Election-Campaign Law

Emanuel controversy: what about early voting deadlines?

Posted on January 24, 2011
As I warned on earlyvoting.net, extended litigation of Emanuel’s candidacy could imperil early voting,which is scheduled to begin on January 31st. The other shoe just dropped today.  Unless the Supreme Court can rule in a few days, it is difficult for me to see how election officials can get ready by Monday...

More redistricting stories

Posted on January 20, 2011
Thad’s recent post brought to mind a few snafus that occurred in Oregon after the last redistricting cycle. The situation here was a bit different–we had a state legislator who was not in his district because the street address of the parcel was different from the physical (geo coded) location of the house...

Administrative Nightmare for a Candidate

Posted on January 19, 2011
So we are having the most bizarre election controversy here in Utah.  To appreciate the bizarreness of the case, I am going to tell you the end first and then bullet out the story.  Rep. Craig Franks — a legislator from Utah County — found out himself that he does not live in his own [...

Report on cybersecurity risks

Posted on January 19, 2011
An interesting report came out recently on cybersecurity risks, “Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risk.”

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Permanent Absentee Voting

Posted on January 14, 2011
In New Mexico there is no law supporting permanent absentee voter status. But apparently some county clerks maintain lists of people who have requested permanent absentee status. This came out recently when Bernalillo County clerk decided to end the practice in order to be consistent with the law...

ECPR Call for Papers: Analysing Internet Voting

Posted on January 14, 2011
Here is the link.

DC Elections head says vote centers will save $200,000

Posted on January 11, 2011
Rokey Suleman provided a menu of options to the DC City Council for the April 26 special election. The costs varied from a high of $824,000 for a full precinct place election to $620,000 for one using two vote centers per ward. I presume that the reason the estimated cost of full vote by mail is so high–contrary to some previous [...

Will Indiana push forward on vote centers?

Posted on January 11, 2011
This report from the Ft. Wayne, IN News-Sentinel seems to indicate so.  The story includes a claim of a $40,000 cost savings by using vote centers.  Crossposted at earlyvoting.net

Collin County, TX Commissioners seek solutions to early voting woes

Posted on January 11, 2011
Commissioners in Collin County, TX heard complaints about long lines and lack of parking for early voting.   The commissioners suggested that lack of publicity about vote centers was a problem, but some of the ideas they mentioned (vote centers located in centralized, easily accessible locations, managing choke points during voter check in) have actually been addressed, and [...

NM Human Services Must Provide Voter Registration Forms to Clients

Posted on December 23, 2010
A federal judge in New Mexico ruled that the New Mexico Human Services Department has not been fulfilling their obligations under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). The court ruled that registration forms must be provided to clients whether they ask for them or not and that the Secretary of State has [...

I want an internship for the holidays

Posted on December 21, 2010
Robert’s posting about an internship in Vienna caught by eye…

Lessons from Bridgeport

Posted on December 17, 2010
I was originally going to write a long post about the Bridgeport “recount,” but then I concluded that this article at ctpost.com (”Bridgeport Vote Recount Shows Widespread Miscalculations, Cascading Errors”) almost speaks for itself...

European Parliament passes European Citizen Initiative (ECI)

Posted on December 16, 2010
The European Parliament passed the ECI yesterday (for a guidebook on it, see my previous post). The key facts are: - a citizen committee (individuals, not organizations) from at least 7 EU member states can initiate an ECI initiative. - it can be in any of the official EU languages - at least one million citizens from a [...

Internships on ModernDemocracy in Vienna/Austria

Posted on December 15, 2010
The Competence Center for Electronic Voting and Participation is looking for interns who are interested to work on developing the knowledge on the future of democracy. See more here.

Faster counts are possible, but may be costly

Posted on December 14, 2010
I was at a meeting in Austin this weekend for a series of Pew initiatives, and the costs of elections remained a regular point of discussion.  Thus, this story from Walton, GA caught my eye.  The Board of Elections apparently told the County commissioners that they could produce a faster count, but only at the cost [...

CA registrars counter allegations that mishandled VBM ballots changed a congressional election outcome

Posted on December 14, 2010
The losing candidate in California’s 11th congressional district is charging that mishandled vote by mail ballots caused him to lose the race. The challenge partially turns on the rules governing witness challenges to signature verification.  The losing candidate claims that campaign volunteers should have been able to challenge signatures...

New book on >Communication et deliberation< by Laurence Monnoyer Smith

Posted on December 08, 2010
Our fellow colleague Laurence Monnoyer Smith just published a new book – with a preface by Stephen Coleman – on deliberation through new technologies. It’s in French for those of you interested. The content: Préface de Stephen COLEMAN Introduction 1...

Handbook on Electoral Justice

Posted on December 07, 2010
International IDEA recently released their new handbook on electoral justice. Quite useful! An effective electoral justice system is a key element in the unfolding of a free, fair and genuine democratic process. Without a system to mitigate and manage inequality or perceptions of inequality, even the best management of an electoral process may [...

New York Judge Rules in Favor of Machine Counts

Posted on December 06, 2010
Today I had lunch with Professor Philip Stark (Department of Statistics, UC Berkeley).  He?s an expert witness for the Democrats in Nassau County, New York, where a close race (difference of 451 votes, out of about 85000 votes cast) held the New York State Senate in balance until Saturday...

Where election officials go after they retire: Conny McCormack caught in a PDA

Posted on December 03, 2010
Conny and Mick caught in NY (Conny is ex clerk-recorder in LA County, CA.  Somehow I can’t imagine Dean and Winnie in this pose.)

New Elections Canada website

Posted on December 02, 2010
Elections Canada has just unveiled their new website. One of the important links on the new Elections Canada worth note is the Resource Centre, especially all of the research materials that you will see there.

EAC Commissioner Gracia Hillman has resigned

Posted on December 01, 2010
Commissioner Hillman’s impressive record of public service is detailed here. She was confirmed on December 9, 2003, to a two-year term that became seven. Can Congress actually confirm a successor?  This puts the ball squarely in their court.  Tom Hicks’s appointment has been languishing for eight months.

Chapin and Gronke on slow election counts

Posted on December 01, 2010
From this month’s Canvass. By the way, this mark’s Wendy Underhill’s first issue of Canvass at NCSL.  Best of luck to Wendy!

Demos ? El Voto Electronico

Posted on November 24, 2010
Our colleagues in Veracruz, Mexico, sent along the latest version of Demos — an issue that contains essays from participants in workshops that I attended last year in Veracruz, Mexico. Of particular interest will be essays by Nate Persily, and two that I wrote...

Guidebook on the Upcoming European Citizen Initiative Released

Posted on November 23, 2010
The Green European Foundation recently published the first guidebook on the new European Citizen Intiative, which will be a first of a kind: a transnational initiative for citizens within the European Union member states. Download it here. The Green European Foundation’s newest publication deals with the European Citizens’ Initiative and is a practical guide to [...

California Election Updates

Posted on November 20, 2010
There are still some interesting things going on election-wise in California: “Harris’ lead over Cooley grows in attorney general race”. “Harris, the Democratic candidate, led by 42,114 votes, with 305,004 uncounted ballots left to be processed across California … 185,937 are in counties Harris carried on election day, and 119,067 are in counties that Cooley, [...

Dancing With The Stars

Posted on November 19, 2010
In a demonstration of the general importance of the work that we do when we study election technology, our colleague Thad today opined about the process that the TV show “Dancing With The Stars” uses to assess their contestants, in “How the Dancing Vote Was Hacked”...

California Attorney General Update

Posted on November 19, 2010
The percentages are essentially the same as yesterday: 46.0% for Harris (4,260,135) and 45.6% for Cooley (4,226,651).

California Election Update: Attorney General race

Posted on November 18, 2010
As of this morning, the Secretary of State’s website is listing Kamala Harris with a narrow lead, 4,220,378 votes to Steve Cooley’s 4,187,683 (that’s 46.0% to 45.6%). Many ballots are still being counted, and given it’s size, Los Angeles County is now “ground zero” for this race...

California Citizens Redistricting Commission random selection this morning

Posted on November 18, 2010
The random drawing of the first eight commissioners for the California Citizens Redistricting Commission is being conducted this morning, at 10AM Pacific. They are streaming the selection process live. Apparently they are going to use numbered ping pong balls for the selection process.

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