Study: Voting process here lags nation's
Over the last two presidential elections, Ohio and Kentucky officials improved election performance, shrinking wait times and cleaning up voter registries.
The No. 1 thing both states could still do to help voters: allow online registration, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released Tuesday. Online registration reduces the potential for error that exists with traditional paper-based systems, saves jurisdictions money and increases the accuracy and currency of the voter rolls, thereby reducing delays and congestion at the polling place, according to Pew.
Indiana is one of only 13 states that allow it.
Pew is the latest to recommend the move. The Presidential Commission on Election Administration has recommended providing online voter registration, as has Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted.
Overall in 2012, the study shows Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana fared poorly compared with other states – with only Ohio squeaking into the top half of rankings. Ohio ranked 24th, scoring a 70 percent on 17 points the study considered; Indiana ranked 30th, scoring 67 percent; Kentucky ranked 39th, scoring 63 percent.
The study comes as Ohio Democrats work to put a Voters Bill of Rights into the state constitution in the November election and as Hamilton County election officials battle over whether to the move the county Board of Elections – and early voting – from Downtown to Mount Airy.
"We know common-sense solutions to improve elections exist," said David Becker, director of Pew's election initiatives project. "States are pioneering innovations that make a real difference in the efficiency and accuracy of their elections operations while also saving money. The Election Performance Index allows policymakers to pinpoint what's working while also identifying areas where improvement is needed."
The 2012 data comes two years after Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent nonprofit organization that uses an analytical approach to improve public policy, unveiled the Elections Performance Index, the nation'sonly comprehensive election assessment. Pew shared the data with secretaries of state across the country. So far it has shared data from 2008, 2010 and 2012.
The study took into account 17 indicators, including wait times at the polls, availability of voting information online, rejection of voter registrations, problems with registration or absentee ballots, rejection of military and overseas ballots, voter turnout and accuracy of voting technology. In-person early voting – which is being looked at in several states as Republicans curb hours allowed in prior elections – was not among the information assessed.
"We wanted to evaluate elections based on data, not anecdotes," said Zachary Markovits, Pew's election initiatives manager.
Nationally, the overall average improved 4.4 percentage points in 2012 compared to 2008.
Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke said he's fearful the strides Ohio made will be lost in future elections.
Reduced wait times are the result of every Ohioan's being sent an absentee application, which increased early voting and reduced lines on Election Day. The General Assembly earlier this year said only Husted could make that decision and that it must be approved by the legislature.
"We're absolutely going backwards," Burke said. "We're going to see a decrease in number of people voting early unless we can get this reversed in courts."
Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou attributed Ohio's improvements to Husted, also a Republican. "We have certainly improved under Republican leadership. The secretary has said he's making it easy to vote and hard to cheat, and he's living up to that."
About the Ohio Voters Bill of Rights
Democrats are collecting signatures to put an Ohio Voters Bill of Rights into the state constitution. They need 385,245 signatures by July 2 to put it before voters in November. The Voters Bill of Rights would:
• Create online registration.
• Maintain current identification options and expands them to include student identification.
• Maintain a 35-day early voting period.
• Require early voting stations be open the weekend before the election – including the Sunday before an election.
• Mandate that a ballot cannot be rejected due to a poll worker's error.
Pew report findings
• 13 states offered online voter registration in 2012, compared to two in 2008.
• Wait times decreased on average about three minutes since 2008. Florida had the longest wait and the largest increase in wait time in 2012 – up 16.1 minutes from 2008 to 2012.
• Overall voter turnout dropped 3.4 percentage points in 2012 from 2008. Turnout percentages in the Midwest and Northeast were higher than in the South in 2012. Minnesota and Wisconsin had the highest turnout rates in 2008 and 2012.
A look at Tristate elections
| OHIO | KENTUCKY | INDIANA | ||||
| Category | Rank | Data | Rank | Data | Rank | Data |
| Mail ballots rejected | 31 | 0.2 percent of ballots mailed | 15 | 0.1% | 39 | 0.5% |
| Provisional ballots cast | 37 | 3.7 percent of votes cast | 3 | 0% | 11 | 0.2% |
| Provisional ballots rejected | 35 | 0.6 percent of provisional votes cast | 4 | 0% | 14 | 0.2% |
| Registrations rejected | 23 | 6.3 percent of registrations | 29 | 20.9% | 19 | 3.9% |
| Registration or absentee ballot problems | 41 | 8 percent | 13 | 4.5% | 28 | 6.5% |
| Turnout | 12 | 65.2 percent of voters | 41 | 55.9% | 40 | 56% |
| Wait time | 29 | 11 minutes to vote | 18 | 8 mins. | 39 | 14.3 mins. |
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts study
Room for improvement
Ohio
Ohio allows registered voters to update their information online, but it does not yet permit new applications to be submitted online. If the state expanded its system to support both types of transactions online, it would improve not only on the online registration indicator, but possibly on voter registration rate and provisional ballots cast, too.
Kentucky
Kentucky had the highest registration-rejection rate of any state in 2012, 20.9 percent of all applications. Registrations can be rejected for many valid reasons, such as lack of a signature or missing information, but high rates or large increases can indicate systemic problems. More research is needed to identify the cause and possible solutions.
Indiana
Indiana did not report complete data on military and overseas ballots rejected in 2008, but in 2012 it had the highest rate in the nation. It rejected 1,481 – 20.6 percent – of the 7,195 military and overseas ballots returned for counting. Improved data collection to provide further detail on why the ballots were rejected could help the state identify the cause.
What the secretaries of state said
Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky: "... Kentucky has improved in many aspects of election administration. For example, Secretary Grimes strives to make sure all eligible Kentuckians, including individuals with disabilities, are able to vote privately and independently, so we're especially proud that Kentucky led the nation with the largest decrease in the rate of nonvoting due to disability- or illness-related reasons."
Jon Husted, Ohio: "Here we have yet another independent and nonpartisan national group calling attention to significant improvements we've made in how we run elections on Ohio.... Between 2008 and 2012, absentee voting was up and wait times were down in no small part due to our decision to send absentee ballot request forms to all registered voters. One important area where we are behind other states is in enacting full online voter registration. I once again urge the General Assembly to pass an online voter registration bill. This simple reform is long overdue."