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Election-Campaign Law

Election Law - Equal Vote

From Ohio State Law Professor Dan Tokaji. Election reform, the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act, and related topics -- with special attention to the voting rights of people of color, non-English proficient citizens, and people with disabilities

Post Frequency: 3.3/day

Last Entry: December 18, 2008 at 11:20:00

The Wrong Approach to Election Reform

Posted on December 18, 2008
The Ohio legislature yesterday a href="http://www.wtte28.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.oh/2b1965c4-www.wtte28.com.shtml"approved a bill/a (SB 380) that would eliminate the window for early registration and absentee voting, among other things...

Reforming Registration

Posted on November 07, 2008
On Monday, I identified four problem areas to watch out for on Election Day: 1) lines at the polls, 2) voting equipment, 3) voter registration lists, and 4) provisional and absentee ballots. While machine breakdowns and polling place lines got the lion's share public attention on Election Day, a closer look reveals that voter registration was the election administration issue of 2008...

What We Don't Know

Posted on November 05, 2008
We now know that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. In the enormity of this moment in American history, the gritty details of election administration, upon which my Moritz colleagues and I spend so much of our time, seem positively trivial...

Hearing in Progress on the Ohio Litigation

Posted on November 04, 2008
Following up this post from earlier today on the Election Day maneuvering that could become post-election litigation in Ohio, there's a hearing taking place this evening Judge Marbley in the NEOCH v. Brunner case Pending before him is a motion to consolidate Ohio Republican Party v...

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A Matter of Perspective

Posted on November 04, 2008
In my last post, I expressed the view that today's election appears to have been a relatively smooth one. Perhaps it depends on where you're standing. Ben Smith reports here on the campaigns' dueling perspectives on today's election. He notes that the Obama camp's message is that "Everything is going fine," while the McCain camp's message is "It's a mess...

The Calm Before the Storm?

Posted on November 04, 2008
It's a beautiful autumn day here in Columbus, Ohio. As I took a walk around the Statehouse during a blogging break this afternoon, the weather seemed to match the climate of today's election. To be sure, this Election Day has seen its share of problems like lines at some polling places, voting machines not working properly, voters being denied provisional ballots if they don't have ID, and other scattered problems...

Disability Access Issues

Posted on November 04, 2008
One of the underexamined issues of election administration is the nexus between voting rights and disability rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that polling places be accessible to people with disabilities, while the Help America Vote Act mandates that accessible voting technology be provided at every polling place...

Something Missing?

Posted on November 04, 2008
See this report on ballots in Shaker Heights, Ohio on which the presidential race was omitted. The report goes on to note relatively few problems in Ohio, an observation consistent with my impressions so far ... though we've got a way to go yet.

New Voter Registration Case in Indiana

Posted on November 04, 2008
As I've said many times this election season, voter registration is the issue of 2008. The latest evidence of this is a complaint and TRO motion brought by Project Vote on behalf ofvoters whose registrations were allegedly rejected because they were on an "old" form (Brown v...

V.W.I.

Posted on November 04, 2008
See this report from the Louisville Courier-Journal, which includes the following anecdote: The funniest report of the morning from a poll, he said, was a call received from Henderson County about an intoxicated voter."They wanted to know if he was allowed to vote," Fugate said...

Jockeying for Position in Ohio

Posted on November 04, 2008
The Ohio Republican Party today filed an amended complaint in its case against Secretary of State Brunner (Ohio Republican Party v. Brunner). This is the same case that the ORP earlier used as a vehicle for its arguments regarding the window for early registration and absentee voting, observers at in-person absentee voting sites, and mismatched voter information...

Early Voting Reform

Posted on November 04, 2008
Polling places have only been opened for a few hours in some states and haven't yet opened in others, but one area in which reform is needed is already quite clear: the process for in-person early voting. In states across the country that allow early voting, we've seen long lines, with voters sometimes waiting for several hours to vote...

Election 2008: Live Blogging and Issues to Watch

Posted on November 03, 2008
I've become a semi-retired blogger in recent months, partly because I'm on leave from Moritz this semester and visiting at Harvard Law School and partly because of my involvement in some of the this year's election litigation.* But I'll be in Columbus tomorrow, where Election Law @ Moritz will again be running an Election Central media center...

Looking for Lines ...

Posted on November 03, 2008
Where can we expect long lines on Election Day? Given the large number of newly registered voters and the intense interest in this year's election, you may not have to look far.If I had to guess, I'd put Virginia and Pennsylvania at the top of my list of states where polling places may be overwhelmed...

A New Absentee Voting Directive in Ohio

Posted on November 03, 2008
On the eve of the election, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has issued a new directive, requiring counties to give would-be absentee voters notice if there's a problem that would prevent their absentee ballot from being counted. Directive 2008-109 may be found here...

What Happens When Voters Don't "Match"?

Posted on July 20, 2008
One of the big under-the-radar issues this election season has to do with the state registration databases required by the Help American Vote Act of 2002. Before HAVA, registration lists were often compiled and administered at the local level. HAVA now requires a statewide registration database...

Injunction for Libertarian Party of Ohio and Barr

Posted on July 18, 2008
U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus, Jr. has issued this order, requiring that the Ohio Secretary of State place on the general election ballot the names of various Libertarian Party candidates, including Bob Barr. The order is based upon the Sixth Circuit's 2006 decision in Libertarian Party of Ohio v...

Did Obama Break His Promise?

Posted on June 20, 2008
There's been a great deal of criticism of Senator Barack Obama's announcement yesterday that he would opt out of the public financing system for the general election, some of it summarized here on Rick Hasen's blog. Some argue that Obama went back on his word by electing not to accept public financing, and the restrictions on private contributions, that come with it...

Are We Condemned to Repeat It?

Posted on June 03, 2008
It's election year in Ohio, likely to be pivotal in the presidential contest. Everyone expects a close race. Yet there's great concern about whether the state's election infrastructure can hold up to the pressure that will be upon it. Of special concern is the voting equipment to be used, particularly in the state's largest and most diverse county...

Elmendorf on Crawford on Harper

Posted on May 06, 2008
Chris Elmendorf offers this comment for EL@M, regarding last week's decision from the Supreme Court in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. It's characteristically thoughtful, provocative, and well worth reading. (Disclosure: He and I co-authored an amicus brief to the Court on the case...

An Election Day Registration Bill

Posted on May 02, 2008
A bill has been introduced in the Senate that would require states to allow election day registration (EDR) in federal elections. The bill may be found here and co-sponsor Senator Russ Feingold's statement in support of the bill here.EDR has been used in nine states some of them since the 1970s...

Crawford: It Could Have Been Worse

Posted on April 29, 2008
That's about the best that can be said about yesterday's opinions in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. Following the precedent set by LULAC v. Perry and Randall v. Sorrell in 2006, the Court issued a splintered decision in an important constitutional election law case...

The Problems with All-Mail Elections

Posted on March 12, 2008
With the Clinton and Obama camps at odds over whether to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, the idea of holding an all-mail election has emerged as a possible solution. The New York Times reports today that Democratic Party officials are "close to completing a draft plan" for a mail-in primary in Florida that would take place in early June...

Blackwell Redux?

Posted on March 11, 2008
The AP has this report on the Ohio Supreme Court's decision rejecting Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's request that she be shielded from the deposition in a case regarding a Summit County Board of Elections member whom she refused to reappoint...

Pay Attention to Provisionals

Posted on March 09, 2008
That's one piece of advice I'd give to both election officials and candidates this election season. This lesson emerged during the 2004 election, when the large number of provisional ballots cast in Ohio delayed the decision to call the state -- and thus the presidential race -- for President Bush...

Uncounted Ballots & Ohio's Delegate Math

Posted on March 06, 2008
Yeterday, I raised some questions regarding as-yet-uncounted ballots in Ohio -- specifically, the number of provisional, residual, and absentee ballots that aren't included in the official vote totals. In this post, I discuss how these ballots could actually affect the result of yesterday's election, despite the clear margin by which Senator Clinton won the statewide popular vote...

Lingering Questions in Ohio

Posted on March 05, 2008
You may have heard the joke about the pre-election prayer of election officials: "Please don't let it be close." Last night, the prayers of Ohio's election officials were answered ... at least for the statewide popular vote. The margin of victory in last night's Democratic presidential primary was sufficiently large that election administration problems -- like the ones I anticipated here and here -- didn't affect the overall outcome...

Don't Call Ohio Too Soon

Posted on March 04, 2008
That's my advice to the news media tonight, in the event of a close Democratic primary. As returns start to come in from Ohio this evening, we should keep in mind circumstances that will probably result in more outstanding ballots on Election Night than in other states, and maybe even more than is typical for Ohio...

Ohio's Primary: What Will Go Wrong?

Posted on March 02, 2008
With polls showing the Ohio Democratic primary race neck and neck, and with victory in the state likely pivotal to the survival of the Clinton campaign, this question of what might go wrong in Ohio's election is again on many people's minds. Election administration was of course the subject of much discussion here in 2004...

Super Tuesday & Possible Delegate Selection Disputes

Posted on February 05, 2008
This Super Tuesday is like no other, both in terms of the large number of delegates at stake but also because of the national attention that today's national primary is receiving. From here on in, the focus is likely to shift (as it should) from who "won" each state's popular vote to how many delegates each candidate picked up...

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