(Crossposted from https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/articles/2020/gronkewinscarnegie.html)
Reed College Professor of Political Science Paul Gronke was selected as part of the 2020 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. The prestigious award supports high-caliber scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, making it possible for recipients to continue their research on pressing issues and cultural transitions affecting U.S. citizens at home and abroad. Professor Gronke was recognized for his scholarship on election security and accessibility.
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COVID-19 has forced much of the country to reevaluate the way it does business, and elections are no exception. We’ve already seen primaries postponed in 15 states and cancelled in New York. Wisconsin’s in-person primary at the start of April saw shortages of polling places and poll workers, as well as difficulties managing a tenfold increase in absentee ballot requests. All of this has unfolded in an atmosphere of partisan bickering about how to best assure a safe, secure, and accessible November election.
While many decisions about elections are being made at the state (or even national) level, the job of implementing these changes and administering elections falls on the roughly 8,000 local election officials (LEOs) across the country, a group that we have called the “stewards of democracy.”
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A new report released today by the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College provides a roadmap to state election officials when developing a systematic election-performance auditing process for the State of Oregon. The report is a collaboration between Reed College and Caltech, with funding provided by the Oregon Secretary of State, Elections Division.
“The report demonstrates the integrity of Oregon’s registration system, but also that the system needs to be modernized to be able to take advantage of modern technology tools and analysis. The performance audit process innovated by Caltech is an invaluable tool for election administrators to pressure test registration and balloting systems.”
— Paul Gronke, Director, Early Voting Information Center
A new piece in Belt Magazine maps out challenges facing the national call for expanding vote by mail. EVIC’s Director, Dr. Gronke notes the transition is a challenge akin to moving from “Walmart to Amazon” in short period of time. Along with other election administration scholars, this piece surveys the questions election administrators face. Read more here: “Democracy by Mail.”
As we learn all the ways the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting our lives, one looming concern is our elections. Sixteen states have already postponed in-person primaries to protect voters from gatherings that could expose them and poll workers to the spread of the virus. This has in turn resulted in a growing call for legislative action to address the health threat created by in-person balloting.
As we look ahead to the upcoming primaries and the general election this fall, there are a series of possible election tools that might mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. One of these tools is vote by mail (VBM), which increasingly is simply vote at home with most voters in some states personally returning ballots to drop boxes.
What should election administrators worry about if this shift proceeds? What are the possible challenges or barriers to running a new vote by mail election? And what can be learned from states that have already shifted to this system?
To answer these questions, we turn to one of the country’s most experienced administrators running a full by-mail election system, Multnomah County, Oregon’s Director of Elections, Tim Scott.
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Local election officials in Wisconsin have been put in an untenable situation. LEOs are being asked to administer an election in the midst of a global pandemic and while a statewide “stay at home” order has been issued by Governor Tony Evers.
For a period of time, it seemed like Wisconsin politicians were able to work together and navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is until an election occurred. While politicians continue to fight with one another from their home offices, 1,849 local election officials, thousands of volunteer poll workers, and millions of citizens are being forced to decide between their health and their right to vote.
Who are these dedicated civil servants who have been asked to shoulder the challenge of holding the first COVID-19 pandemic election? In partnership with the Democracy Fund, the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College has been surveying local election officials nationwide about their jobs, their career aspirations, and their opinions about election integrity and reform. We’d like to share a few of these findings to put a human face on Wisconsin’s “stewards of democracy.”
Continue readingWe appear about halfway down in this posting:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-coronavirus-could-change-how-we-vote-in-2020-and-beyond/
By Paul Gronke and Jay Lee ’19
Oregon is in the midst of an experiment: how will voter turnout change in response to free paid postage on ballot return envelopes? Already, as shown in the figure below, we have some indications that turnout could exceed the 40% level of 2008. The 2008 and 2020 lines are eerily similar.
But many things have changed in the state that makes it difficult to make comparisons until we have the certified voter file.
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