Registration groups lack accountability

By Steve Kanigher

Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 | 8:11 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

October 23 - 24, 2004

The flap over a Republican-funded voter registration group that allegedly destroyed forms completed by Democrats is shedding light on whether nongovernmental groups are accountable enough when they register voters.

It was reported earlier this month that Voters Outreach of America, which is funded by the Republican National Committee to register Nevada voters, was accused of failing to turn in the voter registration cards it received from Democrats.

This allegation follows other problems Clark and Washoe counties have had with fraudulently completed voter registration forms that their registrars of voters have received from non-governmental groups and individuals.

Voter registrars in the state's two largest counties are now saying they will ask the Nevada Legislature next year to consider ways to make nongovernmental groups and individuals more accountable when they conduct voter registration drives. They just don't know yet what they're going to propose.

Don't expect a quick fix, though. That's because federal and state laws that regulate voter registration drives are different depending on the groups or individuals registering voters.

Up until the early 1990s, the laws were much simpler. Most voter registration drives throughout the nation were conducted by local registrars of voters or their designated field representatives or by political parties registered with the Federal Election Commission.

Under state laws, registrars of voters had to remain nonpartisan when they registered individuals to vote. Political parties naturally could register people to join their parties but had to disclose the amount of money they spent on that activity to the federal government.

The voter registration landscape changed radically after Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, otherwise known as the "motor voter" act. The legislation came about because national election turnouts were getting increasingly worse with each passing campaign. The idea was to come up with ways to make it easier for individuals to register to vote.

Once the law went into effect in 1995, registration was opened up to other government agencies such as state departments of motor vehicles that had not been involved in that process. What the law also did was to make it legal and easy for certain private organizations to conduct voter registration drives.

Groups such as the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote -- which targets young people -- began conducting nonpartisan drives to corral new voters without creating as much as a ripple of controversy.

Soft money

Then Congress passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2002, which prohibited national political parties from raising so-called "soft money" from donors.

Before then, the soft money national parties received was made up of unlimited cash and in-kind services donated by individuals, corporations and labor unions. The money was used for voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives as well as for issue advertisements that did not advocate the election or defeat of specific candidates.

With McCain-Feingold, only state parties may still raise and spend soft money and only in states where that is permissible. National parties now can receive and spend only "hard money," which also involves cash and in-kind services but can only be received on a limited basis from individuals and political action committees.

Those limits are $25,000 a year from individuals and $10,000 a year from PACs. The money can be used both for party-building activities and for advertisements, including those that advocate the election or defeat of specific candidates.

The soft money ban for national parties was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision last December. The court majority stated, though, that it did not expect its decision to stop the flow of money into political activities.

"We are under no illusion that (the law) will be the last congressional statement on the matter," Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority. "Money, like water, will always find an outlet. What problems will arise and how Congress will respond are concerns for another day."

Because hard money is harder to raise than soft money, political parties this year have come to rely heavily on so-called "527 committees" to do many of the same things the parties used to do with soft money. A 527 committee, organized under Internal Revenue Service codes, is a nonprofit organization that can raise and spend unlimited funds on political activities, including the election or defeat of specific candidates.

Sprouting up

That's why it wasn't until this year's hotly contested presidential election between Republican President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry that voter registration drives -- including those that are partisan in nature -- began sprouting up like mushrooms around the country. This is particularly evident in battleground states such as Nevada, where the race between Bush and Kerry has been rated as a toss-up.

Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, said part of the problem is that 527 committees are loosely regulated when it comes to voter registration drives. Stern places much of the blame on the Federal Election Commission.

"The problem is that the Federal Election Commission doesn't want to limit nonpartisan voter registration drives like those from the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote," Stern said. "This is a very fine line. You don't want to regulate everyone who does voter registration drives but you want to regulate the partisan drives.

"This is something that hopefully will be sorted out after the election and result in new regulations. But I wouldn't count on it being as clear as we would like it to be."

Two members of the commission proposed earlier this year requiring any group conducting a partisan voter registration drive to register with the commission. But that proposal was not adopted.

"The FEC really has to look at this but some of the commissioners don't believe anything should be regulated."

What we're left with are laws that apply to different groups in different ways, according to information from the commission and from the IRS.

What had Democrats up in arms was when Voters Outreach of America, the group funded by the Republican National Committee, allegedly destroyed voter registration forms completed by Democrats.

The Democrats say this is a violation of voter registration laws, but District Judge Valerie Adair denied their request to extend the voter registration deadline for individuals who said they filled out forms that were destroyed.

Even before this flap, the offices of Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax and Washoe County Registrar of Voters Daniel Burk were swamped with requests for voter registration forms from hundreds of organizations, businesses and individuals.

No stopping intent

Lomax said at least 200 groups or individuals have come to his office this year stating their intent to conduct voter registration drives. There is nothing in state law that can stop them, he said.

"Anybody can walk in here and get forms and register people to vote," Lomax said. "There is no limit on that. We can charge them copying costs if they ask for more than 50 forms but we don't charge them anything."

Both Lomax and Burk said there are more requests for voter registration forms to conduct registration drives this election than ever before.

Lomax said he suspects many of these groups are 527 committees.

"We've always had people come in and take out forms but we haven't seen anything close to what we're seeing this year," Lomax said. "This is the result of us being a battleground state with all this outside money coming in."

The National Voter Registration Act has made it easier for individuals and groups to obtain batches of voter registration forms without having to go through training by registrars of voters, Burk said.

"Congress didn't want to put any restrictions on an individual's ability to run voter registration drives," Burk said. "They saw the restrictions on people as a hindrance on their drives. So now there are very few controls for us to use.

"I used to have 75 to 100 trained field registrars and now I have only about 20 because people don't have to go through the training now to register voters."

People seeking to conduct voter registration drives go to the county registrar of voters offices to get their registration forms. Each form has a serial number so that it can be tracked.

When individuals or groups seek at least 500 registration forms, Lomax and Burk have them complete a single-page document known as a general distribution plan that states the name and phone number of the organization and a broad description of its plan to distribute the forms. The serial numbers of the forms they are distributing are also listed on the document.

But Burk said there are no penalties under state law for forms that are taken out and not returned, one issue he said the Legislature ought to address.

There are provisions of Nevada law that make it a class E felony -- punishable by one to four years in prison and up to a $5,000 fine -- for either a person who registers to vote or a person who is taking down the information to turn in a falsified voter registration form.

No partisanship

There is also state law stipulating that government agencies that register voters must not show a partisan preference when registering individuals to vote. Another state law prohibits anyone from being paid based on the number of voters he or she registers.

A former employee of Voters Outreach of America alleged that employees were not paid unless they brought in a certain number of registered Republicans, but Republicans have denied those charges as well as those involving tampering of voter registration forms.

Burk and Lomax said state law otherwise is murky when it comes to nongovernmental voter registration drives.

"As far as I'm concerned it's legal for them to register only Republicans or only Democrats and no one else," Lomax said. "It doesn't sit right with me but it seems to be legal.

"It doesn't bother me that groups can go out and register voters because the majority of them do it for good reasons. But all the things in the law should apply to all of these people, too. I just don't know how we'll enforce it."

Although Secretary of State Dean Heller oversees state elections, Heller spokesman Steve George said the registrars of voters are the appropriate officials to make legislative recommendations on changes to voter registration laws.

"If they feel strongly that this is something that needs to be changed, it is something that the Legislature should address in the next session," George said.

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