Election-Campaign Law

?Do you want fries with your vote??

Posted on September 29, 2008
Okay, and I thought that getting a flu shot when you went to vote was as interesting as it got. Check out what they are doing in Orange County!

When We Used to Bet on Elections

Posted on September 29, 2008
Check out this article from Slate.com about how we used to bet on elections…with bookies.

Reports coming in of lines in Iowa

Posted on September 25, 2008
I just got off the phone with a reporter–there are reports of voting lines already in Iowa.  If someone on the ground can send me a confirmation at paul AT earlyvoting.net, and a picture, that would be great.

Early voting now underway in half the nation

Posted on September 25, 2008
State with no-excuse absentee or early in person: FL, GA, ID, IL, IA, ME, NV, NC, ND, SD, WY.  The big ones on that list are FL, IA, NV, and NC, all battlegrounds. States with excuse required absentee voting who have mailed: DE, DC, IN, KY, MA, MI, MS, MO, PA, SC, TX, VA, WV...

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NASS Survey on State Preparations for the 2008 Presidential Election

Posted on September 24, 2008
NASS recently surveyed states and compiled extensive data on their preparations for the 2008 presidential election. The complete report and data are available at the NASS website. Here’s the summary of findings from the report’s media release: Highlights of the NASS report include: State Voter Hotlines: Thirty-six states provide toll-free hotlines to collect and respond to [...

Absentee Balloting Underway in more than 20 states

Posted on September 24, 2008
Quite a few states open up absentee balloting at a 45 day window, and Iowa opens at the 40 day window.  From James Hicks, research director at Early Voting Information Center: “The following states are mailing ballots to absentee voters: Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, [...

Recount in Boston!

Posted on September 23, 2008
While we are on the subject of post-election audits and recounts, it turns out that there is a hand recount that has been requested in five Boston wards. I was talking on the phone earlier this morning with MIT colleagues Ron Rivest and Charles Stewart, and they mentioned that this recount had been requested...

NM Election Audit report available

Posted on September 23, 2008
The report from our 2006 study of election audits in New Mexico is now available, “The New Mexico 2006 Post Election Audit Report.” There is also a slideshow that provides some visual context for the project: New Mexico Election Audit slideshow...

New Mexico Audit: ?2006 Election Audit Results Complete - Offers Lessons for 2008?

Posted on September 22, 2008
Here’s the media advisory from Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Tomorrow morning there is a news conference during which Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera, University of New Mexico Professor Lonna Atkeson, and Pew “Make Voting Work” Project Director David Becker, will discuss the results of the New [...

Election auditing in New Mexico

Posted on September 22, 2008
The New Mexico Independent ran a story last week, “N.M.’s ‘08 election results to be audited.” Towards the bottom of the story were a few sentences of interest: The audit will be a first for the state, but Bernalillo County will go into the audit with a bit of experience...

Washington Post: ?High Turnout, New Procedures May Mean an Election Day Mess?

Posted on September 19, 2008
Here’s the link to the Washington Post story. But what exactly is “new” here — we’ve been pointing out for years now that technological and procedural changes in how people vote produce problems on Election Day, especially in places where highly competitive elections bring lots of people (and lots of new voters) to polling [...

California Bureau of State Audits report on county registrar?s pollworker training

Posted on September 19, 2008
The California Bureau of State Audits released a report on county registrar pollworker training programs in California. Here are the report highlights: - In 2006 the Office of the Secretary of State (office) adopted poll worker training guidelines (training guidelines), as required by law...

A new Election Updates!

Posted on July 25, 2008
We will be making a transition over the next few days from this existing blogsite to a new Election Updates. The new blogsite will have a better look, be more user-friendly, and should be easier to access. The new url is http://caladan.caltech.edu/ElectionUpdatesBlog/Or you can just click here...

Overview of California Redistricting Reform Proposals

Posted on July 23, 2008
The Center for Governmental Studies has a released a helpful comparison of a variety of redistricting reform proposals in California, "A Comparative Overview of California Redistricting Reform Proposals in 2008." These comparative tables are handy for anyone who wants a better understanding of Proposition 11 ( text available here), and how it compares to other redistricting reform proposals.

More new research on voter mobilization

Posted on July 22, 2008
Here's a new working paper from Meredith, Kessler, and Gerber, "The Persuasive Effects of Direct Mail: A Regression Discontinuity Approach". Here's the abstract:During the contest for Kansas attorney general in 2006, an organization sent out 6 pieces of mail criticizing the incumbent's conduct in office...

"Better Ballots", Brennan Center report

Posted on July 21, 2008
A report on ballot design, "Better Ballots", was recently released by the Brennan Center. Fellow political scientist David Kimball was one of the authors of the report, and the report was backed by a pretty solid task force. I've been offline most of the day today, and only now started to read the report...

Paul and his live blogging

Posted on July 18, 2008
Paul is sitting here, blogging on two blogs simultaneously. Talk about multitasking!The Pew workshop we are participating in is quite productive!

Absentee Help Sites

Posted on July 17, 2008
I keep being mailed these and will try to post them up as they arrive.Here are three sites that attempt to aggregate absentee registration forms:http://www.longdistancevoter.org/http://beabsentee.org/There is a third one from a journalism class in University of Washington that I'll post up when I get the link.

Mike in Faux Cal

Posted on July 17, 2008
Leaving the car keys in the car while running ... that was memorable! Luckily, Mike (and a good humored AAA mechanic) came to my rescue.

Paul in SoCal

Posted on July 16, 2008
Two notes for interested readers. First, the last TWO times Paul was in Southern California he had car trouble; I think he is forgetting the time down in Brea recently when had a bit of trouble with his rental car (something about locking the keys in it while it was still running)? Second, for the record, we down here use "Caltech", instead of "CalTech" (take a look at just about anything at http://www...

"Estonians could vote by mobile phones for the next Europarliament elections and local government elections in 2009 ..."

Posted on July 16, 2008
Here's the story, "Estonia could become the first country to allow mobile voting." I've heard this rumor from a variety of other sources as well. According to the report above, the legislation from Estonia's Reform Party that would allow for mobile phone voting might also lengthen the pre-election window for remote electronic voting from the current three days to ten days.

Off to CalTech

Posted on July 16, 2008
I am off to CalTech today to a small gathering on voter registration research hosted by my colleague Michael Alvarez and Pew/JEHT's Make Voting Work's initiative. The last time I was in SoCal, my car had broken down in beautiful Bakersfield. I hope for a better outcome this time!

New book on election reform

Posted on July 16, 2008
Just saw this release but haven't gotten the book yet:The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform by Frederic Charles SchafferCornell University Press is pleased to announce the publication of The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform by Frederic Charles Schaffer, which reveals how tinkering with the electoral process can easily damage democratic ideals and suggests new ways to help prevent future breaches of democracy in the name of "cleaning up" elections...

TheHill.com - FedEx, voter group hope to ease ballot shipping woes

Posted on July 15, 2008
Here is a story about a neat initiative from Fedex and the Overseas Vote Foundation:Seeking to alleviate a top concern for overseas absentee voters, FedEx will team up with a voter participation group and ship ballots for free or at heavy discounts this fall, the company announced this week...

Polmeth - election fraud in the Gilded Age

Posted on July 11, 2008
I'll write more later about some of the research reported the past few days at the Political Methodology conference.I'm now at one of the conference poster sessions, looking at a poster by Gail Buttorff, a grad student at the University of Iowa. Gail's poster is titled "Electoral Fraud in the Gilded Age", and it presents an application of the Benford's Law test developed by Walter Mebane, and discussed in our recent book, "Election Fraud...

"Americans face hurdles voting abroad in upcoming election"

Posted on July 11, 2008
USA Today has a story today on the problems that are likely to face Americans abroad as they attempt to vote in the upcoming presidential election. This is something that Thad and I have been researching for a long time; if you want the details see our recent publication, "Military Voting and the Law...

Officials Investigate 3 Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations

Posted on July 10, 2008
There are allegations that voters in some Alabama counties were paid for their votes and that voters may have voted absentee to facilitate fraud. Here is one interesting part of the story: ?The Republican Party has an unscripted mandate to target Democratic counties, and African-Americans particularly,? said Albert Turner Jr...

Census report on voting and registration in 2006 election

Posted on July 10, 2008
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released their report on voting and registration in the 2006 election, "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2006. There's a lot of interesting data and analysis in the report, including:48% of voting-age citizens voted in the 2006 midterm election, the highest turnout estimated by the CPS since 1994...

Ohio SoS rethinking ban on voting machine "sleepovers"

Posted on July 10, 2008
I ran across this story this morning, "Brunner looking at plan to end voting machine "sleepovers".

Off to the political methodology conference ...

Posted on July 09, 2008
The 25th Political Methodology conference starts today, at the University of Michigan. There are a lot of interesting papers, and some of which are of interest to readers of Election Updates. I'll try to post links to those papers over the next few days.

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