Voices and Choices: Workplace Justice and the Poultry Industry

Edited bySusan Stevenot Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 3-7

In an unprecedented move this past November, the Roman Catholic bishops of the Southern United States released a pastoral statement on workplace justice issues. Voices and Choices studies the poultry industry to highlight the plight of “our brothers and sisters whose work exacts an intolerable personal and community cost.” The project took two years and involved hundreds of people, from poultry processing workers and managers to labor and church officials.

Representing the immigration and language issues affecting the poultry industry, Voices and Choices is published in English and Spanish in the same binding. Endorsed by forty-one bishops from Virginia to Texas, it uses scripture and Catholic social teaching to assess the real price of our heaped plates of fried chicken. It includes statistics as well as stories of the workers (with their names changed) whose lives shape the labor and occupational health issues.

But Voices and Choices is not just about one contemporary industry:

“While this letter will focus on the lack of ‘voices and choices’ for many of our brothers and sisters who work in the poultry industry, we do not mean to single out this one productive business as unique. We use the poultry industry as an example of other businesses, in agriculture and manufacturing, which share the same challenges, whether furniture is being made, produce picked, or livestock raised under contract.”

The personal stories that appear throughout the document are an unusual feature for such a church statement. Worker interviews give voice to those who have no “voice or choice” in their workplace:

Maria Moñtez prays the “Our Father” daily, but she says “Padre Nuestro.” She prays in Spanish, the language of her birthplace. Now a senior citizen, she has lived in the United States for many years, the last five of them as a worker in the poultry processing industry. Senora Moñtez is friendly, but shy. When asked about her work, she says several times that she is glad to be employed, that she doesn’t mind working hard. Later she mentions her pain and disability. Moñtez has numbness in her arms and hands from the motions she repeats hundreds of times during every work shift. The pain often keeps her awake at night and she treats her condition by rubbing her skin with alcohol. She has not seen a doctor because the company insurance has a deductible of several hundred dollars which her wages cannot cover. She has asked to be rotated to other tasks with different motions, but has been told she is too dependable in her job to risk a replacement. “A lot of people are also affected with asthma and pneumonia and eye problems,” she says. “That’s what I see the most. People have to leave the plant because of illness. People get fired if they get hurt.”

Like most workers in poultry processing, Senora Moñtez stands for hours at her place on a production line. Chickens, impaled on hooks hanging from a chain which moves the carcasses around the processing area, pass in front of her at a speed which, in a large part, determines the profitability of the operation. The atmosphere is noisy and damp. The floor is wet and the chickens drip on everything and everyone. The moisture contains many chemicals and biological contaminants. Each room is colder than the last as the temperature of the chickens is cooled from “live” to “packed.” Processing involves killing, gutting, cutting, sorting, weighing, and packaging at an urgent pace. One’s task is performed hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand times, per shift, often with sharp blades.

According to a 1996 study by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the incidence of repetitive motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, among poultry processing workers is five times the rate seen in manufacturing in general. According to OSHA, health and safety violations involving a substantial probability of death or serious injury increased more than 150 percent between 1997 and 1998 at one of the leading poultry processing companies. The physical effects of this type of employment can be devastating.

Sara Brown’s injuries are not physical. She speaks passionately of the favoritism and manipulation she has experienced from supervisors at her poultry job for the four years she has worked there. She speaks of inter-minority discrimination and prejudice. She is aware of bathroom breaks denied for an entire shift, of time off given to a chosen few, while her excused absences to be with her hospitalized husband are counted toward her possible firing. She, too, has children to support. She takes great risks in complaining to her supervisor, and knows of no avenue of appeal beyond the whims of those immediately in charge. She works hard, she says, is dependable, and deserves better treatment. “Who,” she asks, “will hear me?”

Now in her mid-forties, Beatrice Johnson has worked in poultry processing for more than twenty-one years.

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Repetitive motion injuries disabled her, but company doctors told her that her condition was not job-related. Her family doctor disagrees. Ms. Johnson hoped for worker’s compensation. Instead, she was put on sick leave at a fraction of her normal pay. When her sick leave runs out, she will probably be fired, like other workers she knows. She is still disabled, still in pain, still in need of a way to support herself.

In 1997 the DOL found 60 percent of poultry companies surveyed to be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). More than 51 percent of the plants failed to pay workers for time spent on job-related tasks such as clean-up; more than 30 percent failed to pay for brief breaks during the day, such as restroom use; more than 54 percent deducted money from worker paychecks for protective gear for which the company is required to pay. Employees do not have a “voice” or a “choice” in such policies.

While Voices and Choices–released November 15, 2000–uses the 1997 study, a newly released DOL report shows that 100 percent of the poultry processing plants surveyed in 2000 were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. (See box on page 7.)

The January, 2001 DOL study states that “investigations of fifty-one randomly-selected poultry processing plants located throughout the U.S. led to agency findings across-the-industry of non-compliance under the FLSA.”

Violations cited by the DOL in the new report included: “employees not paid for all hours worked, including overtime hours, due to undercounting hours worked; employees underpaid due to impermissible deductions made from wages; overtime due plant employees as a result of improperly claimed exempt status; overtime not paid to some live-haul crew members (catchers, loaders, drivers); and record-keeping violations as recorded time was not accurate for in-plant or live-haul workers.”

The DOL study also gives details about the underpayment of subcontracted or “temporary” workers–workers who are rarely, if ever, paid the same wages for doing the same work as employees, but who may represent a substantial number of the workers at the plant. “The potential for minimum wage violations affecting workers employed via temporary help firms in processing plants is significant since these workers generally were paid only slightly more than the Federal minimum wage. The lower rates paid to these temp agency workers leave little room before practices of not paying for all hours actually worked

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or making deductions from wages” (for items required to be provided to employees such as ear plugs, clothing, and equipment).

Voices and Choices includes the viewpoint of poultry industry senior management as well, people who have voices and make choices about not only their work, but the work of others.

John Stephens is a senior manager with a poultry company who articulates the industry’s point of view. While he grapples with conflicting priorities and difficult decisions, he has the power to influence corporate policy and to make changes. He must watch the profitability of the operation. It is a competitive business and there are a lot of factors to consider. His single biggest problem, Stephens says emphatically, is employee turnover. As soon as people can find another job, they leave. As in the majority of processing plants, most employees are from minority groups. More and more he must rely on immigrants, many with questionable documentation.

Surveys conducted by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), show that poultry workers are mostly African American and female, though Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the workforce.

“The poultry industry in the U.S. is not an employment of choice for people,” Mr. Stephens says. “The work is very hard physically and repetitious,” that is “part of the problem.” He has future employees bused in from other areas, oversees company housing that shelters some of them and wonders how he will keep the line functioning with a full complement next week. He knows that training supervisors to treat employees well and training employees to rotate through several jobs to relieve or prevent repetitive motion injuries are keys to the future of the operation. He says he is working on implementing such improvements. “The higher the quality of supervision, the better the work environment. The quality of supervision is a key to turnover and absenteeism. We need to improve the way people are dealt with; the way we take care of their needs is most important.”

Processing is only one part of the poultry industry. Chicken catchers are another group who work an unhealthy, repetitive job for low pay and who face irregularities in their employment. A study of Delmarva chicken catchers shows that average daily compensation has declined since 1985. Additionally, over 60 percent of plants surveyed by the DOL in 1997 failed to pay overtime to chicken-catching crews for hours worked in excess of forty per week.

Poultry Growers Question Contracts

It may not be easy to view fluffy, white chicks as a social justice issue, but growing the chickens is another facet of the industry that provides controversy. Those who raise poultry often find themselves in unfair situations. The contract they sign with a poultry company is written to leave the major decisions in the hands of the company. The grower must spend large sums of money to build, and later update, the facilities where the birds will be raised. In the case of smaller growers, such investments usually call for a mortgage on the family farm. The antibiotics, feed, and other supplies, including the chicks themselves, come from the company. The company weighs the feed and the finished chickens. The company also decides what the grower will be paid per pound of bird, once expenses for supplies are deducted. Unhealthy chicks, illness in the flock, weather problems, waste disposal, and runoff problems are all risks for the grower, not the company. Current contracts are often written to specify arbitration as the only mode of redress, omitting the possibility of class action lawsuits which have been successful for some growers in the past.

Roy and Mary Stein are growers with sixteen years experience. They say that most grower families must send someone to work at another job to generate adequate income for the family. Often the rate of return promised by the company falls short, particularly once the company begins to demand expensive changes or improvements in equipment as a condition of continuing the contract. If the contract is not renewed, the family farm may be foreclosed. Selling a farm without the promise of a similar contract for a potential buyer, is often impossible.

“The only thing you’ve got control of is signing the contract,” says Roy Stein. “They can break it any time they want to. You can’t, but they can.”

“This is contract labor,” adds Mary Stein. “You are not a partner. A partner is supposed to have something to say about your business.” The couple says growers are afraid to speak up, because “everything they own is mortgaged.”

According to the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission, poultry companies gain about 16 percent on their investment, while poultry growers gain about 4 percent. Delmarva poultry growers surveyed in 1997 echoed the concerns of the Steins: 43 percent said they did not trust their company’s feed delivery weights, 41 percent didn’t trust the figures on their pay statements, and 57 percent believed the company would retaliate if they raise concerns.

Voices and Choices also tackles the immigration aspect of the poultry industry, noting that most people in the United States are themselves descendants of immigrants, who also arrived in search of a better life.

Different in look, customs, and language, newcomers are often discriminated against. Such people have faces and futures. One young man sits quietly, his heavily muscled arms folded across his chest. A friend coaxes

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him to speak, promising that his real name will not be used. Gradually, Julio Lopez relaxes, unfolds his arms and extends a huge, gentle hand. The hand is deformed with scar tissue; its shape distorted. He speaks reluctantly, through a translator, of a poultry-processing injury, which required more than seventy stitches to close. Weeks later, his use of the hand is still impaired. He is told by the medical people available to him that nothing more can be done and that he is not authorized to see a specialist. He has not been compensated for the injury. He is concerned that the disability is permanent, but he will not make a fuss for fear of losing his current job in the processing plant, the job that feeds his family back home. He is desperate to support them, so desperate that he crossed the border into this country illegally. What will happen if he is sent back? Like others who are undocumented, he says it is safer to be silent.

While laws regarding immigration and immigrants are to be respected, what can be done to aid and protect this most vulnerable and exploitable group? Many of these immigrants are fleeing civil conflicts in Latin America in which the United States is a political player. Whatever their country of origin, most are without a voice as they attempt to support themselves and their families by whatever means is available, no matter what the conditions. Their understandable reluctance to seek help from government authorities becomes another factor in the circumstances which many such people must face.

Although Voices and Choices builds upon statistical information throughout, the difficulty of obtaining statistics is overshadowed by the common experiences of workers in the industry facing challenges of earning a living wage, establishing worker rights and human dignity, and dealing with immigration. The stories told by workers are consistent and disturbing, often overwhelming.

Voices and Choices also includes a lengthy treatment of the biblical roots of neighborliness. It cites more than one hundred years of Catholic social teaching concerning such topics as human rights and dignity, the organizing of workers, just wages, appropriate working conditions and solidarity. The bishops’ document does not take a simplistic view of the global economic forces at work. Even so, it says, complexity is not an excuse for lack of awareness or for inaction.

Vertical integration, in which the same company owns and/or controls every step of production from the most basic components, such as feed grain, to the final product, such as boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the grocery store shelves, has become a dominant force in the economy. The ramifications are too numerous to treat here, but according to the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, “factory farming” affects prices, wages, natural resources, and the future of family farming, placing enormous power in the boardrooms of a few companies.

The economic forces which shape the work of peoples’ daily lives are intricate and interconnected, extending to matters of environment, use of hormone technology and genetic engineering, foreign policy, global monetary policy, and international imbalances of resources, debt, and wealth.

Structural change and legal protections are essential tasks for government and business entities. “Still,” argues Voices and Choices, “we may not abdicate our concern and responsibility for such matters to the anonymous group. The ‘group’ is made up of individuals. Structural change begins with the conversion of each heart.” While the bishops’ statement stops short of suggesting specific action, it strongly states that all voices in the workplace need to be heard and responsibilities and benefits shared.

From 1987 to 1997, the value of poultry production has doubled; broiler industry operating profits exceeded one billion dollars in 1996. The USDA poultry processing “line speed” limit increased from seventy birds per minute in 1979 to ninety-one per minute by 1999 while average real wages for poultry workers have declined from 1987 to 1997. Poultry work is both the lowest paying and largest employing segment of the entire meat industry.

Having a voice can lead to having a choice about wages, working conditions, job safety, medical care, and other benefits. It is often difficult for workers to achieve this sharing of responsibility with owners and managers, which is why, for decades, the Catholic Church has supported the right of individuals to associate in groups organized to see that voices and choices become a reality.

Because of the high turnover, vulnerable status, and

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isolation, poultry industry workers are not easy to organize. Once formed there are further obstacles.

One poultry processing plant has had a union since 1996, yet today, there is still no contract to protect the workers. “This struggle has gone on for a long time,” says organizer Juan Sanchez. “People are tired, but they want to be organized. It’s the only way to get the company’s attention when they are abused by supervisors or overburdened with work. They want to protect themselves.”

Voices and Choices ends with the following exhortation and with the signatures of the forty-one bishops: “We love and serve in our daily lives through encounters with others. How might we be advocates for the needs of our brothers and sisters who lack voices and choices? How might we “speak out for those who cannot speak”? (Proverbs 31:8). Let us begin with our own hearts and our own awareness as we journey together through the new millennium. Let us seek to encounter the presence of the divine in every person, and respond accordingly, for “just as you did it to one of the least of these. . . you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

S. Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 p. 7

Sidebar: Will Bush’s DOL Enforce Wage and Hour Laws?

A statement of concern was presented to U.S. Department of Labor administrators in six locations around the country, including Atlanta, on May 24-25, 2001. The “open letter,” organized by the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice (NICWJ), asked the new Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, to vigorously enforce Wage and Hour laws designed to protect 250,000 poultry plant workers and to hold poultry industry accountable for violations of labor law.

Chao has met with representatives of the poultry industry and received a letter from sixteen U.S. Senators reportedly asking her to reduce enforcement and industry accountability. NICWJ was unable to arrange a meeting with the secretary.

In Atlanta, ten representatives of religious and labor groups, spearheaded by the Georgia Poultry Justice alliance, met with Alfred “Hap” Perry, Southeast Regional Administrator, and Joe Villarreal, Southwest Regional Administrator, of the DOL Wage and Hour Division. The group presented Perry and Villarreal with a copy of the NICWJ letter, signed by 150 leaders of justice and religious organizations, and with copies of Voices and Choices, the poultry justice pastoral document form the Catholic Bishops of the South.

Perry cited a 2000 DOL study, released in January, 2001, stating that all fifty-one of the poultry processing plants investigated were in violation of Wage and Hour laws. A previous DOL study, in 1997, showed only 40 percent of the plants to be in compliance.

“I don’t think the industry changed (between the 1997 investigation and the 2000 investigation),” Perry said. “I think we did a better job with the 2000 study. The industry has been doing the same things for twenty years.” One of the “things” includes requiring workers to “don and doff” required protective clothing without any pay, resulting in about an hour of unpaid work per shift.

Response by the DOL to such studies can include “doing nothing” or filing lawsuits against the companies and/or assessing penalties against the companies, Perry said. He prefers the education option, when feasible, which makes employers and employees aware of labor laws.

Perry said his office is preparing a response to the poultry industry’s position. “I have a personal interest in this,” he said.

He asked those presenting the NICWJ statement to help the DOL connect with poultry workers, offering to make DOL representatives available for educational presentations as often as weekly to workers in the poultry industry.

–S. Sullivan

This essay was excerpted and adapted from Voices and Choices and edited by Susan Stevenot Sullivan, a member of the team that developed the pastoral statement. Sullivan is a writer, editor, and photographer based in the Atlanta area. Voices and Choices is available in printed form from St. Anthony Messenger Press (1-800-488-0488) or on the web at: www.americancatholic.org/News/PoultryPastoral/default.asp.

Voces y Opciones: Justicia en el Lugar de Trabajo en la Industria Avícola

Edited by Susan Stevenot Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 8-12, 26

En una movida sin precedente, el Noviembre pasado, los Obispos Católicos Romanos del Sur de los Estados Unidos pusieron en circulación una declaración pastoral sobre temas injustas en el trabajo. Voces y Opciones estudio la industria avícola para exponer el dilema de “nuestros hermanos y hermanas cuyo trabajo exige un costo personal y comunitario inaceptable.” El proyecto se llevo a cabo durante dos años y involucro cientos de personas, desde trabajadores y gerentes de procesadoras avícolas a oficiales de labor y oficiales de la Iglesia. Representando los temas de inmigración y de lenguaje que afectan la industria avícola, Voces y Opciones es publicada en Ingles y en Español en el mismo libro. Respaldado por cuarenta y uno obispos desde Virginia hasta Texas, usa las escrituras y enseñanzas social Católicas para determinar el precio verdadero de nuestros platos amontonados con pollo frito.

Incluye estadísticas y historias de los trabajadores (con los nombres cambiados) cuyas vidas moldean los temas de ocupación y de la salud. Pero Voces y Opciones no es nada mas de una industria contemporada:

“Aunque esta carta se centrara en la falta de ‘voz y opción’ para muchos de nuestros hermanos y hermanas que trabajan en la industria avícola, esto no significa que señalemos este productivo mercado como caso único. Usamos la industria avícola como un ejemplo entre otros negocios, como agricultura y fabricación, los cuales comparten los mismos desafíos, ya sea fabricando muebles, cosechando verduras, o criando ganado bajo contrato.”

Las historias personales que aparecen por todo el documento son una característica rara para tal documento. Entrevistas con los trabajadores dan voz a los que no tienen “voz y opción” en su lugar de trabajo.

María Montez reza diariamente el “Our Father,” pero ella dice “Padre Nuestro.” Reza en su lengua nativa; el Español. Es una señora de edad avanzada que ha estado en los Estados Unidos por muchos años, y desde hace cinco años trabaja en la industria avícola. La Señora Montez es amigable, pero tímida. Cuando le preguntamos sobre su trabajo, nos respondió repetidas veces que esta muy contenta de estar trabajando, y que no le importa trabajar duro. Luego menciona su dolor e incapacidad física. Sus brazos y sus manos están dormidos debido al movimiento repetitivo que realiza cientos de veces durante sus jornadas de trabajo. Con frecuencia el dolor la mantiene despierta por la noche y para aliviar su condición se frota alcohol sobre la piel. No ha consultado a un doctor porque el deducible del seguro de la compañía es de cientos de dólares, el cual no puede cubrir con su salario. Ha solicitado alternar su trabajo con otras labores de movimientos diferentes, pero sus supervisores le han manifestado que debido a que es muy responsable con su trabajo, no quieren arriesgarse a reemplazarla. “Mucha gente ha sido afectada por asma, pulmonía, y problemas de la vista,” manifestó. “Eso es lo que más veo. La gente tiene que salir de la planta por enfermedad. Si la gente se hiere la despiden.”

Al igual que muchos trabajadores en las procesadoras avícolas, la Señora Montez se mantiene de pie en la línea de producción por largas horas. Los pollos, que cuelgan enganchados de una cadena que los mueve alrededor del área de procesamiento, pasan frente a ella a gran velocidad la cual determina en gran parte la ganancia de la operación. El ambiente de trabajo es ruidoso y húmedo. El piso se mantiene mojado y pollos salpican por donde quiera. La humedad contiene muchos contaminantes químicos y biológicos. Cada cuarto es mas frío que el anterior, ya que los pollos empiezan a ser enfriados desde que están “vivos” hasta que pasan a ser “empacados.” El procesamiento consiste en sacrificar, eviscerar, cortar, ordenar, pesar, y empacar los pollos a paso rápido. Cada uno realiza su tarea cientos de veces y hasta mas de mil veces en un turno con cuchillas muy afiladas.

De acuerdo al estudio efectuado por el Departamento de Trabajo (DOL) de los EEUU en 1996, las lesiones ocasionadas por movimientos repetitivos que incide entre los trabajadores de las procesadoras avícolas, como lo es el síndrome de “carpal tunnel,” son cinco veces mas que en las manufacturadoras en general. Según OSHA, las violaciones de salud y seguridad que llevan la considerable probabilidad de muerte y lesiones graves, incrementaron mas de 150 por cien entre 1997 y 1998 en una de las principales compañías de procesamiento avícola. Los efectos físicos de este tipo de trabajo pueden ser devastadores.

Las lesiones de Sara Brown no son físicas. Ella habla ardientemente sobre el favoritismo y la manipulación que ha experimentado de parte de sus supervisores durante sus cuatro años de trabajo en la avícola. Ella habla de la discriminación y prejuicio entre minorías. Durante el turno de trabajo, no todos los trabajadores están autorizados para hacer uso del baño, sino unos pocos que gozan el favoritismo. Su ausencia del trabajo se debe a la hospitalización de su esposo, y esto se suma a la posibilidad de ser despedida. Además tiene niños que mantener. Así también, sabe que toma un gran riesgo al quejarse al supervisor, pero tampoco

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tiene otras vías donde apelar mas allá de los caprichos de sus superiores inmediatos. Ella dice que trabaja duramente, es responsable, y merece mejor trato. Y se pregunta, “¿Quien va a escucharme?”

Beatrice Johnson es una mujer de cuarenta y tantos años que trabaja en la procesadora avícola desde hace mas de veinte uno años. Esta incapacitada debido a las lesiones de movimientos repetitivos y los doctores de la compañía le han dicho que su condición no esta relacionada con el trabajo que realiza. Él medico de su familia no esta de acuerdo con eso. Ella esperaba recibir compensación laboral, pero le dieron permiso por enfermedad, el cual paga solo una fracción del salario normal. Su permiso por enfermedad ya esta por terminársele y cuando eso suceda probablemente será despedida, al igual como les ha pasado a otros trabajadores que ella conoce. Continua inhabilitada, todavía con dolor, y con la necesidad de ganarse la vida para su propio sostenimiento.

En 1997 por el DOL encontro que el 60 por ciento de las compañías avícolas encuestadas transgredieron el Acta de Trabajo de Medidas Justas(FLSA). Mas del 51 por ciento de las plantas no les pagaron a los trabajadores por el tiempo que utilizaron haciendo limpieza y otros quehaceres relacionados con el trabajo. Mas del 30 por ciento no les pagaron por pausas breves durante el día, como lo es el uso del baño; mas del 54 por ciento les descontaron dinero del cheque a los trabajadores por el costo del equipo protector, en circunstancias que es la compañía la que esta obligada a pagar por eso. Los empleados no tienen “voz” ni “opción” en las políticas empresariales.

Mientras Voces y Opciones-puesto en circulacíon el 15 de Niviembre del 2000- usa el estudio de 1997, el reporte del DOL muestra que 100 por ciento de las plantas procesadoras de avícola encuestadas en el 2000 estaban en violación del Acta de Trabajo de Medidas Justas.

El estudio de Enero del 2001 del DOL dice que “investigaciones de cinquenta y un plantas procesadoras de avícola localizadas a través de los Estados Unidos resultaron en el descubrimiento que la industria no cumple con las reglas bajo el FLSA.”

En el nuevo reporte, violaciones citadas por el DOL incluye: “trabajadores no son compensados por todas las horas de trabajo, incluyendo horas extras, debido al contarles menos de las horas actualizadas; trabajadores no compensados lo actual debido a descuentos no permitidos de su pago; horas extras se les debe a los trabajadores a resultado de error en reportar su estado social: horas extras no se les paga a miembros del equipo

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(atrapadores, cargadores, choferes); y violaciones en el mantenimiento de los registros del tiempo de los trabajadores.”

El estudio del DOL también da detalles sobre la falta de compensar el trabajo actual de trabajadores temporales o sub-contratados, trabajadores a quien casi nunca se les paga el mismo salario por hacer el mismo trabajo que los empleados, pero que tal vez representan un numero sustantivo de trabajadores en la planta. “La potencial de violaciones de salario mínimo que afecta a trabajadores empleados por medio de agencias temporales en plantas procesadoras es significante debido a que a estos trabajadores se les paga por lo general tan solo un poco mas del sueldo mínimo Federal. El salario pagado a estos trabajadores temporales deja poco lugar ante la practica de no pagar por las horas actualizadas de trabajo o de hacer descuentos del salario” ( por artículos requeridos que se les provea a los trabajadores como, tapones para los oídos, ropa y equipo).

John Stephens es uno de los principales gerentes de una compañía avícola qué da el punto de vista de la industria. Mientras lucha con prioridades conflictas y decisiones difíciles, él tiene el poder de influir en la política empresarial y de hacer cambios. El debe velar por la rentabilidad de la operación para mantenerse a sí mismo y a otros en el trabajo. Es un mercado competitivo y hay muchos factores que considerar. Expresó enfáticamente que uno de los grandes problemas que él afronta es el constante cambio de personal. En cuanto la gente puede encontrar un nuevo trabajo, se va. Como en la mayoría de las plantas procesadoras, un gran numero de empleados son de grupos minoritarios. Cada vez mas depende de los emigrantes, y muchos de ellos poseen documentación cuestionable.

De acuerdo con las encuestas realizadas por United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), los obreros avícolas son en su mayoría Afroamericanos y mujeres, sin embargo, los Latinos son el sector de crecimiento más rápido de la fuerza trabajadora.

El Señor Stephens agrega, “La industria avícola en los Estados Unidos no es la opción de empleo de preferencia para la gente. El trabajo es muy duro físicamente y repetitivo, y eso es parte del problema.” Él tiene futuros empleados traídos en buses de otras partes, también supervisa un alojamiento de la compañía el cual hospedara a algunos de ellos y se pregunta como mantendrá la línea funcionando con la totalidad de empleados la próxima semana. Por lo tanto sabe que entrenar a los supervisores para tratar bien a los empleados y entrenar a los empleados para ir rotando en diferentes labores a fin de aliviar o prevenir las lesiones ocasionadas por movimientos repetitivos, son la clave para el futuro de la operación y el esta trabajando en la implementacion de tales mejoramientos. Enfatizo que, “Mientras más alta es la calidad de supervisión, mejor es el ambiente del trabajo. La calidad de supervisión es la clave para evitar el constante cambio de personal y el absentismo. Tenemos que mejorar la manera de tratar a la gente, y lo más importante es como satisfacer sus necesidades.

El procesamiento es solamente una parte de la industria avícola. Los atrapadores de pollos son otro grupo que tienen un trabajo peligroso y repetitivo, con salarios bajos y que enfrentan irregularidades en su trabajo. Un estudio de “Delmarva” muestra que la compensación diaria normal para los atrapadores de pollos ha ido declinando desde 1985. Además, en 1997, el DOL encontró que mas del 60 por ciento de las plantas encuestadas no le pagaron al equipo de atrapadores el correspondiente tiempo extra por trabajo realizado en exceso de las cuarenta horas semanales.

Los Criadores de Pollos Expresan Interrogantes Sobre Los Contratos

Es difícil ver a pollitos blancos mullidos como el tema de justicia social, pero criar pollos es otra realidad de la industria que trae controversia. Los que crían los pollos se encuentran frecuentemente en situaciones injustas. Los contratos que firman con la compañía avícola están escritos para dejar las mayores decisiones en manos de la compañía. El avicultor debe gastar grandes sumas de dinero para construir, y después modernizar las instalaciones donde criaran a los pollos. En el caso de péquenos avicultores, generalmente, inversiones requieren de una hipoteca sobre la finca familiar. La compañía avícola provee a los avicultores con los pollitos de cría, antibióticos, alimento, y otras provisiones. La compañía pesa el alimento y el peso final del pollo. La compañía también decide cuanto pagara al avicultor por libra, después de deducir los gastos por suministros. Pollitos enfermos, enfermedades en el gallinero, problemas por el clima, eliminación de desperdicios, y otros problemas son riesgos del avicultor, no de la compañía. Los contratos se limitan a la acción de arbitraje como la única manera de enfrentar los problemas, negando la posibilidad de demandas judiciales de clase que han sido exitosas para algunos criadores de aves en el pasado.

Roy y Mary Stein son criadores de aves y cuentan con dieciséis años de experiencia. Ellos expresaron que la mayoría de las familias criadoras envían a uno de sus miembros a trabajar a otro lugar para tener un ingreso adecuado para la familia. Muchas veces la tasa de ingreso prometido por la compañía esta por debajo de la realidad, especialmente cuando la compañía exige cambios costosos o mejoras de equipo como condición para continuar el contrato. Si el contrato no es renovado, la granja de la

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familia puede perder el derecho de la hipoteca. El venderla sin la promesa de un contrato similar de parte de un comprador potencial, es casi imposible.

“La única cosa sobre la cual uno tiene control es la firma del contrato. Ellos pueden darlo por terminado en el momento que quieran; usted no puede, pero ellos sí,” dice Roy Stein. Mary anadio, ” Este es un contrato laboral. Usted no es un socio. Un socio tiene algo que decir sobre su negocio.” La pareja dice que los granjeros avicultores tienen miedo de hablar abiertamente porque “todo lo que ellos poseen esta hipotecado.”

De acuerdo a Security and Exchange Commission, las compañías avícolas ganan cerca del 16 por ciento sobre sus inversiones, mientras que las granjas criadoras ganan cerca del 4 por ciento. Granjas avicultoras Delmarva encuestadas en 1997 dieron a conocer las mismas preocupaciones de los Steins; el 43 por ciento dijeron que ellos no creen en el peso que les es entregado por parte de la compañía, 41 por ciento tampoco creen en las cifras que aparecen en sus estados de paga, y 57 por ciento creen que la compañía tomara represalias si los criadores de aves expresan se descontento.

Voces y Opciones también acometa el aspecto de la industria avícola, anotando que la mayoría de personas en los Estados Unidos son descendentes de emigrantes, quienes también llegaron en busca de una vida mejor.

Distintos en aspectos, costumbres, y lenguaje, los recién llegados frecuentemente son discriminados. Estas personas tienen cara y un futuro. Un hombre joven esta sentado tranquilamente con sus brazos fornidos cruzados sobre su pecho. Un amigo lo persuade para hacerlo hablar, prometiéndole que no se usara su verdadero nombre. Paulatinamente, Julio López se relaja, abre sus brazos y extiende su mano gentilmente. Su mano esta deformada, llena de cicatrices y su forma contrahecha. A través del traductor, habla renuentemente sobre la herida que sufrió procesando pollos, la cual requirió mas de setenta puntadas para cerrarla. Semanas después, aun no puede hacer uso de su mano herida. El personal medico que lo ha atendido le ha dicho que no hay nada mas que se puede hacer y que no tiene autorización para ver a un especialista. Tampoco ha sido compensado por la lesión. Su preocupación es de que el daño sea permanente, pero no se queja por miedo de perder su trabajo en la planta procesadora, ya que con este alimenta a su familia en su país. Esta desesperado por ayudarlos, tan desesperado que cruzo la frontera de este país ilegalmente. ¿Que pasara si él es enviado de regreso? Al igual que muchos otros que están indocumentados, el expreso que es mejor quedarse callado.

¿Mientras que las leyes concernientes a inmigración y a inmigrantes deben ser respetadas, que se puede hacer para ayudar y proteger a este grupo vulnerable y explotable? Muchos de ellos han huido debido a conflictos civiles en Latinoamérica, en los cuales han incluido a los Estados Unidos en un papel político. Su repugnancia de pedir ayuda de las autoridades del gobierno es comprensible, y pasa a ser otro factor en las circunstancias que mucha gente debe afrentar.

Aunque Voces y Opciones se mantiene de información estadística, la dificultad en obtener estadísticas se oscurece por las experiencias comunes que enfrentan los trabajadores de la industria. Ellos enfrentan muchos desafíos en común, entre ellos cuestiones de salario adecuado y otros derechos de los trabajadores, de dignidad humana, y de asuntos de inmigración. Las historias que los trabajadores cuentan son consistentes y casi devastadoras. Estos trabajadores parecen no tener voces ni opciones en su situación de trabajo.

Voces y Opciones también incluye un largo trato de raizes bíblicas sobre el prójimo. Habla sobre mas de cien años de enseñanza social Católica sobre principios como el da la vida y dignidad de la persona humana, el organizarse de trabajadores, pago justo, condiciones apropiados en el trabajo y solidaridad. El documento del obispo no toma una opinión simplistica sobre las fuerzas económicas

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globales en el trabajo. Aunque dice, complejidad no es excusa por falta darse cuenta o por no tomar acción.

La “integración vertical,” aquella en que la misma compañía posee o controla cada paso de la producción desde los elementos más básicos, como lo es el gran o alimentación, hasta el producto final, como pechugas de pollo deshuesadas y sin piel en las estanterías del supermercado, ha llegado a ser una fuerza dominante en la economía. Las ramificaciones son demasiado numerosas para tratarlas aquí, pero de acuerdo a la Conferencia Nacional de Vida Rural Católica, la “granja-fabrica” impacta los precios, salarios, recursos naturales, y el futuro de las granjas familiares, dando un enorme poder a las altas autoridades de unas compañías.

Las fuerzas económicas que moldan el trabajo en la vida diaria de cada persona son complicadas y entrelazadas, extendiéndose en asuntos ambientales, uso de tecnología hormonal, ingeniería genética, política exterior, política monetaria mundial, desproporción internacional de recursos, deuda y riqueza.

El cambio estructural y las protecciones legales son tareas esenciales para las entidades del gobierno y de las empresas. “Aun” averigua Voces y Opciones, ” no podemos dejar nuestra preocupación y responsabilidad por tales asuntos en manos del grupo anónimo. El ‘grupo’ esta formado por individuos. El cambio estructural empieza por la conversión de cada corazón.” Mientras la declaración del obispo para antes de sugerir acción especifica, dice firmemente que todas las voces en el trabajo necesitan ser escuchadas y las responsabilidades y los beneficios deben ser compartidos.

Desde 1987 a 1997, el valor de la producción avícola ha duplicado; las ganancias de operación de la industria de asadores excedieron mas de un billón de dólares en 1996.

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El limite de la “línea de velocidad” en la procesadora avícola USDA aumento de setenta aves por minuto en 1979 a noventa y un aves por minuto en 1999. Mientras que el ingreso promedio verdadero para trabajadores avícola bajo de 1987 a 1997. La industria avícola es a la vez la que menos paga y la que mas trabajadores emplea en toda la industria de la carne.

Teniendo una voz puede llevar a tener una opción sobre salarios, condiciones del trabajo, seguridad, cuidado medico y otros beneficios. A menudo es difícil para los trabajadores lograr este compartir de responsabilidad con los dueños y gerentes, y por eso la Iglesia, por décadas, ha apoyado el derecho de los individuos a asociarse en grupos organizados para lograr que las voces y las opciones lleguen a ser una realidad.

Debido al constante cambio de personal, a la situación vulnerable y el aislamiento es difícil organizar a los trabajadores de la industria avícola. Aun formadas hay mas obstáculos.

Una planta procesadora avícola ha tenido tal asociación desde 1996, y hoy, aun no existe contrato para proteger a los trabajadores. “Esta lucha ha continuado por largo tiempo,” dijo el organizador Juan Sánchez. “La gente esta cansada, pero ellos quieren estar organizados. Esta es la única manera de obtener la atención de la compañía cuando ellos son maltratados por los supervisores o cuando se les da exceso de trabajo. Ellos quieren protegerse.”

Voces y Opciones termina con la siguiente exhortación y las firmas de cuarenta y un obispos. “Amamos y servimos” en nuestras vidas diarias a través de nuestros encuentros con otros. ¿Cómo podríamos abogar por las necesidades de nuestros hermanos y hermanas que no tienen voz ni opción? ¿Cómo podríamos hablar por los que no tienen voz?(Proverbios 3:18) Empecemos con nuestros propios corazones y con nuestra consciencia mientras caminamos juntos por el nuevo milenio. Busquemos la presencia Divina en cada persona, y respondamos de acuerdo, “porque así como lo hiciste a uno de esos pequeños…a mí lo hiciste…” (Mateo 25:40).

Este escrito fue sacado y adaptado de Voces y Opciones y redactado por Susan Stevenot Sullivan, miembra del equipo que desarrolló la declaración de los Obispos. Sullivan es escritora, editora y fotógrafa basada an el área de Atlanta. Voces y Opciones es disponible en forma escrita en St. Anthony Messenger Press (1-800-488-0488) o en la Pagina Red: www.americancatholic.org/News/PoultryPastoral/default.asp. Redactado por Blanca Rojas.

Sidebar: ¿El DOL de Bush Cumplirá con las Leyes el Sueldo y Hora?

S. Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1 p. 12, 2001

Una declaración de concierne fue presentado a los administradores del Departamento de Labor del los EEUU en seis ubicaciones alrededor del país, inclusive Atlanta, el 24-25 de May del 2001. La “carta abierta” organizada pr el Comité de Interfaith para la Justicia de Trabajador, (NICWJ) por sus mezclas en Ingles, pregunto a la nueva Secretaria de Trabajo, Elaine Chao, que vigorosamente imponga las leyes que Sueldo y La Hora diseñaron para proteger a 250,000 trabajadores de plantas avícolas y que sostenga a la industria avícola responsable por infracciones de la ley del trabajo.

Chao se ha reunido con representantes de la industria avícola y ha recibido una carta de dieciséis Senadores de los EEUU, que supuestamente le piden reducir la coacción y la contabilidad de la industria. El NICWJ fue incapaz de arreglar una junta con la Secretaria.

En Atlanta, diez representantes de grupos religiosos y del trabajo, encabezados por la Alianza de Georgia para Justicia Avícola, se reunieron con Alfered “Hap” Perry, Administrador Regional del Sur este y Joe Villareal, Administrador Regional del Sur Oeste de la División del Sueldo y Hora del DOL. El grupo le presentó a Perry y a Villareal una copia de la carta del NICWJ, firmada por 150 lideres de organizaciones religiosas y de la justicia, además de copias de “Voces y Opciones” el documento Pastoral de los Obispos del Sur.

Perry cito un estudio del DOL 2000, que due puesto en circulación en Enero del 2001, diciendo que las cincuentiuno procesadoras avícolas que fueron investigadas estaban en violación de las leyes del Sueldo Y Hora. Un estudo del DOL de 1997, mostró que solo 40 por ciento de las plantas cumplieron con las leyes.

“No pienso que la industria haya cambiado (entre la investigación del 2000),” Perry dijo. “Pienso que hicimos un trabajo mejor con el estudio del 2000. La industria ha estado haciendo lo mismo por veinte anos. Una de esas “cosas” es requerir que los trabajadores se “pongan y quitan” la ropa protectora sin pagales por este tiempo, resultando en mas o menos una hora de trabajo sin pago por cada turno.

La respuesta por el DOL a estos estudios puede incluir “no hacer nada: o demandar a las compañías y or multar las, dijo Perry. Él prefiere la opción de educar, para que los trabajadores y los patrones tengan conocimiento de las leyes del trabajo.

Perry dijo que su oficina esta preparando uno respuesta a la posición de la industria avícola. “Tengo interés personal en esto,” él dijo.

Él pidió a los presentadores de la declaración del NICWJ, que ayudaran a unir al DOL con los trabajadores avícola. Ofreció hacer disponibles semanalmente a representantes del DOL para dar presentationes educativas a los trabajadores de la industria avícola.

S. Sullivan

SRC Study Contributes to Georgia Election Reform

Staff

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 13-14

Following the 2000 election debacle in which the shortcomings of the Florida election system came under national negative scrutiny, the SRC conducted a study of 2000 election results in Georgia. The SRC study, based on data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, yielded fresh evidence of racial disparities in Georgia’s voting systems. The findings of the SRC study and the Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox’s report, entitled The 2000 Election: A Wake Up Call for Reform and Change led to the passage of a comprehensive election reform package (SB 213) that will mark a critical step to address the serious shortcomings of election systems in Georgia. The bill was signed into law by Governor Roy Barnes on April 18, 2001.

The SRC study found substantial differences in the rates of effectiveness of voting machinery used in Georgia counties. The optical scanning technology, used in sixty-six counties, resulted in 2.72 percent of votes cast being discarded as uncounted votes. The lever system, used in seventy-four counties, was less reliable, with a 3.98 percent rate of uncounted votes. The punch card system, used in seventeen of Georgia’s counties by 30.5 percent of Georgia voters, performed least effectively, with 4.67 percent of the ballots registering as uncounted votes. Georgia had a higher rate of uncounted votes than Florida. Statewide, the average rate of uncounted votes was 3.51 percent, worse than the rate for the state of Florida (2.9 percent) and much worse than the national undercount rate (1.9 percent).

The SRC study found that the deficiencies of the punch card system had a disproportionate impact on Georgia’s African-American voters who were almost two times more likely than white voters to live in counties using that most error-prone system. Almost half (46.23 percent)of Georgia’s black voters live in punch card counties while less than one-quarter (24.73 percent) of Georgia’s white voters live in punch card counties. Conversely, white voters in Georgia were 1.5 times more likely than black voters to use optical scanning equipment, which is least likely to yield uncounted votes. Fifty-seven percent of Georgia’s white voters use optical scanning equipment compared to 36.5 percent of Georgia’s black voters.

In preparing the Secretary of State’s report, The 2000 Election: A Wake-Up Call for Reform and Change, Cox’s office studied data from the 2000 election, analyzed the state’s statutes and procedures, and reviewed the criticisms and suggestions of hundreds of Georgian. The problems revealed by the Secretary of State’s report included outdated voting equipment; difficulties in voting such as problems with ballots, lack of poll workers, lines, and locating the proper precinct; a lack of multi-lingual materials to serve the increasing number of language minorities; election violations like deceased people voting; low voter turnout; the speed with which the counties report their election results; and technological shortcomings like the state mainframe computer being slow and unreliable.

In response to these reported problems in Georgia’s election system, Senator Jack Hill (D-Reidsville) introduced and Representative Tom Shanahan (D-Calhoun) carried a bill on behalf of the Secretary of State’s office to implement a uniform system of voting equipment by July 2004. The bill, which passed overwhelmingly, will:

• Create a statewide uniform electronic voting initiative;
• Implement a pilot project to test and evaluate voting equipment in four or five municipalities during the 2001 voting cycle;
• Create a seventeen-member 21st Century Voting Commission to evaluate equipment alternatives and make recommendations;
• Streamline the general election ballot by eliminating the non-partisan primary;
• Reduce voter confusion by including a short, descriptive title for all constitutional amendments;
• Reduce the chances for voter fraud by consolidating responsibility for removing deceased persons from the voter roll in the Secretary of State’s office.

For more information on election reform in Georgia, visit the Secretary of State’s website at: www.sos.state.ga.us/elections. For more information on election reform in other states, visit the center for Policy Alternatives’s website at: www.cfpa.org.

Could the Death Penalty Die in Virginia?
Opportunities for Activism
By Sarah E. Torian

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 15-16

Say the words “death penalty” these days and many people will automatically think of Texas. As then-Governor George W. Bush ran for President last year, the state’s death penalty system and its record-setting 154 executions in the five years under Bush received a great deal of media attention. Many people would be surprised to learn, however, that, when state population is taken into consideration, the state of Virginia leads the nation in the rate of executions. Not only does Virginia, with eighty-two executions since it reinstated the death penalty in 1977, execute its citizens at a higher rate than any other state, but it also has the most limiting appeals process of any state. As Columbia law professor James Liebman explains, “When it comes to getting and keeping death sentences, the planets are just really aligned over Virginia.”

But, even in Virginia, growing public doubt of the infallibility and effectiveness of the death penalty system is beginning to show. The 2001 state legislative session marked a clear shift in the attitude of legislators regarding death penalty policies. “There was a dramatic difference this year,” says Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia ACLU which released a report on the injustices of the state’s capital punishment system in April 2000. In the past five years there were proposals to add twenty-six additional capital offenses to the state law books–nine of which passed. The 2001 legislative session marked a significant change from that death penalty expansionism. In addition to a proposal to abolish the state’s death penalty system completely, there were four proposals to place a moratorium on executions, and six proposals to ease the appeals and defense process for accused people–including a bill to cover DNA testing for anyone who has a life sentence. That bill was co-sponsored by ninety-six of one hundred delegates and thirty-six of forty senators. “For years, death penalty opponents have had to fight to prevent further expansion of the death penalty,” explains Willis. “This year, the legislators moved from expansion to moratorium!”

Bipartisan Support for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

This new attitude is apparent on both sides of the aisle. Delegate Frank Hargrove (Hanover County), the one legislator to propose abolition of the death penalty in Virginia, is a nine-term conservative Republican. Earlier in his career, he responded to the argument that the death penalty is a deterrence to murder by proposing a bill to have death sentences carried out on public gallows in downtown Richmond. Several other conservative Republicans–Harvey Morgan (Gloucester), Jeannemarie Devolites (Vienna), and Vincent Callahan, Jr. (McLean)–were among the thirteen legislators to co-sponsor moratorium legislation.

The death penalty has always been a very partisan issue with only a small progressive faction of Democrats opposing it, so this growing Republican opposition is striking–if somewhat difficult to explain. “The cynical side of me would say these politicians who have come out against the death penalty this year, have done so for political reasons,” speculates Willis, adding, “It was finally politically acceptable to oppose it.” Henry Heller, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP), agrees, saying, “Republicans have less to lose from appearing ‘soft on crime.’ Democrats are stigmatized by public perceptions that they are ‘too liberal.'”

This fading public support for state-sanctioned murder is evident in polling data. On November 6, 2000, the Richmond Times-Dispatch released the results of a statewide poll, revealing that 58 percent of Virginians supported a moratorium on the death penalty. Many organizations are also joining the fight against the death penalty in Virginia. Eight newspapers, including Norfolk’s Virginian Pilot and the Roanoke Times, have signed a petition calling for a moratorium. Thirty-eight religious groups, including the Alliance of Baptists and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia have also signed. Fifteen legal and activist organizations, including the Virginia College of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the ACLU and NAACP of Virginia, have also endorsed the petition. “There has been an infinite change in attitude across the state recently. On the death penalty in Virginia, the public is ahead of the legislature,” reports Bruce Williamson, President of VADP and expert witness to the Virginia General Assembly. Even Buddy Fowler, a supporter of the death penalty and assistant to Delegate Hargrove, has noted the number of conservative opponents to the death penalty. “Reactions [to Hargrove’s abolition bill] have ranged from disappointment, to anger, to appreciation,” he reports. “Actually, a lot of conservatives have called to say that they have thought this way for a long time.”

State’s Death Penalty System Under Review

The Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review

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Commission (JLARC), chaired by Delegate Callahan, has commissioned a study of the state’s death penalty system, concentrating on prosecutorial discretion–which cases involving capital crimes are tried as capital cases-and the appeals process. Completion of the study is expected in December 2001. Wayne Turnage, the study team leader, is currently constructing an index of factors by which to evaluate all cases involving capital crimes between 1995 and 1999. Included in that index will be the following :

• Was there any forensic evidence linking the accused to the crime?;
• Were there any eyewitnesses and, if so, were they culpable or connected to the victim or the accused?;
• What was the race of the accused and the victim?;
• What was the sex of the accused and the victim?;
• What was the age of the accused and the victim?;
• Was the victim culpable or involved in a crime?; and
• What was the financial status of the accused? (based on whether or not the accused was represented by a public defender).

“I think people on both sides of this debate will be disappointed,” suggests Turnage who claims to flip-flop in his personal opinions of the death penalty. “If this study were done fifteen to twenty years ago, I could predict that it would reveal many systematic flaws, but being conducted now, I think many people will be surprised.” He cites race as one of the categories that will surprise many when the report is released since, due to the state’s demographics, the majority of capital crimes involving African Americans are in the more urban areas of the state where the rate of capital prosecution is much lower than rural areas. (Currently there are sixteen African americans, fifteen whites, and one foreign citizen on Virginia’s death row.)

Even after meeting with Turnage and the other two researchers conducting the study, Williamson remains hopeful that the report will support alternatives to the death penalty. “They were very open and receptive to our input. The death penalty in Virginia has so many flaws and inequities that if they take a fair and objective study of it, the report will be great ammunition to pass moratorium or abolition legislation next year.”

Innocent Man’s Release Shows Fallibility

In January 2001, Earl Washington, Jr. was released from Virginia’s death row jail after spending nine and a half years on death row. Washington came within nine days of execution in 1993 before then-Governor Douglas Wilder commuted his sentence to life in prison based on the results of DNA tests that cast doubt on his guilt. With advances in technology since then, DNA evidence analyzed using new tests in 2000 proved that Washington, who is mentally retarded, could not be guilty of the 1982 rape and murder that nearly cost him his life.

“In one word-DNA,” says Delegate Callahan, a former advocate of the death penalty, when asked to explain his role in opposing the death penalty. “It has become obvious that people slip through the cracks. Innocent people can be executed. We don’t have any proof that innocent people have been executed, but the risk is too great.” Fowler explains that Delegate Hargrove, who served on a claims commission for the reimbursement of a person wrongly charged and convicted of murder, has similar reasons for opposing the death penalty, adding, “Now that Virginia has life without parole as a sentencing option, a person can be put away for the rest of their natural life. Hargrove believes that serves the public safety function that the death penalty previously addressed without risking the execution of an innocent person.”

The Struggle for Alternatives Continues…

Ultimately, despite all of the increased negative attention and legislative action against the death penalty during the 2000 session, very little was accomplished. The abolition bill and all moratorium bills died in the Courts of Justice committees, the House and Senate committees that review all bills relating to laws and legal matters. HB 1366, which allows for the admission of biological/DNA evidence that will prove innocence by anyone convicted of life imprisonment or the death penalty at any time, was the only true success of the 2001 session-and it’s success is limited at best. Under the HB 1366, any evidence other than biological-including the recantation of testimony by eyewitnesses or the confession of another person-continues to be inadmissible in the appeals process, insuring that innocent people will remain defenseless on death row. Of the eighty people exonerated from death row across the nation, only ten were exonerated based on DNA evidence.

Nevertheless, this growing opposition to the death penalty, among legislators and the public, and the expected release of the JLARC report in December, opens the door for grassroots organizing in support of alternatives to the death penalty. “Virginians want an alternative to the death penalty,” says Heller. “We are just trying to make the legislators realize that.” Callahan feels that progress will come slowly, saying, “I remain hopeful that the laws in Virginia will be changed. These things take time; sadly, the legislature often moves at a snails pace.”

For more information about how you can get involved in the fight for alternatives to the death penalty in Virginia or to add your group to the list calling for a moratorium, visit the VADP website at: www.vadp.org or call 804-263-8148.

Sarah E. Torian is associate editor of Southern Changes and a communications coordinator at the Southern Regional Council.

History and Memory: 2000 Lillian Smith Book Awards

Staff

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 17-22

Each year the Southern Regional Council hosts the Annual Lillian Smith Book Awards in honor of the most liberal and outspoken of white mid-twentieth century Southern writers. In works such as Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream, Lillian Smith wrote boldly on issues of social and racial justice, calling persistently for an end to segregation. The Awards honor those authors who, through their writing, carry on Smith’s legacy of illuminating the condition of racial and social inequity and proposing a vision of justice and human understanding. The 2000 Smith Awards honored the work of three non-fiction writers: Michael Keith Honey for Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Andrew Manis for A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999); and Lawrence Powell for Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). In addition to winning authors Manis and Powell, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Anne Levy were present and spoke. Following are excerpts from the Smith Awards speeches. Black Workers Remember Smith Awards juror Professor Mark Sanders, Chair of African-American Studies at Emory University, introduced Michael Honey’s book.

Black Workers Remember is an enormously important oral history of black workers and the on-going struggle for civil rights, for human rights, for recognition, and for dignity. Responding to the lingering silence over race in too much labor history and adding yet another crucial dimension to our understanding of the civil rights struggle, Black Workers Remember demands that we listen to the voices and stories of black laborers too often ignored or overlooked by our official accounts of progressive struggle. It is their stories of hardships, of resistance, of triumphs, and frustrating setbacks. It is their memory and courage to recall that shapes our understanding that, indeed, constitutes history. Michael Honey not only provides us with crucial information and compelling voices, he presents us with a cogent model for oral history. The understated grace and humility of his prose serve only to give context to these voices and stories. He then steps back and trusts those voices to do the work of which they are so capable.

Michael Honey:

Michael Honey’s remarks were read by Sanders.

Lillian Smith left a legacy of courage to resist evil, to stand up boldly and risk ostracism and criticism for one’s views. Anyone concerned about giving true content to words such as human rights, freedom, and justice in the South and in the world today would be honored to receive an award in her name, and those of us receiving it this year certainly are. The award is not so much in recognition of what we as writers have done, however. It is a tribute to the courage of others who came before us.

This award honors people like Clarence Coe. His ancestors were slaves but after emancipation they gained some land, and passed down the determination to never give in or give out. Mr. Coe saw the results of a lynching, and he watched white men kick black men in the pants just to keep them humiliated. He moved to the city to get away from Jim Crow in the countryside during the deep, dark depression of the 1930s. For the next forty years, he struggled day in and day out in Memphis factories for his rights as a human being. He took up collections for the NAACP, protested the Scottsboro rape frame-up of the 1930s, and supported student sit-ins of the 1960s. He met with other workers under the cover of darkness to organize unions, and had his stomach slashed wide open by union opponents. Once he got a union, he fought

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the discrimination which white workers and employers alike imposed upon blacks, keeping them confined to the hot, dirty, low-paying, least rewarding jobs. For advancing into skilled jobs formerly reserved for “whites only,” he faced years of threatening phone calls and harassment. White workers nearly maimed him on the job several times, using every trick they could find to make him quit. But he didn’t quit.

The black men and women who fill the pages of Black Workers Remember tell profound stories of stubborn resistance to the dehumanizing ways of Jim Crow. Like George Holloway, Irene Branch, Alzada Clark, Leroy Boyd, Matthew Davis, Ida Leachman, and Edward Lindsey, Clarence Coe fought both the civil rights and the labor struggles of his era. He marched to support sanitation workers in 1968, and prepared himself for war when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered. The war did not come, and meantime he helped elect the first black mayor in Memphis, and saw the desegregation of the city’s public life. In retirement, however, he faced new tragedies, as he tried to take care of fellow unionists who lost their jobs when factories shut down during the reign of “free market” global capitalism from the 1980s to the present. The last time I saw him, shortly before he died, Mr. Coe told me that “all I wanted to do was live in a free country.” He remembered how “America the Beautiful” thrilled him as a child, until he discovered with bitter disappointment that the song “just wasn’t about me then, it just wasn’t about me.” He said his lifetime of struggle for an equal place in America left “scars” on his memory. But he never gave up on the dream of equality and the hope for justice. By the time he left the factory, he had helped to desegregate its every nook and cranny.

The stories of these workers are every bit as much the story of the Civil Rights Movement as is the story of Dr. King. Labor rights and civil rights, Alzada Clark said, “go hand-in-hand.” As a black woman organizing other black women in low-wage industries in Mississippi during the 1960s, she faced the Klan, the police, and racist employers. Just like freedom movement organizers, she fought against the forces of “law and order” for a more democratic and just society. Ms. Clark and Mr. Coe, like virtually every character who tells their story in Black Workers Remember, could recall someone in their family before them who taught them to resist the indignities of racism and to fight back. They understood that they came from a long line of people fighting for freedom, one that goes all the way back to slavery. It is the memory of these and other people such as Fred Shuttlesworth and Anne Levy, and our knowledge of what they did to make this a better world for us all, that are

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honored by the Lillian Smith Book Award.

A Fire You Can’t Put Out Smith Awards juror Pegram Harrison presented the award to Andrew Manis.

Some of you may have noticed that memory is not our most reliable quality. The events of the 60s and 70s begin to fade and merge. And while we shall never forget the horror and heroism of those times, the chronologies become confused and the facts fall out of the network of our memories. But, we are blessed that in our midst are a few, a very few, remarkable men and women who have the training, imagination, moral view, persistence, and talent required to preserve the history of these turbulent times. One of these true scholars is Andrew Manis, the author of A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Mr. Manis was born in 1954, the year of the Brown v. the Board of Education decision. He grew up in Birmingham and remembers, as he says, dimly, some of the events that occurred during the 50s and 60s. He remembers the epic struggles, the violence, the hatred, the turmoil, and the coverage that focused the eyes of the world on Birmingham and arguably brought about the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

In A Fire You Can’t Put Out, Dr. Manis chronicles the civil rights life of one of the Movement’s greatest heroes–the most significant one in the stronghold of Southern segregation–the Reverend Shuttlesworth. Dr. Manis’s biography is marvelous. It is profoundly researched; it is crisply written; it contains elegant prose; it is passionate writing. It is just a splendid book.

Andrew Manis:

Thank you so much for this wonderful honor and this beautiful occasion to share with all of you and to rejoice in a great deal of hard work–work that was a great joy to do along the way. It took me twelve years to write this book and many times Rev. Shuttlesworth was unsure whether I would ever really be able to finish. But I am delighted at being honored with an award that bears the name of Lillian Smith.

Why would anyone spend twelve years, writing about a relatively unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement, someone about whom only a small circle beyond the participants in the Movement and a few historians had ever heard? There are professional reasons why professors must write things in order to keep their profession. But there are also some personal ones. And, it is the personal ones that generally energize you and give you the stamina to complete the sort of massive task that this book turned out to be. The personal ones connect with what has been called the white Southern racial conversion narrative–a literary genre with which many Southern writers, including of course Lillian Smith, have been involved. When Lillian Smith later spoke of writing her book Killers of the Dream, she said that writing that book was an act of penance and a step toward redemption. Like other prophets to the South, Smith assumed that somewhere embedded in the white Southern psyche was a conscience that could somehow be shamed into seeing the light. Much of the Civil Rights Movement, at least the segment led by Dr. King and Rev. Shuttlesworth, was predicated on the strategy of appealing to the conscience of, not just our region, but also our entire nation. At times, Dr. King and Rev. Shuttlesworth I’m sure would have agreed with Thurgood Marshall who once commented, “You know, sometimes I just get awfully tired of trying to save the white man’s soul.”

In a real sense you can see signs of a racial conversion narrative in the preface of A Fire You Can’t Put Out. I wrote about Birmingham’s–my hometown’s–central civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth because, as a white boy who grew up in Birmingham, I remember the times depicted in the book. I remember feeling that something out of the ordinary had happened one spring in 1963 when my mother called me in from a southside Birmingham playground with the grim warning that the “mavros” were causing trouble again. “Mavros” is Greek for blacks, but when it is pronounced with just the right inflection, it has the same effect as the “n” word. I also remember the morning I came out of Sunday School at the Greek Orthodox Church on 19th Street and learned that four little girls, just a couple of years my senior, had been killed at another church, not very far away in the city. I remember the ambivalence in my nine-year old heart, the fear that eventually I might have to go to school with the “mavros.” That fear was balanced by the suspicion that the voices of Shuttlesworth and King were right, that those black girls and boys deserved to be in school where I was and that Shuttlesworth and King were right and the adults around me were wrong.

In his own racial conversion narrative, Reynolds Price, a former Lillian Smith Award Winner, acknowledges seeing newsreel footage that we all have seen of black and white together in the Civil Rights Movement and Reynolds Price confesses that, “I’m sorry that my face is missing. All these years later,” he continues, “my silence offends me.”

I was nine when that famous footage of the dogs and firehoses and Bull Connor’s tanks were filmed in my hometown. Although there were some nine-year old Birminghamians with skin darker than mine who participated in the Movement, the Movement bypassed me. In a sense then, this book is partly a product of a racial conversion and a desire to put myself on the right side of history, to participate in a Movement that I missed.

But more importantly, I wrote about Fred Shuttlesworth because he became for many others and, especially for me in the writing of this book, an icon whose memory and story could transport me back to what historians of religion call “a sacred time of origins.” “Sacred” because it was a time that shaped who I am as a white Birminghamian–and even more “sacred” because it reshaped all of America. To be associated with the name of Lillian Smith and with the others who have accepted this award before me is probably the greatest honor of my life.

To Fred Shuttlesworth, who was the President of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and certainly the most unsung hero of the entire Civil Rights Movement, who is currently the pastor of the Greater New Life Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. To Rev. Shuttlesworth, for allowing me to be a part of his life and to have the honor of telling that story.

Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth:

I heard of the Southern Regional Council years back, when there were no voices of clarity being heard about whether or not blacks did have some rights that whites should respect. There was always a word that I could read from the Southern Regional Council and I always thank God for them, because they said segregation was wrong. Most white people that I knew that said anything about segregation tried to make it right. So, I want to congratulate you for just down-to-earth saying the truth.

I came up under the dark days of segregation, the Klan, and the collective efforts of state and local officials to stop and block integration at any cost. But I must say that this is God’s world and he moves, sometimes, in his own way. Every once in a while there is someone who by faith can feel as if God is with them and that God really owns them and they want to see God overcome some of the evil in this world. He moves in the hearts of people. And I’ve often said that when God has a contract for work to be done it has to be the men and women who have faith. We need more people who can hear the voice of God, and who can understand that God, if he is for anything at all, he is for justice first.

So allow me to congratulate Dr. Manis on his sacred award. I think he did a good job of trying to interpret a life that is dedicated and I believe God wants more people to be dedicated. Dr. King said that if a person hasn’t found something that he is willing to die for, he really hasn’t begun to live.

At first when I read the book, I wanted to take offense at it. I don’t take offense at things often. I take offense at segregation and he was writing about my fighting it, so I certainly didn’t want to take offense at him. But he did mention the word confrontation a lot. As I looked at it and listened to what he was saying, I said, “My goodness. That is right. You ought to get mad about injustice.” Mine is a life of confrontation. And yours should be too. Light confronts darkness. Good is supposed to confront evil. Right is supposed to confront wrong.

I wasn’t worried about dying. It shocks some people when I say that, because they don’t believe that a purpose can be something that a person could give his life for. And yet that is the greatest thing; that is what salvation is based on. I was as determined to kill segregation as I have ever been anything in my life.

My friend and compatriot, Hosea Williams–he was courageous to the point of a spiritual and obsessive insanity for justice. I said to him one time, “Hosea you’ve been in two armies. You’ve been in the army of killing, of destruction–whether for freedom or not and you were trained to kill. Now you are in another army dealing on another type of battlefield.” I asked, “Which one would you agree to being the best?” He thought that the battlefield of men’s hearts, minds, and souls was the main one. And that was where he lived.

So, I close with this incident. See, the worst problem I ever had was not in Birmingham. It was in St. Augustine, Florida, when those Klansmen had even the policemen almost running. So we decided that if we were going to win, we couldn’t let those segregationists go to bed every night and sleep well, that the business of getting freedom ought to be both night and day, so we decided to have night marches. As we could, the leaders would go down and get the people marching.

Hosea and I led the first night’s demonstration and we had policemen with guns and mace and one of them even had a riot gun on his shoulder. In Florida, in the section where we were marching, there was a grove that came up on each side of the street and then we would be right out into the wide-open street, about eight lanes. The policemen were so nervous–they even admitted it to Hosea and me. Any Klansmen could be out there with a gun. So I said to the policemen, “You shouldn’t be worried, you’ve got guns to match their guns, haven’t you?” I said, “We’ve got something stronger than guns.” He didn’t understand that. Hosea and I were at the front. When we got just about up to the grove–the police believed that the Klansmen were really out there, I guess–so they kind of slunk back. Hosea and I joined hands and we walked out. When we got right back to the edge of the street, Hosea threw his head back and yelled, “God will take care of you,” and everybody started singing. And, do you know, that made the policemen happy? You can be happy too, you know. If you do God’s will and work, God will take care of you.

I could go on but let me just thank God for this organization, for what you have done, for what you will do, and what you mean to those behind us.

Troubled Memory Tougaloo College English professor and Smith Awards juror Jerry Ward introduced award winner Lawrence Powell.

Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana bids us to weigh the meaning of dramatic clashes involving our deepest human passions in the 20th Century–passions that assume new guises in the 21st Century in which we have a foot. The intriguing stories in this book cut to the chase regarding race and human rights, both in Poland and Europe during the Nazi years and in Louisiana and the United States during the aftermath of civil rights struggle. As do all books that merit the Lillian Smith Award, Troubled Memory gives us an antidote for the historical amnesia that is widespread in contemporary America. It grounds us again in the necessity for at least trying to obtain universal human understanding. As Powell explores the Jewish problem in the Nazi period and the mutual suspicion and recrimination that haunts the memories of survivors of that period, he makes a most clever connection between European anti-Semitism and the especially complicated manifestations of racism and anti-Semitism in the political thinking of David Duke and others in Louisiana. Dwelling on the troubled memory of Anne Levy and the power of memory to provoke courage, Powell inspires us to think deeply as do the works of Lillian Smith. His book compels us to think very seriously of the historical and moral issues that endlessly function in the body of American politics.

Powell’s closing words in Troubled Memory remind us that indeed there is no hiding place for any of us from the problems of the racial lines in human society and that moral action is less a matter of desire than of necessity in our time. He reminds us that Anne Levy’s burden of preserving memory against those who would obscenely erase the past was not one that she carried alone. As Powell wrote, it is a collective responsibility, a civic duty. Erecting monuments and museums is one way to prevent forgetfulness, but in the final analysis, only a morally concerned citizenry has the full power to transmit the lessons of the past to a present increasingly anxious to get on with the future. For one brief shining moment, in a state not generally known for political ethics, a moral movement of people from across the spectrum said the past could not be brushed aside so easily.

So, on behalf of the jurors for the Lillian Smith Awards and the Southern Regional Council, we salute Lawrence Powell for giving those of us who embrace a sense of moral action, a decidedly elegant articulation in Troubled Memory of why we must never forget, of why we must–to borrow from Toni Morrison–“re-memory” stories and transmit them as grounds for moral action in unknowable futures. Such is truly the function of history and memory.

Lawrence Powell:

I must confess, this is not the book I started out to write. The book I started out to write was about the “stop David Duke movement.” Because I was very anxious in that struggle, a literary agent asked me to write about my experiences and to share my insights with the reader. Anne Levy, who is a child survivor of the Lodz and Warsaw ghettos and who had confronted David Duke right after he was elected to the state legislature, was supposed to be just one chapter in the book.

Her confrontation with him–one of those confrontations between light and darkness and good and evil–came from the deepest wellsprings of historical memory and was very seering and traumatic. It happened very dramatically at a Simon Wiesenthal exhibit of the Holocaust in the Rotunda in the great Memorial Hall of the skyscraper state capitol that Huey Long built. She had gone up there with a busload of New Americans, as the tightly knit community of Holocaust survivors in New Orleans call themselves. She was just there to bear witness, to be there for the unveiling by the governor, until she looked out of the corner of her eye and saw leering at parade rest, David Duke. This is David Duke after he had undergone extensive plastic surgery with an Aryan makeover look at about six-foot-three with a body by Nautilus. Seeing him, something came over her. She got angry and, as happens when political commitments are forged, she found courage and approached him to ask why he was there since he had denied that the Holocaust ever happened and, in effect, had defamed her experience. She was off and running. I try to tell about that and I also try to explain why she did what she did. I thought it was a simple question.

I am not by training a European historian, nor a holocaust historian; I’m not Jewish. But life sometimes throws you strange curves and before I knew it, one chapter became two, became three and Anne Levy ended up taking over the entire book and turning it into a Jewish family saga set against the backdrop of a world historical tragedy.

But I have to also say, I was profoundly moved and pulled into this story. If this is where the muse of history wanted to lead me, I said, well that’s where I am going to go. The result is this book. The other result is this honor of which I am deeply, deeply proud.

Anne Levy:

I’ll always want to acknowledge what Larry Powell has done for my family and myself. Having survived the Holocaust, we really–my children and my brother’s and sister’s children–never had a family, an extended family. By writing this book, Larry has given my family and my children their history. He has given me the opportunity to leave a legacy for my family and I thank him. This is such a great honor for Larry and he deserves it so much. Devoting eight years of his life to write this book. I am so grateful. He has become part of the family.

REVIEWS

Reviewed by Pat Wehner

Vol. 23, No. 1 2001 pp. 23-26

Thomas Frank, One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy, New York: Doubleday, 2000.

I recently watched as a business school professor channeled the spirit of Henry Grady for a collection of visiting financiers, entrepreneurs, and vice presidents of marketing, important men who had braved rush hour traffic in hopes of having their warm tinglings about the “emerging markets of the global South” affirmed by a higher, or at least a tenured, authority. Like Grady, the American South’s self-appointed ambassador of goodwill to the carpetbagging industrialists of the 1890s, the professor promised that when everyone up North set aside their preconceptions and recognized the hard-working, brand merchandise-craving character of the folk, there would be no further talk about sweatshops and unions, no more agitating for labor laws, trade regulations, or environmental standards. Between sycophantic shout-outs to his visiting homeboys from Georgia Pacific and Equifax, the professor reassured us that according to figures helpfully supplied by the International Monetary Fund, standards of living were actually rising for the benighted people of Guatemala and Mexico, Thailand and Indonesia. Anyone who thought differently was out-of-touch, elitist, and quite probably racist in not permitting the world’s diverse populations to exercise their universal, God-given right to be exploited. Furthermore, anyone foolish enough to hesitate now–say, to pause and wonder why all this breathless enthusing about the “new” economy sounds oddly like the squeakings of a helium abuser–was in for a shock. Corporate globalization was a done deal, a no-brainer, a slam-dunk. Gentlemen: I give you the future, with stock options.

Though delivered with more than the usual helping of smug, there was nothing very original about this uplifting little sermon (or little sermon of uplift, any distinction being all but meaningless). One can easily find New York Times columnists riffing on the same themes any day of the week. It was somewhat more surprising to hear it spoken so confidently at a university, where critical thinking purportedly lives and thrives. And in fairness there were some stirrings of discomfort from the audience–the professor’s cheering section of imported suits not withstanding. Yet the question that provoked the greatest response of the night, when everyone from the undergraduate beside me to the venture capitalists in the front row raised their hands unselfconsciously skyward, was when the professor asked, “How many people here have worked for minimum wage?”

Among journalists, sociologists, and historians it has become almost a cliché to note that nearly everyone in the United States claims to belong to the middle class. The show of hands I participated in demonstrates a related truth, that most everyone believes they got that way through their own hard work and sacrifice. So while the professor’s whole presentation on global economics amounted to little more than an attempt to legitimate the policies of the executives down in front, the success of that effort relied on a ludicrous parallel between the comfortable university audience and factory employees

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working fourteen-hour shifts in southeast Asia. Leaving aside the bar graphs and statistics, the justification of those (far-off) workers’ continued exploitation depended, in the end, on our buying into some weird flattery of our personal intelligence and initiative. You started out at the bottom of the ladder, look how far you’ve gotten…(and better for it, too).

How variations on this appeal to our collective vanity have become an all-purpose defense for the ruthless policies of corporations–everything from downsizing and outsourcing in the U.S., to the repression of labor, environmental, and pro-democracy activists in countries like Nigeria and the Philippines–is the theme of Thomas Frank’s new book, One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy. As one of the founding editors of The Baffler, a scruffy, sarcastic, but consistently relevant journal of cultural criticism, Frank has specialized for years in attacks on “the Culture Trust,” the media conglomerates and corporate marketers who have colonized every available public space to maintain their “brand presence” in our lives. In One Market Under God Frank brings his historically-informed skepticism to bear on the business mythologies of the 1990s, the decade when Land Rover-driving investment bankers reimagined themselves as revolutionary “change agents.”

Frank introduces the term “market populism” to describe a powerful ideological consensus that emerged in the 1990s, one that equates unregulated business with the highest ideals of democracy. Quoting advertising slogans, management guides, and press coverage of the “new” economy, he presents an exhaustive (and at times, exhausting) argument that this unlikely association has become a culturally pervasive “given.” Today, it is not just the brokerage presidents and chief executives telling us that we should accept the impartial wisdom of that abstraction called the Market, but also the politicians, journalists, and university professors. Together they argue that if meddling bureaucrats would only stand aside, the Market would empower people to take control of their lives, multiplying their options and bringing prosperity to all who are deserving. As Frank describes the market populist reasoning, “By its very nature the market was democratic, perfectly expressing the popular will through the machinery of supply and demand, poll and focus group, superstore and Internet. In fact, the market was more democratic than any of the formal institutions of democracy–elections, legislatures, governments.”

Like the Populist politicians of the 1890s, the market populists of today claim to represent the interests of “The People” and declare “elites” to be their sworn enemy. But Frank rightly notes that the “elitism” being condemned in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Forbes has nothing to do with economic power. To judge from these publications, the most unforgivable conceit is to question the workings of the market and especially, to imply that workers and consumers might benefit from some kind of legislated protections. Should a tire manufacturer decide to break a strike by hiring replacement workers, thereby causing the reliability of their product to decline, no need for alarm; when the number of fatalities reaches high enough to attract media notice, the market will see the right people are punished. If the telecommunications cartel you work for tosses you out this morning and hires you back this afternoon as a “temporary” worker without health insurance-hey, now you’ve entered the exciting world of “free agency.” Government regulations, unions, and labor laws only get in the way of the market working properly and insult our ability to choose what’s best for ourselves. Indeed, writes Frank, “Since markets express the will of the people, virtually any criticism of business can be described as a despicable contempt for the common man.”

Given this market populist definition of “elitism,” One Market takes the curious form of an intellectual history of anti-intellectuals. There is George Gilder, a professional apologist for the Reagan Revolution who has

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remade himself as visionary of the “New Economy.” For years, Gilder has been among the most tireless promoters of Silicon Valley as a kind of latter-day Ellis Island, where every social misfit, immigrant inventor, and poor huddled entrepreneur can find a high-tech startup to call their own. Credit for making digital capitalism cool also goes to Kevin Kelly and the editors of Wired magazine for helping to popularize the idea that the Internet was libertarian by its very nature, a technology that recognized no laws and made all forms of government obsolete. But for sheer insults to the intelligence, few can match Spencer Johnson, author of the management primer Who Moved My Cheese?, which was, frighteningly enough, listed as the online bookseller Amazon’s best-selling business title for 2000 when I last checked. Masquerading as a children’s story that teaches about the importance of accepting “change” (adults might want to substitute “downsizings,” “lockouts,” or “plant closures”) Who Moved My Cheese? counsels “littlepeople” to set aside their “arrogance,” stop their complaining, and realize they should be grateful to those in charge of their particular rat maze. After all, these wise (if faceless) overseers have given the littlepeople a wonderful opportunity to discover what new “cheese” might be out there waiting for them. To avoid unpleasant associations with Big Government, there is naturally no mention made of whether a littleperson might expect this cheese to be USDA surplus.

As a regular reader of the business press, Frank has an extensive collection of these outrages at his disposal. By suggesting how absurd the free-marketeers’ propaganda can be, his gift for mockery creates frequent opportunities to laugh, however bitterly. Still, he insists that the self-aggrandizing slogans of the computer manufacturers and the adolescent fantasies of the e-traders should not distract us from a more serious truth. The goal of much of the market populists’ rhetoric has been to shift popular perceptions, redefining class conflict so that it is no longer imagined in terms of labor versus management, or even the haves versus the have-nots, but rather, “righteous new money versus the snooty old.” Now we are all expected to cheer for Bill Gates, who in surpassing the Rockefellers and the Carnegies and defying the loathsome bureaucrats at the Justice Department, has proven himself to be the People’s Monopolist.

But despite all the dot-commotion filling up the airwaves and newsstands, class and economics still count for something in this world. While television commercials depict truck drivers who have made a killing in stocks, Frank notes that even the conservative economist Lester Thurow was forced to admit a full 86 percent of the market gains between 1995 and 1999 went to the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. If the news media gave more time and inches to publicizing figures like these, more people might find themselves agreeing with Frank that there is precious little that is “new” about the present economy save for the ceaseless drone of the market ideologues.

Still, whether our concerns are for the “global South” or the local neighborhood, activists and educators are already confronting the effects of this ideological consensus. Beyond its celebration of greed and legitimation of “let-them-eat-bootstraps” indifference, market populism poses a more subtle threat in attempting to make business and finance synonymous with grassroots movements. Anyone with a sense of history or perspective can recognize the obscenity of a television ad comparing the “liberation” of online trading to the struggle for African-American civil rights. But in the environment One Market describes, activists must now contend with more than the appropriation of their symbols and histories. Lately, every management guru describes him- or herself as “The People’s” revolutionary, while every advertising campaign urges us to subvert the status quo. Frank notes that many marketers have embraced the ideas of advertising expert Jean-Marie Dru, who proposed the secret of business success was to align a brand with some “vision” of freedom, from Pepsi’s teen rebellion to Benetton’s high-gloss multiculturalism. Frank warns us that “From a longer perspective what Dru was proposing was the colonization by business of the notion of social justice itself.” Defined in these terms, social activism might well amount to participation in a consumer taste test.

Meanwhile, the landscapes of the American South continue to serve in a familiar role as locations where advertisers and brand marketers go prospecting for “authenticity,” that elusive resource believed crucial to winning over today’s skeptical consumer. But the cruel irony, Frank notes, is that when companies like Nike or Phillip Morris use rural crossroads, gritty industrial towns, and inner city neighborhoods as the backdrops to hock their products, the “authenticity” they are celebrating is the poverty, uncertainty, and diminished prospects that have been created by the flight of business capital. Market populism abounds with contradictions of this sort, for it is in essence an ideology that combines promises of freedom with the threat of the inevitable; questioning the effects of free markets and corporate globalization are after all, never listed among our “choices.”

One Market Under God is not without flaws; at 358 pages, the book would have benefited from a less indulgent editor. Frank’s decision not to explore how far his ideological consensus extends to the population as a whole amounts to a more serious limitation, since everyday experience is a constant reminder to many that the market is an unfair place indeed. But clearly he is on to something. There is no denying that deregulation and privatization, an upward redistribution of wealth and the dismantling of the

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social safety net, the exploitation of workers, and the excesses of global marketing continue to be justified in market populist terms. Ultimately this is what makes One Market an important book, for it reveals how these injustices are perpetuated in our name.

Pat Wehner is a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University’s Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, a Sloan Center for Working Families.

Election Reform: Going Anywhere?

By Wendy S. Johnson

Vol. 23, No. 2, 2001 p. 3

The thirty-five days following the 2000 presidential election stunned a watchful and anxious nation as we learned about the severe ineptness and unreadiness of an election process that could not handle a closely-called election. Our attention riveted on the panhandle state as the challenge to recount the presidential race in key Florida counties moved from the elections board to the courts. Under a national magnifying glass, a pattern of severe voter neglect began to emerge, not as the exception, but the rule. Florida citizens’ anxiety turned to distress and anger when the news registered that many of their votes had not been counted, had been thrown into doubt, or just thrown out due to a host of inadequate record-keeping oversights and voting machine failures. Nationally, the Cal Tech/MIT Voting Technology Project, in a study released July 2001, estimated that “between four and six million presidential votes were lost in the 2000 election” due to problems with voter registration, polling place practices, and ballot flaws. The final blow to voter confidence was wielded by the U.S. Supreme Court with its politicized decision to cease all recounts because of a lack of agreed upon standards.

In January as our new Supreme Court-declared President George W. Bush changed zip codes, legislatures across the nation began their sessions with high expectations toward changing election reform procedures and recapturing voter confidence.

In the ten months since the November 2000 election, a count of another sort has emerged: some 1,500 election bills were introduced by lawmakers across the country. Good. Change is imminent. But wait. When you look more closely at the few bills that actually passed and start asking questions about when implementation will take place and what will be done, the responses are as weak as the bills themselves.

This edition of Southern Changes delves into the status of election reform in twelve states in the American South. This review comes at a time when the South is on the cusp of yet another political transition. A time when two of the staunchest symbols of Southern conservatism, Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond will not run for re-election. A time when voting districts are being realigned due to the new Census counts with new seats gained and old seats lost. Just as Congress has mandated that population counts are made every ten years so that necessary corrections are made to our voting districts, the November 2000 event demands multi-level mandates that will provide extensive correction to our elections process.

Finger-pointing and excuse-making leave voters in many states with nothing new to look forward to in November 2001 and potentially 2002. Lisa Rab’s “Budget Woes and Partisan Politics Block Major Changes to Election Law,” assesses election reform bills in twelve Southern states.

Catherine Wall’s essay, “Elections Reform Needs Prompt Federal Action,” calls for leadership to enact immediate and effective election standards. As federal intervention runs up against states’ rights, the fate of election reform is in the air.

“The Florida and Georgia Experience” article examines the strengths and limitations of two of the most comprehensive election reform bills passed by Southern legislatures.

Many legislatures have claimed a preoccupation with redistricting and too much red ink as obstacles to any immediate and significant change. But a cycle of opportunity has been squandered. Legislative uncertainty and lack of will to make extensive corrections to our voting process is unacceptable. The unfettered right to vote, a keystone of our democracy, demands a higher respect and accountability.

A “political ordeal unlike any in living memory,” wrote the Ford-Carter Electoral Reform Commission about the 2000 election. Doing nothing or not enough provides more reasons for citizens not to vote, thereby deepening the public’s alienation from the electoral process. As states prepare for the November 2001 local and state elections, many of the same questions and issues brought to light some ten months ago will again confront voters.

This issue of Southern Changes benefited from the investigative, research, and writing skills of two outstanding interns, Lisa Rab and Catherine Wall. Rab is in her last year as a journalism student at Emory University and Wall is a second year law student at the University of Texas. Feature articles by Rab and Wall yield a comprehensive overview of the status of election reform, real and proposed, across the American South.

Wendy S. Johnson is executive director of the Southern Regional Council.

The Mockery of Democracy

By René Redwood and Bernie Horn

Vol. 23, No. 2, 2001 pp. 4-5

As summer turn to autumn, so why should you care about hanging chads and butterfly ballots? Why should you care whether or not rich and poor precincts in the same county have identical voting equipment? Does it really matter to most Americans that in Florida’s majority black voting precincts, the residents were four times more likely to have their 2000 presidential election ballots disqualified than voters in majority white precincts?

Who care about provisional ballots for cases when there are disputes over the registration rolls? Why do we need voting rights posted at each polling place? Why should you be concerned that a firm scrubbed the Florida voter list so clean that it took away the right to vote from regular folks?

We should all care about voting reform. One day when you have just moved across town or to another state, your vote may also be in jeopardy.

Too many of yesterday’s disfranchised are still disfranchised today. Though election reform has been an important issue for decades, it occupies a different status because of the 2000 election.

We would like to believe that we can fix these new problems by implementing solutions to enfranchise the same population that has been historically disfranchised–the poor, new immigrants, the less educated, seniors, people with disabilities, and racial and ethnic minorities.

Given the paucity of legislation passed during the 2001 legislative sessions, however, we have to wonder about our will to right the wrongs of an elections that was an embarrassment to us all, and a denial of democracy for too many. It has been estimated that more than fifteen hundred election reform bills were introduced in the states this year. That figure is misleading. Less than 3 percent of those bills were designed to remedy the biggest mistakes of the 2000 election. As of early summer (May 2001), governors from fifteen states signed into law thirty-two bills passed by their legislatures.

Last year people around the world watched as Florida provided a textbook example of how not to run an election. Sadly, the methods employed in Florida are commonplace across the U.S. We have the same inaccurate voting machines in rural and urban areas, from Atlanta to Chicago to Los Angeles. Even former President Jimmy Carter, who oversees elections worldwide, could not intervene on behalf of the American people. His official group can only be involved in countries that have national voting standards, the U.S does not, Haiti does.

The National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford recently issued a report calling for fixes to the election system that can be done in the states without federal government intervention, reforms such as uniform statewide standards for counting ballots, provisional voting, and restoration of voting rights to ex-felons–to name a few. The down side of this blue-ribbon panel’s effort is that the report merely offers recommendations with no authority to implement the changes it calls for. The Commission report omits mandatory required actions by the federal government even in federal elections; and opts for a voluntary role by state and federal governments for correct the deficiencies in the electoral system.

At every step in the election process, states discriminated against groups of voters, usually people of color. In some cases this bias was intentional, in other cases it was the product of gross negligence. In either case it is worth a brief recap to prevent that déjà vu experience in 2002.

The best-known obstacle to voters involves the various types of voting machines used in different counties. Last year, Florida counties used five different voting systems. Study after study has found that the worst systems were used in counties with a high percentage of minority voters.

Election officials have known for years that punch card ballots–the type used in most of Florida’s urban areas–count the vote inaccurately. In fact, the National Bureau of Standards recommended abandoning their use because of the “hanging chad” problem as early as 1988. In Miami-Dade County, where punch cards were used, one in twelve ballots had no vote for President counted.

Brevard County, Florida, provided a good example of the unequal quality of voting systems. When the county used punch cards in 1996, 2.6 percent of ballots for President were invalidated; after the county changed to high-tech optical scan equipment in 2000, only 0.27 percent of Presidential ballots were invalidated.

Even among the counties that used optical scan technology there were differences in quality. The only majority black county in the state, Gadsden County, used an unreliable type of optical scan equipment. As a result, Gadsden had the largest percentage of invalidated ballots in the state–one in eight voters had their presidential ballots disqualified.

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Many states need to eliminate obsolete voting machines. But repairing our nation’s democratic infrastructure will require more then just modernizing the ballot box. According to an assessment by The National Association of Secretary of States, the dilemmas present in the last election were not new and only three of the twenty-seven problem areas were technology or equipment.

Recount procedures–including those that the U.S. Supreme Court allowed in Florida–were unevenly used and unfair. Some counties never did the mandatory recount; instead of examining the ballots many counties only rechecked the counters on their machines. Nassau County (a Republican stronghold), on the other hand, did a real recount and then certified the original tally instead of the recounted numbers.

At the behest of the Florida Secretary of State (Republican Katherine Harris), many counties used an inaccurate database to “scrub” the names of felons from the voter rolls. But hundreds or thousands of innocent citizens were removed from the list of registered voters in the process. And when they went to vote, election officials turned them away. There was no process to contest election officials, no way to file a “provisional” ballot.

There was also no way for voters to know their rights at the polling place. In many cases, when voters made a mistake on their ballots and asked for a fresh one (which is their right), election officials turned them down.

After the election the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held hearings in Florida and found that people of color were turned away from voting; evidence of intimidation was gathered throughout the state.

In short, the election made a mockery of democracy. Unfortunately, the methods employed in Florida are commonplace across America. In fact, more than two million Americans who went to the polls last November did not have their Presidential ballots counted because of faulty equipment, confusing ballots, and inaccurate registration lists. Another 3.9 million Americans were denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction. We have the same issues of fairness, the same charges of voter intimidation.

Both the Congress and state legislatures need to take action immediately.

Chadless elections. Old volting equipment has got ot go. The punch card, invented in 1890, should be banned as ballots. States should mandate the use of modern optical scan or electronic voting systems. From now on, every vote must count.

Uniform voting standards. rich and poor counties must be treated alike when it comes to the quality of voitng equipment and election procedures. States should require and finance uniform voting standards across all juridictions.

Uniform ballot designs. No more butterfly ballots. States should require statewide election officials to review and approve all baoolt designs to ensure clarity and uniformity.

Guaranteed provisional ballots. No one should be turned away from the polls because of a dispute over the registration rolls. States should offer provisional ballots for individuals who are not listed on the precinct’s voter registration list; these votes are kept in a way that eligibility to vote can be checked and each legal ballot counted.

Guaranteed replacement of spoiled ballots. Voters make legitimate mistakes. States should ensure that any voter who makes a mistake before casting a ballot is provided a replacement ballot.

Voters’ Bill of Rights. Empower votes with knowledge of their rights at the polls. States should post a Voters’ Bill of Rights at every polling place to explain the rights of voters, including right to register, vote, obtain replacements for spoiled ballots, use provisional ballots, and seek assistance.

Stop wrongful voter purging. No registered voter should be turned away because of sloppy list maintenance procedures. States should place strict statewide controls on manipulations of the voting rolls, and purging should be done through procedures that are fully open for inspection by the public.

End the patronage system of election administration. No more special favors for one political party. States should ensure that all state and local election boards are either bipartisan or nonpartisan.

Clear rules for recounts. Fair and precise procedures. States should review and reform their procedures for vote recounts.

Additionally, we need to repair the cracks in our democracy by making voter registration and voting easier; restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time; overhauling the campaign finance system; and training poll workers to ensure full knowledge of and compliance with applicable laws and policies.

Tomorrow’s election is determined by today’s action. Our failure to act will allow history to repeat itself. The flawed election of 2000 is not just a lesson from the past but a challenge for the future to assert the dignity of the people through the vote. We can choose a new course.

René Redwood is Senior Fellow of the Democracy and Technology Program at the Center for Policy Alternatives in Washington, D.C. Bernie Horn is Policy Director at the Center for Policy Alternatives.

Budget Woes and Partisan Politics Block Election Reform

By Lisa Rab

Vol. 23, No. 2, 2001 pp. 6-13

Despite the initial scramble to introduce legislation responding to the election chaos in Florida, very few Southern states passed comprehensive election reform measures in 2001.

Stymied by budget constraints and partisan wrangling, well-intended legislation was consistently dropped, voted down, or left languishing in committees. Expecting the federal government to foot at least part of the bill, many states either delayed passing legislation or only passed bills that did not require extra funds.

Those states that did pass comprehensive laws did not allocate enough state funds to fully cover equipment upgrades and voter education, relying instead on county or federal contributions to make up the difference. Measures that have been dubbed the most progressive–like those passed in Georgia and Florida–hinge on funding that has yet to materialize. A state-by-state analysis illustrates how funding and partisan politics, among other factors, prevented most substantive reforms from being passed in the Southern states.

Alabama: Bipartisan Effort to Broaden Franchise and Combat Voter Fraud Fails

Voter identification and the voting rights of ex-felons, the two most important election reform issues for Alabama Republicans and Democrats, respectively, were addressed by two bills that moved jointly through the General Assembly. Both bills, however, died in the Senate on the last day of the legislative session.

Representative Jim Carnes sponsored the Republican bill that would have required voters to show some form of identification at the polls. Representative Yvonne Kennedy sponsored the Democratic bill that would have restored the voting rights of felons who had completed their sentences. The two bills moved jointly through the Alabama House of Delegates in order to garner bipartisan support, but neither bill was brought to a vote in the Senate.

For several years the Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC) and other advocates representing the African-American population of Alabama have introduced legislation to restore the voting rights of felons . Currently, people convicted of a felony in Alabama are disfranchised for life unless they apply to have their voting rights reinstated and submit to a DNA test. In 1998 over 31 percent of black males in Alabama were disfranchised by felony convictions, according to the independent criminal justice policy group The Sentencing Project (Southern Changes, Fall 2000).

In the 2001 legislative session, Secretary of State Jim Bennett was primarily concerned with the expansion of absentee voting and anti-fraud measures, such as voter identification at the polls. Chuck Grainger, general counsel for Bennett, explained that Bennett is waiting for the federal government to set requirements for election equipment before making changes to Alabama’s election machines. “It would be foolish on our part, particularly having the lowest taxes in the country, to spend money on [updating election] systems before the federal government spends money on it themselves,” Grainger said.

Considering the overall political climate in the General Assembly, Jerome Gray, state field director of the ADC, is skeptical that real election reform legislation will pass in the next session. “I think it’s going to be tough to get something through,” he said. The ADC supports measures that will standardize voting equipment throughout the state.

Arkansas: New Laws Make Slight Improvements in Election Procedures

At the urging of Secretary of State Sharon Priest, Arkansas created a commission to study the state’s election system and made several minor changes to its election laws in the last session.

The Arkansas legislature adopted laws that will require two poll workers to be trained in every precinct before the 2002 election, all overseas military absentee ballots to be counted, and each county board of commissioners to tally the number of over-votes and under-votes in its precincts and report its findings to the state board of elections.

Democrats in the House of Representatives also introduced another new law that would require felons to provide the county clerk with evidence that they have

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completed their probation (as well as their sentence) and paid all their fees before they can register to vote. Previously, felons automatically had their rights restored after completing their sentence.

According to Priest, there was no organized opposition to election reform in the General Assembly, but there are some “fiscal issues” that may cause conflict if the election study commission makes funding recommendations as well as policy ones. Priest hopes the federal government will help pay for necessary improvements to the election system. “I think Congress will ultimately have some funding available,” she said.

The Secretary of State also emphasized the importance of expanding the number of early voting sites and their hours of operation. “I’m sick and tired of having to say, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you, but only from 8:00 to 4:30,'” she said.

Florida: Reform Package Falls Short of Funding Equipment Upgrades

Florida’s election reform package–lauded by some as a comprehensive overhaul of the system that broke down last November–is being sharply criticized by others for its failure to fully fund equipment upgrades.

The new law requires that all of Florida’s counties begin using electronic voting equipment by 2002. Precinct-based optical scanners are the only machines that the Secretary of State has certified for that purpose. To install the new scanners, the legislature allocated $7,500 to counties with populations under 75,000, and $3,750 to more populous counties.

Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County and a Democrat, says the legislation “is sort of biased against urban counties,” and does not believe $3,750 will be enough to cover the cost. Florida State Senator Bill Posey, a Republican co-sponsor of the election reform bill, explained that his committee decided to give twice as much money to the rural counties because it is more difficult for them to raise revenue. Posey said that some smaller counties have reached the state’s limit on property taxes, and therefore cannot raise taxes to generate funds for election reform. The larger counties have not reached the tax limit, and could raise taxes if they needed to. “[But] they really don’t have to,” he said. “It’s just a matter of priorities. You know, do you want to have new garbage trucks or do you want to have new voting equipment?”

Dan Hendrickson, an advocate with Florida’s Clean Elections Campaign, Sierra Club Florida Chapter, Florida Consumer Action Network, and Florida League of Conservation Voters, disagrees. “For [legislators] to say that they were funding the program is inappropriate,” he said. “They just threw some money at the problem because they had to.” County commissions have held a series of meetings on plans to raise additional revenue, he added.

Clay Roberts, Director of the Elections Division for Florida’s Secretary of State, said that when the legislation was being drafted, the election equipment vendors told him that the optical scan equipment would cost $7,500 per county. Now, however, he says the equipment vendors have increased their estimate of the costs “because there is money to be made.”

Several equipment firms are competing to be the suppliers of Florida’s new voting machines, and are looking to curry favor with the county boards of commissioners who will purchase the equipment. Election Systems Software (ESS), a voting equipment vender, recently agreed to pay the Florida Association of Counties half a percent of the total sales that ESS makes to counties provided the Association endorses the company and its equipment. Some have questioned this agreement. “The state association of election supervisors believes that the contract is unethical,” Sancho said. He explained that election supervisors are responsible for making recommendations to the board of county commissioners about what equipment should be purchased. In Sancho’s eyes, the deal between the Association of Counties and ESS creates a conflict of interest. He says he does not want the commissioners to make decisions to buy election equipment based on whether or not they are going to make a profit. To complicate the matter further, former Florida Secretary of State Sandra Mortham lobbies for both the Association of Counties and ESS.

Georgia: Overhaul of Voting Equipment Will Depend on Federal Funding

Georgia’s election reform package, heralded as one of the first in the country to require statewide uniform electronic voting equipment, may be a false promise unless federal funding becomes available to pay for the new equipment.

Secretary of State Cathy Cox has been pushing for reforms to improve the state’s voting systems for years. Kara Sinkule, a spokesperson for Cox, says that the fact that Georgia’s 94,681-ballot under-vote was higher than Florida’s in the 2000 election gave her a lobbying platform to get legislation passed this session. In addition,

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the Secretary of State’s office is the subject of an on-going lawsuit alleging that Georgia’s “fatally flawed” voting system disproportionately undercounts the votes of African Americans. In fact, a recent Southern Regional Council study found that 46 percent of black registered voters in Georgia live in counties that use punch card ballots, the least reliable voting system, while only 25 percent of white voters live in punch card counties. (Southern Changes, Spring 2001).

Senate Bill 213, enacted in the 2001 legislative session, was crafted by Secretary Cox and sponsored by Senator Jack Hill. The bill creates the Twenty-First Century Voting Commission; sets up a pilot project to test different electronic voting machines; and authorizes the Secretary of State to remove deceased voters from the rolls. It also conditionally requires uniform equipment across the state by 2004 if the General Assembly supplies the funding. The bill, however, fails to appropriate any money beyond $200,000 to fund the pilot project this fall.

This failure to provide funding has drawn sharp criticism from voting rights advocates. “[The bill] essentially made no commitment to do anything,” Neil Bradley, a lawyer with Southern Regional ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said. “The legislators didn’t promise to appropriate any money so everything is essentially unresolved.”

Sinkule says that during the next legislative session Cox will make an initial request of $5 million to begin studying the results of the project and making equipment changes. Depending on whether the Voting Commission decides to buy or lease the machines, Sinkule estimates that “anywhere from $30 to $100 million” will be needed to provide new equipment for the entire state. Cox is “very confident” that the state will contribute some of that amount, Sinkule says, but is counting on the federal government to make up the difference in matching funds. Since President Bush has not approved any federal funding for election reform though, Bradley doubts that Congress will give Georgia enough funds to cover the equipment costs. “I suspect they won’t get nearly the amount of money that will be needed to purchase a good system,” he said.

Kentucky: Short Session, Tight Budget, and Local Resistance Block Reform

A short legislative session, budget concerns, and strong resistance from local election officials blocked the passage of major election reform legislation in Kentucky, but a new law was passed to simplify the application process for ex-felons trying to regain their voting rights.

The Kentucky constitution provides that an ex-felon’s voting rights can be restored only by gubernatorial action. The process of applying for a gubernatorial pardon is, however, a complicated one. The new law, sponsored by Representative Jesse Crenshaw, is intended to make the process easier. “There certainly are glitches in that process,” bill-supporter Senator Gerald Neal said. “So this is to streamline it.”

Neal says that the rest of the election reform legislation did not pass because it was introduced during a short session (thirty days rather then sixty), and because “there was a tremendous amount of political wrangling that was going on” between the Republican Senate and the Democratic House. The major election reform bill that was proposed by the Secretary of State did not win the backing of the House and Senate leadership.

“During this legislative session, Kentucky was looking at a severe budget shortfall,” said Secretary of State John Brown, whose failed omnibus election bill would have replaced the state’s lever voting machines with electronic ones. “It was decided that no new projects would be funded outside of the areas of education and healthcare.”

Brown also noted that the extremely powerful county clerk lobby opposed the election reform bill, because the clerks in the state’s eight counties with lever machines did not want to upgrade their systems. “They’re comfortable with what they have,” Brown said. Lever machines are still used primarily in small, rural, poorer counties.

Brown believes that legislation he proposed to combat absentee ballot voter fraud will win more support in the next session than other reform proposals because it does not require funding. “Legislation like that has a much better chance of passing in 2002 than the purchase of voting equipment, unless there’s going to be federal money available for that,” he said.

Louisiana: Attempts to Broaden Franchise Stall in Legislature

Although Louisiana passed an omnibus bill making minor changes to its already uniform statewide system of elections, no significant election reform measures passed this session. Attempts were made, however, to enfranchise ex-felons and increase opportunities for absentee voting.

Representative Elcie Guillory and Senator Cleo Fields, both

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Democrats and members of the Legislative Black Caucus, introduced two bills that would have enhanced the voting rights of ex-felons. Guillory’s proposal would have allowed people on probation for a first-time drug offense to vote. Fields’s proposal would have required that felons who had finished serving their prison time be notified in writing that they could register to vote again. Neither bill advanced out of the House.

Meanwhile, Republican Representative Kay Kellogg Katz introduced a bill that would have removed the eligibility requirements for absentee voting and added two more days to the absentee voting period, but would have slightly reduced polling hours on election day. Currently, Louisiana polls are open for fourteen hours on Election Day. The bill would have reduced the number of hours to twelve. Dan Garrett, counsel for the Louisiana House Governmental Affairs Committee, said the extension of no-excuse absentee voting days was the Committee’s way of allowing early voting and compensating for the decrease in polling hours. “We have more hours than anyone,” Garrett said, “And that was creating problems with poll workers.”

That bill, which the state ACLU supported because of the absentee clause but opposed the reduced polling hours provision, came close to passing. According to Michael Malec of the Louisiana ACLU, it died on the Senate floor “because they ran out of time.”

Louisiana has electronic or mechanical voting machines in every district, so upgrading machinery was not a priority for legislators in the last session. “The only thing we currently use paper [punch card ballots] for is absentee ballots and they are being phased out,” Garrett said.

According to Malec, Louisiana has “probably one of the most sophisticated and expensive voting systems in the U.S.,” thanks to Former Election Commissioner Jerry Fowler, who was sent to jail last year for inflating the price of voting machines.

Mississippi: Task Force Plans Reforms Next Session

The Mississippi legislature did not enact any major election reforms during the 2001 session. In late June, Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark convened an election reform task force that will make recommendations for changes to the election code. It is intended that the Commission will make recommendations for legislation to be introduced in next year’s General Assembly.

The Task Force on Elections, Procedure, and Technology will look at issues relating to voting machines, voter roll maintenance, ballot design, and the reporting of election returns. “We hope to move toward a more uniform [election] system,” David Blount, the Secretary of State’s Communications Director, said. The Task Force will make its recommendations to the legislature by December 1, 2001.

More than sixty election bills representing Republican and Democratic agendas were introduced in the 2001 session, including a requirement for proof of voter identification at the polls, a ban on punch card ballots, and a proposal for no-excuse absentee voting. All of the substantive bills died in committee and only six of the most modest bills passed.

“Basically you have…a legislature that does not lend itself to much change,” said Representative David Gibbs, a Democrat whose bills allowing no-excuse absentee voting and requiring absentee ballots to be mailed automatically to voters over sixty-five both died in House committees. Blount said more substantive legislation was not proposed or passed because the legislative session began in January, barely a month after the Florida election results were finalized. He says this did not give legislators enough time to draft legislation on the complex issues involved in election reform. While most other states in the South convened their legislative sessions in January as well, Mississippi legislators have only two weeks in which to prepare bills (known as pre-filing), compared to the one to two months of pre-filing in other states.

Of the laws that did pass the General Assembly, the most significant one changes the way county election commissioners are paid and is intended to address the issue of inaccurate voter rolls. “We do have a serious problem in Mississippi with inflated and inaccurate voter rolls,” Blount said. “We’ve got many counties in which there are more registered voters than there are people over the age of eighteen.”

County election commissioners are responsible for maintaining voter registration records. Under previous Mississippi law, commissioners were paid based on the number of names on the voter rolls, which may have been an incentive to inflate the rolls. Under the new law, they will be paid based on the population of their county.

Another new law puts an “Election Integrity Assurance” committee in each congressional district to help ensure that local party executive committees conduct party primaries properly. A bill was also enacted that is designed to enhance voting opportunities for high school

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students by sending registrars to schools and providing students with mail-in voter registration forms.

While the state did not even consider legislation funding new voting equipment, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports that DeSoto County is currently seeking U.S. Justice Department approval for a $250,000 optical scanner voting system that officials hope will replace their punch card system by June 2002.

North Carolina: Lack of Funding Weakens Reform

The primary roadblock to significant election reform in North Carolina was the state’s enormous budget deficit, which left the Board of Elections severely under-funded. “Our number one problem is lack of money to update our election system,” Board of Elections General Counsel Don Wright said.

The General Assembly passed a bill, proposed by Democrat G. Wayne Goodwin, outlawing the use of butterfly and punch-card ballots. However, according to Chris Heagarty of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education, North Carolina does not currently use butterfly ballots, and only eight counties use punch card ballots.

Heagarty doubts that those counties will be able to eliminate punch card ballots without financial assistance. “The big issue here,” he said, “was that some of the counties that use them don’t have the funds to switch to updated machinery.”

Since the General Assembly did not want to take responsibility for the cost of new equipment, they wrote a loophole into the bill they passed. “It does outlaw the punch card ballot, except in those counties that currently use them,” added Heagarty.

A bill sponsored by Democratic Representative Marvin Lucas and passed late in the legislative session will require ballot instructions to be printed in Spanish as well as English in counties with a Hispanic population of more than 6 percent.

Senate Republican Robert Rucho proposed the “Fair Election Act” that would shorten the early voting period and require voters to present identification for early voting. This bill was referred to committee and did not come up for a vote. Democrat Wib Gulley introduced two “Election Rewrite” bills that would help standardize election procedures such as recounts, protests, ballot content, and certification. Both bills stalled in committee. Heagarty believes, however, that even if enacted, none of these bills will achieve much systematic reform.

South Carolina: No Major Reforms Pass; New Laws Encourage Participation

The South Carolina General Assembly failed to pass any significant reform of the state’s election laws. The General Assembly did, however, enact laws in the 2001 session that will improve absentee voting methods and allow high school students to assist poll workers. None of these reforms require the state to provide extra funding for equipment or training, but are intended to encourage voter participation.

Absentee balloting is a growing concern for voters in South Carolina, according to John Rouff of the consumer organization South Carolina Fair Share. In some counties, he said, 10 percent of voters are voting absentee, particularly in places where the majority of the population works far away from home. Democratic Senators Robert Ford and Luke Rankin proposed a no-excuse absentee voting bill in the last session that would have removed all restrictions regarding who is allowed to vote using absentee ballots. Currently, there is a list of acceptable legal reasons for why a voter cannot vote at the assigned poll on election day. The bill did not pass and those restrictions on who can vote absentee remain.

While the limitations on who may cast an absentee ballot were not changed, the methods by which such a ballot may be cast were broadened. Republican Senator Larry Martin proposed a successful bill that will allow walk-in absentee voters to use voting machines instead of paper ballots. “We’re hoping that it’ll make voting a little faster,” Deputy Director of the South Carolina Election Commission Donna Royson said. Republicans control both houses of the South Carolina General Assembly.

Other important legislation introduced during the 2001 legislative session would have repealed the voting rights of convicted felons and required them to wait fifteen years after completing their sentence to appeal for a restoration of voting rights. Currently, felons in South Carolina can have their voting rights restored upon completing their sentence. The bill, sponsored by Republicans John Graham Altman, III, and Ronald Fleming, passed the House but has not been adopted by the Senate. According to Rouff, the failed bill could have had devastating effects on minority power and should be watched closely. Although it will not pass into the next session, it may be attached to future bills.

Another piece of legislation that failed to pass would have enacted laws to combine all off-year elections into one general election and set guidelines for hand counts

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of ballots in the case of voting machinery malfunctions. It also would punish losing candidates who protested an election on any ground other than the disparity between the number of ballots cast and the number of votes counted if the board hearing the protest determines that the protest is frivolous and without merit.

Tennessee: Budget Crisis Takes Precedence Over Election Reform

After a budget crisis led to “one of the longest legislative sessions in recent history,” the Tennessee legislature came close to passing a bill that would have set standards for counting punch card ballots and required the state election commission to approve the purchase of all voting machines.

The Democratic election reform bill passed the Senate in May in a vote strictly divided along partisan lines, and was amended and accepted by the Democrat-controlled House, but the Senate did not approve the House amendments before the session ended July 12.

“I don’t think there was any real hesitation to pass the amendments in the Senate that passed the House…it just didn’t get done,” State Coordinator of Elections Brook Thompson said. “I expect that it will pass in January.”

Twenty-one counties in Tennessee use punch card ballots, Thompson said, consequently the legislature did not seriously consider proposals to ban the ballots completely because the state did not have enough money to replace them with new voting systems. The “2000 Presidential Election Debacle Reform Bill of 2001” would have established standards for manual recounts of ballots with hanging chads, but did not outlaw punch card ballots. Legislators were busy trying to reach an agreement on how to solve the state’s budget crisis, and could not afford to consider legislation that would have required additional funding. “We’re having severe budgetary problems in Tennessee so there was not a lot of money floating around for things like voting machines,” Thompson said.

The budget that the General Assembly finally passed “puts lawmakers more than $200 million in the red” for next year, according to the Nashville newspaper, the Tennessean. “Tennessee has almost complete reliance on sales tax for revenue,” explained Erik Cole, Executive Director of the consumer and environmental watchdog group Tennessee Citizen Action (TCA). “We don’t have an income tax. So the last three years have seen a severe budget crisis every year because revenues have not kept up with expenditures.”

TCA was particularly concerned about the “Motor Voter” program, which is the process by which people can register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license. When applicants checked off a box on their driver’s license form indicating they wanted to register to vote, they were supposed to receive a registration form that they could take home and mail in later. Many voters, however, thought they were registering to vote when they checked off the box, and either never received or never mailed in their voter registration form.

According to Cole, at least two-thousand people reported to the state that they thought they had registered through motor voter but were not allowed to vote when they went to the polls. Many voter registration forms were lost and Cole thinks the Department of Safety may have been responsible for not passing the paperwork on to the elections commission. But Thompson and the Safety Department disagree. “I do not think that was the cause of the problems we had last November,” Thompson said.

After holding hearings in the fall, the Safety Department has decided to have voters fill out their registration forms in the driver’s license station. “They’ll be no opportunity for the voter to take that form home with them, so it won’t get lost in the shuffle,” Thompson said. Some registration information will also be transmitted electronically to the election commission.

Another source of voter confusion was polling place, especially for voters who had recently moved to a new precinct. “People would show up at one place,” Cole said “and be told ‘No, you’re supposed to go to another one,’ without good advance notice.”

TCA also received telephone calls from voters in majority-minority districts who said they were asked to show multiple forms of identification at the polls, in violation of state law. Thompson was not aware of those reports. Although Thompson admits that there were problems with the “Motor Voter” program and voters were confused about which precinct they should vote in, no legislation was introduced this session to address those issues. Cole says TCA did not push for it either, because they were concentrating on other issues, but he has “a whole plateful” of things that he is planning to propose next year. “My guess,” Thompson said, “is we will continue to talk about that and see what can be done [in the] next legislative session.”

Texas: New Laws Phase Out Punch Cards, Evenly Distribute New Voting Machines

In the 2001 legislative session, Texas agreed to phase out punch card ballots, distribute new voting equipment equitably among its counties, and update its voter registration rolls more frequently.

According to Will Harrell, Executive Director of the Texas ACLU, Texans were “genuinely humiliated” by

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what happened in Florida, and more substantial legislation may have been passed had election reform not become a partisan issue. “It was so clear that it was a Democratic agenda,” he said. “To accept these reforms in Texas is to admit that there was a problem in Florida, which the [Republican] party did not want to do.”

One of the more positive bills in Harrell’s eyes insures the even distribution of new voting equipment among affluent white districts and poorer communities of color. Currently, Texas has the same equipment disparities that were a problem in Florida, with punch card ballots mainly in poorer counties. According to Secretary of State Henry Cueller’s office, punch card counties had the highest over- and under-votes in the state in the November election.

To fully remedy the problem, Harrell recommends an “equitable distribution of resources at polling places, not just with regards to equipment use but also with regards to the professionalism and training of the people who staff those places.” Harrell was disappointed that punch card ballots were not outlawed as had been originally proposed in Representative Dale Tillery’s bill . Harrell said Tillery withdrew his bill because Tillery thought other legislators would never agree to shoulder the costs associated with the elimination and replacement of the machines. The new law simply states that no new punch card ballot machines may be purchased.

Secretary of State Henry Cueller says his office conservatively estimated that it would cost at least $25 million to eliminate punch card machines. Cueller spoke with legislators about grants and other ways of funding the ban, but “Since money was tight, the legislature decided not to put any money [in]to getting rid of the punch cards.”

Cueller was happy with the bills that passed. “The legislature was pretty responsive to what we wanted here,” he said. The Secretary was primarily concerned with updating the process of maintaining accurate voter registration lists. His office proposed a new law that passed this session requiring the Secretary’s office to be in weekly contact with the counties who are compiling the lists, in order to weed out duplicate voters, deceased voters, and possible felons. Another new law requires the Secretary to verify the voter registration lists that are compiled by private companies.

Virginia: Budget Impasse and Lack of Political Incentive Prevent Reform

A tight budget, an unwilling legislature, and a State Board of Elections reluctant to admit there are flaws in the system combined forces to prevent Virginia from reforming its election system this year.

Thirty-six laws regarding voting and elections were enacted by the General Assembly this year, but the laws dealt primarily with procedures for absentee voting and only a few created notable changes in the election system. The only significant expansion of voting opportunities that the legislature approved this session applies to voters who work long hours and cannot make it to the polls. Virginia law has a provision that allows voters to use an absentee ballot if they work eleven of the thirteen hours that the polls are open. Republican Delegate Michele McQuigg proposed a bill that expanded that provision to include commuting time in the eleven hours of work, thus enabling more voters to qualify for an absentee ballot.

Lawmakers also created a subcommittee to study the state’s election process and voting technology; enacted a law requiring the State Board of Elections to recommend standards for recount procedures by December 1, 2001;

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and outlined standards for recounting only those punch card ballots that are rejected by counting machines. Under the new laws, electronic voting machines are required, if possible, to tabulate under- and over-votes. The law provides that only the ballots on which the voter chose too few or too many candidates may be examined in a recount and, when performing a recount, at least two corners of the chad must be dislodged from the card for the vote to count. Currently, seven of Virginia’s largest voting localities–out of a total of 135 localities–use punch card ballots.

The General Assembly also passed a law stating that presidential electors are now “required” rather than “expected” to vote for the candidates of the political party or petitioners that selected them. Proposals to require uniform voting equipment throughout the state and to simplify the process of restoring voting rights to ex-felons, however, did not even garner enough support to be brought to a floor vote.

“There’s not a significant constituency in the Virginia General Assembly that cares about registration and voting of low-income people and minorities,” Kent Willis, Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia, said. “Because of that, Virginia is not going to be a leader in election reform law.”

Rosanna Bencoach, Policy Manager for the State Board of Elections, is not advocating major reform. “I don’t think the election system in Virginia needs overhauling,” she said. “I think it works pretty well.”

One of the reasons that legislation requiring state funding to update election equipment did not pass was a budget disagreement between the Senate and Governor James S. Gilmore, III. Gilmore campaigned in 1997 on a promise to repeal Virginia’s car tax, but this year the Senate did not want to continue phasing out the tax, and could not reach an agreement with Gilmore, or the House members that supported him. After what the Washington Post called “an unprecedented budget impasse,” no amendments were made to the budget this year, Bencoach said. “It ended up with a lot of things getting cut in the budget in order for the governor to continue his phase-out,” Willis said.

Lisa Rab is a journalism student at Emory University in Atlanta. This article contains information contributed by Catherine Wall.

A Closer Look: The Florida and Georgia Experiences

By Catherine Wall

Vol. 23, No. 2, 2001 pp. 14-17

The 2001 state legislative sessions witnessed very little progress towards comprehensive election reform. Only two southern states–Florida and Georgia–passed meaningful legislation to repair the disfranchising, antiquated, and undemocratic electoral flaws that were made glaringly apparent by the 2000 election. Maryland is the only non-southern state to pass comprehensive reform.

Many of the laws and procedures that disfranchise voters disproportionately impact minority voters. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found a strong basis for concluding that violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act occurred in Florida’s election. Its study found that 14.4 percent of Florida’s black voters cast ballots that were rejected while only 1.6 percent of Florida’s white voters’ ballots were rejected. In Georgia, an SRC study found racial disparities in the state’s voting system. The punch card system, in which 4.67 percent of ballots cast were discounted, was the least effective voting machinery used in the state. Optical scan was the most effective but still only 2.72 percent of those ballots went uncounted. The study found that Georgia’s black voters were almost two times more likely than white voters to live in counties using punch cards.

The following is a more detailed analysis of what Florida and Georgia’s election reform laws will achieve and the work that remains.

Florida

Florida became ground zero for a nightmarish election process this past November, so it was incumbent on the state to take the lead in state election reform. The reform was embodied in Senate Bill 1118, sponsored by Senator Bill Posey (R-Rockledge).

Journalists have praised Florida’s legislation as a swift and impressive handling of a disastrous situation, and many Florida lawmakers believe the new law will cure the state’s election law problems. Senator Posey, a member of the Florida Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, maintains that the measure accomplishes his committee’s “two top priorities: number one was to make sure every vote counted, and the second was to have a process that would instill confidence in every voter that their vote would be counted.”

While Florida’s election reform bill did allocate $24 million in state funds for standardized ballot recount provisions, provided for voter and poll worker education, and overhauled the voter registration system, the bill left many important issues unresolved. The bill failed to provide for the full funding of election reforms, failed to address the issue of voter disfranchisement resulting from problems in the Motor Voter registration system, failed to address ex-felon disenfranchisement, and did not address problems associated with the partisan affiliation of election officials.

On April 26, 2001, the Florida Consumer Action Network, the Florida League of Conservation Voters, the Florida Chapter Sierra Club, and the Florida Clean Elections Coalition published a list of the deficiencies of the new legislation. The groups pointed to many important omissions that they contend amount to the legislature’s skirting of crucial issues, resulting in a negative impact on voter enfranchisement. Susie Caplow, an environmental and consumer advocate who lobbies for the Sierra Club, believes that the law did not address the problem of the undercounting of votes cast by poor and minority voters. Caplaw stated that in order to solve that problem an election law must adequately address voter education, the voting rights of felons who have completed their sentences, and must provide for multi-lingual ballots. The statute failed to comprehensively address any of these matters.

A closer look at the Florida law reveals the issues to be revisited.

. The law establishes comprehensive recount measures that provide for an automatic, standardized statewide recount to be conducted of undervotes and overvotes if the winning vote margin is within one quarter of 1 percent. This provision significantly changes the former law, which gave counties wide discretion to establish their own recount procedures.

Provisional Ballots. The new legislation authorizes the use of provisional ballots in elections to allow voters who were wrongly left off of registration rolls to vote. The vote cast on a provisional ballot will be counted once it is established that the voter should have been on the registration rolls provided that the vote was cast at the correct voting precinct. According to Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, voters who guess their precinct

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correctly are ensured of their enfranchisement, but “if they guess wrong, they don’t get their right to vote.”

Voter and Poll Worker Education. The measure sets minimum standards for voter education efforts and poll worker training and recruitment and allocates almost $6 million in funding to implement these standards. The Department of State must adopt rules prescribing minimum standards for nonpartisan voter education, including voter registration, balloting procedures, absentee and polling locations, voter rights and responsibilities, distribution of sample ballots, and public service announcements. The Department of State will also prepare a polling place procedures manual to be placed in each precinct. Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, believes that these new minimum standards are a major accomplishment of the statute. “To me one of the key things is voter education,” she said, maintaining that while continuing improvement will be necessary, the law is “a step in the right direction.” Yet according to Caplow, the amount of money allocated will not cover actual voter education costs.

Standard Ballots. The legislation ensures statewide ballot clarity by means of a standardized and unambiguous ballot design to be approved by the Department of State. While this will ensure a level of equality for all English speaking voters, the bill does not require multi-lingual ballots in precincts with high numbers of non-English speaking voters, leaving a large obstacle between those voters and fair representation.

Electronic Voting Systems. The law requires counties to use electronic tabulation voting systems, provides funding for upgrading voting systems ($7,500 per precinct for counties of 75,000 or fewer, and $3,750 per precinct for the rest of the counties), and bans punch card voting systems. Nevertheless, the amount of funding provided is not enough to cover the statewide costs of replacing punch card machines. Sancho maintains that while smaller counties may be able to purchase machines with their allotted amount, “the legislation is biased against urban counties,” in that the densely populated counties will have to come up with supplemental funds to purchase the new equipment.

Voting Rolls. The new statute sets up a statewide voter registration database and provides $2 million in funding for the database.

Absentee Voting. The measure establishes no-excuse absentee voting which would end the requirement that a voter offer a legally acceptable reason for being unable to vote at the assigned precinct on voting day in order to obtain an absentee ballot. It also creates more reasonable regulations regarding overseas absentee voting. Early voting provisions which enable a voter to cast his/her ballot at a designated location prior to election day were not provided for in Florida.(According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, few states actually passed comprehensive early voting laws. New Mexico is a notable exception, with early voting on electronic machines allowed until 5 p.m. the Saturday prior to election day)

Polling Hours. The statute creates a study to determine the merits of uniform poll opening and closing but does not extend polling place hours.

Secondary Primaries. The law eliminates secondary primaries in 2002, streamlining the election process by abolishing a run-off between the top two candidates if no one captures 50 percent of the vote in the first primary. The statute eliminates secondary primaries only in the 2002 elections though, and there has been speculation that this change was a partisan maneuver by the Republican-controlled legisture to assist Governor Jeb Bush with his reelection. In addition, the Florida bill does not consider “instant runoff” voting that would allow voters to

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elect candidates by a plurality rather than a majority.

Voting Rights. The measure requires polling places to post a Voter’s Bill of Rights, stating that each voter has the right: to vote and have that vote accurately counted; to cast a vote if in line when the polls close; to ask for and receive assistance in voting; to receive up to two replacement ballots if a mistake is made prior to casting the ballot; to receive an explanation if his/her registration is in question; to be given a provisional ballot if registration is in question; to prove identification by signing an affidavit; to be given written instructions to use when voting or oral instructions from an elections officer; to vote free from coercion or intimidation; and to vote on a voting system that is in working condition and that allows votes to be accurately cast. The Florida law, however, weakens this requirement by failing to provide sanctions for the failure to do so. Further, the statute requires a list of Voter’s Responsibilities to be posted with the Bill of Rights, which could confuse or intimidate new voters. The Voter’s Bill of Responsibilities requires each voter: to study and know candidates and issues; to keep voter address current; to know precinct location and hours of operation; to bring proper identification to the polling station; to know how to operate voting equipment properly; to treat precinct workers with courtesy; to respect the privacy of other voters; to report problems or violations of election law; ask questions when confused; and to check completed ballot for accuracy. Although there are no sanctions attached to these responsibilities, voters could be intimidated and/or confused by the contradiction between the Voter’s Bill of Rights and the Voter’s Bill of Responsibility. For example, the Voter’s Bill of Rights providers the right to sign an affidavid in lieu of proper identification, while the Voter’s Bill of Responsibility requires voters to provide proper identification.

Internet Voting. The law begins internet access for voters, but only for those overseas. Overseas voters will be emailed a list of candidates thirty days prior to the election and, if state officials are able to negotiate the technical hurdles, overseas voters will be able to request an absentee ballot via email or fax.

The new law failed to address a number of problems with Florida’s electoral system:

Motor Voter Registration. The statute does not directly deal with Motor Voter problems that caused the disfranchisement of thousands of Florida voters in 2000. Many Florida residents took advantage of Motor Voter provisions which allowed them to use their license application as a voter registration form in order to register to vote as they received their driver’s license. State law required that the form be signed by the registering voter and returned to the Secretary of State by the Department of Highway Safety and Moter Vehicles. In many cases, however, the voter was not asked to sign the registration form and the form was not transferred to the Secretary of State. Sancho estimates that 3 to 7 percent of these voters were turned away at the polls. “It’s a training issue as far as I can see,” Sancho said. The employees at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles “do not approach [voter registration] with the seriousness and dedication that they need to.”

Felon Disfranchisement. The law does not address re-enfranchising felons who have served their time.

Same Day Registration. The law does not allow for the convenience of same day voter registration.

Non-Partisan Elections Officials. the new measure does not require election officials to be non-partisan. According to Sancho, “the failure to establish an indepen-

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dent, nonpartisan state elections administration was a major omission in the bill.” He maintains that an earlier Senate version of SB 1118 stipulated that election officials should be nonpartisan, but the House wanted “all references to nonpartisanship to be stricken from the bill.” This omission could have far reaching affects on the fairness of future elections.

Georgia: Underfunded Reform

The election crisis of November 2000 was not confined to Florida. Most states need to reform their election laws and procedures in order to prevent widespread disenfranchisement. In fact, Georgia–with 94,681 presidential votes uncounted–had a higher undervote rate than Florida. Alarmed by the high number of undervotes, Cox and the Georgia General Assembly took immediate action and passed the first comprehensive election reform law in the nation, even before Florida’s new statute was enacted.

This principal election reform measure has earned Secretary of State Cathy Cox praise for stepping up to the forefront of election reform and mandating a statewide election system to cure her state’s poor error rate in 2000. According to groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, however, the Georgia law falls far short of what Cox’s press releases would have voters believe. In fact, it is clear that the substantive changes contained in the law are contingent on funding. Article 8.1 of the statute begins with the statement: “Provided that the General Assembly specifically appropriates funding.” Considering that Cox estimates that up to $100 million may be needed to implement the legislation, the securing of funding is indeed a significant condition to the success of the law. Neil Bradley of the Southern Regional ACLU’s Voting Rights Project said in relation to solving problems with minority enfranchisement, “it’s a first step in the right direction,” but the law “doesn’t really accomplish anything” because of the lack of funds.

Delving into Georgia’s new law exposes several pressing issues that were left unresolved:

Statewide System. The Georgia law creates a statewide election system to be implemented by 2004. This standardization, however, is dependent on state and federal funding that may not surface and the bill ignores problems that will likely be encountered in 2002.

Electronic Voting Systems. It instigates a pilot project to test different electronic voting machines for which $200,000 has been set aside, but the individual participating counties must foot the costs for voter education regarding the new machines.

Voter Rolls. The Georgia measure formulates a new accuracy check on voter rolls that requires the Secretary of State’s approval before deceased voters are removed from lists, but the information is still gathered by local officials.

Non-Partisan Primaries. The law ends non-partisan primaries, but, like Florida, does not present “instant run-offs,” allowing candidates to be elected by a plurality rather than a majority of the vote, as a solution to unnecessary extra time at the polls.

Ballot Clarity. The law provides for statewide usage of a “short title” on ballots, drafted by the Constitutional Amendments Publication Board, to identify proposed amendments to the state constitution. Voters were confused and frustrated by the often lengthy and complicated legislative language that comprised the proposed amendments. The short title was instituted to give a short, simple summary of the proposals. The short title will ensure clarity and ease for citizens voting on constitutional amendments, but the statute does not mandate a statewide uniform ballot.

Absentee Ballots. The new law creates stricter requirements for the handling of absentee ballots and provides for slightly harsher penalties for those pollworkers who break their oath of secrecy.

Election procedure areas that are completely ignored in the new statute include: comprehensive provisions for recount implementation; provisional ballots; no-excuse absentee voting; same-day voter registration; overseas voter policies; substantive voter education; poll worker training; and, uniform polling place hours. Further, both an early voting plan and a proposal to change ballot access requirements were specifically stricken from the law in order to get the bill passed.

While Florida and Georgia and Maryland have succeeded in enacting laws that call for statewide voting systems in the near future, much work remains to be done in order to avoid repeating last year’s catastrophe of widespread disefranchisement, especially of minority groups. Many hope that the Congress will take the lead in election reform by establishing a nationwide policy that includes financial grants for the states to implement election reform. Yet, Congress may not pass comprehensive federal election reform that will ensure nationwide standardization. State legislatures need to take an honest look at all of the issues that arose out of the Florida election debacle and be prepared to pass legislation that leaves no vote uncounted.