The 2004 presidential election was the first big test of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Enacted in the wake of the deeply flawed 2000 election, the law was passed in an effort both to improve the voting process and to increase voter access. While there were improvements in the voting process in a number of jurisdictions, the ways in which many states carried out the law’s mandates produced a number of unintended consequences, resulting in allegations of fraud and voter disenfranchisement. The Century Foundation assembled the Post-2004 Election Working Group to find ways for states to implement future elections in a way that balances ballot integrity with voting rights and accessibility. They make recommendations on how to handle voter registration and identification, provisional ballots, voter registration databases, and felon purges.
