How to "fix that" United States elections process

(Final part of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here.)

President Lyndon Johnson & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1965

In the United States, citizens must continue to advocate vigorously to hold on to landmark historic voting rights protections and inclusionary guarantees.
For example, consider a controversial case soon to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Entitled Shelby County v. Holder, the case, arising out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, represents a challenge to the constitutionality of the preclearance provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – provisions that require jurisdictions with a documented history of discrimination to obtain approval from the federal government before changing their election procedures.
For over 40 years, the Voting Rights Act has been upheld as constitutional. The Act worked to ensure historically disenfranchised minorities' increased participation in U.S. elections, and was reauthorized in 1970, 1975, 1982, and again, unanimously by a Republican Congress in 2006, during the administration of President George W. Bush.
Now, the most effective civil rights law in U.S. history faces an unprecedented challenge with Shelby County, which puts at stake the constitutionality of the VRA under the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.
As Corey Dade of NPR has recalled, the preclearance provisions are still quite relevant in 2012, given that federal courts applied the preclearance provisions to block voter identification requirements in Texas, and other procedural electoral changes, ahead of the U.S. general election on November 6.
Similarly, California-Irvine Law Professor Rick Hasen, an election law expert, said :

'There is still evidence of unconstitutional conduct as found this year in the Texas redistricting case ... There certainly is some evidence of continued racial discrimination in voting, although it is far less common than in the 1960s. And when it occurs, it is more subtle. Section 5 has served to be an important bargaining chip.'

Indeed, many voting rights advocates point to the support that U.N. Under-Secretary-General Ralph Bunche provided Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement during the 1960s, which ultimately turned up the pressure on President Lyndon Baines Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Bunche, winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize  on account of his diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, had participated in the 1963 March on Washington. In a public statement at the Montgomery Statehouse during the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, he said that the United Nations supported the civil rights movement in the United States:

'In the UN, we have known from the beginning that secure foundations for peace in the world can be built only upon the principle and practice of equal rights and status for all peoples, respect and dignity for all.'

This resonated for me during my October service as an elections observer in Venezuela. While there, as depicted at left, I had the opportunity to meet the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Rigoberta Menchú Tum. An indomitable indigenous rights advocate, she too was part of the International Accompaniment that observed voter access and participation. (photo courtesy of CUNY Professor Ron Hayduk) Menchú’s lifework reminded me of why it is so important to stay vigilant in the protection of these civil rights both at home and abroad.
Much work remains to be done.
 As I posted in Part 1 of this series, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prizewinner, U.S. President Barack Obama, said of U.S. voting-rights issues during his November 6 victory speech:

'We have to fix that.'

Voting access & participation in Venezuela's indigenous & Afrodiasporic communities

(Part 3 of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 4 is here.)

October 7, the general Election Day in Venezuela, falls on a Sunday. That day, in my capacity as an international election accompañamiento, or "accompaniment," I traveled to many sites in Venezuela. Specifically, I visited eleven precincts across the eastern state of Monagas, along with two domestic observers, a Swiss human rights advocate, a Brazilian professor of international law, and two journalists from Chile and Uruguay.
When we arrived at the remote indigenous Warao community of Mosú at 8:40 in the morning, we observed that 60% of the people in the community had already exercised their right to vote.

Our delegation spoke with Santo Garcia, the elected administrator of the indigenous school in the town of Mosú. Garcia stated:

'Every person who wants to exercise their vote has been able to do so…. As it says in the Constitution approved in 1999, every indigenous community needs to elect their representatives.'

No outsiders – other than the staff of Consejo Nacional Electoral, also known as the National Electoral Council or CNE, as well as officials, observers, and international accompaniers – were allowed to enter the community, under the local regulations regarding indigenous autonomy.
CNE is an independent, fourth branch of government. It derives from the power of the people as set forth in Articles 136 and 296 of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution, and works affirmatively to create spaces for indigenous and afrodiasporic minority voters to exercise the franchise. (credit for photo by Uruguay Delegation, CNE Accompañamiento Internacional de las Elecciones del 7 de octubre, 2012, Comunidad Indigena Mosú, Caripito, Bolívar, Estado de Monagas, Venezuela)
Professor Esther G. Pineda (left), a sociologist at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, writes:

'In creating new electoral centers in remote communities that historically had been forgotten as afrodescendent and low-income communities, the initiatives of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) create a system that prioritizes security and confidence in the voters, as a massive investment in the education and formation of voters who respect the procedures to exercise the right to vote. This investment has clearly had a return, and a significant impact on reducing the numbers of abstentions and null votes. In a highly politicized and polarized society such as Venezuelan society, in which the population has become a part of the political process every day – this has become an evolving process in the participatory and active exercise of one’s citizenship.

(photo source)

'As a result, there has been a major consolidation of spaces for debate in a society in which diverse opinions and thoughts were formerly silenced; now afrodescendent men and women have the opportunity to express themselves and reflect on their own situation and experiences, specifically those which have resulted in the massive formulation of policy proposals and projects by and for diverse afrodescendent groups and communities.'

In my view, as an observer this autumn of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan elections, the clarity of the national standards, technical audits and accountability measures built into Venezuela’s electoral process stand in stark contrast to the lack of transparency and struggles with voter ID requirements and other forms of suppression in the United States.

Electoral participation: Venezuela & United States

(Part 2 of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 1 is here; Part 3 is here; Part 4 is here.)

An unprecedented 80.48% of Venezuela’s over 18 million registered voters participated in the presidential elections that took place on October 7 – elections at which, as I posted yesterday, I served as an international observer.
Fifteen years ago in Venezuela, a country with a population of around 27.1 million, only about 13 million voters were registered and eligible to vote. (Photo Credit: Swiss Delegation, CNE Accompañamiento Internacional de las Elecciones del 7 de octubre, 2012, Estado de Monagas, Venezuela)
Dr. Tibisay Lucena, current President of Venezuela's Consejo Nacional Electoral, the election council known as CNE, has engaged in some analysis of the massive shift in levels of participation in her essay, The Venezuelan Experience. Lucena and other members of the CNE, including Vice President Sandra Oblitas, attribute much of the increased participation to the massive investment of the CNE in electoral inclusion in historically disenfranchised urban and rural communities.

Tibisay Lucena

Earlier in 2012, before the registration process closed in April, Tamara Pearson of Venezuelanalysis.com reported that

Sandra Oblitas Ruzza

'CNE set up 1,300 registration tents around the country and in overseas consulates, and 1,360,598 people registered to vote for the first time, while 4,512,000 changed their voting address, according to CNE director Sandra Oblitas.'

Pearson reported that 89% of the new registrations were among youth aged 18 to 25; other new registrations included individuals who had since been granted Venezuelan nationality, people who were unable to register due to rural isolation or perhaps a disability, and people who chose not to register prior to 2012. Only individuals with Venezuelan nationality could vote in the October presidential elections; residents can vote in the upcoming December 16 regional elections.
Oblitas has stated that the gap between those able to vote and those registered had been reduced to 3.5%, a statistic she interpreted as a great advance and a direct result of a broader policy of participatory inclusion. The CNE employs over 400,000 people to staff the electoral mesas, provide on the ground digital technology support, and directly administer the electoral process, and maintains an independent budget of over Bs 2,273,000,000 (US$ 494 million) to carry out both the October 7 and upcoming December 16 regional electoral processes.
In contrast, consider that the highest participation rate in recent years in the United States was estimated at only 61.6% of registered voters, comprising only 57.47% of the entire U.S. voting-age population. That was in the 2008 presidential elections.
Amid reports of lower registered-voter turnout this year – an estimated 57.5% – the popular image of the United States as a leader in the development of open, participatory, democratic institutions is not exactly in alignment with current realities on the ground.
In fact, according to data compiled by the international Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the United States trails behind 16 Latin American nations in terms of voter turnout, besting only Colombia (45%) and Honduras (53%), two countries that are not well-regarded for any laudable transparency in the electoral process.
The perennial confusion over voter registration in the United States, which may depress registration and participation levels, could be clarified by uniform national standards regarding voter registration. Reforms might take into consideration similar systemic electoral reforms in Latin America.
Along with observations from the Center for Economic and Policy Studies, the National Lawyers Guild International Committee's observations of Venezuelan popular democracy in action – observations in which I took part – stand in marked contrast with media depictions of Venezuela’s government as autocratic.

“We Have to Fix That”: The ICCPR, U.S. voting rights & lessons learned from Venezuela's process

(Part 1 of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here; Part 4 is here.)

'I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that.'

- President Barack Obama, Chicago, Illinois, United States, November 6, 2012

President Obama’s remarks came on the heels of an election he won, despite persistent problems with:
►Restrictions on early voting, voter registration drives, and voter ID legislation, and
►In some cases, third-party voter intimidation in the United States.
What seemed to be an ad-lib in Obama’s victory speech resonated deeply with my observations in the field on Election Day in the United States. And as a captain with the volunteer nonpartisan National Election Protection Coalition Field Program, I heard reports of third-party voter intimidation in southern and central California, and of other forms of voter suppression in Ohio and Arizona.
The statement that "we have to fix that" placed in some contrast my observations this fall in the field in Venezuela – another country that, like the United States, bears the burden of a racially discriminatory past and historical problems with access to a free and fair vote.
On October 7, along with 7 other members of the National Lawyers Guild International Committee delegation and over 200 international parliamentarians, election officials, academics, journalists, and judges, I had the opportunity to observe Venezuela's 2012 Presidential Elections. I was able to get a glimpse as to how Venezuela's democratic process functions on a procedural, technical level. And I saw the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in action. In the 4-part series that I begin with this post, I will set forth my own observations and comparisons of the 2012 elections processes in Venezuela and the United States – observations informed by the guarantees of the international civil rights covenant.

Photo Credit: NLG International Committee Delegation 

from the U.S., CNE Accompañamiento Internacional 

de las Elecciones Venezolanas del 7 de octubre, 2012

Article 25 of the ICCPR requires that every citizen shall have the right and opportunity without unreasonable restrictions to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections…by universal and equal suffrage and…by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;” and “to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service.”
After reviewing the Carter Center’s pre-electoral report examining Venezuela’s electoral process and procedural guarantees, former President Jimmy Carter stated: