Early voting will start in North Carolina on October 19th (links here and here).

Early voting started today in Illinois (links here, here and here).

Early voting stars on Wednesday in Tennessee (which has one of the higher early voting rates among states in the South). Link here.

Nevada seems to allow different early voting times in different counties (see a list here); most start by October 21st.

Florida’s polls open on October 23rd.

There is a great interview that was published in the MIT Technology Review this morning, containing an extended interview with “Political scientist Thad Hall.” Of course, this is just our Election Updates colleague, Thad! Kidding aside, it’s a really thoughtful and extended interview on the current state of statewide voter registration databases and future issues associated with their development and use.

Both USA Today and The Economist have articles about all of the initiatives that are on ballots nationally. The Economist notes that:

Altogether, 205 statewide measures (to say nothing of lots of local ones) await voters in assorted states this November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most involve decisions already taken by state legislatures, which they are asking voters to ratify. But 81 of them have been placed on ballots directly by citizen groups. That is the highest number of citizen-driven measures since 1996, when widespread voter disgust triggered a slew of initiatives proposing term limits and restrictions on taxes and spending.

What do all of these propositions mean? Two things, and neither bode especially well for the Fall elections from an administrative point of view.

The first issue is that the ballots will be longer, which will mean that it will take voters longer to navigate through the voting process. In the current world of voting system transitions and VVPATs–where voters are expected to compare the VVPAT with the votes on the screen–the longer ballot makes everything more complicated for the voters.

The second issue is that initiatives boost turnout, which is a good thing generally, but will provide interesting issues for some jurisdictions in the midterm elections, especially in places that are transitioning to new voting systems. As The Economist article notes:

Ballot initiatives do seem to drive extra voters to the polls in mid-term elections, when turnout otherwise drops sharply. Daniel Smith of the University of Florida and Caroline Tolbert of Kent State University have looked at voting patterns from 1980-2002, and estimate that mid-term turnout goes up by an average of 1.7% for each initiative on the ballot. Mr Smith also points out that candidates do not gain just from higher turnout. Having an emotional issue on the ballot can also make it a bigger topic in the campaign, which tends to help the candidate whose backers put it there.

It will be interesting to see how the longer ballot and higher turnout affect different jurisdictions in the upcoming election.

There is also a call for papers from the Social Science Computer Review, for papers on technology and campaigns. For details, see the blogsite “bytes and ballots.”

Readers might be interested in the following call for papers, from the journal American Politics Quarterly:

Call for Papers on Political Geography and American Politics

American Politics Research

*American Politics Research* invites scholars to submit articles on the political geography of American politics. In 2008, /APR/ will publish a special issue on spatial aspects of American political behavior, elections and institutions.

Political geography is concerned with how specific geographic concepts may be relevant to understanding political behavior and institutions. These core geographic concepts include: location, distance or proximity, and access. Notions of geographic movement, or flow, are also central. Political geography may begin with issues related to redistricting, but the range of research topics extends far beyond this horizon.

The /APR/ readership is most interested in articles that evaluate theories, test hypotheses and examine data about geographic variation in political behavior or institutions. Papers with a historical focus are welcome. Papers deploying sophisticated spatial statistical tools, and hierarchical models, to illuminate substantive questions are encouraged.

Promising paper topics might include:

1) Studying geographic variation in political behavior, such as presidential vote choice, or political participation, across space or time;

2) Diffusion studies – examining public policy adoption from a spatial standpoint.

3) Studies of the impact of political context on mass or elite opinion.

4) Studies of congressional redistricting, or related boundary-defining processes.

5) Examinations of the meaning of borders or related institutional boundaries.

6) Examination of racial and ethnic segregation, concentration, and the implications of such patterns for electoral politics, redistricting, or public service delivery.

7) Studies of the relevance of distance to candidate name recognition and evaluation.

8) Examinations of geographic variations in mass media consumption and their possible political implications.

9) Studies of population mobility and its political consequences.

10) Studies of the geography of political campaign activity and candidate strategy, including the Electoral College.

The deadline for submission of papers is September 5, 2007, although articles will be accepted and reviewed before then on a rolling basis. All papers should be approximately 22-28 pages in length, double-spaced, including a 150 word abstract. Papers should conform with the /APR/ Guidelines as outlined in the submission instructions for the journal at:

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/apr/ .

Questions, as well as electronic submissions should be directed to Jim Gimpel, Editor, at apr@gvpt.umd.edu.

I am posting this Reuter’s article about the Ecuadorian presidential election because it illustrates two important differences between US election practices and international practices.

• First, internationally it is common for ballots to be counted in precincts and then audited centrally. This allows for instant precinct results to be announced at the close of polls. With the widespread use of electronic tabulating equipment in precincts–such equipment or something similar is generally necessary under HAVA for “second chance” requirements–it is becoming easy for such precinct counts to be done.
• Second, although though some countries, including Ecuador, use exit polls, they rely much more on the “quick counts” of a sample of precincts to predict the outcome. Long-time readers probably are bored of our touting this, but it would be a valuable tool in US elections.

The Reuter’s article is below.

Ecuador’s leftist candidate Rafael Correa has won 25.3 percent of votes and tycoon Alvaro Noboa 24.3 percent, according to the initial results from an quick count of 5.4 percent of ballot boxes around the country by electoral authorities on Sunday. The results do not represent national voting trends as ballot box vote counts are usually received first from larger cities and towns before remote rural areas.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the votes on Sunday or 40 percent of votes with a 10 percentage point advantage, a run-off will be held on Nov. 26 between the two contenders.

Two national exit polls earlier showed Noboa slightly ahead with between 29 and 27 percent of votes and Correa with 27 to 25 percent of the votes. Official results are expected later Sunday.

The use of absentee ballots is rising in municipal races in California, according to data collected and reported on in a story in today’s Pasadena Star-News:

Absentee ballots accounted for roughly 42 percent of all votes cast in both the recent Measure A election in Glendora and the Wal-Mart-inspired recall election in Rosemead, according to results from both races. These figures reflect statewide trends that some experts say have the absentee vote approaching the 50 percent mark.

Why?

“There is no question that the use of both absentee and early voting is increasing at local, state and national levels,” said Michael Alvarez, a professor of politics at Caltech.

“Voters like it because it is more convenient. Election officials like it because it makes their life easier. And parties and candidates like it because it is becoming a part of their targeting and micro-targeting strategy.”

But the use of absentee ballots in these municipal races sometimes has unintended consequences, as may have been the case in the Glendora race:

Some of the early election tactics used in the Glendora campaign led to accusations that proponents of Measure A were illegally trying to influence voters. NJD Ltd., which proposed the measure to allow construction of an 18-hole golf course on its hillside land in exchange for a 338-unit housing development on the Glendora Country Club, admitted its campaign workers provided $10 gift cards to residents to encourage them to turn in their absentee ballots.

The company denied its staffers told people how to vote, or even identified themselves as Measure A supporters, saying it was simply trying to increase voting for a special election they said the city purposefully scheduled a month before the November election to suppress turnout.

While NJD’s efforts did bring in more than 5,000 absentee ballot applications on top of the city’s 2,700 permanent absentee votes, in the end the tactic appears to have backfired. Only 624 of the more than 4,900 absentee ballots counted so far supported the developer’s measure.

An interesting development, to see the increased use of abstentee ballots in these municipal races.

There is an odd sense of deja vu here — another federal election, and another instance of problems with ballot design in Florida …

The current problem in Florida’s 16th Congressional district race is that former representative Mark Foley’s name, according to Florida law, has to remain on the ballot — despite the fact that he has resigned from office and is no longer running for reelection. That has left Joe Negron, who has taken Foley’s spot on the ballot, scrambling to inform voters that a vote for Foley is really a vote for Negron.

Here’s some information from a Los Angeles Times story about the race:

A vote for Mark Foley is a vote to elect Joe Negron,” explained Negron, who took over the GOP spot on the ballot when Foley resigned after explicit messages he sent to teenage male pages were made public.

The Nov. 7 ballot had already been approved and some absentee forms mailed out when Foley resigned. Florida law forbids variation in the voting materials within any district, so Foley’s name had to stay.
…
A new squabble over the unchangeable ballot arose Friday, when the Florida Democratic Party filed a court motion to prevent “illegal electioneering” at polling places — which is how it sees district election officials’ plan to post notices telling voters that they should mark their ballots for Foley if they want to vote for Negron.

“Plain and simple, posting candidates’ names is considered electioneering, and electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place is illegal,” said Karen Thurman, state Democratic party chairwoman. “It’s not the state’s job to inform voters about the Republican candidate.”

Politics aside, no question that this situation is likely to confuse voters in the 16th district when they cast their ballots, now and through Election Day. It’ll be interesting to see what the vote turns out to be, and this presents an interesting situation for those who might be interested in studying ballot design and voter information efforts: in situations like these (which we have seen in other states recently), how can voters be informed about their choices, and how can ballots be designed so that voters are no confused?

A report released by the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, Common Cause, and The Century Foundation, examines progress on election reform since 2004, across a variety of areas: voter registration, voter identification, provisional ballots, voter suppression and intimidation, poll workers and polling places, and voting machines. This report also provides a detailed analysis of election reforms in ten key states, in a series of detailed appendices. There are three areas that the report identifies as potential problems in 2006: that some states have made the voter registration process more difficult, that long lines in polling places are likely to be a continued problem in 2006 and beyond, and that voter identification laws are likely to cause problems this fall.

Proposition 205 in Arizona will implement voting by mail in Arizona. It has a prominent set of supporters (listed at Your Right to Vote of Arizona, including the League of Women’s Voters, a number of mayors, state representatives, and state senators, and other civic leaders.

The Arizona Republic provides a nice summary of the two sides to the initiative.

Sadly, both sides are making unsubstantiated claims about voting by mail. Proponents claim that voting by mail increases turnout “especially amongst people with disabilities, homemakers and young voters ages 18 to 38”.(see the main Your Right to Vote page), citing a “study by the University of Oregon.”

Southwell and Burchett’s December 2000 study (American Politics Quarterly) does show an increase in the three voting by mail elections when compared to 43 other elections, but this also corresponds to a potential novelty effect. The work has not been replicated in additional elections.

What they apparently draw upon is a 2003 study conducted by Southwell (available here). The problem with this study is that is is based purely on individual self-reports of what balloting type people “prefer” and what type they think makes them vote “more often.” This is purely a self-report, with a very questionable baseline for comparison. How many of us can really say how much “more likely” we are to vote compared to some unknown alternative?

The stronger evidence, which I have mentioned many times, is that voting by mail does improve turnout in lower intensity contests–such as state and local races and inititives–but does so not by drawing in new voters, but simply by activating regular voters.

The opponents are no better, though. Typically, they charge that voting by mail will increase voter fraud, although there is virtually no evidence of this in Oregon. Furthermore, as state officials in Oregon have often told me, at least under voting by mail, every signature is checked. People seem to think that the same thing happens at the precinct, but as anyone who has witnessed precinct place voting can tell you, no one compares signatures.

I’ve seen no polling data on this proposition to date. I’ll keep updates coming to the blog.