In Focus This Week
Pew, JEHT to offer $2 million for research
Request for Proposals issued as part of “Make Voting Work”
electionline.org
A new request for proposals (RFP) funded by the Pew Center on the States and the JEHT Foundation offers up to $2 million to fund research aimed at identifying new opportunities for advancement in the field of elections. The RFP represents the first major effort as part of Make Voting Work, a new multi-year, multi-million initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
In particular, the RFP seeks proposals in two general areas.
First, the RFP seeks new diagnostic techniques for assessing the state of the American election system. “The RFP reflects our conclusion that the path to identifying effective and ongoing solutions in the field of election administration necessarily starts with a thorough and objective diagnosis of the system,” said Michael Caudell-Feagan, Pew’s senior officer for state policy. “By providing consistent reference points for the public and policy makers, we hope to move the public dialogue about elections past the frustrating reliance on anecdotal evidence that dominates the current debate.”
Second, the RFP seeks to lay the groundwork for hands-on approaches to election reform by inviting proposals for planning grants for pilot projects. The ultimate goal is to help develop strong proposals for consideration by The Trusts and others for implementation in the 2007 and 2008 election cycles.
The RFP also seeks to expand the research resources available to elections: “we seek to draw on the expertise of election officials and academics currently studying elections issues—but we also seek to identify new partners from diverse academic disciplines (e.g., computer science, economics, engineering, human factors and design, information, operations and management, mathematics), private-sector companies with applicable expertise, non-profits and non-governmental organizations.”
Potential respondents seeking partners will have an opportunity to post their interest in a given research topic or potential pilot project. Posting may be anonymous at the discretion of the requester. Details are available in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) posted along with the RFP, which is available at the Pew Center on the States Web site.
Responses are due by Monday, June 4.
In Focus This Week
Independent audit finds problems in Cuyahoga’s 2006 election
More damaged and uncountable paper trails also plague vote
By Dan Seligson
electionline.org
A newly-released report auditing Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s November 2006 election presented troubling findings about the management of ballots, the security of voting machines and the “possible corruption” of election tabulation software.
The “Collaborative Public Audit,” authorized by the county’s Board of Elections, was undertaken by representatives of major political parties, the League of Women Voters and two citizens’ groups. With recent turmoil in that office, both the Board and the county’s election director, Michael Vu, have since resigned or otherwise been forced out of office.
Candice Hoke, coordinator of the audit and director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University, said the audit revealed problems with the handling of optical-scan ballots, continued difficulty with damaged voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPATs) and indications that the election database could be corrupted.
“In our view, an audit is a way to discover whether the procedures and documentation are sufficient,” Hoke said. “Sometimes you can learn from misery.”
And there were some findings that some might consider miserable.
Among the issues revealed during the auditing:
- A hand count of optical-scan ballots, used for absentee and early voting, found that the sorting process “was neither complete nor accurate.” Some ballots were scanned and not included in the software’s election results while others were scanned twice, producing a double count.
- The Global Election Management System (GEMS), produced by Diebold, which also makes the county’s touch-screen and optical-scan voting systems, might have been corrupted after an initial evaluation found indicators of problems. Those included incorrectly stamped data entries (marked as 1970 rather than present day), missing time stamps and, in one case, disparate vote totals.
- Some Diebold touch-screen machines had the same serial numbers, according to “long reports” printed from the machines at the end of the day, meaning two seemingly identical machines were reporting different vote totals from different locations. Some reports lacked essential signatures.
- The reports, however, did match up with vote totals from the GEMS system, meaning the tabulation software accurately reported election results from the machines.
While voter-verified paper audit trails were not included in the audit per state law, Hoke said her researchers estimated that between 8 percent and 13 percent of the ballots were not countable because of damage or printing problems. That high percentage is roughly the same as the number of uncountable VVPATs discovered by researchers from the San Francisco-based Election Science Institute when they looked at ballots from the May 2006 primary.
State law requires that VVPATs be used as the ballot of record in some circumstances, further increasing concerns that a close election with machine problems would be a “disaster” in Ohio, Hoke said.
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner – who won the position in the November 2006 election – had a short statement on the audit report, saying through a spokesman that the findings could help guide Cuyahoga’s incoming Board of Elections and director in the coming months.
“She’ll be reviewing it over the next few days,” said Jeff Ortega, a Brunner spokesman. “The document could be an important guide as the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections is finalized.”
Election Reform News This Week
- Following a series of media reports and Congressional letters, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) this week formally requested that the commission’s inspector general conduct a review of the commission’s contracting procedures. The request specifically asks for a review of two recent projects focusing on voter identification and vote fraud, and voter intimidation. “The actions taken by the commission regarding these research projects have been challenged, and the commissioner and I agree that it is appropriate and necessary to ask the inspector general to review this matter,” EAC Chair Donetta Davidson said in a statement.
- Several state legislatures focused on bills that would require voters to present photo ID before casting ballots. In Tennessee, the House apparently killed legislation approved a day earlier by the Senate. According to The City Paper, the legislation was referred to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR), where Democrats declared it dead for the year. Also sent to TACIR for review were two pieces of legislation that would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote. In Wisconsin, the state Assembly approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls. A report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel said that Democrats plan to block the amendment in the Senate which would kill the legislation for this year.
- Waller County, Texas, Justice of the Peace DeWayne Charleston was prepared to walk 111 miles to Austin to protest to what he said were criminal violations in the Nov. 7, 2006 election in the county. According to The Houston Chronicle the state launched an investigation into claims that students at the predominately black Prairie View A&M University were disenfranchised because their voter registration cards were not processed. Four miles into his walk, Charleston was notified of a meeting with Attorney General Greg Abbott about the issue and he drove the remainder of the way to Austin. After the meeting Charleston told the paper he was confident that not only would the allegations from last year be fully investigated but that the upcoming May 12 election would be carefully monitored.
- And finally this week, a special shout-out to Election Updates Contributor Paul Gronke who on Monday, despite Mother Nature’s best attempts to thwart him, finished the Boston Marathon in 3:24:00 — less time than it took some people to vote in November 2006.
Opinions This Week
National: Holt Bill, Vote fraud, II, III, IV, Election Assistance Commission, II, III, Election reform, II, Instant run-off voting
California: Paper trail
Florida: Paper ballots, II
Kentucky: Felon voting
New Mexico: Voter ID
Nevada: Voter fraud
West Virginia: Paper ballots
Washington: Election-day reform
Wisconsin: Voter ID, Voter fraud
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Job Postings This Week
All job listings must be received by 12 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday for publication in our Thursday newsletter. Job listings are free but may be edited for length. Whenever possible, include Internet information. Please email job postings to mmoretti@electionline.org
- Election Director: Anne Arundel County (Md.) Board of Elections is recruiting for the position of Director of the County’s election office. Deadline April 23. See previous posting for information.
- Election Director: Baltimore City Board of Elections is recruiting for the position of Director of the City’s election office. Deadline April 23. See previous posting for information.
- Election Director: Carroll County (Md.) Board of Elections is recruiting for the position of Director of the County’s election office. Deadline April 23. See previous posting for information.
- Election Director: Kent County (Md.) Board of Elections is recruiting for the position of Director of the County’s election office. Deadline April 23. See previous posting for information.