Paul Manson ’01 and Heather Creek
Election administrators face many headwinds in 2020. The confluence of an international pandemic and a historic presidential election has created numerous challenges for local election officials (LEOs). These administrators have navigated rapidly changing state rules and expectations about early and absentee voting, changes to the availability of traditional polling places and poll workers, and voters eager to participate in the 2020 election but with many questions of how and when to vote safely.
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The contest for position 4 in Portland City Council is highly competitive, and recent polling shows the challenger, Mingus Mapps with a nine point lead over Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, but with 40% of the electorate reporting that they are undecided, this race will go all the way to the wire.
In our last post, “Visualizing the Position 4 City Council Race,” we conducted a geo-spatial analysis of the May 2020 primary to try to understand the candidate dynamics in a competitive primary. The data we examined showed that Mapps has some advantages in the November run. Precincts that showed comparatively higher levels of support for Sam Adams were more similar to precincts that showed higher level of support for Mapps than those which were centers of strength for Eudaly.
Continue readingNice history and overview of the system, by Jen Kirby:
Oregon already votes by mail. Here’s what it can teach us in 2020.
“It’s possible but unlikely that states such as Arizona, which already have a large percentage of voters on a list to automatically receive a ballot, could expand the practice, said Paul Gronke, a political science professor at Reed College and director of the Early Voting Information Center.”
“Paul Gronke, director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon, said the counterfeit ballot theory was from ‘the world of fantasy.’”
Canyon Foot ’20 and Paul Gronke
The runoff election between Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and her challenger, Mingus Mapps, is likely the hottest Portland area election in in November.
Eudaly, no stranger to the challenge of ousting an incumbent, has found herself on the defensive. In the May primary, the vote was split between three contenders: Eudaly with 31.3% of the vote, Mapps with 28.6%, and former mayor Sam Adams, who garnered received 27.7%. Five other candidates divided the remaining 12.4% of the vote. Because no one received over 50% in the May election, there will be a run-off between the top two candidates in November.
Continue readingProfessor Paul Gronke, director of the Early Voting Information Center (EVIC) at Reed College, quipped in the New York Times:
“Everyone’s focusing on the rate of voting by mail, which is going to easily double what it was in 2016 — somewhere north of 80 million ballots…But people aren’t paying attention to what might happen if there’s a spike in the pandemic or a shortage of poll workers and there’s a last-minute reduction in in-person voting.”
Gronke’s comments on the nationwide conversation on voting amidst the COVID-19 pandemic pivots our thinking towards issues of capacity. Should Local Election Officials become unable to work due to COVID-19, already stressed election districts could experience unprecedented difficulty conducting the election.
Imaginative solutions backed by a flock of volunteers will be necessary to ensure a safe and successful election this November.
Read the full story here.
Oregonians are eager to vote in the upcoming November 3 election. As of the morning of October 21, nearly 2 weeks before Election Day, almost 500,000 of the 3 million registered voters in the state have already returned their ballot. This is 24% of the 2 million ballots cast in the 2016 general election.