Penn school will help keep an eye on midterm vote

If you run into trouble on Election Day, Penn's school of government wants to know about it.

The Fels Institute of Government is once again helping to sponsor the national voter hotline, which got about 208,000 calls during the 2004 presidential race.

Anyone can call the hotline to leave a voicemail reporting a problem encountered while trying to vote.

Fels Executive Director Christopher Patusky said that the hotline's data will be released to advocacy groups, policymakers and the media, in the hope that it will help resolve the obstacles that keep many people who want to vote from doing so.

People calling the hotline, 866-MYVOTE1, can also enter the phone number where they are registered to vote. They are then either told where the nearest polling place is or, failing that, routed to their local board of elections.

This year, however, the hotline will divide complaints into five times as many categories as it did in 2004, which will allow it to report problems in greater detail.

Patusky said that while the media often focus on scandalous voter obstacles such as intimidation and fraud, it's really problems like not knowing where to vote or not receiving an absentee ballot that are the most widespread. These issues, he said, stem from inadequate local hotlines and poor election administration on the county level.

The volume of calls received in 2004 indicates that people not knowing their polling locations "is a significant problem in the country," he said.

Patusky said he only expects 100,000 calls this year, since it is not a presidential election. Several thousand have called in so far.

About 75 Penn students will be compiling the voicemail complaints as they come in so that they can be publicized in real time.

Of the 55,000 complaints recorded in 2004, major problems included registration mix-ups, absentee ballots not showing up and long lines that discouraged would-be voters.

Common Cause - a Washington-based advocacy group promoting government accountability - is one of the groups planning to use these data to achieve election reform, said Common Cause spokeswoman Mary Boyle.

The group will talk to reporters about the complaints being phoned throughout Election Day, she said.

After that, Common Cause will use the data "as a tool to lobby both Congress and elected officials on the state level," she said.

Penn Political science professor Jack Nagel said that "by identifying patterns and locations of problems, [the hotline] could provide the kind of information that allows policymakers to carry out reform."

"Electoral administration in the U.S. is generally disgraceful," he said, but the hotline could "throw the spotlight on the major weaknesses."

The hotline is being sponsored in conjunction with InfoVoters Technology Corp.

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