Thank you for following the work of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. We’ll continue looking at the issues of election reform at AEI and Brookings. For new work on congressional redistricting, please visit www.redistrictingproject.org.

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections v. Browning
The Florida Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Sarasota County’s charter election law amendments, finding that state law does not bar individual counties from creating their own election laws. This decision upheld the County’s greater frequency of election audits and its ban on touch screen voting machines, but overturned the portion of the amendment which permitted certifying elections only after any “cause for concern” was resolved.

Read the decision here.
Featured Resources
In response to a request by the Election Commission, the Hawaii Office of Elections produced this report outlining the plan for the 2010 elections. A focus of this report is the effect of the reduced budget for the office on staffing and the number of precincts which will be open for the elections.
This paper explores whether voters who used specific types of machines in the 2008 election encountered more problems than other voters, and whether voter confidence varied by the type of system used.
Although states are continuing to pass laws and reach decisions to comply with the mandates of HAVA and related laws, Daniel Tokaji argues that the United States still lacks a well-functioning independent electoral management body.
This report provides the results from an evaluation of five projects to improve election data collection in 2008. Overall, the grantees increased their level of core data collection, improving to 80 percent of the core data from less than half in 2006.
This NASS document provides a state-level review of voter registration list maintenance practices.
Research Projects
Center for Democracy & Election Management was established at the School of Public Affairs at American University in 2002. Their broader goal is to pave the way for and strengthen democracy through improved electoral performance.
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
Dēmos is a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization founded in 2000. A multi-issue national organization, Dēmoscombines research, policy development, and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on fundamental issues of democracy and justice.
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.
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
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The Brookings Institution
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