NYT deep dive. … Continue reading
Category Archives: election administration
BuzzFeed: “They are uniform, nondifferential standards that provide a reasonable procedure to determine the intent of voters. This is not to say the rules are perfect or the best way to do things. But they are constitutional,” Walker wrote in his … Continue reading
Interesting opinion. … Continue reading
AJC: Georgia elections officials scrambled Thursday to count a cache of hundreds of ballots that were previously rejected as they raced to comply with the latest federal ruling in the too-close-to-call contest for governor. Democrat Stacey Abrams called the judge’s … Continue reading
From the Court’s opinion: By cosmic coincidence (or curse), it is Bush v. Gore that is most instructive in this Florida recount dispute. It is a foundational tenet of our democracy that “[t]he right to vote is protected in more … Continue reading
Naples Daily News: A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline. … Continue reading
AJC: Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux headed back to federal court on Thursday morning, filing an emergency motion aimed at forcing Gwinnett County to count a trove of previously rejected absentee ballots in the razor-thin 7th Congressional District race. The Democrat wants U.S. District … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Less than 24 hours since his last suit was filed, Bill Nelson is suing Bay County again. The incumbent candidate for U.S. Senate, who has filed three other lawsuits in the past week, is suing Bay County Supervisor … Continue reading
Doug Chapin blogs. … Continue reading
You can read the opinion and order here. It has a very unsatisfying discussion of the laches issue. … Continue reading
NYT: The issue of faulty signatures, especially on mail-in ballots, has emerged as a central point of contention in the county-by-county recounts taking place in Florida, with lawsuits spinning off the 2018 election like tornadoes off a hurricane. On Thursday, … Continue reading
NYT: It was only a week ago that Rick Scott, the Republican governor of Florida and candidate for the United States Senate, claimed on television that “rampant fraud” was perhaps imperiling his election to Congress, and that he was asking the state … Continue reading
State of Elections: Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle in mid-October and had a lasting effect on the infrastructure and residents of several coastal counties. As a result of the devastation, Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order extending the deadline for … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: Republican Gov. Rick Scott has filed at least five lawsuits since Thursday against county election officials and instructed state police to investigate them for “fraud.” But on Monday, a group of Florida voters and organizations filed their own lawsuit that alleges … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: With Florida set this week to undertake a massive and massively politicized recount in the critical races for governor and senator, the way that election fight has played out so far has … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner was aware of recount issues that surfaced in Broward County on Sunday, but said through a spokeswoman that the issues were resolved. The county had an issue during the logic and accuracy … Continue reading
Miami Herald: After Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle in October, the top elections official in Bay County allowed about 150 displaced voters to cast ballots by email, even though there is no provision that allows for it in state … Continue reading
Find it here. … Continue reading
Ernest Canning: On Thursday, Florida Democrats filed a federal lawsuit in which they alleged that the Sunshine State’s, county-by-county, subjective signature match procedures for rejecting vote-by-mail (VBM) and provisional ballots are arbitrary, lacking in standards, and, over several election cycles, inconsistently applied … Continue reading
Miami Herald with a long and troubled history: Over the past several weeks and months, you have seen stories about problems with Broward ballots. Like this one: Machine glitches delay the start of ballot recount in Broward County by hours … Continue reading
AJC: The unsettled race for Georgia governor tightened over the weekend as Democrat Stacey Abrams prepared litigation aimed at counting a trove of pending votes, while Republican Brian Kemp’s campaign said her refusal to concede was “a disgrace to democracy.” … Continue reading
Chicago Tribune: In light of a lengthy list of election woes for Porter County’s midterm election, including a preliminary tally of results that wasn’t complete until Friday, the Porter County Board of Commissioners and two members of the County Council … Continue reading
H.R. 1: First Item on the Agenda? Improving the 2020 Election. … Continue reading
NYT’s The Upshot: The vote count in Florida’s Senate race keeps getting tighter. Gov. Rick Scott’s lead over the Democratic incumbent, Bill Nelson, is down to 15,000 votes, and it’s likely to narrow further as provisional and late overseas ballots are … Continue reading
Read the complaint. This occurs as ballots continued to be counted in the very close McSally-Sinema Senate race. … Continue reading
AJC: A day after the election, the governor’s race remained in limbo, with Secretary of State Brian Kemp declaring victory and Democrat Stacey Abrams vowing to hang in the race until every vote is counted. A number of other races could result in … Continue reading
Release via email: Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, The Arizona Advocacy Foundation and All Voting is Local-Arizona sent a letter, demanding that the Maricopa County Arizona Board of Supervisors and the County Recorder extend voting hours … Continue reading
WhoWhatWhy: WhoWhatWhy asked the secretary of state’s office if it planned to conduct an audit to ascertain that unauthorized changes had not been made to voter registrations. Broce responded, “There is no such vulnerability in the system as alleged by your … Continue reading
Devastating for an agency that’s had such promise, from Jessica Huseman: One of the EAC’s commissioners has dismissed the threat of foreign governments undermining American elections in private meetings with state election officials, and often personally appealed to individual officials … Continue reading
APM reports. … Continue reading
Ned Foley and Steve Huefner at Slate: This year, in particular, the temptation may be especially strong to distort the vote-counting process to achieve a victory for one side or the other. Given the refrain that the current elections are … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: In perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running for governor while simultaneously in charge of the … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
The Fresno Bee reports. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. it begins: In separate rulings on Thursday, two federal courts had the same message for minority voters making credible claims of potential disenfranchisement: Your arguments may be good on the merits, but it’s … Continue reading
They say that Dodge City voters can't vote in their usual polling location because it is inaccessible due to construction. So we went there to see for ourselves. Wanna guess what we found? pic.twitter.com/dO5BVUOtkP — Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) November 1, … Continue reading
I had been expecting an emergency stay request from Ohio, but it’s not going to happen: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, said he disagreed with the ruling but called it “temporary and narrow.” He said he would … Continue reading
Josh Douglas oped. … Continue reading
Announcement via email: The Election Law Program is pleased to announce the expansion of its eBenchbook platform to include North Carolina and Nevada. ELP aims to offer annotated state election statutes in all fifty states. Visit the beta site at … Continue reading
Eliza Newlin Carney deep dive for TPM. … Continue reading
NLJ: A federal judge in Atlanta turned Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s own words against him in denying a request to postpone a court order intended to reduce the number of rejected absentee ballots across the state. Judge Leigh Martin May of … Continue reading
Cleveland.com: A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that boards of election in Ohio must count provisional election ballots cast by certain people previously purged from voter rolls for the 2018 midterm elections. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. … Continue reading
See this order. … Continue reading
Release: Tonight, the Texas Civil Rights Project (“TCRP”) sent a letter to the Secretary of State asking that his office take immediate action to inform Texans regarding the straight-ticket voting issues on the Hart eSlate voting machines. The letter asks … Continue reading
Wichita Eagle: After the ACLU objected to Dodge City’s single, out-of-town polling place, the local official in charge of elections forwarded to the state an ACLU letter asking her to publicize a voter help line. “LOL,” she wrote in an … Continue reading
TPM: A state court judge in Tennessee ruled Thursday that Shelby County, which contains Memphis, must let voters whose registrations were stalled due to incomplete information to vote with regular ballots on Election Day, once the deficiencies are corrected. The ruling came … Continue reading
It is here. I expect the district court, which just issued its order, will deny the request for a stay. This is more of a formality before seeking relief in the 11th Circuit. This could end up before the Supreme … Continue reading
AJC: A federal judge intends to issue an injunction barring Georgia election officials from tossing certain absentee ballots without giving would-be voters advance notice and a chance to rectify any issues. The implementation of the injunction — which U.S. District … Continue reading
Following up on this post, see this Michael McDonald thread starting here: @monkeycageblog has become its namesake, a blog lacking vetting of the claims put forth. Quite sad, really, since it used to showcase peer-reviewed scholarship. Case in point: this … Continue reading
Hot off the presses is the edited volume, Electoral Integrity in America: Securing Democracy Edited by Pippa Norris, Sarah Cameron, and Thomas Wynter. You can order from Oxford U. Press at a 30% discount using the code: ASFLYQ6. I have a chapter … Continue reading