I’m in this week’s Electionline Weekly, talking about the U.S. Votes Foundation’s new registration and absentee ballot portal. (Apologies to Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, I referred to them as “AVF” and not “USVF” in my comments).
Ok, I just couldn’t resist this story from the Fargo Forum, or the image above (courtesy of the Western Australia Office of Travel and Tourism), which sure looks like an old Holiday Inn sign!
Election officials have to find space where they can, and in some locations, facilities that are large, have parking, reliable (and sufficient) power, an internet connection, parking, are ADA compliant, and to top it off, can be rented for just a few weeks might be far and few between.
In Fargo, it looks like two local motels are just the kind of short term rental space that LEO’s need:
Early voting is available this week to all eligible Cass County voters at the following locations:
• 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., today through Friday at the Hilton Garden Inn & Suites, 4351 17th Ave S. in Fargo and at the Lodoen Kindergarten Center, 330 3rd Ave. E. in West Fargo.
• 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Wednesday through Friday at the Days Inn, 2050 Governors Drive in Casselton.
And Nathan’s hotel? Well, at least it’s “cleanish.”
I found absentee ballot counts in Dane County, WI but I don’t have the energy to search all the other townships and counties in the state. There are lots of reports of heavy absentee voting in the recall election, which could be a result of mobilization efforts, or could mean that Wisconsin voters have made up their minds, or both.
It would be nice if the Govt Accountability Board posted something on their website. The recall election page is here but there are no returns.
As reported in today’ Helena Record.
I’m not clear whether or not this race is competitive for the GOP, but if any have a good chance to be the next SoS of Montana, I hope they will look closely at the empirical evidence on SDR/EDR, vote by mail, voter turnout and vote fraud.
There are good reasons to oppose voting my mail–it removes ballots from the hands of government officials, it lengthens the voting period, it increases voter error (overvotes and undervotes). While the amount of voter fraud is miniscule, it’s also the case that most notable cases of fraud are associated with absentee ballots. However, states with VBM have experienced almost no fraud, have very high voter turnout, and lots of citizen engagement in elections.
I can see no reason for the candidates to oppose same day registration, which has been consistently shown to be cost effective and consistently shows a substantial positive impact on voter turnout. There is no evidence of a partisan advantage to same day registration. All this information comes from the Nat’l Conference on State Legislatures, as about a non-partisan source on these matters as one would want: http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/same-day-registration.aspx
Volume 15, Issue 2 of the NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy has some interesting articles on Citizens United and election law. You can peruse the volume here: http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/legislation/issues/Volume15Number2/index.htm
I just attended a panel with Laura Stephenson and Andre Blais, two of the primary investigators for the “Making Electoral Democracy Work” project on comparative campaigns, voting,and elections. There is an election administration component to their project, although the depth of research in that area is not yet clear.
This is a website and project to monitor for the future.
Minnesota discovers the dangers of complexity
I’ve been reading a lot more about public policy in the past few years, undoubtedly the result of the insidious influence of Doug Chapin and Thad Hall. The field has made great strides since I was in graduate school two decades ago. I cut my teeth on John Kingdon’s Alternative, Agendas, and Public Policies (now a Longman “classic”–what does that say about me!). Now the field is replete with “punctuated equilibria,” “policy narratives,” and “advocacy coalition frameworks” (all describe in Paul Sabatier’s classic text).
While these complex models of unpredictable systems may frustrate a quantitative generalist like myself, they are obviously necessary. And Minnesota’s recently passed election law demonstrates this fact as well as anything.
As Mark Fischenich writes so effectively in the Mankato Post, the law seems straightforward to legislators, but election officials realize that the “devil is in the details.” And a lot of devilishness there is!
Among the potential legal and administrative conflicts that were apparently not considered by legislators:
- UOCAVA problems: if the law is read strictly, overseas (and other absentee) voters will be unable to cast a ballot because they cannot show an ID.
- Same day registration problems: identity has to be verified “prior to casting a ballot”, but what does that imply for someone who shows up to register and vote at the same time?
- Provisional avalanche: If all these same-day registration voters and voters without sufficiently validated IDs are given provisional ballots, will this result in an unanticipated avalanche?
I have written about the interdependencies of various aspects of election laws in the past, and I’m trying to finish a project on early voting that lays many of these out. But the examples and anecdotes keep changing. Voter ID adds a new layer of complexity!
Maybe Doug and Thad can sort this one out.
* Image courtesy of http://www.mindmapinspiration.com/
Karl Kurtz of The Thicket provides some additional information on legislative turnover rates in state houses.