Monday, May 19, 2014

Are you registered to vote?


The San Francisco Department of Elections does a decent job of reminding people that they need to sign up if they are newcomers or have recently moved. Today, May 19, is the last day to do this in time to vote on June 3. You can even do it online, right now.

Maybe soon we'll have election day voter registration, as ten states and the District of Columbia do now. California enacted this reform in 2012, but awaits certification by the Secretary of State that we have a voter database that can handle it. All experience suggests that reducing registration hurdles increases turnout measurably.
***
While on the subject of elections, check out this database toy that let's you plug in a last name (perhaps your own) and discover the likelihood that a person with that name is a Republican or a Democrat, by state, and whether that person will probably vote in November. Scroll down for the goodies.

This widget illustrates just a tiny fraction of the information that big data analysis gives political campaigns for shaping their turnout tactics and targets. I imagine the maker put it online as an advertisement.

2 comments:

  1. I rarely vote in primaries because there is often no choice. Sometimes there are no choices in fall off year elections here. People will not run for office, especially Dems. Tomorrow we will choose among a number of candidates to run for very important positions like governor. We need to vote and I will.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Primaries usually determine the winner in this state, since it is overwhelmingly Democratic.

    ReplyDelete