Posts by Doug Chapin

Things are tense in Montana these days, as county election officials gather for their annual meeting in the midst of growing tension with the Secretary of State over his increasingly harsh rhetoric on voter fraud. Tension between state and local election officials is nothing new, but this kind of “beef” is something different: evidence of a deep-seated mistrust and frustration that cannot be good for the state in the short- or long-term.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned an injunction against Illinois’ same-day registration law, saying that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate any evidence that it disadvantages voters in small counties. This “one size need not fit all” approach could be significant elsewhere as well as states seek to balance expanding voting opportunities with smaller communities’ ability to pay for them.

The August 3 electionlineWeekly features the latest of Mindy Moretti’s highly-anticipated “exit interviews” with key people in the world of elections, and this week’s subject is one to which I’ve been looking forward – recently-retired electiongeek lifer John Lindback.

Special elections are always challenging, because of the odd timing and need for resources – but in Utah, the upcoming primary race for the vacant 3rd Congressional District is creating even more problems for local election offices. Wasatch County (Heber City), Utah has now joined Utah County (Provo) in sending Republican ballots to unaffiliated voters in the upcoming primary.

Few states have a more contentious budgeting process than Illinois – and this year, it appears the state has once again left localities in the lurch as one source of funding runs dry. It’s the latest reminder of the difficulties localities face in obtaining reliable fiscal support from states to run elections. While every state has to make tough decisions about public funds, year-to-year uncertainty for many local offices seems to be less exception than rule.

Voter list maintenance procedures will be a subject for the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, but a new ACLU lawsuit in Georgia’s Fulton County (Atlanta) is challenging something much more immediate: the status of voters who move within the County. It raises an interesting question: when (if ever) is a move so short that it shouldn’t be considered a move under applicable law?

This past weekend’s DefCon meeting in Las Vegas produced numerous headlines thanks to a “hacking village” set up to, essentially, get under the hood of various voting machines. Federal law now permits such “white hat” hacking efforts – and they can be a key weapon for the election community in keeping “black hats” from compromising the nation’s voting systems.

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, having fought off an injunction in federal court, is once again asking states for voter roll data to assist in its efforts. But a new piece in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog by two researchers at MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab  suggests that the Commission’s plans for that data may result in vastly-over inflated numbers of duplicate registrations.

As the number of vote-by-mail ballots grows across the country, there is growing concern about what that might mean in terms of protecting the integrity of the voting process. Yesterday, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would make it a crime to influence someone’s VBM ballot – even despite objections the bill could make it a crime for family members to have a discussion in the presence of such a ballot.

The Center for Technology and Civic Life’s latest ELECTricity newsletter has a spotlight on an initiative in Minneapolis that’s helping the city’s election office keep its focus on what’s important in carrying out its mission. By building and following a “business plan” for elections, the office is keeping its eye on what’s most important and focusing its efforts (and data collection) on achieving those goals.