Call to Action Improve nations balloting but leave control to locals Author Unknown SUMMARY: A Call to Action is an article from the Houston Chronicle on Thursday, February 20, 2001 informing the nation on the controversial issue of the nations ballots system. The article begins with the announcement of next month's Census Bureau release of the population's data. This means that all the voting boundaries are going to be redrawn and reconfigured. It continues to talk about the amazingly close and controversial presidential election on November 7th. Difficulties erupted all over the state of Florida and throughout the United States in which the reliability and accuracy of the balloting system is questioned. Fortunately, because of the controversial ballots and ballot systems there have been numerous groups and committees organized to study and improve our out of date voting system. It says that several people in Congress are working on multiple bills being created to establish nation wide standards for ballot-counting systems.
United States
First edition of the Houston Chronicle newspaper, ...
United StatesThe article states, "One U.S. House lawmaker, Beaumont Democrat Nick Lampson, wants national standards for voting machines and poll closing times." The author agrees with Lampson in that the voting machines have multiple flaws, one being the problematic punch card ballots. But he also thinks that the press would throw a fit if there was a national closing time at the polls just for the sake of avoiding early winning announcements. The National Association of Secretaries of State's task force on election standards suggests leaving the enforcement issue to locals but have the government pay for voting machines. They also recommend "â¦more voter education, improved training for poll workers and maintaining up-to-date voter rollsâ¦". In the end the author feels that the communities should take on the responsibilities for reformation instead of an all-in-one government plan. He closes...