Guest Post: Democracy by Design — Voter Friendly Ballot Act Offers Sleek, Simple Solution

When searching for their next computer, cell-phone, or weather app, many consumers prioritize sleek, minimalistic designs, simple interfaces, and easy-to-understand language over increased information and data capabilities. The more user-friendly a product, the more likely it is to suit the average American’s needs. Often overlooked, there is another place to demand usability, not as consumers, but as voters—in the voting booth.

Our choices on Election Day lay the foundation for democracy. Voting provides an essential safeguard against corruption and allows voters to ensure that representatives stay accountable. And despite what you may think about the worth of one vote, thousands of votes—taken together—count a great deal. Yet every election, many thousands of votes are tossed aside and rejected as a result of a number of administrative and voting errors. Poorly designed voting ballots are just one source of this injustice.

When thousands of voters in Palm Beach County, Florida protested that they had read the ballot incorrectly and mistakenly voted for the wrong person in the 2000 Presidential Election, the infamous butterfly ballot spotlighted the necessity of a clearly formatted and easy to understand ballot. Yet twelve years later, voting citizens across the United States still face unreasonably confusing and maze-like ballots and machines.

For instance, in the 2010 New York State elections, nearly 60,000 votes statewide were not counted because the machines read them as being mismarked. This was no doubt in large part due to the fact that New York’s ballots are among the most difficult to use in the country. The problems with these ballots are wide-ranging. In some cases, a voter may simply have not correctly followed the lengthy, jargon-y voting instructions. In other cases, ill-defined and arbitrary boxes may make the lines between candidates and contests incomprehensible, leading voters to vote for too many candidates. Indeed, the real question is not philosophical—“does my vote count?”— but very concrete—“is my vote being counted at all?”

Luckily, there is a solution. After spending the 2011 session in Committee, the Voter Friendly Ballot Act (A07492B), a bill providing guidelines for simplifying New York State’s ballot design, was reintroduced to the New York State Assembly by Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh (D-Manhattan) last month. Having garnered support through a late-November New York City Council Resolution promoting its enactment, it is definitely a bill worth following.

In order to reduce Election Day confusion, the legislation provides for minimum font sizes, shorter, more concise directions, and less cluttered response box formats. The guidelines also support a number of “suggested” rather than “required” formats (such as shading and font styles), in order to both offer design flexibility and accommodate counties facing different voting machine technologies and election or candidate-specific circumstances. In sum, the legislation is a straightforward solution to a simple yet infinitely problematic barrier to voting. By creating ballots that are easier to read with directions that are easier to understand, this bill could make voting booths more efficient and less intimidating.

At a time when voter turnout is low and public disillusionment high, an ambiguous and confusing ballot is simply unacceptable. While increasingly complex in technologies, our society constantly prioritizes conciseness and efficiency. In a world where over one-third of American adults own a smartphone and billions of 140-character ideas are disbursed per day, a ballot that is similarly sleek, user-friendly, and to-the-point is an entirely reasonable expectation—one that we, as New Yorkers and Americans, should demand.

The Voter Friendly Ballot Act is an essential step in the right direction and one which, once taken, will provide a tangible effect both on the next election and on the individual voter—that is, the next time you step into the voting booth.

Brandi Lupo is a junior at NYU studying Political Economy and Legal Theory.

Bipartisan Group of Business and Civic Leaders Form New Group Supporting Public Financing

A new coalition endorsing the governor’s call for meaningful campaign finance reform in New York State launched today. New York Leadership for Accountable Government (NY LEAD) is a bipartisan group of New York business, civic, and philanthropic leaders who have joined to advocate for comprehensive reform to the way elections are funded in the Empire State. The group, formed with the goal of restoring integrity to the state's political process, is endorsing Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call for campaign finance reform, as outlined in his January State of the State address, and is calling for a system of public financing for New York State elections as the centerpiece of that overhaul. Members of the new group are listed here.

The new group supports a public financing system modeled on New York City’s successful matching funds system which has increased the competitiveness of elections, diversity among candidates, and the participation of small donors. Comprehensive campaign finance reforms, “will put the needs of real voters — the business owners and workers who drive New York’s economy — back on the agenda,” according to the NY LEAD website.

NY LEAD adds a new voice to the increasing calls for campaign finance reform in New York State. Earlier this month, over 100 groups from the civil rights, business, faith, grassroots community, good government, environmental, and labor communities wrote Governor Cuomo detailing the need for publicly financed campaigns, lower contribution limits, and better enforcement.

Members of NY LEAD are scheduled to hold a press conference in Albany today at 12:30. You can follow NY LEAD on Twitter and “like” the new group on Facebook.

Money and Politics This Week

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd and Dan Rockoff.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics

NY Campaign Finance

1. A new report issued by NYPIRG identifies a “core group” of 127 donors who each gave $50,000 or more to state candidates and party committees in 2011, for a grand total of $16.8 million. Of the 127 deep-pocketed donors, the largest—a New York City property development group—contributed nearly $700,000 in total, and several organizations made single contributions in excess of $100,000. The report highlights New York’s chronically lax laws governing “housekeeping” and soft money accounts, which allows individual donors to skirt the $150,000 ceiling on individual giving. The full report can be seen here.

2. A coalition of more than 100 organizations, including policy institutes, community groups, and labor and religious organizations, delivered a letter to Gov. Cuomo expressing their strong support for public financing in New York state elections, and calling on the governor to “press hard for the creation of a robust public financing program” during the upcoming year.

3. The Wall Street Journal finds that Gov. Cuomo has built strong relationships with public interest groups committed to campaign finance, ethics, and disclosure reform, citing his hiring of Jeremy Creelan, a former deputy director at the Brennan Center, as special counsel for public integrity and ethics issues. The liaison was instrumental in the governor’s overhaul of state ethics laws last year, and reformers hope it will continue to bear fruit in upcoming legislative campaigns.

4. State Senator Liz Krueger is publicly calling for an end to political spending by “ghost campaigns,” which allow Albany’s lawmakers to spend campaign funds long after they’ve retired from office—and, in at least one case, after they’ve passed away. The article highlights continued spending by the campaign committees of former Rep. Eric Massa, who resigned in 2010, as well as the re-election committee of former State Sen. Ron Stafford, who passed away in 2005. “Politicians shouldn’t be able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign money hoarded years after their own careers end,” Sen. Krueger said. “It’s an invitation to corruption.”

5. US Congressman Joe Crowley (D – NY) was singled out this week as a top Democratic beneficiary of a private equity PAC with a history of spending on behalf of Republicans. The PAC, formed in 2007 by some of the country’s biggest private equity firms, has drawn unwelcome media attention since it emerged that Bain Capital, where Mitt Romney made his fortune, was one of its founding members.

6. Pay-to-play politics is alive and well in New York, as the Daily News reports that freshman US Congressman Michael Grimm (R – NY), seven months after sponsoring a bill to permit a natural gas pipeline under Jacob Riis Park in Queens, has received contributions from the pipeline’s developers. Two weeks ago, the New York Times also reported that Rep. Grimm was drawing scrutiny for allegedly soliciting campaign donations above the legal limit, and for enlisting the help of a fundraiser now under federal investigation for embezzlement.

Campaign Finance News Nationwide

1. On Tuesday, President Obama signaled that he would not oppose spending on his campaign’s behalf by Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that backs his re-election bid. Aides to the President confirmed that he planned to allow cabinet members, senior advisors and top campaign staff to speak at fundraising events led by Priorities USA. The decision was condemned by many as an about-face by an administration that has criticized the use of super PACs—but has also prompted at least one writer to observe that the decision presents a unique opportunity for Obama to make campaign finance reform a centerpiece of his election campaign.

2. Media mogul and philanthropist Leo Hindery, Jr., argues for a strong link between campaign finance reform and renewed corporate responsibility, proposing that national reform efforts should include not only stronger disclosure rules for corporate contributions and lobbyists, but also voluntary efforts by business leaders not to use corporate funds to influence elections. Such an approach, Hindery writes, would help to reclaim corporate responsibility as a duty extending to “employees, shareholders, customers, communities and the nation.”

3. A new poll released Wednesday by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds strong support—by a 2-to-1 margin—for the Fair Elections Now Act, which would allow federal candidates who agree to contribution limits to receive public matching funds for donations from residents of their home states. The poll also finds that voters would be more likely to re-elect representatives who voted in favor of a campaign finance reform package that included the Fair Elections Now Act.

4. Politico reports that two PACs have used shell corporations to circumvent existing laws on fundraising and spending, making campaign committees into “black boxes” for anonymous contributions. According to the report, the Alliance for New America, which raised money for John Edwards in 2008 and now plays a supporting role in his trial, created an LLC through which it funneled much of its spending, while Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, accepted donations through shell corporations, allowing the names of donors to remain hidden.

5. Two recent reports highlight the corrosive potential of so-called “c4s” (after their 501(c)4 tax code designation), the “social welfare” arms of super PACs, to raise and spend money without disclosing their donors to the FEC. Based on their IRS filings, such groups have begun to play a bigger role in direct independent spending than supporters of campaign finance reform had expected, and their ability to filter money from contributors to their associated super PACs means that some super PAC spending is virtually untraceable. A report recently issued by Demos and the US PIRG Education Fund found that out of 10 super PACs active in the 2012 elections, 6 had received money from untraceable sources.

Money and Politics This Week

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Dan Rockoff.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics

NY Campaign Finance:

1. Today, over 100 organizations that support Fair Elections for New York wrote Governor Cuomo detailing the need for publicly financed campaigns, lower contribution limits, and better enforcement. The civil rights, business, faith, grassroots community, good government, environmental, and labor organizations who signed the letter, thanked the Governor for his strong support and expressed their enthusiasm to work with him and members of the Legislature to pass publicly financed elections and other campaign finance reforms during this legislative session.

2. Despite the annual $150,000 contribution limit by individuals to candidates in New York, luxury-apartment mogul Leonard Litwin gave almost $700,000 to candidates in 2011. A study by the New York Public Interest Research Group revealed that Litwin was the biggest individual donor in the state. Litwin was able to dodge the state’s campaign finance laws by utilizing the limited liability company (LLC) loophole, which allows companies to contribute multiple times through affiliated LLC’s, even when the LLC is completely controlled by a corporation or individual who has already reached the maximum contribution limit.

3. Governor Cuomo spoke with reporters about the need for public financing and campaign finance reform after participating in a fundraising event for the Democratic Governors Association. “One of the things we have to work on is getting money out of politics,” Cuomo said. In response to a reporter’s question about the meeting, Cuomo replied, “Your issue of, ‘You are in a room where people contribute money’ — that is the current state of politics and that is (the case for) every elected official in every fundraising forum.”

4. Manuel Ortega, law chairman of the Staten Island Democratic Party, filed a complaint with the FEC against Republican Representative Michael Grimm. The complaint alleges excessive and illegal cash contributions. A key fundraiser of Grimm’s is now being investigated for embezzling millions of dollars from a rabbi’s congregation. According to the New York Times story that Ortega used as the basis for his FEC complaint, unnamed followers allege that Grimm sought donations over the legal limit, and that he sought those donations in cash and from undocumented aliens.

5. The Democrat and Chronicle calls for Governor Cuomo to follow through on his election promises for public financing and campaign finance reform. The newspaper notes that “the governor continues to say the right things” and urges him to “prod the Legislature to deliver.”

Other News Nationwide:

1. In his State of the Union address, President Obama spoke about the “corrosive influence of money in politics.” He called for “a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress,” places limits on incumbents’ ability to own stocks in industries they impact, and restricts the ability of bundlers to lobby Congress.

2. The New York Times editorializes that under the federal lobbying law, “Newt Gingrich can legitimately claim that he is not a lobbyist.” The paper stated that Gingrich had “made a great deal of money in Washington peddling his influence, while carefully staying about half-an-inch short of the legal definition of lobbyist.” The paper calls for a better law limiting lobbyist activity and promoting disclosure. Part of the problem is that many Members of Congress use the revolving door—more than 400 former members have become lobbyists or consultants in the last decade.

3. In Massachusetts, Senator Scott Brown and likely Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren agreed on a plan to stop outside groups from running negative ads. The agreement “requires each side to donate to a charity of the other’s choosing” when benefiting from a third-party ad, and also requires each side to write to outside groups and television station managers requesting a cease-fire. Brown, who is up for re-election to a full term, said that third-party ads “spend millions of dollars from anonymous donors portraying their opposition unfairly and misleading voters.” The question now is whether the agreement is enforceable.

4, In Montana, the State Supreme Court upheld by a 5-2 vote a law banning corporations from making political expenditures. A New York Times editorial praised the Montana Supreme Court, stating that “in Citizens United, the conservative majority turned itself into a copper kings’ court.” The majority rejected Justice Kennedy’s “misguided reasoning” that money does not “give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” The court’s dissenters, however, argued that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision dictates the opposite result, and warned that the Supreme Court would not allow Montana to ignore precedent.