Ann Sanner of the AP is reporting that efforts to repeal changes to Ohio’s election laws, including shortening the early voting period, have failed to gather enough signatures. Opponents fell only 9578 signatures short out of 231,150 required.
A natural experiment may be occurring in Santa Barbara. The City Council approved an all vote by mail election for the council election (to save money), which pits three conservative councillors against seven challengers.
The ballot envelopes are postage paid which should increase turnout. County officials are hoping for an increase in turnout from 2009, which they report was “nearly half of registered voters.”
The city clerk’s elections website is here but it’s not clear if ballot envelopes included postage in 2009 (hence no change in 2011).
Advocacy groups are reporting that county residents remain confused about whether they will receive an absentee ballot application automatically.
Looks like Cuyahoga County is thumbing their nose at the new Sec’y of State and mailing absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. The state refuses to pay, and now they say they are going to try to outlaw the practice altogether.
The report is here and the Seattle Times story is here.
Hat tip to Doug Chapin.
Budgetary woes in California may limit citizen access to by-mail options to register and vote.
Electionline weekly reports that the new state budget cuts reimbursements to county clerks for these services. At least some clerks are negotiating with their local county boards to see if they can shoulder the cost.
One twist on the story: this change may make it easier to identify the full costs of conducting elections in a “mixed” system since the costs will all be funded from a single pot. Always looking for that silver lining …
If this bill currently on its way to Gov. Christie’s desk is signed into law.
Early voting has begun in the Canadian general election, the BBC reports. Early turnout jumped 35% from 2008 (2 million compared to 1.5 in 2008).
As we have found in the past, the heaviest early voting days were Friday and Monday, not Saturday. Finding other information on voter turnout is a bit frustrating; I’ve been searching for the past 15 minutes to find out how many ballots are cast by mail and for historical data on voter turnout without success.
I finally found some comparative figures at the BC Elections Unit, including this very interesting spreadsheet comparing the costs of administering elections on a per-ballot basis. Not much else to speak of. Looks like voter lists are only available to registered candidates and parties.
