Whose absentee votes are returned and counted: The variety and use of absentee ballots in California

Absentee voting is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. Although there has been some research focused on who votes by absentee ballot, little research has considered another important question about absentee voting: which absentee ballots are counted and which are not? Research in the wake of the 2000 presidential election has studied the problem of uncounted ballots for precinct voters but not for absentee voters. Using data from Los Angeles County – nation's largest and most diverse voting jurisdiction – for the November 2002 general election, we test a series of hypotheses that certain types of voters have a higher likelihood that their ballots will be counted. We find that uniform service personnel, overseas civilians, voters who request non-English ballots and permanent absentee voters have a much lower likelihood of returning their ballot, and once returned, a lower likelihood that their ballots will be counted compared with the general absentee voting population. We also find that there is little partisan effect as to which voters are more likely to return their ballots or have their ballots counted. We conclude our paper with a discussion of the implications of our research for the current debates about absentee voting

Are Americans confident their ballots are counted?

Building on the literature that investigates citizen and voter trust in government, we analyze the topic of voter confidence in the American electoral process. Our data comes from two national telephone surveys where voters were asked the confidence they have that their vote for president in the 2004 election was recorded as intended. We present preliminary evidence that suggests confidence in the electoral process affects voter turnout. We then examine voter responses to determine the overall level of voter confidence and analyze the characteristics that influence the likelihood a voter is confident that their ballot was recorded accurately. Our analyses indicate significant differences in the level of voter confidence along both racial and partisan lines. Finally, we find voter familiarity with the electoral process, opinions about the electoral process in other voting precincts, and both general opinions about voting technology and the specific technology the voter uses significantly affect the level of voter confidence

Resolving Voter Registration Problems: Making Registration Easier, Less Costly and More Accurate

The practice of voter registration has a long history in the United States. In 1800, Massachusetts was the first state to impose a voter registration requirement. By Reconstruction, voter registration was used in a handful of states, typically in urban areas, as a tool to prevent multiple voting. By early in the twentieth century, most states required voter registration

Rational and Pluralistic Approaches to HAVA Implementation

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has created a new dynamic for the oversight and implementation of federal elections, requiring states to assume greater control of election processes vis-a-vis their local governments than was previously the case in most states. We consider how HAVA has changed the relationship between states and localities, especially through the HAVA planning process. We examine two approaches that states have used in HAVA planning—a rational approach and a pluralistic approach—and how each can shape the power relationship between states and localities. We then present case studies from Georgia and California to illustrate how these two approaches have functioned in practice

Lessons and Trends in E-Voting: Initiatives in the U.S. and Abroad

Since the 2000 election, there has been a debate over the role of voting technology in the election process. In 2000 and 2001, this debate focused on the deficiencies associated with paper ballots—especially the punch card—and the ballot errors associated with these ballots. However, this debate has shifted since 2002 to a conflict between concerns about the accessibility of voting technologies versus their security, especially electronic voting technologies. This shift in the debate over voting technologies can be seen in the quantity and tone of media coverage of this issue, with coverage swinging markedly against electronic voting in 2003 and 2004. The accessibility versus security debate is familiar ground for interest groups, scholars, and players in the election policy domain. Similar debates previously occurred over modification of voter registration and related voter access issues

The complexity of the California recall election

The October 7, 2003 California Recall Election strained California’s direct democracy. In recent California politics there has not been a statewide election conducted on such short notice; county election officials were informed on July 24 that the election would be held on October 7. Nor has California recently seen a ballot with so many candidates running for a single statewide office (see Mueller 1970). Under easy ballot access requirements, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley certified 135 candidates for the official ballot on August 13^1. In the recall, voters cast votes on (1) whether to recall Governor Davis from office, and (2) his possible successor. These two voting decisions were made independent by the federal district court’s decision on July 29. The court’s decision invalidated a state law requiring a vote on the recall question in order for a vote on the successor election to be counted (Partnoy et al. 2003). The abbreviated election calendar also led to many improvisations, including a dramatically reduced number of precinct poll sites throughout the state and the unprecedented ability of military personnel, their dependents, and civilians living overseas to return their absentee ballots by fax. These problems produced litigation and speculation that substantial problems would mar the election and throw the outcome of both the recall and a possible successor’s election into doubt. In the end, the litigation failed to stall the recall election, and the large final vote margins on both the recall question and the successor ballot seemingly overwhelmed Election Day problems. In this paper, we concentrate on some of the problems produced by the complexity of the recall election, but we do not attempt an exhaustive presentation of these problems. We focus on polling place problems on election day, the problems associated with translating the complicated recall election ballot into six languages, how the long ballot influenced voter behavior, and voter difficulties with the ballot measured with survey data. We conclude with a short discussion of the possible impact of these problems on the recall election

Why Everything That Can Go Wrong Often Does: An Analysis of Election Administration Problems

Before the 2000 presidential election, few citizens in the United States paid much attention to election administration. But scholars have noted that election administration has been a problem for decades. Despite the attention paid to election administration in the research literature, most public policy efforts in since 2000 have been focused on purchasing new voting equipment and fixing problematic procedures, and not on resolving some of the underlying problems in the process of conducting elections in America. Our paper applies the logic of principal-agent theory to the problem of election administration, and analyzes problems in the conduct of elections from this perspective. We examine various components of the dominant method of voting in the United States—poll site voting—and use our principal-agent perspective to demonstrate that serious problems in the polling place environment could be resolved by other means of serving voters, especially vote-by-mail, early voting, and Internet voting

Whose Absentee Votes Are Counted?

Absentee voting is becoming more prevalent throughout the United States. While there has been some research focused on who votes by absentee ballot, little research has considered another important question about absentee voting: Which absentee ballots are counted, and which are not? Research following the 2000 presidential election has studied the problem of uncounted ballots for precinct voters, but not for absentee voters. To study which absentee ballots are counted we use data from Los Angeles County – the nation’s largest and most diverse voting jurisdiction – for the November 2002 general election. We develop three hypotheses regarding the likelihood that various types of ballots will be counted, which we test with our unique absentee voting dataset. We find that uniform service personnel, overseas civilians, and language minority voters have a much higher likelihood that their ballots will not be counted compared with the general absentee voting population. We conclude our paper with a discussion of the implications of our research for the current debates about absentee voting.Carnegie Corporation of New York; IBM Researc