[EL] Question for the list about tabulation of early in-person votes (From David Lublin)

Wed Aug 19 11:10:34 PDT 2020

From: David Lublin <dlublin at american.edu<mailto:dlublin at american.edu>>
Date: August 19, 2020 at 11:24:22 AM EDT
To: Pamela S Karlan <pkarlan at stanford.edu<mailto:pkarlan at stanford.edu>>
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: Re:  [EL] Question for the list about tabulation of early in-person votes
hi Pam,

Great question.

In Maryland during the all-mail primary, they did not attribute back to the precinct. The ballots didn't have codes on them that made that easy. Local county boards can still do if they want to but I don't think they will due to the large amount of work involved. We were promised info by "ballot style" (i.e. for each place with a unique ballot) but these are relatively few in Maryland and the State Board of Elections (SBOE) quickly backed off this promise.

The state has been in a ferment over whether to mail out ballots to everyone v. mailing out absentee applications to everyone. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) insisted on the latter (and he got to decide) but Democrats vehemently want the former. Originally, the gov wanted all polling places to open too but has now bowed to the reality that there are not enough people to staff them and allowed the SBOE to combine them into many fewer. We are having many more drop off boxes. My county of 1 million will now have something like 40 instead of 2 or 3.

For the general, I was told that the ballots will have precinct codes but the proof is in the pudding.

Normally, Maryland has had far more early voting than absentee voting, and this shift to widespread absentee/mail voting has not been easy or gone great. Some of our primary ballots got sent to South Carolina. Those of us who applied for absentee ballots before the all-mail primary did not get them for some reason initially (e.g. my husband got his non-applied for ballot much earlier than I did). In general, they arrived later than they should've and some areas of the state were especially delayed.

For the general, the applications that are supposed to go to all voters still have not arrived. The SBOE has very belatedly worked to make the intimidating online application easier. In general, my impression is that they have been loath to move nimbly in response to challenges. This is not partisan so much as the very long-term control of the State Administrator of the BOE who our previous Democratic Senate President has made extremely difficult to remove under the "Linda Lamone for Life" law.

A couple of other things to mention. While all of this could impact how many people vote, the number of outcomes likely to be changed is very, very small. All of our federal contests (presidential electors, eight Members of Congress, no senator) are no brainers. There are no state elections and only a limited number of local elections (where the Democrats will likely win all in Baltimore City and the Republicans all in Cecil County). The most exciting contests are a few esoteric county-level judicial races where a few challengers to the incumbent judges got through the primaries (normally won by the incumbents easily who are appointed by the gov but from a few vetted nominees, so the judiciary isn't seen as partisan as in Wisconsin).

Finally, we don't have signature checks in MD. In fact, they are illegal under Maryland law. As a result, even if we shifted to all mail, we could not implement them in the manner of every state that normally does all-mail voting (and California) unless the General Assembly changed the law. Interestingly, this fact seems to have eluded both sides in the debate over the Governor's election plan.

Best regards and hope you and yours are safe and well,
David

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Edward Still <still at votelaw.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at 6:52 AM
To: Pamela S Karlan <pkarlan at stanford.edu>
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Question for the list about tabulation of early in-person votes

In Alabama, a voter may cast an absentee ballot by going to the office of the absentee ballot manager, or by mailing the ballot back to the ABM.

Upon receipt of the absentee ballot, the absentee election manager must record such on the absentee list and safely keep the ballots without breaking the seal of the affidavit envelope until election day. Beginning at noon on election day, the absentee election manager must deliver the sealed affidavit envelopes to the election officials designated for counting absentee ballots.

An absentee ballot submitted by hand delivery to the absentee election manager must be received in person from the voter no later than the close of the last business day before the day of election, or, in the case of a voter under the emergency voting procedure, delivered by the medical emergency designee to and received by the absentee election manager no later than noon on the day of the election.

Ed

Edward Still
429 Green Springs Hwy, STE 161-304
Birmingham AL 35209
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Twitter: @edwardstill

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 1:12 AM Pamela S Karlan <pkarlan at stanford.edu<mailto:pkarlan at stanford.edu>> wrote:
How are early, in-person votes tabulated if people vote early at county office buildings or voting centers or the like?  Do those votes get attributed or sent to a voter's precinct for processing before election day itself, or are they somehow included in the election day total?

Many thanks for any information y'all have.  I'm writing a short piece that discusses, among other things, the blue shift and wonder whether these votes play into that one way or another.

Pamela S. Karlan

Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law

Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic

Stanford Law School

karlan at stanford.edu<mailto:karlan at stanford.edu>

650-725-4851

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