This is just a quick note on the New Orleans runoff election, which has not achieved anything near the same media attention as did the primary election a few weeks ago. The VTP’s own Ted Selker was on the ground in New Orleans the past few days, and reports that he had very good access to all aspects of the election process. In a few short emails that Ted dashed off yesterday, the noted that there was from his perspective unprecedented levels of city and state monitoring of the election this weekend, which might partly explain why things seem to have gone relatively well in the runoff election. Ted also noted that the relative smoothness of the election might also be due to some innovations, like the use of electronic pollbooks in precincts, as well as widespread use of early and absentee voting (initial data indicates that perhaps one-fifth of ballots cast were from early or absentee voters).

Ted promises lots of photos and a complete report soon on his experiences, observations, and evaluation of the New Orleans runoff election. As soon as those are available, I’ll share those in a later essay.