Election-Campaign Law

Google voter assistance tools

Posted on October 30, 2010
Doug Chapin passed along this link from Google, which provides a number of links to some voter assistance tools Google has developed.

Fresno County ballot language error

Posted on October 30, 2010
According to some media reports, Fresno County has used the wrong ballot language for Prop 23: “Fresno Co. puts wrong ballot language for Prop. 23.” Here is more info from this report: Elections officials in Fresno County say hundreds of thousands of voters are getting ballots that incorrectly describe the ballot measure that would suspend the [...

WA Senate Race: Be ready for a slow count

Posted on October 29, 2010
I have been communicating with friends and colleagues in Washington about how quickly ballots arrive and are counted in the state. The figures are fascinating, and if it is true that the Washington race may end up being crucial in determining control of the Senate, then the national media has better be prepared [...

OR Ballot Report: Democrat ballot return rates lagging 2006, GOP and Unaffiliated Rates are up

Posted on October 29, 2010
The turnout numbers for Oregon, with four more days to go, are in, and it looks like Republican and Unaffiliated voters are returning their ballots at a higher clip than Democrats. The two graphics below compare the turnout in 2006, with a line demarcating the Friday before Election Day, with the ballots processed thus far in [...

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Voter registration fraud investigated in Dona Ana County

Posted on October 28, 2010
Just saw this report, “Dona Ana County Authorities Investigate Potential Voter Registration Fraud”.

Welcoming a new Election Updates contributor, Lonna Atkeson

Posted on October 28, 2010
We are happy to welcome Lonna Atkeson as a new contributor to our Election Updates blog. Lonna is a Professor and Regents’ Lecturer in Political Science at the University of New Mexico, and she has research interests in election administration, public opinion and voting behavior, and methodology...

New Searchable Database on State Recount and Audit Laws

Posted on October 28, 2010
Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota have developed a very useful tool on state laws on election audits and recounts that can be found on their web site at: http://ceimn.org/ceimn-state-recount-laws-searchable-database. The web site provides a detailed description of each state?s recount and post election auditing laws...

Gallup: ?Early Voting Highest Among Older Voters, Those in West?

Posted on October 27, 2010
Gallup released a report, “Early Voting Highest Among Older Voters, Those in West”. Here is the basic data table from the Gallup report:

Absentee ballot fraud charges in Daytona Beach

Posted on October 27, 2010
One of my graduate students sent this along, “Daytona Beach Commissioner Arrested on Fraud Charges.” The charges involve absentee ballot fraud in a recent election in Daytona Beach. According to the story, the Volusia County Supervisor of Elections noticed some irregularities in absentee ballot requests: McFall filed the complaint in August after her office received a [...

Absentee voter data ?only? $3000 in ND

Posted on October 27, 2010
Check out this story out of Fargo: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/296195/ Interesting points to notice: 1) The state charges $3000 for what must involve pushing a button to generate a report. I wonder if they realize that less well-funded campaigns may not be able to shoulder that cost or that other states make this information available for a very [...

Voting Info Project: Now you can get voting info from your mobile phone!

Posted on October 27, 2010
On the web: http://votinginfoproject.org On your mobile phone: http://m.votinginfoproject.org

Marc Ambinder gets early voting right

Posted on October 26, 2010
In my opinion of course: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/the-key-early-voting-question/65108/

More breathless (mis)interpretation of early early voting numbers

Posted on October 25, 2010
I would have expected breathless overinterpretation of numbers from Politico, but I’m disappointed to see Nate Silver follow suit.  Once again, this shows that a little statistics and not much contextual knowledge can really send an analyst the wrong way...

Connecticut and the WWE

Posted on October 24, 2010
Linda McMahon — co-owner of World Wrestling Entertainment — is on the ballot in the State of Connecticut for the United States Senate. I came across this video where her husband criticizes the Secretary of State of Connecticut for allowing local poll workers to determine of wearing WWE merchandise to the polls will be [...

Name of Illinois candidate misspelled on ballot

Posted on October 20, 2010
I saw this last week, thought it was worth reposting here: “Ill. candidate’s name misspelled as ‘Whitey’”.

Stewart, ?More Voting by Mail? First, Consider the Hidden Costs?

Posted on October 20, 2010
Charles published this essay over at Election Law @ Moritz, “More Voting by Mail? First, Consider the Hidden Costs.” Well worth a read!

No Excuse Ballot Returns in Franklin County, OH

Posted on October 15, 2010
Michael McDonald has been tracking no-excuse ballot returns in a number of states. I have been able to obtain the partisan ballot return rates in Franklin County, OH. These results, while very early in the voting process, confirm some of the patterns Michael has found in Iowa...

Overseas ballots going out late

Posted on October 15, 2010
USA Today has a story on late overseas ballots this morning, “Overseas ballots mailed out late.”

The Ohio ?experiment? and partisan no-excuse absentee return rates

Posted on October 15, 2010
I have been tracking early vote returns with the team at the Early Voting Information Center.  A recent exchange with Matt Damschroder, the deputy director of the Board of Elections in Franklin County, OH, unearthed a fascinating administrative experiment underway in Ohio...

Nate Silver on VBM and polling

Posted on October 14, 2010
A guest posting from James Hicks, who works with me at earlyvoting.net: Nate Silver has a post over at 538 about Washington state, and the difficulties with forecasting election results there. I don’t know how pollsters adjust their likely voter models in states with significant early voting (though this seems like an increasingly important question), but I [...

Absentee ballot patterns in Cuyahoga; no party advantage but slow NP returns

Posted on October 14, 2010
I’ve created a quick spreadsheet from the early voting turnout results posted at Cuyahoga County, OH (hat tip to Michael McDonald). To date, there are differences between D’s and R’s, but a noticeably lower return rate among non-affiliated voters, when ballot returns are calculated as a percentage of ballots requested...

It?s too early to write a story about early voting turnout

Posted on October 13, 2010
I’ve been chiding my good friend Michael McDonald for promoting early voting returns on the Election Law listserv.  In one posting, he refers to “tantalizing” early returns from North Carolina. Michael does a great service to all of us by posting these data, and by providing the best turnout and voter registration data available...

CEDEM CONFERENCE

Posted on October 13, 2010
I am on the program committee for the CEDEM conference and this is their call for papers. CALL FOR PAPERS Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/cedem DEADLINE for Submission: 1 December 2010 CeDEM11 presents the following Tracks: E-PARTICPATION with co-chairs:  Julia Glidden (21C Consulting, UK) and Jeremy Millard (Danish Technological Institute, DK) OPEN GOVERNMENT with co-chairs:  Philipp Müller (University of Salzburg, Business School, [...

Guest Column: Ned Foley (OSU) on Alaska

Posted on October 04, 2010
Ned Foley of the Moritz School of Law at the Ohio State University weighs in on our recent discussions about Alaska.  For those who don’t know, Ned is one of a few experts on the legal and political wrangling in Coleman vs. Franken, and I appreciate his willingness to muse on this issue...

Congratulations to Lonna Atkeson for Common Cause New Mexico Award

Posted on September 30, 2010
Our colleague from the University of New Mexico, Lonna Atkeson, is receiving a great award from Common Cause New Mexico to recognize the important work she has done to improve elections and governance in New Mexico. The award is the Common Cause New Mexico Jack Taylor Award, and the announcement of the award says [...

On compulsory voting

Posted on September 29, 2010
A nice exchange of articles / views on compulsory voting in the most recent British Journal of Political Science.  This may be gated for many of you, apologies if so: Compulsory Voting: A Critical Perspective Annabelle Lever British Journal of Political Science, Volume 40, Issue 04, October 2010, pp 897 – 915 (rest of articles below the split) [ abstract [...

On the virtues on not being quoted? Zeleny (NYT) on early voting (2)

Posted on September 29, 2010
Jeff Zeleny of the NY Times had a nice piece on early voting yesterday, and how the rise of new balloting methods have altered political campaigns. I notice that no academics were quoted in the piece, including of course, me!  I think this is actually an accomplishment–while I have been predicting these changes to campaign strategy [...

Gronke on Hall on Alaska

Posted on September 29, 2010
Thad Hall notes (below) the Alaksa statute (linked here) regarding Alaska law on rules for counting ballots, including write-ins. I don’t agree with Thad, however, that the key question here is whether the oval is filled in properly.  The law specifies that nearly any mark (”making “X” marks, diagonal, horizontal, or vertical marks, solid marks, stars, [...

Updated early voting calendar

Posted on September 29, 2010
New and improved version 2.0:      http://earlyvoting.net/calendar/index2.php (Thoughts on how this compares to version 1.0 (earlyvoting.net/calendar) are appreciated.) A shout out to Richard Wolf of the USA Today for getting us moving on this page.  For reporters, there is a downloadable spreadsheet with the same dates; we only ask you cite the source if you use [...

Jeff Zeleny (NYT) on early voting and campaigns (1)

Posted on September 29, 2010
From James Hicks at EVIC: This Sunday’s NYT ramped up the newspaper’s midterm election coverage, including a story highlighting a wave of negative advertising being put out by Democrats in tight races. As we’ve argued in the past, the longer “Election Day” created by early voting is likely to change campaigns in a number of ways, including bringing [...

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