Our former Secretary of State, having overseen the purchase of new voting equipment during his tenure, NOW wants to reconsider.  He seeks our opinion of a vote-by-mail regime as a way to (1) solve the paper trail problem and (2) boost turnout.  Democrat Gronstal nods, but Republican Zieman resists.

Why didn't Mr. Culver mention this when he was SoS?  Because he was so intent on succeeding Vilsack as Governor that he dared not make any waves.  Instead he concentrated on saying what good elections we ran in Iowa, and on boosting turnout with cheerleading and absentee ballots.

He let counties spend their federal money on paperless black boxes masquarading as high tech election equipment.  Last spring he cut money from the state budget that could have solved the paper trail problem by eliminating the touchscreens.  As a result many counties will be adding poor quality printers to their dubious touchscreens.  This is mal-administration.

Moving to all mail voting will mean ditching the touchscreens, which should be done, of course.  But moving to scannable paper ballots in the touchscreen counties is a far simpler and cheaper way to get a paper trail.

Will turnout be higher?  If we want high turnout we need high stakes elections where people see a reason to vote.  My hometown saw its turnout triple on Tuesday as the mayor and one councilman were ousted in a blue collar revolt.

If we want higher turnout, we could try public financing of some races.  (Are you still there, Mr. Gronstal?) That gets new candidates who are barred by the present need to raise money just to run for state representative.

So I'm with Zieman on this one.  Zieman said

  “Having worked with Governor Culver on election reform, there's always a motive to his madness.”

I wonder what it is.

 

Cross posted at Iowavoters.org