If I’m reading the Estonian correctly, the number of evoters currently is 98,275 (http://www.valimised.ee/). Thad is off to Tallinn so I’m sure we will hear more soon!

Yesterday my graduate political behavior class observed the election process in precincts for the municipal election in Albuquerque. My students learned a lot about the election process during the day and each one of them went to poll worker training before hand so they had a better understanding of the behind the scenes process and the rules governing the election. The election ousted a 3 term incumbent, so it was unusually exciting, though turnout was typically low overall (about 25%). Nevertheless, most people (76%) chose to vote on Election Day, so the consolidated precincts were busy all day.

Perhaps the most important difference between the municipal elections in Albuquerque and statewide elections is the requirement of a photo ID, of any sort –Club membership card, driver’s license, credit card, etc.—whereas in statewide elections the voter ID law is not concrete and allows for a wide array of voter choice for identification including a verbal or written statement attesting to a voter’s name, year of birth and the last four numbers of his or her social security number to presentation of a non-photo or photo id (utility bill, voter registration card, driver’s license). The type of ID used is supposed to be the choice of the voter, but in statewide elections we have seen a lot of variance in how this is implemented both across and within precincts, resulting in somewhat discriminatory practices as both Hispanic and males seem to be required to show an ID more often than non-Hispanics and women. In the city elections, however, we saw a lot of consistency. Sometimes voters put down a voter registration card and they were almost invariably asked for a photo id. We only saw one case in a very, very busy precinct where a poll worker accepted, and we believe it was accidental because of the pressure, a non-photo ID. We also did not see a single voter who did not have an ID and in the precincts we were at no provisional voting occurred because of a lack of ID. However, in an election with higher turnout this policy might affect many more voters. Overall, our qualitative and quantitative data across several election contexts suggests that if states or localities are going to include voter ID laws a strict law is better then an open law in terms of consistent application.

There was an early problem at about a dozen precincts with the M-100 vote tabulators not working. In some of these cases, it appeared to be due to ballot cutting problems that prevented the machine from being able to read the ballots. Technicians were able to solve this problem through recalibration, though sometimes it took several hours. Late in the day, as far as we could tell, all the reported machine problems were no longer an issue.

Besides that we saw generally minor problems in the precincts. For example, precinct consolidation results in voters going to the wrong place and, with so many precincts in a polling location, in several places we saw voters trying to insert their ballot into the “wrong” tabulator. These ballots were rejected and then voters had to find the right machine for tabulation. We also saw several broken Automark machines, one in a nursing home. And, there was one precinct where the poll workers’ chose not to set it up because, “anything you put up, you have to take down.” They also didn’t put up their voting booths. However, this precinct was an outlier. There were also general issues of privacy for voters in some places and the occasional supply issues, signage problems, and precinct set-up problems. But, overall it was a well-run election.

About the author: Lonna R. Atkeson is a Professor and Regents’ Lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of New Mexico. She studies public opinion and political behavior and is currently involved in several projects related to election reform, evaluation of election performance, and the formation of attitudes. You can find additional information about her at: www.unm.edu/~atkeson.

Conference agenda with better formatting …

Time-Shifting the Vote:
The Early Voting Revolution in American Election Administration

Location: Reed College, Gray Campus
Center Rooms C–D

Time: October 9–10

Friday, 9 October

7:45 AM Pickup at Benson Hotel

8:15-8:45 Breakfast

8:45-9:15 Introductions

Paul Gronke, John Fortier, Zachary Markovits
Participants will introduce themselves, their current positions, interest
areas, etc.

9:15-10:00 The State of the Early Voting World

Paul Gronke, (Early Voting Information Center and Pew),
James Hicks (MIT fmr. EVIC), Charles Stewart (MIT)

10:00-11:00 Lessons from the California Natural Experiment in Voting by Mail

Panel Chair: Paul Gronke or Zach Markovits

Elizabeth Bergman (CalState, East Bay), “Voting
Errors Using Vote by Mail”

Dari Sylvester (University of the Pacific),
“Mandatory Vote By Mail”

Thad Kousser (University of California, San Diego), “Get Out the Vote By Mail? Results from a Natural / Field Experiment”

11:15-11:30 Break

11:30-12:30 Constraints and Opportunities in the Legal and Administrative Environment

Panel Chair: John Fortier

Chris Mann (University of Miami), Rachel Sondheimer (West Point):
“Expectations and Reality About Early Voting Among Colorado Election Officials”

Chuck Bullock and Trey Hood (University of Georgia)
“Encouraging Early Voting in Georgia.”

Barry Burden, David Canon, Ken Mayer (University of Wisconsin)
“Early Voting and EDR in Wisconsin and Beyond”

12:30-1:30 Lunch buffet, Roundtable on Early Voting in Campaigns

Mark Wiener, Winning Mark
Chris Mann, University of Miami and formerly MSHC Partners
Paul Gronke, Pew and EVIC

1:30-2:15 Beyond Administration: Early Voting in Campaigns and in Society

Panel Chair John Fortier

Bob Stein (Rice University),
Early Voting and Campaign Costs

Martha Kropf (University of North Carolina, Charlotte),
Early Voting and Social Capital

2:15-3:15 Roundtable: How do (can?) Elections Administrators Plan for the Early Vote?

Chair: Paul Gronke

Discussants: Gary Smith, Forsyth County, GA; Dean Logan, Los Angeles County,
CA; Connie Schmidt, Election Center (fmr. Johnson County, KS); Donald Palmer,
Florida.

3:15-3:30 Break

3:30-4:15 Metrics and Measurements: Two Recently Released Early Voting Datasets

Chair: Zachary Markovits

Nathan Cemenska (Ohio State University), Jan Leighley (University of Arizona),
and Jonathan Nagler (NYU)
Early, Absentee, and Non Precinct Voting Laws, 1972-2000: Report to the Pew Center on the States

Toby Moore, Research Triangle Institute
The Election Assistance Commission’s 2008 Statutory Review

4:15-5:30 Break

4:45-5:30 Optional Campus Tour led by Reed students

4:30-5:15 Optional Lecture by Linda Gordon, NYU History

(Sponsored by the Political Science and American Studies Departments)

Impounded: Dorothea Lange’s Censored Images of Japanese American Internment”

Saturday, 10 October

7:45 AM Pickup at the Benson Hotel

8:15-8:30 Breakfast at Gray Campus Center (GCC-C/D)

8:30-9:00 Metrics and Measurements Revisited: Barriers to Developing Comparable Measures of Early Voting

Roundtable discussion moderated by Paul Gronke

9:00-10:00 Brainstorming Session: What are the Metrics and Measurements We Have and Need to Track the Early Vote?

Session Leader Zachary Markovits

10:00-10:15 Break

10:15-11:15 Brainstorming Session: What are Best Practices for Implementing and Administering Early Voting?

Session Leaders: John Fortier and Paul Gronke

11:15-12:00 Wrap Up: Where Do We Go From Here?

Paul Gronke, John Fortier, Zach Markovits

The conference proceedings from VOTE-ID 2009 is now available, “E-Voting and Identity”.

Readers might be interested in this conference:

EDem10
4th International Conference on eDemocracy
6 and 7 May 2010
Danube University Krems
Austria
www.donau-uni.ac.at/edem

Call for Papers
It is only now, during the first decade of the 21st Century, that those scientific eDemocracy visions developed in both in the 60s and the 90s are becoming reality and implemented. Surprisingly, it is not the IT developments in IT alone that are responsible for successful eDemocracy projects – it is all those members of society who use them, as they adopt new behaviours. The new, digital generation lives and breathes new values: they collaborate, compile content together, share their ideas, create networks on social platforms and organise themselves quickly and simply. The new values held, the new behaviours, the changed mindset, with improved usability and a usage of the internet which still continues, has led to a rapid and radical change in our society.

The EDem10 focuses on these changes which can be seen occurring in different areas and which are manifest in different way:
* Transparency & Communication (freedom of information, free information access, openness, information sharing, blogging, micro-blogging, social networks, data visualization, eLearning,
empowering, *)
* Participation & Collaboration (innovation malls, innovation communities, bottom up, top down, social networks, engagement and accountability, collaborative culture, collaboration between C2C, G2C, *)
* Architecture, Concepts & Effects (access and openness, user generated content, peer production, network effects, power laws, long tail, harnessing the power of the crowd, crowd sourcing, social web, semantic web, *)
* Different Fields: open government initiatives, eDemocracy, eParticipation, eVoting,
* Different Disciplines: law, social science, computer science, political science, psychology, sociology
* Research Methods

On primary aim is to bring together researchers and practitioners. We would like to invite individuals from academic, applied and practitioner backgrounds as well as public administration offices, public bodies, NGO/NPOs, education institutions and independent organisations to submit their contributions into one of the 6 categories:
1. finished research
2. ongoing research
3. finished projects
4. ongoing projects
5. workshops
6. PhD colloquium submission.

Confirmed Speakers:
Micah Sifry
Co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum; editor of TechPresident; Sunlight Foundation Consultant
(USA) www.personaldemocracy.com

Andy Williamson
Director eDemocracy Programme at the Hansard Society London (U.K.) http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/

Ismael Peña-López
Lecturer and researcher, School of Law and Political Science Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona
(Spain) http://ictlogy.net/

Workshops by:
Pan European eParticipation Network
Committee on E-Democracy of the Council of Europe (CAHDE)

The conference language is English; submissions in German (with an abstract in English) are also acceptable.

Fees:
EUR 105,- for authors and PEP-NET Members
EUR 125,- early bird rate for participants who register until 28.02.2010
EUR 145,- for participants who register after 28.02.2010

The fee includes conference, proceedings and social program during the conference.
A pre-conference social program will be announced later.

The Proceedings will be published by the Austrian Computer Society.

The EDEM conference series is jointly organised by the Danube University Krems and the University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna.

Deadlines:
Submission of papers (max. 10 pages): 21.12.2009
Notification of acceptance: 31.01.2010
Final paper submission: 28.02.2010

Conference: 6-7 May 2010

Submissions:
Please send your submission in pdf format to peter.parycek@donau-uni.ac.at or alexander.prosser@wu-wien.ac.at .
Submission via a Web page will be made available soon.
All submissions will be submitted to a double-blind full paper review by at least 2 reviewers. To facilitate the review process, please write a separate cover sheet with the paper title and affiliation/s and omit the affiliations in the actual paper.

Format and Further Information:
www.donau-uni.ac.at/edem

Programme Committee:
Ah Lian Kor (Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.)
Andy Williamson (Hansard Society, U.K.)
Asim Balxi (Selcuk University, Turkey)
Bozidar Klicek (Faculty of Organisation and Informatics, University of
Zagreb, Croatia)
Carl-Markus Piswanger (Austrian Federal Computing Centre, A)
Christian Rupp (Austrian Federal Chancellery, Austria)
Chuch Hirt (CEE CN, Slovakia)
Cornelia Wallner (SORA, Austria)
Dan Jellinek (Headstar.com, U.K.)
Daniel van Lerberghe (Politech Institute, Belgium)
Ella Taylor-Smith (Edinburgh Napier University, UK)
Noella Edelmann (Danube-University Krems, Austria)
Erich Schweighofer (Institut für Europarecht, Internationales Recht und
Rechtsvergleichung, University of Vienna, Austria)
Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH, Germany)
Flooh Perlot (Institut für Strategieanalysen, Austria)
Frank Wilson (Interaction Design Ltd., U.K.)
Graham Orange (Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.)
Georg Aichholzer (Institute of Technology Assessment, Austria)
Günther Schebeck (Austrian Parliament)
Hans Hagedorn (Zebralog, Austria)
Helle Zinner-Henriksen (Center for Applied ICT, Copenhagen Business
School, Denmark)
Jeremy Millard (Danish Technological Institute, Denmark)
Josef Makolm (Ministry of Finance, Austria)
Julia Glidden (21c Consultancy Ltd., U.K.)
Lasse Berntzen (Vestfold University, Norway)
Rolf Luehrs (TuTech Innovation GmbH, Germany)
Francesco Molinari (IDEAL-EU, Italy)
Peter Mambrey (Fraunhofer-FIT Institut für Angewandte
Informationstechnik, Germany)
Matjaz Gams (Jožef Stefan Institute, SLO)
Matt Poelmans (Burgerlink, Netherlands)
Melanie Volkamer (CASED, Technical University Darmstadt, Germany)
Peter Cruickshank (Edinburgh Napier University, UK)
Peter Mambrey (Fraunhofer-FIT Institut für Angewandte
Informationstechnik, Germany)
Peter Reichstädter (Austrian Federal Chancellery, Austria)
Ralf Lindner (Fraunhofer ISI, Germay)
Robert Müller-Török (INTECO, Germany)
Rudolf Legat (Austrian Environmental Agency, Austria)
Sylvia Archmann (Federal Chancellery, Austria)
Thomas Buchsbaum (Austrian Foreign Ministry, Council of Europe/CAHDE,
Austria)
Thomas F. Gordon (Fraunhoger FOKUS, Germany)
Tom van Engers (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Ursula Maier-Rabler (University of Salzburg, Austria)
Valerie Frissen (Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Yannis Charalabidis (National Technical University of Athens –
eGovenment and Business Research, Greece)

I just received this release this morning:

New Report Aims to Inform Debate Over Voter Registration Modernization in the U.S.
Secretaries of State Release Overview of State Voter Registration Database Maintenance Laws & Procedures
(Washington, DC) – The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) today released a report designed to serve as a key resource in deliberations on how to improve voter registration in the U.S. The document, entitled, “NASS Report: Maintenance of State Voter Registration Lists,” focuses on state laws and procedures related to voter registration and the maintenance of voter registration databases, including verification procedures, address confirmation programs and removal of names from lists. It includes state-by-state profiles that highlight cutting-edge initiatives, unique procedures and key legal statutes related to state implementation of voter registration requirements under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).
“This report provides an overview of the complex system of laws and procedures that election officials follow to maintain their statewide voter registration databases, which for those states that didn’t already have one, had to be created under HAVA,” said NASS President and Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. “We are encouraging Congress, state lawmakers, voter advocates and NASS members themselves to use this document as a resource in their continuing discussions on how to modernize the voter registration process in this country, an issue that is a major topic heading into the 2010 midterm election cycle.”

Highlights of the NASS report include:

Verification of Information on New Voter Registration Applications: Forty-five states provided details on their processes and procedures for verifying information on new voter registration applications. As required by federal law, states attempt to verify the driver’s license number with the state motor vehicle database, or the last four digits of the Social Security number (SSN4) with the Social Security Administration Database. If a match of this information cannot be found, most states permit the voter to remain registered and eligible to vote. However, they may be required to show identification at the polling place.

Identification of Voters Who No Longer Reside Where They Are Registered to Vote: Thirty-four states allow or require election officials to use National Change of Address (NCOA) procedures to identify, and if possible, update address changes. Laws vary on the use of non-forwardable and forwardable notices to voters who might have moved, or those who have not taken some election-related action for a certain period of time. In the majority of states, there is no single address confirmation procedure available to election officials.

Removal of Names from Voter Registration Lists: Through the use of statewide voter registration databases, it is becoming more common for states to share information on voter registrants, making it possible for more than a dozen states to update their rolls when they receive notice from other states that a voter has moved. Additionally, more states than ever before have established an electronic network for data-sharing with their department of vital statistics and other state agencies to track and update information on ineligible or deceased voters, thereby making the process quicker and more efficient.

One state, North Dakota, does not have voter registration and is exempt from federal laws on this issue.

…

This looks like a useful report, more once I have had a chance to read it. Here is a hard link to this report.

A story in today’s NJ Courier-Post speculates about the change that will occur in NJ politics as a result of the new permanent absentee balloting law.  They speculate that campaigns will have to get their ads out earlier, run them longer, and can’t hold last minute surprises until the end.

Some scholars, notably Bob Stein of Rice University, have also been examining the impact of early voting on campaigns and campaign spending.  I’m seeing Bob at a conference in Portland in two weeks, so I’ll report more at that time.

An interesting story about early voting in the Phillippines came across today’s wire.

Reference is made to successful early voting in the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland.

For reasons the story does not make completely clear, the national election board is particularly concerned about voting fraud in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where “all forms of cheating rule.”  Do they see early voting as a solution to this problem?  It’s not apparent in the story.  We’ll continue to monitor developments.

One of the most common questions I am asked by officials contemplating early voting regards costs: how much money will we save–or spend–if we provide convenience voting options?

There is not a good answer to this question yet, but I think we’ll know a lot more in the next 12 months as some research projects in the field come to fruition.

This story out of St. Helena, Montana gives us a small insight into costs; keeping the precinct places open in an upcoming election rather than going fully vote by mail will cost over $13,000 per election. Divide that by turnout at the precinct place, and you have a nice estimate of the cost.