Final report from the National Task Force on Election Crises. Executive summary: The 2020 election was defined by paradox and contradiction. Thanks to millions of poll workers, election officials, and citizens who stepped up to make our democracy work, the … Continue reading
Category Archives: election administration
NYT’s The UpShot reports. … Continue reading
AJC: The man who oversees Georgia’s voting system, Gabriel Sterling, negotiated a $200,000 per year contract for himself last year, quit his state government job and has worked as an independent contractor ever since.Under the arrangement, Sterling’s pay increased from … Continue reading
Detroit News: An audit of Antrim County election results Thursday gave President Donald Trump a net gain of 12 votes from the certified results in the northern Michigan county. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s total decreased by one vote, from 5,960 to … Continue reading
This is so full of useful information: The Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE) provides information about how Americans experience to voting in the most recent federal election. Conducted in every presidential election since 2008, the SPAE is … Continue reading
Great lineup on a very urgent topic. … Continue reading
Detroit Free Press: The state of Michigan is preparing to intervene in a lawsuit alleging fraud in Antrim County as the small GOP stronghold in northern Michigan is emerging as a last hope for allies of President Donald Trump seeking to cast … Continue reading
The Star-Tribune reports. … Continue reading
Quite a read. … Continue reading
Syracuse.com: The undecided House race between Rep. Anthony Brindisi and Claudia Tenney has exposed deep flaws in New York’s election system that undermine public faith in the state’s electoral process, voting rights advocates say.Those advocates say they will push for a series of state … Continue reading
Josh Gerstein for Politico: A judge assigned to a Republican-led lawsuit alleging widespread fraud in the presidential election in Georgia issued an order late Sunday night blocking plans to wipe or reset voting machines used in three counties in the … Continue reading
Watch the video. … Continue reading
Iowa City Press-Citizen: Three county recount boards are defying a recent legal opinion from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office and using a machine to aid the recount of ballots in the ultra-close 2nd District congressional race.Recount boards in Scott, Johnson and Clinton … Continue reading
Syracuse.com: The fate of 39 absentee ballots in the election between Rep. Anthony Brindisi and Claudia Tenney is up in the air after election officials admitted in court today that they lost sticky notes attached to some of the ballots.Oneida County’s election commissioners told … Continue reading
Ned Foley: For the past several months, Election Law at Ohio State and SCOTUSblog have teamed up to track significant election-related lawsuits with the potential to reach the Supreme Court and affect the presidential election. Now, two weeks after Election Day, litigation over the … Continue reading
NYT: Christopher Krebs is a 43-year-old former Microsoft executive who had the unenviable government job of protecting the nation’s election machinery from manipulation by Russia or other foreign hackers. It turns out, though, that some of the most dangerous interference … Continue reading
Bridge MI: As chairman of Michigan’s 8th Congressional District Republican Committee, Norm Shinkle actively worked to re-elect President Donald Trump. Now, he’s poised to play a key role in deciding whether to certify Michigan election results that Trump is publicly disputing … Continue reading
AJC: By ordering a statewide hand recount of every ballot in the presidential race, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger combined different parts of recount and audit procedures.His decision will result in a time-consuming, labor-intensive process that’s never been attempted before. Raffensperger said it will … Continue reading
Deep dive in the Detroit Free Press: Chris Thomas, a former long-time director of elections for the Michigan Secretary of State, addressed the concerns of Republican challengers and debunked rumors of foulplay that circulated on social media.Thomas, who has worked for both Democratic and Republican … Continue reading
Nate Persily and Charles Stewart with a smart retrospective in the WSJ. … Continue reading
Hamm v. Boockvar, a state court case attacking some PA Secretary of State curing procedures. Hearing on Wednesday. Keep your eye on this one, and the other suit I wrote about earlier today. … Continue reading
Nevada Independent: The Nevada Supreme Court has denied an emergency request by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and the state Republican Party to immediately order Clark County election officials to stop processing mail ballots.The appeal, filed Tuesday in the state … Continue reading
AJC: Fulton County’s absentee-by-mail processing operation at State Farm Arena was delayed four hours today after a water pipe burst in a room with ballots.No ballots were harmed thanks to the slant of the room, voting officials told the elections … Continue reading
NBC News rounds up the reports. … Continue reading
ABC News: In Philadelphia, officials are estimating they could have to process more than 350,000 returned absentee ballots from the over 425,000 requested by voters.Beginning at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, officials will begin processing the ballots, organized by precinct, and … Continue reading
Justin here. I’m tracking the litigation over election issues related to COVID-19 … and the list of cases just hit 325. (The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project also has a really useful sortable database of these cases, with more info. And … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Election officials across the country are already stretched thin this year, dealing with a record number of mail-in ballots and other effects of the coronavirus pandemic. On top of that, many are battling another scourge: misinformation. Fueled by inaccurate comments from … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Texas voters are nowrequired to wear face masks when casting ballots during the pandemic, a federal district judge ruled Tuesday, invalidating an exemption for polling places that Gov. Greg Abbott had included in his statewide mask mandate.The governor’s mandate for Texans to … Continue reading
New helpful Brennan Center resource. … Continue reading
WaPo: We will probably get earlier results in states with two key traits: voters who have widely embraced early in-person or mail voting, and rules that let officials process and count mail ballots before Election Day. Arizona, Florida and North … Continue reading
WPXI: A lawyer for Republican congressional candidates Sean Parnell and Luke Negron said an agreement has been reached over nearly 29,000 incorrect mail-in ballots sent to Allegheny County voters.The Republican candidates and the Allegheny County Board of Elections agreed on a … Continue reading
You can find the order (without any stated reasons) at this link. Here is my October 11 coverage of the district court’s order. … Continue reading
TPM: Republicans have gone to federal court to make it easier for them to challenge the ballots of nearly 29,000 Pittsburgh-area voters who were caught up in ballot-sending flub in recent weeks.The court fight stems from a mail vendor screw-up that resulted in … Continue reading
Nevada Independent: The Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party filed a lawsuit Friday requesting a pause in Clark County’s mail ballot counting until “proper procedures” for “meaningful observation” are in place.The lawsuit — filed in Carson City District Court — names … Continue reading
Eric McGhee for PPIC. … Continue reading
Spotlight PA: Negotiations between the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Tom Wolf to let counties begin opening mail ballots in Pennsylvania before Election Day appeared to collapse Wednesday, setting up a potential nightmare scenario that some fear could leave the state counting millions of ballots … Continue reading
Philly Inquirer. … Continue reading
Vice: Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression.VICE News obtained data … Continue reading
WaPo: Elections officials in Pennsylvania are being inundated with complaints from first-time and absentee voters having difficulty registering to vote or requesting a mail ballot, fueling anxiety in the critical swing state just as the 5 p.m. Monday deadline approaches … Continue reading
NYT: In Georgia, the state’s voting machines have malfunctioned in three consecutive elections this year alone.In Pennsylvania, election officials are staring down possibly the biggest ballot processing backlog in the country, with no means of even touching the ballots until … Continue reading
Havard’s Ash Center: As we approach the final weeks of the election campaign, Secretaries of State – particularly in swing states – face tremendous pressures as they fulfill their responsibilities to provide a smooth, inclusive, and safe election that delivers a … Continue reading
Dayton Daily News reports. … Continue reading
Jane Harman and Deborah Pryce CNN oped. … Continue reading
WaPo: While the lines were longest in the state’s heavily Democratic strongholds in and around Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah and Macon, hours-long waits were also reported in smaller, more conservative counties, including Lowndes and Floyd, officials said. By the evening, at … Continue reading
138-page opinion. It was pretty clear that’s where this one was heading, and I have serious doubts that the Trump campaign is going to do better if they try to appeal this up the appellate ladder. As I explained in … Continue reading
Columbus Dispatch: Franklin County elections officials are scrambling to figure out how many voters received the wrong ballot in the mail as thousands more lined up across the state for the first day of in-person early voting.Problems with a thus-far undetermined portion … Continue reading
New guide from the Cleveland Clinic and the Bipartisan Policy Center. … Continue reading
LA Times: More than 2,000 Los Angeles County voters got mail-in ballots with a very egregious flaw: no way to vote for U.S. president.The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office confirmed late Monday that about 2,100 “faulty ballots” were mailed … Continue reading
Justin here. I’m tracking the litigation over election issues related to COVID-19 … and the list of cases just hit 275. (The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project also has a really useful sortable database of these cases, with more info.) A … Continue reading