The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project: Research and Service to Democracy During the Pandemic

The following is a guest post from Nate Persily and Charles Stewart:

The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project: Research and Service to Democracy During the Pandemic

Nathaniel Persily, Stanford University

Charles Stewart III, MIT

The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project is an initiative aimed at addressing the challenge of holding elections in the midst of a global pandemic.  Readers of the Election Law Blog need no introduction to the unprecedented changes to American election administration that are occurring in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

What readers may not know is that the Healthy Elections Project website (HealthyElections.Org) is a one-stop information portal about voting in the current age — a site that hosts comprehensive research about how states have responded to the election administration challenges facing them; research into salient topics such as supply chain issues; and links to a carefully curated collection of tools that can help election administrators manage the transition to expanded mail voting and the maintenance of healthy in-person voting options.

The goal of the project is to bring the best research to the public and helpful tools to election administrators to address the challenges the pandemic poses for the 2020 election. The tools referenced on the site have been developed by university researchers and members of the civic tech community to help election officials manage resource allocation of in-person polling places, locate in-person polling places and drop boxes, manage the workflow of expanded mail-ballot operations, and communicate critical information to voters.  Many of  tools, developed and hosted by organizations such as the Center for Technology and Civic Life, URI Votes, the USC Center for Inclusive Democracy, and the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, already have proven track records, but deserve a new look by officials as they adjust how they allocate resources, facilities, and people to respond to a fluid logistical situation.

An important and distinct part of the project involves research conducted by students, centered on the two host campuses, into a variety of topics that emerge as voting proceeds.  Currently, the State Updates pages host reports that focus on fifteen states, with more to be added in the coming weeks.  Each state page includes a report, authored by a team of students, that addresses the political context of the presidential preference primary, measures taken by election officials to confront the challenges of voting in the midst of an unfolding pandemic, and an assessment of the strains on the state’s election administration that were revealed in the voting.  A team of students at MIT is complementing these legal and administrative summaries with deep dives into the election data that has been generated by these early primaries.  States vary in how much data is generated by an election, but to the degree possible, these election-data reports examine patterns of turnout, mail-ballot usage, polling place closures, voter registration, and similar election administration topics.  For example, the recent research on the North Carolina, Wisconsin and Florida primaries provide the first insight into the scale of uncounted absentee ballots, and the age and racial disparities in which ballots get counted. 

Research on the Healthy Elections website consists of more than just state summaries.  On the site, one will find a comprehensive analysis of election administration supply chain issues, a vote-by-mail resource guide, and in the coming weeks, a template for assisting election administrators in developing safe polling places (written in collaboration with the Stanford Design School) and a review of best practices for voter education and outreach.  Through our partnership with the popular Lawfare blog, research from the Healthy Elections Project will also be summarized in shorter form articles for a general audience.

In the coming weeks the website will also feature a COVID-related election litigation tracker to make it easier to find, sort and analyze the avalanche of election litigation spawned by the pandemic.  We have summarized and issue-tagged nearly 200 cases filed this election season.

The Healthy Elections Project is about much more than research, however.  With our partners, we are providing direct assistance to election officials to help administer the election in the pandemic.  Most notably, we have launched initiatives and supported other organizations to recruit poll workers amidst a nationwide shortage. We have established partnerships with PowerThePolls.org, the Association of Pro Bono Counsel, and Campus Compact to assist election officials with recruitment and placement of poll workers.

The November election is upon us now.  Events are moving quickly.  We encourage the larger election law community to avail themselves of the resources on the Healthy Elections website, and to consider it a place to start to get a comprehensive view of issues as they unfold.  We also encourage the community to alert us to anything we have missed. The  landscape of administration of the 2020 election  is rapidly expanding and changing, with new issues, such as threats to the postal system, arising almost daily.   By working together to understand the unprecedented challenges the nation faces in running an election during a pandemic, we will be better positioned to confront them in the ten weeks remaining until Election Day.

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