Archive for February 2014

electionline.org’s latest newsletter has a rundown of all the candidates for Secretary of State in what will be a busy (and likely hard-fought) 2014 election cycle.

About one-third of North Carolina’s counties are seeking to cut early voting even further than the new reduced days and hours in state law – not because they want fewer voters, but because there aren’t enough voters to make the days and hours they already have worthwhile.

A postal worker in Texas didn’t feel like doing his job, so he marked lots of mail “return to sender.” Unfortunately, some of that mail included voter registration cards, and now hundreds of voters (and maybe more) are on the inactive “suspended” voter list.

A long-running vote fraud probe in Iowa has concluded and the results are in the hands of prosecutors. Here’s hoping the state follows Ohio’s lead and shares how the stories uncovered illuminate what happens when election rules are applied in the real world.

A new Pew Election Data Dispatch highlights research that seeks ways to counteract voters’ tendency to over-report (or, in lay terms, “lie about”) whether they voted in an election. Hopefully, the findings will help fine-tune the data to permit more accurate forecasting and analysis.

The 2014 (and 2016) campaigns are now officially upon us – as evidenced by the parties’ plans to focus heavily on Secretary of State races this fall.

Ohio State’s Dan Tokaji’s new paper proposes a trade of voter ID for voter registration as a “Grand Election Bargain” at the federal level. Digging into the details, however, it’s not clear to me that a supporter of ID would think this was a bargain, let alone grand.

A simple but crucial coding error meant that the ballots in an upcoming Pulaski County election had to be reprinted. The story offers a lesson learned in laying out ballots but also highlights the impact of increasingly complex ballot systems.

The election official in the nation’s largest locality surveys the field and concludes that perhaps “we do need lines — lines of modern reforms and responsive options … to make systemic changes to how we conduct elections and cast votes.”

The National Association of Secretaries of State has a new report examining state laws on emergency preparedness for elections. It’s a great resource in an area where states should start planning if they aren’t already.