Election Updates

This is from the Seattle Times:

About 1,100 King County residents are not eligible to vote in the November election because a box containing their voter-registration forms was sent by UPS rather than U.S. mail, election officials said Friday.

The signed forms, collected in Pierce County during a drive to register more minority and low-income voters, were picked up by UPS one day before the Oct. 7 deadline for mailing registration forms. They arrived at election headquarters Oct. 9.

Because state law allows registrations to be processed only if there is a "postal cancellation" by the deadline, officials say these registrations arrived too late.

"They didn't have a U.S. postmark that was posted in time," Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Janine Joly said.

Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said there was nothing on the package that confirmed the claim by the organizers of the voter-registration drive that they mailed the box before Oct. 7. The only date on a UPS shipping tag was Oct. 9.

But the tag also showed a UPS tracking number. UPS records showed the package was initially picked up in Fife at 2:05 p.m. Oct. 6.

The voter-registration drive, funded by Project Vote, was conducted by Washington ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Registration forms from Pierce County residents were hand-delivered to election officials there, said Michael Slater, director of Project Vote's election administration program.
...

We've written in the past about problems like these involving third-party efforts to register voters; we typically have little data on the extent to which administrative errors like these may disenfranchise voters.

A few updates on the Latino voter intimidation effort in Orange County (CA).

• First, reports now indicate that there were approximately 14,000 of the letters mailed. This was certainly a major effort to intimidate Latino voters and to keep them from the polling places in this election.
  
• Second, here is the text of the letter (this is from yesterday's story in the LA Times; I also want to thank Joe Hall who sent along his own translation!):
  

  
  Greetings ....
  
  You are being sent this letter because you were recently registered to vote. If you are a citizen of the United States, we ask that you participate in the democratic process of voting.
  
  You are advised that if your residence in this county is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time and you will be deported for voting without having a right to do so.
  
  At the same time, you are advised that the government of the United States is installing a new computer system to verify the names of all new registered voters that vote in the October and November elections. Anti-imigrant organizations can ask for information from this new computer system.
  
  Unlike Mexico, here, there is no incentive to vote. There is not a voter registration card in the United States. Therefore, it is useless and dangerous to vote in any election if you are not a citizen of the United States.
  
  Do not listen to any politician that tells you the opposite. They are only looking out for their own interest. They only want to win elections without any regard to what happens to you.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Sergio Ramirez
  

  
  That LA Times translation from Spanish to English comes from the office of state Senator Gloria Romero.
  
• Here is a link (link provided by Joe Hall) to what appears to be an electronic version of this letter, for readers who want to see the original in Spanish.
  

The Washington Post has a nice story covering the decision by the Supreme Court that allows the law to be in effect for the upcoming election.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Arizona may enforce a new state law requiring voters to show a photo identification card at the polls on Election Day this year, despite a pending lawsuit by opponents who say the measure will disenfranchise the poor, minorities and the elderly.

In its unanimous five-page ruling, the court did not decide whether the Arizona law was constitutional. Rather, it overturned a federal appeals court in San Francisco that would have blocked enforcement of the law until the opponents' suit could be decided.

It seems that Idaho's county clerks have recently passed a resolution to develop the legislative language necessary to shift voting in their state to an entirely vote-by-mail process. This is from a story from MSNBC:

County clerks from across Idaho have given their stamp of approval to a system allowing people to vote by mail, saying the new method would lower costs and increase voter turnout.

The Vote By Mail proposal would parallel programs in Washington and Oregon by mailing ballots with return envelopes to all registered voters. Once residents have voted, ballots can be mailed to or dropped off at the county elections office, where signatures will be verified and votes counted. The system would be similar to absentee voting a program which has been widely used in Franklin County, said County Clerk Elliott Larsen and would eliminate the need to vote at designated precinct polling places.

Voters would still have the option to vote in person at a centralized voting precinct, most likely the clerks office, Larsen said.

At an August meeting, Idaho county clerks passed a resolution to be drafted into legislation and presented to the 2007 Idaho Legislature, Larsen said. The Vote By Mail legislation would have to be passed by both the Idaho Senate and House, and would give local governments the option of implementing the system.

Up here at Reed College, we have been working on the Enhanced Election Day Survey project, and I have some updates to share with readers of the blog.

The 2004 Election Day Survey was administered by the Election Assistance Commission, as part of their mandate from Congress to improve election administration nationwide. The EDS is something of a census of election jurisdictions in the United States, including a wealth of information on turnout, rates of early voting, use of electoral machinery, and appearance of electoral irregularities.

However, the EDS has some problems. The EAC encountered some data reporting issues. Some questions have a large amount of missing data. And the dataset was distributed in a format that made it difficult to analyze.

We received funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York in order to take the EDS, plug some major gaps in the data, produce a codebook, produce a web-based interface to analyze the data, and supplement the dataset with demographic and contextual information.

The enhanced EDS will make is possible to ask questions like:

• Are early voting levels responsive to differences in average income, education, urbanization?
  
• Are electoral irregularities more common in particular kinds of jurisdictions made up of certain kinds of voters or in particular kinds of campaigns?
  
• Are provisional ballots more frequently rejected in some jurisdiction and not others?
  

Interested users can review the current codebook and dataset at the Early Voting Information Center. The dataset is not much different at this point from the version that Thad and Mike converted a few months ago, except that we have created variable names, labels, and corrected some missing data problems.

We're looking for suggestions about what we should do over the next two months, when our grant runs out. So email us at earlyvoting@gmail.com. We look forward to your input!

According to this morning's Los Angeles Times, Tan Nguyen (who ironically is himself an immigrant), who is running as a Republican candidate in the 47th congressional race in Orange County, has admitted that his campaign was involved in sending intimidating letters to Latino voters in that district (in particular, in the Garden Grove area). Nguyen is under considerable pressure to drop out of this congressional race, though so far he has resisted calls for him to exit from the race.

The print edition of the LA Times had a compete translation of the letter sent to Latino voters, but I haven't been able to find it electronically (yet). If any readers have pointers to an electronic translation, please let me know.

We've received a copy of the report that was conducted regarding the March 21, 2006 election in the City of Chicago and Cook County (IL). This report has been circulating in Illinois, and was reported in the Chicago Tribune.

In any case, here is a copy of the report which we received from representatives at Sequoia Voting Systems. I suspect we'll hear from Sequoia about their reactions in the near future, and may receive additional information as well.

The story all election officials like to tell is that they always want the election to be a blowout so that any problems will not affect the outcome. If you listen to On Point today, a radio show out of WBUR in Boston on NPR, they have a nice story about all of the House and Senate races that are expected to be highly competitive. These races will put pressure on election officials to ensure that all aspects of the election are well-run.

The Los Angeles Times had good coverage of the race for Secretary of State in California, pitting incumbent Republican Bruce McPherson against Democrat Debra Bowen. This race has been a sleeper so far, but given that as of September 30 McPherson had over $1 million on hand, it is likely we'll hear more about this race before election day.

One bit of good news: both Bowen and McPherson support making this office nonpartisan. Let's hope that, whichever of them wins the November election, they do work to achieve that goal in the next four years.

According to a story in the Sacramento Bee, election officials in Yolo County (CA) have discovered that the instructions for voters with vision disabilities in their voting machines are only in Vietnamese:

Yet two weeks ago, when officials began programming the machines, the directions for use by voters with vision disabilities came out in Vietnamese.

The timing of the discovery -- about one month before the Nov. 7 elections -- lessened the shock. But the county's top elections official said the error shows just how sticky the move toward electronic voting can be.

The good news is that the vendor (Hart) sent a corrected program within 72 hours of learning about the problem.

Election forecasting is a fascinating cottage industry in political science. Our own Michael Alvarez once demonstrated how you could predict presidential election outcomes using the results of the previous year's baseball World Series.

The paper citation is: Can Bush Hit a Home Run?” With Brian Loynd. The Political Methodologist, Spring-
Summer 1994, vol. 5, no. 2, 2-4, and you can actually read it here. Ain't the Internet wonderful?

But forecasting, which started out as something of a model fitting exercise for data geeks (like Mike) has turned into a serious part of the profession. There are whole volumes dedicated to election forecasting, and many authors argue that our ability to forecast an election provides us insights into the fundamentals that underlie American elections and electoral behavior.

So what about this year? The models--all produced six months ago--are looking pretty good. You can read all of the results at the American Political Science Association webpage: October 17, 2006: Political Scientists' Models Predict Democratic Takeover of House of Representatives. Most predict a 22-29 seat gain for Democrats in the House, and 2-3 seats in the Senate.

The New York Times has a sky is falling story today about the upcoming elections. The framing of the story is actually pretty funny. Here is the lead.

New electronic voting machines have arrived in Yolo County, Calif., but there is one hitch: the audio program for the visually impaired in some of them works only in Vietnamese.“Talk about panic,” said Freddy Oakley, the county’s top election official. “I’ve got gray-haired ladies as poll workers standing around looking stunned.”

As dozens of states are enforcing new voter registration laws and switching to paperless electronic voting systems, officials across the country are bracing for an Election Day with long lines and heightened confusion, followed by an increase in the number of contested results.

Paper-less voting systems? Has this reporter ever heard of a VVPAT? California does not allow paper-less voting systems and many of the states he lists as being problematic are also VVPAT states. Moreover, the article is full of comments that suggest that training, or the lack thereof, is the actual problem. (Note to readers, I am not blaming local election officials for that. Training problems are often the fault of county commissions failing to allocate funds for training to counties when they do these transitions.)

Charles Stewart has the best quote in the story.

Charles Stewart, head of the political science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a study this year indicating that from 2000 to 2004, new technology helped reduce the number of improperly marked ballots by about one million votes.

“If you think things are bad and worrisome now, they were much worse before 2000,” Mr. Stewart said, adding that breakdowns in the mechanics of voting are simply more highlighted, not more prevalent.

Those wacky Europeans are at it again. The Netherlands will be allowing Dutch citizens living abroad to vote on the Internet in Parlimentary elections this November. The basics of this are described on the website for the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations.

Not surprisingly, the government notes that:

The main purpose of this experiment will be to enhance voting facilities. The regular postal voting will still be available for the Dutch ex pats. After registration, the voters will be able to choose whether they want to cast their vote by internet or by post.

There were 5,000 voters who cast ballots online in 2004. In 2006, they have made certain changes to the process in order to streamline certain aspects and improve transparency.

Reports about the efficacy of the 2004 experiment can be found here (see the right side of the page).

Not to beat a dead horse here, but we should be doing these exact types of experiments!!!!!

There were two segments of NPR's Talk of the Nation that were on topics we have covered on our blog in the last week.

First, there was a segment on ballot initiatives.

Second, they did a segment on Commuting in America.

Both of the stories are very interesting; give them a listen!

Dear Professor Gronke --- indeed, the California voter information guide is quite a beast, and our postal carrier had difficulty fitting the two for our household in our mailbox. You can see the entire voter information guide online here, in it's full 192 page glory! And I know that you, like all good election geeks, will stay up late tonight (like I will), reading this exciting and user-friendly material! Will make a great holiday gift for all election geeks on your list.

There is some new survey data from Pew, that has some interesting results on voter confidence, electronic voting, and early voting.

• On voter confidence: it hasn't changed much in the aggregate since 2004, but
  there is still are large differences in confidence of Democrats and Republicans, as well as evidence that the confidence of African-Americans has slipped considerably since 2004. From the Pew report:
  

  
  Most voters (58%) say they are very confident that their votes will be accurately counted in the upcoming election. Another 29% say they are somewhat confident their votes will be counted correctly. Only about one-in-ten voters (12%) say they are not too confident or not at all confident their votes will accurately counted.
  
  Attitudes on this issue have not changed much since the 2004 presidential campaign. In mid-October of 2004, 62% of voters expressed a high level of confidence their votes would be accurately counted, while 26% said they were somewhat confident their vote would be accurately counted.
  
  There continues to be a large partisan gap in confidence that votes will be counted correctly in November; 79% of Republicans express a high degree of confidence their votes will be accurately counted, compared with 45% of Democrats.
  
  Notably, African American voters express much more skepticism their votes will be accurately counted than they did in the fall of 2004. Just 30% say they are very confident their votes will be accurately counted, down from 47% two years ago. The percentage of black voters who express little or no confidence in vote-counting procedures has approximately doubled ­ from 15% to 29%. More than three times as many blacks as whites now say they have little or no confidence their vote will be accurately tallied (29% vs. 8%).
  

  
  
  
• On the new voting technology: more awareness of the new technology than in 2004, and some partisan differences in perceptions of whether it will improve the situation or not. From the report:
  

  
  About two-thirds of voters (68%) say they have heard that states are using new technology at polling places, which changes the way votes are cast and counted. Three-in-ten say it makes things better, compared with 11% who say it makes things worse. However, a relatively large minority of voters say it does not make much difference, or offer no opinion (32% combined).
  
  ...
  
  Republicans are more bullish about the changes in the way votes are cast and counted than are either Democrats or independents. Roughly four-in-ten Republican voters (41%) say it will make things better; that compares with 28% of independent voters and 25% of Democratic voters.
  

  
  
  
• Voting by mail: there is considerably support for voluntary voting by mail, though resistence to moving solely to a national vote by mail system.
  
  
• Will people vote early this year? The survey found that 14% of of registered voters plan on viting early this fall, with 24% of those 65 or over planning on voting early. Furthermore, early voting is more likely to be an option in western states, as 34% of registered voters from those states say they will vote early this fall.
  

If you're like me, you've been besieged with "weight loss" and "stay slim" emails in your "spam" email box.

Well, perhaps California elections officials need to pay closer attention to these recommendations, because the California ballot is bursting at the seams. I think the Doctor of Democracy might recommend a crash diet!

We blogged on the first problem with these weighty ballots a few days ago--the normal 37 cent postage stamp won't be enough. Elections officials have pooh-poohed the costs of returning a ballot, but when it climbs to 75 cents or even a dollar, will this dissuade some voters (and what kind of voters? Those of more marginal means?).

Printing costs are not a minor detail, either. Alameda County spent 1.5 million in the primary, and estimates "substantially higher" costs this time around. Costs are only increasing, as state law requires multilingual voter's guides.

And how long is the actual ballot? The story quoted below reports a length of 100 to 124 pages . Hey, Professor Alvarez, can this really be true? A ballot longer than the news, sports, and metro section of the LA Times?

When citizens start comparing voting to "doing your taxes," you know we have a serious problem on our hands.

The Governor of California is a big advocate of physical fitness. Maybe if re-elected, Arnold can take on the bloated California ballot.

Story quoted is here: San Jose Mercury News

According to a story in this morning's Los Angeles Times, an investigation has been launched in Orange County (CA) of a Spanish-language letter, sent to Latinos in the OC, threatening them with jail or deportation if they turn out to vote in this fall's general election. The story quotes language from the letter:

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time …," the letter says.

Apparently the letter also threatens those who receive it that California has developed some sort of voter-tracking system that will turn the names of illegal Latino voters over to anti-immigrant groups.

At this time, it appears that the letter is only being circulated in a limited area of Orange County. The Orange County Registrar reports that "most of the mailers are being received in Garden Grove, which is center stage in the hotly contested race for the 34th State Senate District. That race – long a Democratic stronghold in central Orange County – recently saw Republicans narrow registration margins making the district a virtual tie between registered Republicans and Democrats."

It is unclear exactly who sent the letter, and the extent to which the letter has been distributed. But in a close election, like that in the 34th Senate district, if tactics like this keep even a handful of voters from the polls, that might have an impact on the election outcome.

The report Commuting in America III, which is perhaps the most important report about the daily travels of Americans, was released today. The report is published by the Transportation Research Board and I would suggest it is a must read for all people interested in election administration.

The report details everything you need to know about how Americans travel around their communities. These travel patterns are very important for election officials because different communities have different needs for election services based on the travel patterns of citizens--the voter "customers." Everything from the location of precincts and early voting locations to the absentee voting needs of the voters can be affected by commuting. The report also sheds light on several other debates that exist in elections today, such as over photo identification.

First, the report notes that there are differences in identification availability in different communities and different social groups. The report notes that,

Holding of a driver'’s license has become close to pervasive in adult America today; but women still lag in licensing; – about 89% of men and 84% of women have a driver’s license, for an overall average of 86%. On an age basis, 80% of those early in the licensing years (16-24) or late (65+) have licenses, with the averages well over 90% for the age groups in between. The baby-boomers in the 35-54 age group represent the peak of ownership of a license at about 95%.

There are similar results when we consider people in the population with cars. One thing to keep in mind is that New York City and the Northeast cities account for a very large percentage of the zero-car households.

One-vehicle households and zero-vehicle households had remained roughly constant for 30 years. The group of households without vehicles has continued to remain roughly constant at between 10 million and 11 million households for the entire 40 year period of the baby boom, of course dropping sharply as a percentage of all households.

The report then considers commuting patterns and times. Commuting is very important for election officials to consider because commuting patterns and times may affect the need on the part of voters for either longer poll hours, more alternative voting methods (like no-excuse absentee voting), and consideration of the location of voting centers along critical travel paths.

The report has the following findings about commuting patterns.

• Commuting from central city to suburb, so-called "“reverse commuting" accommodated a 20% share of growth in commuting.

• More than 94 million commuters, 73% of all commuters, work within their county of residence, but that leaves more than 34 million who are exported each day from their home county to work, compared to an estimated 20 million in 1980, an 85% increase in that period, and more than 3 and a half times the number in 1960.

• Since 1980 the dominant pattern of inter-metropolitan commuting has been "a“cross suburb commuting," that is commuting from one suburb to a suburb of a different metropolitan area. It amounted to about 31 percent of all intermetropolitan commuting in 1980 rising to almost 39 percent in 1990 and falling slightly to 38% in 2000.

The report notes that commuting patterns vary by city size.

• Contrary to what some might expect, it is the smaller metropolitan areas that show strong center city dominance. In areas below 100,000 population, The internal center city flows alone are about half of all flows, but drop to below 24% at the highest metro size levels.

• Small-town America has the greatest tendency to work and reside in the same county; at 80% compared to the below 67% in rural areas in general.

Overall commute times are getting longer as well.

• Average national travel times grew about 40 seconds from 21.7 minutes in 1980 to 22.4 minutes in 1990, with more than 22 million single occupant vehicle (SOV) drivers added. This was followed by a gain of a nominal three minutes to 25.5 minutes from 1990 to 2000, despite an increase of on the order of only 13 million new SOV users.

• All Census Regions were below 25 minutes in travel time except for the Northeast at over 27 minutes. The entire nation's average is affected by New York.

• After hovering around 50% for many decades the percentage of workers reaching work in under 20 minutes was at 47% in 2000. Non-metropolitan workers average 58%; contrasted to between 42% and 49% in metropolitan areas.

• Forty of the states increased between 2 and 4 minutes in travel time with Kansas the only state that increased less than two minutes. No state lost travel time. Those gaining more than 4 minutes were all in the East. Georgia and West Virginia led all states with gains greater than five minutes.

• Only New York State had more than 10% of workers traveling over 60 minutes in 1990, but New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois joined the group in 2000 and California came close. Extreme commutes (those more than 90 minutes) were typical in the same set of States.

The data on commuting clearly show that it is taking people longer to get to and from work. These trip times do not include the events that occur going to and from work--such as dropping off and picking up children from school or day care. In addition, as we have all experienced, trip times can vary based on weather, events, and intangibles.

For election officials, increased trip times are likely to mean even more pronounced peaks in voting demand early and late in the voting process, as well as demands for early voting, expanded absentee voting, and vote centers.

If traffic continues growing at this rate and work and home become even more separated, there may also be more demand for cross-jurisdictional voting in the future. Commuters from Orange County will want to vote in Los Angeles County, near their offices, and voters from Maryland and Virginia will want to be able to vote in Washington, DC. As technologies improve, such voting may be possible, but it will require harmonizing voting rules across counties and possibly across states as well.

There's a New York Times editorial today that argues for nonpartisan election administration, based on continued allegations that Ohio's current Secretary of State (and candidate for Ohio governor), Kenneth Blackwell, is using his office to make partisan decisions that could sway the outcome of the gubernatorial election:

The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality.

...

Election administration should be removed from partisan politics, in Ohio and everywhere else. Decisions like these should be made by nonpartisan bodies or, failing that, by people who do their utmost to insulate themselves from partisan politics. In 2004, Mr. Blackwell chose to become co-chairman of President Bush’s Ohio campaign, and then issued rulings that helped the campaign. Now we have the even more bizarre prospect of Mr. Blackwell, or his deputy, potentially participating in the baseless disqualification of his opponent.

Hear, hear ... music to our ears! See VTP working paper 47, "Who Should Run Our Elections? Public Opinion About Election Governance in the United States."

Just a brief followup to Thad's post on the long ballot. In South Dakota, some election officials are reporting that the ballot is so long, that absentee voters are stopping by the elections office, picking up the ballot, and taking it home with them.

I am sympathetic, of course. Book One of my two-volume 2006 Oregon voting guide arrived last week. I wait in eager anticipation for the second volume. All I need is 300 pages of reading before election day!

Early voting will start in North Carolina on October 19th (links here and here).

Early voting started today in Illinois (links here, here and here).

Early voting stars on Wednesday in Tennessee (which has one of the higher early voting rates among states in the South). Link here.

Nevada seems to allow different early voting times in different counties (see a list here); most start by October 21st.

Florida's polls open on October 23rd.

There is a great interview that was published in the MIT Technology Review this morning, containing an extended interview with "Political scientist Thad Hall." Of course, this is just our Election Updates colleague, Thad! Kidding aside, it's a really thoughtful and extended interview on the current state of statewide voter registration databases and future issues associated with their development and use.

Both USA Today and The Economist have articles about all of the initiatives that are on ballots nationally. The Economist notes that:

Altogether, 205 statewide measures (to say nothing of lots of local ones) await voters in assorted states this November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most involve decisions already taken by state legislatures, which they are asking voters to ratify. But 81 of them have been placed on ballots directly by citizen groups. That is the highest number of citizen-driven measures since 1996, when widespread voter disgust triggered a slew of initiatives proposing term limits and restrictions on taxes and spending.

What do all of these propositions mean? Two things, and neither bode especially well for the Fall elections from an administrative point of view.

The first issue is that the ballots will be longer, which will mean that it will take voters longer to navigate through the voting process. In the current world of voting system transitions and VVPATs--where voters are expected to compare the VVPAT with the votes on the screen--the longer ballot makes everything more complicated for the voters.

The second issue is that initiatives boost turnout, which is a good thing generally, but will provide interesting issues for some jurisdictions in the midterm elections, especially in places that are transitioning to new voting systems. As The Economist article notes:

Ballot initiatives do seem to drive extra voters to the polls in mid-term elections, when turnout otherwise drops sharply. Daniel Smith of the University of Florida and Caroline Tolbert of Kent State University have looked at voting patterns from 1980-2002, and estimate that mid-term turnout goes up by an average of 1.7% for each initiative on the ballot. Mr Smith also points out that candidates do not gain just from higher turnout. Having an emotional issue on the ballot can also make it a bigger topic in the campaign, which tends to help the candidate whose backers put it there.

It will be interesting to see how the longer ballot and higher turnout affect different jurisdictions in the upcoming election.

There is also a call for papers from the Social Science Computer Review, for papers on technology and campaigns. For details, see the blogsite "bytes and ballots."

Readers might be interested in the following call for papers, from the journal American Politics Quarterly:

Call for Papers on Political Geography and American Politics

American Politics Research

*American Politics Research* invites scholars to submit articles on the political geography of American politics. In 2008, /APR/ will publish a special issue on spatial aspects of American political behavior, elections and institutions.

Political geography is concerned with how specific geographic concepts may be relevant to understanding political behavior and institutions. These core geographic concepts include: location, distance or proximity, and access. Notions of geographic movement, or flow, are also central. Political geography may begin with issues related to redistricting, but the range of research topics extends far beyond this horizon.

The /APR/ readership is most interested in articles that evaluate theories, test hypotheses and examine data about geographic variation in political behavior or institutions. Papers with a historical focus are welcome. Papers deploying sophisticated spatial statistical tools, and hierarchical models, to illuminate substantive questions are encouraged.


Promising paper topics might include:

1) Studying geographic variation in political behavior, such as presidential vote choice, or political participation, across space or time;

2) Diffusion studies - examining public policy adoption from a spatial standpoint.

3) Studies of the impact of political context on mass or elite opinion.

4) Studies of congressional redistricting, or related boundary-defining processes.

5) Examinations of the meaning of borders or related institutional boundaries.

6) Examination of racial and ethnic segregation, concentration, and the implications of such patterns for electoral politics, redistricting, or public service delivery.

7) Studies of the relevance of distance to candidate name recognition and evaluation.

8) Examinations of geographic variations in mass media consumption and their possible political implications.

9) Studies of population mobility and its political consequences.


10) Studies of the geography of political campaign activity and candidate strategy, including the Electoral College.

The deadline for submission of papers is September 5, 2007, although articles will be accepted and reviewed before then on a rolling basis. All papers should be approximately 22-28 pages in length, double-spaced, including a 150 word abstract. Papers should conform with the /APR/ Guidelines as outlined in the submission instructions for the journal at:

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/apr/ .

Questions, as well as electronic submissions should be directed to Jim Gimpel, Editor, at apr@gvpt.umd.edu.

I am posting this Reuter's article about the Ecuadorian presidential election because it illustrates two important differences between US election practices and international practices.

• First, internationally it is common for ballots to be counted in precincts and then audited centrally. This allows for instant precinct results to be announced at the close of polls. With the widespread use of electronic tabulating equipment in precincts--such equipment or something similar is generally necessary under HAVA for "second chance" requirements--it is becoming easy for such precinct counts to be done.
• Second, although though some countries, including Ecuador, use exit polls, they rely much more on the "quick counts" of a sample of precincts to predict the outcome. Long-time readers probably are bored of our touting this, but it would be a valuable tool in US elections.

The Reuter's article is below.

Ecuador's leftist candidate Rafael Correa has won 25.3 percent of votes and tycoon Alvaro Noboa 24.3 percent, according to the initial results from an quick count of 5.4 percent of ballot boxes around the country by electoral authorities on Sunday. The results do not represent national voting trends as ballot box vote counts are usually received first from larger cities and towns before remote rural areas.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the votes on Sunday or 40 percent of votes with a 10 percentage point advantage, a run-off will be held on Nov. 26 between the two contenders.

Two national exit polls earlier showed Noboa slightly ahead with between 29 and 27 percent of votes and Correa with 27 to 25 percent of the votes. Official results are expected later Sunday.

The use of absentee ballots is rising in municipal races in California, according to data collected and reported on in a story in today's Pasadena Star-News:

Absentee ballots accounted for roughly 42 percent of all votes cast in both the recent Measure A election in Glendora and the Wal-Mart-inspired recall election in Rosemead, according to results from both races. These figures reflect statewide trends that some experts say have the absentee vote approaching the 50 percent mark.

Why?

"There is no question that the use of both absentee and early voting is increasing at local, state and national levels," said Michael Alvarez, a professor of politics at Caltech.

"Voters like it because it is more convenient. Election officials like it because it makes their life easier. And parties and candidates like it because it is becoming a part of their targeting and micro-targeting strategy."

But the use of absentee ballots in these municipal races sometimes has unintended consequences, as may have been the case in the Glendora race:

Some of the early election tactics used in the Glendora campaign led to accusations that proponents of Measure A were illegally trying to influence voters. NJD Ltd., which proposed the measure to allow construction of an 18-hole golf course on its hillside land in exchange for a 338-unit housing development on the Glendora Country Club, admitted its campaign workers provided $10 gift cards to residents to encourage them to turn in their absentee ballots.

The company denied its staffers told people how to vote, or even identified themselves as Measure A supporters, saying it was simply trying to increase voting for a special election they said the city purposefully scheduled a month before the November election to suppress turnout.

While NJD's efforts did bring in more than 5,000 absentee ballot applications on top of the city's 2,700 permanent absentee votes, in the end the tactic appears to have backfired. Only 624 of the more than 4,900 absentee ballots counted so far supported the developer's measure.

An interesting development, to see the increased use of abstentee ballots in these municipal races.