State Officials, Attorneys Prep for Possible Voting Problems

Read the Full Transcript

• JIM LEHRER:

  Now Gwen Ifill takes a closer look at those potential voting problems.

• GWEN IFILL:

  And for that look, we go to two attorneys who have been intimately involved in the process: Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a voting rights group; and election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg, he served as national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. He's also on standby, if needed, to join a post-election McCain recount team.

  So we'll be talking about that in a moment, but I want to start with Barbara Arnwine. Under a week to go before the election. Are we ready?

  BARBARA ARNWINE, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: No. I think that, you know, states are doing the best that they can, but with a record turnout and the continued underinvestment by our states and by our federal government in election procedures, that we are not ready yet.

  I wish that I could say to every voter that every registration roll is accurate, that every voting place you go to will have working machines, that you won't have to wait long. None of that is, unfortunately, true.

  So what I would like to see is that we are making reforms. I think the fact that 36 states have early voting is, in fact, a major progress and that that's a sign that states are beginning to think about how to open up the process, more — how to be more efficient.

  But we still have a long ways to go to make sure that we have greatly and well-trained poll workers, who are heroes for, you know, volunteering to do what they do for such low pay and to make sure that voters are able to be able to cast the vote and have it counted.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Ben Ginsberg, are we ready?

• BENJAMIN GINSBERG, Counsel, Bush-Cheney Presidential Campaigns:

  No, we're not. I agree with Barbara about that.

  It's a system that's built on a couple of things. Number one, it is a human system. We have, basically, volunteers, very well-intentioned people who work the polls every day, every Election Day, and that creates the natural problems that come from human error.

  And, secondly, I disagree with Barbara a little bit on this. Most decisions about the types of machines and the way ballots are cast and counted are really made on the county level. And so you have a great deal of inconsistency amongst the counties in a given state, to say nothing of between the states.