Election-Campaign Law

Absentee vote fraud in Charleston, WV? Need forensics!

Posted on May 25, 2010
(Cross posted from earlyvoting.net). There have been accusations of absentee vote fraud in Lincoln County, WV, when 75% of absentee ballots that were requested were returned, and 90% of those favored one group of candidates. The response of county officials is not encouraging: ? “Our office encouraged every voter to participate in the democratic process, [...

Problems anticipated in upcoming Philippine election

Posted on May 09, 2010
A number of reports anticipate that there will be problems in the May 10 Philippine elections, given that there have been issues with the formatting of memory cards in the new voting system that they will be using. Here is one from Time: “Philippine Elections: Tech Snafus with PCOS Voting Machines...

UK election problems produce calls for reform

Posted on May 08, 2010
These are from the BBC: “Demo outside Lib Dem meeting demands electoral reform”. “Chaotic polling problems lead to calls for e-voting”. And from the AP: “UK’s voting system could see fundamental reform.” So has the UK finally had their “Florida”?

Problems in UK election

Posted on May 07, 2010
There are a number of reports of problems in the UK elections. This is from the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100506-726772.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope

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New Mexico ecosystem: A standard for other states to follow

Posted on May 07, 2010
More kudos for the New Mexico ecosystem report that Mike referenced below: Our study of election administration in New Mexico is now available, ?Assessing Electoral Performance in New Mexico Using an Ecosystem Approach.? Thad and I worked on this project, which was lead by Lonna Atkeson...

Election Problems in the UK

Posted on May 07, 2010
The UK elections were very problematic in several polling locations.  There is a great video and story here about the problems.   The story notes that: Thousands of people were deprived of the right to vote last night as polling stations were unable to cope with demand...

What happened in the UK election?

Posted on May 07, 2010
At this point, there are additional details emerging regarding the reports of voting problems in yesterday’s UK election. These problems seem to primarily regard long lines and people being possibly turned away from polling places because of the lines; a lack of balloting materials in some places; and simply a higher turnout than election [...

First the UK, now problems cropping up in the Phillippines?

Posted on May 07, 2010
I got this Economist story from colleague Ingo Boltz. “System error: To err is human but to really foul things up you need a computer.” Apparently the folks running the new voting system in the Phillippines recently discovered some glitches in how their system tallied votes...

Frustrated UK voters, their own voices

Posted on May 07, 2010
The BBC has collected some reports from voters who had trouble voting, or who say they were turned away from the polls. They also have collected similar reports from UK voters who were overseas.

What can you do in a UK polling station?

Posted on May 06, 2010
Here’s an interesting FAQ on what you can and cannot do in a UK polling station. Among my favorites: You can bring your dog to the polling station, as long as they are not disruptive. Poll workers cannot stop someone from voting if they suspect they are under the influence, unless they ask a series of [...

And I thought that we only had unusual polling places in the US!

Posted on May 06, 2010
Here’s a fun BBC video, showing “Polling stations in pubs, caravans and buses.”

Snafus in the UK elections

Posted on May 06, 2010
I ran across a few reports of interesting snafus and problems in the UK elections this morning: “Wrong names printed on Vauxhall ballot papers.” “Baby sent polling card for election in Bicester” (it’s a cute kid, by the way)...

Polls open in UK Election!

Posted on May 06, 2010
The polls are open in the UK Election. The BBC has this really interesting video in which the elections manager for the Isle of Wight demonstrates what happens to ballots after they are placed into the ballot box: “Election 2010: Your vote’s journey...

Searching for voting system RFP?s

Posted on May 01, 2010
Election official colleagues — as part of our Voting Systems Assessment Project, we are hoping to study a few recent voting system RFP’s. If you could email me with info (or the RFP’s themselves), we would very much appreciate the help.

Ecosystem study of election administration in New Mexico

Posted on April 29, 2010
Our study of election administration in New Mexico is now available, “Assessing Electoral Performance in New Mexico Using an Ecosystem Approach.” Thad and I worked on this project, which was lead by Lonna Atkeson. Here is a very brief summary of the study: This new study provides an in-depth, systematic examination of New Mexico?s election ecosystem...

Washington State in Supreme Court Over Petition Signatures

Posted on April 29, 2010
Dehlia Lithwick has a great story covering the Washington State case about whether signatures on petitions are covered under public disclosure provisions of Public Records Acts. The article is both an excellent analysis and also incredibly funny.  As she notes, the question that underlies this case is whether you view politics as a contact [...

New VTP working paper on Scantegrity II?s use in Tacoma Park

Posted on April 29, 2010
Carback et al. have recently published their working paper on the use of Scantegrity II in a recent election in Tacoma Park, “Scantegrity II Municipal Election at Takoma Park: The First E2E Binding Governmental Election with Ballot Privacy.” Here’s the paper’s abstract: On November 3, 2009, voters in Takoma Park, Maryland, cast ballots for mayor and city [...

Primary process reform in California

Posted on April 22, 2010
Recently California Forward released a report that Tony Quinn and I wrote, “Primary Process Reform in California.”

Critique of Vote by Mail

Posted on April 22, 2010
Hans Von Spakovsky has written a critique of absentee voting for the Heritage Foundation. You can find it here. Abstract: Trading the security, integrity, and shared experience of the in-person election process for all-mail elections is a bad idea for a number of reasons...

Earlyvoting.net relaunch

Posted on April 19, 2010
We have relaunched the Early Voting Information Website (earlyvoting.net).   We hope the site is easier to navigate.  We’ve added a FAQ to answer the most common questions we receive about early voting, a resources page, and a link to most of our project reports and papers...

Interesting OC Register story on problems in petition signature collection

Posted on April 18, 2010
There was an interesting story in the OC Register recently, “Petitioners conned voters into switching to the GOP.” A similar issue arose in the recent past in Orange County, as the story discusses. Here’s a bit from the story that discusses their investigation: Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to [...

Midwest Political Science Association next week ? lots of elections research!

Posted on April 16, 2010
The Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) annual meetings are next week, and the preliminary program lists a number of panels and presentations that should be of interest: Panel 24-2 The Administration of Elections (Thursday 12:45) Panel 24-17 The Roll of Poll Workers in Elections (Friday 8:30) Panel 50-23 Political Oversight of Bureaucracy (Friday 10:25); Thad Hall and Daniel [...

Guest Column: Peter Wagner on Felons, Redistricting, and the Urban/Rural Divide

Posted on April 09, 2010
This from Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative: Professor Gronke, I just saw your blog post from earlier this week. I’d argue that rather than changing redistricting practices, Senator Shield’s bill (and that pending in 7 other states) would merely put current redistricting practices back in sync with state law...

Pew studies on non-precinct place voting

Posted on April 07, 2010
A number of Pew-sponsored studies of non-precinct place voting were released recently, and they are available here. Here is a quick description: In 2008, Make Voting Work (MVW), a project of the Pew Center on the States funded through The Pew Charitable Trusts and the former JEHT Foundation, released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for [...

Guest Column: Spencer on felons and redistricting

Posted on April 05, 2010
Got this email from Douglas Spencer and he agreed to let me post it: Paul, I read your post on the new Oregon measure for counting felons as part of the redistricting process.  I don’t know too much about this, either, but in addition to general population shifts, I do know that this has been one of [...

Felons and Redistricting

Posted on April 02, 2010
Oregon State Senator Chip Shields has introduced SB 1028 that would change the way that prisoners are counted for the purposes of redistricting. He was inspired by this group: the “Prisoners of the Census” project which is trying to get the Census to count prisoners based on their self-identified place of residence, not where they are [...

Satellite early voting blocked in Marion County, IN

Posted on April 01, 2010
The Marion County, IN clerk reports that 65% of all early voters choose to cast ballots at satellite centers, rather than “fight traffic downtown, find a place to park, figure out how to get into a building. They wanted a flexible option.” There will be no satellite early voting this year in Marion County, however...

Electronic voting in The Onion

Posted on March 29, 2010
Thad Hall particularly likes step 4 in this story: http://www.theonion.com/articles/city-of-chicago-to-modernize-outdated-graft-progra,17140/

Hicks nomination to EAC

Posted on March 28, 2010
Rick Hasen blogged on the nomination of Thomas Hicks to the EAC.  Like Rick, I’m a big fan of this nomination.  I’ve dealt with Tom at meetings of NASS and NASED over the years and he’s paid close attention to the work of the Elections Initiatives at Pew...

Same Day registration and turnout in Maryland: Alvarez and Nagler report

Posted on March 25, 2010
This just came across the transom in electionline: Same Day Voter Registration in Maryland – R. Michael Alvarez, California Institute of Technology; Jonathan Nagler, New York University, Demos, Briefing Paper, Winter 2010: In analyzing the potential impact if Maryland adopted same-day registration, the authors find that overall turnout could go up by 4...

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