Ghost voting: A long history

(06-09) 23:20 PDT Sacramento -- California lawmakers routinely violate their own law and cast votes for colleagues who aren't there.

Although the practice of "ghost voting" in the state Assembly is usually harmless, experts say it is fraught with the potential for mischief, and at times ghost votes have decided the outcome of potentially far-reaching legislation.

In the most recent case to surface, eyewitnesses said that in May, Assemblyman Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, cast a ghost vote for Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley - opposite the way she would have voted. "I don't recall it, but I don't deny it, either," de Leon said.

De Leon's ghost vote on AB2818, a measure concerning the state's affordable housing crisis, was first disclosed in The Chronicle's Insight section on Sunday. Assembly Democrats will examine the episode Tuesday, said a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angleles County).

Ghost voting occurs when one Assembly member pushes a button on the desk of an absent member, electronically casting the vote. The practice is clearly against the Assembly's long-standing written rule that states, "A member may not operate the voting switch of any other member."

Nevertheless, lawmakers often violate the rule, acknowledged Jon Waldie, the chief administrative officer for the Assembly Rules Committee. "It is not uncommon for somebody to be pressing somebody else's button," he said. "It's darn near a daily occurrence." Although it is forbidden, there is no explicit penalty for violators, he said.

Public interest advocates and experts criticized the practice.

"It's kind of shocking that something like that could happen. It's like letting somebody vote twice," said Christina Lokke, a policy advocate with California Common Cause. "It's unethical for someone else to vote for a colleague."

Carmen Balber of the Los Angeles-based Consumer Watchdog organization said, "Lawmakers aren't really doing the jobs that people elected them to do" if they are not casting their own votes.

Most state legislatures prohibit ghost voting, according to Peggy Kerns, director of the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver. Whenever someone votes for someone else, there is a chance that a wrong vote will be cast, accidentally or intentionally, she said.

"The opportunity for misuse is quite great," said Kerns, a former Colorado legislator. "The public's expectation is that their elected legislator casts their own votes."

A national issue

Several states have been haunted by ghost voting. In April, a Texas legislator proposed installing a fingerprint machine in the statehouse to ensure that members cast only their own votes. Oregon already has installed fingerprint technology on its house floor to enable members to vote away from their desks. Pennsylvania's state House Ethics Committee was compelled several years ago to investigate complaints of ghost voting.

Ghost voting is not a problem in the tradition-steeped California state Senate, where all votes are by voice.

But the Assembly installed an electronic voting system in 1935 and ghost voting started soon after, said Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University.

On each Assembly member's desk is a small voting device with three buttons - green for aye, red for nay and yellow for paging an assistant. Each member also has a key that activates the device.

When a vote is called, members press the appropriate button. Instantly, the vote is registered on a display roster next to the speaker's podium.

The problem arises when Assembly members are away from their desks and tight deadlines loom, such as when de León allegedly ghost-voted.

Most often, the missing members are elsewhere on the green-carpeted Assembly floor and can physically indicate their vote with a thumb up or down, so a seatmate can reach over and press the appropriate button on their desk.

According to Waldie, the Assembly long ago adopted this custom, though it is technically prohibited.

"There's the rule, and then there's the custom," he said. "The custom is that so long as you are on the green carpet, you can have another member vote for you."

Convenient but problematic

Public advocates see even this practice of convenience as problematic. Lokke of Common Cause noted that it increases chances of wrongly cast votes, adding, "It's fraught with the opportunity for fraud."

Besides, noted Balber of Consumer Watchdog, legislators are paid to cast their own votes. The rule helps ensure they are present for the debate, she added, and thus protects the democratic process.

More troubling, according to Waldie, are cases in which legislators are temporarily away from the Assembly floor - perhaps to attend a hearing or grab a sandwich - when votes are cast for them. In a few cases, he recalled, past speakers of the Assembly have turned off legislators' voting devices after becoming aware they were absent.

But in other cases, Assembly members were not even in the Assembly chamber when ghost votes were cast for them, according to news reports.

In some cases, moreover, the ghost votes were critical to obtaining the minimum of 41 votes needed to pass legislation.

In 1990, for example, Assemblyman Stan Statham, R-Oak Run (Shasta County), was credited with casting the critical vote in a 42-13 vote to pass a controversial measure that would require a 15-day-hold on all firearms sales and a background check on buyers. However, Statham had already left the chamber when his aye vote was cast.

And in 1998, the Assembly approved a bill to allow consumers to sue health maintenance organizations for improperly denying them access to medical care. A spokesman for then-Gov. Pete Wilson charged that the measure passed as a result of three ghost votes cast for Democrats who already had left the building. The author's measure, Liz Figueroa, D-Fremont, denied the allegation.

Waldie of the Rules Committee said safety measures help prevent miscast votes. Assembly members may review a computer printout of votes for each measure, he said, and during a brief period may change an incorrect vote.

Today, Speaker Bass will tell legislators that they may continue to follow the green carpet custom and have colleagues vote for them if they are in the Assembly chamber, said Steve Maviglio, her deputy chief of staff.

However, Maviglio added, Bass intends to tell them that if they are not in the Assembly chamber, they should lock their voting devices and take their key with them.

Ghost voting for lawmakers who are out of the chamber, out of the building or out of town "will never happen again," he said.

E-mail Seth Rosenfeld at srosenfeld@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/10/MNC6116CF8.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle