The Washington Post notes that the Maryland Supreme Court has rejected early voting. No court rationale was given for the decision.

Breaking news: Washington state’s “top two” primary has been thrown out by a circuit court on free association grounds. No links to the decision at this point.

One of my pet peeves over the past few years has been the number of people who claim, without any empirical evidence, that voting by mail increases turnout.

As I’ve blogged here many times, the evidence from Oregon is pretty clear. Voting by mail increases turnout in low profile elections by drawing in voters who otherwise might not bother to come to the polling place. It does not increase turnout by expanding the electorate (as if often implied). And it has nothing to do with Oregon’s impressive 80% plus turnout–Oregonians have turned out at better than an 80% clip for decades.

In this letter in the Arizona Republic, the state director of “Your Right to Vote” claims that voting by mail has increased turnout in Oregon “threefold.”

I have already written a brief letter to the editor, pointing out that turnout in 1996 was 88% (the last presidential contest before voting by mail), while it was 85% in the 2004 contest.

Just received this paper from Roy Saltman, “Independent Verification: Essential Action to Assure Integrity in the Voting Process.”

I’ve just received it, and am eager to read it, as Roy is one of the early researchers in the area of voting technology. Here’s the abstract from Roy’s paper:

Audit trails are needed for direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting systems. The widely used, current method of providing an audit trail with printouts is evaluated, and several disadvantages are noted. Advocates for blind persons claim that use of the printouts is discriminatory and unlawful. Software fraud or error is a major concern of computer scientists. The issue arose in 1969, soon after use of computers in voting began. Document control and partial recounting were recommended solutions for systems using ballots, but controversy remains over DRE systems, even though non-ballot lever machines were successfully used for over 100 years. Some available independent verification devices (IDVs) are described. Recommendations are that independent verification would reduce the fear of fraud, a continuing concern over the more than 200 years of US elections, as well as improve integrity and public confidence in correctness of reported outcomes. Proposed performance criteria for IDVs are given. An IDV should be connected to each DRE in use. Voting systems using hard-copy ballots should be required to undertake audits with independent recounts of at least 3% at no cost to candidates.

After I’ve had more of a chance to read it, I’ll probably have more detailed comments.

In a major coup for those who have been pushing since the 2000 election from more openness, disclosure — and for finely-grained data on election administration practices — Franklin County’s (Ohio) Board of Elections today announced that following the final canvass in this fall’s federal election they are going to post online complete data from every electronic voting machine used in the election. The following is from today’s Columbus Dispatch:

After the official counts and canvasses for the Nov. 7 election, information from more than 4,500 touch-screen voting machines will be posted online so skeptics can conduct their own reviews, Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said.

The agency also plans to ask county commissioners to pay for an independent post-election hand count of votes from the paper tapes that track people’s choices on each machine.

In the wake of last week’s report on the discrepencies in the audit that ESI attempted in Cuyahoga County (Ohio), the fact that Franklin County is going to make this data public is an enormous step in the direction of openness, disclosure, and the provision of critical research data. Release of data like these should go a long way toward improving public confidence in the process.

According to news reports from last week’s meeting of the DNC’ rule’s committee:

Looking to broaden primary voting participation, the committee also voted to encourage state parties to provide for Internet voting. Some questioned whether such a step could disenfranchise some poor and minority voters, who have more limited access to computers.

“Because of the ongoing digital divide, we’re going to continue to monitor how that’s implemented,” said Donna Brazile, a member of the rules committee who has been active in DNC efforts to reach out to minorities.

What exactly the rules committee did to encourage the provision of Internet voting, and how that will be received by the state parties as they start to gear up for the 2008 presidential primaries, is unclear (but of course we’ll try to follow it here).

UPDATE: 2PM, AUGUST 21.

On the DNC website, there is now this brief blurb regarding the 2008 rule changes that apparently were approved by the DNC rules committee:

he 2008 Rules contain a new provision allowing Internet voting under certain conditions. Internet voting can only apply to State Party-run primaries and must be accompanied by in-person voting locations and vote by mail. Additionally, Internet voting must include a comprehensive outreach and education program to reach those who lack access as well as certain security and technical safeguards.

I’m trying to track down a copy of the rules.

The race to replace Tom Delay will be the first test for conducting a write-in election on electronic voting machines. Almost the entire district is covered by jurisdictions that use electronic voting machines for in-precinct voting. The Galveston Daily News, the Washington Times, and the Houston Chronicle all have articles about the race and about the education that will have to occur so that voters can learn how to potentially cast a write-in vote on these machines. The Chronicle notes that:

Electronic ballots are used in most of the district, which includes parts of Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston counties. Voting booths will display the names of write-in candidates who register before Aug. 28 and are certified by the Texas secretary of state. Voters will have to navigate to the write-in option on the electronic ballot, call up a keyboard display and spin a dial to spell out a candidates’ name a letter at a time. David Beirne, spokesman for Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, said misspelling a candidates’ name won’t disqualify the vote if a voter’s intention is clear. The 2004 Democratic candidate in the 22nd District, Richard Morrison, received about 67,000 votes, Bettencourt said, and Lampson probably will get that many Nov. 7.

This means that 67,000 Republicans have to be willing to do write-in voting, although many will do so in absentee voting, which is done on an optical scan system. I was the discussant of a paper on electronic voting at a confrence this spring in Chicago that examined the ease of doing write-in voting using a DRE and generally it is not easy. It can take up to 5 minutes to figure it out, which could also affect machine wait times at precincts with heavy Republican turnout.

USA Today has a story today about how Democrats are targeting several secretary of state races across the country because of the importance of this position in setting certain rules for elections. The story starts

The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted.

The state post of secretary of State was a backwater until 2000, when Florida’s Katherine Harris became a central figure in the presidential recount controversy. Now national Democratic groups and White House prospects, unhappy about Harris’ decisions and those of Republican Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio two years ago, are pouring resources into contests for the job.

At least three Democratic political action committees are spotlighting secretary of State candidates, most of them in states where they expect the presidential vote to be close. Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio top their lists. Secretaries of State control most voting regulations and influence state purchases of voting machines. Looking ahead to 2008, Democrats say they want people they trust in those offices.

“There’s a growing concern about whether votes are cast and, if so, whether they’re properly counted. We have to restore people’s confidence in the system,” says Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a 2008 presidential prospect whose Heartland PAC is helping several secretary of State candidates.

This article raises many questions about how elections are governed (something Mike and I have written about previously) and whether elections should be governed by elected secretaries of states or by election boards.

The Washington Post offers this editorial in favor of Maryland’s early voting plan.

While much of the discussion in the wake of the second Cuyahoga County report has focused on the questions about the report’s audit of the voting devices (and the vendor’s response to those questions), our friends at Electionline hit the nail on the head this afternoon.

A great piece in today’s Electionline Weekly by Dan Seligson points to the data in the ESI-lead report on the problems the report highlighted regarding the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). It’s worth quoting extensively from Seligson’s piece, as it is the first media report so far that I’ve seen that has highlighted the fact that the report found that almost 10% of the VVPAT ballots studied were problematic:

Perhaps equally significant – and noteworthy – are the details of the considerable woes that plagued the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system through careless election administration, printer failures or both.

Buried some 93 pages into the report, which was commissioned by county leaders and produced by the San Francisco-based Election Science Institute, are details of errors that included poll workers loading thermal paper into VVPAT printers backwards, blank audit trails, “accordion-style” crumpling of ballots, long blank spaces between ballots that could have represented missing or unprinted VVPATs, torn and taped-together VVPATs and missing ballot text.

ESI researchers found that nearly 10 percent of VVPAT ballots sampled were in some way compromised, damaged or otherwise uncountable, an alarmingly high proportion for a state that requires that paper be used as the ballot of record in the event of a recount.

That led ESI to the ominous conclusion that “in the event of a recount or election contest, the risk of legal challenges is exceptionally high if no significant modifications are made to the current election system.”

“The VVPAT is only as reliable as the administration of the system that produces the paper trail,” said Tracy Warren, the ESI researcher who led the manual VVPAT recount.

Warren said she hoped the ESI findings would be “immensely valuable” in helping jurisdictions – and particularly Cuyahoga County – avoid future mishaps in administrating votes using VVPAT systems.

While the vendor’s response so far has focused on raising questions about the analysis in the ESI report (which I’ll write about later), in Seligson’s piece the vendor’s perspective has shifted somewhat:

Diebold spokesman David Bear said most of the problems with Cuyahoga’s paper trails were caused by poll worker mistakes, with poor training as the primary culprit.

“Obviously it reflects poorly on the company and the county,” Bear said. “But the main concern is that you lessen the likelihood of that occurring. The things that we can do are to lessen the likelihood of problems with design. The other issue is that you have to beef up training. We work extremely hard with jurisdictions to help them make sure their training is at as high a level as possible.”

Bear said successful elections using the same equipment in other Ohio counties and outside of the state suggest “they’re not too difficult. It’s an issue of familiarity.”

Indeed, figuring out how improve training of pollworkers, and voter education, regarding the use of VVPATs is imperative. Seligson’s story notes that electionline.org’s latest data indicates that nearly half (23) of states require the use of VVPATs for electronic voting.

But we also do need to figure out ways to improve the VVPAT technology, if it is going to continue to be used in association with e-voting. I’ll have more to say about that as well in later essays.