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An informational program on the Help America Vote Act of 2002 will feature Tova Andrea Wang of the Century Foundation and Dan Seligson of the Election Reform Information Project 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in the auditorium of Kirby Hall of Civil Rights.
Also featured will be Linda Arcury, election registrar of Northampton County. The program, sponsored by Lafayette’s Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government, is free and open to the public. This will be the first of three programs on voting that the Meyner Center will conduct leading up to the presidential election in November 2004. For information, call x5598.
Signed into law by President Bush last October, the Help America Vote Act established a program to provide funds to states to replace punch card voting systems, established the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain federal election laws and programs, and established minimum election administration standards for states and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of federal elections.
“The act appropriately respects the primacy of state and local governments in the administration of elections while helping to ensure the integrity and efficiency of voting processes in federal elections by providing federal governmental support for that vital endeavor,” Bush said.
A nationally known expert on election reform, Wang is senior program officer and democracy fellow at the Century Foundation, which sponsors and supervises research on economic, social, and political issues. Among issues of principal interest to Wang are privacy rights, freedom of information, immigrants’ rights, and freedom of expression.
Wang was a staff person to the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former presidents Carter and Ford. Her commentary has appeared in national Associated Press reports, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The American Prospect, and MSNBC.com, among other media outlets. She has spoken at national election reform conferences and forums, provided her expertise to members of Congress, and given expert testimony regarding the new federal election reform law before the New York State Assembly, the New York State Senate, the New York State Board of Elections and the New York City Council. An attorney with degrees from New York University School of Law and Barnard College, she is a member of the election law committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Seligson is editor of electionline.org. Produced by the Election Reform Information Project (ERIP), it is the nation’s only non-partisan, non-advocacy web site providing news and analysis on election reform. ERIP also provides research and sponsors conferences on election reform.
Before joining ERIP Seligson covered election reform for stateline.org. He has covered Congress and federal agencies for PlanetGov.com and Virginia politics for the Journal Newspapers. He attended Columbia University’s School of Journalism and Connecticut College.