Presidential Commission on Election Administration
The Presidential Commission on Election Administration was a bipartisan commission appointed by President Obama in 2013 after numerous reports of long lines during Election Day 2012. I was an informal advisor to the commission during its deliberations, assisted on report writing, and BPC took the work of the commission in house after its final report was released in January 2014.
You can read more about BPC's work with the Presidential Commission on Election Administration here.
Under the PCEA umbrella, my team has written several reports about election administration. You can find a few of the more popular pieces below.
BPC and the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project conducted the largest-ever national study of polling place wait times on Election Day 2016, with poll workers measuring lines at 4,006 voting precincts in 88 jurisdictions across 11 states, including swing states Michigan, Virginia, and Florida. Studied locations accounted for about 8 percent of all votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.
In conjunction with the release of Improving the Voter Experience, BPC produced a video explainer of the Election Day Lines program.
The vote-by-mail process can be more convenient for voters who are unable or unwilling to contend with lines at polling places on Election Day. However, voting by mail is not a voting option without risk. Outdated laws, new administrative policies, and the realities of the political process today introduce obstacles voters may not be aware of. Without recognizing that voting by mail in 2016 is very different than in years past, voters are more likely to unwittingly disenfranchise themselves.