Election-Campaign Law

Working paper on voting technology adoption

Posted on November 18, 2008
A colleague forwarded to me this following working paper, by Daniel K.N. Johnson and Kristina M. Lybecker, “Does HAVA Help the Have Nots? U.S. Adoption of New Election Equipment, 1980-2008. Here’s the abstract: During the tabulation of votes in the 2000 presidential election, the world was shocked at the technological inadequacy of electoral equipment [...

Paper v. Electronic Voting in Ohio

Posted on November 17, 2008
There have been an interesting couple of articles about error rates in paper ballots in Franklin County Ohio.  Here is the crux of the discussion: Votes in central Ohio’s Franklin County were 2.5 times more likely to go unrecorded when they were cast on paper ballots instead of touch-screen machines, a newspaper analysis of the Nov...

More on Franklin County, OH residual votes

Posted on November 17, 2008
Thad’s posting below points to a newspaper article that illustrates that in some cases we haven’t come very far from Florida 2000.  I’m hoping that the following paragraphs misrepresents what Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in defense of paper ballots, since it seems to be defending a voting method because it allows over- and [...

Expect a Begich surge next week. He should thank the Alaska Independence Party

Posted on November 15, 2008
I have written a brief memo about the three waves of votes counted in the Alaska Senate race, available here. While it’s not clear precisely where the uncounted votes are in Alaska, some educated guesses lead me to believe that Begich could garner another 6,000 votes, on net, when all the outstanding votes are counted...

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Does early voting dampen turnout?

Posted on November 14, 2008
The final reports are nearly in, and Curtis Gans and Michael McDonald agree on at least one thing: turnout in 2008 did not set records.  Somewhere between 128 and 130 million votes will be recorded, according to Gans and McDonald. Record registration numbers dd not lead to record turnout, nor did record early voting numbers...

Chipman, Herron, and Lewis paper on MN residual vote

Posted on November 13, 2008
Although I kinda like my little memo on the subject, Jonathan Chipman, Michael Herron, and Jeff Lewis have a very interesting and thorough paper on the topic here. One of the bold features of the paper is an effort to use the difference in the residual vote rate between the presidential and senate races as [...

Residual votes in 10 states: 6 increases over 2004

Posted on November 13, 2008
A few states have now published unofficial turnout figures along with their unofficial vote totals.  Here are the preliminary residual vote rates for AZ, DC, FL, HI, MI, MN, NH, ND, SD, and WY.  Unlike 2004, where almost every state experienced a significant drop in the residual vote rate (enough that 1m votes were “recovered”), [...

Voting in the GA Senate Runoff starts Friday

Posted on November 12, 2008
Title says it all.  Details are still being worked out in some counties, but it looks like election officials are ramping up to start early voting on Monday Friday! And it seems like the election just ended…. WAIT!  It did!!

Moving on ?

Posted on November 10, 2008
I’ve been finding it interesting that we are less than a week out of the presidential election, and we are hearing less about the past election than about future improvements and reforms. Two pieces in this morning’s LA Times struck me in this regard, the first a national piece, “Voter registration process is under [...

Kudos to Virginia for documenting changes to the election count

Posted on November 10, 2008
The Virginia Board of Elections web site has a feature that documents all changes to the reported election returns, as they have evolved over time.  You can get to the accounting by going to the election results for the office you’re interested in, and then clicking the “See History of Changes” link...

Minnesota update with residual votes

Posted on November 10, 2008
Using estimates of turnout at the precinct level, I have redone my previous memo about Minnesota, this time using residual vote rather than drop-off.  The results are substantively unchanged.  The new memo is here

Residual vote rate in AZ drops

Posted on November 08, 2008
The residual vote rate in AZ has dropped, based on unofficial election returns.  The estimated rate for 2008 was 1.1%, compared to 1.3% in 2004 and 1.7% in 2000.  Write-ins have yet to be recorded, which will reduce the residual vote rate even further...

Preliminary residual vote rate for Minnesota

Posted on November 07, 2008
Based on the preliminary turnout figures on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s web site and the election returns reported, the Minnesota residual vote rate is 1.1%, approximately double its 2004 rate of 0.6%.  Past experience suggests that residual vote rates tend to rise in most states at this point, though there may be something different [...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 06, 2008
Looking Forward to 2012 Before Election Day had even begun, predictions and suggestions for future elections were already prevalent: When Michael McDonald (George Mason University) was asked was asked how voting procedures would change for 2012, he answered that the long lines may cause more states to adopt early voting, including Maryland...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 06, 2008
Looking Back on Election Day Although votes are still being counted (see Fulton County, FL where poll workers took the night off), for the most part the process of counting votes has gone relatively quickly. In Multnomah County, OR, a county said to be slowing Oregon’s final tally, they counted ballots through the night at [...

A quick note on Minnesota

Posted on November 06, 2008
I will try to produce a quick memo on this tonight, but here are some things I’m seeing in the pattern of “roll off” (a possible proxy for “residual votes”) in the Franken/Coleman race in Minnesota: Roll-off appears to be greater in precincts that gave Obama a larger vote Roll-off appears to be greater in larger precincts Roll-off [...

That long Oregon ballot?

Posted on November 06, 2008
The main reason for the delayed count in Multnomah County, OR turns out to be a long (physically long) ballot, longer than could be accomodated in the ‘hopper’ for the readers.  The machines kept jamming and a lot of ballots had to be hand fed.

MN Senate election exhibits greater ?drop-off? in Democratic areas

Posted on November 06, 2008
I’ve written a short memo, available here, which examines the “drop-off” rate in the Minnesota senatorial election.  The drop-off rate, which is a proxy for the residual vote rate (currently uncalculatable), is a way of measuring how many ballots were not counted toward one of the senatorial candidates, and therefore are the most likely to [...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 05, 2008
Counting issues Colorado (Boulder): A problem with “paper dust” (small specks and particles that do not allow ballots to be scanned correctly) in mail-in ballots could slow down the count. The problem implies that poll workers have to go through each ballot...

Summary of Election Day problems (or lack thereof?)

Posted on November 05, 2008
Wednesday morning the news is that there is relatively little of it, which likely means a victory for election administration.  The New York Times reports on a few scattered problems, but acknowledges that there were no “catastrophic failures...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 05, 2008
A Latino view of the electoral process According to the U.S. Spanish Newswire Services (EFE EEUU), Florida’s electoral process accommodated the record turnout smoothly and without major problems. They collected the opinion of several Latino voters who in turn though that: voting was not complicated but needs to be better organized; that she was amazed at [...

NORC early voting poll results

Posted on November 05, 2008
Dear Colleagues: NORC at the University of Chicago is conducting a public opinion poll in two regions of the country to provide a snapshot of the voter experience during the 2008 presidential election.  As part of this study, we have been conducting a telephone sample survey from a list of people in Franklin County Ohio who [...

Slow count in Oregon

Posted on November 05, 2008
As I warned here yesterday, the high number of last minute ballots, plus an unexpected counting glitch in Lane County (I’m trying to track down more information) has led to a slow count in Oregon. Only 33% of ballots have been counted in Lane (Eugene) and 45% in Multnomah (Portland)...

Residual vote in Florida, the early view

Posted on November 05, 2008
It is way too early to make too much of outliers as the election returns are posted by states.  Still, it is becoming possible to take a peek at residual vote statistics, which I’ll be doing today and tomorrow. Florida is a place to start.  As of this writing, the state elections department has posted full [...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
Coping with high turnout Finally, it’s Election Day! High turnout is expected in states like Alabama, Arizona, California –in particular in Los Angeles, Napa and Solano, Monterrey and Ventura counties, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Lousiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
I love technology Despite optimistic predictions about election day, concerns remain.  Electronic voting, including optical scanners, DRE?s and the absence of VVPAT?s, are all issues of concern, especially in states that do not offer early voting and are thus more likely to be overwhelmed by tomorrow?s turnout...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
On the radio In recent days there have been countless radio shows covering the gamut of election issues.  So, for those of you who want to double your news intake, you can listen while you read your morning news. Here are just a few of today’s stories featuring elections… All Things Considered discusses the possibility of [...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
The human factor Most of the poll worker stories which popped up in the news, are positive. We found very few stories about problems with poll workers. This is a list of some of them: Florida: A poll watcher said that due to breakdowns with voting machines, poll workers started issuing paper ballots and placing the votes [...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
More on ballot design: ovals vs. arrows In this link, you can find a voter account about the experience of filling arrows relative to filling ovals in her paper ballot. In her opinion, ovals are easier to fill than arrows, and this should lead to less invalid votes...

Elections in the News

Posted on November 04, 2008
The Biggest Surprise Despite the efforts of the media to create headlines, and despite the alarms of watchdog groups, this election seems to be going remarkably smooth… Connecticut (Hartford): Despite record turnout, nothing more than one machine problem here, a paper jam there… Georgia (South Fulton County): Power was out all morning, so all 15 machines could [...

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