(Preview of the Ward Portal | Image: Sixty-Six Wards)

Election data fans rejoice! There's a really useful new Ward Portal tool from Sixty-Six Wards blogger Jonathan Tannen that now makes it much easier to analyze past election results or plan a campaign. 

10th District Republican Council member Brian O'Neill is putting the finishing touches on his "Get Off My Lawn" platform for his 11th reelection campaign in Northeast Philadelphia, first banning food trucks from his entire district, and then endorsing the use of sonic waves to mess with teenagers' ears if they enter city parks after closing. 

(New voting machines | Image: WHYY)

Governor Tom Wolf has been mounting a push to get counties to buy new voting machines before the 2020 elections that will have an auditable paper trail—something the voting machines in a majority of Pennsylvania counties don't have. For a variety of reasons this has led to consternation from county election officials, including our City Commissioners, and now the Senate Republican Majority Whip says he's drafting legislation to take away Wolf's power to force counties to buy the machines.

(How fusion voting could lead more energetic municipal elections | Image: Duke Energy)

The PA Supreme Court could be on the verge of expanding fusion voting in Pennsylvania, where candidates can run on more than one party's ballot line, with some potentially fascinating consequences for municipal elections in Philadelphia. 

(Image: Gabrielle Beaudry)

Azavea 'Summer of Maps' fellow Gabrielle Beaudry has a new blog post up about a fascinating data project she worked on with Committee of 70 analyzing the flow of money from the 2017 District Attorney campaigns through Democratic ward organizations. The results help shed light on some of the less-understood low-level political machinations in our elections, and Beaudry offers helpful advice on improving campaign finance record-keeping to allow for easier citizen analysis.

(Photo: Timothy Rezendes via Creative Commons)

Jen Devor and Anton Moore reported a striking finding in their op-ed this week urging more Philadelphians to step up and become Election Day workers: nearly half of these positions are currently occupied. Just 51% of the seats are filled, and 49% are vacant.

The November 7th general election is shaping up to be a sleepy affair, but it's still important to show up and vote, and not just because it's good to vote twice a year. Anti-property tax activists quietly slipped a really bad ballot question onto the ballot, and at this point it's probably going to pass unless people show up to sink it.

So it turns out the City Commissioners processed a ton of voter registrations really late and lost a bunch more. This is not good or surprising news. 

(Button wall at the Board of Elections | Photo: Jon Geeting)

Ever since Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States last November, those of us in the business of engaging our fellow citizens in the glamorous work of municipal politics have been living in the best of times (at least in one sense.)

Everybody knows that a candidate's ballot position has an impact on his or her chances of being elected, but it's always been unclear exactly how large the effect is.