[EL] time at the polling booth

Wed Jul 8 14:04:24 PDT 2020

Attached is an expert report from Dr. Stewart filed in *Crookston v. Benson*,
using information from the Michigan Bureau of Elections (and I believe some
of its own experimental data) to juxtapose time in a voting booth voting
versus time in a voting booth voting and taking a photograph of one's own
ballot.

(Controversy from the Before Time.)

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 1:08 PM Mark Scarberry <mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>
wrote:

> To the extent that voters who take a long time create long lines that
> discourage others from voting, there might be some generous time limit for
> non-disabled and non-elderly voters. It’s outrageous that some voters have
> to wait in long lines to vote. But I doubt that slow voting is a serious
> contributor to that problem.
>
> Mark
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
> Professor of Law
> Pepperdine University
> Rick J. Caruso School of Law
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on
> behalf of Rich,William D <rich at uakron.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 8, 2020 9:55:23 AM
> *To:* Douglas, Joshua A. <joshuadouglas at uky.edu>
> *Cc:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] time at the polling booth
>
> Ohio is liberal by comparison with Tennessee.  The time limit is 10
> minutes, and it applies only when all of the voting machines or privacy
> booths are in use and voters are waiting to use them.  Enforcement is not
> rigorous.
>
> Bill Rich
> University of Akron School of Law and
> Chairman, Summit County Board of Elections
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jul 8, 2020, at 9:07 AM, Douglas, Joshua A. <joshuadouglas at uky.edu>
> wrote:
>
>  CAUTION: This email originated from outside of The University of Akron.
>
> Rick,
>
> This is not entirely responsive, but at least one
> state--Tennessee--actually mandates how long a voter may spend casting a
> ballot. Here is a description from my article *State Judges and the Right
> to Vote*:
>
> a Tennessee appellate court broadly interpreted a Tennessee
>
> statute regulating how much time a voter may spend in the voting booth so
> as
>
> to effectuate an individual’s constitutional right to vote.176 The
> statute at issue
>
> limited a voter to five minutes in the voting booth if other voters were
> waiting
>
> and otherwise to a maximum of ten minutes.177 The evidence showed that,
>
> because of a lengthy ballot and some precincts using new machines, there
>
> were long lines on Election Day.178 Almost half of all voters took longer
> than
>
> five minutes to vote, while five percent took longer than ten minutes.179 The court
> rejected the losing candidate’s argument that this evidence demonstrated
> that illegal votes tainted the election, noting that the voters’ failure to
> comply with the time limit was not a “serious” violation of the statute.180
> Quoting theTennessee Supreme Court, the court explained, “[T]echnical
> non-conformity with election statutes will not necessarily void an
> election, as ‘such strictness would lead to defeat rather than uphold,
> popular election, and can not be maintained.’”181
>
>
> The underlying case is Stuart v. Anderson Cty. Election Comm’n, 300 S.W.3d
> 683, 690 (Tenn. Ct. App.2009).
>
>
> Josh
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on
> behalf of Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 8, 2020 8:00 AM
> *To:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] time at the polling booth
>
> CAUTION: External Sender
>
> Does anyone know of data about how much time voters typically spend
> casting their ballots *in the actual polling booth*?  I’m sure this
> varies depending on how many races/issues are on the ballot, particularly
> in states that have a number of ballot initiatives to vote on in certain
> years.  I’m aware of the good piece by Dan Smith and Michael Herron in
> Electoral Studies, but that’s based on one polling place in a low turnout
> election in NH.
>
>
>
> I assume most voters spend less than five minutes, but I’d appreciate any
> information that might be out there, whether empirical studies or even good
> anecdotal reporting.
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Rick
>
>
>
> Richard H. Pildes
>
> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>
> NYU School of Law
>
> 40 Washington Square So.
>
> NYC, NY 10014
>
> 212 998-6377
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>
> https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdepartment-lists.uci.edu%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flaw-election&data=02%7C01%7Crich%40uakron.edu%7Ca80c9ac59ff04efcd5b708d8233fd711%7Ce8575dedd7f94ecea4aa0b32991aeedd%7C0%7C0%7C637298104382442022&sdata=AHPpGgBIqlHbTlAUbMXvZjoXRzLw2iFCRA4YeouL0dc%3D&reserved=0
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-- 
Steve Klein
Attorney
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenrklein
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20200708/09246319/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 83-5 Exh 4.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 2023107 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20200708/09246319/attachment-0001.pdf>