Lawrence Norden

Democracy, Senior Counsel
Lawrence Norden is Senior Counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. In his capacity as director of the Brennan Center's Voting Technology Project, Mr. Norden has authored several nationally recognized reports and articles related to voting rights, voting systems and election administration.
In April 2009, Mr. Norden completed his duties as Chair of the Ohio Secretary of State's bipartisan Election Summit and Conference, authoring a report to Secretary Brunner for the purpose of improving Ohio's election administration practices and laws. Most of the report's recommendations were incorporated into the Election Enhancements Bill, which has passed the Ohio House and is currently before the State Senate. Mr. Norden was the Keynote Speaker at the Sixth Annual Votobit International Conference on Electronic Voting (Buenos Aires, 2008), and the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (Montreal, 2009). In June 2009, he received the Usability Professional Association's Usability In Civic Life Award for his "pioneering work to improve elections." Mr. Norden is the lead author of the book The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World (Academy Chicago Press) and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties (Routledge 2007).
In addition to his voting work, Mr. Norden has authored numerous articles and reports detailing the need to reform New York State's legislative process. He manages and writes for the Brennan Center's blog on New York State, ReformNY. Mr. Norden is an Adjunct Professor at the NYU School of Law, where he teaches the Brennan Center Public Policy Advocacy Clinic.
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Selected Media Appearances
Discussing experiences at the polls, Talk of the Nation/NPR (11/4/08)
Discussing potential problems in Florida, All Things Considered/NPR (10/27/08)
Discussing voting software flaws in Ohio Lou Dobbs/CNN (8/21/08)
Discussing The Machinery of Democracy, The Tavis Smiley Show/PBS (07/25/2007)
"A Look Under the Hood at Democracy's Engine", New York Times (09/01/06)
Blog Posts
- Albany Revealed (12/03/09)
- Ballot Design Still Matters (11/10/09)
- Voter-registration reforms could diminish Ohio’s election disputes (11/02/09)
- Ohio’s Election Blueprint (04/23/09)
- Ohio’s Election Summit (03/11/09)
- What If It’s Close? (11/03/08)
- About That “Flipping” Vote—What You Should Know (10/29/08)
- More Ballot Design Challenges in Ohio? (10/24/08)
- Potential Ballot Trouble In OH: Split Contests (10/01/08)
- Good News: More Failures in New York (08/13/08)
- Showing 10 most recent blog posts, show all
- Thank God for New Jersey? (03/03/08)
- McCain’s & Obama’s Public Financing Pledge (01/31/08)
- New York is no Nebraska (11/19/07)
