Elections: Views of Selected Local Election Officials on Managing Voter Registration and Ensuring Eligible Citizens Can Vote

GAO's past work and the work of others has shown that challenges processing voter registration applications and maintaining voter registration lists can result in individuals arriving at polls on Election Day to find they were not listed as registered. GAO surveyed local election officials in 14 jurisdictions in 7 states (AZ, CA, MI, NY, TX, VA, and WI) to obtain their views on managing voter registration for the 2004 election. GAO selected the 7 states considering characteristics relevant to voter registration, such as whether a statewide voter registration list existed prior to the enactment of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Locations were selected within each state to represent one small and one large election jurisdiction. This report discusses election officials' characterization of (1) challenges receiving voter registration applications, including checking them for completeness; (2) removing voters' names from voter registration lists and ensuring that names were not inadvertently removed; and (3) implementing HAVA's provisional voting and identification requirements. HAVA, in part, requires that states offer provisional ballots to voters not listed as registered who declare eligibility and first-time voters who registered by mail after January 1, 2003, and could not provide identification. GAO offered election officials the opportunity to verify the accuracy of their responses used to prepare this report.