cstewartiii.bsky.social

What are the Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines? | Bipartisan Policy Center The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) are a set of principles and standards for the election equipment that Americans use to vote.

The Bipartisan Policy Center has just put out a very helpful explainer on the federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. This may sound like a dry subject, but it is central to President Trump's executive order on elections. Check it out.
bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/w...

NH has increased documentary requirements for voting by mail. As this ternary plot indicates, NH is among the last 2 traditional states when it comes to convenience voting. The law probably won't affect mail voting rates much overall, but might affect rates for some populations.

Here's an interesting and important article by a team of social psychologists on the question of how people perceive the fairness of election outcomes given the order in which votes are cast.
doi.org/10.1177/095...

Greg Huber and colleagues have written an interesting study on beliefs about electoral integrity that distinguishes b/t severity and frequency of fraud, and also b/t uncounted & forgone votes. Check it out.
huber.research.yale.edu/materials/1...

Yes, the Google trends data indicate a recent surge in searches on "Epstein." However, the states with the most searches (relatively speaking) are disproportionately from blue states.

As the nation and state ponder California's distinctly long period for certifying elections, remember that the certification deadline isn't the only distinct thing about California election laws.

Who would vote for Elon Musk's America Party? Crunching the numbers on the potential coalition for an anti-spending, anti-Trump, anti-Democrats, anti-Republicans political party... wait what?

Elliot Morris walks through the data to estimate that the market for the America Party is b/t 1% & 2% of electorate. I suspect some party candidates will be able to do better than that, but the numbers show just how uphill the Musk effort is. Read on: open.substack.com/pub/gelliot...

Just a reminder: @mitelectionlab is hosting the EAC's Data Summit. If you're in town, come by MIT to be in person. If out of town, you can follow the livestream. (Register if you will be attending in person. You don't have to register if you're remote.)
www.eac.gov/events/2025...

A reminder that I'll be participating in this event at AEI tomorrow to talk about how the 2024 was run--with data. I'm looking forward to the event with three friends and colleagues. Attend in person or watch online.

www.aei.org/events/how-...

For those who have been waiting, the 2024 EAVS data and report have been posted by the EAC: www.eac.gov/research-an...

Delighted to be participating in this event looking back at the 2024 general election next week at AEI. Register for it, remote and in person.

www.aei.org/events/how-...

I just published this discussion of Rockland County, NY's 2024 election results on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/playing...

On the occasion of the PA House being ready to approve a new voter ID law, here's a time series of D & R support for requiring photo ID to vote among PA respondents to the SPAE. The D growth in support mirrors national trends.

The latest from MEDSL on PNAS: "Audits of the 2020 American election show an accurate vote count"
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073...

Ballot box carried off in car repossession causes Columbus precinct to open a half-hour late A municipal election voting precinct opened 30 minutes late Tuesday morning because an election worker’s vehicle containing ballots was repossessed overnight.

Here's a new variant on "anything can happen on Election Day." (Lesson: if you're having a sleep-over with a ballot box, make sure it spends the night in the house, not in the car)

cdispatch.com/news/ballot...

Although conversion was some of the story in WI, so was turnout. Here's a plot of the change in turnout in counties ('25 vs. '24') against Trump% in '24: Excepting Milwaukee County, strong negative correlation. Also, Musk's rally didn't appear to goose turnout in Brown County.

Graph showing change in turnout in FL CD-1 precincts from '24 prez election to special election vs. Trump '24 %. Turnout slightly less in more pro-Trump precincts. The major negative outliers were in DeFuniak Springs + precincts 210 & 230 in Walton County.

So far, it looks like WI is running a fraction of a percent more progressive for Supreme Court than the 2024 presidential election. This is going to be close.

The vote swing in Escambia County, FL (largest county in CD1) is 14.7 points compared to Trump in 2024. Probably not enough to flip the seat, but still an amazing swing.

Here's the scatterplot of the % for Fine (R) in the FL CD6 race against Trump '24, at the precinct level. The uniform swing is -7.3 points.

It appears that the only state-issued IDs that indicate citizenship are "enhanced" driver's licenses issued by MI, MN, NY, VT, & WA.

www.dhs.gov/enhanced-dr...

Here's a graph just published by MEDSL (@mitelectionlab) about the WI spring election. Counties above the line have relatively more ballots in '25 than '23. This is not predictive of the results, but is probably indicative of R's being more likely to vote by mail than in '23.

Per the EAC's EAVS, a little less than 10% of new voter registrations came in by mail during the 21-22 election cycle, but states vary widely. Whether these are state or federal forms is not reported. This stat puts an upper bound on the % of registrations that would be affected by Pres. Trump's EO.

I've just posted on Substack about who possesses passports, for reference the day after President Trump's executive order about elections.


playingwithelectiondata.substack.com/p/so-much-t...

So Much to Say about Pres. Trump's Election EO, But Let's Start with Passport Possession What the Survey of the Performance of American Elections says about passport possession

I've just posted on Substack about who possesses passports, for reference the day after President Trump's executive order about elections.

playingwithelectiondata.substack.com/p/so-much-t...

The paper by @pettigrew_stats (Stephen Pettigrew) and Dylan Radley about errors with RCV ballots has been published in Political Behavior. Here's the abstract and the link.
link.springer.com/article/10....

@mitelectionlab is following mail voting in WI in the run-up to the spring election. Here is a short blog post describing what we're doing, along with a graph showing the number of mail ballots so far, comparing 2025 with 2023.

electionlab.mit.edu/articles/ki...

How much do you want to bet that there's a strong correlation between believing you must vote in person on election day and that you must apply for Social Security benefits in person?

Here's an important new article in Science Advances on the privacy issues related to publishing cast vote records. It turns out they're not as dire as many think/fear.
www.science.org/doi/epdf/10...

California group pushes for ID requirements when casting a ballot A group in the Golden State says it has a plan to restore trust in the election process.

.Because of the popularity of voter ID laws, even among Dems, I've long predicted that every state with the initiative will eventually have the requirement. It looks like California is about to test this prediction. Pairing it w/ citizenship proof complicates things. www.kcra.com/article/cal...