Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Husted v. A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the latest election law case to come before the Court. At issue in the case is whether Ohio’s voter list maintenance process complies with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). In that process, in place…
This morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on “Russian Interference in the 2016 Elections.” This comes in the context of recent revelations from former FBI Director James Comey, as well as multiple leaks and recent reports in The Intercept, Bloomberg, Politico, and McClatchy, alleging widespread hacking of election systems. Some of these reports have claimed, without much information…
As news continues to trickle out about efforts of other nations to interfere and tamper with American elections, the line between working in U.S. elections and working internationally is blurring, as cyber-security and other issues require us to consider threats that go beyond our borders. It is timely, then, that for the past two days,…
Yesterday, the Intercept reported on a leaked NSA document detailing Russian government efforts to hack election offices and voting technology. There are serious and disturbing claims in this report, most of which aren’t entirely new, but which add details to some concerns surround the 2016 election and deserve to be put into context. WHAT WE KNOW The…
We’ve now had a weekend to ruminate on The President’s signing of an executive order last week, establishing a “Commission on Election Integrity.” Even with the perspective of some time, the order and the way it was approached leads to far more questions than answers. Specifically, why is this commission being formed, who will participate on it,…
Six months after the election, there’s still discussion about the extent to which voter fraud exists and whether the White House will follow through with an investigation. In the meantime, election officials across the country have been quietly doing their jobs and are wrapping up investigations from the last election while preparing for the next….
Prior to the November general election, many wondered how negative feelings towards both presidential candidates would impact other races on the ballot, since voters in a presidential election often go to the polls to cast a ballot for president and then drop-off for other races. Drop-off measures the difference in turnout between the race at…
As we reported in September, Facebook outreach to its users contributed to a significant increase in online voter registration activity in the days preceding National Voter Registration Day on September 27. Online registration transactions – both new registrations and updates to existing registrations – appear to have increased more than seven times on average September 23rd…
UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL DATA AS OF SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 Today, September 27th, is National Voter Registration Day – a day when non-profits, campaigns, and government officials from across the political spectrum join together to encourage everyone to check and update their voter registration, and register to vote if they haven’t already. In just a few…
We once again find ourselves in the hyper-partisan season of a presidential election, where both sides make claims about the process for political advantage while election professionals find themselves caught in the middle, trying to do a difficult job under intense scrutiny. This year, however, is different from previous ones in one critical aspect– there…
