Election Updates

A new Election Updates!

2008-07-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

We will be making a transition over the next few days from this existing blogsite to a new Election Updates. The new blogsite will have a better look, be more user-friendly, and should be easier to access.

The new url is http://caladan.caltech.edu/ElectionUpdatesBlog/

Or you can just click here.

We will soon have an automatic redirection set up, but from here on out our new material will go on the new blogsite!

Positive comments go to me; criticisms to Thad.

Overview of California Redistricting Reform Proposals

2008-07-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Center for Governmental Studies has a released a helpful comparison of a variety of redistricting reform proposals in California, "A Comparative Overview of California Redistricting Reform Proposals in 2008." These comparative tables are handy for anyone who wants a better understanding of Proposition 11 ( text available here), and how it compares to other redistricting reform proposals.

More new research on voter mobilization

2008-07-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a new working paper from Meredith, Kessler, and Gerber, "The Persuasive Effects of Direct Mail: A Regression Discontinuity Approach".

Here's the abstract:

During the contest for Kansas attorney general in 2006, an organization sent out 6 pieces of mail criticizing the incumbent's conduct in office. We exploit a discontinuity in the rule used to select which households received the mailings to identify the causal effect of mail on vote choice and voter turnout. We find these mailings had both a statistically and politically significant effect on the challenger's vote share. Our estimates suggest that a ten percentage point increase in the amount of mail sent to a precinct increased the challenger's vote share by approximately three percentage points. Furthermore, our results suggest that the mechanism for this increase was persuasion rather than mobilization.

"Better Ballots", Brennan Center report

2008-07-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

A report on ballot design, "Better Ballots", was recently released by the Brennan Center. Fellow political scientist David Kimball was one of the authors of the report, and the report was backed by a pretty solid task force. I've been offline most of the day today, and only now started to read the report. It seems to be full of useful suggestions for better ballot design, backed by empirical research.

Clearly we can design better ballots!

As I read this report, I couldn't help but to recall the paper that I wrote in February 2002, "Ballot Design Options." This paper was written for a conference that Paul Herrnson hosted, in the very early days of his NSF-sponsored project on voting system useability. My paper was more about how we needed to develop a stronger science of ballot design, which a number of scholars (including Herrnson and his group, as well as Kimball and his colleague Martha Kropf) have been doing for the past few years.

Reading the Brennan report, and then looking back at my 2002 paper, led me to realize that we have come a long way towards a better scientific understanding of ballot design --- but that we have a lot more work to do!

Paul and his live blogging

2008-07-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

Paul is sitting here, blogging on two blogs simultaneously. Talk about multitasking!

The Pew workshop we are participating in is quite productive!

Absentee Help Sites

2008-07-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

I keep being mailed these and will try to post them up as they arrive.

Here are three sites that attempt to aggregate absentee registration forms:

http://www.longdistancevoter.org/

http://beabsentee.org/

There is a third one from a journalism class in University of Washington that I'll post up when I get the link.

Mike in Faux Cal

2008-07-17T08:35:00.001-07:00

Leaving the car keys in the car while running ... that was memorable! Luckily, Mike (and a good humored AAA mechanic) came to my rescue.

Paul in SoCal

2008-07-16T09:18:00.001-07:00

Two notes for interested readers. First, the last TWO times Paul was in Southern California he had car trouble; I think he is forgetting the time down in Brea recently when had a bit of trouble with his rental car (something about locking the keys in it while it was still running)? Second, for the record, we down here use "Caltech", instead of "CalTech" (take a look at just about anything at http://www.caltech.edu) and you'll see the use of "Caltech" ... Maybe we'll have to get Paul a t-shirt so he remembers this in the future?

In any event, we are looking forward to this workshop, it's going to be interesting to bring together many of the principals associated with a number of the current projects from the Pew/JEHT "Make Voting Work" initiative.

"Estonians could vote by mobile phones for the next Europarliament elections and local government elections in 2009 ..."

2008-07-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Here's the story, "Estonia could become the first country to allow mobile voting." I've heard this rumor from a variety of other sources as well. According to the report above, the legislation from Estonia's Reform Party that would allow for mobile phone voting might also lengthen the pre-election window for remote electronic voting from the current three days to ten days.

Off to Caltech

2008-07-16T07:10:00.001-07:00

I am off to ~~CalTech~~ Caltech today to a small gathering on voter registration research hosted by my colleague Michael Alvarez and Pew/JEHT's Make Voting Work's initiative. The last time I was in SoCal, my car had broken down in beautiful Bakersfield. I hope for a better outcome this time!

New book on election reform

2008-07-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

Just saw this release but haven't gotten the book yet:

The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform by Frederic Charles Schaffer

Cornell University Press is pleased to announce the publication of The Hidden Costs of Clean Election Reform by Frederic Charles Schaffer, which reveals how tinkering with the electoral process can easily damage democratic ideals and suggests new ways to help prevent future breaches of democracy in the name of "cleaning up" elections. This book is available from booksellers or directly from Cornell University Press via our website (www.cornellpress.cornell.edu) or by calling our customer service department at 1-800-666-2211. Customers in Europe and the U.K. may order the book from NBN International (www.nbninternational.com).Sincerely, Mahinder Kingra, Marketing ManagerCornell University Press

TheHill.com - FedEx, voter group hope to ease ballot shipping woes

2008-07-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a story about a neat initiative from Fedex and the Overseas Vote Foundation:

Seeking to alleviate a top concern for overseas absentee voters, FedEx will team up with a voter participation group and ship ballots for free or at heavy discounts this fall, the company announced this week. FedEx called the initiative “a natural extension of our ongoing commitment to making strategic use of our physical and digital networks to meet the needs of people worldwide.”

Overnight delivery from FedEx’s Asia/Pacific region will be free. It will cost $23 from Latin America; $18 from Canada; and $23.50 from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India, a 70 percent discount in that region, a FedEx spokeswoman told The Hill. FedEx branches in 89 countries will participate.

FedEx is partnering with Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) for the program, which it is calling "Express Your Vote." The groups announced the initiative Wednesday.

Polmeth - election fraud in the Gilded Age

2008-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

I'll write more later about some of the research reported the past few days at the Political Methodology conference.

I'm now at one of the conference poster sessions, looking at a poster by Gail Buttorff, a grad student at the University of Iowa. Gail's poster is titled "Electoral Fraud in the Gilded Age", and it presents an application of the Benford's Law test developed by Walter Mebane, and discussed in our recent book, Election Fraud. Gail's test confirms some of the historical research that has asserted that there was rampant electoral fraud in the Gilded Age.

I'll try to get a copy of her poster and paper!

"Americans face hurdles voting abroad in upcoming election"

2008-07-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

USA Today has a story today on the problems that are likely to face Americans abroad as they attempt to vote in the upcoming presidential election. This is something that Thad and I have been researching for a long time; if you want the details see our recent publication, "Military Voting and the Law."

Officials Investigate 3 Alabama Counties in Voter Fraud Accusations

2008-07-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

There are allegations that voters in some Alabama counties were paid for their votes and that voters may have voted absentee to facilitate fraud. Here is one interesting part of the story:

“The Republican Party has an unscripted mandate to target Democratic counties, and African-Americans particularly,” said Albert Turner Jr., a county commissioner here. Mr. Turner’s father, a local civil rights hero, was tried and acquitted on vote fraud charges 23 years ago. The younger Mr. Turner was photographed talking to voters in a polling place in the National Guard Armory throughout the day on June 3, when he was a candidate for re-election.

Although state law prohibits candidates from being within 30 feet of a polling place, Mr. Turner said another law allowed voters to choose someone to assist them in voting. He said he had helped as many as 60 people on primary day, when he was easily re-elected for a second term.

Census report on voting and registration in 2006 election

2008-07-10T06:35:00.001-07:00

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released their report on voting and registration in the 2006 election, "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2006. There's a lot of interesting data and analysis in the report, including:

48% of voting-age citizens voted in the 2006 midterm election, the highest turnout estimated by the CPS since 1994.
96 million people voted in 2006, an increase of about 7 million since 2002.
81% of voters said they voted on election day, 19% said they voted before the election (5.8% in person, 12.8 by mail).
Of the non-registered, nearly half (47.6%) said they didn't register because they are not interested in politics; the next highest frequency response was "did not meet registration deadlines", at 14%.
Of the registered non-voters, 27.3% said they were too busy, 12.4% were sick or disabled ... and 3.9% cited registration problems, and 2.5% cited inconvenient polling places.

Ohio SoS rethinking ban on voting machine "sleepovers"

2008-07-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

I ran across this story this morning, "Brunner looking at plan to end voting machine "sleepovers".

Off to the political methodology conference ...

2008-07-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

The 25th Political Methodology conference starts today, at the University of Michigan. There are a lot of interesting papers, and some of which are of interest to readers of Election Updates. I'll try to post links to those papers over the next few days.

Chiming in on Dean Logan

2008-07-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Let me second Mike's congratulations to Dean Logan. While I have not worked with Dean as extensively as Mike have, I've met Dean at conferences a number of times, and he was a valued participant in Data for Democracy. I can think of a lot of adjectives to describe Dean: professional, courteous, informed, open, self-critical.

Hats off to Dean and my best to his family.

New Research Funding available to study non precinct place voting

2008-07-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

Just announced by Pew/JEHT Make Voting Work:

Washington, D.C. - 07/09/2008 - Make Voting Work (MVW), a project of the Pew Center on the States in partnership with the JEHT Foundation, has announced up to $400,000 in new funding available for research examining alternatives to precinct-based election day voting, including early in-person and absentee voting and vote by mail systems.

The release and PDF can be found here.

Dean Logan gets the job in LA County

2008-07-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

Dean Logan will be able to take "Interim" out of his title, according to newspaper reports this morning. Dean's been "Interim Registrar/Recorder" in LA County since Conny McCormack retired, and during that time Dean weathered the "double-bubble" controversy which I wrote about in early February. While there has been some criticism about Dean's appointment (see the newspaper story above), I'd say this is a good appointment; Dean has been working to build from the strong foundation that Conny McCormack established in LA County. Dean has built a strong management team in LA County (a transition that started while Conny was moving towards retirement), and all of my own dealings with Dean and this new management team have been positive. At this point, it looks to me as if the LA County Registrar/Recorder's office is moving to develop more openness and transparency in their election administration operations, and they are committed to furthering their engagement of the advocacy and research communities in improving how elections are run in LA County. I'm looking forward to working with them.

Video of election fraud and rigging from Zimbabwe and Russia

2008-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Folks have forwarded to me the following links:

From Zimbabwe.

From Russia.

Is polling becoming more difficult?

2008-07-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

I know this subject is slightly off-topic for many readers of our blog, but I thought it might be of interest to some, especially those interested in polling and the reliability of polling. A colleague sent along a link to this article in the Arizona Republic, "Election Pollsters Face New Challenges."

Here's a bit from the story:

But the polls may not be as reliable this year as they have been in previous presidential elections. Polling is getting more difficult for a host of reasons, from the increasing use of cellphones and declining polling-participation rates to the potential for racial bias among participants who are asked about the contest between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the first Black person to top a major-party ticket.

The story talks about both technological challenges (especially those posed by cell phones) as well as traditional problems in survey research (insuring an accurate response, especially when the survey is focused on racial issues, or in cases where white and non-white candidates are competing for office). In such cases, "social desireability" biases can creep into survey responses; VTP colleague Adam Berinsky looked at this issue in the 1989 Dinkins-Giuliani race and found that many pre-election survey respondents might have expressed no preference to survey interviewers, instead of answering in a way that might have been socially undesireable (See Berinksy, "The Two Faces of Public Opinion", American Journal of Political Science, Volume 43, pages 1209-1230.)

New VTP working paper, "Mobilizing Pasadena Democrats: Measuring The Effects of Partisan Campaign Contacts"

2008-07-08T09:45:00.001-07:00

Along with Betsy Sinclair (University of Chicago, Political Science) and Asa Hopkins (Caltech, Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy), we just finished a working paper version detailing a field experiment project we have been working on for some time, "Mobilizing Pasadena Democrats: Measuring the Effects of Partisan Campaign Contacts". Here's the paper's abstract:

This paper examines the effect of an entire campaign using a randomized ﬁeld experiment where the treatment consists of campaign decisions made by a campaign manager. In contrast to the majority of the ﬁeld experiments found in the contemporary get-out-the-vote literature, this paper studies the actual behavior of a campaign within a particular election as opposed to studying particular mobilization tactics. Thus, the campaign itself chooses which method to contact each individual within the randomly assigned treatment group. Contacts are made via face-to-face canvassing, phone calls, emails, and doorhangers and consist of experienced volunteers making partisan appeals. We observe a large treatment effect of campaign contact despite a small number of face-to-face contacts, suggesting that the targeting strategy of the campaign manager is particularly effective.

Clarin: "En un bar porteño festejan la independencia norteamericana y registran votantes para las próximas elecciones"

2008-07-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

One of my graduate students sent this link along, from Clarin.com. If you don't understand the Spanish headline, just go to the link and watch the video. You'll get the idea, and see how one organization is mobilizing voters abroad ...