[EL] Line Standers --not just heroic but Hiatoric

[Mark Schmitt]

I voted early in DC, and the system you're suggesting is exactly how it
worked at the early voting site  -- no alphabetical lines, and everything
on a laptop, with electronic signature. I wonder why they didn't do the
same on election day?

One reason may be that the early-voting poll workers are more experienced,
and the larger number of election-day workers includes a lot of people who
can't necessarily handle the laptop. Or maybe they're phasing it in.

Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, The Roosevelt Institute <http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/>
202/246-2350
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
twitter: mschmitt9



On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Jack Santucci <jms346 at georgetown.edu> wrote:

> Here's an idea I've heard very little about (and plan to write more on
> later).
>
> I ran a precinct in DC. We had four check-in lines at which each clerk had
> a paper pollbook. Each pollbook contained one fourth of the precinct's
> voter registry. When a voter checks in, he or she signs the pollbook.
>
> Sometimes the line for one chunk of the alphabet is longer than the
> line(s) for (an)other chunk(s). This drove voters mad. I repeatedly had to
> fend off waiters' insistence on my restructuring the lines, breaking up the
> pollbooks into different segments of the alphabet, etc. Of course, all of
> that would have been ridiculous because (1) it would have risked confusing
> my swamped check-in clerks, (2) would have risked having unbound pages of
> pollbooks flying around the precinct, and (3) would have ignored the fact
> that, every time a voter walks into the precinct, there is an effectively
> equal probability that he or she will enter any of the four lines.
>
> This third point is most important. At 9 AM, people are irate about the
> length of the L-R line. An hour later, complaints focus on the A-D line. An
> hour later, it's the E-K line that's got everyone all angry.
>
> The obvious solution: replace paper pollbooks with laptops on an
> in-precinct intranet. Each laptop contains the entire precinct voter file.
> No more alphabet-break-specific lines. When a voter checks in and e-signs
> on one laptop, the fact that he or she has voted is updated on all of the
> laptops. Super efficient.
>
> I seriously wonder whether Ezra Klein (or many others with strong opinions
> on how to improve election administration) has ever actually administered
> an election.
>
> Jack Santucci
> Washington, DC
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Thomas J. Cares <Tom at tomcares.com> wrote:
>
>> I have doubts that any of the five ideas in the WaPo article Rick link<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/11/08/five-ways-to-cut-long-election-lines/>ed
>> to would *dramatically* improve wait times.
>>
>> I wonder if we could do something bigger, like just mail everyone a
>> vote-by-mail ballot, and have the federal government fully subsidize return
>> postage for all VBM ballots. Voters could discard the ballots and vote at
>> the polls as if they'd never received them, or mail them, or return them to
>> any polling place in their county.
>>
>> With this, I'd bet less (maybe a great deal less) than one-third of
>> ballots would actually be filled out at polling places, and that the
>> overwhelming majority would either mail their ballot or simply drop it off
>> at a polling place on election day (with the convenience of being able to
>> go to one near their job, or favorite grocery store, and not necessarily
>> the one in their home precinct - and not having to wait!).
>>
>> I suspect the argument against this would be the potential for fraud (I'm
>> not sure that's meritorious though; diligent implementation could probably
>> prevent fraud).
>>
>> There's a good argument for better early voting policies, but a
>> disadvantage to early voting is that something may happen in the last days
>> of the campaigns that could cause an (objective) voter to change their mind
>> on at least one thing on their ballot (I'm a permanent vote by mail voter,
>> but whenever I'm certain I'm going to be in LA County on election day, I
>> hold my ballot until the election to allow for that contingency). It would
>> certainly seem helpful if all voters had the automatic option to fill out
>> their ballot at home and quickly drop it off on election day.
>>
>>
>> Thomas Cares
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 8:01 AM, Roy Schotland <
>> schotlan at law.georgetown.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> We haven’t sung enough about the Line Standers, who stand among the
>>> all-time proof of how much people –as grass-roots as can be-- care about
>>> the Right to Vote.  ****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>> Roy A. Schotland****
>>>
>>> Professor Emeritus****
>>>
>>> Georgetown Law Center****
>>>
>>> ****
>>>
>>> ** **
>>>
>>>
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>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>>
>>
>>
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