Columns::August 27, 2001
Minority enrollment
Gordhan Patel, grad school dean, named VP for research
Dyer to step down as vice president for instruction
Office manager in special education department receives college staff award
Forest resources professor’s career branches off in different directions
Watkins named School of Leadership director
Newsmakers
A new class of leaders
New Media Institutute rocks
Symposium focuses on vet research
Campus News
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| Project director Harry Hayes (left) and Rex Facer II were part of the research team that scanned data, conducted an analysis and presented results to the National Association of Counties. Photo by Peter Frey |
Casting your vote
Survey provides first look at election services nationwide
By Ann Allen
allen@cviog.uga.edu
“Election reform”—it was a relatively unfamiliar term until the 2000 presidential election and the Florida recount saga pushed it to the forefront. Across the country, some 1,500 bills were introduced in the 2001 legislative year to reform the election process.
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Now, for the first time, a national survey conducted by UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government helps frame the key issues and fills an information gap related to county election services. The survey was done in cooperation with the National Association of Counties Commission on Election Standards and Reform, in conjunction with the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks.
The results have already made their way to Capitol Hill. Kenneth Mayfield, NACo first vice president and a county commissioner from Dallas County, Texas, used information from the survey while presenting testimony before the U.S. House Committee on House Administration this past April.
The survey questionnaire on county election services and funding was mailed in January to all 3,067 counties in the United States, reports Harry Hayes, faculty member and project director at the institute. NACo provided the survey questions, which were edited and put in scan form by the institute’s applied-research division. “NACo was attempting to respond quickly to the needs of the Election Commission, and the institute was in a position to act,” explains Hayes. Tom Pavlak, division head, identified the opportunity, and Hayes made the arrangements with NACo.
By February, 1,482 completed surveys were in hand, for a remarkable response rate of 48.3 percent. (In Georgia, 75 of the 159 counties returned completed surveys.) “It became clear that this survey hit a sympathetic note with county officials when the responses began to pour in to the Vinson Institute’s mail room and fax machine,” Hayes says.
The survey began with questions focusing on general voting practices, including types of elections, number of precincts, kind of voting system (i.e., punch card, lever, optical scan), and number of voting stations within a precinct. Following were questions related to election finances, such as the amount of county funds appropriated each fiscal year and if any state funds were received for election services. The final questions covered voter-education activities and training and payment of election workers. Although the survey questions were of a very basic nature, none of this kind of data had previously been collected on a nationwide basis.
The data was scanned by research staff Scott Pollack and Mark Bradbury. Hayes, Pavlak and Rex Facer II then did an analysis and presented preliminary results to the NACo commission this past March.
Responses show that counties in Georgia tend to have fewer elections, but a higher number of special elections; fewer voting precincts, but more voting “stations” per precinct and higher average population per precinct; and less state funding than the national average. Some of the results may have been influenced by the large number of counties in Georgia (more than any other state except Texas).
Georgia counties are similar to their national counterparts in such areas as whether or not they provide voter guides (most rely on local media to perform this function) and in the type of election workers and their training. The most common voting systems in Georgia, by county, are the optical scan and the lever machines. (The Statewide Uniform Electronic Voting Initiative legislation passed during the 2001 session calls for a single method of voting consistent in every Georgia county by no later than the general primary of 2004, subject to appropriations.)
“The results of this survey can be used for further research and as a benchmark for measuring future changes in election services in Georgia and across the country,” Hayes says. “More information is needed to thoroughly explore the many facets of voting and county voting services, but this data provides a forum from which further research can begin.”
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