Study finds deep flaws in country’s election system

WASHINGTON— The flaws in the U. S. election system are deep and widespread, extending beyond isolated voting issues in a few locations and flaring up in states rich and poor, according to a major new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The group ranked 50 states based on more than 15 criteria, including wait times, lost votes and problems with absentee and provisional ballots, and the order often confounds the conventional wisdom.

In 2010, for instance, Mississippi ranked last overall. But it was preceded by two surprises: New York and California.

“Poor Southern states perform well, and they perform badly,” said Heather K. Gerken, a law professor at Yale and a Pew adviser. “Rich New England states perform well and badly — mostly badly.”

A main aim of the exercise, which grew out of Gerken’s book, “The Democracy Index,” was to shame poor performers into doing better, she said.

Some states lost few votes thanks to shortcomings in voting technology and voter confusion, with the best 10 reporting failure rates of 0.5 percent or less in 2008.

The study is based on data from the 2008 and 2010 elections, the most recent for which complete data were available.

The study also found wide variation in how easy registering to vote can be. North Dakota does not even require it, and Alabama and Kansas reported rejecting less than 0.05 percent of registration applications in 2008.

The shift to voting by mail, which now accounts for some 20 percent of all ballots cast, tends to eliminate lines. But it has also produced new problems, especially in places where mail voting has soared because the state does not require an excuse or a new ballot request for each election. Arizona and California, where voting by mail is commonplace, had among the highest rates of problems with voter registration and absentee ballots.

In 2010, California rejected absentee ballots 0.7 percent of the time, a higher rate than any other state. Dean Logan, the registrar for Los Angeles County, said the rate was a byproduct of the popularity of voting by mail in California and partly a function of how the state defines rejected ballots.