County Commission | The Magazine April 2018 | Page 32

FROM THE COVER
Election Administration:
A Shifting Three-Way Balance
Is there anything more American
than voting in an election?
M
aybe so, if you look at the
distinctly American way U.S.
elections are operated.
“Elections in the United
States are administered in a highly
decentralized process through which
each state shapes its own election
laws, which in turn shape the roles
counties play,” stated the National
Association of Counties in “Counties
Matter: Elections.”
In other words, it is a three-way
balancing act of county, state and
federal government.
Some might say it doesn’t make
sense for a government function as
important, as fundamental, as the
election process to be so thoroughly
delegated to the states and then
further delegated to counties.
Differences are inevitable.
Conceptually, this approach
made perfect sense to the
nation’s Founding Fathers,
who were deeply suspicious
of centralized authority.
It stirs the imagination
to consider what these
men would think if
they were to look in on
the 2018 election cycle.
The trend over
the last 60 or so years
has been toward more
centralized decision-
making and funding, a
trend that appears likely to
32 | COUNTY COMMISSION
continue with the heightened
concerns about cyber security and
recent actions in Congress.
The voting rights reforms of the
1960s made the federal framework
governing election processes more
robust, but counties retained
significant latitude.
The next big shift in the three-
way balance can be traced to the
night of Tuesday, November 7,
2000. Americans had voted that
day but went to bed that night
without knowing who had won
the presidency. The picture was no
clearer the next morning.
All told, Americans and many
around the world held their breath
for 36 days, waiting for recounts
and legal wrangling to determine
whether Vice President Al Gore or
Texas Gov. George W. Bush would
move into the White House.
The outcome hinged on
Florida, and the uncertainty there
was in many ways due to election
administration decisions made at the
county level: voting technology and
ballot design. Suddenly everyone was
talking about punch-card voting,
butterfly ballots and hanging chads.
To their credit, the leaders in
Palm Beach County have made
sure that elections run much more