Answering the S.O.S. for Election Reform

Katherine Harris. Ken Blackwell.

These names are almost expletives for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who developed a passionate interest in the dire state of our electoral system since the 2000 election disaster.

Harris, of course, was the Florida secretary of state who was widely suspected of working behind the scenes to hand Florida's 25 electoral votes to George Bush. Ken Blackwell is the standing secretary of state of Ohio who, it was later revealed, suppressed the vote in the 2004 presidential election. Much of the distress about recent election outcomes has led to the birth of a movement to halt the use of unaccountable and unverifiable voting machines.

But there is also widespread concern about a resurgence of efforts to suppress the voting rights of minorities. And there's dismay at the prospect that standing progressive election reforms like election-day voter registration and public funding of elections may have to be defended from campaigns to repeal them. Given recent election history the public has the right to question whether or not their votes will be fairly counted. Moreover, much of the attention given to elections and our democratic process comes out of a growing disatisfaction about our political systems in general.

The coming 2006 elections offer activists and political donors who want election reform the opportunity to support at least two secretary of state candidates who have bold and pro-democratic positions on voting rights and voting machines: John Bonifaz in Massachusetts, Mark Ritchie in Minnesota. If elected they would join Bill Bradbury of Oregon and Deborah L. Markowitz of Vermont, two standing secretaries of state widely considered to be leaders in progressive election reforms.

John Bonifaz is a voting rights attorney and founder of the National Voting Rights Institute, which he founded in 1994 in Boston. Bonifaz has also worked for public funding of elections He was a leader in the push for Ohio's recount effort starting on No. 3, 2004. Bonifaz, with his father, also works at a private law firm that handles international environmental and human rights cases.

Mark Ritchie has been involved in Minnesota politics for the past 20 years. He is a founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and has served as its director since 1986. During the 2004 elections he helped create and lead the November 2nd campaign, a coalition of over 1,000 organizations and activist groups that worked to register five million new voters and turn out 10 million on Election Day.

Bonifaz is running for the Democratic Party nomination against the incumbent office holder, and Ritchie is running for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination to face the Republican incumbent in the general election. AlterNet spoke with the two candidates to learn more about why they decided to run.

AlterNet: What pushed you to run for the office?

Bonifaz: I've been involved in the political arena all my career. This is just a different side of it. I've been engaged in fighting for the right to vote as an attorney and as a constitutional scholar, but I believe that the secretary of state position is a pivotal one for providing a model for free and fair elections for the country. Secretaries of state in most states, including Massachusetts, serve as chief elections officers. The fact is that, after Ohio in 2004, we've seen that secretaries of state can be on the wrong side: actively engaged in resisting the right to vote. Or as we've seen in recent elections, they may be silent in the face of voting rights violations. And then there can be proactive leaders.

I want to be a proactive leader for the right to vote and voting reform.

Ritchie: In the case of the secretary of state of Minnesota, Mary Kiffmeyer, in recent years there have been so many different aspects of her administration -- attempts to keep Native Americans from being able to vote, manipulating the election process -- which were in direct contradiction of the oath of office she swore to uphold. And Kiffmeyer was taking Minnesota backward in its leadership in this country on election issues, including her public opposition to our existing Election Day registration system. Election Day registration is a central reason for why Minnesota leads the nation by four percentage points in voter turnout, and she's on record and quite vocal about trying to get it repealed.