- So the Healthy Elections Project started
to try to stand up an organization
that would be laser focused
on helping local election officials adapt to the pandemic.
- The Stanford MIT Healthy Elections Project
is a joint effort founded by Nate Persily at Stanford
and Charles Stewart over at MIT
to address the COVID related challenges
that we're seeing in this election.
- The way we've divided up a lot of the responsibility
for this project is that the MIT folks are doing
a lot of the empirical work.
For example, the rates of cancellation of mail ballots,
or other sort of quantitative questions.
And we here at Stanford Law School are doing
a lot of the work on the administration
and research about the rules changes and the like.
Each sort of contributes a different perspective
to the election administration problems.
We're trying to use our perch here in Silicon Valley
to work with the internet platforms,
to also help them make some of the transitions
that are necessary to help election officials.
So whether it's poll worker recruitment
or providing reliable voting information,
we think that platforms like Facebook and TikTok
and Twitter and Google have a special role to play
in providing the information that voters
and election officials deem necessary.
The Healthy Elections Project is conducting
foundational research on how to run an election
in the time of COVID.
We're also trying to help with the development
of safe polling places and to track the litigation
that's going on in courts around the country.
In addition, we're really trying to make a difference
in recruiting poll workers
and placing them in polling places.
And as with everything we do at Stanford,
there's an educational component to this.
So we have a policy lab where students can do research
and get credit for it.
We're all laser focused on trying to provide
the kind of research that will help NGOs,
government officials, election officials in general
and voters, to try to make sure
that we can pull off this election successfully.
- We've been doing qualitative research
surrounding the primaries:
Wwat went well, what still ought to change
or could change, or what are things
that can be easily translated from one state to the next
that works well.
We also do sort of one off research, such as mail balloting.
How does one use a Dropbox?
What is a Dropbox?
What in USPS's history is sort of affecting the way
that we see mail in balloting this election, mobile voting
and whether that could be scaled in time for the election
to serve rural areas.
- We've tried to bring together the Stanford community
really to deal with these election problems.
I've never worked with the d.school before,
but when it became clear that we needed to redesign
our polling places,
going to the d.school was the natural place to look.
So the d.school has put together a guide
to healthy polling places,
as well as other materials that are going to go directly
in the hands of local election officials
to help them pull off this election.
- What signage should be used?
How the various tables should be spaced out.
What does check-in look like?
What are the safe substances that you can use
on a voting machine?
Going as far as what does the parking lot line situation
look like, so that we can keep voters six feet apart
at all times.
They're also doing research on some of the more
innovative practices that we're seeing
throughout the country, such as outdoor voting,
curbside voting, in which voters never need
to get out of their cars and sort of compiling
all of those things in an easily accessible format.
- A human-centered design approach allows you to tackle
complex problems, while putting real humans at the center
of that process.
Teams work to uncover complex needs,
identify a wide range of ways to address those need.
And then they prototype and test a few of those concepts
back with the individuals that they were designing for,
or with.
- One of the things that we're seeing in this election
is an unprecedented amount of litigation.
States are being sued for everything
from their mail ballot processes
to the availability polling places.
So one of the reasons that we put a litigation tracker
on our website is to make sure that
both the election officials themselves
and the larger community can be aware
of all the issues that are sort of uncertain
in this election and that are ending up in court.
- So what we have created through a partnership
with Morrison & Foerster is a tracker
that essentially outlines what states
have current litigation, what the litigation looks like,
what the status of it is,
what issues are being covered and have that in one database.
- It became clear early in the summer
that one of the effects of the pandemic
was going to be that a lot of the traditional poll workers,
who are senior citizens were not going to be volunteering
in the polling place.
- When we have a poll worker recruitment shortage,
election officials kind of have no choice
but to consolidate or combine polling places,
which can make it more difficult for voters
to get to the polls.
It can make lines longer,
and it can also just mean a bit more crowding
or more processing at every single polling location.
So getting the necessary number of poll workers
in the country to run the election is extremely important.
- We've been working with other campus organizations
at Stanford and elsewhere to try to recruit students
as poll workers and to sort of sound the alarm
that we need a whole new crop of poll workers
for this election.
At Stanford Law School,
we've taught a series of policy labs
in which students can work for a real client
and try to make a difference in the world.
In our case, that client is the Healthy Elections Project
and we have now 50 students who are working with us
to write memos and do research
and to take a class on all of the issues that concern
adapting the electoral environment
to deal with the pandemic.
And so we'll be issuing our report in the winter
on what happened in this election.
And we hope that make a real difference going forward
in the system of election administration.
- My biggest advice to people out there, voters especially
is to make a plan on how to vote
and to make it as soon as possible so that you have options.