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Tuesday, November 02, 2004
State elections test GOP gains, reliability of ballot
By Pamela M. Prah, Staff Writer
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With all the hoopla over the presidential race, it's easy to forget that there's more at stake on Nov. 2 than selecting the next occupant of the White House.
Voters in 44 states will cast ballots for folks closer to home to fill 5,807 state legislative seats, and 11 states will pick governors. In addition, voters in 34 states will weigh in on 163 ballot measures that could raise taxes, ban gays from marrying in their state, promote stem cell research, raise the minimum wage or usher in more gambling.
On top of the drama of waiting for election results to proclaim the winners and losers, all eyes also will be on state election and polling officials to see whether the snafus over hanging chads, faulty voter lists and other problems that plagued the 2000 elections are repeated. The 2002 Help America Vote Act aimed to fix those problems, and this election will show just how far states have come.
"States, for the first time, are playing under a new set of laws that are intended to make it easier for Americans to vote, and they [states] are interpreting those laws on their own in a variety of ways that in some cases fulfill the goal of the law and in other cases may have the opposite affect," said Paul S. Herrnson, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Political experts expect some chaos at the polls, thanks in large part to a flood of newly registered voters, a nationwide shortage of poll workers, stricter voter ID rules and new electronic voting machines that could befuddle some voters.
Threats of voter intimidation and lawsuits loom large. Both parties are dispatching thousands of partisan poll watchers who are primed to spot fraud or question a voter's qualifications. In the presidential battleground state of Ohio, for example, Republicans already have filed objections to some 35,000 new voter registrations and want to deploy 3,600 "challengers" to the polls. And in Florida, the epicenter of the 2000 election debacle, thousands of absentee ballots in key counties have yet to arrive at voters' mailboxes, giving more ammunition to lawyers for both parties.
Another monkey wrench: the widespread use of "provisional" ballots for voters who show up at the polls and find their registration is in doubt. Twenty-eight states won't count provisional ballots if cast by a voter in the wrong precinct but 17 will.
"In 2004, we've got thousands of poll watchers, armies of lawyers, the attention of the international community and potentially record numbers of new voters. Even if the quantity or severity of problems doesn't match the problems that occurred four years ago, it could still seem that way with this unprecedented level of scrutiny," said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org, a non-partisan, non-advocacy Web site providing news and analysis on election reform. (Electionline.org and Stateline.org are both funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts).
While states' reputations for running smooth elections are on the line Tuesday, for both parties the bottom line is more political power. Republicans want to build on their existing advantage that includes control of 28 governorships and 21 statehouse chambers. Democrats want to stop the bleeding and bolster their ranks. Democrats have 22 governorships and wield control of both chambers in 17 states.
Among this year's 11 governors' elections, political experts and polls show the closest races are in two Midwest states -- Indiana and Missouri; three Western states - Montana, Utah and Washington; and New Hampshire.
In Indiana, Gov. Joe Kernan (D) faces Republican Mitch Daniels, a former budget official for President Bush. Missouri's race pits Republican Matt Blunt, the state's secretary of state and son of U.S. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, against Democratic state Auditor Claire McCaskill, who beat first-term Missouri Gov. Bob Holden in the primary.
Contests in three Western states are expected to be nail-biters where the races are wide open because the incumbents either lost or opted not to run.
- In Montana, Republican Bob Brown, secretary of state, squares off against Brian Schweitzer, the Democrat who picked as his running mate an experienced Republican state lawmaker.
- In Utah, the choice is between Scott Matheson Jr. (D), the son of a former governor, and Jon Huntsman (R), the son of a wealthy entrepreneur.
- And in Washington, Republican Dino Rossi, a former state senator, is running against Democrat Christine Gregoire, the attorney general.
In New Hampshire, Republican Gov. Craig Benson is in a tough race against his Democratic challenger, John Lynch.
Incumbent governors are given the edge in the other races: Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D), North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D), North Dakota John Hoeven (R) and Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R). And in West Virginia, Democratic challenger Joe Manchin III, the secretary of state, is leading against Republican Monty Warner, a developer and brother of the state Republican party chairman.
Predicting the political landscape of the country's statehouse races isn't much easier because the parties are clinging to razor-thin margins. The divide between Republican and Democratic legislators is so narrow in 23 states that a loss or gain of just a handful of seats could swing control to the opposite party in 28 legislative chambers. Power could change hands by a shift of just three seats in 18 state senates and a change of five seats in 10 lower chambers. At stake is the chance to set the legislative agenda.
"There's been so much attention on the presidential race that a lot of these other (legislative) races have gotten lost," said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Iowa who has tracked legislative races across the country and is co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly.
Nearly 80 percent of the nation's 7,382 state legislative seats are up for grabs. Only six states Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia will not hold legislative elections on Tuesday.
The National Conference of State Legislatures rates the top 10 battleground states for legislative races as Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Vermont, where the focus is on control of the House; Colorado, Maine and Oregon, with tight Senate margins; and Washington state, where both chambers are considered a toss-up.
Twenty states also will get to pick top judges for their state supreme courts. Judicial elections already have shattered fund-raising records this year, and TV ads showcasing the races are appearing on air in more states than ever before. The 20 states with high court seats that will be filled on Nov. 2 are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.
Controversial ballot initiatives that would ban gay marriage in 11 states or raise the minimum wage in two (Florida and Nevada) could draw more voters to the polls this year. Typically, ballot measures can boost voter turnout by as much as 3 percent in presidential election years, said Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a labor-backed group based in Washington, D.C. (Click here for the center's report on this year's measures).
Other key statewide votes on Nov. 2 could change the way Colorado casts its electoral votes for president, cap property taxes in Maine and legalize marijuana in Alaska. Voters in South Carolina will decide whether to repeal a law that requires bar and restaurants to sell alcohol only in mini-bottles.
California voters will face the longest list of questions (16). Included are measures that would launch the country's largest government-funded research program on embryonic stem cells, scale back the state's "three-strikes" sentencing law to violent or serious felonies, slap a tax on millionaires to fund health care for mentally ill children and toss out a law that requires businesses with at least 50 employees to provide health insurance.
California, Florida, Nebraska and Washington voters will consider measures to expand gambling, while Oklahoma voters decide whether they want to launch a lottery. Michigan voters will decide whether to require a statewide vote before allowing any new non-Indian gambling sites.
Voters in four states Florida, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming will decide whether to limit the amount of money patients can collect in medical malpractice lawsuits.
Click here to access NCSL's database of state ballot initiatives.
Send your comments on this story to letters@stateline.org. Selected reader feedback will be posted in the Letters to the editor section.
Contact Pamela M. Prah at pprah@stateline.org
See related Stateline.org stories:
2004 Governor's races
Elections will bring five freshmen governors
Govs' 527 groups gain greenbacks, influence
Scores of statehouse candidates lack challengers
10 states identified as legislative battlegrounds
Statehouse races: overlooked, not overrated
Hot-button social issues cram state ballots
Embryonic stem cell debate bursts onto state level
Rising property taxes reverberate politically
Medical malpractice fights go to voters in four states
Money mattering more in judicial elections
State candidates blaze digital campaign trail
Election day dawns early in 30 states
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