VOTER REGISTRATION Local official revamps databases

The local director is a top official at a U.S. election commission.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Mahoning County Board of Elections director is playing a key role in helping states to develop and reshape voter registration databases.
Director Michael V. Sciortino is serving as chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's executive committee. The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, developed by Congress after the controversial presidential recount in Florida in 2000, created the commission.
The commission's role is to serve as a national resource center for states when it comes to information and procedures for federal elections.
As chairman of the EAC's nine-member executive committee, Sciortino is actively involved in reviewing, recommending changes and offering guidance to states with their voter registration databases.
It is important for states to maintain voter registration databases accessible to local election officials to stop voter fraud, and to have accurate lists of eligible voters, Sciortino said.
Its success "depends upon states and locals working together in a professional manner to make it easier for folks to vote, yet at the same time, eliminating fraud and unneeded duplication of records," he said.
The two databases
There are two types of voter registration databases, Sciortino said.
One has each county elections board maintain a voter registration list that is shared with their secretary of state's office, which then provides the information to the other counties in the state. Ohio uses this method.
The other type has the secretary of state collect voter registration information, and then disperse it to the county election boards in the state.
Sciortino prefers the system used by Ohio because it is "most closely akin" to the federal HAVA regulations, but said either system works "as long as [it's] effective."
Sciortino gave a presentation last month on the database systems during an EAC conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
The commission includes two members -- a Democrat and a Republican -- from each of the nation's 50 states, as well as its territories. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell of Cincinnati is Ohio's Republican representative on the commission and Sciortino, of Austintown, is the state's Democratic representative.
Sciortino was appointed to the commission in 2003, the year it was formed, by the Ohio Association of Election Officials. At the time, he was the state association's vice president. He served as the association's president last year.