Archive for November 2017

The EAC continued yesterday with its Clearinghouse Awards in the area of accessibility for voters with disabilities, honoring a trio of election offices – Washington’s Secretary of State, El Paso County, CO and Collin County, TX – for their work in making the voting process open to all voters.

Minneapolis, MN and Port Huron Township, MI are the winners of the 2017 Clearinghouse Awards from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for their programs focused on pollworker recruitment and training.

It isn’t unusual to see stories (or at least allegations) about voters in one state casting ballots in another – but in Missouri it appears there are some voters who have difficulty casting valid ballots because they have Iowa addresses.

Colorado recently conducted the nation’s first post-election statewide risk-limiting audit (RLA) – and the state announced that the audit was successful in all counties chosen to participate. It’s a huge development for the field; Colorado’s efforts to make the theory and math of RLA happen in the “real world” is a tremendous first step – and the cooperation between election officials and advocates is a sight for sore eyes.

Giving thanks this week for all of this blog’s faithful readers AND a decidedly NON-empty nest … blogging returns Monday, November 27!

The latest electionlineWeekly looks at New Mexico’s efforts to improve participation and elections in an often-overlooked community: Native Americans. This is an important effort in the Land of Enchantment; the “disconnect” Native Americans feel regarding American elections is significant – and there are often logistical challenges (distance, language, etc.) to running elections in tribal jurisdictions.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s latest “Deep Dive” brief on 2016 election data is out, focusing on election offices’ use of polling places and the need for, and recruitment of, poll workers to assist voters on and before Election Day. It’s a snapshot of the human factor on the other side of the voting table, illustrating the scale and nature of the effort election offices must put forth to allow voters to cast their ballots.

A tight legislative race in Stafford County (Quantico), Virginia is generating frustration and controversy after the county board of elections voted to exclude 55 absentee ballots that arrived on Wednesday morning after the Election Day deadline. The problem is, it isn’t clear when the ballots arrived at the post office – meaning that the delay could have been a failure of the county to pick up timely ballots.

Almost four years ago, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging Minnesota’s rules regarding political attire in the polling place. Now, another variation of that case has made it back to the Court – which announced yesterday it will hear the appeal. The Court rarely grants cert to affirm, so we could be seeing some changes to those rules in the foreseeable future.

electionlineWeekly’s latest exit interview features Utah’s Mark Thomas, who is stepping down as the state’s election director to take a new position with the Utah Senate.