The New York Times has a sky is falling story today about the upcoming elections. The framing of the story is actually pretty funny. Here is the lead.

New electronic voting machines have arrived in Yolo County, Calif., but there is one hitch: the audio program for the visually impaired in some of them works only in Vietnamese.“Talk about panic,” said Freddy Oakley, the county’s top election official. “I’ve got gray-haired ladies as poll workers standing around looking stunned.”

As dozens of states are enforcing new voter registration laws and switching to paperless electronic voting systems, officials across the country are bracing for an Election Day with long lines and heightened confusion, followed by an increase in the number of contested results.

Paper-less voting systems? Has this reporter ever heard of a VVPAT? California does not allow paper-less voting systems and many of the states he lists as being problematic are also VVPAT states. Moreover, the article is full of comments that suggest that training, or the lack thereof, is the actual problem. (Note to readers, I am not blaming local election officials for that. Training problems are often the fault of county commissions failing to allocate funds for training to counties when they do these transitions.)

Charles Stewart has the best quote in the story.

Charles Stewart, head of the political science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a study this year indicating that from 2000 to 2004, new technology helped reduce the number of improperly marked ballots by about one million votes.

“If you think things are bad and worrisome now, they were much worse before 2000,” Mr. Stewart said, adding that breakdowns in the mechanics of voting are simply more highlighted, not more prevalent.

Those wacky Europeans are at it again. The Netherlands will be allowing Dutch citizens living abroad to vote on the Internet in Parlimentary elections this November. The basics of this are described on the website for the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations.

Not surprisingly, the government notes that:

The main purpose of this experiment will be to enhance voting facilities. The regular postal voting will still be available for the Dutch ex pats. After registration, the voters will be able to choose whether they want to cast their vote by internet or by post.

There were 5,000 voters who cast ballots online in 2004. In 2006, they have made certain changes to the process in order to streamline certain aspects and improve transparency.

Reports about the efficacy of the 2004 experiment can be found here (see the right side of the page).

Not to beat a dead horse here, but we should be doing these exact types of experiments!!!!!

There were two segments of NPR’s Talk of the Nation that were on topics we have covered on our blog in the last week.

First, there was a segment on ballot initiatives.

Second, they did a segment on Commuting in America.

Both of the stories are very interesting; give them a listen!

Dear Professor Gronke — indeed, the California voter information guide is quite a beast, and our postal carrier had difficulty fitting the two for our household in our mailbox. You can see the entire voter information guide online here, in it’s full 192 page glory! And I know that you, like all good election geeks, will stay up late tonight (like I will), reading this exciting and user-friendly material! Will make a great holiday gift for all election geeks on your list.

There is some new survey data from Pew, that has some interesting results on voter confidence, electronic voting, and early voting.

• On voter confidence: it hasn’t changed much in the aggregate since 2004, but
  there is still are large differences in confidence of Democrats and Republicans, as well as evidence that the confidence of African-Americans has slipped considerably since 2004. From the Pew report:
  

  Most voters (58%) say they are very confident that their votes will be accurately counted in the upcoming election. Another 29% say they are somewhat confident their votes will be counted correctly. Only about one-in-ten voters (12%) say they are not too confident or not at all confident their votes will accurately counted.

  Attitudes on this issue have not changed much since the 2004 presidential campaign. In mid-October of 2004, 62% of voters expressed a high level of confidence their votes would be accurately counted, while 26% said they were somewhat confident their vote would be accurately counted.

  There continues to be a large partisan gap in confidence that votes will be counted correctly in November; 79% of Republicans express a high degree of confidence their votes will be accurately counted, compared with 45% of Democrats.

  Notably, African American voters express much more skepticism their votes will be accurately counted than they did in the fall of 2004. Just 30% say they are very confident their votes will be accurately counted, down from 47% two years ago. The percentage of black voters who express little or no confidence in vote-counting procedures has approximately doubled ­ from 15% to 29%. More than three times as many blacks as whites now say they have little or no confidence their vote will be accurately tallied (29% vs. 8%).

• On the new voting technology: more awareness of the new technology than in 2004, and some partisan differences in perceptions of whether it will improve the situation or not. From the report:
  

  About two-thirds of voters (68%) say they have heard that states are using new technology at polling places, which changes the way votes are cast and counted. Three-in-ten say it makes things better, compared with 11% who say it makes things worse. However, a relatively large minority of voters say it does not make much difference, or offer no opinion (32% combined).

  …

  Republicans are more bullish about the changes in the way votes are cast and counted than are either Democrats or independents. Roughly four-in-ten Republican voters (41%) say it will make things better; that compares with 28% of independent voters and 25% of Democratic voters.

• Voting by mail: there is considerably support for voluntary voting by mail, though resistence to moving solely to a national vote by mail system.
• Will people vote early this year? The survey found that 14% of of registered voters plan on viting early this fall, with 24% of those 65 or over planning on voting early. Furthermore, early voting is more likely to be an option in western states, as 34% of registered voters from those states say they will vote early this fall.

If you’re like me, you’ve been besieged with “weight loss” and “stay slim” emails in your “spam” email box.

Well, perhaps California elections officials need to pay closer attention to these recommendations, because the California ballot is bursting at the seams. I think the Doctor of Democracy might recommend a crash diet!

We blogged on the first problem with these weighty ballots a few days ago–the normal 37 cent postage stamp won’t be enough. Elections officials have pooh-poohed the costs of returning a ballot, but when it climbs to 75 cents or even a dollar, will this dissuade some voters (and what kind of voters? Those of more marginal means?).

Printing costs are not a minor detail, either. Alameda County spent 1.5 million in the primary, and estimates “substantially higher” costs this time around. Costs are only increasing, as state law requires multilingual voter’s guides.

And how long is the actual ballot? The story quoted below reports a length of 100 to 124 pages . Hey, Professor Alvarez, can this really be true? A ballot longer than the news, sports, and metro section of the LA Times?

When citizens start comparing voting to “doing your taxes,” you know we have a serious problem on our hands.

The Governor of California is a big advocate of physical fitness. Maybe if re-elected, Arnold can take on the bloated California ballot.

Story quoted is here: San Jose Mercury News

According to a story in this morning’s Los Angeles Times, an investigation has been launched in Orange County (CA) of a Spanish-language letter, sent to Latinos in the OC, threatening them with jail or deportation if they turn out to vote in this fall’s general election. The story quotes language from the letter:

“You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time …,” the letter says.

Apparently the letter also threatens those who receive it that California has developed some sort of voter-tracking system that will turn the names of illegal Latino voters over to anti-immigrant groups.

At this time, it appears that the letter is only being circulated in a limited area of Orange County. The Orange County Registrar reports that “most of the mailers are being received in Garden Grove, which is center stage in the hotly contested race for the 34th State Senate District. That race – long a Democratic stronghold in central Orange County – recently saw Republicans narrow registration margins making the district a virtual tie between registered Republicans and Democrats.”

It is unclear exactly who sent the letter, and the extent to which the letter has been distributed. But in a close election, like that in the 34th Senate district, if tactics like this keep even a handful of voters from the polls, that might have an impact on the election outcome.

The report Commuting in America III, which is perhaps the most important report about the daily travels of Americans, was released today. The report is published by the Transportation Research Board and I would suggest it is a must read for all people interested in election administration.

The report details everything you need to know about how Americans travel around their communities. These travel patterns are very important for election officials because different communities have different needs for election services based on the travel patterns of citizens–the voter “customers.” Everything from the location of precincts and early voting locations to the absentee voting needs of the voters can be affected by commuting. The report also sheds light on several other debates that exist in elections today, such as over photo identification.

First, the report notes that there are differences in identification availability in different communities and different social groups. The report notes that,

Holding of a driver’’s license has become close to pervasive in adult America today; but women still lag in licensing; – about 89% of men and 84% of women have a driver’s license, for an overall average of 86%. On an age basis, 80% of those early in the licensing years (16-24) or late (65+) have licenses, with the averages well over 90% for the age groups in between. The baby-boomers in the 35-54 age group represent the peak of ownership of a license at about 95%.

There are similar results when we consider people in the population with cars. One thing to keep in mind is that New York City and the Northeast cities account for a very large percentage of the zero-car households.

One-vehicle households and zero-vehicle households had remained roughly constant for 30 years. The group of households without vehicles has continued to remain roughly constant at between 10 million and 11 million households for the entire 40 year period of the baby boom, of course dropping sharply as a percentage of all households.

The report then considers commuting patterns and times. Commuting is very important for election officials to consider because commuting patterns and times may affect the need on the part of voters for either longer poll hours, more alternative voting methods (like no-excuse absentee voting), and consideration of the location of voting centers along critical travel paths.

The report has the following findings about commuting patterns.

• Commuting from central city to suburb, so-called ““reverse commuting” accommodated a 20% share of growth in commuting.

• More than 94 million commuters, 73% of all commuters, work within their county of residence, but that leaves more than 34 million who are exported each day from their home county to work, compared to an estimated 20 million in 1980, an 85% increase in that period, and more than 3 and a half times the number in 1960.

• Since 1980 the dominant pattern of inter-metropolitan commuting has been “a“cross suburb commuting,” that is commuting from one suburb to a suburb of a different metropolitan area. It amounted to about 31 percent of all intermetropolitan commuting in 1980 rising to almost 39 percent in 1990 and falling slightly to 38% in 2000.

The report notes that commuting patterns vary by city size.

• Contrary to what some might expect, it is the smaller metropolitan areas that show strong center city dominance. In areas below 100,000 population, The internal center city flows alone are about half of all flows, but drop to below 24% at the highest metro size levels.

• Small-town America has the greatest tendency to work and reside in the same county; at 80% compared to the below 67% in rural areas in general.

Overall commute times are getting longer as well.

• Average national travel times grew about 40 seconds from 21.7 minutes in 1980 to 22.4 minutes in 1990, with more than 22 million single occupant vehicle (SOV) drivers added. This was followed by a gain of a nominal three minutes to 25.5 minutes from 1990 to 2000, despite an increase of on the order of only 13 million new SOV users.

• All Census Regions were below 25 minutes in travel time except for the Northeast at over 27 minutes. The entire nation’s average is affected by New York.

• After hovering around 50% for many decades the percentage of workers reaching work in under 20 minutes was at 47% in 2000. Non-metropolitan workers average 58%; contrasted to between 42% and 49% in metropolitan areas.

• Forty of the states increased between 2 and 4 minutes in travel time with Kansas the only state that increased less than two minutes. No state lost travel time. Those gaining more than 4 minutes were all in the East. Georgia and West Virginia led all states with gains greater than five minutes.

• Only New York State had more than 10% of workers traveling over 60 minutes in 1990, but New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois joined the group in 2000 and California came close. Extreme commutes (those more than 90 minutes) were typical in the same set of States.

The data on commuting clearly show that it is taking people longer to get to and from work. These trip times do not include the events that occur going to and from work–such as dropping off and picking up children from school or day care. In addition, as we have all experienced, trip times can vary based on weather, events, and intangibles.

For election officials, increased trip times are likely to mean even more pronounced peaks in voting demand early and late in the voting process, as well as demands for early voting, expanded absentee voting, and vote centers.

If traffic continues growing at this rate and work and home become even more separated, there may also be more demand for cross-jurisdictional voting in the future. Commuters from Orange County will want to vote in Los Angeles County, near their offices, and voters from Maryland and Virginia will want to be able to vote in Washington, DC. As technologies improve, such voting may be possible, but it will require harmonizing voting rules across counties and possibly across states as well.

There’s a New York Times editorial today that argues for nonpartisan election administration, based on continued allegations that Ohio’s current Secretary of State (and candidate for Ohio governor), Kenneth Blackwell, is using his office to make partisan decisions that could sway the outcome of the gubernatorial election:

The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality.

…

Election administration should be removed from partisan politics, in Ohio and everywhere else. Decisions like these should be made by nonpartisan bodies or, failing that, by people who do their utmost to insulate themselves from partisan politics. In 2004, Mr. Blackwell chose to become co-chairman of President Bush’s Ohio campaign, and then issued rulings that helped the campaign. Now we have the even more bizarre prospect of Mr. Blackwell, or his deputy, potentially participating in the baseless disqualification of his opponent.

Hear, hear … music to our ears! See VTP working paper 47, “Who Should Run Our Elections? Public Opinion About Election Governance in the United States.”

Just a brief followup to Thad’s post on the long ballot. In South Dakota, some election officials are reporting that the ballot is so long, that absentee voters are stopping by the elections office, picking up the ballot, and taking it home with them.

I am sympathetic, of course. Book One of my two-volume 2006 Oregon voting guide arrived last week. I wait in eager anticipation for the second volume. All I need is 300 pages of reading before election day!