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2008 Election Day Survey: Public Comment Period is open

By Paul Gronke

The EAC announced the contents of the 2008 Election Day Survey (full disclosure: I worked as a subcontractor on the 2006 study and helped in the early design phase of the 2008 study).

The 60 day public comment period started on March 20 and ends on May 19.

The announcement is here.

The survey is Word document available here.

I'll flag a few important elements for any interested readers:

• The Commission is envisioning a two part survey, one a "statutory review" that would be distributed before the election and collects information on basic legal and administrative procedures in the states. This allows the Commission to get ahead of the curve on collecting the information, and also decouples this "state level" data from the county level information contained in the survey.
• The main data instrument is formatted like a paper survey for the purposes of OMB review, but I believe the EAC is contemplating different forms of data submission.
• Pay close attention to the section on definitions. I'd urge anyone who thinks these definitions are unclear to contact the EAC. It was very clear from the 2006 survey that is is incumbent on the Commission to come up with some sort of standardized definitions for states to follow, even if everyone doesn't agree with them, so that the data that is submitted can be comparable across jurisdictions.
  

Full post as published by Election Updates on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).