While waiting for the polls to close, now is a good time to reflect on some good concepts that are examples of things that have gone right in some areas of the country this election and others are cures to what has gone wrong so far this year in election administration.  Of course, the big problem is that our decentralized system means that we have fifty-one different sets of state laws and over 3000 local election authorities who exercise the discretion granted by those laws in very different ways.

Good Concept Number 1 — Early voting periods.  This is not a new idea, but some states and localities are still resistant to the idea.  But with the overwhelming early vote this year, the news media is light on complaints about locations where there are exceedingly long wait times.

Good Concept Number 2 — At least one day during the early voting period when there is an early voting center open for the entire day (all twenty-four hours).  While most people work jobs where being open on the weekends or during normal business hours will make it easy to vote, there are some who have weird hours and weird shifts.  Having at least one day when you can vote at all hours (as was done in Harris County) will allow these people to vote in person.

Good Concept Number 3 — Start processing mail-in ballots when you receive them.  If not daily, then at least have a team of election judges assemble every weekend.  In smaller jurisdictions, this might only be for an hour or two per week.  But having the ballots run through counters before election day will limit the number of mail-in ballots that have to be processed on election day speeding up the count.  Admittedly, in some areas, you will have a large number of mail-in ballots that arrive in the last two or three days before the election, but the more that are processed early, the more complete the election day count will be.  Right now the big problem — both in some primaries and with the results that are coming soon — is that the delay in completing the count allows some parties to promote mischief by claiming that there is something nefarious occurring during these delayed counts.

Good Concept Number 4 — Notifying voters when their mail-in ballot has been received and when it has been validated.  If the mail-in ballot is rejected, the voters should be notified what they need to do to cure the violation.  With e-mails and text messaging, this should not be too difficult.  Simply put, voters should not have to guess whether there vote is being counted, and a voter should not lose their vote for a technical mistake in completing an absentee ballot.

Good Concept Number 5 — End the reliance on home precincts (thank you Maricopa County).  For decades, election authorities have been pre-printing ballots for each precinct and trying to guess how many ballots each precinct will need based on the turnout in recent elections.  Sometimes, this process results in a precinct being short on some ballots (or worse not having the right ballots for a precinct that has “splits”).  And it results in voters having to get back in their cars (or back on the bus) if they get their precinct location wrong.  In Maricopa County, you can go to any voting center and they will print out your correct ballot for your address even if you are not in your “home” precinct.

Bad Idea #1 — Absolute deadline that mail-in ballots must be received by election day.  This idea has always been a problem, but this year it has allowed the post office to slow things down.  I remember back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I attended college halfway across the country from home how unreliable mail delivery was to the dorms.  Even after the college received it, the RA for my floor had to pick it up from whatever sorting room the college had for the various dorms, and then had got get around for delivering it.  It was not unusual for it to take six or seven days from mailing to get my mail.  Now, the attempt to cut costs at the post office seems to be making my college experience the new normal for mail delivery.  If a voter can get the mail to the post office by a date set by statute, they should have ten days form that date for the mail to get to the election authority.  (If a state wants to make the postmark deadline the Friday before the election, that is fine.  But the law should set a deadline for mailing it rather than have the voter guess when they need to mail it for it to get to the election authority on time.)

Bad Idea #2 — Delayed runoffs.  In some states, there is a likelihood that, at least for some races, nobody is going to win on Tuesday.  If you want run-offs, there are two options.  First, you can have a top-two primary in which only two candidates advance to the general election regardless of whether any candidate gets a majority in the primary.  Second, you can use ranked-choice voting.  With ranked choice voting, every voter who voted in the general election can participate in the run-off without needing to hold a second election (at which only a fraction of the original voters will participate).

Of course, all of these concepts are based on the thought that a little inconvenience to election administrators is worth it if it makes it easier for voters.  Some ultra-conservatives recognize how unpopular their ideas are and have decided that, since they can’t win if turnout is high, they need to aim to reduce turnout among those voters who feel differently.  That idea is contrary to the idea of a democracy and the idea of a republic.  Maybe if tonight goes well, we can have some federal legislation encouraging states and localities to adopt these ideas.