electionlineWeekly — February 7, 2013

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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. .

Elections Performance Index – Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2013: Earlier this week the Pew Charitable Trusts released the Elections Performance Index, which examines election administration across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The index includes 17 indicators that measure election administration policies and results, beginning with the 2008 and 2010 election cycles.

These indicators include polling location wait times, availability of online voting information tools, the number of rejected voter registrations, the percentage of voters with registration or absentee ballot problems, how many military and overseas ballots were rejected, voter turnout, and the accuracy of voting technology, among others.

Modernizing California's Voting Technology: A Look Back, A Look Ahead – Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation, Jan. 31, 2013: This brief discusses the history and future of voting technology in California, and examines Los Angeles County’s current efforts to find a non-commercial path for procuring a new voting system.

Policy questions are also considered, including how voting systems are funded, tested, and certified.

How to Fix Ling Lines – Lawrence Norden, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, February 2013: This report suggests three reforms that would help reduce long lines at polling places:
  • Modernizing voter registration
  • Providing early voting to all voters during a fixed national time frame
  • Setting minimum standards for polling place access
The report also supports a federal database of voting machine failures to increase oversight and accountability.


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 22, 2013

Obama announces members of election commission
After tapping two of the nation’s pre-eminent election lawyers to lead an effort to study the way Americans vote, President Obama on Tuesday announced his intention to appoint eight additional members to a presidential commission designed to improve the electoral process after voters faced long lines and other obstacles in last year’s elections. Ashley Southall, The New York Times.

Scott signs elections bill to fix long voter lines
Gov. Rick Scott has finished the fix of the flawed election law that relegated Florida to a late-night joke in 2012 by signing an elections clean-up bill passed on the final day of the legislative session. Mary Ellen Klas, The Miami Herald.

Also in electionlineToday news: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and national news (7:40 a.m. 05/22/13).