Debra Bowen’s term as California’s Secretary of State started with fanfare. Upon assuming office in 2007, Bowen was greeted with the task of approving the implementation of electronic voting machines throughout the state.
Over $400 million had been invested in the initiative, but the new Secretary of State took a step back and commissioned an independent study of the machines, uncovering several problems with the new technology.
Confronting the machines’ manufacturer and unhappy county officials, Bowen decided to restrict implementation of the new voting system prior to the state’s February 5 presidential primary. It was a gutsy call, and for it, Bowen earned plaudits from around the state, and even nationally – receiving a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award at the Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.
But as Bowen heads towards her re-election contest in November against Republican, Damon Dunn, that sunny day in Beantown has been clouded by a number of missteps, which call into question her ability to continue as our "CEO" (Chief Elections Officer). On three critical election-related issues, Bowen’s office has stumbled for reasons that appear to be related to either incompetence or partisanship.
First, and ironically, given Bowen’s tech-savvy reputation, have been the recent disclosures that a multi-year effort to enable Californians to register online has, apparently, foundered in new delays with Bowen firing the vendor she hired. The Los Angeles Times reports that the "paperless registration" initiative launched by Governor Schwarzenegger several years ago should have been near completion, but software problems may push the launch date back until 2014 after another $53.4 million computer project is completed.
Following a couple years spent searching for a qualified vendor to handle the project, Bowen settled on Catalyst Consulting Group out of Illinois, awarding them a contract last September. After paying them over $2 million, Bowen terminated the relationship several months ago, with both Catalyst and the SoS’s office blaming one another for the problems.
The fact that states like Arizona and Washington already offer their citizens online registration has angered many good government types. Common Cause’s executive director, Kathay Feng, told the Times, "It’s hard to understand why we are having so much difficulty doing something that other states have been able to accomplish." Kim Edwards from the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation added, "California is the home of Silicon Valley, the heart of the high-tech revolution, and yet we are stuck in this 19th century voter registration system."
A second, and developing, miscue appears to be Bowen’s lack of oversight in the City of Bell fiasco. At its root, Bell’s problems began at the ballot box, with the vote to move the city from "general law" to "contract city" status in 2005, but a recent lawsuit filed by a former Bell police officer alleges that he notified the Secretary of State in mid-2009 about apparent voter fraud in last year’s municipal elections.
That officer, James Corcoran, told the Times in late July, that he contacted both Bowen’s office and the FBI about the fact "that off-duty police officers were taking absentee ballots and providing them to voters to fill out." Corcoran says he sent a letter back to Bowen in June 2009 describing the malfeasance, and the Times has a copy of that letter. Requests by the paper to find out how the Secretary’s office responded to Corcoran were met with a cold shoulder. Of course, this might be for legal reasons, but without any news about this year-old letter until it was mentioned in a lawsuit, it stretches credulity to believe Bowen acted aggressively on this when it was received.
Finally, Bowen’s silence on the recent overturning of Proposition 8 vote by the Federal District Court (now stayed by the 9th Circuit) has been deafening. Whatever one thinks of the 2008 decision by California’s voters (over seven million in support), the Secretary of State should be the main "public defender" when it comes to electoral decisions. Even George Skelton recently called out Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Brown for their meekness in protecting the "will of the California electorate", but it is really Bowen who be called to account.
As Skelton opines about Brown, "whether a law is unconstitutional is a court’s job to decide. The attorney general’s job is to defend and enforce state laws. People didn’t elect him chief judge. They elected him chief law officer." In the same way, Californians elected Bowen back in 2006 to defend our "voice" expressed at the ballot box. She has to know that such court interventions affect future electoral participation – voters logically question not only whether their vote matters, but also whether the men and women in black will overturn it. It contributes to what political scientists call "rational ignorance" – the understanding that our individual votes don’t really count, so why vote?
Of course it makes sense politically for Bowen to stay out of the Prop 8 fray: she doesn’t want to anger part of her base only months from Election Day. Standing up to Diebold and a bunch of county election officials demanded some fortitude. But to step forward and defend California’s voters on Prop 8, and take responsibility for her office’s inaction in these other instances, these would compose a real Profile in Courage.