Ohio:
SoS Jennifer Brunner is being criticized by state legislators because she allowed individual counties to choose whether to send absentee ballot applications to all voters, and whether to include return postage. Brunner argues that the legislature failed to allocate enough funds. The Legislature counters that not all allocated funds were used, and not sending them [...]
I hate to do an “I told you so” but I have warned reporters that there are three states I would watch for slow counts this year. Each of them only recently adopted no-excuse absentee voting, and I was concerned that they were not prepared for the avalanche of paper they will receive.
I can walk [...]
Editorial Note: This is another voter experience guest blog. Andy Sinclair is a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology; Andy wrote the text. Peter Foley is also a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology; Peter provided the photos in the slide show at the bottom. I made [...]
A brief additional word about the NC absentee ballots.
A lot has been written about the two campaigns (particularly Obama) encouraging students who are away at college in safe red or blue states to vote absentee back home, if they come from battleground states. NC provides one such illustration of this.
The NC early voting file includes [...]
In a Thomasville Times-Enterprise article about early voting in Thomas County, Georgia, Eunice Cook, a local election official, is quoted as saying the following about the growing numbers of people voting early in her county: “Lines are getting longer,” Cook said. ‘They’re trying to avoid the longer lines.’” Turns on its head what Yogi Berra [...]
The North Carolina Board of Elections has perhaps the most extensive election data available for download on the web. There is no better example of this than the voter files posted that report who has already voted in that state. James Hicks at the Early Voting Information Center has posted some informative graphs [...]
I read the Meredith and Maholtra paper cited by MIke, and while it’s a nice methodological effort, I think the authors significantly overreach on the conclusions.
In essence, what the authors show is that the candidate totals differ between VBM precincts and non VBM precincts. They have an elegant design comparison, choosing precincts just over and [...]
The move from touch screen voting technology to printing paper ballots on demand could potentially lead to long lines of voters at early voting sites in Florida, according to a recent report researched and written by Conny McCormack, an elections consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts and JEHT Foundation’s Make Voting Work initiative.
McCormack, who from [...]
I have confirmed that Jefferson County, where Louisville is located, will open for early in person absentee voting ONLY for those with excuses, starting tomorrow.
Congratulations, Kentucky!
Next up: Fairfax County, VA, this Friday.
Multnomah County, OR is hoping to avoid traffic congestion during the ballot drop off period by establishing official drop boxes around the county.
As I’ve posted previously and written in my academic work, between 15-25% of Oregon ballots, on average, are NOT voted “early” but are dropped off on election day. In the past, this has [...]