In the final session of the NAS public workshop yesterday, we heard about third-party efforts to register voters. One issue that arose is the great variation across the states regarding the rules and regulations associated with third-party registration efforts. If any readers have advice about where the rules regarding third-party registration efforts in each state is compiled, I’d greatly appreciate that data.

The other item we discussed yesterday was North Dakota, as they are the sole state that does not require voter registration. It was interesting to hear how they administer elections in North Dakota, given that they do not have a typical voter registration database serving as the backbone of their election administration efforts.

What is also interesting about North Dakota is that this was the second time in recent weeks where I’ve heard a great deal of discussion regarding North Dakota’s lack of voter registration. The other forum was the recent Political Methodology conference, where Chris Achen presented his paper, “Registration and Voting under Rational Expectations: The Econometric Implications.” Achen focuses heavily in this paper on data from North Dakota.