electionlineWeekly--October 20, 2011

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III. Research and Report Summaries

electionline provides brief summaries of recent research and reports in the field of election administration. Please e-mail links to research to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

2010 Post Election Survey Report to Congress - Federal Voting Assistance Program, September 2011: Findings of this survey of military and overseas voters as well as local election officials about the November 2010 election include:

77 percent of the military registered to vote, before adjusting for age and gender, compared with 65 percent of the general population.
A 21 percent increase in the unadjusted active duty military voter participation rate between 2006 and 2010. The report cites the passage of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act in 2009 and its requirement to send ballots out 45 days before Election Day and electronic delivery of blank ballots to voters as a possible reason for this increase.
29 percent of military voters expecting an absentee ballot never received it in 2010, an increase from 17 percent in 2008.
44 percent of jurisdictions did not start transmitting ballots until after 45 days prior to Election Day, although it is unclear if this deadline was missed or whether these jurisdictions received their first absentee ballot applications after the 45-day deadline.

Felon Voter Fraud Convictions Stemming from Minnesota’s 2008 General Election - Minnesota Majority, October 13, 2011: Minnesota Majority found 113 individuals who voted in the 2008 general election have been convicted of felon voter fraud – voting while ineligible due to their felony status. The report states that as many as 2,803 ineligible felons may have cast ballots in the 2008 general election, but this more limited number were convicted because state law requires an offender to have knowingly broken the law to be charged and convicted for voter fraud. Recommendations include changing procedures for Election Day registration to better detect ineligible voters.

electionlineWeekly

May 16, 2013

First Person Singular: Gary Bartlett
KISS for a better today and tomorrow

By Gary Bartlett
North Carolina State Board of Elections

This article is going to be about my thoughts on effectively managing the elections process. I’ll tell you that from the start in case you had other ideas. As I sat down to write this article, I started kicking around some thoughts on what was going to be my hook. How do I capture your attention in order to get my points across?

My first thought was to entitle this article: Weathering the Tides of Political Influence and Change. And while the weather presents great opportunities to present analogies about the ebb and flow of the elections process or managing political storms, I felt that this was too cliché.

So how about comparing the elections process to a playground? On a playground, there are swings and slides and see saws, monkey bars and of course, the sandbox. A playground analogy could offer up nice realisms like “take turns” or “let everyone have a turn”, “stay in line,” “play nice,” and of course, “don’t touch the metal when it’s hot.” Effective messages, but again, it’s been done before.

Instead, I want your attention; so I’m going to use the hook that always works –KISSing. Sorry, no juicy or salacious stuff will be forthcoming from me. Remember, I warned you from the beginning? I’m going to hook you by speaking plain simple truths. In essence, I will be keeping it simple –because I’m not stupid. Read More…

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electionlineToday

May 18-20, 2013

Voter fraud is easy with 13K in Maryland still on D.C. rolls
Washington, D.C., has failed to remove from its voting rolls as many as 13,000 former residents who years ago moved to Prince George’s County and cast ballots there, making fraud by voting in two jurisdictions as easy as going to the polls in their old neighborhoods, The Washington Times found in a review of records. Luke Rosiak and Jeffrey Anderson, The Washington Times.

No reform in sight for bumbling NYC board of elections
They’ve bungled election after election, wasted millions of dollars and filled jobs with relatives - but there’s no reform in sight for the city Board of Elections. Mayor Bloomberg fumed the board “better get its act together next year” after an Election Day debacle that featured hours-long lines at the polls, hordes of befuddled poll workers and the collapse of the board’s web site and phone lines. The year? 2004. Celeste Katz and Erin Durkin, The New York Daily News.

Also in electionlineToday news: California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin (7:15 a.m. 05/20/13).