Election Updates

The FEC issued a ruling yesterday about the disclosure of funds used to finance recounts. As the AP story in the New York Times says:

Changing nearly 30 years of election policy, federal regulators said Wednesday that money used to pay for vote recounts and legal challenges was subject to campaign finance restrictions on contributions and expenditures.

In making its decision, the commission recognized that recounts were expensive. As a result, the contributions that candidates raise from individuals for their recount accounts will not count against their fund-raising for the election. Under current law, a candidate can receive donations up to $2,100 from an individual for each election. Now a contributor who had already reached the donation limit with a candidate could contribute also to the recount account. Similarly, while the state parties would have to abide by the $10,000 contribution limits that apply to them, they would not have to live within limitations on spending for so-called coordinated expenditures with federal candidates.

Yesterday, I did a presentation at the VTP Voter Registration-Voter Identifcation Conference about the interoperability of voting systems. This presentation focused on voter registration data interoperability. You can see the slides from the presentation and you can download the report "The Next Big Election Challenge" from the IBM Center for the Business of Government. There was a great interest in this issue, especially since voter registration is such a large issue today in election reform.

This morning, to open the second day of the VTP conference, Spencer Overton gave an interesting talk on the need for research on voter identification requirements. Overton's talk focused on the need for developing and undertaking a robust research agenda on the various dimensions of the voter identification debate --- especially on election fraud, and on the extent to which voting-eligible citizens have government-issued photo identification (and the extent to which they actually carry them around and would bring them to a polling place).

Overton noted that much of the policy and public debate so far as relied on anecedotal evidence, and arguments by analogy. He made a strong case for moving beyond this form of argument, toward a research-based policy debate. He's absolutely correct!

However, his talk raises a structural question for the academic and research community. Academic research, especially in the area of voting technology and election reform, is not as proactive as necessary; trying to quickly redirect a research agenda is like turning an aircraft carrier on a dime (difficult if not impossible!). A large part of the difficult here for academic researchers involves our procedures and processes for peer-review and publication, where it now can take well over a year, if you are lucky, to get a piece through peer review and into the pages of a good academic journal. There has been much discussion of how to get academic research on voting technology and election administration moving more quickly and more proactively; clearly we need some outside-the-box approaches for getting research and facts into the policy debates in a rapid --- but scientific --- manner.

There's a new report out from our friends at electionline.org, "Translating the Vote: The Impact of the Language Minority Provision of the Voting Rights Act." Section 203 of the VRA was debated recently as part of the VRA renewal, but there have been few studies of how it is implemented and of it's effects on election administration and on voter behavior. This report should help spark new research on this important question.

Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections in Texas, spoke at the conference this afternoon about their experiences with the development and implementation of their statewide voter registration system in Texas. During her presentation, she made three very interesting points:

1. Data matching: McGeehan gave some data on the matching rate they are finding with their new system. (Caveat: I jotted these down as quickly as I could; if there are any changes to these numbers I'll repost.) She stated that somewhere between 50 and 60% of their registrations or re-registrations are coming from Texans in drivers' license offices ("DPS" in Texas). For all of those registration requests, DPS verifies the drivers' license, not the election officials. For the rest, 85% give a drivers' license number; 6% give the last four digits of of their social security number; and the remainder have neither form of identification. When they verify the license number or social security number, they get a 2% match failure rate with the drivers' licenses, but over 50% fail when they match the last four digits of the social security number.
   
2. Process when verification fails: McGeehan stated that Texas developed a procedure for when this happens, which was unforseen under HAVA. She noted that since the failure to match might be due to problems in the databases, they are treating those who try to register but can't be matched as first-time registrants (meaning they have to show identification when they show up to vote). It would be interesting to see what the other states have developed as procedures for this eventuality.
   
3. Hurdles to implementation: McGeehan noted that they were having troubles with implementation of their new statewide file. She said that it was a hugely complex task, and that one of the greatest problems has come from "dirty data" from the counties.
   

Now to the presentations by Kim Brace and Thad Hall on data matching and interoperability.

The morning session of the VTP conference today focused on the historical background of voter registration in the United States, and the research that has been conducted so far on the effects of voter registration. Tova Wang (The Century Foundation) spoke about recent developments regarding voter registration, especially NVRA and HAVA. Alexander Keyssar (Harvard University) spoke about the history of voter registration in the United States, briefly covering many of the issues covered in his wonderful book, The Right to Vote. Then, in the second session, Stephen Ansolabehere (MIT) and Jonathan Nagler (NYU) talked about the social science perspectives on what is known about voter registration and it's impact on political behavior.

In these two sessions, there were three different discussions that I found very interesting.

First, Keyssar stressed repeatedly that in the United States there is no right to vote in the constitution. In his opinion, this is the root cause for many of the basic issues with the electoral process in the United States. As he noted repeatedly, if there were a constitutional right to vote, that would mean that the many administrative failures that we now see in elections (and the various problems they cause) would be much less likely to occur, as they would be a violation of a constitutional right. He also pointed out that in many nations there is a constitutional right to vote, and that in these nations there is in his opinion a more centralized and uniform (and effective?) election administration process. I'm not aware of research that takes this approach to study election administration, but I do think it might be an interesting perspective to study.

Second, Ansolabehere stated that in his opinion the new statewide voter files that are now being used throughout the United States would fundamentally change the nature of political comunications. He noted that they are more current and should have fewer errors than the old lists, they are electronic and highly accessible. As Stephen noted, they are "dynamite" --- a conclusion that might be correct. This is well worth studying as parties and candidates beging to use these new files in their efforts to contact voters.

Third, I posed a question to Ansolabehere and Nagler: if they had $5 million to spend on a five-year research agenda to understand voter registration, what would they do? Nagler said that he would spend the money collecting data on the procedures and laws regarding voter registration throughout thates, focusing on perhaps the past two or three decades. He also said that he would invest in collecting data on how how voter registration laws are being implemented, today and in the near future. Ansolabehere had a different take: he said that he would spend the money developing large-scale survey instruments measuring the barriers to voting (and on fixing the basic question that the Census CPS uses to measure barriers to voting). Stephen also said he would develop resources to developing methods to measure fraud, especially voter registration fraud.

The early voting snafus keep coming. It's too early to draw any firm conclusions, but a review of the stories from last spring and this fall reveal some reoccurring problems.

• Early voting for administrators. We often think of early voting as a longer window within which voters can cast their ballot and review campaign information. But early voting also pushes back the deadline by which election officials must prepare ballots, voter information guides, program machines, etc.
  
• Early voting and state laws. At the same time, some states may need to modify their constitutional arrangements, to force petitions signers to get their petitions in earlier, hold primaries earlier, and generally set deadlines that correspond to the new early voting window.
  
• Keep it simple. Problems often crop up when states and localities try to change too many things at once, adding both early voting, new voting machines, relax absentee requirements, etc. To the degree possible, states should try to phase in requirements, particularly using lower profile local contests and primaries as a way to test out new balloting methods.
  

In Ohio, absentee ballots are not ready because the signatures for two ballot issues were not certified in time. The ballots are stuck at the printer.

In Cook County, IL, some are charging that early voting ballots are not being secured, and are simply being "tossed into an unlocked file cabinet drawer". (Thad, Mike, and I heard similar descriptions after the April primary.)

These cases are not unusual, and we'll have more to come, I'm sure, in the next few weeks.

Here's a last reminder that the VTP conference on voter identification and registration is this Thursday and Friday. The conference website is here. The conference agenda is full of interesting speakers, covering the range of topics that are now of interest in these two critical aspects of the election process. Both Thad and I will be at this conference, and we'll be writing about the conference as it occurs here on Election Updates!

The GAO has issued a report on recent FVAP efforts to improve the voting process for overseas voters. The report, "Elections: DOD Expands Voting Assistance to Military Absentee Voters, but Challenges Remain", faults the FVAP's efforts. Here is an extract from the report's summary:

Despite efforts of DOD and the states, GAO’s April 2006 report identified two major challenges that remain in providing voting assistance to military personnel: (1) simplifying and standardizing the time-consuming and multi-step absentee voting process, which includes different requirements and time frames for each state; and (2) developing and implementing a secure electronic registration and voting system. FVAP attempted to make the absentee voting process easier by using its Legislative Initiatives program to encourage states to simplify the multi-step process and standardize their absentee voting requirements. However, the majority of states have not agreed to any new initiatives since FVAP’s 2001 report on the 2000 election. FVAP is limited in its ability to affect state voting procedures because it lacks the authority to require states to take action on absentee voting initiatives. For the 2004 election, FVAP developed an electronic registration and voting experiment. However, it was not used by any voters due to concerns about the security of the system. Because DOD did not want to call into question the integrity of votes that would have been cast via the system, they decided to shut the experiment down prior to its use by any absentee voters. Some technologies—such as faxing, e-mail and the Internet—have been used to improve communication between local jurisdictions and voters.

Recently, EAC commissioners testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, and their testimony also discussed technological improvements for military and overseas voters, though focusing on current and future EAC activities to study technological improvements:

Every day financial institutions around the world use secure technology to transmit billions of dollars. The U.S. military uses secure technology to transmit sensitive and, even, classified information. With the availability of these resources and existing and strategically located personnel we could do more to ensure that UOCAVA voters have the ability to participate in U.S. elections.

EAC has contracted for a study of internet voting and the transmission and receipt of absentee ballots for UOCAVA voters. This study will include reviewing the practices of states and local jurisdictions that use technology to transmit or accept ballots and may allow internet voting. In addition, EAC will survey UOCAVA voters who have participated in some form of electronic voting. Through this study we hope to more fully understand the problems, resources and potential solutions involved in military and overseas citizen voting.

EAC has also been tasked with developing standards for Internet voting that Department of Defense can use in developing an Internet-based voting system for UOCAVA voters. Introducing technology seems like a simple solution to the problem; however there will be substantial resistance to a technology-only fix for military and overseas voting. It is important to remember that segments of our society have a healthy distrust of the security of electronic voting, particularly when voting systems or methods are connected to the Internet. Thus, it is critical that we address issues such as how an Internet-based voting system will provide confidence to the public that it is not only secure, but also that the person casting the ballot using that system is an eligible voter.

I've got two observations to make about this flurry of reports and testimony. The first is that it's interesting to have been involved in the area of voting technology and election reform efforts for long enough now to recognize the seasonality of interest in various topics ... and it is now the season to examine why we've made little progress improving the absentee voting process for overseas and military voters. The answer is simple: far too few resources have been spent since 2000 on figuring out better procedures and developing better technologies for overseas and military voters. The second is that at some point it would be great to hear a complete reporting about what was learned during the FVAP's 2004 experiment, even though the system that was under development as part of that project was never implement for registration and voting.

This Virginia lawsuit claims that state law, which allows for absentee ballot status if the individual is "unable to go in person to the polls on the day of election because of physical disability or physical illness" discriminates against individuals who are institutionalized but are otherwise deemed competent to vote.

There's a new report out from the IBM Center for the Business of Government: Shelley H. Metzenbaum's "Performance Accountability: The Five Building Blocks and Six Essential Practices." The IBM Center for the Business of Government also has provided a nice pdf briefing summary of the report.

Metzenbaum outlines six key practices that can help improve performance and strengthen accountability:

• Emphasize outcome-oriented goals and develop specific targets --- and communicate them to the public.
  
• Master the use of measurements to show progress towards the targets and goals.
  
• Deliver feedback to help those in the organization reach the targets and goals.
  
• Develop and maintain means within the origanization for interative inquiry.
  
• Develop action plans based on the best available information and thinking.
  
• Implement the action plans, and insure that there are adequate feedback mechanisms going back into the future development of new goals, targets, measurement and planning.
  

Management of public organizations in an environment that requires rapid and quantitative public accountability is difficult, especially so in the political and contentious situation that many election administrators find themselves in. Furthermore, election management requires a high degree of public transparency and openness, which can be difficult to maintain. Metzenbaum's report might help election administrators develop more effective means of insuring a high degree of public accountability.