Archive for 2017

In Washington DC, talk of the 2016 election still dominates the conversation – but in the states, the work to prepare for elections in 2017 and beyond continues. In Michigan, the state has authorized up to $82.1 million over ten years to replace its aging voting machines. The State will share the costs with localities, but new machines should start arriving as soon as this summer.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would not be reviewing a case from Texas that blocked implementation of the state’s strict voter ID law. But the Court signaled that its stance on the case has as much to do with its timing as it does the merits, indicating that the dispute is all but certain to return – at a time when there are once again nine Justices on the bench.

The election community lost a great friend and colleague when former Vermont state election director Kathleen Christie (“Kathy”) Scheele passed away this weekend. She was always a reliable source of data, guidance – and straight talk – about election administration and the people who do it for a living. The field, and I, will miss her.

The November 8 US election was the latest to be the subject of observation by a delegation of international observers through the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The report for that mission was released yesterday – and while much of it is familiar to anyone who follows election administration in the US, it provides a valuable election-focused but outside view of our nation’s system.

States across the nation are expressing interest in the “Colorado model” of elections, but now some county clerks are wondering whether some early voting requirements are serving too few voters and costing too much money. It’s the latest variant of the tension between state consistency vs. local flexibility in election administration, and how it plays out could be important not just in Colorado but nationwide.

In Iowa, the somewhat predictable emergence of the voter ID issue is taking an unexpectedly different shape as Secretary of State Paul Pate says it’s aimed not at voter fraud, but efficiency. The SoS is so interested in improving election administration that he’s proposing to put IDs in the hands of voters without them. Questions remain but it’s definitely a new approach to a very familiar debate.

Washington State’s Dave Ammons may have retired, but he’s still thinking about his colleague in election administration, as evidenced by his guest post in the latest edition of electionlineWeekly entitled “Seven Habits of Effective Election Administrators”. It’s a nice reminder to stay aware of the pubic-facing part of election administration as public service.

On Tuesday, I wrote about how January can be a challenge for election officials because of “follow-on” special elections necessitated by November results. That day, voters in Lynchburg, Virginia stood in long lines for a state senate special election because the city had underestimated the number of ballots needed. It’s a tough call for communities seeking to balance voter demand and scarce resources.

Yesterday, my friend and colleague Charles Stewart shared the news that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had created the MIT Election Data and Science Lab to advance the use of data in election administration. It’s a huge development which allows Charles to continue promoting (and more importantly, modeling) an evidence-based approach to election administration.

After a busy November, you’d think election officials would get a break. But January has become a magnet for special elections necessitated by general election results – with a whole new set of challenges for election offices.