They really mean to say “the election officials in this jurisdiction failed to train their poll workers, maintain their voting machines, or otherwise ensure that this technology that they are implementing to run an election will work correctly.” See this story from Fast Company as an example:

New York State was one of several to vote today…Unfortunately, its brand-new electronic voting system wasn’t up for the challenge.  New York is the last state in the country to embrace electronic voting machines. [Note, these are NOT electronic voting machines.  They are electronic tabulators of paper ballots!]  These aren’t particularly advanced, either; they’re merely scanned sheets similar to the Scantron system used by schools for standardized tests. But the new system still caused widespread delays, breakdowns, and complaints–bad enough for Mayor Bloomberg to call the rollout “a royal screw-up.”

Delays were reported across the state and especially in some of the poorer urban neighborhoods in New York. Voters were turned away in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically poor area of Brooklyn, due to the failure of these new machines. Across the city and elsewhere in the state, there were delays, although to be fair, many news outlets seem to be exaggerating the inconvenience of some minor delays. Says the Wall Street Journal:

Among the many voters who experienced delays was New York’s senior senator, Charles Schumer. His polling site in Brooklyn didn’t open on time, forcing Mr. Schumer and other voters to wait about 15 minutes. Even after the precinct opened, it took another 10 minutes for site workers to get the scanning machines up and running.

There were real problems: In addition to the Bedford-Stuyvesant example, some polling places received fewer machines than expected, causing huge delays, and at one polling place, the provided ballots were printed on paper too large to fit into the scanners. Many voters ended up stuffing their ballots into overstuffed “emergency voting boxes,” which led some to question whether their votes would actually be counted.

Here is an analogy.  Imagine reading this in the paper.

“A massive failure of road construction machines left dozens injured and the new highway in tatters after the DOT gave the temporary workers 2 hours of training and then let them loose with bulldozers, pavers, grating equipment, rollers, tar sprayers, and asphalt pouring machines.  ‘The machines clearly don’t work’, said the DOT spokesperson.”

I am thinking that maybe — just maybe — the failures in New York and elsewhere should be laid firmly at the feet of the administrators who failed to ensure that their implementation of the election went well.

The UK elections were very problematic in several polling locations.  There is a great video and story here about the problems.   The story notes that:

Thousands of people were deprived of the right to vote last night as polling stations were unable to cope with demand.

Election chiefs told The Times that the widespread failures to deal with high voter turnout may lead to re-runs in the next few weeks, which could be critical to the overall outcome.

The Electoral Commission said it would be conducting a “thorough review” to determine what went wrong.

An estimated 500 people were turned away in Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam as a large number of students and other voters descended on the polling station at St John’s Church in the Ranmoor district of the city. Police had to remove about 100 people who refused to leave.

So there are a couple of interesting aspects to the story.  First, the UK election is a single vote election–there were not 30 items on the ballot as there would be in the US–so the time it should take to vote the paper ballot and put it in a ballot box should be relatively low.  The key questions here is how they staff and provision these precincts and the number of voters per precinct.   The answers can be found, partially, in the London Times article:

Other polling stations in Newcastle East and Sutton Coldfield stayed open after 10pm to cope with demand. Electoral Commission rules state that votes can only be counted if ballot papers have been issued by the 10pm deadline. In Liverpool some polling stations were reported to have run out of ballot papers.

Running out of ballots is purely a mismanagement problem.  All they need to do is to print as many ballots as their are potential voters for every precinct.  Also, note that, unlike in America, being at the end of the line when the poll closing time arrives gets you nothing.  You have to have been issued your ballot by the close of polls in the UK.  We also see below that the precinct sizes were just unmanageable:

Students said that part of the problem was that more than 5,000 students had been registered at a single polling station. Elizabeth Eele, 19, a physics and philosophy undergraduate at Sheffield University, said that students may have been unfairly treated because they were moved into a separate, longer queue. “[The presiding officer] said that people with children and older people should go first, but that means that students who queued for longer were not allowed to vote.”

5,000 voters in a single voting precinct?  The problem is that, if they all come at once (or clump in any way), especially toward the evening, then the precinct cannot manage the logistics of checking people in.  If you can check in 3 people a minute over a 16-hour election day (which would be a super-human feat–no food or drink or restroom breaks!) you could only check in 2,800 people.  If you split the precinct between two teams, it becomes barely possible but still super-human.

Then we get to the staffing problem.  It would seem that some of the precincts were quite understaffed.

Robin Dallman, 25, a postman from Eccleshall, in the Sheffield Hallam constituency, said: “People were angry that there were only three people in the polling station when there should have been six or seven. It was a bit of a nightmare.”

Now we get to the really interesting part of the story that you may have missed above.

Election chiefs told The Times that the widespread failures to deal with high voter turnout may lead to re-runs in the next few weeks, which could be critical to the overall outcome.

Yes.  Reruns.  Think about that for a second.  The Brits realize that they screwed up and they are going to re-run the vote in certain constituencies.  The election officials are saying, “We botched it.  Let’s do it right.”  Interesting thought!

Dehlia Lithwick has a great story covering the Washington State case about whether signatures on petitions are covered under public disclosure provisions of Public Records Acts. The article is both an excellent analysis and also incredibly funny.  As she notes, the question that underlies this case is whether you view politics as a contact sport — where a person needs to be able to explain something simple like why they signed a petition — or view politics as aromatherapy, where we shouldn’t have to be bothered with others questioning us.  She also notes that a key point in the debate is whether petitions should only be reviewed by the Secretary of State; what if I don’t trust the Secretary of State and think their signature review was biased?

It is a great piece.

Hans Von Spakovsky has written a critique of absentee voting for the Heritage Foundation. You can find it here.

Abstract: Trading the security, integrity, and shared experience of the in-person election process for all-mail elections is a bad idea for a number of reasons. An examination of voter fraud cases over the past two decades reveals that ballots requested and sent through the mail are vote thieves’ tool of choice. Despite claims that voting by mail will increase voter turnout, the evidence leads to the exact opposite conclusion. Such elections, while possi bly less expensive for election administrators, can be more expensive for candidates, thereby increasing the costs of campaigns for ordinary citizens who want to run for office. Mail elections put voters at the mercy of the postal service: If their ballots are delayed or misdirected, their votes will not count. Also, voters could be casting their ballots without the same access to timely information about candidates. Finally, elections conducted through the mail destroy the communal act of voting in a way that is damaging to America’s voting traditions and the inculcation of civic virtues.

This video has nice visuals of how the election in Iraq is run. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/03/06/world/middleeast/1247467285193/iraq-s-parliamentary-elections.html

The Carter Center is looking for a technical expert for the Philippines election.

This long term observer will work in conjunction with our field office director (FOD) and technical expert (TE) to conduct an assessment of the Filipino election technology and its impact on the electoral process. The long term observer will be tasked with completing observation and assessment of the procurement, testing, and use of automated technology in the Philippines, as well as public confidence in this process. Given the small size of this mission, successful applicants will work directly with the FOD and TE and should be self-motivated and have both elections and technology experience. Applicants should comfortable working in a variety of cultural environments. Spanish and Filipino language skills are not required, but may be considered. A brief terms of reference is provided below.

Serve as a long term observer in Manila, Philippines from March – June, 2010. In this capacity, conduct observation of electoral preparations, technology procurement and testing, and public confidence in the automation process.

Work in close conjunction with the Carter Center’s FOD and TE in Manila to ensure complete coverage of relevant issues and areas of interest, including, as needed, short travel outside of Manila to assess electoral preparations in other areas of the Philippines.

Under direction from the FOD, conduct observation to aid in the completion of The Carter Center’s ‘Draft Methodology for Observing Electronic Voting,’ in the context of the Philippines.

This position is based in Manila, Philippines, with occasional travel to other areas of the country. Applicants should be prepared to relocate to the Philippines for the duration of The Carter Center’s field presence (March – June, 2010). Accommodation, round-trip travel to Manila, all relevant short-term relocation costs, and a small per diem will be provided by The Carter Center. As a volunteer position, The Carter Center is unable to provide payment for this work, however, successful applicants will be offered a weekly stipend during their tenure. Interested applicants should respond to aodavis@emory.edu or +1.404.420.3846 with a short cover letter and relevant summary of experience.
Given the high number of expected applicants, The Carter Center will be unable to respond personally to unsuccessful applicants, however, thanks you in advance for your interest and consideration.

Scott Adler (Associate Professor at the University of Colorado) and I have an opinion piece in Roll Call today about how Congress has basically given up on the basic work of running the government. One of the agencies currently in neglect is the EAC.   A link to the op-ed can be found here.

Our colleague Robert Krimmer — who runs e-voting.cc in Austria has published a new edition of Modern Democracy Magazine, a free online publication.  It has several articles about e-voting, internet voting, and election observation in the electronic voting environment.  You can download the publication for free, here.

This came across my desk today:

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP
MAKING ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY WORK

Applications are invited for a post-doctoral fellowship supported by the “Making Electoral Democracy Work” project. The study examines how the rules of the game influence voters and parties. The study examines 27 elections in five countries (Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland) and will include: an internet panel survey; an analysis of party strategies; and a series of experiments designed to complement the analyses of party and voter behaviour. For more information, see: http://www.electoraldemocracy.com.

Applicants must demonstrate research interest and skills in the quantitative study of elections. The fellow will be actively involved in various aspects of the study, and will have the opportunity to collaborate and co-author with the co-investigators of the project. He/she will have an office at the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal and will work on a daily basis with Professor André Blais, the director of the study.

The annual stipend is $40,000 (CAN). Travel expenses for up to two conferences (at which the fellow presents a paper) per year (maximum of $1,000 per conference) are reimbursed.

The fellowship is due to start in September 2010. The successful applicant must have defended his / her dissertation prior to the start date. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2010. Applicants should email their CV, a short letter, and the names of two referees to:

andre.blais@umontreal.ca.

Professor André Blais
Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies
Département de science politique
Université de Montréal

The Supreme Court is expected to toss out at least some of the bans on corporate and union money in elections. This will likely have a direct impact on election administration in at least two ways. First, it will lead to increased spending designed to mobilize voters, which will add new strains on the voting process. Such mobilizations may increase voting in some modes — think unexpectedly high levels of early voting or unexpected turnout on election day — that were unexpected and this can cause longer lines, problems with voter registration, and other strains on the system.

In addition, if money leads voters to question why a certain candidate won or lost, it may result in a flurry of claims of election fraud that could undermine people’s confidence in the voting process. In short, people who think that worries about the election process are over now that the 2008 presidential election went well should rethink their confidence. Things may become much more contentious in the near term.

See this link for a story about what is expected from the Supreme Court on campaign spending.