[EL] VA Ballot and absentee ballots

[Paul Gronke]

Rob we are singing the same tune here.  Are you catching up on Glee over the holidays as well?

MOVE is designed for overseas ballots and I don't think the same rationale applies to domestic absentee ballots. When I am speaking to election officials, I usually make a comment like "It doesn't take the same time to send a ballot halfway across the globe that it does to send it across a county." But if you compare the mailing deadlines in 2008 and 2010, you can clearly see the impact of MOVE.  (I'm assembling these as we write for the 2012 primaries which is why I've been noticing these stories.)

It would be nice to know the actual cost savings to sending the ballots in one mailing 45 days out versus two mailings, one 45 days out, and one 15-20 days out.  I've been told it saves money but no one has given me a hard figure.

---
Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
			               Fax: 734-661-0801

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland OR 97202

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net

On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:57 PM, Rob Richie wrote:

> The MOVE act is obviously well-intentioned, but forcing early ballot access decisions is one of those unintended consequences that should be examined. I'm also not thrilled with forcing states to change the date of their traditional post-Labor Day primaries to earlier in the summer. And one of our findings from examining turnout in all federal runoffs from 1994 to 2010 was that extending the time between runoffs, as many states have done because of the MOVE Act, seems to have a negative impact on turnout of in-person voters in the runoff. See:
> http://www.fairvote.org/federal-primary-runoff-elections-and-voter-turnout-declines-1994-201
> 
> Relating to Paul's point about overseas voters in these contests getting ballots that will have candidates who will have dropped out by the time of their primary, one suggestion we've been making is to make use of the ranked ballot in the same way that states like Arkansas, Louisiana and South Carolina have done to help overseas voters cast an effective vote in runoff elections. They send out a ranked choice ballot with their regular ballot, and then open that ranked choice ballot in the event of runoffs and count it for whichever candidate in the runoff is ranked higher -- see information at www.includeeveryvoter.org. In these presidential races, any candidate officially suspending their campaign could be treated like an eliminated candidate, and that overseas voter's ballot could count for the next choice ranked on the ballot.
> 
> Rob
> 
> On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Paul Gronke <paul.gronke at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because of the MOVE Act, domestic (and overseas) absentee ballots have already been mailed out and were probably printed a few weeks ago.
> 
> As I've pointed out in the past, and you can read in a recent article in ELJ (http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/elj.2010.0088, content ungated), if any candidates withdraw prior to election day, it can really make things complicated since voters will be voting on different sets of candidates.
> 
> This might impact Perry and Gingrich.
> 
> ---
> Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
>                                       Fax: 734-661-0801
> 
> Professor, Reed College
> Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
> Portland OR 97202
> 
> EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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