Election-Campaign Law

Working paper on voting technology adoption

By Michael Alvarez

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 in many parts of the US. In reaction to public dismay over “hanging chads”, Congress quickly enacted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), legislation to fund the acquisition of advanced vote-counting technology. However, the intention was to enable, rather than mandate, choices of new electoral equipment. This paper takes advantage of a unique historical opportunity to test whether electoral equipment follows the pattern predicted by well-established models of innovation diffusion, merging electoral data with census data on socioeconomic characteristics. We infer that fiscal constraints to acquisition are strong but are not the only limitations to technology adoption, particularly within certain types of easily identifiable populations.

Full post as published by Election Updates on November 18, 2008 (boomark / email).