The Help America Vote Act (HAVA ) is an item of United States federal election law passed on October 29, 2002. Under HAVA, a new federal voter registration form was created, which has simplified as well as complicated the registration process. HAVA also guarantees the ability of individuals to cast a provisional ballot and have the validity of their registration checked later if they do not appear on voter registration rolls.
HAVA was drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the dimpled ballots fiasco that accompanied the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Some have questioned its usefulness as it is understood to mandate electronic voting systems; automated systems were the cause of some of the problems at the last election. Others are concerned about the opportunities for vote tampering associated with the fluidity of electronic data.
With the new act, states now have powers that were originally distributed to counties. With this centralization of power comes the new federally mandated computerization of voter rolls. This is particularly troubling to critics of the voter roll cleansing that took place in the Florida election in 2000.
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