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U.S. Election Assistance Commission
The first of its kind from a federal agency, this election administration survey gathers data on voter registration, absentee and provisional ballots, type of voting equipment used, and more. Data is available by state.
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electionline.org
Electionline.org's analysis of the 2006 elections reveals some problems, but no proverbial perfect storm of equipment malfunctions, close races, and contested results. The report also highlights a number of things that went right on November 7, and offers some suggestions for the future.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission
This report summarizes data collected nationwide on a range of topics, including overall voter turnout; provisional balloting; voting machines; and poll workers and polling places.
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Colorado Department of State, Elections Division
This report examines a number of problems that occured in Montrose County, CO during the 2006 general election; these issues include voting machine programming errors and problems with electronic pollbooks.
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Using results from a survey of local officials, this report examines how jurisdictions administer elections for absentee voters overseas., Overseas Vote Foundation
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electionline.org
This resource provides an overview of various pieces of legislation regarding election day registration that are pending at the state level.
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electionline.org
This resource provides an overview of various pieces of legislation regarding voter registration drives that are pending at the state level.
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electionline.org
This resource provides an overview of various pieces of legislation regarding voting by mail that are pending at the state level.
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electionline.org
This resource provides an overview of various pieces of legislation regarding voter identification that are pending at the state level.
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John C. Fortier, American Enterprise Institute
Election Day may have been November 7, but countless citizens across the country cast their ballots in advance.
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Orange County Grand Jury, Orange County, California
Because an increasing number of voters in Orange County are requesting absentee ballots, the Orange County Grand Jury issued this report, which examines the procedures used to handle count such ballots.
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Division of Public Interest Advocacy, New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate
This report catalogues progress that has been made in New Jersey on compliance with legal requirements for voting accessibility, but also highlights various continued issues in terms of inaccessible polling places.
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Electronic Frontier Foundation
Submitted as part of an initiative at the National Research Council of the National Academies, this paper argues that voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPATs) can not be made accessible for individuals with disabilities.
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U.S. Government Accountability Office
This report examines the progress of the Department of Defense and the Election Assistance Commission in developing a secure and usable system by which citizens living overseas and serving in the military can vote in federal elections.
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Ted Selker (Massachusetts Institute of Technoloy) and Sharon Cohen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
Selker and Cohen find that voters detect many more errors using the VVAATT system than they do with the VVPAT system.
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U.S. Government Accountability Office
The GAO analyzes how select states maintain their voter registration lists and determines which additional data could facilitate the process.
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
On Wednesday, February 8, 2006, Senator Barack Obama delivered a keynote address to inaugurate the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. Senator Obama's address was followed by a discussion of the past and future of election reform among experts in election law, technology, and administration.
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
On Friday, September 22, 2006, the Election Reform Project hosted a conference entitled "The 2006 Elections--Are We Ready?" After a keynote address by Congressman Rush Holt (D-N.J.), panelists discussed the progress that has been made since the election debacle of 2000 and the hurdles that remain.
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Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
This report provides a brief overview of the proposals advanced for election reform as part of an initiative by the Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee. Areas for reform include voter registration, electronic voting systems, and election administration.
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Alec Ewald (Union College), Columbia Human Rights Law Review
Ewald’s essay seeks to refute the argument that convicts should be disenfranchised because they might otherwise use their votes to weaken criminal justice laws.
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Wendy R. Weiser and Jonah Goldman, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Part of a new initiative launched by the Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee, this report highlights reform proposals on a range of topics, including voter registration, electronic voting systems, election administration, and disenfranchisement issues.
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Randolph C. Hite (U.S. Government Accountability Office), Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
In this testimony, the director of the GAO's Information Technology Architecture and Systems office outlines the need for intergovernmental cooperation in order to address the wide range of problems with electronic voting systems.
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Randolph C. Hite, U.S. Government Accountability Office
This report focuses on the various challenges faced by state and local governments regarding electronic voting machines, and argues that more cooperation across jurisdictions is needed to address these problems.
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Nathan Cemenska, Election Law @ Moritz
This commentary examines a new proposal by Ohio's Secretary of State for a pilot program of voting by mail in the state.
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Election Data Services
On Election Day, one-third of the nation's voters will use new voting machines. A new report from Election Data Services describes the changes, highlights geographic patterns, and discusses what lessons past changes may have for this election.
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Michael J. Hanmer (Georgetown University), Political Behavior
In this paper, Michael Hanmer applies a previously unused methodology to the question of what populations are most likely to benefit from states' adoption of election day registration.
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The AAPD’s Disability Vote Project supports full polling place and voting machine access for the disabled, among other things.
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The American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund was established to educate the public about the importance of the electoral process, to increase civic engagement in elections, and to support election reform.
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The ACLU presents its positions on felon disenfranchisement, absentee voting, and the maintenance of voter registration lists, among other things.
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The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) extended civil rights to disabled citizens. The ADA has been cited to defend the rights of the disabled in the face of numerous voting technology reforms.
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Division of Elections, Florida Department of State
Florida’s Division of Elections attributes the continuing drop in the Florida over- and undervote rate to a statewide voter education campaign and voters' facility with new voting machine technologies.
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Michael McDonald, George Mason University
While the concerns raised by election reform experts about the efficacy of Florida's proposal to redo its presidential primary by mail were many, this analysis highlights specific issues related to the accuracy of the addresses that would have to be used under such a proposal.
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The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Michael McDonald (George Mason University, The Brookings Institution)
The Brennan Center and McDonald argue that a report of alleged voter fraud submitted to the New Jersey Attorney General in September 2005 suffers from several serious methodological flaws.
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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.
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Richard Celeste, Dick Thornburgh, and Herbert Lin, editors, Committee on a Framework for Understanding Electronic Voting, National Research Council of the National Academies
This report frames the current debate over electronic voting by identifying the questions most in need of answering.
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Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
The EAC's organizational issues have received significant attention in both the election reform community and in the broader media, and this report summarizes a set of recommendations on how to improve the way the agency functions.
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electionline.org
Electionline.org’s survey of state election directors shows that most states use 'top down' rather than 'bottom up' lists; that states differ over producing the lists 'in house' or outsourcing the work; and that most states conduct registration purges in localities instead of at the state level.
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Division of Elections, Florida Department of State
This report presents the results of an audit conducted on the direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines used in Sarasota County during the November 2006 election and concludes that there is no evidence of machine malfunction or manipulation.
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Office of the Texas State Auditor
This report contains the results of an extensive audit of Texas's statewide registration database and makes recommendations on how to improve its quality.
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Edward B. Foley, Election Law @ Moritz
This essay lays out an argument for the use of "Election Contest Law Audits" as a mechanism for easing the resolution of disputes over the outcome of elections.
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Sharon B. Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In this paper, Cohen uses a field experiment to compare the effectiveness of paper versus audio vote verification trails and finds that participants were approximately ten times as likely to notice an error in an audio trail as in a paper trail.
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Jonathan A. Goler (MIT), Edwin J. Selker (MIT), and Lorin F. Wilde (MIT), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
The authors analyze differences in voting performance between reading disabled and non-reading disabled voters using full-faced and page-by-page systems in order to develop new interfaces that reduce the errors of disabled and non-disabled voters alike.
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electionline.org
Despite moving to DRE systems only relatively recently, many states are returning to paper-based systems or are considering doing so. This report looks at six states that have made such a move and examines whether more states are likely to follow.
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Working Group on State Implementation of Election Reform, The Century Foundation
This report provides practical recommendations in the areas of voter registration and identification, provisional voting, and voting technology certification to help states meet HAVA deadlines.
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David C. Kimball (University of Missouri-St. Louis) and Martha Kropf (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Public Opinion Quarterly
Kimball and Kropf find that features of ballot design are associated with over- and undervotes and exacerbate the racial disparity with which they are cast.
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Laurin Frisina (University of Rochester), Michael C. Harron (Dartmouth), James Honaker (UCLA), and Jeffrey B. Lewis (UCLA)
This paper provides an initial analysis of the issue of undervotes during the 2006 election in Florida's 13th Congressional District.
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Paul Gronke (Reed College), The Early Voting Information Center at Reed College
This memorandum to the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform advises best practices for a vote-by-mail system based on the experience of Oregon, the only state with an all vote-by-mail system.
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Marc Mauer and Tushar Kansal, The Sentencing Project
Mauer and Kansal present the findings of the first national survey of the re-enfranchisement process in 14 states with permanent disenfranchisement laws. They recommend, among other things, that the states repeal the laws and begin recording re-enfranchisement data regularly.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Federal Voting Assistance Program, Department of Defense
The EAC advises states on when to mail absentee ballots and how to distribute and receive them, as well as recommends states to inform voters by maintaining up-to-date websites and publish voter guides, among other things.
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Thomas M. O'Neill (Eagleton) and Timothy Vercellotti (Eagleton), Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University and Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University
In this report, the authors' analysis suggets that stricter voter identification requirements can be associated with lower turnout and makes recommendations for action by the EAC on issues related to voter ID.
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Paul S. Herrnson, Center for American Politics and Citizenship, University of Maryland
Herrnson examines the effect of different types of electronic voting machines on voter satisfaction, voters’ needs for assistance, and the accuracy of votes cast.
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Richard L. Hasen (Loyola Law School), Washington and Lee Law Review
Hasen assesses the current state of election administration in the United States and suggests reforms in voter registration, election administration, and the role of the courts in election jurisprudence
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Milton Heumann (Rutgers University), Brian K. Pinaire (Lehigh University), and Thomas Clark (Princeton University), Criminal Law Bulletin
Heumann, Pinaire, and Clark find, among other things, that the public's attitude toward punishment frequently depends on the circumstances of a particular crime and that most believe the purpose of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation (though perhaps for the public's protection)
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David C. King, Harvard University
This study, following up on massive ballot shortage problems in Boston during the November 2006 elections, outlines 14 steps for improving the administration of elections in that city.
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New York University School of Law
The Brennan Center employs scholarship, public education, and legal action to advocate for issues in election reform, including campaign finance reform, felon re-enfranchisement, greater ballot access, and more
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech) and Erik K. Antonsson (Caltech), National Academy of Engineering of the National Academies
In this article, the authors give a brief summary of recent problems with voting technology and the difficulties of studying it. They also make recommendations about how to build "a science of elctions."
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David Beirne, Election Technology Council
This report presents an industry perspective on a range of issues related to voting systems, and makes recommendations for incorporating industry representatives into the regulatory process.
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Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, Center for Democracy and Election Management (American University)
The final report of the Commission, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III, urges reforms in voter identification and registration, provisional balloting, voter access, election administration, and more.
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech) and Thad Hall (University of Utah), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
In this report, R. Michael Alvarez and Thad Hall explore how thorough and standardized chain of custody procedures can help avert election fraud and make recommendations regarding best practices for their implementation.
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Teresa James, Project Vote
In recent months, "voter caging" has become an important part of the voting integrity debate, and this report from Project Vote examines the history of the practice.
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Matt Bishop (University of California, Davis), Office of the California Secretary of State
This report, part of California's top-to-bottom review of its voting systems, highlights various potential vulnerabilities that exist with the machines used in the state.
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Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
This report summarizes the sessions of the VTP's October 2006 conference on voter authentication and registration issues, as well outlining a set of recommendations to the EAC that grew out of the event.
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National Association of Secretaries of State
This website, produced by the National Association of Secretaries of State, provides information for voters on determining if they are registered, the location of their polling place, and identification requirements for voting, as well other information related to participating in elections.
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Jonah Berger, Marc Meredith, and S. Christian Wheeler, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Using data from the 2000 election in Arizona and from a field experiment, a new study by researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business finds that the type of polling place can have an effect on voting decisions.
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National Network on Election Reform
The National Network on Election Reform presents what it believes are the shortcomings of both the process and findings of the Carter-Baker Commission
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electionline.org
This report explores the rules, practices, and impact of post-election audits of voting machines, with a special emphasis on California, Minnesota, Nevada, Arizona, and Connecticut.
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electionline.org
This report from electionline.org examines and assesses the efforts of various groups of poll watchers, from researchers to partisans.
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electionline.org
This report examines partnerships to improve election administration in Georgia, Ohio, Connecticut, Idaho, and Maryland, and explores prospects for future cooperation in other areas of the country.
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University of Maryland
The Center’s research includes voting technology, ballot design, election reform, and voter turnout
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American University
The Center for Democracy and Election Management was established to educate and train future officials in the management of elections and democratic practices.
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The National Research Commission on Elections and Voting, Social Science Research Council
The final report of the Commission identifies specific questions in ten election reform areas especially in need of further scientific research
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Fred Hessler and Matt Smith, Fujitsu Consulting
This report examines the problems with voting technology and election administration during the November 2006 elections in Denver, Colorado.
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Collaborative Audit Committee, Cuyahoga County, Ohio and the Center for Election Integrity
Providing another look at the long-troubled administration of elections in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, this report finds problems with the handling of optical-scan ballots, with damaged voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPATs), and potential corruption of the election database.
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Election Technology Council
This report summarizes the recommendations of a group of voting technology vendors on proposed amendments to HAVA, particularly as related to paper trails, audits, and disclosure of source code.
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Center for Democracy & Election Management, American University
The website of the Commission, co-chaired by Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker, III, contains the full text of the final report, hearing testimony, and related news and analysis
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Common Cause presents an election bill tracker, research and analysis, and its agenda for election reform
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Jonathan A. Goler (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Edwin J. Selker (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
Goler and Selker investigate the effect of different electronic voting systems on the performance of reading disabled voters and find that a design incorporating features of both touch screen and full-faced LED Direct Record Electronic (DRE) systems is ideal
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L. Paige Whitaker, Congressional Research Service
This report summarizes concisely the major points made and lines of reasoning offered by the Supreme Court in its various decisions upholding Indiana's voter identification law.
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Dēmos
Demos’s preliminary analysis of 1,000 provisional ballot complaints and questions registered in the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) during the 2004 election reveals poll workers' widespread misunderstanding of state or local procedures governing the ballots
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech) and Thad Hall (University of Utah), Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
In this paper, to be published in the Policy Studies Journal, Alvarez and Hall examine the current model of election administration and explore alternatives that could give administrators more control over the process.
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Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford Law School
Karlan examines the causes and consequences of the apparent turn of public opinion against felon disenfranchisement laws and its implications for future litigation
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IFES and UNDP
The survey aims to help election management agencies throughout the world plan their budgets by identifying cost-management practices and measures of cross-country comparisons.
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United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
In this opinion, the 7th Circuit upheld Indiana's law requiring voters to present identification at the polling place by a 2-1 majority, arguing that it does not represent an excessive burden.
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Alec Ewald (Union College), The Sentencing Project
Ewald documents the implementation of felony disenfranchisement law and finds, among other things, broad variation and misunderstanding in interpretation and enforcement and contradictory policies within states.
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Dēmos’s Democracy Program presents election reform research and analysis and advocates felon re-enfranchisement and Election Day registration, among other things
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Ryan S. King, The Sentencing Project
This report provides a state-by-state analysis of laws governing voting by current and former felons with a focus on changes that have been made in the past ten years.
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Civil Rights Project at Harvard University
This report explores the frequency of ballot spoilage in 2000 by county and finds a disproportionately high level of spoilage in minority counties.
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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
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Edward B. Foley, Election Law @ Moritz
This piece looks at a recent proposal for a rating system for states' election administration systems; Foley points out the strengths in such an idea and also makes suggestions for further consideration.
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Walter R. Mebane, Jr. (Cornell University)
As states increasingly turn to electronic voting equipment over paper ballots, they require new methods to detect and deter fraud. Walter R. Mebane, Jr. of Cornell University explores novel methods of how to identify electronic fraud and maintain confidence in our voter systems.
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United States Government Accountability Office
This report examines the changes made in the Federal Voting Assistance Program between the 2000 and 2004 elections. It also highlights the many challenges related to military absentee voting that remain, particularly as the program incorporates new technology.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Undertaken in collaboration with Design for Democracy, this report from the EAC seeks to identify best practices in the areas of ballot design, polling place signage, and other voter information materials.
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Q2 Data and Research LLC
This report, commissioned by the EAC, examines the electronic transmission practices implemented by four states--Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and Montana--and addresses the various challenges such procedures present.
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Election Science Institute
This report outlines the results of a study carried out by a multi-disciplinary team of experts during the Cuyahoga County Primary Election of May 2006 that examined both new electronic voting technology and the administrative procedures associated with it.
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John Pawasarat, Employment and Training Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
This study provides a demographic analysis of those citizens in Wisconsin lacking the types of photo identification that would be necessary in the face of new requirements for voting. It concludes that elderly persons and minorities would be among those seriously affected by a new policy.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission
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David Kimball (University of Missouri-St. Louis) and Martha Kropf (University of Missouri-Kansas City)
Kimball and Kropf examine the impact of early and absentee voting on unrecorded votes in the United States and find little average difference between unrecorded votes cast in a precinct polling station and those cast via early or absentee ballots.
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Paul Herrson (University of Maryland), et. al.
This paper summarizes a number of different studies on the usability of electronic voting systems, showing that, by and large, such systems work well.
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Daniel P. Tokaji (Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University), George Washington Law Review
Tokaji examines problems in the 2004 election, including voting equipment, voter registration, and provisional balloting, and recommends avoiding future difficulties by upgrading technology, deciding litigation prior to the election, and establishing clear administrative rules, among other things
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Paul Gronke, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, and Peter A. Miller, Early Voting Information Center at Reed College
This paper re-examines the question of whether early voting increases voter turnout, concluding that such an effect is limited.
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech), Delia Bailey (Washington University in St. Louis), and Jonathan Katz (Caltech), Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project
In this paper, the authors document the effect of voter identification requirements in the 2000-2006 elections, examining both aggregate and individual-level data.
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National Task Force on Election Reform, The Election Center
Election officials investigate controversial administration issues in the 2004 election and suggest reforms in voter registration, early, absentee, and provisional balloting, voting technology, and election administration
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Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley
The Election Administration Research Center (EARC) seeks to improve the administration of elections through research, education, and public outreach.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission
This report, undertaken by the EAC in partnership with two consultants, reviews the existing literature on "election crimes," develops a working definition of that term, and lays out suggestions for further research on the issue.
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Nathan Cemenska, Election Law @ Moritz
This piece discusses whether states are prepared for a variety of emergencies that could affect their successful administration of elections, and recommends a set of questions for consideration when developing a plan to deal with such situations.
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Lorraine Minnite (Barnard College), Dēmos
This analysis explores Election Day Registration (EDR) as a potential threat to voting integrity, concluding that states with EDR have not experienced increased amounts of voter fraud.
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Robert M. Stein (Rice University) and Greg Vonnahme (Rice University)
Stein and Vonnahme study the use of county-wide Election Day Vote Centers in Larimer County, Colorado, where they have been in use since 2003. They conclude that the centers have increased voter turnout within the county.
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech) and Jonathan Nagler (New York University), Dēmos
This report examines the potential effects of election day registration in Iowa, concluding that overall turnout could increase by nearly five percent.
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R. Michael Alvarez (Caltech) and Jonathan Nagler (New York University), Dēmos
This analysis explores the potential turnout-boosting effects of Election Day Registration (EDR) in Massachusetts.
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Hasen’s blog covers issues in election reform, as well as campaign finance, redistricting, and the Supreme Court nomination process
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electionline.org
What can voters expect when they go to the polls on November 7? A new report from electionline.org looks at issues voters may encounter in the areas of voting technology, voter identification requirements, voter registration databases, and third-party voter registration.
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project
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