Archive for 2012

Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, are powerful tools that are beginning to transform American business and government. This post examines APIs and discusses how and where APIs could transform elections in the 21st century.

The recent recall of the Saguache, CO County Clerk for her role in a disputed 2010 election may have brought her term to an end, but the issues sparked by that election – continue to rage in the legislature, the courts and – soon – the Secretary of State’s office.

Elections aren’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try … a topic ElectionDiary’s Brian Newby discusses in a must-read new post. Go check it out.

Domicile is a complicated question in the field of elections – but mobile technology may hold the key to identifying when a voter or candidate claims one address but is actually using another, as Indiana’s Secretary of State may soon learn.

An internal EAC memo formally suspending the activities of two statutory boards created by the Help America Vote Act raises questions about the ability of work to continue under HAVA – and sparks a strong reaction from state election directors and secretaries of state who rely on the boards as avenues for input into federal election policy.

Recent testimony by South Carolina’s state election director (profiled by Pew today) casts doubt on allegations that over 900 dead voters have cast ballots in that state. Whether or not that analysis will have an opportunity to be completed – and whether it will matter in the state’s ongoing battles over election policy, particularly voter ID – remains to be seen.

Last Friday a federal judge ordered that New York hold its Congressional primary on June 26, 2012. While this answers the question about how New York will comply with the MOVE Act, it creates a new (and potentially expensive) problem about what to do about the state’s primary still scheduled for September.

Pew’s new report Democracy from Afar – released today – shows how far – and so fast! – states have moved in the last few years to help military and overseas Americans cast a timely and valid ballot in federal, state and local elections.

Los Angeles County, CA is embarking on an Open Innovation Challenge that could not only help design the County’s next voting system but could show the way to similar changes to the voting process nationwide.

Using election laws to drive turnout is like using a hammer to drive a screw. Don’t do it.