When Disaster Strikes: The Continuity of Our Elections
October 23, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
10:15 AM-12:00 PM
Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor
American Enterprise Institute
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

To read a summary of the event, go here.

Successfully managing an ordinary presidential election requires an enormous amount of preparation and planning. But what if the circumstances are anything but ordinary? Natural and man-made disasters alike have caused massive administrative disruptions to elections in recent years in states like Louisiana, with Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, and New York, with the attacks on September 11. Numerous legal questions arise in the face of disaster: If a catastrophe required closing polling places in a specific city or state on Election Day, could that state legally reschedule the federal election? How would the Constitution or federal law handle the incapacitation or death of one or more of the presidential or vice-presidential candidates in a terrorist attack?

Examining these and other questions related to the continuity of elections will be former Louisiana secretary of state Al Ater; Steven Huefner, Associate Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; AEI's Norman J. Ornstein; Leonard Shambon, legal counsel to the clerk of the House of Representatives; and executive director of the Election Assistance Commission and former chair of the New York State Board of Elections Tom Wilkey. AEI's John C. Fortier will moderate.

Moderator:
John C. Fortier, American Enterprise Institute

Panelists:
Al Ater, former secretary of state of Louisiana
Steven Huefner, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University
Norman J. Ornstein, AEI
Leonard Shambon, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives
Tom Wilkey, Election Assistance Commission
Featured Resources
Study Shows Ballot Design and Voter Preparation Could Have Eliminated Sarasota Florida Voting Errors (PDF) | FEBRUARY 2008
Ted Selker (MIT), Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project
The House of Representatives recently concluded that machine malfunction was not likely the cause of the high undervote rate in the 2006 election in Florida's 13th District. In this report, Ted Selker reaches a similar conclusion, laying out evidence that bad ballot design was the likely culprit.
Democratic Contraction? Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States (PDF) | 2002
Christopher Uggen (University of Minnesota) and Jeff Manza (Northwestern University), American Sociological Review
Uggen and Manza examine the political consequences of felon disenfranchisement in the U.S. with data from legal sources, election studies, and inmate surveys and find that disenfranchisement laws have played decisive roles in several recent federal elections
Flooding the Vote: Hurricane Katrina and Voter Participation in New Orleans (PDF) | NOVEMBER 2008
Besty Sinclair (University of Chicago), Thad Hall (University of Utah), and R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
This report examines issues of voter participation following Hurricane Katrina and its unique challenges for election administrators.
Arkansas's Voting System Implementation Project: Post-Primary Election Quality Assurance Review and Contract Performance Assessment (PDF) | JULY 2006
InfoSENTRY Services and the Arkansas Secretary of State
Drawing on site visits, interviews with election officials, survey of county officials, and review of election documents, this report finds significant problems in the administration of the May 2006 primary election in Arkansas.
Response to the Report of the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform (PDF) | SEPTEMBER 2005
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Spencer Overton (George Washington University School of Law), The National Network on State Election Reform
This response to the report of the Carter-Baker Commission rebuts its recommendations for a national, mandatory voter ID card, the use of social security numbers in voter registration, and only limited felon re-enfranchisement
More Resources  »
  Back To Top
Research Projects
Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
This project aims to evaluate the current state of reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems; to establish uniform attributes and quantitative guidelines for performance and reliability of voting systems; and to propose specific uniform guidelines and requirements for reliable voting systems
Electionline.org
Electionline.org
Electionline.org provides daily news updates on election reform issues, as well as deeper analysis of selected topics, including recent reports on voter registration, recount procedures, and the progress in implementing the Help America Vote Act since 2002.
Election Law @ Moritz
Election Law @ Moritz, run through Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, contains both explanation and commentary on a wealth of election reform issues from a legal perspective.
Early Voting Information Center
Reed College
Directed by early voting scholar Paul Gronke and housed at Reed College, the Early Voting Information Center provides news and research on and a state-by-state overview of early voting issues.
Election Administration Research Center (EARC), UC Berkeley
Election Administration Research Center (EARC), UC Berkeley
Part of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, the Election Administration Research Center (EARC) aims to improve the administration of elections.
More Research Projects  »
  Back To Top
Related Topics
Project made possible by:
Voter Registration |  Voter Access |  Early and Absentee Voting |  Provisional Balloting |  Technology Issues |  Election Administration |  Voting Integrity |  Events | About Us | Contact Us | Projects and Experts | Resources | Home
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
www.aei.org
The Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
© Copyright 2006, AEI
and The Brookings Institution