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Students Push For Voters’ Rights

Law School students to monitor “high risk” polls in this year’s election

She said the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which takes effect for the first time this year, should help avoid the pitfalls that have plagued past elections. The act allows voters who are challenged at the polls to fill out provisional ballots that may later be deemed eligible. It also requires that states move from nationwide to statewide voting rolls, which Reynolds said should be more accurate.

But Gerken dismissed the act as “toothless,” saying it provides “incentives” rather than strict orders.

“There is no federal mandate to ensure that the problems in Florida don’t happen again,” she said.

Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law Laurence H. Tribe ’62, who helped write the legal briefs for the recount appeal of former Vice President Al Gore ’69, said that it is critical to address voting irregularities as soon as possible.

“Sometimes elections are essentially showpieces for democracy, and when you peel back the top layer, you discover some pretty ugly truths underneath,” he said.

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JUST STARTING

Just Democracy’s founders acknowledged that they face a wide range of difficulties on the way to the ambitious goal of guarding the nation’s elections.

The group has pledged to distinguish itself as a neutral observer of a process that has often sparked partisan acrimony in the past. But despite actively recruiting volunteers from all parts of the political spectrum, May and O’Brien said staying free of bias would be no easy task.

“It is a challenge for us to maintain a coalition of people whose politics may differ widely on many issues in American life,” O’Brien said. “There’s nothing in the law that’s not political, including those questions.”

The founders also noted their relative inexperience with electoral law. O’Brien, who has not taken Gerken’s course on the subject, said she is “a total novice in this area of the law.”

The pair must figure out exactly how Just Democracy’s volunteers will operate, especially in those states with particularly stringent laws preventing observers from interacting with voters.

Tribe said that to sort this out and to anticipate other voting irregularities, the group has no time to lose.

“This is really work that needs to be done before election day,” he said.

Just Democracy will be most successful if it employs a “prophylactic strategy” in advance of an electoral crisis, according to Reynolds.

“The key to elections is nobody likes a recount,” she said. “Judges are much more likely to issue a remedy before the election.”

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