the public, but it often does not stipulate the mechanisms for making the lists available. For instance, there was a financial charge for the registration list in 55% of the communities and authorization for access to the list was required in 38% of the cases.

Local officials may be even more powerful where the law is merely permissive. State statutes frequently allow, but do not require, the following: precinct registration, Saturday and/or evening registration hours, and the authorization of deputy registrars. Data from the community study show that in these areas local officials frequently do not use these statutory powers to reach citizens.