Archive for 2012

One under-appreciated facet of the voter ID debate in Minnesota is its potential impact on the state’s tradition of Election Day Registration. Online news site MinnPost brings some light to the heated debate with a map demonstrating EDR’s partisan backdrop.

Something I’m thankful for post-Super Tuesday: Election administration has no expectations to beat, momentum to maintain or narratives to extend – just votes to count and results to report. That’s why I’m an election geek, not a political junkie.

Pollworkers in Virginia will soon have the option of waiving the (admittedly small) compensation they receive for their service. It will be interesting to see how that option – which is aimed more at tax-simplification than cost-cutting – affects the composition of the Election Day workforce and the cost of elections.

Early voting is down in Ohio in advance of tomorrow’s presidential primary. Figuring out why isn’t just the stuff of punditry – it could also help election officials better allocate their resources. Unfortunately, figuring out why isn’t likely to be easy given the various moving parts in Ohio this go-round.

This dog’s owner thinks it’s a crime how easy it was to register him to vote. This dog’s owner is about to find out that he may well have committed a crime to prove it.

Crowd-financed projects aimed at specific election challenges – like Dana Chisnell’s design field guides and Faye Anderson’s Cost of Freedom voter ID app – could be the next frontier in shoring up hemorrhaging state and local election budgets.

Wisconsin’s 2012 recipe of voter ID and a statewide recall election could mean a wealth of real-world data on the impact of ID requirements as well as its interaction with Election Day registration. It will likely be exhausting, however.

Nothing is as amazing to behold as a newspaper on an outrage rampage – and right now the New York Daily News is pounding the Board of Elections over its (puzzling) inaction in the face of evidence of a faulty Bronx ballot scanner in the 2010 election.

The Indiana Supreme Court will decide this week what to do with the office of Secretary of State in the aftermath of former Secretary Charlie White’s felony convictions. As in any disputed election, the Court’s choices are limited – and each one is unattractive in its own way.

AIGA’s Design for Democracy has a new list of top 10 election design recommendations. This list is valuable for designers but also for policymakers who should examine whether existing laws and old habits are getting in the way of good design.