Jen Rehill, the Bureau Chief of WITF Public Radio Capitol News reported earlier this month that a large influx of new voter registrations was creating a backlog for the state of Pennsylvania, throwing into question when and how the votes of these new voters would be counted.

Rehill filed an update to her story on Friday, and it looks as though officials in Pennsylvania are confident the registrations have been processed, the new voters will appear in the local poll books and be able to cast ballots that will be counted in a timely fashion. From WITF:

Many county officials had voiced concerns about two weeks ago that tens of thousands of new and party-change registrations were stuck in the statewide voter registration system awaiting verification. They were worried large numbers of new voters would have to cast provisional ballots. State Elections Commissioner Harry Van Sickle says that concern is greatly diminished now, since all of the applications have now been verified and returned to the counties.

Van Sickle says there still may be a larger than usual number of voters requesting such ballots — because some people sent in applications after the March 24th deadline or made mistakes on their application form. Unfortunately Van Sickle says the votes would not count, even if they do use a provisional ballot.

Here’s audio from Rehill’s interview with Van Sickle:

In Rehill’s piece, Van Sickle doesn’t discuss another potential Election Day issue in the Keystone State that we have been looking into here, trouble with touch-screen voting machines.

Posted in Provisional ballots, Registration, Election Reform, Pennsylvania, Election 2008, Election administration | No Comments »

Why Tuesday? Board Member Norman J. Ornstein

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is one of the good guys in Congress — smart, thoughtful, decent and hardworking. Now, fortunately, he is turning his attention and considerable energies to election reform, a broadly defined issue.

It is fortunate for two reasons: First, there are big issues out there and enough people distrustful of the electoral process or cynical about it to create a real crisis of governance the next time we have a very close election. Second, precious few lawmakers have decided to devote their time and attention to this topic.

Despite the emotions raised by problems with voting, this is not a slam-dunk winner of an issue politically. And those lawmakers who were instrumental in passing the Help America Vote Act in 2002 have either lost interest in the issue, are exhausted from it or believe we should wait awhile before acting again.

They are wrong. We do need to be careful about rushing to major reform without considering the costs and consequences; we are paying now for the rush to employ touch-screen devices known as DREs, or direct-recording electronic machines. And every major reform has to be absorbed by hapless election administrators who have neither the resources nor the trained personnel to make big changes on a frequent basis.

(more…)

Posted in Vote Centers, D.C., Why do we vote on Tuesday?, Election Reform, Election administration, WT? in the news, Existing laws, Weekend voting, Electoral College, Electronic voting | No Comments »

Friend of Why Tuesday? Noah Kunin of TheUptake.org is in Texas covering the primacaucus, and he’s uncovered something very interesting, if not disturbing. On election eve, the Texas Democratic Party was unable to provide a list of where it does and does not have precinct chairs — the individuals who will run the Texas caucus. (more…)

Posted in Election Reform, Texas, Election 2008, Election administration, Friends of WT? | 1 Comment »

WASHINGTON, D.C — The Democratic Party has publicly and now privately split as to how (and when) Superdelegates should choose to wield their power, and promises to spawn even more divisiveness should the weight of nomination come down on their shoulders. Voters want to know: Will the average citizen ever be able to influence the system of private brokering of Superdelegate votes? (more…)

Posted in Election Reform, Convention, Superdelegate, What are superdelegates?, What are super delegates?, Super Delegate, Internet Registration, Election administration, Opinions, Election 2008, D.C., Internet Voting, Legislation | 1 Comment »

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I hopped off the campaign trail last week. I thought I needed some space, but I soon found myself yearning for the ebb-and-flow of election energy. Drama among the Democrats, rifts in the Republican base, increasing turnout, and polling percentages… for a political junkie it is all too addicting. Today’s candidate contests are being held in Wisconsin, Hawaii (for the Dems), and Washington (again). (more…)

Posted in Campaign finance, Hawaii, Mail-in voting, Washington, Election Reform, Polling, Wisconsin, Absentee ballots, Legislation, Primary schedule, Election administration, Election 2008, Election Day registration, Early voting | 1 Comment »