December 2012

Happy New Year …

Charles Stewart of MIT shares some of the summary conclusions from his most recent Survey of the Performance of American Elections. It’s worth a look!

Richland County, SC had some of the longest and worst lines on Election Day 2012. The problem has been traced to an equipment shortage – but the breakdowns apparently weren’t just limited to the voting machines.

The 2012 election comes to Capitol Hill today in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

The “off year” will have to wait a while after different circumstances combined to require special elections for U.S. House seats in Illinois, Missouri and South Carolina.

United Parcel Service uses a “boot camp” to train its drivers for the job of delivering billions of packages every year. That training includes a focus on efficiency that suggests a model for election administrators in thinking about the polling place.

Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s Jane Platten – who took a county election office widely derided for high-profile problems and made a national leader for election administration – gets a well-deserved appreciation in this week’s electionlineWeekly.

A recent story out of Mississippi suggests that even when funding and technology exists to replace aging voting machines, some jurisdictions are hesitant to make the switch.

New data from Pew paints a more detailed and empirical picture of the issue of lines for voters on (and before) Election Day.

Two recent letters to President on voting technology issues – sent in response to his “we need to fix that” comment on Election Night – will likely help shape the agenda for election reform in the upcoming federal policy debate.