Election Updates

As some of you know, the reason I have not been blogging recently is that I have been reading state election codes--every state election code actually--as a part of the EAC's Vote Count and Recount project. One of the thing this project has reinforced is that no two states do elections the same from start to finish. Rules governing simple things, like securing ballots or observing voting in precincts, vary widely from state to state. (I will blog about some of these differences once this project is complete).

The variability I see in election administration in voting also exists in the actual implementation of voter registration, as is evidenced by the recent Brennan Center Report, Making the List: Database Matching and Verification Processes for Voter Registration. The report's purpose is simple:

Federal law now requires, as of January 1, 2006, that states create and maintain statewide databases to serve as the central source of voter registration information. Citizens’ ability to get on the rolls—and thus their ability to vote and have their votes counted—will now depend on the policies and procedures governing the use of these databases in the voter registration process. Evidence demonstrates that poor policy and procedure choices could result in the unwarranted disenfranchisement of millions of eligible citizens attempting to register to vote. The new statewide databases, and their role in the voter registration process, are poorly understood, but extremely consequential.

This report, issued just as the state databases begin to come online, presents the first comprehensive catalog of the widely varying state database practices governing how (and in some cases, whether) individuals seeking to register will be placed on the voter rolls. The report covers each state’s voter registration process, from the application form up through Election Day—including the intake of registration forms, the manner in which information from the forms may be matched to other government lists, the consequences of the match process, and any opportunity to correct errors. Each variation at each step of the process has tangible consequences for voters seeking to register and vote in 2006 and beyond.

The report is critically important because it illustrates the need for common mechanisms for structuring and sharing data in voter registration databases (to the 2 people who don't remember, Mike and wrote a report for the IBM Center for the Business of Government about this). It also shows how fragile our election process is in the middle of the reform process. No doubt, most of the potential problems in voter registration will not come to pass, but as we all learned in 2000, it only takes one seemingly small disaster to create a tsunami.

MATERIAL ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON EARLYVOTING MARCH 04 2006

This explains recent communications that I have received over the number of early voting locations used in other urban localities in the 2004 election.

A Cook County board candidate, Forrest Claypool, has filed a Federal lawsuit alleging that the number and location of early voting centers in Cook County has been manipulated so as to benefit regular Democratic voters.

This suit is described here and seems to be different from another suit, this time filed by "several Chicago and suburban residents" alleging voting rights violations in the placement of early voting centers.

Part of the problem appears to be that the Illinois regulations give general guidelines as to how many early voting centers are to be opened and what hours they are to operate, but no set rules. The result is that some areas have weekend voting and some do not; some have widely distributed early voting locations and some do not.

Fellow Pasadena Star-News opinion page columnist Thomas Elias offered his own perspective on why California counties are seeking the ability to run by-mail elections for the upcoming June primary. His conclusion: "If it works in Oregon --- and no one there is complaining --- why not here?" We'll see if the state legislature agrees in time for the necessary legal and procedural changes to be made for this to happen by the June primary.

The New York Times has a story this morning noting that New York City officials are concerned about the negotiations going on to settle the DOJ lawsuit against New York State's failure to comply with HAVA deadlines may result in worse problems than might be solved. The main point of these concerns comes from a quote from a New York City official, who is quoted as saying in a letter: "that putting the stopgap plan in place by the September primary election `is completely infeasible and impractical, would provide false assurance to the voters that the problem has been solved, and would lead to chaos at the polls and possible disenfranchisement of the voters.' "

Questions: what assurance to New York City voters now have, given that they are using outdated voter registration procedures and outdated voting technologies? Is there evidence that New York voters have confidence in their existing electoral process? And where was this concern in the four years since HAVA was passed?

In the fall, there was some discussion after the "Voting Systems Testing Summit" that states were likely to move forward with developing their own voting systems testing regimes; this was something that I wrote about on December 1, 2005, in "Voting system testing by states in the future?". Well, it appears that, quietly, states are moving ahead with testing efforts.

One of these initiatives has been in Maryland, and the results for technical and usability tests conducted there recently have been made available to the public. There are three documents that have been issued:

1. "Executive Summary".
   
2. "A Study of Vote Verification Technologies: Part I: Technical Study."
   
3. "A Study of Vote Verification Technology Conducted For the Maryland State Board of Elections, Part II: Usability Study" (January 2006).
   

The technical analysis compared four voter-verifiable voting systems (VoteHere Sentinel, SCYTL Pnyx.DRE; Selker's VVAATT; Diebold's VVPAT), by a method in which the systems were rated (often subjectively) on a number of dimensions on 0-5 scales. The summary evaluative ratings then were used to produce the main technical recommendation (summarized also on page 63 of the report in a table): "we cannot recommend that the State of Maryland adopt any of the vote verification products that we examined at this time" (page 5). Given that none of these "products" are actually market-ready products, fully developed and ready for the market, these results are perhaps not too surprising.

The usability study looked at the same voter verifiable systems, and reached the same basic conclusions. The usability methodology involved expert usability analysis, field tests, and some consideration of the impact of the voting systems on election administration. One concern here is the field tests, involving over 800 participants ; as best as I could determine from the report, these field tests did not involve random selection of respondents, random assignment to treatments, nor any attempt to statistically deal with the non-random nature of the study design. The non-experimental design of the field tests leaves these results open to some question, and it would be good in the future to see either a stronger experimental design or an attempt to deal with the non-random nature of these field trials using some statistical method (true election geeks will want to refer here to Paul R. Rosenbaum, "Observational Studies", Springer, second edition, 2002).

Perhaps not too surprisingly, California is also moving forward with it's own testing regime, quite distinct from the Maryland approach. If you go to the following link, and scroll down to the material under the "Pending Certification" heading, you'll see a series of lengthy reports of testing of Sequoia, Hart, and ESS voting systems. The California approach differs from the Maryland approach in that California is putting these voting systems through a rigorous volume testing methodology, unlike the broader testing regime used in Maryland for the voter verifiability testing.

Obviously, Maryland and California's testing methods differ partly because the two states have been trying to answer different research questions; California appears to want to know how these voting systems will operate in conditions approximating their actual use. Maryland seems to want to know the answers to a broader set of questions, with a very heavy focus on voter and election administrator usability.

This does open the door for one important research agenda: developing testing methods for voting systems, and also developing and implementing the appropriate statistical methods for analyzing the evaluation data obtained from these voting systems tests. I hope that we will hear more from the research community on both of these issues in the near future, as clearly election officials in the states are moving ahead with ambitious testing efforts!

Yesterday, Thad Hall, Morgan Llewellyn and I released a working paper draft of our analysis of some interesting attitudinal data on American voter opinions regarding election governance. The paper is titled "Who Should Run Our Elections? Public Opinion About Election Governance in the United States". It's a much more thorough analysis of survey data that we initially released in a short study in June 2005.

Here's the abstract of the working paper:

Much has been said since the 2000 presidential election regarding the administration of elections in the United States, particularly in regards to how election administrators are selected and to whom they are responsive. Unfortunately, there has been little research on the different administrative structures that are possible and the preferences of Americans regarding these different administrative options. In this paper we present the results from a national survey of Americans, in which we asked them their preference for whether elections should be run by partisan or nonpartisan officials, whether the officials should be elected or appointed, and whether the administration of elections should be by a single unitary executive or by an election commission. In addition to eliciting the basic preferences of Americans about these administrative choices, we also undertake a deeper analysis of these data to determine the underlying patterns in support for the different administrative options.

As readers know, we've been conducting these public opinion surveys since before the 2004 election, covering (in addition to election governance) a variety of opinion and attitudinal data about election reform and voting technology. In September 2004 we released a short study regarding some survey data we had collected regarding opinions about electronic voting, "American Attitudes About Electronic Voting: Results of a National Survey;" we have data from subsequent replications of this survey, and a much more comprehensive analysis in our forthcoming book (Thad and I) on the electronic voting controversy. We are now writing a study from these surveys of voter confidence in the electoral process (which Thad and I are co-authoring with Morgan). And there are a few other interesting sets of survey questions that we have some data on that we'll be writing about in coming months.

The much-awaited U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against New York State's compliance with HAVA has filed today. There is a wire story running, here is the text from the Houston Chronicle. Here is the text of the DOJ release, which I've quoted below verbatim:

WASHINGTON, D.C. ‑ The Justice Department announced today that it has filed suit against the State of New York alleging violations of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, in Albany.

The government’s complaint contends that the state has failed to comply with two of HAVA’s requirements governing federal elections: that states (i) adopt voting systems that are fully accessible by disabled voters and are capable of generating a permanent paper record that can be manually audited, and (ii) create a statewide computerized voter registration database. The lawsuit is the first filed to vindicate these important federal obligations.

“HAVA contains important reforms designed to ensure that elections for federal office will both allow access to all voters and ensure the integrity of the process,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “We believe today’s lawsuit will help ensure that New York voters enjoy the benefits of these important reforms.”

HAVA was enacted with bipartisan support after the 2000 presidential election and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. States had nearly three years to comply with the provisions enforced under today’s lawsuit, which took effect January 1, 2006.

This suit is the culmination of an extensive effort by the Civil Rights Division to ensure timely and full implementation of HAVA. The Division met with representatives from states around the country to appraise and assist with their implementation efforts. As part of this process, the Division closely reviewed New York officials’ steps to comply with HAVA. The Division repeatedly urged to New York to come into compliance on a voluntary basis. As of the January 1, 2006 deadline, however, New York was not close to compliance with either provision.

HAVA was the first federal statute to provide federal funds to states to support reform of federal elections. As the government’s complaint alleges, New York received approximately $221 million to assist its implementation of HAVA’s requirements. This included more than $49 million specifically designated to assist the state replace its lever voting machines. Under HAVA, New York stands to lose these earmarked funds if it fails to replace these machines by the September 2006 primary election. Today’s lawsuit seeks a determination that the State of New York is not in compliance with HAVA’s voting systems and database requirements, and an order requiring the state to submit promptly a plan demonstrating how it will come into full compliance.

It'll be interesting to follow this case and to see what happens in New York as a result of the filing of this case.

Wednesday evening update:

There's a story now in the New York Times on this case, especially discussing recent efforts to avoid this very outcome:

The state and the Justice Department have been negotiating for weeks to try to avoid a lawsuit, and state officials said that they expect those talks to continue. "We've engaged in extensive negotiations and, despite the lawsuit, we are hopeful an agreement can be reached to resolve this matter," said Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, which is defending the state.

Recent negotiations have centered on settling the suit with a consent decree that would create a stopgap measure for this fall's elections, when New Yorkers will choose a United States senator, a governor, an attorney general, a comptroller and all 212 state lawmakers.

The measure, which elections officials call "Plan B," would allow the old mechanical voting machines to be used again this fall, while making options available for disabled voters at each polling site. The alternatives could involve machines that would print ballots, which could then be marked, and a system for disabled people to cast votes by phone.

Recently, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita led a bipartisan delegation of legislators and local election officials from his state to Larimer County, Colorado, to observe the operation of vote centers in that jurisdiction. Secretary Rokita's office released the result of their observation, and their recommendations about how the vote center concept might be used in Indiana. The report, "A Study of Vote Centers, and their Applicability to the Hoosier Election Process," is a very nice summary of the pros and cons of the vote center concept --- but also an excellent example of how election officials can learn from observing the innovations of their colleagues, and how they can then help inform all observers of elections by making public their findings.

The core of the report is a list of pros and cons of the vote center concept. Among the advantages identified by the research group are:

1. Improved and more streamlined election management.
   
2. Cost savings.
   
3. Voter convenience.
   

And the disadvantages identified in the report are:

1. Resistance to change, and the possible increase in inconvenience for some voters.
   
2. Technical sophistication required by the county election officials to operate a
   vote center.
   
3. Increased costs of election administration, in particular costs associated with ballot printing and technological changes.
   

Also included in the report is an excellent table of data from Larimer County, which might be of use for those interested in looking at voter participation trends in that County as they have experimented with various convenience voting options in recent years.

Again, there is useful information in this report for all interested in the vote center concept, and learning more about what Larimer County has been experimenting with. The other important aspect of this report, however, is to see how much one election jurisdiction can learn from the innovations of others. Thanks to Secretary Rokita for making this report available to us all!

To keep our blog readers informed of the different activities, workshops and conferences happening in the election organization community, here is a list of upcoming events. We will update this list periodically (monthly, as needed).

- NASS: National Association of Secretaries of State
1. Winter Conference '06: Feb 3-6, 2006, Washington DC, w/NASED
2. Summer Conference '06: Jul 9-12, 2006, Santa Fe NM, w/NASED
3. Winter Conference'07: Feb 9-12, 2007, Washington DC
4. Summer Conference '07: Jul 15- 18, 2007, Portland OR
[http://www.nased.org/conferences.htm]

- NASED - National Association of State Election Directors
1. Winter Meeting '06: Feb 4-6, 2006, Wash DC, w/NASS
2. Summer Meeting '06: Jul 9-11, 2006, Santa Fe NM, w/NASS
3. Winter Meeting '07: Feb10-12, 2007, Wash DC, w/The Election Center
[http://www.nased.org/conferences.htm]

- The Election Center
1. Special Workshop: Feb 22-26, 2006, Albuquerque NM
2. Special Workshop: April 5-9, 2006, Cleveland OH
3. PEP Special Session at Auburn University, May 17-22, 2006, Auburn AL
4. Summer Session: 5 courses: VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, July 15-22, 2006, Cleveland OH
5. National Conference, Aug 15-19, 2006, Chicago, IL
[http://www.electioncenter.org/events.html]

- IACREOT: International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials, and Treasurers
1. Mid-winter Meeting: Jan 20-24, 2006, San Francisco CA
2. Annual Conference: Jul 4-8, 2006, San Francisco CA
3. Fall Meeting: Sept 27-30, 2006, Daytona Beach FL
[http://www.iacreot.onlinecommunity.com/blox.asp]

- Usenix
1. NSDI 06: 3rd Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, May 8-10, 2006, San Jose CA
...Focuses on the design principles of large-scale networks and distributed systems.
2. Annual Technical Conference, May 30-Jun 3, 2006, Boston MA
[http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix06/]

- Usenix/Accurate
1. Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT ’06), Aug 1, 2006, Vancouver BC Canada
...EVT seeks to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines, ranging from computer science and human factors experts through political scientists, legal experts, election administrators, and voting equipment vendors. The workshop will include short paper presentations as well as vibrant panel discussions with substantial time devoted to questions and answers. Attendance at the workshop will be open to the public, although speakers and presentations will be by invitation only.
Accurate: A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections
[http://www.usenix.org/events/evt06/]