Election-Campaign Law

New research: The effects of multiple international election monitoring organizations

Posted on March 11, 2009
There’s a paper out in the current issue of Perspectives on Politics, “The More the Merrier? The Effects of Having Multiple International Election Monitoring Organizations”, by Judith Kelley. Her paper has some really useful data on the number of elections, over time, with multiple international election monitoring organizations present...

Senate Rules Hearing on Voter Registration

Posted on March 11, 2009
Paul recently wrote about “voter registration modernization.” I thought I’d give the link to hearings this morning before the U.S. Senate Rules and Administration committee: “Voter Registration: Assessing Current Problems.” Of particular interest is the testimony by Stephen Ansolabehere, where he uses data from the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to argue [...

Voter registration modernization?who coined this term?

Posted on March 10, 2009
I thought that my colleagues at the Make Voting Work initiative were the first to come up with the term “voter registration modernization.” I figured Doug Chapin deserves the credit. I first heard the term outside of the Pew command center at a recent Project Vote / Demos / Barnard conference on voter registration held in [...

Another good news feed: Project Vote ?news clips?

Posted on March 10, 2009
Most readers here probably subscribe to Rick Hasen’s Election Law listserv. Another good news feed that I rely on comes from Project Vote.  You can sign up for their daily (mainly a few times a week) news feed here: http://www.projectvote.org/ (click on the “subscribe to our newsletter” link on the left hand side)...

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Election Day in LA!

Posted on March 03, 2009

Voter Registration Conference in NYC

Posted on February 27, 2009

Alternative Voting Updates

Posted on February 24, 2009
A bill to make early voting easier in New Jersey has passed the Assembly but is currently unscheduled for a vote in the Senate. A St Petersburg Times editorial is complaining about high turnout related to voting by mail.  It seems that the Pinellas County recorder “aggressively recruited” voters to sign up for permanent by mail [...

Top two debate on Hasen?s listserv

Posted on February 22, 2009
Rick Hasen posted a little news item about the top-two primary, and the avalanche of debate has already begun on the election law listserv.  Rick and I talked about this when we were in DC for the ELJ / UCDC / AEI / Brooking post election conference.  I was on the opposing side of a [...

CA budget deal and open primary compromise details

Posted on February 19, 2009
I received this from a friend up in Sacramento, from the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, regarding the open primary legislation that was passed as part of the budget deal earlier today.

California?s budget deal and primary election reform

Posted on February 19, 2009
Rumors have been circulating for the past week that California State Senator Abel Maldonado would be willing to trade his vote for the budget deal, if his fellow lawmakers would agree to place on a future ballot a constitutional amendment that would provide for some sort of future open primary (of course if approved by [...

Overseas voting and the Internet

Posted on February 11, 2009
Kudos to Michael for the links to overseas voting systems in other countries.  If you read between the lines–or maybe read more directly Alvarez and Hall’s book on electronic elections–Mike’s implication is clear.  Fixing overseas citizen and military voting may finally move us toward a secure system of internet voting...

Interesting paper on political science and voter assistance websites

Posted on February 11, 2009
Henry Farrell over at MonkeyCage has a very interesting post on a recent paper comparing “voter assistance” websites that have been cropping up in Europe. These sites purport to help citizens choose the “correct” candidate, based on their responses to a series of survey questions...

Some additional news on overseas balloting: South Africa, Switzerland and France

Posted on February 11, 2009
Following up on Paul’s recent posting from the OVF event, I noticed three other news items about overseas balloting in other nations. First, from South Africa, “South Africa court rules in favor of overseas balloting.” Second, from Switzerland, “Geneva introduces e-voting...

OVF Report

Posted on February 06, 2009
I am in DC for the NASS and NASED meetings, and on Thursday I attended the 2009 OVF Summit on overseas voting.   While I’m sure this was not quite the same locale as the meeting held in Munich, there was pretty good turnout, particularly from a number of Senate and House staffs...

Election administration panel at WPSA

Posted on January 29, 2009
I am on an upcoming panel at the Western Political Science Association meeting in Vancouver, BC: Panel 22. 02 - The Electoral Process and Election Administration Date:   Thursday, March 19, 2009, 1:15 - 3:00 PM Chair(s):       none Paper(s):       What’s up with Superdelegates? The Democratic Nomination Process in the 2008 Presidential Election Southwell, Priscilla, psouth@uoregon...

Early voting in Iraq

Posted on January 29, 2009
Early voting is being allowed for certain groups in Iraq, in advance of Saturday’s provincial elections. Here’s a description from the Washington Post’s story, “Tens of Thousands Vote Early in Iraq:” Regular voting is scheduled for Saturday to choose the equivalent of state legislatures in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces...

The new redistricting process begins in California

Posted on January 29, 2009
I received an email today from California Forward, an update on redistricting in California, that noted that the Bureau of State Audits (BSA) this week began a series of hearings throughout California on how to set up the new public commission that will draw the boundaries for state legislative and board of equalization districts...

Request: Examples of ?colored revolutions? outside of the post-communist world

Posted on January 26, 2009
Guest blog, Joshua A. Tucker: I?m interested in finding examples of ?colored revolutions? that have taken place outside of the post-communist world ? can anyone help me out here? In other words, I?d like some examples of cases where major electoral fraud took place (or was alleged to have taken place) and was followed by [...

Legislative wrangling over voter ID in Texas

Posted on January 26, 2009
Two years ago, despite a 79-71 Republican majority and a conservative speaker, the Texas House barely passed a bill that would have required Texas voters to show government-issued identification before casting a ballot. But the voter ID bill died in the Senate thanks to the so-called two-thirds rule, a parliamentarian procedure that requires two-thirds of the [...

Vote Centers on the March

Posted on January 26, 2009
From the Arizona Republic: Phoenix is proposing to consolidate nearly 130 polling places into 20 voting hubs for all city elections beginning next year. The move comes as an overwhelming number of Phoenix voters are choosing to vote early rather than at polls...

Alternative voting news of the week

Posted on January 23, 2009
Roll Call has a story by Jessica Laval urging changes in the way military absentee ballots are handled.  (Thanks to AEI for the link to Roll Call, which is typically by subscription.)  The most interesting suggestion is to make voter registration changes part of the “PCS” (permanent change of status) checklist for uniformed personnel...

Alternative Voting News of the Week

Posted on January 16, 2009
Ohio: SoS Jennifer Brunner is being criticized by state legislators because she allowed individual counties to choose whether to send absentee ballot applications to all voters, and whether to include return postage.  Brunner argues that the legislature failed to allocate enough funds...

MonkeyCage reviewing the 2008 Election ?Forum?

Posted on January 13, 2009
The Monkey Cage blog is reviewing a set of articles published in the Forum, which themselves review the 2008 election. Good reading.

Democracy Corps analysis of early voting in 2008

Posted on January 13, 2009
Democracy Corps just posted a study they did of early voting in the 2008 election, “The 2008 Early Vote.” Here is the study’s overview: In the 10 months leading up to the 2008 election, Democracy Corps conducted nearly 18,000 interviews in 16 national surveys with voters around the country...

Alleged voter fraud on Craigslist

Posted on January 13, 2009
This story, “Detectives investigating potential voter fraud on Craiglist”, comes from King County. Some details: According to a recent search warrant, on Oct. 19, less than a month before the general election, an ad was posted on the free classified advertising site offering the mail-in ballot for “$50 or best offer...

Pew report on overseas voting

Posted on January 06, 2009
Hot off of the presses: “No Time to Vote: Challenges Facing America’s Overseas Military Voters.”

Electing an Election Director?

Posted on January 05, 2009
King County, WA is going to conduct its first fully vote by mail election–in order to elect the election director! At first blush, I thought this was unusual, until I checked David Kimball and Martha Kropf’s excellent article in the Review of Policy Research (for those of you who don’t have access, this is Review of [...

Franken to be declared winner after Minnesota recount

Posted on January 04, 2009
Word is out that the state election board is going to declare Al Franken the winner in the Minnesota Senate race, after the long recount showed that Franken won by 225 votes. There’s lots of reports on this, here is one from CNN. Odds are also good that Coleman will challenge this in [...

Weather and alternative voting

Posted on January 02, 2009
As another “weather event” moves into Oregon, we have flooding and landslides closing some of our major roads.  This brings to mind one of the justifications I have heard for alternative voting methods–they are adaptable to weather crises...

NIST study of electronic ballot transmission for UOCAVA

Posted on December 27, 2008
A new NIST report is cited here but the link to the report is broken.  Maybe Mike and Thad can find it? Another example where UOCAVA problems are forging a path that will likely be followed by all voters in the near future.

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