Latest Research from the VTP

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

The 2008 election was different from the last two presidential elections in that there was a clear winner on Election Day and the winner was a Democrat, Barack Obama. Controversies over voting technology that raged in 2000 and 2004 were relatively dormant. Instead, the election controversies that did come up were mostly discussions of lines to vote.1 This lack of discussion does not mean that there were not important issues related to voting technology that took place in 2008, just that they were not things deemed important by the media.

At a conference on election reform held by the National Academies of Science in 2004, Indiana’s Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, referred to poll workers as “the street level lawyers” of elections. The reason for his statement was obvious: poll workers, in polling places, are the people who determine how well an election is run and have the power over its implementation (Alvarez and Hall 2006; Claassen, Magleby, Monson, and Patterson 2008; Hall, Monson, and Patterson, forthcoming).

Abstract

The problems faced by overseas civilians, military personnel, and their dependents—individuals covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA)—have existed since the nation’s founding. From the Civil War to today, there have been efforts to improve voting for military voters, often to little avail. Since the 1960s, there have also been efforts to address the voting needs of civilians living overseas and the dependents of military personnel to cast ballots.

In 1965, the United States Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act to end discrimination against black voters at the polls in Southern states and throughout the nation. The Act prohibited the use of “tests” and other devices used to prevent people from voting. At issue was not the content of tests themselves but the wide latitude available to those charged with registering and authenticating voters.