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Less than a week after ordering the State of Florida to extend its registration deadline because of Hurricane Matthew, a federal judge has criticized the state for its application of a rule that invalidates vote-by-mail ballots with non-matching signatures. The dispute highlights the growing challenges associated with using signatures and other handwritten documents to validate voters’ identities.

My UMN colleague Larry Jacobs and I have a contributors’ column in The Hill newspaper entitled “Enough already: US elections are fair”. It highlights the work done by election officials across the nation and signals our commitment to ensuring that the profession of election administration continues to attract the kind of smart and dedicated public servants who currently make America’s democracy work.

Mindy Moretti has a great story in the latest electionlineWeekly about how Chicago’s election office is putting a new twist on an old favorite at the polls – offering “I Voted” wristbands to voters in lieu of stickers, which were abandoned in the city years ago. It’s great to see election offices recognize the power of small tokens for voters as a thank you for turning out and encouragement for others to do the same.

Wisconsin’s new law requiring a witness’ address on absentee ballots is threatening to force election officials to discard such ballots. The state elections commission says officials can’t cure those problems without first obtaining voters’ consent – and officials worry that could end up disenfranchising people as Election Day approaches. Could litigation be far be behind?

With Election Day less than four weeks away, more jurisdictions are seeking cybersecurity assistance from the federal government. Congressional leaders have assured states and localities that such assistance will not expand the federal role – but don’t be surprised if that issue re-emerges next year, resurfacing the federal vs. state tensions that underpin our nation’s election administration system.

Last week, I wrote about the dispute over Hurricane Matthew’s impact on Florida’s voter registration deadline. Yesterday, a federal court in Tallahassee ruled that the deadline must be extended at least one day to Wednesday, with a possible further extension based on a hearing. The case raises interesting legal questions about how to review the constitutionality of state laws affecting registration and voting.

This year, many voters are casting ballots and engaging with the election process earlier and in greater numbers than I can remember. The presidential campaign seem to have made voters unusually (and intensely) risk-averse and as a result they are engaging in “belt and suspenders.” For them, it appears that not having a vote cast and counted in this election is equivalent to being caught with your pants down.

Election Law Blog’s Rick Hasen asked me to write a short guest post … in case you missed it there, I’m also sharing it here.

In some states, election officials aren’t just in charge of ballots this November, they’re on them … and electionlineWeekly’s Mindy Moretti has a quick recap of the various races nationwide in 2016.

With voting underway in many states and Election Day less than five weeks away, delegations from around the world are arriving in the United States to observe the 2016 vote. International observation is a fantastic opportunity for state and local election officials to show what they can do – and in some cases, get the chance to see standard procedure through (many!) different eyes.