It was a busy week for us behind the scenes at Why Tuesday?, and in the world of election reform. What is election reform exactly? And who is the guy in the photo? Get the answers, and much more election reform news, by clicking below. Photo by Cheryl Senter for the New York Times.

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Posted in Arkansas, Audits, Colorado, Election 2006, Election 2008, Election administration, Election Day registration, Election Reform, Electronic voting, Existing laws, Indiana, Iowa, Legislation, Michigan, New Hampshire, Roundups, West Virginia | Comments Off

Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson responded to an audit of his state’s elections system by saying that he would work to implement fixes recommended by the audit, including exploring a “way to standardize the absentee process among all the county election offices.” While no fraud was uncovered as a result of the audit, security concerns were raised about absentee voting in a state where one-third of residents requested an absentee ballot. From an Assoicated Press story:

[Auditors] said they found “very little uniformity in how poll workers had been instructed to deal with different (absentee) situations, suggesting there is considerable risk voters in different counties will receive different treatment at the polls and experience different outcomes in terms of the voting process.”

At the first CNN/YouTube presidential debate, YouTube user MelissaJenna raised the issue of a nationally standardized ballot in this video:

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A recent study from New York University and the University of California at Berkeley declares that states’ efforts to count every vote by producing paper trails for electronic voting machines may be less important than another election reform: performing post-election audits. The report calls the value of having a paper trail a “highly questionable” method of ensuring voting security.

The NYU/UC report applauds North Carolina for being the only state which “has collected and made public the most significant data from post-election audits for the purpose of improving future elections,” and the North Carolina media has taken notice.

Text from the press release announcing the findings, and an interesting chart from the study is after the jump.
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Posted in Audits, Election Reform, Electronic voting, North Carolina | Comments Off