Election-Campaign Law

More Photos of Voting in Pakistan

Posted on February 18, 2008
You can see more photos of the Pakistani elections here.

Polls Close, Counting Begins in Pakistan Elections

Posted on February 18, 2008
The Post has a great article about the trials and tribulations in the Pakistani elections, as well as a cool photo gallery, which you can access here.The article discusses several problems that Americans can relate with, such as long lines and delays in figuring out who actually won...

Rules Matter

Posted on February 18, 2008
For people who study politics, there is a basic saying "Rules Matter." The Electoral College is an example, as are the rules for open versus closed primaries. In this article in the Washington Post, we see that rules matter for the allocation of delegates and they suggest that Texas has rules for allocating Democratic Party delegates that can decouple statewide support and delegate allocations.

California Election Woes

Posted on February 17, 2008
The Times reports on the ongoing election woes in California. There are several things of interest here. First, consider this paragraph:Election officials say a combination of high turnout, technology flaws and millions of mailed-in and dropped-off ballots have led to painstakingly slow returns in some counties, with nearly 800,000 ballots remaining to be processed...

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Pakistani Elections

Posted on February 17, 2008
There is an interesting story about the Pakistani elections today that discusses the concerns about vote fraud there. This paragraph is especially interesting.Ms. Fruman, of the National Democratic Institute, described a litany of complaints, mostly from opposition parties, of bribery and the use of state resources for campaigns...

DC Nightmare

Posted on February 14, 2008
Thanks Dan S. for this report on DC snafus (the Feb 14 edition is not online yet but will be soon). My comments about California seem mild in comparison!

Forthcoming: "America Votes!"

Posted on February 13, 2008
America Votes! A Guide to Modern Election Law and Voting RightsReleased by the ABA Section on State and Local Government. Being released February 29.

The problem with paper

Posted on February 13, 2008
Tennessee is only the most recent state mandating a move to paper balloting in an effort to insure the integrity of the ballot.Here's the problem: when combined with an increasing use of by-mail voting (primarily via no-excuse absentee balloting) and when some jurisdictions are moving to a central count, then this will almost certainly result in a dramatic increase in residual vote (under and over votes)...

LA County Bubble-versity continues

Posted on February 13, 2008
The LA Times ran an editorial this morning regarding the "cross-over" or "decline-to-state" ballots in LA County that have not yet been tallied. One interesting thing was pointed out in the editorial:Election officials are calling this a glitch, but the outcome was entirely foreseeable...

Heavy turnout in the Potomac Primary

Posted on February 12, 2008
I'm sitting in an office in DC listening to everyone talk about their voting experience. What I'm hearing is that lines are long (not so long as to be frustrating, just long), heavy turnout, and a sense that no one is opting for the GOP ballot in VA...

Potomac primary reports

Posted on February 12, 2008
Heavy turnout in Virginia, Democratic ballots outnumber Republican ballots 3 or 4 to 1, main complaints are lack of parking (Wash Post)Some late openings in Maryland and long lines in the morning as voters rushed to the polling place before work; some polling stations without power due to weather conditions (CNN)Maryland voters excited to be relevant, may increase turnout (Philadelphia Examiner)Forecasts for snow and ice later in the day may cause problems (Wash Post)Results will give Obama an "undisputed edge in delegates", so projects Xinhua news agency

LA County review of "non-partisan" ballots

Posted on February 12, 2008
Yesterday Dean Logan, the Acting Registrar-Recorder in LA County, released a report detailing a review they conducted of "non-partisan" (or "decline-to-state") ballots in the 1% manual tally. To quote from the report:In total, 1,820,758 ballots were reflected in the semi-official election results released Wednesday morning, February 6, 2008; 189,438 (10...

Guest blogger: Morgan Llewellyn, "Iowa Caucus: Projecting viability"

Posted on February 12, 2008
Editor's note: Morgan is a Ph.D student at Caltech, and he had the opportunity to study the Iowa caucuses first hand earlier this year. He has written a number of papers on election administration, and is writing a dissertation on presidential primary elections...

Maryland extends voting hours due to bad weather

Posted on February 12, 2008
Polls were open until 9:30pm, according to this story from the Washington Post.The State of Maryland has extended voting hours until 9:30 p.m., citing bad weather, as freezing rain and sleet caused traffic accidents and other problems on a day when officials throughout the Washington region reported potentially record-breaking voter turnout in the first-ever Potomac Primary.

Early exit poll data from Maryland and Virginia shows lots of first-time voters

Posted on February 12, 2008
The AP is reporting some early exit poll data from the Maryland and Virginia primaries:FIRST TIME VOTERSOver a third of voters in the Virginia Democratic primary said they had not voted in a primary before, as did almost one in five voters in the Maryland Democratic primary...

LA Times: "Criticism of L.A. County's Voting System Grows"

Posted on February 11, 2008
In this morning's L.A. Times.

Unprocessed ballots in CA: Report available from Secy Bowen's Office

Posted on February 11, 2008
Tova Wang sent along this PDF of a report of the number of unprocessed ballots from California, with the note "a nice example of transparency in elections."Steve Weir, Contra Costa County recorder and (I believe) head of the state association of recorders, was producing a running tally of the early in person and absentee ballotsstatewide...

More on Washington Caucus

Posted on February 10, 2008
Above is a link to a press statement by the Huckabee campaign about the Washington state caucus. The problem is stated at the outset of the release:The Huckabee Presidential Campaign will be exploring all available legal options regarding the dubious final results for the state of Washington State Republican precinct caucuses, it was announced today...

Blog: TheElectoralMap

Posted on February 10, 2008
I came across this blog while surfing the web: http://theelectoralmap.com/According to its mission statement:The Electoral Map will report on anything that has to do with the mapping of elections. We believe that maps tell the story behind the votes...

GAO Report on Florida 13

Posted on February 10, 2008
The GAO released their report on the voting machines used in the 13th congressional district election in 2006. The executive summary states:GAO conducted three tests on the iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems in Sarasota County and these tests did not identify any problems...

What Is Going on in Washington

Posted on February 10, 2008
Talkingpointsmemo, a well respected political blog, has a couple of interesting stories about the Republican caucus in Washington. Josh Marshall Reports:As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end...

LA County bubble trouble continues

Posted on February 07, 2008
There was a story in this morning's LA Times, "L.A. County registrar to examine independents' ballots; mix-up leaves many presidential votes uncounted." According to the story and a quote from LA County Registrar Dean Logan, at this point there at least 94,000 ballots cast by "decline-to-state" voters that might need to be closely examined...

More Fun with Ballot Boxes -- Now in New Mexico

Posted on February 07, 2008
So there were stolen ballot boxes in California on Tuesday and now there are reports that full ballot boxes had "sleepovers" on election night when they were full of ballots. Here is the story from New Mexico (note the italicized paragraph)."That's going to get a full canvass," Democratic Party chairman Brian Colón said...

OVF Summit 2008

Posted on February 07, 2008
From 3rd to 4th of April the Overseas Voter Foundation will host its second annual summit to discuss The power of the Internet to democratize voting information and access to all US citizens around the globe;Military and Overseas Voters Speak Out: What are the challenges and how can we tackle them?Internet Voting: The potential of online, Internet-based Voting for UOCAVA voters and reservations surrounding its implementationThe Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act: A critical discussion on the current UOCAVA legislation and the issues for states, election officials and voters surrounding the Act...

New Mexico Democratic ballot count could continue through the weekend ...

Posted on February 07, 2008
Word from New Mexico is that they have begun to count provisional ballots in the close and contested Democratic presidential primary there. Our colleague Lonna Atkeson, who has been studying the ballot counting process there, is quoted in an AP story:Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico who planned to observe the provisional ballot verification process, predicted a drawn out wait...

The biggest snafu of all ..

Posted on February 07, 2008
Was when I locked my keys in my rental car ... and left the engine running ... as we ate lunch in Fullerton, CA. I notice Melissa was kind enough not to post a picture on the slideshow.

Mail ballots incorrectly returned in Santa Barbara CA

Posted on February 07, 2008
This came in across the email wire and was forwarded to me. If anyone else has reports of ballots that were incorrectly directed by post offices in CA, please email me at paul.gronke at gmail.comI've run into a problem with the mail-in ballot situation in Santa Barbara County, CA...

New Mexico: "Caucus Outcome Still Up In Air"

Posted on February 07, 2008
Lonna Atkeson (a colleague at the University of New Mexico) passed along this link to a story today in the Santa Fe New Mexican. They are still counting provisional ballots in New Mexico today ...

There are many levels of comfort

Posted on February 06, 2008
My colleague Thad Hall asksAre we supposed to be comforted by the idea that photocopied ballots are being used in elections when they run out of paper ballots? What is the chain of custody rules for such ballots? How are they inventoried? How are they numbered and made distinct?From my perch, I'd answer "yes," if the alternative is to disenfranchise voters.

Ballot Duplication, Here We Come

Posted on February 06, 2008
So in addition to all of the other problems in California with paper ballots, it sounds like, in several places including Riverside, if you cast a paper ballot and marked too dark, YOUR ballot won't get counted but the ballot that is being cast for you by the duplicating board will...

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