Publications
Voting Rights & Elections
Design Deficiencies and Lost Votes
In 2010, tens of thousands of votes in New York did not count due to overvotes — the invalid selection of more than one candidate. This report demonstrates how the lack of adequate overvote protections disproportionately affected the state's poorest communities, suggests commonsense reforms, and examines national implications.
Authored by: Lawrence Norden and Sundeep Iyer
– 12/05/11
Voting Law Changes in 2012
Ahead of the 2012 elections, a wave of legislation tightening restrictions on voting has suddenly swept across the country. This Brennan Center guide details both the bills that have been proposed and the legislation that has been passed since the beginning of 2011.
Authored by: Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden
– 10/03/11
The Cost of Voter ID Laws: What the Courts Say
Based on a comprehensive review of every court case in which a photo ID law has been challenged, this paper examines of the costs states must incur if they decide to implement photo ID requirements for voters.
Authored by: Vishal Agraharkar, Wendy Weiser, and Adam Skaggs
– 02/17/11
Executive Orders
Today in Albany, the group Reinvent Albany, New York Public Interest Research Group, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, and Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach (CRREO) at SUNY New Paltz released their report Executive Orders: Actions the Governor can take to make New York government more open, accountable and democratic.
The report includes eleven model executive orders that Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo can use to open up New York State government, increase the accountability of state agencies and reduce barriers to voting. An executive order is a governor’s declaration which has the force of law, and does not require legislation to take effect. The orders are centered on the basic goal of empowering the citizenry with more and better information about what its government is doing, and how it is spending tax payer dollars.
Authored by: Gerald Benjamin, Blair Horner, John Kaehny, and Lawrence Norden
– 11/23/10
Ballot Security and Voter Suppression
This paper addresses various ways that ballot security initiatives can result in discriminatory, unfair, and intimidating practices surrounding voting and voter registration.
Authored by: Wendy Weiser and Vishal Agraharkar
– 10/22/10
Online Voter Guides
The Brennan center released two updated voter guides for students and citizens who have moved. The guides are available online along with general information for voters.
Authored by: Brennan Center Voting Rights and Elections Team
– 09/21/10
Voting System Failures: A Database Solution
Failed voting machines, frustrated voters and lost votes: these have been a constant in news reports following every recent major election cycle. When it comes to system failures voting machines are different from other products: for the vast majority of voting systems in use today, manufacturers are not required to report malfunctions to any government agency, and there is no agency that investigates alleged failures.
Voting systems fail in a particular county in one election, and then again later, under similar circumstances, but in a different locale. These repeated failures disenfranchise voters and damage public confidence in the electoral system. This report calls for a regulatory clearinghouse – a national database, accessible by election officials and others, that identifies voting system malfunctions.
Authored by: Lawrence Norden
– 09/13/10
Voter Registration in a Digital Age
This report is the first in-depth survey of state-based paperless registration innovations—“automated” voter registration, in which government offices like DMVs collect and transfer voter registrations electronically, and online voter registration, in which citizens submit voter registration applications over the Internet. Based on documentary research and interviews with election officials in fifteen states, this report explains how paperless voter registration works, reviews its development, and assesses its impact.
Authored by: Christopher Ponoroff, Edited by Wendy Weiser
– 07/13/10
Modernizing Voter Registration: Momentum in the States
Over the past year, there has been significant momentum in the states toward voter registration reform. This brief summarizes those developments.
Authored by: Wendy Weiser, Christopher Ponoroff and Nhu-Y Ngo
– 03/05/10
Modernizing Ohio’s System for Registering Voters: Automatic & Online Registration
This preliminary report examines Ohio’s current voter registration system, and recommends that Ohio adopt automatic and online voter registration.
Authored by: Wendy Weiser, Adam Skaggs, Christopher Ponoroff and Lawrence Norden
– 11/05/09