Archive for 2014

MinnPost’s Doug Grow has a great “curtain-raiser” on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s race – which is a nice lead-in to a conversation with the candidates we’ll be hosting at Humphrey on Monday, October 20.

NPR’s Pam Fessler takes a look at the now-familiar if not-yet-well-understood issue of provisional ballots, which are about to get renewed attention because of law changes and recent court decisions like the Supreme Court’s ruling in North Carolina.

Akron, Ohio’s home county is moving to staff up with nonpartisan pollworkers in an effort to alleviate shortages related to the traditional reliance on the partisan “adversary system” in managing the polls on Election Day.

The lead story in NCSL’s latest Canvass looks at the urban/rural divide in election administration and flags an issue of which everyone should take notice: the voting experience in different-sized communities grows more different every year.

Once again, litigants on both sides are running to court seeking election law changes right before Election Day. To this I say: ENOUGH. Let’s make it so such changes are rare – and when they do occur, they come with sufficient funds to make them work.

In Iowa, voting and high school football – two popular autumn pastimes – are together in the same place as Johnson County brings its VoteMobile to schools on Friday nights. As electionline’s Mindy Moretti notes: “With clear eyes and full hearts voters … can’t lose.”

The Kansas Senate controversy is finally out of court and Johnson County’s Brian Newby shares what it means for “ballot printing” – a concept that involves far more time and effort than rolling ballots through a printer.

A campaign mailer by the Florida governor’s re-election campaign is prompting complaints from county election officials because it suggests that voters return vote-by-mail ballots – even though they won’t be mailed until this week.

UC-Irvine’s Rick Hasen has a fantastic piece over at Slate setting the scene for the next round of “voting wars” litigation now reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Says he: “We ignore what’s coming at our peril.”

California’s Secretary of State candidates are vying for the opportunity to serve in a high-visibility job with a long, long to-do list that covers the entire landscape of election policy issues from voter registration to voting machines – and the money to fund it all.