Archive for 2012

Summit County, OH is involved in a budget battle between the election board and county legislators about the 2012 budget. The latest salvo in that battle – a pile of data comparing election spending in several counties – is a valuable window into the cost components of election administration.

Wisconsin’s first primary under the new voter ID law went smoothly overall, but the problems that did occur are illustrative of how hard it is to change in any endeavor – but especially elections.

Pew’s recent registration report indicates that election officials have work to do in finding and fixing erroneous, outdated and duplicate entries on their lists. But they may also be facing considerable work related to adding as many as 51 million eligible but unregistered Americans to the nation’s voter rolls.

It’s that time of year when reporters start asking which are the states to watch … and while the old standbys remain, pound for pound the most interesting state in the nation for me is Colorado. Read why.

The President’s new budget contains continued funding for the EAC. While it’s barely above zero (about 0.0003% of the total), the fact that it’s still a non-zero number means the EAC still has a future – if only on paper, and if only for now.

A new study from Pew finds that one in eight voter registrations nationwide is inaccurate or out-of-date … and is already gathering states to pioneer a new approach that would address the problems identified in their study.

This morning’s Daily News spotlights New York City’s curious (the paper calls it “insane”) method of tallying votes using its new voting machines. In an election year that could see New York voters head to the polls four times, this method may require re-thinking.

The recent resignation of a North Carolina election official shines a spotlight on the difficult- but necessary – task for election administrators to remain impartial in a world where everyone else is (loudly) choosing sides.

Evidence-based assessments of elections are closer to reality with the release of Pew’s new report looking at data sources in the field of election administration.

Well-publicized vote counting problems in the Iowa and Nevada caucuses highlight the need for professional election administration – but such services come at a cost that parties need to (but may not) be willing to bear.