Election Updates

The AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project released their "A review of proposed Voluntary Voting System Guidelines" today. I was on their VVSG Task Force which helped to put together this review.

Bottom line, as quoted in the executive summary, "... we find the VVSG to be in need of extensive revision."

The findings highlighted in the executive summary:

• In many instances, the VVSG prescribes design standards where performance
standards would be sufficient. Excessive design standards can arrest
manufacturers’ ability to innovate new, better systems.

• Although the VVSG purports to be agnostic towards election processes,
several provisions do in fact bear on process. These provisions exceed the
document’s mandate and could lead to burdensome requirements for
administrators in the field.

• The VVSG’s “software independence” requirement is, in effect, a requirement
that direct recording electronic (DRE) systems produce a paper record, a
provision we fear trades tangible losses in election facility for merely
perceived gains in election security.

• The methodology through which the VVSG derives standards for voting
system usability is flawed, failing to incorporate standard, easily implemented
procedures for research in the social sciences.

• By focusing narrowly on provisions for voting system security, the VVSG
distracts attention from topics that should be of at least as much concern to
election administrators and the public, such as poll worker training, voter
registration practices, and chain-of-custody procedures.

Paul, in case you were missing the url for that book that Thad referenced, "Election Fraud: Detecting and Deterring Electoral Manipulation", here's a link to Brookings Institution Press, to amazon.com, and to Barnes & Noble. Might even soon be in your neighborhood bookstore soon ...

There are a variety of stories out today about why the ballot count in Lake County, Indiana was so slow on Tuesday evening, including details of past election problems in Lake County:

AP: "History of Corruption Clouds Primary in Northern Indiana."

Chicago Tribune from LA Times: "Indiana Election Results Held Up By Outdated Procedures."

AP from LA Times: "Indiana's Lake County Has Tradition Of Late Vote Tallies."

To finish Paul's thought, he leaned over and said, David Becker, read the new book that Thad, Mike and Susan Hyde have out on election fraud. You will love it.

The group has warmed up after lunch; I wonder if they spiked the soda.

We're in the midst of a long drawn out conversation about interstate interoperability standards and voter fraud. But I have to admit that the conversation is a bit frustrating to me. There is a such a diverse group of participants--usually a positive--that it is distracting from a productive conversation.

There seems to be little awareness of the data standard that had been released by Neil McClure. And many participants don't seem to understand the difference between making a national repository of voter registration information versus just making a portion of your state file available to other states, via a standardized data exchange format.

And then there is the always controversial spectre of "fraud." I find myself leaning over to my colleague from Pew, David Becker, and we have the same reaction: "What do you mean by 'fraud."

There are many different kinds of voter fraud, and simply asking "How much fraud is there" is not very helpful.

I wrote yesterday about the report of the Indiana nuns who had trouble voting yesterday in Indiana's primary. That story received a lot of play yesterday, but some of the stories also noted that college students in Indiana were having trouble with the voter identification law. Here's a piece from the Los Angeles Times:

The law does not recognize out-of-state driver's licenses, a problem for college students who under Indiana law must intend to live in their college communities to vote, which involves obtaining an Indiana ID.

Angela Hiss, 19, of suburban Chicago, said she was allowed to register to vote several weeks ago but was turned away Tuesday from a polling site in South Bend, where she attends Notre Dame. Hiss said officials at a local motor vehicles office then would not accept her Illinois license as proof of identification for an Indiana license.

And Hiss didn't have her birth certificate -- she had sent it to the federal Passport Service offices recently along with her application for a passport.

Hiss declined to cast a provisional ballot because she's leaving for Illinois after finals on Friday.

Unfortunately it is impossible to know how many other college students had similar experiences.

Session Two: Midrange solutions.

We started by reviewing the California Vote Reg system. Comments were made by Bruce McPherson, past SoS of California, Lee Kercher, Chief of IT for the California SoS, and Dean Logan, Acting County Clerk of LA County, CA.

The main takeaway from these first three discussants are these:

1) California is BIG
2) California is COMPLICATED
3) California is COSTLY

As a result, all three officials are skeptical of a one-size fits all voter registration solution for California. Dean makes this point most effectively, describing the severe linguistic challenges he faces in processing registration applications in LA.

Bruce also notes that he worries about online registration system because you can lose the signature, something he describes as vital to verifying voter identification.

The second group consists of John Lindback, state director of elections in Oregon, and Annette Newingham, Chief Elections Officer in Lane County, OR.

Not a lot here, since John spent the morning session (which I missed) describing the situation in Oregon. John handed off to Annette, who again provided the local official viewpoint, which I have to say is skeptical, echoing the comments from the California officials.

While she constantly lauded Oregon's statewide system, she stressed how complicated the voter reg system is at the local level, involving many different forms from many different sources and filled out with widely varying degrees of accuracy.

Annette's takeaway point: focus less on the statewide systems and focus a lot more on the forms and on the voters.

Next up is Washington. Looks like Paul MIller, the chief technology office for the SoS, is unable to make it. Get well soon! Not a lot of new information from Washington, other than more comments about how difficult it is to process the rapid changes of addresses.

In Portland today and tomorrow, the National Academy of Sciences is holding some public sessions about their voter registration reforms.  Some details later today, and I'll try to blog a bit today.

I'm sure more reports will come out of Indiana, specifically Lake County, this week, but I can't help but making one quick comment: paper takes time.

Indeed, as I wrote earlier this evening, the Democratic primary in Indiana has become quite interesting. It's nearly 10pm Pacific, the Democratic primary results are close, and CNN is focusing on why the count is so slow in Lake County, Indiana ...

Given the heavy turnout in Indiana, and in particular the large number of early and absentee ballots cast in Indiana, it's no surprise that we are still waiting for final results. It might be some time until we know who wins in Indiana!

As an update, I found the following description of local procedures from the Washington Post:

Clay (Gary mayor) said the results were late coming in from Lake County because of the large numbers of absentee ballots that had to be counted -- about 11,000. Under local practice, all of the cartridges from voting machines in Gary and nearby East Chicago are first collected at the local airport before being driven to the county headquarters to be tallied with the results from the rest of the county, he said. He said there were no major technical problems holding up the count.

"It takes a little time. We want to be sure that every vote is counted fair and right," he said. "I just talked to the director out there and they are working like junkyard dogs to get that done as soon as possible. They are taking some time but I told them to do it right. That's what taking the time."

This in from the AP:

President Bush nominated two new Republicans and one new Democrat to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday in an attempt to break a Senate confirmation deadlock that had paralyzed the regulatory agency.

Bush resisted efforts to withdraw the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official whom he nominated in 2007 but who had not been able to win votes in the Senate to get confirmed.

The White House said the latest compromise would permit a separate vote on von Spakovsky.

The stalemate over von Spakovsky had left the six-member FEC without a quorum to conduct business despite record fundraising by presidential candidates and the emergence of outside groups that have been testing the limits on advocacy regulations.

The new nominees are Democrat Cynthia Bauerly, a lawyer who serves as legislative director for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Republicans Caroline Hunter, a former White House official and current member of the Election Assistance Commission, and Donald McGahn, who has served as counsel for the National Republican Congressional Campaign.

One short thought: In 2006 and 2007, numerous states moved primaries up to Super Tuesday and earlier so that they could be more "relevant". Isn't it ironic that it is the states that did not move -- North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon -- who are basking in unprecedented attention by the candidates? Those states that did move often received little more than a wave from the candidates; if they had not moved, they could be being romanced right now.

Just in time for Mother's Day, you can buy two amazingly good books on elections. OK, this is a shameless plug for both of our new books.

• First, you can buy Electronic Elections: The Perils and Promise of Digital Democracy (only $21.56 from Amazon!) Here is what Tom Mann said about the book: Recent debates about voting technology and election reform have generated more heat than light, often leading to myopic views of security and premature policy fixes. Alvarez and Hall provide a constructive alternative--a calm, rational, data-tested, risk-based analysis of electronic voting. Their book is a model of how rigorous research can constructively inform public discussion and the policy process.

• Second, you will want to buy Election Fraud: Deterring and Detecting Electoral Manipulation ($26.95 from Amazon!) This book was edited with Susan Hyde at Yale and has an introduction by Paul DeGregorio and Ray Martinez, both former EAC Commissioners.
  

At this point (4:45pm Pacific), CNN has called NC for Obama. With 25% of the precincts reporting in Indiana, Clinton has a 57-43 lead. Going to be an interesting evening!

This is from Bloomberg:

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads among Indiana Democrats who say they are being affected by a U.S. economic slowdown, according to exit polls for television networks and the Associated Press.

Barack Obama leads in North Carolina among those voters most concerned about the economy, the exits polls show.

Almost two-thirds of Democratic voters in Indiana, or 65 percent, and 60 percent in North Carolina said the economy is the top issue facing the country. That's the highest number in 28 prior exit polls in states with competitive Democratic primaries, according to AP.

...

Of Indiana voters who say a sluggish economy is the country's most pressing issue, 54 percent said they voted for Clinton, while 45 percent supported Illinois Senator Obama.

In North Carolina, among voters who said a slowing economy was their biggest concern, Obama got 52 percent while Clinton received 44 percent, according to exit polls cited by CNN.

Indiana voters were split over Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose statements critical of the U.S. have caused a national controversy and brought the issue of race into the forefront of the election.

Forty-nine percent of Indianans said Wright was not an important factor in their voting decision while 48 percent said he did sway their opinion of Obama.

In North Carolina, 50 percent said Wright wasn't important and 48 percent said he was, according to the exit polls.

Obama got 92 percent of the black vote in Indiana and Clinton got 8 percent, according to exit polls cited by CNN.

Obama also dominated among black voters in North Carolina, where he won 91 percent compared with Clinton's 6 percent, CNN said.

Here's the story from the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina:

Mecklenburg County elections officials report a steady turnout of voters throughout the day. There were long lines at some precincts this morning, but voters who arrived in the mid-afternoon hours sometimes were able to vote in less than 10 minutes.

At Crown Point Elementary School in Matthews, elections officials said there were long lines for the first two hours that polls were open this morning, from 6:30 until about 8:30 a.m., and again during the lunch hour. They expect heavy voting again this evening, as people cast ballots on their way home from work.

This was recently posted by the AP:

WORRIED ABOUT THE ECONOMY
The economy was on voters' minds in Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Two-thirds of Democratic primary voters in Indiana and nearly as many in North Carolina said the economy is the most important issue facing the nation. That's more than have said so in 28 previous competitive Democratic primaries with exit polls this year.
Only about one in five in each state said Iraq was the top issue, and even fewer picked health care from a list of three issues.
Four in 10 Indiana Democratic voters said the current recession or economic slowdown has affected their family a great deal. Nearly as many said that in North Carolina.

CROSSOVER VOTING
Indiana's Democratic primary was open to all voters. About one in five said they were independents and one in 10 identified themselves as Republican. North Carolina's Democratic primary was open only to voters registered Democratic or unaffiliated; nearly one in five voters in that contest called themselves independents.

DEMOGRAPHICS:
The exit poll estimated blacks made up about a third of voters in the North Carolina Democratic primary, about one in seven in Indiana. More than half of voters in both states were women, which is typical for Democratic primaries. About one in seven voters in Indiana and slightly fewer in North Carolina were under age 30; about a quarter in North Carolina and somewhat fewer in Indiana were over age 65.

The Raleigh News and Observer is reporting that in Wake County, North Carolina, there was some confusion among registered Republican voters about whether they could vote the Democratic party ballot:

Elections officials in Wake were dealing with confusion on the part of some Republican voters who asked for Democratic ballots, county Elections Director Cherie Poucher said.

Under state law, only unaffiliated voters may choose between the Democratic and Republican ballot on primary day; others must vote in the primary of the party with which they were registered as of April 11, Poucher said.

Republicans who insisted on Democratic ballots were being allowed to vote provisionally, though by law only their votes in nonpartisan races can count.

Here's the story from the AP:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

...

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Here's the AP video:

From FOX News:

According to the Secretary of State’s office by midnight last night a record-breaking 173, 525 absentee ballots have been received statewide—that number includes all early voting that ended yesterday at noon.

This is from Indianapolis (WTHR.com):

As of 8:30 am, the county clerk's office reported the following problems:

2-1 (IPS School 102, 1501 E. 10th St.) - Inspector did not show. Election Board deployed a back-up Inspector with materials as soon as possible. The polling location was open by 6:30 a.m.

Wayne 41 (Calvary Chapel on the Horizon, 1117 S. Bridgeport Rd) - Inspector arrived late. Polling location open by 6:30 a.m.

Perry 64 (Burkhart School, 5701 Brill Rd.) - Missing Democratic ballots in poll kit. Ballots printed and deployed. Confirmation of receipt before 7:00 a.m. Touch screen machine was available to accept Democratic voters.

Perry 28 (Southport High School, 971 E. Banta Rd.) - Missing Democratic ballots in poll kit. Ballots printed and deplyed. Confirmation of receipt before 7:00 a.m. Touch screen machine was available to accept Democratic voters.

1-1, 1-3 (Jones Tabernacle AME Church) - Mechanical issues with touch screen machine. Polls ready to receive voters at 6:00 a.m.; touch screen machine up by 6:15 a.m.

The clerk's office said it received some false reports of locations not opening. The office said those have been cases where their polling location has moved mainly due to the precinct consolidation. Change of Location posters should be up at most of those precincts to direct voters to their new site. Call 327-VOTE or to use the polling place locator to check your voting site.

And there is this short bit from the same source on problems early voters faced when they lacked the necessary photo identification:

Some voters who showed up for early voting did not bring an ID that had an expiration date. They had to fill out a provisional ballot which White said would probably not be counted. She says it's important to remember to bring an ID with an expiration date on it. The BMV will offer special opening hours Monday and Tuesday to accommodate people who need identification cards.

This is from WSOCTV.com:

Eyewitness News learned there was a record turnout in early voting in Mecklenburg County. Typically less than 1 percent of voters cast ballots in early voting, but in this primary it was 8 percent. The statistics show 85 percent of those people voted Democrat, even thought only 44 percent of voters in the county are registered Democrats.

...

(election officials) expect 40 percent voter turnout in Tuesday's primary, which is considered to be extraordinary for a primary.

The Associated Press surveyed voter registration figures throughout the U.S. and found that more than 3.5 million new registrants have been recorded. Here's a bit more:

Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year — with more than 3.5 million people rushing to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.

Figures are up for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North.

Overall, the AP found that nearly one in 65 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year. And in the 21 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared about 64 percent from the same three months in the 2004 campaign.

And more details:

The overall figures on new registrations were compiled by the AP in a survey of election officials nationwide. Six states and the District of Columbia were unable to provide statistics, meaning the total number of voters who registered between roughly Jan. 1 and March 31 almost certainly exceeds 3.6 million. One of the six, North Dakota, does not require voters to register.

In the 21 states that were able to provide comparable figures from the first three months of 2004, only Iowa showed a decline. That state held its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Jan. 3.

The numbers even seem to be benefiting Democrats in states that generally lean Republican. In Wyoming, where registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats by more than 2-to-1, Democratic registrations in the first three months of the year surpassed those for the GOP. Ditto in West Virginia, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina — all states won by President Bush in 2004. There could be more: Only 10 states had figures on new voter registrations by party.

Four states provided information about the race of registrants in both 2004 and 2008: Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina. And in each, there was a surge in the registration of black voters. In North Carolina, more than 45,000 blacks signed up to vote in the first three months of 2008, compared with just over 11,000 in the first three months of 2004.

There was also a fourfold rise in black voter registrations in Alabama, while Louisiana and Tennessee saw increases of 64 and 17 percent.

Six states collected voter data by gender in 2008 and 2004, and the new-registration rate among women — who have largely backed Clinton — is up 89 percent in those states, compared with 74 percent for men.

The Indianapolis Star reports on turnout and crossover in today's Indiana primary:

Amid heavy turnout, Republicans appeared to be crossing over in droves today in Marion County and suburban counties, where fewer Republican voters might impact down-ticket primary races.

And some on the problems:

Missing Democrat ballots and other problems caused minor delays in at least five polling places this morning, the Marion County clerk’s office reported.

Democratic ballots were missing and had to be replaced at two locations in Perry Township — Burkhart School, 5701 Brill Road, and Southport High School, 971 E. Banta Road. In both locations, Democrats used touch screen machines typically reserved for disabled voters and the voting was underway by 7 a.m., said Angie Nussmeyer, spokeswoman for Clerk Beth White.

An inspector failed to show at IPS School 102, 1501 E. 10th Street. The Election board sent a new inspector with replacement materials and the site was open by 6:30 a.m., Nussmeyer said.

An inspector arrived 30 minutes late in a Wayne Township precinct at Calvary Chapel on the Horizon, 1117 S. Bridgeport Road.

Mechanical problems with the touch-screen machines caused a 15-minute delay for some voters at Jones Tabernacle AME Church, 2510 E 34th Street.

The Indianapolis Star also has this link to a blog where people can write about the poll problems they are experiencing in Marion County. If you click on the "View all reported problems" tab you'll get a cool little Google map with all of the reports mapped out.

There's a working paper that was recently posted to the VTP working paper archive by Gabriel Katz, Ernesto Calvo, Marcelo Escolar, Julia Pomares, and myself: "Assessing the impact of voting technologies on multi-party electoral outcomes: the case of Buenos Aires' 2005 Congressional Election." Here's the abstract of the paper:

This paper presents the first study on the impact of different voting technologies on election outcomes in multi-party elections, analyzing data from a large-scale voting experiment conducted in the 2005 congressional election in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Combining different regression models and matching methods, we estimate the effect of alternative voting technologies on the probability of support for the competing parties in the elections for congress and state legislature. The results of the different statistical techniques indicate that voters are extremely receptive to the information cues provided by the different voting technologies and associated ballot designs, and that particular voting devices have a significant impact on voter choice, systematically favoring some parties to the detriment of others. We conclude that the choice of alternative electronic voting devices might have considerable effect on electoral outcomes in multi-party electoral systems.

There is an interesting opinion piece (link above) on closing polling places and creating absentee precincts in Santa Clara County. It delves nicely into the pro's and con's of this move. Amusingly, one of the interesting aspects of in-person voting is that people really like the "I Voted" stickers. We saw this in a study we did of polling place problems in Cuyahoga County. Precincts that either did not have or ran out of those stickers had to deal with people complaining about it. My solution: Mail the "I voted" sticker with the absentee ballots. In fact, mail 3 or 4 (so your kids can have one too!) then people get the psychological boost of being able to show their civic mindedness on their sleeves -- ok, on their chest -- and vote remotely.

From the Charlotte Observer, early voting stations held extended hours to handle the crush of voters.

A ballot snafu in Oregon has some newly registered voters receiving two ballots, on non-partisan and one partisan.  If they accidentally vote on the first, non-partisan ballot, then their partisan ballot won't count.

Our next update for NC Early Voting is on the web.

A question for our dear readers: why does early voting climb during the week? the over the week early voting patterns obtain across all of the states we have looked at?

With some small discrepancies, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and North Carolina all show a slow climb in the return rate of early ballots from Monday through Friday. There is always a substantial drop on the weekend, but this is deceptive--in every state, there are far fewer early voting locations open on Saturday and Sunday.

If you have any thoughts, email me. I'll post reactions sometime next week.