Election Management

Shortly after the tumult of the evening of November 7 and the morning of November 8, 2000, the presidents of Caltech and MIT challenged us to solve the technological problems that had arisen in the election, especially with the punch-card voting systems that were widely disparaged after Florida’s presidential contest. Our initial research team spanned the continent and involved two campuses with different research and administrative cultures.

Election reform has become a major issue since the 2000 election, but little consideration has been given to the issues associated with managing them. In this article, we use principal agent theory to examine the problems associated with Election Day polling place voting. We note that Election Day voting manifests problems that agency theory shows are difficult to overcome, including adverse selection of and shirking by poll workers.

Studies of voter turnout across states find that those with more facilitative registration laws have higher turnout rates. Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated to raise voter participation rates by up to 10%. This article presents panel estimates of the effects of introducing registration that exploits changes in registration laws and turnout within states. New York and Ohio imposed registration requirements on all of their counties in 1965 and 1977, respectively.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has created a new dynamic for the oversight and implementation of federal elections, requiring states to assume greater control of election processes vis-a-vis their local governments than was previously the case in most states. We consider how HAVA has changed the relationship between states and localities, especially through the HAVA planning process. We examine two approaches that states have used in HAVA planning—a rational approach and a pluralistic approach—and how each can shape the power relationship between states and localities.

A number of electoral reforms have been enacted in the United States in the past three decades that are designed to increase turnout by easing restrictions on the casting of ballots. Both proponents and opponents of electoral reforms agree that these reforms should increase the demographic representativeness of the electorate by reducing the direct costs of voting, thereby increasing turnout among less-privileges groups who, presumably, are most sensitive to the costs of coming to the polls.

Electronic voting machines promise to make elections more accurate than ever before, but only if certain problems -- with the machines and the wider electoral process -- are rectified.

The October 7, 2003 California Recall Election strained California’s direct democracy. In recent California politics there has not been a statewide election conducted on such short notice; county election officials were informed on July 24 that the election would be held on October 7. Nor has California recently seen a ballot with so many candidates running for a single statewide office. With easy ballot access requirements, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley certified 135 candidates for the official ballot on August 13.