Carter Center proposes election guidelines to increase voter confidence

Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The Carter Center and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy announced Tuesday a series of guiding principles for preserving the integrity of American elections.

"Elections allow Americans to combine with other voters to make concrete choices of the future of their nation, states and local communities, the Carter Center said in a press release Tuesday. "However, unlike most countries around the world which have uniform voting rules and procedures, the U.S. system is widely decentralized."

According to the center, the purpose of the guidelines is to protect confidence in the democratic process.

The reason in encouraging the changes to ensure election integrity, the Carter Center siad, is that recent U.S. politics have been "tinged with an aggressive anger and virulent rhetoric that threatens to unravel the fabric of our society."

The guidelines listed are:

Making elections a national priority. The center said the nation's election system is critical to American democracy, so it's critical that "election laws and regulations be guided by principles of fairness that preclude partisanship."

Election laws and should be transparent and simple for the public to understand. One way to ensure the health of the nation's election system, the report's authors say, is to be "fully transparent." Saying that states and localities already have made "great strides" in delivering basic election information to voters, the report's authors say, "this work should continue on all aspects of the process, from registration of voters through certification of election results."

Expand access to voter registration. The center and institute said voter registration rules "should be structured to maximize the likelihood that eligible voters can be added to the rolls without complicated rules or restrictions."

Allow ballot casting to be simple for urban and rural populations. The report's authors said policymakers and election officials "should commit to finding a way to treat voters equitably - eschewing both a 'one size fits all' approach ... in favor of one in which there is "attention to ensuring that voters are not disadvantaged in obtaining or casting a ballot relative to others just because of where they live."

Have technology serve as a boost to voters not an obstacle. Noting that voting machines have become increasingly easier to use, the report's authors urge a design approach that would cover all voting technology, "like electronic poll books and ballot-on-demand printers" so that every step of the election process is accessible and flexible for all voters.

Encourage states and local governments that allow early voting to prioritize counting votes before the election. Saying that offering voting options over several days or weeks makes voting more resilient against potential attacks, the center urged that "communities that allow such ballots should have policies ... that ensure that as many as possible of these ballots (if not all of them) will be returned to election officials in time to be processed and counted as soon as reasonably possible." The center said that, ideally, this should occur before ballots are cast in person.

Make sure oversees voters and military personnel are able to be counted quickly. The center and the institute said states and localities should try to avoid unnecessary restrictions on the use of documents, "like the Federal Postcard Application or the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot."

Keep the process of vote counting transparent and orderly. "Policymakers and election officials must continue to prioritize accuracy even as they strive to complete counts sooner," the report's authors said.

Conduct regular audits of the election process on the municipal level. The center said election officials should use the most up-to-date and available "techniques and best practices" to validate elections' reliability.

Use recognized best practice standards for elections. The report's authors said states and localities also should be open to having "nonpartisan and independent" election observers.