Report on Provisional Ballots and American Elections

Both empirical and anecdotal data indicate that the use of provisional ballots in U.S. elections is a mixed bag. On the one hand, providing voters whose eligibility is unclear with an opportunity to cast a provisional ballot might prevent many voters from being disenfranchised. Indeed, the evidence from several states (for example, in California provisional ballots were estimated to be 5.8% of all ballots cast in 2008) indicates that the incidence of disputed eligibility can be quite substantial, and that provisional balloting options are substantively important. On the other hand, those states with provisional balloting systems may be less likely to seek to improve their registration, voter list, and election administration procedures, as provisional ballots provide a “fail-safe” option. We assume that the goal here is to (a) reduce incidences in which voter eligibility is at issue, and (b) provide an opportunity for all eligible voters to participate. In light of these goals, we recommend the best practices identified in the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s 2010 report on provisional voting: improving voter outreach/communication, adding to staff and poll worker training, encouraging more consistent and comprehensive Election Day management procedures, and strengthening procedures for offering and counting provisional ballots as well as upgrading post-election statistical systems. These recommendations respect differences between and amongst the states, but provide a pathway for achieving consistency within states and improving voting procedures across the board. We also recommend that provisional ballot procedures are consistent within a given state, that younger voters be targeted for outreach, that provisional voting data be integrated into the voter lists and analyzed to inform outreach, and that both Election Day and (especially) post-election procedures for using and counting provisional ballots be strictly defined, understood, and implemented by election administrators

Lessons from the 2012 Election Administration and Voting Survey

Since our country’s inception, collecting appropriate data on elections and the administration of elections has been somewhat problematic, due to the fact that multiple levels of government are involved in running elections in the U.S. and because of difficulties in obtaining comparable information from the different states and localities. Beginning with the 2004 elections, the Election Assistance Commission has conducted national surveys of election administrators in an effort to facilitate a better understanding of how U.S. elections are run. We rely on these data for the 2012 and 2008 elections to offer some baseline assessments of how (rather than for whom) Americans voted in the most recent presidential elections, as well as how the way in which Americans vote might be changing.The Democracy Fun

A central support system can facilitate implementation and sustainability of a Classroom-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Genomics

In their 2012 report, the President\u27s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology advocated replacing standard science laboratory courses with discovery-based research courses -a challenging proposition that presents practical and pedagogical difficulties. In this paper, we describe our collective experiences working with the Genomics Education Partnership, a nationwide faculty consortium that aims to provide undergraduates with a research experience in genomics through a scheduled course (a classroom-based undergraduate research experience, or CURE). We examine the common barriers encountered in implementing a CURE, program elements of most value to faculty, ways in which a shared core support system can help, and the incentives for and rewards of establishing a CURE on our diverse campuses. While some of the barriers and rewards are specific to a research project utilizing a genomics approach, other lessons learned should be broadly applicable. We find that a central system that supports a shared investigation can mitigate some shortfalls in campus infrastructure (such as time for new curriculum development, availability of IT services) and provides collegial support for change. Our findings should be useful for designing similar supportive programs to facilitate change in the way we teach science for undergraduates

A course-based research experience: how benefits change with increased investment in instructional time

There is widespread agreement that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs should provide undergraduates with research experience. Practical issues and limited resources, however, make this a challenge. We have developed a bioinformatics project that provides a course-based research experience for students at a diverse group of schools and offers the opportunity to tailor this experience to local curriculum and institution-specific student needs. We assessed both attitude and knowledge gains, looking for insights into how students respond given this wide range of curricular and institutional variables. While different approaches all appear to result in learning gains, we find that a significant investment of course time is required to enable students to show gains commensurate to a summer research experience. An alumni survey revealed that time spent on a research project is also a significant factor in the value former students assign to the experience one or more years later. We conclude: 1) implementation of a bioinformatics project within the biology curriculum provides a mechanism for successfully engaging large numbers of students in undergraduate research; 2) benefits to students are achievable at a wide variety of academic institutions; and 3) successful implementation of course-based research experiences requires significant investment of instructional time for students to gain full benefit

CCES 2016, Team Module of University of Texas, Austin-A (UTA)

This dataverse contains the data and supporting documents for the CCES 2016 University of Texas, Austin. This project was supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant Number SES-1559125