by Mike Memoli

It's been more than a month since Arizona's governor signed a controversial new immigration bill into law. But only today might we see the first major test of how the issue plays at the ballot box.

It comes in the California gubernatorial primary, where the issue emerged as a major flash-point late in the Republican race between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. Whitman, the former eBay CEO, had built a substantial lead in that race in part because of her significant investment of personal funds into the race. But the Real Clear Politics average of polling in the race shows the gap narrowing significantly in the weeks after the Arizona measure became law, and her rival made it a campaign issue. He launched a TV ad quoting Whitman as saying she would oppose such a law in California.

Faced with a tightening race, Whitman called on former Gov. Pete Wilson, booster of another controversial immigration measure during his time in office, to bolster her conservative bona fides on the issue. She also launched an ad outlining how she'd address the issue, starting with enforcing the border and calling on the National Guard if necessary. Poizner continues to use the issue against her -- his campaign's website today prominently features his support for the Arizona immigration law -- but Whitman's eventual counterattack seems to have paid off.

In Nevada, it's quite a different story. A Mason Dixon poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal finds that 57 percent of the registered voters sampled would support a law like the one passed in Arizona, including 85 percent of Republicans. It's no wonder the candidates seeking to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have all expressed support for the measure.

by Laura Olson

As the Senate race recount continues in Minnesota, ballot challenges are creating more mud than clarity.

About 60 percent of the state's 2.9 million ballots still must be reviewed, according to Associated Press reports this morning. During that process, campaign representatives for Sen. Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken have been flagging ballots with the slightest smudge or improper marking in hopes of cutting down their opponent's vote total.

The two candidates were separated by a mere 215 votes - 1,211,375 for Franken compared to Coleman's 1,211,590 - prior to the recount. Both have lost voters during the recount process, which could become so tight that a winner would not be declared until the state's canvassing board meets beginning Dec. 16 to rule on the challenges.

To clarify the arduous process, Minnesota Public Radio has posted a page with photos of several challenged ballots look like. After reading an explanation on the state law regarding identifying marks and voter intent, readers can cast their own vote - on whether they think the ballot should be disqualified.

Sample ballots, from the MPR page, after the jump...

by Frank James

Curtis Gans, one of the nation's leading voter turnout experts and director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, says Americans didn't vote in the numbers that had been expected for this general election.

Indeed, he says this years turnout as a proportion of eligible voters may have only matched 2004 or slightly exceeded what was seen four years ago.

While Democrats were energized and turned out in larger numbers, the fall off in Republican turnout probably accounts for why turnout this year wasn't as spectacular as experts had forecast before Election Day.

Here's an excerpt from CSAE's report.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 6, 2008)--Despite lofty predictions by some academics, pundits, and practitioners that voter turnout would reach levels not seen since the turn of the last century, the percentage of eligible citizens casting ballots in the 2008 presidential election stayed at virtually the same relatively high level as it reached in the polarized election of 2004.

by Frank James

Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, warned early on Election Day that figuring out just how many of the eligible voters went to the polls wouldn't be simple since there are different ways to count the overall voting-age population.

And so in the wee hours Wednesday morning the Associated Press produced a story that gave us widely divergent voter participation comparisons based on the estimated number if voters who voted in this year's general election which ranged from 134 million to 135.6 million.

According to one estimate, voter turnout may have been the highest since 1908. But another estimate suggests the proper comparison was not to 100 years ago but to 44 years ago.

by Laura Olson

The youth voters who came out strong for Barack Obama during the primaries appear to have done so again to bring him to the White House.

Initial figures on the youth turnout from CIRCLE, a research group that studies youth civic engagement, show at least a slight increase in this election's numbers, though a more solid figure won't come until a final vote total (including all absentee and early ballots) is available.

The group's early data puts the number of young voters between 22 and 24 million, according to CIRCLE director Peter Levine. That would put youth turnout between 49.3 and 54.5 percent, or an increase of 1 to 6 percent from the 2004 election.

"This is either a modest uptake or close to a record-breaking turnout, but either way we're seeing an increase," said Levine, noting that it continues an overall increase since 2000.

The highest turnout reported for the 18- to 29-year-old demographic came in 1972, the first election in which 18 year olds could vote and the figure reached 55.4 percent.

by Frank James

When should a dead voter's vote count and when shouldn't it? The question arises because of the news today that the absentee vote cast by Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, will be counted in Hawaii.

The reflexive answer is that it should never count. How can someone who's no longer among the living have a vote that counts like a living voter's? That would seem to be a violation of the constitutional requirement of one person, one vote.

But Slate's Trailhead blog explains why a vote by Obama's deceased grandmother will be counted:

So why was Dunham's vote allowed to count? Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin tells Trailhead that, when an absentee voter dies, the ballot is not removed until Hawaii's Department of Health issues an official list of the names of deceased persons to the city clerk's office, which will not happen until later this month. Unlike Steen, who passed away several weeks prior to the election, the two-day turnaround in Dunham's case creates "a practical administrative problem," Cronin says, in fishing out her ballot out from among the tens of thousands of absentee ballots in Honolulu--even if her death had been officially reported by the Department of Health.

by Laura Olson

ARLINGTON, VA. -- A light rain that began in early afternoon coincided with a drop in lines at Virginia polling places.

An estimated 50 percent of voters had cast a ballot by 10 a.m., according to state election officials. That figures combines the 10 percent who participated in the in-person absentee balloting and another 30 to 40 percent at the polls this morning.

Wait times had disappeared by about 1:30 p.m. at a polling spot on the George Mason University campus as well.

Poll workers had to hustle until about 9 a.m., said Kaye Ann Helmich, precinct chief for Arlington County's precinct 40. Voters were already in line when volunteers arrived at 4:45 a.m.

Some waiting outside complained that the line was not moving as officials hurried to set up booths and move those in the beginning of the line through, but crowds dissipated after the initial rush.

by Frank James

CNN has been logging voter complaints today and charting them on a map. At last count, they've received nearly 71,000 calls with 26 percent of those calls arising out of registration problems.

It's not a scientific reflection of the problems but nonetheless interesting. The greatest number of calls appears to be coming in from southern states and New York and New Jersey.

by Frank James

Curtis Gans is one of the nation's leading experts on voter turnout issues as director for the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

He cautions that we won't really know what happened today with voter turnout, especially as it compares with past general elections, until around midnight at the earliest.

In the following memo, he also explains some of the complexities involved in calculating turnout. For instance, what's the most accurate Census population number to use as the denominator of the ratio? Obviously, non-citizens shouldn't be in there. What about convicted felons? Keep reading to get his thoughts.

Voter Turnout, Timing and Figures

1. Turnout reporting timing: Because turnout can only accurately be ascertained by getting actual tabulated vote numbers and because to make any real sense of the numbers, one needs to wait until at least 90 percent of the vote has been cast in an individual state, any judgment on this year's turnout probably won't be available until late in the evening--probably around midnight before one can make an educated stab at how much turnout might have increased.

by Laura Olson

In a decision coming barely 13 hours before polls are set to open, a federal judge has refused to order Virginia officials to extend poll hours tomorrow to accommodate long lines, according the Associated Press.

The suit, filed last week by the NAACP against the state and Gov. Tim Kaine, argued that there are not enough voting machines in some precincts, particular those with predominately black populations. NAACP leaders asked to extend polling hours 10 p.m. from the scheduled 7 p.m., and to allocate additional machines.

Judge Richard Williams denied the request, but "did order the state Board of Elections to publicize the availability of curbside voting for older or disabled voters, along with the fact that people in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote."

Virginia's status as a first-time battleground state this election has brought concerns about the state's preparations. More than 500,000 new registrants have been added to the voter rolls since the 2004 election, and voters already overwhelmed local offices during the state's in-person absentee voting period.

State officials say the state has prepared during the three statewide election since 2004, and that they will have plenty of ballots and volunteers on hand starting at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

by Frank James

A clever ad to encourage voting in North Carolina. The YouTube description indicates the ad is the idea of two comedy writers:

A video for North Carolina voters, by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies) and Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, SNL's "TV Funhouse").

by Frank James

It's National Mock Election Day today with school students around the country and their parents voting for the president, Congress and even state officials.

Educating future voters is what it's all about. Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has gotten deeply involved in the movement to teach young people citizenship, has made a video to promote the effort.

Results are available in various places. For instance, Dallas's, Texas Independent School District has a website for the results.

by Frank James

As someone who had to wait over an hour to cast an early vote yesterday in Fairfax County, Va,, I can personally attest to the crowds at polling places with six days to go before Election Day officially arrives.

Obviously, it's not just Virginia, an important battle-ground state, that's experiencing the pre-Election Day surge at the polls. Warnings of huge lines on Election Day; excitement especially on the Democratic side, and efforts of both presidential campaigns to lock in their votes early before events can cause voters to shift, have helped to create this year's record early voting in a number of states.

One of the best places to keep track of what's happening in terms of early voting is the website produced by Michael McDonald (the George Mason University professor, not the soulful singer) called United States Election Project.

by Frank James

The closer we get to Election Day, the greater the concerns about whether polling places will be able to handle the expected crush of voters in next week's historic presidential election.

Democrats appear much more concerned about the polling-place meltdowns that could be caused by very long lines, especially since heavy voter turnouts traditionally favor Democrats over Republicans, especially when minority voters show up in huge numbers.

Christopher Edley Jr., dean of the Berkley Law School and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, has a Washington Post op-ed piece in which he outlines the concerns.

by Laura Olson

Nearly six in 10 young adults between 18 and 24 years old are interested in engaging in public service, according to a survey released by Harvard University's Institute of Politics Wednesday.

These results are part of an online poll the center conducted between Sept. 12 and Oct. 6. Researchers interviewed more than 2,400 youth selected from Harris Interactive's online research panel, half who are students at four-year institutions and half who are not enrolled.

Conducting an online survey reflects one challenge in reaching younger voters -- about 89 percent of respondents said they have a cell phone, but only 41 percent have a landline and even fewer use it regularly, making the demographic difficult to reach and understand.

The survey found Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 26 points - 56 percent to 30 percent - a similar lead to what the center saw in March, when Obama lead 53 to 32. While this year's turnout likely won't beat the increase seen in 2004 (when youth numbers increased 35 percent), about 79 percent of young people are registered to vote.

by Laura Olson

The latest way to get to middle-age, middle-class voters seems to be through their YouTube-savvy, Internet-addicted kids.

Last week, Sarah Silverman launched her "great schlep" scheme, asking young Jewish voters to convince their Floridian relatives to vote Democratic. Now MoveOn.org has enlisted the Gossip Girl cast in a similar mission.

The liberal-leaning group released an ad today featuring the CW show's young stars, who are counseling teenage viewers to talk to their parents about choosing the next president. The site created for the ad, playing off the "Partnership for a Drug-Free America" program, includes warning signs that parents may be tempted to go with the Republican candidate (such as "Prefacing every sentence with 'Lemme give you a little straight talk'," or "Delusionally believing all people they meet are '[their] friends'").

The Washington Post reports the ad will air during upcoming broadcasts of Gossip Girl, and during local cable ad breaks on MTV and Comedy Central in North Carolina and Nevada.

by Frank James

A few weeks ago, a lot of journalists got e-mails from people outraged by what they said were illegal efforts by election officials in certain jurisdictions to strike voters from voter rolls. They wanted journalists to investigate.

The New York Times was on the case and it appears those e-mailers definitely had cause for concern:

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

Although much attention this year has been focused on the millions of new voters being added to the rolls by the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, there has been far less notice given to the number of voters being dropped from those same rolls.

by Laura Olson

With five weeks to go, he's betting on somewhere between 125 and 130 million. And he reserves the right to change his mind.

That's where Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE), puts his estimate for the November election turnout, according to a report released Wednesday from the center.

Gans, an expert on voter turnout, analyzed this year's primary figures, and found that participation rose to its second-highest level ever, or a half percentage point less than turnout in 1972.

However, in states that held congressional and gubernatorial primaries on a day other than that of their presidential primary, participation dropped to a record low.

Overall turnout for this year's primaries was 57,348,121 voters, or 30.3 percent of the electorate, according to the report.

by Laura Olson

The problem isn't whether college students want to vote -- it's whether they can maneuver through a complicated system, activists told the Committee on House Administration at a hearing this afternoon.

Lawmakers listened to testimony from activists and students on the barriers preventing students from voting, including voter identification laws, the absence of same-day registration and intimidating voter misinformation campaigns.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) spoke on the Student Voter Act of 2008, legislation she introduced in July, which she said would "take one step forward" in making registration available to college students.

The Student Voter Act of 2008 would require all universities that receive federal funds to offer voter registration to students at the same time they register for classes. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has sponsored similar legislation in the Senate.

by Laura Olson

The millennial generation's revolutionaries don't steal books -- they download films, forward them to their friends and head to the nearest polling place.

Or at least that's what Michael Moore is hoping.

Moore, the controversial filmmaker behind Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, released his latest flick for download Tuesday. The film, titled Slacker Uprising, documents Moore's travels through 62 cities during the 2004 presidential campaign.

During the tour, Moore spoke to thousands of young people -- "slackers" -- in an effort to encourage youth voters. By releasing his latest documentary at no charge, he's aiming to inspire a similar movement in November.

The filmmaker chatted online with fans Tuesday, and hundreds more posted on the film's Web site by the end of the day -- thanking Moore for making the film and one devotee calling him "a patriot."

The free download is being organized and distributed by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films. The film's budget was more than $2 million, though neither Brave New Films or Moore will receive any money, according to a release.

Fans are encouraged to share the movie with friends and to host campus viewings after downloading. Moore also will be doing a tour of screenings, including one in Grayslake, Ill., on Saturday.

Slacker Uprising can be downloaded for free by U.S. or Canadian citizens, and will be on iTunes as well. A DVD is also available for $9.95.

by Laura Olson

Are states ready for the long lines and vote counting that will come along with an energized electorate this November?

Researchers at Common Cause, a non-partisan group advocating election reform and accountability, released a report today with mixed results.

The 108-page report looks at a variety of issues - such as voter registration, identification, voting machines, poll worker training and student voting rights - in 10 states: Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Mexico and Virginia.

Wisconsin received the most positive assessment, with strong poll worker training standards and voting machine allocations. Florida, Georgia and Virginia received more worrisome evaluations, with weaknesses in several areas.

"While some states have taken steps to improve their election procedures, several still have a number of structural and statutory weaknesses that put voting rights at risk once again this year," said Tova Wang, an author of the report and vice president of research at Common Cause.

Several findings:

• * Voter registration issues from 2006, such as vague eligibility standards and problems with statewide registration databases, "have gone unaddressed, or have worsened," according to researchers. Some states make it difficult for third-party groups, which tend to reach out to marginalized communities, to register voters.


• * Voting machine and ballot allocation could also be an issue. Researchers criticized states for having "vague and sometimes nonexistent standards for ensuring that there are enough voting materials and voting devices to keep polling places open and running smoothly," which they said could be problematic in November.


• * The mortgage crisis is also impacting voter rolls, with many voters still registered at their former addresses. According to the report, officials have reported "a 25 percent leap in new registration activity in 2008 over the number of new registrations by this point in the 2004 presidential race, and attribute this increase in part to the foreclosure crisis."


• * Researchers looked at student voting specifically for the first time, which has been challenged in Virginia and Georgia this fall. The report stated that the number of voters under 30 years old nearly doubled since 2000, reaching 6.5 million. But unclear information put out in several states about student registration at a school address impacting their parents' taxes or their financial aid could prevent some of these voters from heading to the polls.

by Mark Silva and updated with transcript

Barack Obama was asked today if he is "the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.''

"Not yet. I will be,'' Obama said, "if Sen. Clinton decides not to go on or if we complete the six contests and we are ahead as we are now. But nothing is certain. I don't want to take it for granted.

"Sen Clinton has been written off before, and came back,'' he said in an interview airing tonight on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. "And she's a formidable candidate,'' the senator told the anchorman. "So obviously we feel good about the results on Tuesday. It strengthens our position. I'm confident that we can finish this, these last few contests, and be in a continuing strong position. It's not yet settled.''

Asked about May 20, the primary election day when it appears certain that Obama will control a majority of the party's pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, the senator from Illinois said: "That will be an important day. If, at that point, we have the majority of pledged delegates, which is possible, then-- I think we can make a pretty strong claim that, you know, we've got the most runs and it's the ninth inning. And we've won. But do so in a way that brings the party together.''

Have there been any internal discussions about reaching out to Hillary Clinton for a ticket? "You know we have not had those conversations, because I respect what she has said publicly that she is continuing this campaign...

"What I've said is, I want to respect her, and her desire to continue in these coming contests. And as soon as I know I'm the nominee, then I'm going to start making overtures to her, as well as everybody else, to figure out how we can bring this party together.''

Will Clinton meeting his criteria for a running mate?

"Well, there's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president,' he said. "I've said that before. But I think I can be a better president, otherwise I wouldn't be running. But she's a very capable, very smart person. And anybody who's been in a political contest with her, can tell you that she's no pushover.''

See a transcript of the full interview here, courtesy of NBC:

by Whitney Blair Wyckoff

Tony Zirkle, who spoke at an Adolf Hitler birthday party last month on how prostitution and pornography impact white women, came in third place in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District Republican primary yesterday. Fighting prostitution and porn is a major plank in Zirkle's platform.

He has said that he will speak to any group who invites him, but he dodged questions from an Indiana paper asking whether he was a white supremacist sympathizer.

Washington Post columnist Al Kamen has the story:

Tough news last night in the closely watched Republican primary in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District.

Zirkle, whose top campaign issue is opposition to pornography and prostitution, finished a distant third behind Goshen, Ind., businessman and GOP establishment candidate Luke Puckett and Culver, Ind., newspaper delivery man Joseph Roush. Puckett won with 48 percent of the vote; Zirkle drew 16 percent.

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama has built some of his campaign for the White House on a hope that young voters will respond to his party's call this year.

Not a bad calculation.

"The current generation of young voters, who came of age during the George W. Bush years, is leading the way in giving the Democrats a wide advantage in party identification, just as the previous generation of young people who grew up in the Reagan years -- Generation X -- fueled the Republican surge of the mid-1990's,'' the Pew Research Center reports.''

Increasingly each year, more young voters are leaning Democratic.

"In surveys conducted between October 2007 and March 2008, 58 percent of voters under age 30 identified or leaned toward the Democratic Party, compared with 33 percent who identified or leaned toward the GOP,'' reports Pew's Scott Keeter, director of survey research. "The Democratic Party's current lead in party identification among young voters has more than doubled since the 2004 campaign, from 11 points to 25 points.

"In fact,'' Keeter writes, "the Democrats' advantage among the young is now so broad-based that younger men as well as younger women favor the Democrats over the GOP -- making their age category the only one in the electorate in which men are significantly more inclined to self-identify as Democrats rather than as Republicans.

"While more women voters in every age group affiliate with the Democratic Party rather than the GOP, the gap is particularly striking among young women voters,'' Keeter adds. "More than twice as many women voters under age 30 identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party as favor the Republican Party (63 vs. 28 percent).

For more on the survey's findings, see the Pew report.

by William Neikirk

You can be sure that the sexuality of older Americans will become a bigger issue now that Jane Fonda is showing interest in the subject.

Last week, the 69-year-old actress told reporters at an aging seminar in New York that she plans to write a book dealing partly with the sexuality of aging, and also let it be known she is interested in making a movie on the topic.

Her book is actually about another chapter in her life, and the working title is: "The Third Act: Entering Prime Time," she said. Her last book, she reminded us, was a best seller.

A group of reporters attending the week-long seminar, sponsored by the International Longevity Center-USA and the New York Times Foundation, were surprised when Fonda showed up for their sessions to learn more about aging issues in the U.S.

by William E. Gibson

Ever since the tumultuous 2000 presidential election, Democrats in Florida and elsewhere have clamored for election reforms that create a way to verify ballots in case they need to be recounted.

The cause suffered a setback this week when Democratic leaders yanked a paper-trail bill from the U.S. House agenda, apparently because they could not round up enough votes to pass it. Maybe next week, they said.

The bill would require each polling place to register votes on paper to verify balloting. Governor Charlie Crist already has signed a similar law in Florida, but he and other state leaders hope Congress will create the same requirement on the national level because the bill would provide federal money to help pay for it.

Election reform is always popular right after a disputed election, but enthusiasm wanes between elections. The winners, who got elected through the current system, are not as quick to change it. And their attention quickly turns to other pressing matters, such as war and bloated budgets.

Posted by Frank James at 7:30 am CST

Curtis Gans, an expert on voter participation in American elections, predicts that if nothing changes between now and Election Day, Democratic turnout should exceed that of Republicans in a mid-term election for the first time since 1990.

President Bush and the Iraq War get the credit for that, according to Gans.

But the larger picture portrayed by Gans, director of the American University Center for the Study of the American Electorate, in a new report doesn't offer much to cheer about. That's because voters who are turned off by both major parties are leaving them in a significant exodus.

Meanwhile, many other citizens just aren't voting at all, threatening the health of American democracy, Gans says.

Posted by Frank James at 2:27 pm CDT

Congressional Republicans, especially those in the House, wanted a photo op of President Bush signing the “Secure Fence Act of 2006” and today they got it.

With illegal immigration being a major issue for many voters, and not just conservatives, House Republicans badly wanted the fence legislation heading into the mid-term elections.

Posted by Frank James at 4:55 pm CDT

The House passed today by a largely partisan vote of 228 to 196 the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006 which would require anyone wanting to vote in a federal election to present polling place officials with a government-issued photo ID.

But according to the legislation, it can’t be any old government-issued photo ID. It must be one that proves its holder is a U.S. citizen.

Posted by Frank James at 11:34 am CDT

Diebold Election Systems Inc. issued a statement last night rebutting the Princeton University computer research team that said it found flaws with an electronic-voting machine made by the company.

The Princeton researchers said their examination of a Diebold AccuVote TS machine suggested that malicious software code could be introduced into a machine and allow someone to manipulate election results.

In its press release, the company explained why, in its view, such manipulation would be impossible.

"The unit has security software that was two generations old, and to our knowledge, is not used anywhere in the country," said Dave Byrd, president of Diebold Election Systems in a written statement.

"Normal security procedures were ignored," said Byrd. "Numbered security tape, 18 enclosure screws and numbered security tags were destroyed or missing so that the researchers could get inside the unit. A virus was introduced to a machine that is never attached to a network.”

Posted by Frank James at 5:45 pm CDT

A team of Princeton Universtity computer researchers say they've found serious vulnerabilities in an electronic-voting machine made by Diebold Co. which, according to the scientists, leaves the machine open to sabotage that could result in significant voting irregularities.

What's frightening is that most people wouldn't even know there were irregularities. A piece of malicious software code inserted into a Diebold AccuVote-TS machine by someone with "criminal" intent, could cause votes for one candidate to be wrongly attributed to another and do it in such a way that election officials would never detect it, the computer experts said.