Unrigging American Elections: Reform Past and Prologue

214 Pages·2019·2.149 MB·English

by  Dari Sylvester Tran

UNRIGGING
AMERICAN
ELECTIONS
Reform Past and Prologue
Dari Sylvester Tran
Elections, Voting, Technology
Series Editor
Kathleen Hale
Political Science
Auburn University
Auburn, AL, USA
This series examines the relationships between people, electoral processes
and technologies, and democracy. Elections are a fundamental aspect of
a free and democratic society and, at their core, they involve a citizenry
making selections for who will represent them. This series examines the
ways in which citizens select their candidates—the voting technologies
used, the rules of the game that govern the process—and considers how
changes in processes and technologies affect the voter and the demo-
cratic process.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14965
Dari Sylvester Tran
Unrigging American
Elections
Reform Past and Prologue
Dari Sylvester Tran
University of the Pacific
Stockton, CA, USA
Elections, Voting, Technology
ISBN 978-3-030-03546-4 ISBN 978-3-030-03547-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03547-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961177
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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I dedicate this book to my daughter Elise Andri. As long as my heart beats,
I pledge to love you and to do my part to make this world a better place
for you.
P
reface
The Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA)
convened by then President Barack Obama released its final report
in 2014 to an eager audience of election administrators, chief elec-
tion officers in states, scholars and good government activists. When
President Obama had issued the executive order in 2013 that created the
PCEA, he was strongly motivated by a desire to make American elections
more accessible to eligible voters. Stories of wait times exceeding mul-
tiple hours at the polls, voter intimidation, and voter registration issues
splashed across the news headlines. After pledging to improve the voting
experience in his State of the Union address, he formed the PCEA.
By late 2016, though, I wondered about the overall contribution of
the report. Did it make an impact? How were the reforms improving
elections? When I commenced my investigation of the progress made
on the report’s suggested reforms, my search uncovered just a paucity
of research that had been conducted on the aftermath of the report’s
release. I set out to fill this gap by creating a book that would serve as
a progress report of sorts on the PCEA report recommendations. This
book idea was hatched soon before the November 2016 election, and all
indicators seemed to point to Hillary Rodham Clinton winning the pres-
idency and extending Barack Obama’s initial foray into significant elec-
tion reform.
Then, Donald Trump won the Electoral College, making him the
45th President of the United States. Although Trump’s antagonism
toward Barack Obama and his presidential priorities diminished the
vii
viii PREfACE
relevance of the PCEA report in the context of election reform under
the new administration, it seemed that election integrity—or the alleged
lack thereof—would be a key issue to address in the coming years. for
months preceding November 2016, in fact, Trump had claimed that
the election against him would be rigged; after subsequently winning
the election but losing the popular vote, he then claimed that mil-
lions of fraudulent votes had been cast in favor of his opponent Hillary
Clinton. It seemed that the new president, like his predecessor, would be
focused on improving American elections, albeit for quite different rea-
sons. Consequently, my research focuses broadened beyond the PCEA
report recommendations to encompass an analysis of reforms through
the lens of the competing values of election access and integrity, the con-
flicting goals behind each of the presidents’ efforts to address election
pathologies.
As a detailed study of the intersection of politics and policy reform
across elections, this book provides key insights for a wide range of polit-
ical science, public administration, and public policy students, as well as
practitioners, members of the media, and scholars. Academics who study
the intersection of politics and policy reform will find the mixed methodo-
logical approach instructive while practitioners will appreciate insight from
the best practices and lessons learned from the case studies presented.
Stockton, USA Dari Sylvester Tran
a
cknowledgements
I started to develop the ideas for this book when I was five months
pregnant. I sent off my book prospectus four days before my daughter
was born and was awarded a book contract ten weeks later. In the early
hours of caring for a newborn and learning the rules of new mother-
hood, I researched and wrote this book. There were many times I was
utterly convinced I’d never finish—that I lacked the brain capacity due
to sleep deprivation, anxiety, and a bouncy baby that distracted my mind
(and heart). Each of my “babies”—my daughter and my book—was a
tremendous labor of love. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to a
variety of people without whom this book would not have been pos-
sible. first and foremost, thank you to Keith Smith my friend and col-
league whose quantitative methodological analyses were critical to the
writing of the book. Thank you also to the other political scientists at
the University of the Pacific: Jeffrey Becker, Brian Klunk, Dan O’Neill,
Cindy Ostberg, and Susan Sample for being supportive in this journey.
I am also indebted to the local election officials who generously
supplied their time and expertise: Gregory Diaz, Melinda Dubroff,
Austin Erdman, Kammi foote, Craig Latimer, Timothy Tsujii, and
Michael Winn. Your contribution was bar none and critical to my book.
furthermore, I’m grateful to Duncan Buell and Stephanie Singer, the
technological experts who graciously and patiently explained some of the
more arcane aspects of voting technology and provided candid insight on
the issue. Thank you to Brent Turner, a fierce advocate for open-source
voting systems who talked with me about the urgency of this topic.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The National Conference of State Legislatures, the Election Assistance
Commission, the Brennan Center, and the Caltech-MIT Voting
Technology Project were absolutely essential sources of data and analysis.
Wendy Underhill of the National Conference of State Legislatures was
particularly helpful pointing me toward critical sources of data.
A number of individuals provided early feedback on my book prospec-
tus and early drafts of book chapters. A big thank you to George Guess
for feedback on the introduction; Brandon Schwartz for your input on
the technology chapter; Elizabeth Bergman for early input on the pro-
spectus and creating the provocative title of the book; Michael Heaney
and Nathan Monroe for early feedback on the prospectus; Melissa
Michelson for reading early chapters of the book and Bridgett King for
early feedback on the book concept. Carter Nelson provided essential
help in collecting data, data coding, and creating graphs.
The next set of individuals were vital to the production process. I am
grateful to Jordan Gonzales and Jenny Gavacs for their indispensable
copyediting assistance. John Stegner and Michelle Chen at Palgrave kept
the process running smoothly.
The final group of individuals constitutes a confluence of unwaver-
ing moral support that buoyed me throughout this lengthy process. My
faculty boot camp team members offered profound insight and encour-
agement even beyond the twelve weeks of the official program: Susanna
ferlito, francesca Bordogna, and James Shelton. The perspicacity of that
group knows no boundaries.
I offer deep gratitude to Gina Moats who not only provided overall
moral support and friendship throughout the process, but is the brilliant
artist behind the book’s cover illustration.
And most of all, I give thanks for my family. Thank you to my hus-
band Andy for all the support you provided from leaving me little hand-
written notes of encouragement to helping cook, clean, and care for our
daughter when writing deadlines loomed. I can not begin to imagine
undertaking this behemoth without your ceaseless love and acts of ser-
vice. Abundant gratitude to my parents-in-law for long stretches of help
in the house and with the baby. Thank you to Danny, Aunt Marilynn,
and my Dad for your love and support. And thank you to Heather and
James for believing in me always, checking in on me, and offering the
gift of friendship for over thirty years.