Thread by @ericgeller

Today, we're launching a major project that I've been working on for the past five months.

It's a page that tracks every state and county using paperless voting machines, including whether they plan to upgrade and where they are in that process.

politico.com/interactives/2…

I'm extremely proud of the work that went into this tracker, so permit me a thread walking you through it and giving credit where due.

We start by showing you a bunch of national maps, including the 36 states and D.C. that used paper in 2018 and the 14 states that were at least partially paperless.

We then break down the map of those 14 states by the status of each jurisdiction: upgraded to paper, in the process of upgrading, planning to upgrade, and not planning to upgrade.

You'll notice how many counties either don't plan to upgrade or haven't respond to our outreach.

Those maps are just the appetizer. The heart of the page — the part that took months of prep work and outreach — is our state-by-state breakdown.

Five of the 14 states (DE, GA, LA, OK, and SC) run centralized processes where the state govt picks voting machines. Here are two examples of how we show those states. (DE was the first of the 14 states to fully upgrade to paper.)

The other nine states let counties pick their own voting machines. Tracking those ~600 counties required tons of research, outreach, and prodding.

When you look at a state with a county-based process, you'll see a list of every county in that state, with colored circles indicating status.

🟠 = plans to upgrade
🟡 = upgrade in progress
light 🟢 = upgrade complete
dark 🟢 = already paper in 2018
🔴 = no plans to upgrade

You can hover over a county on the map or in the list to see a detailed status report, including the five steps we consider evidence of progress (funding, ETA, RFP, machine selection, and machine purchase).

As I said before, a lot of counties haven't responded to our outreach. If you work for one of the counties in gray or know someone who does, help us out!

https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/1158378201984512000

I also wrote two stories that we're publishing today to promote and expand on the tracker.

The first gives you five big-picture takeaways about the migration to paper, with some quotes from the officials we surveyed.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

My other story focuses on Texas, where 69 of 254 counties are either keeping their existing paperless machines or buying new ones.

TX is a microcosm of issues nationwide: lack of $ & cyber expertise, preference for the familiar, and deference to vendors.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

Texas also shows what happens when there's no paper mandate. State lawmakers were considering one this year but failed to pass it before adjourning until 2021.

Many counties were waiting to see what happened. Now they have a green light to buy paperless.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

Most of these counties are small (though Fort Bend, Hidalgo, and Montgomery are staying paperless & Galveston is buying new ones), but there are a lot of them, and interference in a bunch of low-population counties could undermine confidence statewide.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

For my Texas story, I spoke to experts in cybersecurity and election administration about why local officials like paperless machines and how that combines with other factors to make replacement difficult.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

The Texas legislature's failure to mandate paper was a boon to vendors, who experts said will keep selling paperless devices as long as customers want them.

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

"Every county using paperless machines is a major hole in American election security," @RonWyden told me. He backs a paper mandate.

But a mandate is a nonstarter with Republicans like @ConawayTX11, who told me Congress shouldn't "make these decisions on behalf of states."

So, that's a lot. To recap, here's what we published today:

Tracker: politico.com/interactives/2…

5 takeaways: politico.com/story/2019/08/…

Zoom-in on Texas: politico.com/story/2019/08/…

This project wouldn't have been possible without a great team at Politico who researched, wrote, designed, and edited until we had a top-notch final product.

.@beatricezjin is the reason you're seeing an amazingly snazzy interactive page instead of a Google spreadsheet. She did phenomenal work bringing my idea to life and making everything visually and narratively coherent.

She also put up with a lot of change requests from me!

Gathering this page's data from hundreds of counties required a lot of research and outreach, and @JordynHermani was a vital part of that process. She took the mundane work of contacting and re-contacting county clerks in stride. We couldn't have done this without her.

My editor @mikebfarrell played n important role on two fronts. He helped collect the data by tracking a long list of counties, and he helped make sure the tracker page and the two associated stories were clear and engaging.

.@JonRMcClure's leadership on the design side was invaluable. He made sure the tracker page did what we needed it to do, and he never complained when we kept requesting tweaks.

Not even an eye twitch at the words "Maybe we should..." or "Is there a way to..."

Similarly, this project is as good as it is because of @BKingDC's editing work. He meticulously scrubbed through all the text to ensure that it flowed well. He kept this very wonky topic accessible to readers with no background in it.

I'm really proud of this project and excited for everyone to see it. Please check out the tracker page, share it with your friends and neighbors, and let me know what we should add or change.

politico.com/interactives/2…

politico.com/story/2019/08/…

politico.com/story/2019/08/…