[EL] Question about mail-in ballots and VRA Section 2 analsyes

[Douglas Johnson]

This has been a significant complication in some California cases, when 40%
or more of ballots cast in some 1990s and 2000-2010 elections were counted
in one giant "votes by mail" precinct. There is no way to run analysis if
there is only one data point.

Depending on the voting machine, counties generally reports different
counts for each ballot group, so that may be one way to isolate the votes
into smaller groupings: if you are lucky enough to have many ballot groups
("ballot group" meaning a set of voters voting on the exact same set of
election contests, and thus they can all use the same ballot).

But as jurisdictions move to by-mail balloting and/or vote centers, this
does become a major issue.

California addressed this with its "Vote Center" legislation, which
empowers counties to use "vote centers" instead of precincts for election
administration: but the legislation required that the counties report the
election results at the small-precinct level:

Elections Code Section 4005 (f)
<https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/elections-code/elec-sect-4005.html>

For the sole purpose of reporting the results of an election conducted
pursuant to this section, upon completion of the ballot count, the county
elections official shall divide the jurisdiction into precincts pursuant to
Article 2 (commencing with Section 12220) of Chapter 3 of Division 12 and
shall prepare a statement of the results of the election in accordance with
Sections 15373 and 15374.


I am not sure how OR and WA have handled this in their vote-by-mail rules,
or if they addressed it at all.

- Douglas Johnson
President, National Demographics Corporation
djohnson at NDCresearch.com


On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 12:18 PM George Korbel <korbellaw at hotmail.com> wrote:

> In tx the dist courts have found it for exist the Court has
>
> Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on
> behalf of Jeff Wice <jmwice at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, May 1, 2020 2:10:19 PM
> *To:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] Question about mail-in ballots and VRA Section 2 analsyes
>
>
> Dr. Lisa Handley recently pointed out to me an issue related to mail-in
> ballots and Voting Rights Section 2 compliance. Determining if a
> redistricting plan complies with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
> requires a racial bloc voting analysis and this is conducted using election
> precinct returns and other election precinct data.
>
> Several counties do not report (and some states do not require) mail-in
> ballots to be allocated back to the election precinct level but instead
> simply tabulate and report the votes at the county level. This would  not
> permit anyone to conduct a racial bloc voting analysis.
>
> In these situations, is there any way to ensure that mail-in ballots be
> reported at the election precinct level as opposed to the county level?
>
> Jeff Wice
> Adjunct Professor/Senior Fellow
> New York Law School
> 185 West Broadway
> New York, NY 10013
>
>
> Sent from Polymail
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-- 
- Doug

Douglas Johnson
National Demographics Corporation
djohnson at NDCresearch.com
phone 310-200-2058
fax 818-254-1221
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