“Voting in America Summit” Starts With a Bang

Maybe it’s the "sleeper" event of the post-election, pre-inauguration season in DC — the "Voting in America Summit" conference (sponsored by Make Voting Work, a project of The Pew Center on the States in partnership with the JEHT Foundation). Based on the opening event this evening, the summit looks to be far more than an election wonks’ retrospective on what did and didn’t work well in the recent election cycle. Attendees range from Obama transition team folks to a range of election officials (many in the hot seat in recent months and some real stories to tell) to secretaries of state and a surprising number of pragmatic election integrity folks — and of coourse academics, regulators, Federal agency folks, election reform activists and more.

What looked to be a sober collective retrospective on Election 2009 has turned out to be an over-sellout, wait-listed, competitive attendance, energetic conference of people buzzing with energy to, well, "Make Voting Work" (the more evocative subtitle of the event).

OSDV is fortunate to be represented at the conference, and we’ll be reporting more as it unfolds, starting bright and early tomorrow morning — officially at 8, but we told more like 7ish for those that want to get a seat.

— EJS