Archive for 2012

A recent op-ed by the Obama campaign’s data director describes (and debunks popular misconceptions about) the “big data” phenomenon in politics. Election administrators should take note.

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller has proposed a new voter ID bill that would give poll workers access to voters’ photos instead of requiring them to produce ID. It’s an act of jujitsu on a long-running issue that has a fighting chance of success (pun intended).

Paul Gronke has a provocative piece about the pressure on election officials to speed ballot counts, especially in jurisdictions (like California) with large number of vote-by-mail ballots.

A razor-thin one-vote legislative race in Alexandria, MN with Election Day errors has local officials looking at the prospect of randomly removing ballots from the tally followed by an automatic recount and post-election litigation.

Every election official hopes to have a perfect Election Day. One county official in New Mexico found out the hard way that expecting perfection isn’t the same as planning for it.

Commentary by NYU’s Richard Pildes on judges’ treatment of early voting in Ohio and Florida suggests that rising expectations on early voting are beginning to find their way into legal decisions in cases about limiting early voting.

Galveston, TX’s Election Day problems are the subject of Pew’s latest Dispatch. It shows that sometimes problems aren’t the result of what ISN’T supposed to happen, but rather what law and procedure says IS supposed to happen.

Brian Newby’s latest ElectionDiary includes an extended meditation on capacity issues – and a cautionary note about looking for solutions before the problem is properly defined.

Two new Congressional election reform bills take very different approaches to addressing the issues and problems that arose on Election Day 2012.

No blogging this week – I’ll return Monday, November 26.