In Focus This Week
Super Delayed Tuesday
Voters in 11 states and the District cast ballots this week
By M. Mindy Moretti
electionline.org
Almost three months to the day after the March 3 Super Tuesday, voters in 10 states and the District of Columbia cast their ballots this week but things are so much different than what they were on March 3.
Since then, more than 108,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus pandemic and cities and towns across the country are experiencing upheaval–at times violent–over racial and social justice disparities.
For Super Delayed Tuesday, elections officials who in many states had to essentially scrap all their previous primary planning to implement widescale absentee and vote-by-mail programs and implement numerous safety measures for in-person voting were also now dealing with curfews and concerns about what impacts the protests nationwide may have on their ability to conduct an election.
Things were far from normal — voters and poll workers clashing over mask-wearing in Pennsylvania–and things were far from perfect–voters in D.C. waited till after 1am to cast ballots at citywide vote centers, but with the bad also came the good. Iowa saw it’s largest turnout ever for a statewide primary and most of those voters voted absentee. Montana’s all-mail election saw record turnout in some counties and in South Dakota absentee voting was at a record high.
The following are some highlights and low lights of each state and the District that cast ballots on Tuesday. While officials are still counting ballots in many places and it will be days till the elections are official, eyes are already turning to how to make things work better in November.
District of Columbia
On the day before the 2020 primary in the District, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a 7 p.m. curfew for Tuesday, June 3–an hour before polls were scheduled to close. Many people worried about the impact the curfew would have on the primary, but it turns out the curfew was the least of the Board of Elections problems on election day. The D.C. Board of Elections reduced in-person voting to 20 citywide vote centers and encouraged every voter to vote-by-mail and included absentee ballot applications in the voter guides. Problems began even before primary day with voters complaining about not receiving requested ballots–some BOE staffers ended up driving around the city to drop off ballots at people’s homes–and then not knowing if their ballot had been received and accepted because the city’s ballot tracking system was not updated. On primary day itself, while things were quiet in the morning, action at the vote centers picked up around mid-day and remained that way till about 1a.m. when the last voter cast a ballot. Lines wrapped around buildings and snaked down blocks and blocks. Social distancing, a short supply of poll workers and many people needing to cast a special ballot added to the crush of voters at vote centers. At one point, in order to alleviate the pressure on the vote centers from people casting special ballots, the Board of Elections began emailing residents their ballots and those ballots could then be filled out online and emailed back, similar to what is reserved for military and overseas voters. At-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I) has called for an independent audit of what went wrong. And Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen (D) has scheduled a June 19 hearing into the matter. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) promised to prioritize an inquiry. “It’s important we have a full airing of what happened,” he Mendelson told The Washington Post. “Voters shouldn’t have to wait an hour, and I understand in some places it was five hours.”
Idaho
Idaho’s 2020 primary actually ended on Tuesday without a single voter visiting a polling place. Initially the deadline to request a mail ballot was May 19, but when the states online system had issues processing the requests, a candidate for office sued and the deadline to request a ballot was extended until May 26. An additional 14, 000 people requested ballots between May 19 and May 26. Voted ballots were due back on June 3. Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane says while things ended up working out, the road through the primary had plenty of challenges. “We got about, what I would say, two days notice to switch from our traditional polling place election to doing an all-mail election and that’s really where it hurt us. We are not built, we do not have the infrastructure to run an election this way and part of the time it took last night is a reflection of us not having what we need to be able to do it in this manner,” McGrane said. More than 328,000 Idahoans, or about 39% of registered voters, cast a ballot in the 2020 primary, according to unofficial results on the Idaho Secretary of State’s website. It’s the largest participation ever in a statewide primary election. There were some issues with the state’s results reporting system that had the results in at least one race change overnight. “Well, y’know, the election night reporting is a new program,” Secretary of State Lawerence Denney told the Idaho Press, “and certainly we’re definitely sorry that things happened, but that’s really not a fault of the software. It was human error, the mapping and not getting all four counties included in that.”
Indiana
Like most other Super Delayed Tuesday states, Indiana utilized a mix of absentee voting and in-person voting with the bulk of those casting ballots by mail. Of course that doesn’t mean voters didn’t show up at the polls on Tuesday where poll workers donned PPE and did their best to keep people socially distanced. Lines did form in places like St. Joseph County and Marion County. The sheer volume of absentee ballots means that some county elections offices will be counting ballots through the week. While Indiana was one of the early pioneers of the vote center process not all of the state’s 99 counties typically use them. For instance, this election was the first time vote centers were used in DeKalb County and things seemed to go well. A Floyd County poll worker did have to be removed after making comments inside the voting center about a measure on the ballot.
Iowa
When it became obvious the the 2020 primary could not be conducted the same way previous primaries had been, Secretary of State Paul Pate made the decision to send every registered voter an absentee ballot application in the form of a postcard that could be returned, postage paid. Well, it seems that Pate’s decision paid off. As of press time, more than 500,000 people had voted in Iowa’s primary, mostly via absentee ballots. “The credit goes to Iowa voters, poll workers and county auditors,” Pate said. “Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and protests going on across the state, Iowans made their voices heard in record numbers. I am so proud of everyone who participated and the people behind the scenes in all 99 counties that made it happen. I also want to thank Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Iowa National Guard for delivering masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer to the counties so Iowans could vote safely at the polls.” The previous high for a June primary was set in 1994, when 449,490 Iowans voted. Some voters did show up at the reduced polling places for in-person voting. Voters like Jan Hall, 85, who just likes to vote in-person. “I like the idea of going to a polling place and writing my vote on a ballot and putting it in a machine and knowing that it’s being counted,” she said. “I’ve got my mask on. I’ll be fine.” Every county will now conduct post-election audits in randomly selected precincts to help ensure the integrity of the vote.
Maryland
While in many counties in the Old Line State things went well during the primary [Shout out from my parents to the Harford Co. Board of Election for a smooth process], there were a number of issues that actually began before primary day and continued through the process with people still casting ballots at vote centers hours after polls had closed. Not long after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan issued a stay-at-home order because of the coronavirus, state officials made the decision to hold the 2020 primary mostly by mail with every registered voting receiving a ballot in the mail. State elections officials in Maryland butted heads with its Minnesota-based ballot vendor after Baltimore City voters’ ballots were delayed. And the problems persisted in the city which had a competitive mayoral race on the ballot. Due to the delay in mail ballots, the city had to set up additional vote centers and there were still hours-long lines at some of them. Some voters in the city received incorrect ballots and were told to go to vote centers which only exacerbated the lines. And problems in the city didn’t end when the polls finally closed either. A ballot printing error meant that ballots in a city council race could not immediately be properly tallied. “During the ballot printing process, the State Board of Elections discovered a small proofing error in the ballot title for the Democratic contest for Baltimore City Council District 1 (Ballot Styles 1 and 19),” officials said in a statement. “The Board requested that the error be corrected with their printing vendor, SeaChange. While the error was corrected in the official voting database, the error was not corrected on a portion of the ballots that were mailed to voters in District 1. Due to this inconsistency, vote by mail ballot styles for District 1 could not be counted properly.” While some people showed up at the polls due to ballot errors or missing ballots, some said they chose to vote in person because they just didn’t trust the mail ballot system. “I don’t like the mail in ballots, because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Anika Jade, a Montgomery County voter. “You don’t know where it’s going, if it’s going to get lost in the mail. Somebody might try to do something. They said they don’t, but you never know.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) called it “completely unacceptable” that some voters didn’t get ballots and called for hearings in the General Assembly. Maryland Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford (R) and Comptroller Peter K. Franchot (D) said Linda H. Lamone, director of the State Board of Elections, should relinquish her post. Franchot said Armstead B.C. Jones Sr., director of the Baltimore City Board of Elections, should be removed, as well. “Our city, state and country are already facing far too many existential challenges without corroded public confidence in the integrity of our democratic process,” he said.
Mississippi
Voters in several cities including Natchez went to the polls on Tuesday. Adams County commissioner Larry Gardner said voter turnout has been steady and relatively problem-free Tuesday in the precincts of the city’s six wards. “I think we have a pretty good turnout,” Gardner told the Natchez Democrat. “You can’t beat the weather.” Given the high number of absentee ballots in Natchez, 700 compared to 300 four years ago, officials anticipate spending the rest of the week processing and counting those ballots. “We’re going to keep working all afternoon and hopefully get it all done,” Gardner said.
Missouri
Communities across Missouri conducted delay local elections on Tuesday and while there was a lot of consternation beforehand about in-person voting, overall what little in-person voting there was on Tuesday seemed to go smoothly. Although absentee ballot numbers were up, overall turnout was down this year. Alexandria Bergman a Boone County voter said she felt safe voting in person because she was wearing a mask and they had plenty of sanitary practices at the polling location. She also expressed her support for voting by mail. “I’m hoping that Missouri officials will make vote by mail even more available to people from a variety of backgrounds for both the August and November elections,” she said.
Montana
Within days of Gov. Steve Bullock declaring that counties could move an all vote-by-mail system if they chose to, all 56 Montana counties had made the choice to hold the 2020 primary entirely by mail. With more than 87,600 more votes cast during the 2020 primary than in 2016 it seems as if the move to vote-by-mail was a smart one. And some counties like Ravalli and Missoula saw record turnout. Lewis and Clark County election officials said Tuesday that they have seen large numbers of voters Tuesday bringing their ballots to drop-off sites inside and outside the City-County Building in Helena. Voters were also waiting at the county elections office to register to vote, if they had an issue with their registration, or if they didn’t receive a ballot in the mail. However, officials say the lines for same-day registration have been shorter than in some recent elections – even as voters stood 6 feet apart to reduce the risk of COVID-19. Although the all-mail primary ran smoothly, it remains to be seen what will happen in November. “It is too early to tell what, if any, steps will need to be taken in the general election to protect the public’s health, while protecting the right to vote,” Marissa Perry, Bullock’s communications director told the Billings Gazette. “As he did in issuing the primary directive, Gov. Bullock will consult with county election administrators, public health experts, emergency management professionals, the Secretary of State, and political leaders from both parties to determine the safest way to proceed once more is known about how the virus could impact communities in the fall.” In the secretary of state race, Republican Christi Jacobsen, current deputy secretary of state, will face Democrat Bryce Bennett.
New Mexico
While initially the state wanted to conduct the primary entirely by mail, court proceedings forced counties to open polling places on Tuesday, but turnout at those sites was light. Absentee turnout was incredibly high though with a handful of counties still processing and counting ballots at press time. Taos and Santa Fe counties both needed additional time and had to go to court ot get that time. 1st Judicial District Court Judge T. Glenn Ellington said of Santa Fe County’s proposal to keep processing that it “is reasonably explainable by the number of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 Primary Election and is therefore caused by forces beyond the control of the Absentee Voter Election Board.” While there were changes to polling place procedures that included masks and social distancing, changes also had to happen behind the scenes where the ballots are counted. Los Alamos County Clerk’s Office made the decision to forgo election night reporting in the Boards and Commission Room, to help mitigate the spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than congregating and waiting for results to be posted, the clerk’s office emailed candidates, local party chairs and media, a PDF document of the results, as they become available from each of the vote centers. Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover announced a change in the location for unofficial results uploading for the 2020 primary election night. “On every election night, unofficial results are hand-carried by election board members to a central location for uploading to our website and the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office. And usually, that’s the Albuquerque /Bernalillo County Government Center in downtown Albuquerque,” said Clerk Linda Stover in a news release. “For tonight’s primary election night, however, I am moving the location to the Bernalillo County Voting Machine Warehouse. This change does not affect the voting public, but eliminates the need for staff and election board members to drive through downtown Albuquerque this evening.”
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar deemed Tuesday’s primary a success. “Today, we marked two major milestones in Pennsylvania’s electoral history,” Boockvar said in a press release. “For the first time, Pennsylvania voters could vote by mail-in ballot without having to provide an excuse, and they did so in impressive numbers. And all 67 counties have now deployed new, more secure and accessible voting systems with voter-verifiable paper ballots. I am extremely thankful for and proud of Pennsylvania’s dedicated election officials, poll workers and, of course, voters.” And while counties didn’t face the near-catastrophic issues with voting equipment that some did in 2019, there were some issues. Let’s start with technical issues. Fortunately there weren’t too many of them and counties like Northampton and York that experienced major problems in 2019, didn’t see a report performance. In Bucks County there were some issues where the size of the ballot was too large for the optical scanner. In Philadelphia, a polling place in the Northwest part of the state received the wrong voting equipment. In Washington County, an issue with the county’s website forced officials to go with an old standby – printing out paper copies – to distribute by hand to those in the Courthouse Square office building rather than via the internet. “In our test, everything worked great,” said Melanie Ostrander, Washington County elections director. “It’s on the vendor’s side, unfortunately.” Some voters did experience issues with confusion over not only the relocation of polling places, but the downsizing in the number of voting sites. That downsizing led to lines in a few locations but most seemed cleared out by the time the polls closed at 8 p.m. Probably the biggest issues on primary day in Pennsylvania came from mask-wearing at polling places. In the Pittsburgh area there were multiple complaints about voters being asked to wear masks and one of those situations even turned into a shoving match between voters. In Lehigh County the issues wasn’t voters not wearing masks, it was poll workers. In Dauphin County, voter David Hess after he entered his polling place and realized that about half of the poll workers were not wearing masks. “I didn’t feel safe,” he told Penn Live. “The governor strongly recommends wearing masks. So does the secretary of Health. Every store you walk into, you have to wear a mask. Yet when you go to a polling place, they aren’t wearing masks?” Hess said he called Dauphin County’s election bureau, where he was told that they could not force volunteers to wear masks. Jerry Feaser, the county’s director of elections, told Hess they had enough trouble as it was to recruit volunteers this year amid the pandemic and were not able to mandate masks. And at press time, absentee ballots are still being processed and counted after Gov. Tom Wolfe signed a last-minute order giving certain counties more time to get their jobs done.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island was another state where curfews conflicted with poll closing times. Providence, Warwick and Cranston all announced late on Monday that they would have curfews on Tuesday. The main issue arose in Cranston where exceptions to the curfew were not made for voters. The Rhode Island Board of Elections is located in Cranston. Despite the pre-primary concerns about the the curfew’s affect on voters and poll workers, there were no reports of any problems. A small number of polling places were open and the Board of Elections installed ballot drop boxes outside of each polling place.
South Dakota
The 2020 primary the Mount Rushmore State went off with relatively few issues. Turnout was high with mail ballots breaking all sorts of records. The state’s largest county, Minnehaha ended up processing mail ballots early in advance of the primary day in order to keep up with the volume and even then, that didn’t prevent the county from needing to continue to process those ballots on Wednesday after the primary. More than 17,000 people were expected to have used absentee ballots in this year’s city and school district combined election in Sioux Falls, said Tom Greco, the Sioux Falls City Clerk. That’s more than five times the number of people who voted through absentee ballot in the 2018 combined election. “The focus on absentee ballots also potentially relieved some pressure on polling sites across the state on Election Day,” Rachel Soulek of the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office told KELO. “Having both methods available provided our state’s voters the choice to exercise their right to vote in the manner most comfortable to them.” There were no reported problems at the polling places that were open and veteran poll workers like Sharon Smith said they were happy to work at the slow polls so others didn’t have to. Twenty-year poll working veteran Bev Alexander did find one problem with all the PPE and working during a pandemic. “The only thing is we can’t eat our snacks and drink our coffee,” she told the Argus Leader.
electionline Daily News Email
electionline is pleased to announce that you may now sign up to receive an early-morning email with the top headlines of the day.
Each morning you’ll receive the top headlines of the day, plus a listing of states featured in that day’s news round up.
To sign up, simply visit our site and provide us with your email and you’ll begin receiving the news in your inbox each morning.
Election Security Updates
Georgia: Just days before the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who was running for governor against Stacey Abrams, used his power as secretary of state to open an investigation into what he called a “failed hacking attempt” of voter registration systems involving the Democratic Party. Now, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, newly released case files from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reveal that there was no such hacking attempt. The evidence from the closed investigation indicates that Kemp’s office mistook planned security tests and a warning about potential election security holes for malicious hacking. “The investigation by the GBI revealed no evidence of damage to (the secretary of state’s office’s) network or computers, and no evidence of theft, damage, or loss of data,” according to a March 2 memo from a senior assistant attorney general recommending that the case be closed. The internet activity that Kemp’s staff described as hacking attempts were actually scans by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the secretary of state’s office had agreed to, according to the GBI. Kemp’s chief information officer signed off on the DHS scans three months beforehand.
Vote by mail: Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told the New York Times Magazine that hat a foreign operation to mail in fake ballots was “one of the issues that I’m real worried about.” “We’ve been talking about how, in terms of foreign influence, there are a number of foreign countries that could easily make counterfeit ballots, put names on them, send them in,” Barr said. “And it’d be very hard to sort out what’s happening.” Needless to say, elections officials from across the country and across the aisle were quick to put down Barr’s statement. “It’s preposterous to the point of humor,” Colorado Elections Director Judd Choate told The Washington Post. “While it’s difficult to comment on a hypothetical situation and we can only speak for North Carolina, it’s almost inconceivable that a county board of elections wouldn’t immediately detect ‘counterfeit ballots’ arriving at their offices,” said Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections. “The county boards of elections send ballots out to those who request them.”
What a difference a few months make. The last big voting day — Super Tuesday, March 3 — when officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) held a call with reporters, much, if not all of the conversation was about election security and how safe the system was from interference. However, in a call with the media on Super Delayed Tuesday, senior officials from the spent the bulk of their time discussing how COVID and protests are impacting not only today’s elections but the general election in November. According to MeriTalk, a senior official said that the COVID-19 pandemic is hurting election officials because there is a steep drop off in tax revenue – which is the source of the majority of their funding. The official remarked that the agency has been increasing resources available to states. When asked if the protests are posing any cybersecurity risk to elections, the senior official said “on a cyber front, everything looks condition normal.” The official acknowledged that there was some cyber activity surrounding the protests, specifically in Minneapolis, but said “I’m not sure we’ve seen anything in regards to elections.” However, the agency is keeping an eye on it and is “making sure we are getting the right mitigation guidance out to states.”
COVID-19 Updates
Rescheduled Primaries: At press time, the following states have rescheduled their primaries: Connecticut 8/11; Delaware 7/7; Georgia 6/9; Kentucky 6/23; Louisiana 7/11; Maine 7/14; New Jersey 7/7; New York 6/23; Virginia 6/23; and West Virginia 6/9.
Legislative and legal actions surrounding the elections and the coronavirus pandemic can be found in their respective sections of the newsletter.
Public Opinion: Republicans are much more skeptical than Democrats their ballots will count if cast by mail and less confident they will be able to vote in November’s election if their state switches to all-mail voting, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week. The poll found half of Republicans, compared to three-quarters of Democrats, were confident their mail-in vote would be accurately counted. And 67% of Republicans thought they would be able to cast a ballot in the Nov. 3 election if their state switched to voting by mail, compared to 85% of Democrats. Overall, 59% of Americans believe their state should expand mail-in voting, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted from May 20 to 27. By party, that broke down to 43% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats. Only 25% of Republicans polled said voting by mail would result in more fair voting, compared to 66% of Democrats.
Healthy Voting Guidelines: A coalition of voting rights and public health groups rolled out guidelines to help protect voters from catching and spreading COVID-19 while exercising their right to vote this year. The Healthy Voting Guidelines, rolled out initially for states holding primaries in June, are the product of the non-partisan coalition We Can Vote, and were drafted by groups including the American Public Health Association and the Center for Tech and Civic Life. The guidelines address both mail-in and in-person voting for more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia. Recommendations include wearing a mask and standing six feet apart from other voters if going to the polls in person, voting during less busy times and washing your hands after dropping off a mail-in ballot. The guidelines also give instructions on how to send in a ballot by mail.
Everything old is new again: NBC News has a really fascinating story (with some great photos) about the 1918 midterm elections which were held in the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic. With bans on public gatherings and schools, churches, theaters, bars and other social spots closed in many places around the country, voting was the first opportunity for many Americans to venture outdoors. “Voter turnout was lower than it had been previously, by about 10 percentage points,” Alex Navarro, assistant director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan said, noting that while “the pandemic almost certainly had an impact … it was also wartime. You had a lot of soldiers who were overseas or in military camps.” When voters did turn out, the scene in many places was fraught.
California: Gov. Gavin Newsom gave California counties permission to limit their in-person voting operations for the Nov. 3 election as protection against the spread of the coronavirus — but only if they also offer three days of early voting. Newsom’s order offers no information on whether additional state funds will be set aside, though elections funding could be boosted in the state budget the Legislature must send to his desk by June 15. “Expanded vote-by-mail, coupled with ample in-person voting on and before Election Day, is the best formula for maintaining the accessibility, security, and safety of our election,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a written statement. The order allows counties to provide a fraction of their normal in-person voting locations, focusing instead on larger facilities with voting devices safely spread out.
Mississippi: According to the Associated Press, Secretary of State Michael Watson said this week that he opposes widespread use of mail-in voting, even during the coronavirus pandemic. However, he did say he thinks current Mississippi law allows flexibility for early voting by absentee ballot, and that could shorten lines at polling places on election day. Watson, said voters could seek absentee ballots by declaring they have a temporary disability because of COVID-19. That could include people who are ill with the virus or who have compromised immune systems or underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to it. He said local election clerks would determine whether to grant the request and allow that person to vote absentee.
Ohio: A bipartisan statewide commission has been formed by the Ohio Secretary of State to help prepare for the November presidential election. The task force will provide updates on how counties are preparing, hear from experts, learn from county elections administrators about their needs and requirements, develop “best practices” and study information about “the evolving health situation,” according to the announcement. The Ready for November Task Force will also study the progress of Ohio House Bill 680
U.S. Virgin Islands: Caroline Fawkes, supervisor of Elections, reported at the board of elections meeting that the St. Croix Elections Offices could be opened as soon as next week if retrofits of the office are completed. A vendor has been chosen to do the work to ensure safety and security of the employees and the public during the pandemic. The cost of the work was quoted at $6,700. A vendor to retrofit the St. Thomas office has not yet been chosen.
West Virginia: What a great idea! The West Virginia Real Estate Commission is a state agency that issues licenses for all registered real estate agents, brokers and associate brokers doing business in West Virginia. The commission also approves continuing education opportunities for realtors. In West Virginia, agents are required to earn at least seven hours of continuing education (CE) every year. The commission will allow agents, brokers and associate brokers to earn seven hours of CE credit for completing poll worker training and working on Election Day. Those selected to work on election day will also be paid for their service by the county clerk. “We certainly welcome real estate professionals from throughout the state to our family of poll workers,” Secretary of State Mac Warner said. Warner has been very busy recruiting poll workers through a campaign his office calls the Elective Service Campaign. So far more than 300 residents have signed up, but more are still needed.
Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Elections Commission has approved spending $7.2 million in federal CARES Act funding, including a $4.1 million block grant program to help local election officials and voters prepare for Fall 2020 elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “Wisconsin voters and election officials need to be ready for anything this fall,” stated Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the WEC. “We are using the lessons we learned from the Spring Election in April and the federal grant funds to ensure we are prepared for November.” The news release states, the $4.1 million block grant program will help municipalities deal with significant unbudgeted expenses for fall elections like postage and envelopes due to high demand for absentee ballots at the Spring Election, when nearly 1.16 million ballots were cast by mail.
Election News This Week
In a report released this week by the Native American Rights Fund, advocates are cautioning against states moving to mail-in ballots without opportunities for tribal members to vote safely in person. According to The New York Times, the report outlined the challenges that could arise: online registration hampered by spotty or no internet service, ballots delivered to rarely-checked Post Office boxes and turnout curbed by a general reluctance to vote by mail. “We’re all for increased vote by mail,” said Jacqueline De Leon, a staff attorney with the group and a member of Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico. “We’re absolutely against all vote by mail. If there are no in-person opportunities, then Native Americans will be disenfranchised because it will be impossible for some of them to cast a ballot.” The report is a result of field hearings held in North Dakota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon, California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, California and the Navajo Nation in 2017 and 2018. The Native American Rights Fund plans to use the findings to develop policy, suggest legislative or regulatory action and promote voting rights in Indian Country.
The racial and social injustice protests around the country spurred by the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police didn’t just impact primaries on Tuesday. Elections office in Florida and North Carolina that were near some of the more violent protests were damaged in the past week. In Duval County, Florida windows and doors at the supervisor of elections office were broken out Sunday night. “No one got into the building although they could have,” Mike Hogan, Duval County supervisor of elections, told News4Jax. “We have two very good videos revealing two people damaging the front doors and 9 windows. One of them sprayed paint on our cameras.” In Guilford County, North Carolina the county courthouse was damaged by fire including the part that houses the board of elections. According to Charlie Collicutt, with the Board of Elections, some unused ballots from March were destroyed. The ballots were going to be destroyed at some point regardless. Collicutt said the fire did not interfere with any voting machines, except one that is used for demonstration purposes.There was significant damage to supplies, such as signs, blank forms and blank paperwork. The warehouse office manager’s office was destroyed. Collicutt said this will not directly impact the November election, saying it’s just another “wrinkle thrown in” an already complicated election year.
Rock the Vote is launching a summer initiative to register 200,000 new voters as the coronavirus pandemic thrusts uncertainty over turnout ahead of the November elections. “Democracy Summer,” is set to feature online trainings, campaigns and events to register voters and particularly mobilize young people, who tend to turn out at lower rates compared to members of other age groups. The effort’s kickoff event will take place on June 18 at an event put on by the producers of Coachella. “This is truly unique,” Carolyn DeWitt, executive director of Rock The Vote, told CNN, which was the first to report on the effort. “You don’t usually have organizations at this level — three major players in the youth civic engagement space — recognizing the urgency of this moment and seeing real value in coming together.” Rock the Vote is also teaming up with Influential, a tech platform that taps into a network of celebrities and influencers in pop culture and social media to promote brands. Influential will call on celebrities, Youtubers, TikTokers and more to encourage people to vote.
Sticker News: As if Rhode Island didn’t have enough going on Tuesday, the state board of elections also announced the winner of their recent “I Voted” sticker contest. The winning design is by Isaiah Suchman, a student at the Wheeler School in Providence. His design shows an outline of the State House with the Independent Man on top in gold. The Board of Elections received 81 entries of prospective sticker designs, according to executive director Robert Rapoza. Each of the seven members of the Board of Elections chose one finalist and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea chose one. The BOE has budgeted $7,400 to produce the stickers.
Congratulations! Congratulations go out to Dan Tokaji who has been named the dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School. Tokaji is currently the Charles W. Ebersold and Florence Williams Ebersold Professor of Constitutional Law at Ohio State. His scholarship focuses primarily on the field of election law, addressing questions of voting rights, civil rights, free speech and democratic inclusion. He has been a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law since 2003, serving as associate dean for faculty since 2018.
Personnel News: Ann Jacobs is the new chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Legislative Updates
Alaska: A public hearing at the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting on an ordinance to establish vote-by-mail as an option for the borough was held this week. Assemblymember Willy Dunne of Fritz Creek introduced this ordinance because of a recommendation from a Borough stakeholder group that issued a report in January of 2019. The group was responding to a 2018 lawsuit by a blind person who did not have access to a voting machine that allowed him to vote without assistance. If approved, the ordinance would introduce a hybrid system of voting like the one used in Colorado.
California: In Sacramento, there are two new bills before the Legislature that attempt to set guidelines for November’s vote by mail election. One bill offers in-person vote centers at a ratio of no less than one center per 10,000 voters across the state, open for at least four days prior to Election Day. Materials will be sent out to voters saying that, if they cannot submit a vote-by-mail ballot, they should try to avoid in-person voting at peak times. The Senate version of the bill also specifically encourages local officials to establish drive-through ballot drop-off points (and authorizes setting up voting centers in “locations whose primary purpose is the sale and dispensation of alcoholic beverages” where needed). The second bill would require that mail ballots go out 29 days prior to the election and that election officials would be able to begin tabulating the results as soon as they received them, though no information about the tally could be released prior to 8 p.m. on Election Day. The bills would also extend the deadline for accepting the ballots until the 20th day after Election Day or two days prior to the certification of results in the presidential race, whichever date is later.
The Eureka City Council will consider placing a measure on the November ballot asking voters to amend the city charter to allow for ranked choice voting for the mayor and council seats. The council has been discussing the issue for several months and May 19 directed staff to prepare the resolution for consideration.
Massachusetts: Under a plan by House and Senate Democrats, every registered voter would receive an absentee ballot application for the September primary and the November general election by mid-July. The proposal for expanded voting by mail would be coupled with in-person early voting before both the primary and general elections in September and November, and traditional voting at a local polling station during both elections.
New York: The Senate and Assembly have both approved legislation that would let voters apply for absentee ballots electronically and would remove the signature requirement. The bill also would allow absentee ballots to be counted if they are postmarked the day of the election. Absentee ballots currently must be postmarked the day before the election. The Senate passed the legislation 39-22. The Assembly passed it on a vote of 102-41. It now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for his consideration.
In Monroe County, County Executive Adam Bello has vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have added six staff positions to the county board of elections. The bill, which passed the County Legislature on May 26 with a vote of 20 to 8, would have created two assistant deputy commissioner positions and supervisors who would oversee absentee voting, information services, and elections inspector training and recruitment. The six openings would have been filled by three Democrats and three Republicans, according to a memo accompanying the legislation, which set aside $220,000 for salaries. Bello said the positions would have cost the county $500,000 a year and would have been paid for through chargebacks.
North Carolina: A bill making it easier for people to vote by mail in the 2020 elections passed with near-unanimous support in the N.C. House of Representatives. The bill would spend millions of dollars on that goal, as well as on public health concerns for polling places, cyber security improvements and more. It would also make it easier for people to request mail-in ballots, reduce the witness requirement for such ballots from two people to one, and mandate the use of technology that would let voters track their ballots to make sure they actually get submitted. The Senate elections committee approved the measure, which retained all of the provisions included in legislation overwhelmingly approved by the House last week. It expands options for registered voters to receive absentee ballot request forms, including the creation before September of an online portal for submissions. People who ultimately fill out mail-in ballots also would need only one witness to sign the ballot envelope this fall, not two.
Ohio: House Bill 680 prohibit Secretary of State Frank LaRose from sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications, something that’s been done for every presidential and gubernatorial election in Ohio since 2012, and bar him from providing postage-paid envelopes with any elections mailings. It would also eliminate in-person early voting on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election. The House State and Local Government Committee voted 8-4 to advance an amended version. Language that would have rolled back early voting was removed.
Tennessee: A move to allow everyone in Tennessee to vote by mail failed in the state legislature Wednesday. Tennessee Republicans blocked a proposal that would have allowed mail-in ballots for people who don’t want to go to a polling place for fear of contracting COVID-19. Democrats said voting by mail is the safe thing to do, given the coronavirus pandemic.
Vermont: The Vermont Senate on Tuesday advanced legislation that would give Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos the unilateral authority to expand mail-in voting during the Covid-19 pandemic, after he and Gov. Phil Scott have struggled to reach an agreement on the policy. The legislation, which advanced in a vote of 21-7, removes a requirement for the governor to sign off on emergency elections changes during the pandemic. The bill is expected to pass on a second vote Wednesday and then heads to the House where Democratic leaders have signaled support.
Legal Updates
Alabama: The League of Women Voters of Alabama filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State John Merrill, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and several Montgomery County officials. “[The lawsuit] does not ask the state court to make permanent changes in Alabama’s election laws,” the league said in a statement. “It asks only that State election officials be ordered to exercise their emergency powers to authorize local election officials to relax restrictions on both absentee ballots and in-person voting during the pandemic.”
Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis says he will challenge a recent court ruling that clears the way for felons to vote before paying fines, fees, and restitution. The appeal will be sent to the 11th judicial circuit in Atlanta.
Kansas: Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R) announced this week that he will appeal a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in April that said the state could not enforce a proof-of-citizenship law. An appeals-court panel said the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal legal protection as well as a federal voter registration law. According to The New York Times, If the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case, it could have broader implications because Alabama, Arizona and Georgia have proof-of-citizenship laws on their books, and Republican officials in other states have wanted to enact them. Critics of such laws believe they’re designed to suppress the vote, particularly among groups that tend to vote Democratic.
Nevada: U.S. District Judge Miranda Du has again rejected a conservative voting rights group’s bid to block the mail-in primary election now under way in Nevada as part of an effort to guard against spread of the coronavirus at traditional polling places. The judge said she didn’t understand why the group essentially requested reconsideration of her earlier denial of a preliminary injunction to halt the June 9 election instead of appealing it to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, especially given that early voting began May 23. On Monday, Du granted a request to extend until July 3 the deadline to argue why she shouldn’t dismiss their lawsuit.
Also in Nevada, National and state Republican officials sued Clark County on Monday, accusing officials of making a “shady backroom deal” with Democrats over the conduct of the June 9 mail-in primary election. The lawsuit seeks public records to explain how county officials decided to add two in-person voting sites on primary election day, send mail ballots to all registered voters, including inactive ones, and allow deputized “field registrars” to collect ballots. The Republican National Committee and Nevada Republican Party claimed in Monday’s legal filing in state district court that the plan will waste taxpayer dollars and was reached outside of the state’s open meeting law and without public input.
New Jersey: A coalition of New Jersey groups that includes the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and the Institute for Social Justice have sued the state in a bid to limit the number of people whose mail-in ballots get rejected in the July 7 primary. The suit is seeking for voters whose ballot signatures are deemed not to match to cure their ballot.
New York: Justice John Ark of the state Supreme Court has ruled that the Monroe County Democratic Committee can hold a coronavirus-conscious drive-in vote to select a nominee to be the party’s next county elections commissioner
Pennsylvania: A federal judge ruled that the Pennsylvania Department of State must provide a way for visually-impaired voters to fill out an absentee or mail-in ballot online, print it at home and return it to their county elections office. This approach would require the use of assistive technology, such as screen readers or the ability to update refreshable braille displays. The order was prompted by a lawsuit filed May 21 by the National Federation for the Blind of Pennsylvania.
Tennessee: Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle hear arguments via video conference this week over a lawsuit brought against the state in order to expand mail voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Hobbs Lyle said the state’s guidance about who can vote by mail due to the coronavirus is “very ambiguous,” and she cited “weighty proof” that other states have expanded to let all voters cast absentee ballots this year — something Tennessee officials say is not feasible. Lyle cautioned that whatever she orders needs to be “a practical, workable solution, or it will throw the election into chaos.” She raised particular concerns about costs for local governments.
Virginia: Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. in the Eastern District of Virginia has denied a request from six Northern Virginia voters challenging Virginia election officials over the loosening of absentee voting restrictions. In his ruling Rossi said, that while the voters’ complaint “may be well-founded, the court is constrained at this time from remedying these constitutional grievances.”
Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case originally brought by the Wisconsin Institute For Law and Liberty which argues that state law requires the Wisconsin Elections Commission to remove about 133,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls if they don’t respond to a “movers mailing” within 30 days. In January, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to take the case on an expedited appeal, which would have bypassed the state appellate court system. The court split 3-3 on whether to take the case immediately, with then newly elected conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn joining the court’s two liberals in voting to deny the petition.
Tech Thursday
Arizona: The Maricopa County Elections Department launched an online portal that allows voters to request a one-time ballot in the mail or sign up for the Permanent Early Voting List at Request.Maricopa.Vote. Previously, voters could only sign up for the Permanent Early Voting List with a paper form or online at ServiceArizona.com, a process designed for registering new voters. Now registered voters have another option customized to meet their needs. “Today more than ever, we understand voters need flexibility when it comes to the ways they vote,” stated Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes. “This new online portal provides another option for voters who want to plan ahead for the August Primary Election.”
Michigan: The Ottawa County Clerk’s office is launching a website to detail the county’s plan for safe elections in August and November. The county’s new dashboard, named Securing Your Vote, details the steps being taken to ensure the upcoming elections are as secure as possible. The dashboard includes information on the absentee voting process, information on how votes are tabulated, as well as details on how election workers are trained and election equipment is maintained. “Over the past several months we’ve received a number of questions from citizens concerned about our elections process,” said Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck in a statement. “There is a lot of information being circulated right now on social media. Some of it is true and some is not. Our voters have the right to know how this process works and how hard our election officials at the local level are working to ensure the security and accuracy of their vote.”
Oregon: Secretary of State Bev Clarno reached out to both Facebook and Twitter over false and misleading information that was being spread about voter’s party affiliation being changed. After Clarno’s administration contacted the social media companies, Facebook tagged the post as “partly false” and began referring people to fact checks on it by the websites PolitiFact, run by the journalism nonprofit Poynter Institute, and Lead Stories, which is a project of the nonpartisan Rand Corporation think tank. Twitter suspended the “My party changed” account on Friday.
South Carolina: Late last year, election officials reported the state’s current electronic poll book solution is not compatible with the new statewide voting system because of its age and inadequate software capabilities. According to WCSC, state election officials said upgraded electronic poll books were needed to improve efficiency and accuracy in the voting process. The state’s e-poll book system hasn’t been updated since 2006, and some polling places are still using paper books. The state election commission is currently accepting bids for the project, and officials said the true cost of the upgrade won’t be known until the process is complete. However, the commission’s 2020-2021 budget plan stated at least $5 million would be required to provide electronic poll books for all counties in South Carolina. If funds are not received, counties would be forced to continue using our antiquated electronic poll book system or paper voter registration lists, the lines at polling places on election day could be longer, and providing voter history could be delayed and the possibility of voters receiving the wrong ballot style could continue, according to the agency’s budget plan. Election officials said new e-poll books won’t be ready for June’s primaries, instead they are hoping to have them in place by November.
Opinions This Week
National Opinions: Vote by mail, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII | Nationalized elections | Election security | Voter suppression
Alabama: Secretary of state
Arizona: Vote by mail
Connecticut: Voting safety
Florida: General election | Lessons learned | Ex-felon voting rights, II, III | Vote by mail
Indiana: Voting safety
Iowa: Ex-felon voting rights
Maryland: Election failures | Top-two primary | Primary
Massachusetts: Vote by mail, II
Minnesota: Vote by mail
Missouri: In-person voting
Nebraska: Vote by mail
New Mexico: Ranked choice voting | Primary
North Carolina: Voting safety | Wake-up call
Oklahoma: Absentee voting
Oregon: Voting system
Pennsylvania: Election day rituals | Primary, II | Changes at the polls | General election
South Carolina: Election rules
Tennessee: Vote by mail
Texas: Vote by mail, II | Harris County Clerk
Utah: Ranked choice voting
Virginia: Absentee voting | Vote by mail
Wisconsin: Absentee voting
Upcoming Events
COVID-19 Webinars for Elections Officials: The Center for Tech and Civic Life is launching 12 free webinars on COVID-19 for election officials that cover topics ranging from ballot dropoff locations to virtually training election workers. The webinars feature experienced guest speakers with detailed, actionable practices that you can implement in your office. When: May 19-June 30. Where: Online.
VVSG 2.0 Public Comment Period
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is taking important steps to advance the development of the next generation of federal voting system standards, known as the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0, or VVSG 2.0. These steps include sharing the recommended VVSG 2.0 Requirements with the EAC’s Standards Board and Board of Advisors for review, launching a 90-day public comment period.
“Each step toward final approval of VVSG 2.0 is another step toward improving election security. The final VVSG requirements will enable manufacturers to develop updated, improved, accessible, and secure voting technology. The process to gather feedback from our stakeholders is critical to completing this process,” added EAC Chairman Ben Hovland, who has served as the EAC’s designated federal official for the TGDC for the past year. “We look forward to getting input from our Board of Advisors and Standards Board, and to hear from the public through the hearings and public comments.”
In March, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) unanimously voted to provide the EAC with recommendations on the VVSG 2.0 Requirements. The recommended requirements, developed with the support of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), were submitted to the EAC’s Acting Executive Director on March 9, 2020.
On March 11, the EAC submitted the proposed VVSG 2.0 Requirements to the EAC’s Standards Board and Board of Advisors for review.
The EAC has initiated a 90-day public comment period on the VVSG 2.0 Requirements, which will run through June 22, 2020. Those who wish to review the VVSG 2.0 Requirements document, as recommended by the TGDC, and submit comments may do so via regulations.gov.
EAC Commissioners are expected to consider the VVSG 2.0 for adoption following their review of feedback provided by the Standards Board and Board of Advisors on the proposed VVSG 2.0 Requirements, as well as testimony and comments provided during public hearings and the public comment period.
Upon adoption, VVSG 2.0 would be the fifth iteration of national-level voting system standards. VVSG 2.0 offers a new approach to the organization of the guidelines and seeks to address the next generation of voting equipment. It contains new and expanded material in many areas, including reliability and quality, usability and accessibility, security, and testing. The Federal Election Commission published the first two sets of federal standards in 1990 and 2002. The EAC then adopted Version 1.0 of the VVSG on December 13, 2005. In an effort to update and improve version 1.0 of the VVSG, on March 31, 2015, the EAC commissioners unanimously approved VVSG 1.1.
The advancement of the VVSG 2.0 Requirements follows efforts in recent years to advance the VVSG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines, which are 15 principles and related guidelines that form the core of VVSG 2.0 and are supported by the Requirements. The TGDC provided the EAC with recommendations on the VVSG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines in September 2017. The EAC Standards Board and Board of Advisors recommended the VVSG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines for adoption in April 2018. The EAC solicited public comments on the VVSG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines from February to June 2019, and held three public hearings on them in April and May 2019.
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) establishes three federal advisory committees that support the EAC in its work: the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), the Standards Board, and the Board of Advisors.
The TGDC assists the EAC in developing the VVSG. The chairperson of the TGDC is the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The TGDC is composed of 14 other members appointed jointly by EAC and the director of NIST, including state and local election officials, individuals with technical and scientific expertise in voting systems, and representatives from the Access Board, American National Standards Institute, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
The Standards Board and Board of Advisors advise the EAC on various matters, including the development of the VVSG. The Standards Board consists of 55 state election officials selected by their respective chief state election official, and 55 local election officials selected through a process supervised by the chief state election official. HAVA prohibits any two members representing the same state to be members of the same political party.
The Board of Advisors consists of 37 members, as specified by HAVA. Members include two people appointed by each of the following groups: National Governors Association; National Conference of State Legislatures; National Association of Secretaries of State; The National Association of State Election Directors; National Association of Counties; The National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks; The U.S. Conference of Mayors; Election Center; International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials, and Treasurers; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. Other members include representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Integrity, and the Civil Rights Division; the director of the U.S. Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program; four professionals from the field of science and technology, one each appointed by the Speaker and the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Majority and Minority leaders of the U.S. Senate; and eight members representing voter interests, with the chairs and the ranking minority members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration and the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration each appointing two members.
Job Postings This Week
electionlineWeekly publishes election administration job postings each week as a free service to our readers. To have your job listed in the newsletter, please send a copy of the job description, including a web link to mmoretti@electionline.org. Job postings must be received by 5pm on Wednesday in order to appear in the Thursday newsletter. Listings will run for three weeks or till the deadline listed in the posting.
Campaign Finance Director, Wake County, NC— The Wake County Board of Elections is seeking a Campaign Finance Specialist to manage communication support and report auditing for candidates and committees who file campaign finance reports at the county level. The Campaign Finance Specialist must maintain in-depth knowledge of campaign finance law and reporting schedules. In this position you will be responsible for communicating with candidates and campaign committee treasurers, conducting financial audits of campaign finance reports, referring late or non-compliant reports to the NC State Board of Elections for further investigation or financial penalties, maintaining directories and databases of elected officials and report filing statuses, developing candidate and campaign finance informational guides, managing the Candidates and Campaign Finance section of the Board of Elections website, organizing and administering candidate filing, and assisting campaign committee treasurers with campaign reporting software. Wake County is home to the State Capital and one of the fastest growing areas in the nation and the second-most populous county in the state, with approximately 1,000,000 residents. The County has received national and international rankings and accolades from publications such as Money, Fortune, and Time magazines as being one of the best places to live, work and play. Salary: Hiring Range: $20.19 – $27.26. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Election Administrator, Cass County, Minnesota— Responsible for the conduct of all state and county elections in Cass County in compliance with federal and state laws. Provides election budget oversight, and manages election equipment fleet acquisition, maintenance, and life cycle updates. Develops and executes training programs for permanent staff, temporary employees, local election officials, and election judges. Oversees counting center operations, coordinates polling place equipment delivery and supplies, mail ballot precinct administration, and absentee ballot administration. Salary: $30.07 – $39.25/hr DOQ. Deadline: June 19. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Election Services Manager, Douglas County, Colorado— The Election Services Manager is responsible for the management and coordination of elections administrative operations, voter registration, mapping for voting districts and precincts, addressing library, and support for mail ballot processing as directed by the leadership team. The objective of this position is to perform a variety of functions and diverse leadership roles on a routine basis, including performance management for a team of Election Specialists. This is a highly visible position requiring exceptional leadership, organizational, and communication skills. The Election Services Manager is responsible for oversight of responsibilities within the elections office and Voter Service and Polling Centers, coaching and supervision of staff; creation and enforcement of policies, procedures, and state and federal statutes and regulations; creation and execution of strategic and tactical plans for operating successful elections; coordination of election functions with entities participating in a County election or conducting their own election; managing key vendor relationships and election assets. Coordinates with and assists other Clerk & Recorder Divisions as needed. Salary: $4,785.83 – $5,982.33 Monthly. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Elections Technology Specialist, Boulder County, Colorado— The Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, Elections Division, has an opening for a Technology Specialist. This is a term position for the duration of 2020 which includes both the June 30 Primary Election and the November 3 General Election. This position will learn and perform a variety of complex, technical, and specialized tasks associated related to elections, software/hardware support, and voting systems. To be successful in this position you must be eager to learn, possess an aptitude for troubleshooting, technical information and documenting process through conversation, implementation and observation. Successful applicants will be comfortable in a high-stakes, team-focused work environment. We seek a person who is process-oriented and motivated to do meaningful work that facilitates the democratic process. Salary: $57, 024. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Grants Specialist, U.S. Election Assistance Commission— The Grants Specialist will assist the Grants Director to manage and administer the grants program for the EAC pursuant to 5 USC §3109 (See 42 USC §15324(b)) and §204 (6)(c) of HAVA. The incumbent provides expert advice to EAC leadership regarding grants management; provides advice and guidance to States and U.S. territories regarding the use of funds provided by EAC to ensure State/U.S. territory compliance with HAVA, Appropriations Law and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) circulars; conducts pre- and post-audits to review how funds have been spent; and makes recommendations to the Executive Director for audit resolutions. Salary: $69,581 to $128,920 per year. Deadline: June 17, 2020. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
IT Security Engineer, Dominion Voting Systems— We are looking for an IT Security Engineer to join our IT team in Denver, Colorado! We are looking for a security-minded individual who can perform both day-to-day technical management and maintenance of IT security programs and who can also strategically assess and enhance the overall IT security enterprise-wide. This role covers a broad scope of responsibilities as some days you may be evaluating new security solutions and attending security briefings, while other days you will be managing our existing IT security toolsets and reviewing threat and log data to identify risk and mitigate vulnerabilities. You must be a self-starter, who collaborates well with others and can explain IT security best practices to anyone from the end-users to executive team members. You will also work for hand and hand with colleagues within the IT department and work with our vendors and external threat organizations to understand and mitigate risks. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Operations Manager, Center for Election Innovation and Research— The Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) seeks a qualified Operations Manager to join our team. The Operations Manager will report to the Program Director and will be responsible for the execution of CEIR’s general operations. The Operations Manager will be in charge of ensuring our human resources, finances, and administrative functions run efficiently and effectively. Under the supervision of the Program Director, the Operations Manager determines objectives and milestones, and builds effective relationships within the team and with outside partners. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Project Manager, Hart InterCivic— Project Managers at Hart InterCivic are highly motivated “self-starters” who are enthusiastic about providing exceptional customer service. Working with other members of the Professional Services and Operations teams, the Project Manager directs activity, solves problems, and develops lasting and strong relationships with our customers. Hart InterCivic’s unique and industry known culture of innovation, transparency, and customer-centric focus creates an environment where team members will continually grow and be challenged to develop their careers. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Senior Data Fellow, Voting Information Project— The Voting Information Project (VIP) coordinates with state election offices to publish nationally standardized information about where and how to vote—data that powers everything from Google’s polling place search, to our text and email reminders to TurboVote users. VIP’s dataset has served millions (and hundreds of millions) of voters since 2008. You will: Work with Democracy Works technical staff to write, run, and debug Python scripts to parse data; Assist with standardizing & sanitizing datasets; Perform quality assurance checks on the information to ensure accuracy and completeness of the data; Research and respond to user-reported errors; and Write and update technical documentation so that other members of the team can recreate processes. Application: For the complete listing and to apply, click here.
Voter Service Manager, Arapahoe County, Colorado— This position provides the opportunity for you to take your voting or government-related experience to a new level in an exciting year where we will administer a statewide primary election in June and the November Presidential General Election. Join our team of dedicated public servants in supporting voters across Arapahoe County while upholding public trust and integrity in our elections process. This position will assist with complex administrative and supervisory work in directing daily activities. The Voter Service Manager supports the Elections Deputy Director, Chief Deputy Director and the Clerk and Recorder with issues concerning all operations of Elections. Salary: $65,960 – $105,365. Application: For the complete job listing and to apply, click here.
Marketplace
electionline provides no guarantees as to the quality of the items being sold and the accuracy of the information provided about the sale items in the Marketplace. Ads are provided directly by sellers and are not verified by electionline. If you have an ad for Marketplace, please email it to: mmoretti@electionline.org