EIRS: Debrief of 2006 Elections

For the fall 2006 elections, PFAW Foundation's Election Incident Reporting System divided all of the incident reports into two categories: voter inquiries and election problems.

Of the 9,439 entries in EIRS, 52.2 percent of the incidents were inquiries from voters about the voting process, while 47.7 percent were problems that impeded citizens from exercising their right to vote. Fifty-three percent of the inquiries were from voters asking where to vote and 21 percent of the inquiries were posed by voters attempting to determine their registration status. The frequency of these calls demonstrates both the importance of providing this necessary information to voters and the failures of many local jurisdictions to do so.

Of the 47.7 percent of incident reports that were accounts of problems, nearly 21 percent were callers reporting voting equipment problems. These problems came in from 39 states. Voters and poll workers had trouble using new electronic voting equipment. In a disturbingly high number of states, voters reported that machines either did not record their votes correctly or did not record their votes at all. These reports make clear that new electronic voting technology needs to improve in quality and become more user-friendly.

The next most frequently reported problem involved shortcomings in voter registration systems. Voter registration problems accounted for 16.3 percent of problems reported to EIRS. Election Protection received calls complaining of problems with the registration system from 38 states. Many of these calls were from voters eligible to register who did not appear on the voter registration rolls despite having submitted a registration form on time. Many other calls concerned new voter registration technologies, including complaints about failures of new electronic poll books.