Sunday February 12, 2012

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Past Event

A Governance Studies and Election Reform Project Event

Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot

U.S. Politics, Elections

Event Summary

Since the 2000 presidential election, the U.S. electoral system has experienced widespread reforms aimed at restoring voter confidence. Have new voting systems improved citizen satisfaction and trust in the voting process? Can citizens cast their ballots without making the same errors that occurred in Florida eight years ago? Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot (Brookings, 2008) answers these and other important questions about how Americans respond to the voting systems they use on Election Day.

Event Information

When

Friday, March 21, 2008
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Where

Saul/Zilkha Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

Email: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On March 21, the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project hosted a discussion with the book’s authors. Thomas Mann, co-director of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and senior fellow at Brookings, moderated the panel. Paul Herrnson, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland and lead author, offered an overview of their findings and recommendations. His co-authors—Richard Niemi of the University of Rochester, Michael Hanmer and Benjamin Bederson of the University of Maryland, and Michael Traugott of the University of Michigan—offered additional comments.


More information about Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot >>

Transcript

MR. HERRNSON: if you take a long, historical sweep, a lot of improvements have been made in voting. Since the days of punch cards, lever systems, hand-counted paper ballots, we are clearly doing better and we are certainly doing much better than during the day where people used a voice vote or raised their hand in an election, which happened in the early days of our country. So our hope is that the voting systems and ballots used in elections will improve, but, you know, it’s hard to tell.

On the one hand, since we’ve done our study, there have been modifications to the systems including some in response to our study. There have been new systems introduced that are very promising. But on the other hand, there have been some steps backwards and a lot of those, well, a few of those involve, what I would call, less informed decisions, so we hope that book will help some people.

Participants

Moderator

Thomas E. Mann

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

Opening Comments

Paul S. Herrnson

Director, Center for American Politics and Citizenship; Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Panelists

Richard G. Niemi

Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science, University of Rochester

Michael J. Hamner

Assistant Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Michael W. Traugott

Communication Studies and Senior Research Scientist, Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan


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