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Matt Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center will join the next UMN election webinar this Thursday, December 12 at 3pm Eastern to discuss the challenge of long polling place lines. The session will be co-hosted by UMN adjunct professor and Democracy Fund senior advisor Tammy Patrick. Here’s the session description from the webinar announcement:

There is ample data to suggest that 2020 turnout will be massive. Are election officials prepared? What tools are available for them to forecast resource allocations? Long lines were the story in 2012 and have been dramatically reduced in many places, but a recent Bipartisan Policy Center report shows that lines still occur in certain areas–why is that? Join us for a free webinar with Matthew Weil, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project and Tammy Patrick, senior advisor at the Democracy Fund, for a conversation about election turnout preparations and a look ahead to 2020.

Matthew Weil is director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project. Prior to BPC, he worked at the Department of the Treasury on domestic finance issues in the office of public affairs. Previously, he served as a research and policy analyst at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, working on National Voter Registration Act regulations, drafting congressionally-mandated reports, and directing the Election Management Guidelines program. He also served as a staff member on the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. 

Tammy Patrick is a senior advisor to the Elections program at the Democracy Fund. Focusing on modern elections, Tammy helps lead the Democracy Fund’s efforts to foster a voter-centric elections system and work to provide election officials across the country with the tools and knowledge they need to best serve their voters. In May of 2013 she was selected by President Obama to serve as a Commissioner on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration which led to a position at the Bipartisan Policy Center to further the work of the PCEA. Prior to that she was the Federal Compliance Officer for Maricopa County Elections Department for eleven years. Tammy is also an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Policy. 

Matt has been a key player in BPC’s work on polling place lines – and Tammy is a constant valuable presence in the field for all of the ongoing discussions about election policy, administration and the 2020 cycle. This should be a fantastic session and we hope you’ll join us. You can register here – see you there and stay tuned!