NASS Agenda and Updates

First, of course, the weather update. It was actually cloudy and bit humid this morning, as some were quick to point out! It’s cleared up and we have a blue sky, and it’s 80 degrees with 46% humidity.

I attended this morning’s meeting of the voter participation committee and was gratified to be able to address the committee. It’s a bit intimidating to present materials on voting turnout to an audience of 40 or more secretaries of state and most of their high level staff. These folks are all accomplished politicians with decades and more of experience with elections. I think things went well, although, as expected, Secretary Reed challenged me on my interpretations of voting by mail and turnout. Most of the comments focused on the lack of data pertaining to non-federal (state, local, and special) elections, an obvious hole in the current research.

My presentation is available online at http://earlyvoting.net/NASS_July07.ppt

I’m going to write more about the other sessions later today. They include:

“Moving from Election Day Registration to Automatic Registration” by Hon. Marc Ritchie, MN.
“Leave your Print: Utah’s Voting Outreach Campaign.” Hon. Gary Herbert, UT.
“Ohio Voting Rights Institute.” Hon. Jennifer Brunner, OH.

On Wednesday, I plan to attend sessions on “Postal Unions and Vote by mail Project Update,” “Electionline.org Update,” and “HAVA Implementation and Election Administration Shared Practices Session.”