Election Updates

The Voices of Reform project had a conference on January 17, and they had a series of interesting panels on election and political reform issues in California: campaign finance reform, redistricting reform, the initiative process, and the rise of "decline to state" voters. Here's an email I received from the Voices of Reform folks, including links to their conference materials:

The Voices of Reform Post-Election Series (A Four Panel Series 01/17/07)

In his latest inaugural address, Governor Schwarzenegger reiterated his commitment to reforming state government in ways that can reinvigorate public confidence in the work of our elected officials, and urged voters to think beyond partisanship. But are there reforms on which both Democrats and Republicans can agree? And is there sufficient will to reform government itself?

Download individual panels to learn more about these issues as the 2007 Legislative Session begins.

Campaign Finance Reform: Finding Bipartisan Common Ground

The campaign for Prop 89 (the public financing reform initiative) on the November '06 ballot drove Democrats and Republicans even further into their respective corners on this issue, making it harder than ever to identify bipartisan common ground; are there any reforms on which members of both major parties can agree?

mp3 audio.

CA Channel Video.

Redistricting Reform in 2007: What's it going to take?

Redistricting reform has attracted broad and sustained support over the past two years, including by every major paper in the state. But the Legislature continues to balk at producing meaningful action; will they finally act in 2007, or is a Citizen's Initiative the only chance for redistricting reform?

mp3 audio.

CA Channel Video.

Taking Stock of CA's Initiative Process: Opportunities for Reform

72% of Californians think the initiative process should be changed, and Democratic and Republican partisans have not staked out opposing sides on this issue -- yet... Is there an opportunity here for policy makers to agree on sensible reforms voters can support?

mp3 audio.

CA Channel Video.

"Decline to State" Voters: California's Fastest Growing Party?

"Decline to State" voter registration has doubled since 1990; it now represents more than 20% of the electorate and continues to grow. How will politicians and their campaign strategies change as more voters assert their independence and join the growing numbers of "decline to state" voters? Who will they vote for, and will they ever be able to vote for 'one of their own'?

mp3 audio.

CA Channel Video.

The NY Times reports that the state of Florida is abandoning touch screen electronic machines in favor of optical scanners, a move that retains a paper record but will cost the state tens of millions of dollars.

"Democracy," says Fl. Gov. Charlie Crist, "doesn't come cheap." A heartening sentiment to hear from an elected official, and one that I hope is heard on Capitol Hill when they consider the budget for the underfunded and underappreciated Election Assistance Commission. If this is, as the Times opines, truly the "death knell" for the touch screen voting machines, the EAC and other election reformers are going to have a very busy year in front of them as they work with jurisdictions who move to OCR technology.

The final quote in the story is telling, however. Kim Brace notes that "optical scanning systems had had a slightly higher rate of voter error than touch screens." But Kim knows just as well that voter confidence is what matters at this point--and voter confidence in the all-electronic machines just isn't there.

The media is reporting on two new legislative efforts, one in the US Senate that seeks to stop voter suppression (the LA Times has a story, "Senate Bill targets suppression of voters").

The other is an effort by a California assembly representative (Joe Coto) to mandate that high school students provide proof that they have registered to vote before they receive their high school diploma (Denver Post: "Plan forces California teens to register.") This is an intriguing idea, but I'll have to track down the Coto proposal and see how it is to be implemented. More on the Coto measure later.

Word is circulating that California Assembly Speaker Nunez is going to have a press conference this morning to announce that he is introducting some form of redistricting reform legislation ... will post an update here when the Nunez proposal is public.

When the Carter-Baker Commission called for a national ID requirement, this call was predicated in part on the idea that the federal REAL ID act would become the national identification standard. It is now becoming clear, according to a story in USA TODAY, that the states are planning to fight back against what they see as a bad law with a big unfunded mandate. As USA Today reports:

Several state legislatures are considering measures opposing a federal law aimed at fighting terrorism by making driver's licenses harder to get. The Montana House of Representatives expects to vote today on a bill that would make Montana the first state to ignore the Real ID law, which requires states to demand a minimum standard of proof of residency from people seeking driver's licenses.

The Maine State Legislature last week became the first to approve a resolution urging Congress to overturn the law before it takes effect in May 2008. Only four of 186 Maine lawmakers voted no. Other states with bills: Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont and Washington. State Rep. Jim Guest of Missouri, a Republican leading a national coalition against Real ID, said 30 states could pass measures opposing the law.

[O]pponents hope enough states protest or defy the law that Congress will be forced to revise or repeal it. "If one state says no, or another state follows Maine, the whole house of cards collapses," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. Democratic control of Congress makes repeal more likely than before, Steinhardt said. When Real ID passed the House, 219 Republicans supported it and 152 Democrats opposed.

The law has something for everyone to hate. Republicans and Democrats alike hate the cost, the burden on states, and the privacy concerns.

Critics fear that requiring all licenses to use identical technology for machine reading would lead places that check IDs, such as bars, office buildings and retailers, to increase their use of such scanning machines and create digital records every time a card is swiped. "They could remain and be pieced together to create footprints about where we've been and what we've done," said Jim Harper of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C.

State lawmakers also protest the cost. The National Governors Association says it will cost more than $11 billion over five years. Congress, estimating a $100 million cost, provided $40 million.

In short, the REAL ID idea may die a long, slow, horrible death, affecting not just REAL ID but state voter identification as well.

As promised, here are my notes from the second set of papers presented two weeks ago at the "2008 and Beyond: The Future of Ethics and Election Reform in the States", sponsored by Kent State University.

Michael McDonald -Examined turnout effects of competitive / close congressional races. Mike reported on a Pew survey of voters that included an oversample in closely fought districts. He compare perceptions of competitiveness with reality.
Mike stressed the responsiveness of preceptions to reality--when races are closer, respondents perceived it correctly. [ED note: At the same time, what do we conclude when 60% say a race will be “close” even when only one candidate??]
He also found, less surprisingly, that respondents had far more information about Senate and Governors races than House races.
The paper is available online.

There's an interesting story in the business section of this morning's LA Times, "Microsoft views family input as key to its Vista: Ordinary users served as beta testers of the new operating system, which the company touts as easier to use." As a disclaimer, people who know me well know that I swore off Microsoft products long ago, preferring either Linux or the Mac OS. But this article had an interesting tidbit about the testing, which made me think about how voting system vendors could improve their usability testing:

To better understand how people use computers in their lives, Microsoft found 50 families from around the world who, over two years, lived with Vista from its early test phase, known as Beta 1. Microsoft created a way for these families to offer daily feedback — by sending smiles or frowns — and company executives periodically dropped by to observe people using the operating system.

This group of beta testers sent 5,000 comments and identified 800 bugs that no one else had found.

Microsoft said the only compensation they received was a new computer, monitor and printer — and the occasional pizza. Regan and her family also joined company Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on stage at the Nokia Theatre in New York's Times Square to launch Vista.

Trish Miner, research manager for the Life with Windows Vista family feedback program, said the program offered surprising insights: including how changes to the Web browsing experience had some unintended consequences.

"We had changed the scroll bar, we had kind of made it disappear," Miner said. "You would think we might have caught that ourselves."

Now I've not seen Vista, and don't have a clue as to how successful this usability testing was in the development of Vista. But I do wonder how much more usable voting machines would be if they were subjected to similar testing.

I blogged and wrote a press release about the interaction of early voting and the front loaded presidential primary calendar in November.

Apparently, I jumped the gun. But reporters are starting to notice. If Florida, California, and Illinois move to February 5th, voters in each of these states will start casting ballots prior to Iowa.

I'm not saying this is good or bad--it's just a fact. My educated guess is that this will only enhance the prospects of well-funded, well-known candidates (read Clinton and Obama), because a candidate will have to be on the ground in early January in at least three large states, located at different parts of the country.

(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story.)

There's a good story in today's Herald Tribune about the preparations for Sarasota's upcoming March elections, when no doubt the county's voting systems will be closely watched.

MIT colleague Ted Selker had two very good observations in this story:

Some researchers have criticized her design of the Nov. 7 ballot because she placed the governor's race and the District 13 congressional race on the same touch-screen page.

That could have caused voters to miss the congressional race and could have been the reason for its 18,000 so-called undervotes, experts have said.

It is the sort of avoidable confusion that elections supervisors could easily circumvent, said Ted Selker, an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project.

"If they just did a really, really simple thing -- one race, one page -- that would make a huge difference," Selker said. "By putting a big one and a little one, you don't see the little one."

And:

On Feb. 22 at 9 a.m., Dent's office will hold so-called "logic and accuracy" testing to ensure that the ballots are positioned correctly on the touch-screens and that votes are being properly recorded.

It is also the time when people can contest the design of the ballot.

"If they have a problem with the ballot then, we can make adjustments," Dent said.

But few people usually show up for the review, often leaving ballot approval to representatives from political parties.

Some elections experts would like the state to mandate that supervisors use samples of voters to test how they interact with ballot designs prior to elections.

"No ballot should ever be used without a bunch of people trying to vote on it," Selker said.

Indeed, the L&A testing process is one where errors can and should be caught, but in order for these errors to be found, there does need to be broader involvement of researchers in the L&A process. Many election officials have worked to both publicize their pre-election L&A activities, and to involve the research community in that process (Thad and I have observed many L&A tests, in a number of jurisdictions, for example). Election officials should continue to reach out ... but researchers should also step up here and help election officials test ballot designs and ballot logic when they have the opportunity.

Computerworld has this story, "Feds to Let Two Firms Test E-voting Machines: NIST certifies iBeta, SysTest Labs under latest requirements guidelines." The saga of certifying the testers continues ...

Michael Alvarez has been invited make a presentation on electronic voting at a National Academies of Engineering Symposium on February 8 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies in Irvine, CA. The event is part of the NAE national meeting and is titled "The Impact of Technology of Voting and Elections in the 21st Century." Michael will present at 3 pm, "Bridging S&T and Politics in E-Voting."
Visit the event webpage for the full schedule.