Symposium Report: Voting tech from the front lines
February 27, 2013
by Andrew McCoy, Special Contributor
On February 21 the William and Mary Election Law Society held its annual Symposium with a focus on election day delays. During the symposium three panel discussions were held, and I had the pleasure of being present in the Voting Technology panel. This discussion was facilitated by Paul Herrnson and included three William and Mary Law students, two Virginia Registrars: Kirk Showalter and Greg R, and a Member of an Electoral Board: Al Ablowich. We were meant to look at voting technology problems, their impact on voting day delays, and potential solutions.
We were unable to note any specific solutions, partially because we could not pinpoint the impact of technological problems. Mr. Riddlemoser stated that there were no technology related delays in his county, and Ms. Showalter noted that, absent voter or poll worker errors, there was only one technology problem in her county and the resulting delay cleared by mid-morning. Mr. Ablowich did note some technology problems on election day, but these were related to the age of the machines and human error. Based on this panel discussion it appears that reports of delays caused by voting machine failures may have mis-identified other issues with technology failures. (more…)
Review: Election Law Symposium at William and Mary
February 26, 2013
Doug Chapin kindly permitted State of Elections to cross post this entry, which originally appeared at his Election Academy here.
I was honored to be a participant in a a symposium yesterday in Williamsburg at William and Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law. The event was the annual symposium of the school’s Election Law Society, which is led by Professor Rebecca Green and filled with a seemingly endless supply of enthusiastic and capable students.
The topic for yesterday’s symposium was election delays – including but not limited to long lines. In the morning, students and a handful of Virginia election officials met in small discussions with three visiting experts:
- + Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who discussed event management for elections (or “party planning”, as it was called throughout the day);
- + University of Maryland professor Paul Herrnson, who shared his knowledge and expertise on voting technology; and
- + John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Coalition, who delved into his considerable academic and professional experience to lead a discussion on voting flexibility.
Non-Precinct Place Voting and Election Administration
February 26, 2013
The following post has been cross-posted from the Election Law Journal with the generous permission of author Doug Chapin:
The growing enthusiasm across the country for non-precinct place voting (NPPV) presents the election administration field with a series of challenges and opportunities with respect to the design and implementation of jurisdiction-specific programs to put NPPV into practice. Much of the impact of NPPV has been temporal—i.e., tied to the expansion of the notion of Election Day. Traditionally, Election Day marked the only opportunity for the vast majority of voters to cast their ballots; today, Election Day is merely the last day a voter can cast a ballot. Much of the popular scrutiny of NPPV to date, then, has focused on this temporal expansion, along with its attendant effects on candidate and voter behavior. Equally important, though, is NPPV’s spatial expansion of election administration. NPPV has inexorably eroded the traditional equivalence between electoral geography—that unique combination of candidate and non-candidate contests that comprise a voter’s ballot style—and the physical location where a voter actually casts that ballot. NPPV’s temporal and spatial effects have combined to create a modal expansion for voters and election officials alike. Because voters now have more choices about when and where to vote, election administration has had to evolve to become an increasingly complex system to cope with ballots cast at different times and at different places, but also in different forms.
This three-dimensional expansion has created a series of policy challenges for the field. (more…)
Are Election Day Precincts an Anachronism?
February 25, 2013
William & Mary’s recent Election Law Symposium played host to several of the leading luminaries in election administration, focusing upon issues of election delays, including but not limited to long lines. On more than one occasion, participants discussed Election Day vote centers—large voting “big boxes” of sorts at which voters from multiple different precincts may vote—as a potential instrument to combat Election Day delays (see here for a brief discussion of voting at non-precinct polling places). The subject was particularly appropriate for the panel assembled at W&M, as it included Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a lightning rod for controversy in election administration, whose state has had valuable experience with Election Day vote centers.
A recent study by political scientists Robert Stein of Rice University and Greg Vonnahme of the University of Alabama has shown that use of such vote centers can increase voter turnout. Some at the conference expressed concerns about vote centers. Panelists referred to the logistical difficulties of operating voting centers—notably that the centers must have the capacity to provide several different ballots for different precincts, including situations in which different ballots require different paper sizes (a problem rendered moot where sophisticated voting machines are used, as they can easily be programmed to contain multiple electronic ballots).
Voting centers supplement or even operate in place of the local precinct. Implicit in the conception of the voting center, then, is the sentiment that use of the traditional precinct is not a necessary ingredient for successful election administration. Is the precinct an anachronism in Twenty-first Century election administration?
Perhaps the chief virtue of the precinct model is that it allows local citizens to verify the identity of potential electors. Neighbors could vouch for each other as residents of the locale who ought to be voting at that particular precinct. Precincts were also a reasonable means to organize Election Day activities in a world in which voters lived, worked, and socialized within a small geographic radius; voters could be expected to go to a convenient location near to their home. Finally, to the extent to which Election Day is a social exercise in which communities gather together, the local precinct served an important function in providing a physical space for neighbors to gather and exercise their franchise.
In contemporary society, does the local precinct model of election administrations serve these values? Or, more precisely, does it serve these values more so than would another model (perhaps one that embraces Election Day vote centers)? With sophisticated identification cards, election administrators now have the ability to instantly verify a voter’s identity. The advent of the automobile and expansion of suburban America guaranteed that many—if not most—voters no longer live and work and socialize in the geographic area where their precinct might be located. And the rapid growth of social media has shifted the locus of community participation from the physical space to the world wide web. The modern community—and the place where voters are increasingly putting their “I voted” stickers—is now Facebook and Twitter.
The precinct model decentralizes the election administration process. Decentralization is not a virtue in and of itself. It may serve other virtues, such as accuracy and efficiency in the voting process. But the changing nature of modern society calls into question the efficacy of precincts in serving those virtues. When concentrating the election administration processes into more flexible centers (additionally, dare states experiment with internet voting or voter registration reforms that capture the myriad technological advances since the current systems were broadly constructed?) may serve our values most, ought we desist from digging in our heels in defense of the precinct model? Politicians and election administrators might reflect upon whether we are operating on a fundamentally outdated method of election administration and whether election administration reforms might best be served not by simply buying newer and more expensive voting machines and poll books but by revolutionizing the basic contours of Election Day administration.
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“Fixing that”: States identify technological, personnel solutions to election delays
February 21, 2013
by Jacob Derr, Editor
One of the biggest stories talked about in the wake of Election Day 2012 were the long lines at the polls. As Election Night played out in real time on television, people were able to see firsthand–or not see, as the case was–the votes come in from districts in states that had closed their polls hours ago. Jump over to any local station in these areas, and you could probably find a local reporter talking to prospective voters, many of whom said they had been waiting in line for hours. President Obama, speaking the day after, declared: “we have to fix that.”
Some states have already started to address these problems. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner filed a report earlier this month with his findings as to the best ways to reduce long lines and streamline elections. Florida saw some of the worst lines last year. Chief among Detzner’s proposed solutions include requiring county commissioners to pay for technological upgrades, giving election administrators greater leeway to make decisions that will shorten lines, and requiring that legislators have a word limit for the constitutional amendments they place on the ballot. He also suggested that, besides unpreparedness among election officials, one of the greatest problems leading to Election Day lines was the cutback passed by the state legislature on the number of early voting days and locations. He says that, despite the budget concerns that led to these being cut back after the 2010 election, they remain a pivotal reason why lines were so long. (more…)
No Use Crying Over Spoilt Votes: A Report on the Election Law Program’s Wisconsin War Game
February 20, 2013
by Jacob Derr, Editor
On December 7, 2012, the Election Law Program held its third war game scenario in Neenah, Wisconsin. The war game focused on potential overvoting and the rights of Wisconsin voters to override their spoiled votes in a hypothetical governor’s race.
Carey Kleinman voted absentee several weeks before the election for governor of the state of Wisconsin, but due to a confusing error in ballot design, she accidentally voted for two gubernatorial candidates. The Republican, Democrat, and Green Party candidates were each listed on their own line, and then three other third party candidates were listed in a box next to the lines. Many voters, like Ms. Kleinman, mistakenly voted for two of these candidates–one from the box, and one from the lines. Ms. Kleinman is joined by 247 other absentee voters who believe their ballot may be spoiled.
There are two statutes in the state which pertain to accidental overvoting. The first allows a voter on Election Day “who, by accident or mistake, spoils or erroneously prepares a ballot” to “receive another, by returning the defective ballot.” Wis. Stat. §6.80(2)(c). Their initial vote is destroyed, and the re-vote is counted. On the other hand, another statute disallows absentee voters who mail or deliver a ballot to the clerk from getting another ballot from the county clerk, and they may not vote a second on Election Day. Wis. Stat. §6.86(6). All of the counties except for Stone County, where the plaintiffs reside, chose to allow absentee voters to re-cast their vote under a reading of the first statute. (more…)
Interview: Doug Chapin, University of Minnesota
February 20, 2013
by Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson, Editors
Doug Chapin is the Director of the Program for Excellence in Election Administration at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. His Election Academy seeks to provide education and research to help election administrators improve and adapt their performance in the future. He spent ten years at the Pew Charitable Trusts working for voting reform at the national and state level, and to improve voting technology, including internet and mobile applications. He will be moderating panelists at the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium at William & Mary Law School this Thursday, February 21, 2013. We asked him a few questions in advance of his appearance….
You’ve looked at the issue of election day delays for a while now. What approach do you think state election administrators should take to address the issue?
I think the biggest thing that election officials need to do is get a handle on how many voters they expect on Election Day and how long it will take those voters to cast a ballot. So many of the problems we saw in 2012 were the result of underestimating the number of voters who would turn out – and in a few cases (like Florida) underestimating how long it would take voters to navigate a lengthy ballot. I even heard reports that in some jurisdictions where pollworkers were using e-pollbooks, pollworkers’ unfamiliarity with mouse and keyboard (as opposed to printed greenbar) created delays at the front of the line. Knowing a little more about these factors in advance can reduce the possibility of surprises on Election Day.
Do you think state election administrators could be using the Internet better than they currently are? While Internet voting might be a ways off, can the Internet better serve elections in other ways?
Internet voting is an issue that will generate huge disagreement in the election community … I often joke that everyone agrees that we’ll have Internet voting “someday”, but that consensus evaporates the minute you try to define when “someday” will be. That said, we are already seeing huge strides in the ways in which election officials are using the Internet to help voters with the voting process like online voter registration and polling place locators available via smartphone (even text message). In addition, military and overseas voters can now get unvoted ballots electronically; while this doesn’t include electronic return, it does cut considerably the time it takes for these voters to cast a timely and valid ballot.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, some jurisdictions loosed rules for voting location and even experimented with Internet voting (albeit imperfectly). Do you think these examples have anything to teach election administrators about running elections?
I think the biggest thing we learned from Sandy was the importance of contingency planning for election administration. The affected states did a heroic job making the best of a very bad situation, but probably would have liked to have had a better sense of what to do if the standard election infrastructure was damaged or unavailable. As bad as things were, the country is lucky that Sandy didn’t make landfall closer to Election Day. I know for a fact that election officials across the nation are thinking much harder about contingency planning because of what they saw happen during Sandy.
Interview: Paul Herrnson, University of Maryland
February 18, 2013
by Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson, Editors
Dr. Paul Herrnson is the director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship and a Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. He is also the principal investigator of a project funded by the Maryland State Board of Elections which is designed to research campaign financce and voting in the state and also to design a method to deliver absentee ballots over the internet. Dr. Herrnson’s scholarship focuses on voting technology and ballot design. He was recently quoted by the New York Times explaining the causes of longer ballots in some states than in others. Dr. Herrnson will be a panelist at Thursday’s Seventh Annual William & Mary Election Law Symposium. In advance of the event, we asked him a few questions about voting technology, now and into the future.
1. In your opinion, what is the single most efficient voting technology in use today?
I don’t think efficiency is the most important characteristic of the voting process. Integrity, security, equal access to the ballot, accessibility, and usability–including the ability to cast a vote as intended without the need of outside assistance–are more important.
That having been said, I think the most efficient voting technology in existence today is an internet-based absentee ballot delivery system. There are variations among these systems. The Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland developed a highly effective system for the State of Maryland that makes voting easy and very efficient. It also makes voting a possibility for citizens located abroad, including military personnel deployed to remote locations where voting was previously impossible.
2. If you could make one universal change to voting technology in the United States today, with the wave of a wand (assuming money was no issue), what would it be?
Just one! I would make sure that there were enough high-quality voting systems available so that every citizen who wished to vote in person either on Election Day or during an early voting period had to wait in line no longer than 30 minutes.
3. It seems like voting technology is all over the place in this country, even though HAVA attempted to address the issue of outdated voting machines back in 2002. Is another piece of federal legislation (and federal dollars) needed again or should we rely on states to address the problem?
The evidence suggests we cannot rely solely on the states. Some states have done an outstanding job, but others have shortcomings in terms of voting machines, poll books, the maintenance of accurate voter rolls, and other administrative matters.
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This Week: Seventh Annual W&M Election Law Symposium
February 18, 2013
by Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson, Editors
This Thursday, February 21, the William & Mary Election Law Society and Election Law Program are proud to present the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium. The symposium features prominent election law attorneys, the Colorado Secretary of State, election law scholars, and Virginia registrars. The symposium centers upon voting delays and is titled “We Have to Fix That: Bipartisan Solutions to Election Day Delays.”
In advance of the event, State of Elections will be publishing special entries all week. We will have advance interviews with Paul Herrnson and Doug Chapin, two of Thursday’s panelists. We will take an in-depth look at the Wisconsin War Game conducted by the Election Law Program last December, which will be discussed at Thursday’s event. We will also highlight and outline the issues for Thursday’s panelists, including a look at what states around the country have been doing in the wake of election delays last year.
We hope you will join us in conversation by commenting on our coverage this week, and we hope you will participate in the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium at William & Mary Law School this Thursday, February 21, 2013.
News Brief: Former W&M Election Law Symposium panelists will chair commission to reduce election delays
February 14, 2013
by Jacob Derr, Editor
President Obama took the first step yesterday to address election deficiencies by appointing two top election attorneys on opposite sides of the aisle to chair a Presidential Commission on Election Administration: Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg. Both are wise picks. Bauer served as White House Counsel during the first Obama administration, and general counsel to Obama’s reelection campaign. Ginsberg, a prominent Bush attorney during the historic 2000 election, ran Romney’s legal team in 2012.
Bauer and Ginsberg are no strangers to William & Mary Law. Both Bauer and Ginsberg sit on the Advisory Board to the Election Law Program (a joint program of William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts). In 2009 the pair traveled to Williamsburg for William & Mary’s Third Annual Election Law Symposium, “Campaigning in the Courts: The Rise of Election Litigation.” The symposium examined the rising tide of litigation as a central campaign strategy. In conjunction with the symposium, Bauer and Ginsberg also filmed a web lecture entitled “A View from the Trenches: Advice for Judges Handling Election Related Lawsuits” for the Election Law Program website electionlawissues.org. Moderated by William & Mary Law School Dean Davison Douglas, the discussion focuses on trends in election litigation since Bush v. Gore. In addition, Bauer will travel again to William & Mary Law to participate in our 7th Annual Election Law Symposium on February 21st which will address Election Day delays. For more information see here.
William & Mary’s Election Law Program, a joint project of William & Mary and the National Center for State Courts, is proud of its connection to Bauer and Ginsberg, and the many other outstanding luminaries from the election law field who speak and teach at William & Mary.
See, “A View from the Trenches”: http://www.electionlawissues.org/Video-Modules/View-from-the-Trenches.aspx