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The 5 Principles of Integrity in Elections

Paul DeGregorio

February 29, 2016

With Super Tuesday upon us, we’re reminded that the intensity of a presidential-election year brings increased scrutiny for the nation’s election administrators. Presidential primaries, state primaries and the general election in November will beget a sharp focus on those whose job it is to make our democracy work. Their efforts will be watched closely by political campaigns, advocates, voters, the media and even conspiracy theorists.

In most cases, election administrators work hard to be fair and transparent and to promote integrity. But a large percentage of election officials are elected to their offices on a partisan ticket or appointed on partisan basis. This can lead some to believe that these officials will favor one political party over another in their decisions.

Even the best-written laws, regulations, policies or standards will pale in comparison to the personal ethics of an election administrator and the cultures of the offices they run. It’s imperative that election administrators ask themselves if they and their offices can withstand enormous scrutiny. This mandates trustworthy personnel and clear ethics policies.

Overall, ethics in elections includes five elements: independence, transparency, integrity, competence and fairness…

This was originally published via Governing Magazine. To read the full piece, click here.

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Long Lines: How I learned to stop worrying and love queueing theory

Natalie Adona

January 7, 2016

After seeing reports of would-be voters waiting for hours in long lines to cast a ballot, in 2012 President Obama called for a new effort to improve the quality of voting in the United States. As we’ve identified in prior posts, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) helped renew the growing election science movement. Election science can be tremendously helpful to hard working local election officials, who must serve the needs of voters with limited resources. As it turns out, improper allocation of available resources negatively impacts the ability to keep long lines from forming. Local officials need the capacity to anticipate long lines before Election Day and, in turn, improve the voter experience.

Fortunately, the Voting Technology Project (VTP), a collaboration between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a Democracy Fund grantee), has built free, easy-to-use tools that can help election administrators run elections more smoothly, serve voters, and save time and money with little effort. Adam Ambrogi and Paul DeGregorio briefly mentioned these tools in a recent Democracy Fund blog post. Here, I’d like to take a more detailed look at the VTP election management tools and show how they’re helpful for election officials.

After extensive research and testing in the field during the 2014 election cycle, the VTP discovered (unsurprisingly) that long lines form when arrivals at the polling place outpace available resources—in other words, lots of voters coming in at once and not enough capacity to process them in a timely way. This is based on the concept of “queueing theory” or the study of how lines form. Featured in a recent report written by VTP co-director Charles Stewart, the tools developed by Mark Pelczarski, Stephen Graves, and Rong Yuan help optimize the use of resources at polling places and have the potential to significantly mitigate the impact of long lines on the voter experience.

Did I mention they’re free and easy-to-use?

The Graves and Yuan tool analyzes and makes recommendations on the data points that many election officials may already be collecting, including:

Arrival rates
Average time for check-in at registration table
Number of check-in stations
Maximum wait (the PCEA strongly recommended voters wait no longer than 30 minutes to vote)
Percentage of people who will be served within the maximum wait time (“Service level”)

Here’s how it works (follow along at home): Plug in your data using the “add precinct” icon at the top right of the screen. In the example provided here and mimicking the example provided in the VTP report, (fictitious) Precinct #0001 has 115 voters arriving per hour (calculated by assuming that a precinct will expect 1500 voters over a 13-hour period that the polls are open), there’s an average of 30 seconds to check-in, one check-in station, and 95 percent of people will wait a maximum of 30 minutes. Then, click “calculate.”

As you can see, the tool provides an analysis and a recommendation. Here, voters in Precinct #0001 will wait in line about 11 minutes on average and almost 8 percent will wait longer than 30 minutes. To meet the 95 percent service level, the tool recommends adding a check-in station.

Similarly, the Pelczarski tool analyzes “what if” scenarios, based in part on anticipated peak hours and other data points. In addition to the data identified earlier, you will also need to know:

Number of expected voters
Number of voting stations (aka, booths)
Average minutes to actually vote (for the average voter—not the ideal voter)

It’s also helpful to know the arrival pattern and other information, which you can see at the bottom of the screen. I created a comma separated values (.CSV) file using fictitious precinct and county data, uploaded it (at the top of the screen where it says “Load Precinct Data”), and toggled the arrival pattern to “Early morning peak” and got the following results:

As you can see, based on the data I provided in my .CSV file, the tool tracks average wait times throughout the day in this precinct in County #001. That precinct will experience wait times of over 30 minutes starting at about 9:30 am and will dwindle as the day progresses (at 3:30 pm, for example, the wait is only 6 minutes). I substantially reduced the wait time after I asked the tool to project how many folks might walk off—here, 28 people will potentially turn away from the polls at this precinct. Based on this data, I might have to consider adding another poll worker, e-poll book, or otherwise re-evaluate the average minutes spent at the check-in table.

The ability to potentially project the number of people who will leave the line is an incredibly important predictive tool.

Gathering all this data can be time-consuming, but this is an investment that will pay off in the short- and long-term. For some election officials, adding another poll worker to the check-in table or adding an e-poll book requires money that doesn’t exist. These tools have the potential to help officials make the case for increased funding by using hard data to justify budget increases.

Try them out! It’s free, so it can’t hurt. Can’t find that link? Click here.

To access the full report, written by Charles Stewart, click here; to see the executive summary, click here. (Democracy Fund is proud to support Dr. Stewart’s “Polling Place of the Future” project.)

For detailed training on how to use the VTP tools, consider contacting The Center for Technology and Civic Life.

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Working Group Offers Meaningful Ways to Make Military Voting Easier

Stacey Scholl

December 21, 2015

One of the many strengths of our military is that our service members come from all across the country, from rural counties to densely packed cities and everything in between. However, the geographic diversity of our military can also present unique challenges to service members’ ability to understand and quickly navigate voting rules.

Most people are unaware of the confusing system our service members and overseas voters face when trying to request and cast their absentee ballot. A patchwork of state rules means that there isn’t one standardized process for this group. Yet many of these voters compare voting information with one another, often close to election deadlines when they have very little room for error. Unfortunately, well-meaning fellow voters from different parts of the country might assume requirements are the same for all and pass along bad information.

In part, it is this challenge that moved the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) to partner with the Council of State Governments (CSG) to assemble election officials and experts to find useful and relevant recommendations to make voting easier, regardless of where a military or overseas voter casts their ballot. FVAP Director, Matt Boehmer, also credits the work of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), for creating energy and opportunity to address several longstanding issues. Thankfully, CSG has also been able to utilize former PCEA Commissioners throughout the partnership, including Ann McGeehan, former Texas Elections Director, and Tammy Patrick, former Federal Compliance Officer in the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona.

One of the partnership’s efforts, the CSG Overseas Voting Initiative Policy Working Group, released their key recommendations on December 17. While some of the recommendations are basic good government practices (e.g. use plain language and better utilize websites), certain recommendations, summarized below, deserve special attention:

States should treat the “Federal Post Card Application” (FPCA) as a permanent request for registration;
State online voter registration systems should allow military and overseas voters to designate as such when they register and apply for ballots; and
Local election officials should affirmatively notify when a military and overseas voter’s application is accepted.

The Federal Post Card Application as a request for permanent registration

The most consequential recommendation involves the FPCA. For those who are not familiar with this form, it is a federal form that can be used by qualifying voters to both register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot. The Democracy Fund has written about the importance of this form before. Although it’s a federal form, with likely Congressional expectations of some uniform treatment, due to the unique situation of military and overseas voters, some states have chosen to treat the FPCA differently.

For example, the state of Kansas only considers the FPCA to be a temporary application for an absentee ballot for one year. The form will not permanently register a voter in Kansas. Compare that with California, where submitting a FPCA will register someone to vote and place them on a life-time absentee list where the voter will continue to receive absentee ballots until they do not participate in four consecutive statewide general elections. They must merely maintain an up-to-date mailing address with their election official.

Imagine the confusion this creates in one Army unit, where soldiers from every corner of the country are trying to make sense of when they need to submit an FPCA or when they need to re-register. To try to simplify, FVAP recommends military and overseas voters submit the FPCA “every year and when they move.” However, as this working group suggests, states might want to do their part to reduce some of the confusion.

If jurisdictions were to consider the FPCA a full, permanent registration, that would prevent the the worst-case scenario of mistaken belief on the part of the potential voter. As it stands, voters can unknowingly find themselves lost in the shuffle of state particularities. If a soldier stationed overseas applies to vote and receive an absentee ballot in 2016 with the FPCA, but returns home to Topeka, Kansas in 2017 with the potential mistaken belief that she is registered to vote, and goes to vote in a local city council election, she is not going to find her name on the registration roll—that’s a problem.

Online voter registration systems must be functional for military and overseas voters

Another major recommendation merely requires vigilance on the part of state and local election officials when they develop new online systems, like online voter registration (OVR). In the course of their business, election officials consider and balance the needs of many voters in their jurisdiction. The needs of the military and overseas voters are not always front and center; and the development of new OVR systems is one example of such a lapse.

Many jurisdictions may not contemplate functionality like military status, overseas status, or FPCA requirements such as where or how a voter would like to receive their blank absentee ballot. Instead, the working group has said that states should ensure their systems allow “voters to submit the request from any location worldwide and would place the voter in the appropriate status in the relevant voter registration database.” Meaning that they will need to be able to designate themselves as military and overseas voters via an online system.

One practical exercise for state and local offices: when developing any new system or process, is to have a standard worksheet of analysis on how particular communities of voters will be affected—especially military and overseas voters, given that they may be more out of sight than others.

Communicate when an application is accepted

Information is empowering. If local election offices notify military and overseas voters when their application for an absentee ballot has been accepted, those voters can trust the absentee system that much more. As the working group explains, officials can communicate volumes more than just acceptance and rejection of an application—why not use email addresses now provided on the FPCA to alert these voters of special elections, changes in ballot return methods, and where their absentee ballot is in the process? As technology has improved, this is now easy and possible.

The Democracy Fund is a big supporter of Democracy Works, a group of election information and technology champs, who stand ready and able to help jurisdictions think through ballot-tracking with their Ballot Scout tool.

These are just a few key highlights from the CSG Overseas Voting Initiative Policy Working Group.The effort required plenty of compromise and thoughtfulness on the part of the bipartisan group assembled. A second group on technology will also release additional recommendations around December 2016. Hopes are high that those will also provide a few meaningful steps to making voting easier for this unique group of voters. But for now, states and local governments should strongly consider adopting practices supported by the working group’s initial findings.

Prior to joining the Democracy Fund, Stacey Scholl worked for the Federal Voting Assistance Program as a program analyst and also has experience working in two state election offices—Colorado and Iowa.

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States Are Falling Short In Providing Voter Access

Adam Ambrogi and Brenda Wright

November 30, 2015

This op-ed is co-authored by Brenda Wright, Vice President of Policy and Legal Strategies at Demos, and Adam Ambrogi, Program Director for Responsive Politics at the Democracy Fund. It first appeared in the Nov. 30 issue of The National Law Journal.

Shelley Zelda Small is a 62-year-old Los Angeles resident who believes in voting as a civic duty and has voted in every election since she was 19 years old. So when she moved from Encino, California, to West Hollywood in August 2014, and reported her address change to the Department of Motor Vehicles, she made sure to ask the DMV to update her voter registration as well. But when she arrived at her local polling place last November, she was told she was not on the registration rolls and was turned away – for the first time in her life, Small lost her opportunity to vote.

The good news is that, due to a new law approved this last month in California and advocacy by national and California-based voting rights groups, the DMV will be adopting an automated voter registration process that will, in most cases, seamlessly update voter registrations when voters report a move — solving the problem for Small and millions more like her.

In mid-November, another state took a major step in the right direction. Alabama, conceding that it had never truly complied with a registration law, settled a case with the U.S. Department of Justice. The agreement made important changes to how the state motor-vehicle agencies support voter registration for eligible Alabama residents. The case is notable because the DOJ has not brought an action against a state under the “motor voter” provision of the National Voter Registration Act since at least 2002. California and Alabama were not alone in needing to improve its registration process. It appears that many states are falling short on their obligations to make voter registration widely accessible at DMVs and other agencies serving the public, according to an extensive investigation by Demos, a public policy group. Potentially tens of millions of eligible voters are being left off the voter rolls as a result.

Reforming the voter registration process through state agencies such as DMVs is a policy reform that more states should consider. Moreover, states have strong incentive to do so because of the increasing scrutiny they are receiving on their handling of voter registration through their DMVs. Providing voter registration services at DMVs is already a requirement of a 20-year-old federal law, the National Voter Registration Act.

Passed with strong bipartisan support in Congress, the registration act simplified the process of voter registration in many ways — including the convenience of mail-in registration as well as ensuring the opportunity to register at government agencies such as DMVs, public assistance offices, military recruitment offices and other agencies serving the public on a regular basis.

The law was intended to ensure that eligible individuals have the chance to register to vote. The law promotes integrity at the same time, including “portability” of registration when voters make local moves and notify their DMVs.

However, there is a serious problem with the implementation of this law. There are estimates that the vast majority of Americans interact with the motor vehicle offices, with anywhere from 87 to 90 percent of eligible voters holding a driver’s license that must be renewed periodically and kept up-to-date with address or name changes. Agency registration provides the opportunity to register the vast majority of the eligible population to vote in an easy and secure way.

Neglected Responsibilities

But in recent years, too many states have neglected their obligations. In the recent study conducted by Demos, only eight states earned a designation of “high-performing” on their voter registration obligations at DMVs. Numerous states are falling short. In fact, if all the lower-performing states could perform at the current 75 percent level on Motor-Voter registrations, an additional 18 million eligible persons could register to vote in a two-year period. This is the least we can expect from government agencies charged with facilitating voter registration. Recently, voter advocates have begun the process of holding DMVs accountable. State officials in California were put on notice last summer that they were likely violating federal law by failing to ensure eligible persons can register successfully at state DMV offices, and hopefully will be moving to the head of the class with enactment of its new automated system. North Carolina also has been put on notice, and many other states need to examine their practices and work to improve their systems as well.

Compliance isn’t challenging and it doesn’t have to be costly. States like Michigan and Delaware have been performing incredibly well with one out of every two DMV transactions resulting in a new or updated registration. Compare that to California, where about one out of every 100 transactions resulting in a registration. Any argument that these improvements to the system hurts DMVs or increases wait times also doesn’t pass muster. Automating the system in Delaware reduced overall average wait times by 67%, leading to increased efficiency and (likely) happier DMV customers.

There are too many Shelley Smalls across the country who are being deprived of the most precious right in a democracy, the right to vote. While we are glad California figured out a way to address this problem in their state, many other states need to step up to the plate. Once they do, millions more eligible persons will have their voices heard in our democracy. We should demand no less.

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Rock the Vote Today…and Everyday

Adam Ambrogi

November 5, 2015

In the penultimate scene of the movie O Brother Where Art Thou, the fictional musical hit group of the 1930s—the Soggy Bottom Boys—are unmasked at dance hall as a bunch of escaped prison convicts. Attempts to cart them away are foiled when the raucous crowd, loving the musical session, rises up and pressures the Governor to pardon the Boys so they can keep on playing their hits.

Thus is the power of celebrity and culture, where sports stars, actors, and musicians are essential to changing opinions or promoting some desired behavior (good or bad). Is it possible to use our love of culture and icons to get more people, especially younger Americans, to engage in the democratic process?

Enter Rock The Vote, which emerged out of a battle over censorship in music in the early 1990s and refocused to create awareness, attention, and excitement about voting. This year they celebrated their 25th Anniversary by sticking to their roots. At an event in DC’s famous music venue Black Cat, Rock the Vote President Ashley Spillane hosted some of the original key players in the history of the organization: 2 Live Crew and Run DMC. The evening was not only a throwback to the 1990s, but if you’ve ever heard their music, certainly a celebration of anti-censorship activity.

Motivating young voters to be aware, informed, and engaged is no easy feat. There are policies we should promote to encourage fairness, transparency, and ease in the voting process, but policies alone don’t generate interest. CIRCLE, a Democracy Fund grantee and research organization examining young voter participation, indicated that the 2014 Election youth turnout—19.9% of 18-29 year olds—was the lowest registration and turnout rate ever recorded. Education about why government (and therefore voting) is relevant to their lives is essential. Also essential is a national conversation about why voting is important and, dare I write, cool.

Rock the Vote is the best known national organization combining culture and civics to inspire folks to vote—and is one of the best chances to engage people where they’re at. For example Kendall Jenner’s video of her registering to vote using RTV online tools was shared with her vast social network, which today sits at about 37 million Instagram and 12.6 million Twitter followers. Most candidates and issue organizations can only hope to have that kind of megaphone.

On Election Day 2015, NASDAQ invited Rock the Vote to open the tech markets in honor of their 25th annviersary. Betsy Wright Hawkings from the Democracy Fund was there in Times Square to help celebrate with our partners in this work. We will continue to look for all levers to excite new voting communities; we are thrilled to support Rock the Vote in this politically exciting year to come.

Photo Credit: @NASDAQ

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Preparing Today to Meet and Manage the Challenges of Elections in 2016

Paul DeGregorio

October 14, 2015

This post is authored by Paul DeGregorio and Adam Ambrogi.

It’s 2015, months away from the first presidential primary and more than a year away from the presidential election. Election officials often hear, “Must be easy right now between elections, with nothing to do.” Guess again. This “off year” of 2015 will instead be a busy time for the more than 8,000 election officials across the US. Experience shows election officials that the more they prepare, the fewer problems they will encounter in the presidential election year. What happens when there’s failure to adequately prepare? Imagine the chaotic scene in Hartford, Connecticut, where hundreds of voters were turned away because election officials didn’t have registration rolls at polling places in time. Planning ahead to plan and reduce the likelihood of these preventable mistakes must happen now.

A presidential election with no incumbent may increase participation in the 2016 primaries, especially when there are a record number of active candidates. It was the 2012 presidential election that exposed some of the continuing problems in our election processes. The bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), which heard significant testimony from across the country in 2013, issued excellent recommendations for improving election administration by borrowing from nationwide best practices. If you’re an election official we recommend that you read, reference and use www.supportthevoter.gov, the website where the PCEA report and other corresponding information is available.

The important questions are: Will election administrators take heed in preparation for 2016? Will they be prepared? Will they take advantage of all the resources available to them to prevent problems?

In recent years, many states have instituted new laws and changes, as recommended by the PCEA. New innovations like online voter registration, electronic pollbooks and improved processes to serve military and overseas voters, voters who require language assistance and voters with disabilities, should work to enhance the voting experience. Beyond big reforms, we have assembled a handful of practical tips to help election officials better prepare, so that the voter’s Election Day experience is seamless.

We’ll start with five basics: details matter, anticipate the unanticipated, use data, learn from others, and the medium is the message.

Details Matter. When details are overlooked it is often not without consequences. It takes careful effort to ensure that a voter’s registration is processed correctly or that the software installed in ballot tabulation equipment is the right version. In elections, it is actually very difficult to get it exactly right all the time. There are too many human and technical missteps that can produce flaws in the system. So, election officials should have written processes allowing staff members to see quality control steps. Never take for granted that staff will do a task without specific instruction. In fact, you should review your training procedures, cross-train, and incorporate lessons from the most common mistakes from past elections.

Details also matter to your stakeholders. Ensure the political parties, candidates and the media understand the plan for Election Day and early voting. If you’re implementing new laws, get legal clarification on all changes since the last election. The heat of an election is not the time to interpret statutes.

Anticipate the Unanticipated. It may be that you haven’t experienced it before—but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. One way to expect the unexpected is to keep tabs on your peer jurisdictions. Electionline.org (a Democracy Fund grantee), is a website filled with daily news stories—particularly the day after elections—on things that go wrong on election day. “How could that have happened?” is a frequent reaction by readers. Check it daily (and sign up for email dispatches) to see how one little mistake can lead to one big headline—and headache. Unfortunately, election officials are seeing more problems with aging voting equipment, particularly technology and devices that are over ten years old. We urge you to ask and address these questions:

Have you tested new computers or websites under the right conditions? What about older equipment?
Does your service supplier have a backup plan with extra hardware and technicians available to address breakdowns?
What happens if your website or system is hacked days before the election?
What if your electronic pollbooks fail on Election Day?

Start answering these questions now and you’ll be glad you took the time to scenario plan.

Use Data. So many election officials are collecting data every election cycle, but aren’t sure how to use it. The Voting Technology Project’s tools are part of an Election Management Tool Kit, a joint program of Caltech/MIT. The Tool Kit was put together with the practical help of election administrators, business managers and other management experts.

Don’t have good data? You can plan ahead now to capture information you’d like to have:

Plan to have volunteers chart and document line-wait times at both your early voting sites and your polling places.
Use mock elections with sample ballots to determine how long it will take to serve voters. Then scenario plan for large turnout to make sure you have the right layout, number of poll workers and voting equipment to keep wait times under 30 minutes. Don’t forget to check your ballot processing and counting times.

Learn from Others. This is the quintessential “best practice.” Check out the websites of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the Election Center, the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers, and your state election office. You should also call or email a fellow election official in another county or state when embarking on something new (like writing a Request for Proposals to buy new technology). In fact, the EAC provides resources on how other states are procuring voting technology. There are plenty of other examples of important information sharing:

Chronic poll worker shortage for presidential elections? Find out why some election officials have more than enough and leverage the same opportunities they do.
Worried about funding? Ask around your local associations to find those who get what they ask for when submitting their election budget.

The Medium is the Message. Social media can be your friend —and also your worst nightmare. Social media is a great way to inform your voters, especially to those casual voters who only cast a ballot in presidential elections. Explore modern methods to get into their world to get them the information they need. They might read or see a text or SMS communications, a Tweet, Facebook post, or Instagram or some other medium they use every day. And don’t shy away from appropriately correcting wrong or misleading information when it makes its way into social media, tagging local press in the social media communication. But there are important things to consider whenever you communicate with the public:

What about language barriers? Have you had an influx of new voters with English language challenges who may need changes to your website, materials and poll workers to help them navigate the voting process in their native language? Many community groups can work to aid or vet translated elections materials, to ensure the meaning is conveyed loud and clear. The Department of Justice has some basic guidelines on how to support language translation and outreach for elections.
Also pay attention to plain language. Voters will respond better to simple instructions that avoid administrative jargon. Usability of election or ballot language is important for a population as broad and diverse as ours. Check out the Center for Civic Design for ideas on how to make election materials easy for voters to understand.

In short: Now is the time and may be the only time that you have to plan and innovate on your efforts to run elections in advance of the 2016 rush. Much has changed over the last few cycles, and it is more important than ever to be thinking critically about how you can put yourself in the best position to serve your voters for the 2016 elections. We wish election officials nothing but success in their efforts to serve voters professionally in 2016—and beyond.

Paul DeGregorio serves as a Senior Fellow for the Democracy Fund. He currently serves as Senior Advisor to the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB).

Adam Ambrogi serves as the Program Director for the Responsive Politics program at the Democracy Fund. Prior to joining the Democracy Fund he served as Chief Counsel for the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

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Live from Austin: The 2015 Knight News Challenge Winners

Paul Waters

July 22, 2015

The Democracy Fund congratulates the Knight News Challenge winners announced yesterday at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin.

The wide range of solutions the winners will deploy seek to inform voters about the candidates and issues at both the local and national levels, as well as to help reduce barriers to getting people to the polls. Their projects cover efforts ranging from increasing transparency in campaign financing to increasing voter participation by providing informational tools on election processes, candidates, and issues. The Democracy Fund was especially excited about the number of the applicants and winners from the state and local election official communities. From the Rhode Island Secretary of State Natalie Gorbea to Cook County Clerk David Orr, this pool of winners really highlights the ability of elections offices to embrace innovation.

When the Democracy Fund joined in launching this challenge on better informing voters and increasing civic participation with the Knight Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Rita Allen Foundation, we had great hopes for the creativity it might reveal and are looking forward to seeing the work of the winning projects:

2016 Political Ad Tracker by Internet Archive
California Civic Data Coalition by California Civic Data Coalition, a partnership between The Los Angeles Times, The Center for Investigative Reporting and Stanford University
Campaign Hound by Reese News Lab, University of North Carolina
Inside the 990 Treasure Trove by The Center for Responsive Politics in partnership with GuideStar
Civic Engagement Toolkit for Local Election Officials by Center for Technology and Civic Life
Informed Voting From Start to Finish by E.thePeople
Revive My Vote by Marshall-Wythe Law Foundation
Sharp Insight by Youth Outreach Adolescent Community Awareness Program
The Next Generation Beyond Exit Polls by the Associated Press
Vote-by-Smartphone by Long Distance Voter
Judge Your Judges by WNYC
Lenses by NYC Media Lab
OpenJudiciary.org by Free Law Project
Prompt Data Query by Center for Responsive Politics
Silent Targeting, Loud Democracy by University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.)
Tabs on Tallahassee by the Orlando Sentinel
Up for Debate Ohio! by the Jefferson Center
Voter’s Edge by MapLight
Accessible Voting for Everyone by University of Florida
Erase the Line by D.C. Board of Elections
Rhode Island Civic Fellowship by Rhode Island Secretary of State
The Iowa Electorate by The Des Moines Register

The Democracy Fund contributed $250,000 to the total $3.2 million awarded yesterday, and we believe it is money well-invested. Ten of the winners will receive investments of $200,000 to $525,000 each, while 12 early-stage ideas will receive $35,000 each through the Knight Prototype Fund, which helps people explore early-stage media and information ideas.

The Democracy Fund is encouraged and hopeful as we prepare for the next chapter of the News Challenge: the launch of these creative ideas. To those who didn’t win, we want to recognize the courage it takes to put an idea on public display, and we encourage those who were not selected to keep pursuing feedback and partnerships in your efforts.

Good luck to all!

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Combining Media, Tech, and Election Ideas to Increase Civic Participation

Jessica Mahone

March 17, 2015

Political participation in the U.S. is often reduced to Americans’ engagement in federal elections. During campaigns, political observers combine available data and anecdotes to speculate on whether a candidate has the ground, financial, and likely-voter support to win the White House or a given congressional seat. After Election Day, many of the same pundits lament low voter participation rates, as in the 2014 midterms when turnout was at its lowest since WWII.

Rarely do these conversations meaningfully consider what voters’ participation in campaigns and at the ballot box says about broader civic engagement — particularly when it comes to the down-ticket elections and ballot issues that aren’t top of mind or at the top of news cycles but actually make up the majority of questions on most ballots.

This, in part, is why the Democracy Fund recently joined with the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation on a $3 million challenge to identify how we can better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during, and after elections. (Apply by 5 pm eastern on March 19th.)

The voter participation lag for state and local elections, particularly in off-cycle and midterm years, is typically well behind federal elections. In recent years, local turnout has been falling even further behind, plummeting to a low of approximately 18 percent in 2009 with an average turnout rate near 26 percent between 1996-2011. This is far below the already low 35.9 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots for federal candidates in November.

At the same time that we have seen declines in voting in local races, state and local journalism has also suffered. Local newspapers have shut down and the number of reporters devoted to state reporting has declined by 35 percent since 2003. The result is a local news environment trying to do more with less and in need of new tools to inform and engage voters at the local level. In this situation, citizens lack the information they need to make critical decisions about local and state issues.

While many factors may account for any voter’s decision to participate in a particular election, confidence in one’s knowledge and ability to influence our governing institutions and public squares are important factors. Fundamental to this knowledge is the need for innovative tools that make it easier for the public to access and use a huge range of information, from voter registration deadlines to in-depth reporting on urgent issues. The types of information that voters would find useful are myriad, and so are the platforms and projects that reporters, election officials, and academics, among others, could use to creatively deliver that information in ways that energize ongoing participation.

As the News Challenge brief states: “This contest is open to anyone, from journalists, students, civic technologists, and academics, to news organizations, businesses, nonprofits, governments and individuals. In addition to the projects that better inform voters and streamline the voting process, we hope to find some ideas that will increase civic participation beyond Election Day. We see democratic engagement as more than just the act of voting. It should be embedded in every part of civic life, extending before and after an election.”

The Democracy Fund seeks out organizations and partners that are working to ensure our political systems are responsive to the needs of the American public. It’s a complicated and long-term challenge that requires collaborations like this one, through which we hope to see innovative ideas that cross the media, technology and election administration fields in ways that could give voters the tools and information they need to engage on Election Day and beyond.

The Democracy Fund is partnering with the Knight Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation on Knight News Challenge: Elections, which asks the question, How might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections? The best nonpartisan ideas will share in more than $3 million. Apply at newschallenge.org by 5 p.m. ET March 19. Winners will be announced in June.

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Improving Forms for Military and Overseas Voters

Stacey Scholl

March 11, 2015

This post is co-authored by Stacey Van Zuiden and Adam Ambrogi.

For the thousands of American voters who live abroad or who are in the military stationed away from their homes, the process of casting a ballot can be full of challenges. For those without regular Internet or in a region without routine postal service, where do you tell your U.S.-based Election Official to send the ballot? And can you receive it in time to vote? Do you need a witness to sign your form? Or will your signature be enough?

These challenges, plus many more, contributed to approximately 21,000 rejected absentee ballot requests made using the standard federal form in 2012, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), which is the Department of Defense program charged with assisting military and overseas voters. It is unclear exactly why these rejections happen, and FVAP is doing additional research, but if the design of the federal form is a factor, there’s something we can do.

With the goal of helping to alleviate confusion or problems for voters, the Democracy Fund recently submitted comments in response to FVAP’s open comment period on the two federal forms used by this community, the FPCA and FWAB.

The Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is used to both register to vote and request an absentee ballot, and the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) is essentially a back-up ballot most often used when a voter did not receive an official ballot in time to return it. The variance in election rules across 55 states and territories means that FVAP has the ongoing challenge of making the forms straight-forward and user-friendly, but specific enough to accommodate state law. FVAP has made major advancements to help voters use the forms by creating highly successful online tools, but the fact remains that not all voters will have access to the Internet, so the paper forms should be as useful as possible.

We believe that our recommendations could have lasting and long-term benefits for all overseas voters. The following are some of the areas of high priority. (Read our full comments here and here.)

First, clarify that military and overseas voters who request a ballot by email or fax must still provide a current absentee address.

In 2009, Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act) requiring these voters have the option to receive their blank ballots electronically, potentially cutting ballot transit time in half. On both FVAP forms there are fields labeled: “Where to send my ballot”/“Where to send my election materials.” Voters could easily assume that an email address or fax number is sufficient for this box. However, most election officials require a foreign or absentee address so they can confirm a voter is away from their home jurisdiction, even if the voter is requesting to receive their ballot electronically. Instead, we recommend this box be labeled: “Absentee address/ Where you reside now.”

Second, keep the affirmation tailored to the voter and don’t make voters “swear” to more than they have to.

Each form also has an affirmation section where the voter must attest to meeting certain eligibility requirements. The affirmations are written broadly to cover variations in election laws across the states. However, as the terms try to cast a broad net, the affirmation length grows and may require a voter to swear to a requirement not applicable in their state on penalty of perjury. And the longer the affirmation paragraph becomes, the less likely voters are to read it. We believe there are three key things a voter should need to affirm: 1) the information is true and accurate to the applicant’s knowledge, 2) they are a U.S. citizen and they meet other state eligibility requirements, and 3) they are not registering to vote or voting in any other U.S. jurisdiction. We can solve the qualifications question by “incorporating by reference” the state-specific requirements.

Third, FVAP and states should do more to reduce unnecessary hurdles for these voters by eliminating witness requirements.

There is an area on the forms for a witness to sign underneath the voter’s signature, but there are only a handful of states that require witness signatures. Unbelievably, in Alabama, absentee voters are required to have two witnesses sign the form. In 2012, less than half of the military and overseas ballots submitted by voters from Alabama were counted in the November General Election.

The MOVE Act banned notary requirements, but witness requirements are an archaic holdover from a time when there were less sophisticated ways to validate a voter’s signature. Today, election officials can more easily compare signatures from DMV files. The Democracy Fund recognizes that the witness lines must stay for now because of these remaining state-based requirements, and we challenge FVAP to talk to these states and the public about the burden this places on voters who are often working with early deadlines to send their forms home.

Fourth, simplify the ballot portion of the FWAB. Voting shouldn’t be overly complicated—the cleaner the design, the better the experience.

We believe there are significant design flaws with the ballot portion of the FWAB. The area where a voter writes the office or issue on which they are voting does not clearly correspond to where the voter writes the name of their preferred candidate or ballot choice. While not quite as bad as Florida’s famous “butterfly ballot,” this format has the potential to produce confusion.

It is worth noting that FWABs are more likely to be rejected than regular state absentee ballots, making up 33.1% of rejected military and overseas ballots even though they are only 7.4% of the total ballots submitted. And while there could be a number of reasons for this, such as whether a voter’s state ballot is returned in time, we believe the design of the FWAB could be adding to the total number of rejections. Because this is a basic usability issue, we recommend FVAP consider incorporating arrows or another design element that makes the form clearer. There are ballot design resources available with guidance on how to make election forms much easier to use.

These are four primary recommendations DF made to FVAP as part of the official comment process. We commend FVAP for both running a meaningful open comment period — where actual engagement was requested. They are required to update the form from time to time — we believe they have a real opportunity here to take several clear steps forward. For some, these changes may seem small, and perhaps inconsequential, but if one imagines the improvement overall for tens of thousands of individuals using these materials to register and request an absentee ballot—every way the forms are improved increases the likelihood that they will have their vote count.

When considering the testimony for the MOVE Act, the Senate heard from Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph DeCaro (in his own capacity). He reflected that service members wanted to vote. The challenge, he indicated, was navigating the complexities of the rules and requirements to receive a ballot. It is with that spirit that we continue to support FVAP’s effort to make voting a little bit easier for Mr. DeCaro and others like him.

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Restaffed EAC Advances Voting Systems in First Meeting

Adam Ambrogi

February 25, 2015

At its first meeting on Tuesday, the new quorum of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) took an important, much-awaited step toward making the work of election officials easier and improving the voter experience around the country. For four years, the lack of a quorum of Commissioners blocked the accreditation of new voting system test laboratories, which meant only two facilities in the country were able to review the quality and accessibility of voting systems. Yesterday’s accreditation of a third test laboratory promises to help alleviate the looming risk of major voting machine problems that have worried many smart observers.

Federally accredited labs commonly test products we use everyday, from toasters to children’s toys, to ensure they are safe. Similarly, to protect the legitimacy of our elections, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires the EAC to put voting machines through rigorous testing and certification. The law puts the EAC in charge of creating voting systems standards and overseeing the certification process to ensure machines (and any upgrades or patches) are reliable, accessible, and secure. As the EAC relies on neutral test facilities to review the systems, how the Commission accredits test labs is very important. For example, labs must be entirely independent from the vendors developing the machines so that there is no gamesmanship or undue influence on the rating of a particular system.

One result of the lack of a quorum of EAC commissioners had been that no new labs have been accredited. Until yesterday, only SLI Global Solutions and NTS Huntsville were certified by the EAC. No matter how many machines and modifications were waiting in line to be tested, only those two labs could test the systems. The resulting waiting periods have created a few significant problems.First, the wait time discourages vendors from introducing new and innovative voting machines to market, and second, states that can only purchase only federally-certified systems may be forced into buying out-of-date systems or into continuing to use old-generation existing machines that received certification a while ago.

More than three years ago, EAC staff invited Pro V & V, a team of specialized voting technology experts. to apply to become a federal test lab — and there Pro V & V figuratively sat, waiting. The head of Pro V & V, Jack Cobb of Huntsville Alabama, drew attention to his company’s predicament, indicating he had potential employees he wanted to hire and that his company could provide extra capacity to put machines through testing. He repeatedly asked the Senate to move on appointing EAC Commissioners, but it wasn’t until last December when the Senate acted that Mr. Cobb could see the end to the long wait in sight.

Shortly after the Senate’s confirmation of the three new Commissioners, the EAC held their first meeting in February 2015 and unanimously voted to accredit Pro V & V as a test lab. This means that more voting machines – some important existing modifications and next generation innovations – can now be tested, reducing the amount of time vendors and election officials wait in line for voting machine certification. While there are other problems with the testing and certification, this is a decisive first step, demonstrating that the EAC wants to move quickly to support election officials, vendors, and voters. After a long break in this type of EAC activity, their swiftness should be applauded.