Fellow election geek Tova Andrea Wang (The Century Foundation) has produced her “Worst and Best in Election Reform, 2005”. It makes for interesting end-of-year reading, and hopefully the coming year will lead to a shorter list of “worst” entries a year from now.

For a number of reasons, I’m pessimistic that this will happen in 2006, mainly due to the intersection of some troubling trends in the coming year: many pressing federal election reform deadlines, states that are lagging in meeting those deadlines, a still-closely divided electorate in a federal election year, and heightened scrutiny of our election process in the United States.

I do agree with the conclusion of Tova’s end-of-year list: “These developments (the best and worst list) mean all of us who have made careers out of examining election administration can continue to earn a living.” No doubt, 2006 will be a busy year for all election geeks.