Elections Officials Should Be Non-partisan

Suppose you were watching your favorite college basketball team and the referee announced that he endorsed your team's opponents. Worse yet, say you learned that he was an alumnus of that team and was raising money to help build them a new arena. This is exactly the situation voters face with when they learn that the referee in charge of elections, usually the Secretary of State, is backing one or more candidates.

California's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recently resigned amid allegations that he used illegally laundered funds in his own campaign and that he had improperly awarded federal grant money for partisan purposes. Ohio's Secretary of State Ken Blackwell created an uproar for chairing George Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio while at the same time administering those elections. In Washington, the Republican Secretary of State faced a recall petition from his own party for not being partisan enough in his handling of the governor's race recount.

In thirty-nine states, the Secretaries of State serve as the chief elections officer. They are responsible for everything from proper reporting of campaign finances to certification of voting equipment. They can discharge their duties fairly, or they can give advantages to certain candidates or parties.

It's one thing for both Democrats and Republicans to vigorously work to win elections for their side. It's another thing for this partisanship to become so jealous as to tarnish the fair administration of our elections. We all lose when the legitimacy of our elections is undermined.

But what can be done to prevent partisan players from capturing the office of Secretary of State? One idea would be to prevent candidates for these offices from running under party labels. But, this wouldn't necessarily make the winning candidate any less partisan, it would just make it harder for voters to know the candidates' biases.

Another approach would be to stop electing chief elections officers altogether and instead appoint them. But this would remove any public accountability from the position. Public pressure played a critical role in encouraging both Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Kevin Shelly in California to abandon plans to use touch screen voting equipment that lacked a voter-verified paper audit trail to be used in recounts. Unelected town clerks favored such equipment because it made their jobs easier. But the public strongly supported requirements that touchscreens include paper receipts, just like ATMs. Would an appointed Secretary of State be as receptive to public concern?

A better solution is to keep electing Secretaries of State, but replace the traditional party primary system for this office with an open primary where the top two vote getters advance to a runoff in the general election regardless of what party they are from. Alternatively, voters could select candidates using a system known as instant runoff voting, recently adopted in San Francisco. This allows voters to rank a large field of candidates in order of their preference and produces a winner with majority support without the need for an additional runoff election.

Other reforms should include a prohibition on chief election officers acting as campaign chairs or fundraisers for other candidates. Senator Frank Lautenberg is introducing legislation to this effect for all federal races.

An even more effective solution would be to prohibit Secretaries of State from running for higher office for a period of six years after they leave their positions. This would discourage the career politicians who are currently using the Secretary of State's office as a steppingstone. We would be more likely to see dedicated public servants running for Secretary of State, people who were more committed to the integrity of their office than pleasing party interests whose backing they will need in future elections.

It's time to get serious about ensuring that those who referee our elections do so in a fair and impartial way. If not, voters will drop out of a system just like fans stop watching a sport that they know is rigged in favor of one team.