Election-Campaign Law

Papers from Election Reform Conference

Posted on May 09, 2009
Paul and I are at the same election reform conference.  It is a conference where we are discussing various reforms across the electoral landscape, from redistricting to voter registration to election audits. The papers can be found online here. Paul, Mike, and I all have papers on various topics here.

LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk on Twitter!

Posted on May 04, 2009
Just got this; check out LACRR’s Twitter site.

BBC India Election Train

Posted on May 01, 2009
BBC has a pretty interesting blog, with a reporter on a cross-country train in India covering the elections there, “BBC India Election Train.”

Obama?s next 100 days? What about election reform?

Posted on May 01, 2009
I was just reading this CNN story, “Analysis: What’s ahead for Obama in the next 100 days.” Nowhere is the phrase “election reform” mentioned.

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David Konisky and Michael A. Powell, ?Public Attitudes on State Election Administration, Goals, and Reforms?

Posted on May 01, 2009
I just got a copy of this report that Konisky and Powell recently released, regarding responses to questions about election reforms they included in their 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) module, “Public Attitudes on State Election Administration, Goals, and Reforms...

CA VR database inching along ?

Posted on April 28, 2009
They have issued a “Notification of Intent to Award to Catalyst Consulting, Inc”, for those of you following the evolution of CA’s VR database …

Voter Confidence 2: By Mode and By Vote Choice

Posted on April 21, 2009
I wrote a few days ago about some data we collected as part of the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), testing assumptions about “voter confidence,” a survey respondent’s perception about whether their vote will be counted accurately or not...

Slideshow of Indian election

Posted on April 19, 2009
There is a really amazing slideshow of the Indian election in this WSJ story, “Fatal Attacks Near Polling Places Mar India Voting.”

Looking for survey questions/instruments on election administration and voting technology

Posted on April 17, 2009
Thad recently had a great idea:  that we should start to collect survey questions and survey instruments that have questions regarding election administration and voting technology.  This would be a step toward developing a place where researchers could get survey questions, and perhaps in the future survey marginals and perhaps even data...

More on Voter Confidence

Posted on April 15, 2009
The figure below shows differing levels of voter confidence in three groups of survey respondents: Pre-election respondents who said they intended to vote Pre-election respondents who said they were uncertain whether they would vote Post-election respondents who reported voting The most interesting result here, I think, is the substantially lower confidence levels among those who say they are uncertain [...

In Sacramento ? on tax day!

Posted on April 15, 2009
So I’m in Sacramento, attending a meeting of the California HAVA State Plan Advisory Committee. While that is interesting in it’s own right, it was really interesting to see a big anti-tax protest while strolling around the state capital grounds on our lunch break...

Measuring turnout effects of vote by mail in California

Posted on April 14, 2009
I just got sent this recent article by Mark DiCamillo (Field Poll) published in the California Journal of Politics and Policy. This looks like a good journal with an excellent of editors.  I don’t know how the attached article made it by the proofreaders, however...

Potential voter confusion in CA CD 32 special primary election?

Posted on April 14, 2009
On May 19 there will be a special election in California’s CD 32 to fill the vacancy of Hilda Solis. Twelve candidates filed, including front-runners Gil Cedillo (a state Senator) and Judy Chu (a member of the state Board of Equalization). If that wasn’t interesting enough, there is a second Chu in the [...

Franken one step closer to winning MN Senate race

Posted on April 14, 2009
A three-judge panel yesterday dismissed a variety of motions from Coleman to subtract votes from Franken’s total. Here is quote from the ruling, from today’s LA Times: “The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the November 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately,” the judges wrote...

What do we mean by ?voter confidence??

Posted on April 13, 2009
Voter confidence–a citizen’s perception whether their ballot will be counted as intended–came under scrutiny in the recent meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.  Two papers examined the validity of voter confidence directly, my own paper with James Hicks, which can be downloaded here,  and a paper by Lonna Atkeson, Michael Alvarez, and Thad Hall...

Brennan Center Report on Ohio Elections Released

Posted on April 08, 2009
An excellent report on the Ohio elections system has been released by the Brennan Center and can be downloaded here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/final_report_2008_2009_ohio_elections_summit_and_conference/. I worked with Larry Norden on the early / absentee voting section of this report, although most of the work and all of the credit goes to Larry and his staff at Brennan...

Fraud allegations in Moldova

Posted on April 08, 2009
Allegations of election fraud, in particular multiple voting, have arisen in the recent legislative elections in Moldova, including rioting yesterday.

Franken lead increases to 312

Posted on April 08, 2009
Yesterday 351 previously rejected absentee ballots were added to the tally in the Minnesota Senate race, with 198 going to Franken, 111 to Coleman, and 42 for other candidates. This increased Franken’s lead to 312 votes in the disputed race. Coleman’s legal team says they will appeal.

Fort Worth: registered sex offender worked elections at elementary schools

Posted on April 07, 2009
Got this one in email; it’s an interesting story that raises questions about vetting of pollworkers. Here’s the story from Star-Telegram.com.

NIST releases Draft Voting System Test Suites

Posted on April 05, 2009
The link is here.

California moving closer to a federally mandated statewide voter registry

Posted on April 02, 2009
Got this info recently: the results of the public cost opening for the VoteCal RFP (RFP SOS 0890-46) are now available.

Doug Chapin Testimony

Posted on March 27, 2009
Doug Chapin, Director of the Elections Initiative at the Pew Center on the States, is testifying in front of the Subcommittee on Elections of the Committee on House Administration.  Takeaway quote: ?While the 2008 election was a success in many regards, significant challenges in several areas of election administration remain,? said Chapin...

Election experiences panel

Posted on March 27, 2009
I’ve been asked about the Thursday 8 am panel. Here are the papers. 22-8 Election Experiences Date: Thursday, April 2 8:00 am Chair(s): Herbert Weisberg, Ohio State University Paper(s): Paper 1: Voter ID in the 2008 General Election This paper examines variations in the implementation of voter identification laws across the 50 states in the 2008 presidential election...

If you go to just one panel at MPSA it must be this one ? I hear that Markovits and Spencer paper is da bomb ?

Posted on March 26, 2009
22-3 Turnout - Voting Laws and Election Administration Date: Thursday, April 2 4:45 pm Chair(s): Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin Paper(s): Lines at Polling Stations: Observations from an Election Day Field Study This paper attempts to understand how and why long lines form at a polling place...

Election Administration / Reform Day in Chicago

Posted on March 24, 2009
I don’t know if it was purposeful or not, but Thursday April 2nd is shaping up to be election reform / election administration day at the Midwest Political Science Association meeting in Chicago. The link above will take you to the conference page and you can search by section...

Presidential election results by CD

Posted on March 23, 2009
I just came across a posting on the “Swing State Project” that includes the presidential election results by congressional district, freely downloadable.  The website is here http://www.swingstateproject.com/ and the full dataset is here http://www...

Election-rigging scheme alleged in Kentucky

Posted on March 20, 2009
One of my colleagues at the NAS workshop passed along this account of an alleged election-rigging scheme in Kentucky. Here’s a snip from a different media account that provides some details about how the alleged scheme operated: This is how the alleged scheme worked, the indictment said: Maricle and Adams recruited candidates to run for [...

National Academy of Sciences Workshop on Voter Registration Databases

Posted on March 19, 2009
Yep, we are at it again … this time in Cambridge (MA). This is the sixth, and last, workshop that this group is having to examine state voter registration databases. We have a morning full of conversations with election officials about their databases and how they perform, and this afternoon we will be [...

Pending Federal Legislation

Posted on March 16, 2009
Also from the recent NCSL newsletter, Federal legislation that they believe may garner significant interest in 2009-10: Joint Resolution Pertaining To U.S. Senate Vacancies S.J. RES 7 - Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) Senate Joint Resolution 7 proposes a Constitutional amendment providing that no person shall be a Senator from a state unless such person has been elected by [...

2009 Election legislation update

Posted on March 16, 2009
The NCSL has just distributed their most recent newsletter, and the update on pending legislation is pretty interesting.  According to their legislative database, there are 71 early voting bills pending in 23 states, 11 states considering either no-excuse absentee or fully vote by mail elections, and 12 states considering going permanent no-excuse absentee balloting...

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