State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

Maryland

Vote Early, Vote Often: The Pros and Cons of Maryland’s Early Voting Law

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This week, Maryland began its first election with early voting.  The recently passed early voting laws in Maryland allow for voters to cast ballots in-person up to ten days prior to the election (not counting Sunday.)

The technical distinction between absentee voting and early voting is that with early voting you are not required to have an excuse for not voting on Election Day.  Also, early voting is typically performed using the same method as Election Day voting, rather than on an absentee-type paper ballot.

Early voting is an attempt to address significant problems facing elections today.  Allowing voters to cast their ballot early alleviates traffic and lines at the polls.  Also, allowing a greater time period to vote will almost certainly increase overall voter turnout simply because it may be more convenient. Texas has even allowed “curbside voting” during early voting, a process where, if you call in advance, you can get a poll worker to bring the ballot to your car as you arrive at the precinct (only for those who have difficulty walking or standing for extended periods, of course.)  I, for one, support the use of Applebee’s Carside To Go technology on Election Day. [Read more…] about Vote Early, Vote Often: The Pros and Cons of Maryland’s Early Voting Law

Weekly Wrap Up

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Every week, State of Elections brings you the latest news in state election law.

– Soon, even a candidate’s tweets will be governed by a legion of rules and regulations.  The Maryland Board of Elections is attempting to devise rules for the use of social media by candidates.

– The Tennessee Senate has passed a bill that would require potential voters to show proof of citizenship before registering.  The state Attorney General believes that the law could potentially violate the federal Motor Voter Act.

– Congressman Michael Capuano has written an editorial for the Boston Herald about Citizens United and the proposed Shareholder Protection Act.  For more about shareholder protection and Citizens United, see this post by William and Mary law professor William Van Alstyne.

– The recent British election and the swift transfer of power from Gordon Brown to David Cameron has some wondering how the U.S. could reduce the time between elections and inaugurations.  See this article from Slate for a proposal for how such a reduction could be accomplished without a constitutional amendment.

– Pedro A. Cortés, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth and the top election official in that state, has resigned. Cortés will be pursuing opportunities in the private sector, as vice president of a voting technology company.

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Weekly Wrap Up

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Every week, State of Elections brings you the latest news in state election law.

– Gerry Hebert, one of the panelists at our recent election law symposium, wrote this article about a recent legislative effort to undermine Fair Districts Florida.  Fair Districts Florida is an organization dedicated to fixing the redistricting process and the prevention of  gerrymandering.

– In Virginia, there is growing confusion about the restoration of felon voting rights.  Earlier this week, the governor’s office sent letters to 200 ex-felons, telling them that they would need to submit an essay as part of the application process for the restoration of their voting rights.  On the 14th, Governor McDonnell claimed that the letters had been sent in error, and that the essay requirement was simply a “draft policy proposal“.  Of course, this is only the third most controversial retraction the Governor has issued in the last month.

– A bill that would require voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot has received first round approval from the Missouri House. A previous photo ID law in Missouri was struck down by the Missouri Supreme Court for being a “heavy and substantial burden on Missourians’ free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

– In Cleveland, an elections board test of voting machines has produced alarming results.  About 10% of voting machines failed the test, and the state has less than a month.

– Maryland has become the first state to count prison inmates as residents of their home address, instead of counting them as residents of their prison location.  The U.S. Census considers inmates to be residents of their prison, a practice that has been criticized as distorting the population count and leading to unfairness during the redistricting process.

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Weekly Wrap Up

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Every week, State of Elections brings you the latest news in state election law.

– A number of states are passing new legislation in an attempt to curb the influence of special interests on judicial elections.

– Wisconsin state Representative Jeff Stone is pushing for voter ID legislation in that state.  The legislature had previously approved a bill that required photo ID at the polls, but the bill was vetoed by the Governor.

– The Maryland legislature is currently debating a bill that would allow 16 year olds to register to vote.

– In California, two candidates for state attorney general are preparing for a court battle over what titles they can attach to their names on the ballot.  Titles and nicknames seem to be a particularly contentious issue lately.  Check out this article from last week about Conrad “Colonel”  Reynolds and “Porky” Kimbrell, and their efforts to put their nicknames on the ballot.  Spoiler alert: Colonel = flagrant violation of election law, Porky = perfectly legal.

– Here’s an interesting post about the 2010 census and redistricting from the Balkinization blog.

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Weekly Wrap Up

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This weekly wrap up is a little late, since we posted a summary of our Symposium on Friday instead of our typical weekly wrap up.   To anyone who was waiting with bated breath for the latest news in state election law, I apologize.

Anyway, here’s a slightly belated summary of last week’s state election law news.

– According to a study by the Brennan Center, state judges are raising significantly more money for their campaigns than ever before.  In the last decade, candidates for state judgeships have raised more than 206 million dollars, which is more than double the 83 million raised by candidates in the 1990s.

– Lawmakers in Maryland and Washington D.C. are considering abandoning their traditional September primary dates, as the requirements of the newly passed “Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act” make it impossible to hold a primary so late in the year.

– There’s some controversy in New Mexico over whether Joe Campos, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, qualified to appear on the primary ballot.  Mr. Campos received 19.69% of delegate votes in that state’s pre-primary nominating convention.  Under New Mexico law, a candidate must receive 20% of the vote to appear on the ballot, and for the last week, the New Mexico Democratic Party has been debating whether to round up to 20% and allow Campos’s name on the primary ballot.  Luckily for Campos, the party eventually ruled that the law requires them to round up.  Interestingly, a Republican candidate who received 19.5% of delegate votes was kept off the primary ballot for failing to reach the 20% threshold.

-The Democratic Party is considering launching a 20 million dollar campaign to maintain  or take control of seventeen pivotal state legislatures, in anticipation of 2011 redistricting. The party that controls those state legislatures will have the power to redraw 198 congressional districts.

– The Election Assistance Commission now provides voter registration forms in five Asian languages,  Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

– Chris Biggs has been appointed the new Kansas Secretary of State. The previous Secretary of State, Ron Thornburg, resigned his position on February 15th, forcing Governor Mark Parkinson to appoint a successor to serve the remainder of the term.  Kansas elects its Secretary of State and some fear that being appointed interim Secretary will give Biggs an unfair advantage in the upcoming Secretary of State campaign.  Essentially, Biggs gets all the advantages of incumbency, without having to win an election in the first place.

– Check out our Citizens United and the States page, which tracks the impact of the Citizens United decision on the states.  The page  has reached 72 links and more are being added everyday.

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