Election-Campaign Law

Abraham M. Rutchick, ?Deus Ex Machina: The Influence of Polling Place on Voting Behavior? in Political Psychology

Posted on March 24, 2010
I just saw this abstract, for a paper in the new issue of Political Psychology on the possible influence of polling places on voting behavior: Voting is perceived as free and rational. Citizens make whatever choices they wish, shielded from external influences by the privacy of the voting booth...

Will MOVE affect the outcome of primary elections by forcing primaries into August?

Posted on March 15, 2010
Yes, say some political observers in Hawaii and Secretary Mark Ritchie of Minnesota.

OVF Summit

Posted on March 15, 2010
Thad and I are flying to Munich this week to speak at the OVF Summit on oveseas voting.    The Summit schedule is here: http://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/initiatives-UOCAVAsummit-summit2010.  It looks like the impact of the MOVE act will animate a lot of the discussion...

Hall and Kousser on internet voting in the London Free Press

Posted on March 15, 2010
This story came across the transom, about the potential impact of internet voting on turnout. I found this quote by Thad Kousser particularly interesting: “There’s no reason not to expect (mail-in voting) will lead to higher turnout,” said Thad Kousser, a visiting professor at Stanford University whose research was published in Political Analysis...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Spencer and Markovits, ?Long Lines at Polling Stations??

Posted on March 09, 2010
Douglas M. Spencer and Zachary S. Markovits just published a study in the current issue of the Election Law Journal, “Long Lines at Polling Stations? Observations from an Election Day Field Study.” Here is their paper’s abstract: This pilot study represents the first systematic attempt to determine how common lines are on Election Day, [...

Iraq Elections

Posted on March 07, 2010
This video has nice visuals of how the election in Iraq is run. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/03/06/world/middleeast/1247467285193/iraq-s-parliamentary-elections.html

Cool Job for the Carter Center

Posted on March 03, 2010
The Carter Center is looking for a technical expert for the Philippines election. This long term observer will work in conjunction with our field office director (FOD) and technical expert (TE) to conduct an assessment of the Filipino election technology and its impact on the electoral process...

Hanmer et al. in PRQ on ?The Impact of Changing Voting Systems on Residual Votes?

Posted on March 02, 2010
Michael J. Hamner and his colleagues just published a paper in the current issue of Political Research Quarterly, “The Impact of Changing Voting Systems on Residual Votes.” Here is the abstract from their study: Problems in the 2000 presidential election, especially in Florida, initiated a large-scale shift toward new voting technology...

Google is a wonderful invention. 

Posted on March 02, 2010
Google is a wonderful invention.  For most academics, google has transformed the way we conduct our research.  Finding information was never this fast.  With the emergence of scholar.google.com and books.google.com, it becomes much easier to find recent articles and track citations...

Not Reauthorizing Things, Including the EAC

Posted on February 16, 2010
Scott Adler (Associate Professor at the University of Colorado) and I have an opinion piece in Roll Call today about how Congress has basically given up on the basic work of running the government. One of the agencies currently in neglect is the EAC...

Dean Logan on costs of special elections in California

Posted on February 16, 2010
Dean Logan had an op-ed in today’s LA Times on reforming the costs of special elections in California, “Rethinking Elections.”

PPIC study of open primaries in California

Posted on February 11, 2010
Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California authored a study that was just released on open primaries in California. The study looks at the potential impact of the open primary proposal that will be on the ballot in California in the June 2010 primary.

Part II of ?The Christmas Day Intelligence Failure? by Jeff Jonas

Posted on February 09, 2010
On January 13, 2010 I blogged about Jonas’ essay (Part I). He has posted Part II, and there is much of relevance for election administrators and scholars of election administration and voting technology.

CSED study of online pollworker training programs

Posted on February 04, 2010
A study by Stephen T. Mockabee, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (of BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy), was issued that examines online pollworker programs. Here’s the report, “Evaluating On-line Training: A Study of Poll Worker Training in Butler and Delaware Counties, Ohio for the March 4, 2008 [...

Special issue of Political Analysis on natural experiments

Posted on February 03, 2010
A special issue of Political Analysis has just been published, on natural experiments. This issue might be of interest to readers, as research on election administration and elections technology sometimes takes advantage of natural experiments. Here is the link to the special issue.

Paperback of Electronic Elections soon available

Posted on February 03, 2010
The paperback edition of our book, Electronic Elections, will shortly be available. I received copies myself from the publisher late last week. Here’s a link to the book’s page on amazon.com. And here is the link to the book’s page at Princeton University Press.

Paper calls ? upcoming conferences

Posted on February 03, 2010
Paper calls have been issued for a couple of upcoming conferences. First, EVOTE2010. Second, EVT/WOTE 2010.

Undervotes in Oregon: Caused by Two Sided Ballots?

Posted on January 29, 2010
A fascinating conversation is going on here on undervotes in the recent Oregon referendum.  The undervote rate on Measure 67 exceeded the undervote rate on Measure 66 by as much as 1% in one county, and more than .75% in three counties. A spreadsheet displaying the numbers can be found here...

Modern Democracy Magazine

Posted on January 27, 2010
Our colleague Robert Krimmer — who runs e-voting.cc in Austria has published a new edition of Modern Democracy Magazine, a free online publication.  It has several articles about e-voting, internet voting, and election observation in the electronic voting environment...

Final updates on early turnout for tax measures in Oregon

Posted on January 26, 2010
I have been reporting on the turnout figures for two controversial tax measures in Oregon here, and I thought electionupdate readers may want to see the charts. There does seem to be a trend in Oregon toward voters holding their ballots later and later, but as I’ve shown in a paper published in the William and [...

More on voter turnout in Oregon

Posted on January 20, 2010
I have updated my posting on Blue Oregon about voter turnout in the current special tax election. It’s a nice example of very high quality, daily turnout data.  There will be one more update before next Tuesday’s election.  Obviously, the contest in Oregon is not as nationally consequential as the Massachusetts results, but for this state–and [...

Post Doctoral Fellowship in Elections

Posted on January 15, 2010
This came across my desk today: POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP MAKING ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY WORK Applications are invited for a post-doctoral fellowship supported by the ?Making Electoral Democracy Work? project. The study examines how the rules of the game influence voters and parties...

Daily turnout in OR 2010 tax measures

Posted on January 14, 2010
I am blogging on turnout in the January 2010 Oregon income and corporate tax measures here: http://www.blueoregon.com/2010/01/turnout-for-m66-and-m67-lagging.html

Stewart in electionlineWeekly: ?Election administration in N.J. and Va. gubernatorial elections: Survey shows satisfaction with election day, mixed views on voter confidence?

Posted on January 14, 2010
Charles has been busy lately; he authored a wonderful essay in this week’s electionlineWeekly on surveys of voter experience conducted in New Jersey and Virginia, immediately following their November 2009 gubernatorial elections. The essay, “Election administration in N...

2008 EAC Election Day Survey Data in Stata Format

Posted on January 14, 2010
Charles Stewart passed along the 2008 EAC Election Day Survey files in Stata format; they are now in the VTP’s Data Set Archives.

Why the ?Christmas Day Intelligence Failure? might be of interest to election scholars and administrators

Posted on January 13, 2010
My colleague Jeff Jonas has written an important essay on the “Christmas Day Intelligence Failure”, the first of at least two parts: “The Christmas Day Intelligence Failure ? Part I: Enterprise Amnesia vs. Enterprise Intelligence”...

Supreme Court and Money in Elections

Posted on January 09, 2010
The Supreme Court is expected to toss out at least some of the bans on corporate and union money in elections. This will likely have a direct impact on election administration in at least two ways. First, it will lead to increased spending designed to mobilize voters, which will add new strains on [...

Even MORE on newspaper registration forms??

Posted on January 06, 2010
I discovered that the Washington Bus Project actually tried the newspaper “wrap” registration form last year.  Here are some images of their wrap.  Interesting thing in this case the alternative weekly–The Stranger–took on most of the production duties and sold political ads in the wrap.

Carnegie Review: ?Election Reform: Charting the Course to Voter Engagement?

Posted on January 06, 2010
The latest issue of the Carnegie Reporter has a nice article recounting all of the work that the Carnegie Corporation of New York as done to support research and policymaking on election reform, “Election Reform: Charting the Course to Voter Engagement...

Political Analysis Now Based at Caltech

Posted on January 06, 2010
As of this past Monday, Jonathan N. Katz and I are now the co-editors of the academic journal Political Analysis. We are excited to be taking on these editorial responsibilities, and welcome submissions (see instructions at the link above).

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.