Voter turnout in legislative elections in Syria stands at 51.26 percent, an official said on Tuesday, adding that 30 women had been elected to the 250-seat parliament. Announcing the results of the May 7 vote that was boycotted by opposition groups, Khalaf al-Azzawi, head of the electoral commission, said of 10,118,519 Syrians eligible to vote, a little over half had cast ballots. Read More »
It’s been a topic of discussion lately: low voter turnout for this year’s primaries. According to Tippecanoe County Clerk Christa Coffey, only 4,800 ballots were cast in early voting, which is only half the turnout from four years ago. Purdue Political Science Professor Jay McCann said there could be many reasons for the low turnout, but said one reason might be over looked: the new voting technology. ”Sometimes the election machinery, there’s a kind of double edgeness there,” said McCann. “On the one hand, it’s more efficient, we know who’s winning, there might be some better reliability to it than hand counting. On the other hand, it is technology for some voters and it can be a little off-putting.” Yet, several voters, like John Richardson, said the new technology didn’t scare them off. Read More »
France voted in a presidential run-off election on Sunday that could see Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by capitalizing on public anger over the government’s austerity policies. Polling stations opened in mainland France at 0600 GMT Sunday, a day after voting got under way in France’s overseas territories. Preliminary results are expected around 1800 GMT (2 a.m. EDT). Hollande beat Sarkozy by about half a million votes in the first round of voting on April 22, which saw 10 candidates competing for the job of running this nuclear-armed country with a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council for the next five years. Read More »
Dozens of local and county officials are asking Gov. Jan Brewer to veto a bill that would force cities to consolidate their election dates with the state. The officials appealed to Brewer’s background as a county supervisor and secretary of state, asking her to help cities maintain local control of their elections. They argued that HB2826 would stamp out local control, politicize non-partisan elections and increase election costs. HB2826 would force all cities in Arizona to hold their primary and general elections for candidates in even-numbered years beginning in 2014, at the same time as state and federal elections. Twenty-seven county election officials signed a letter to Brewer, urging her to veto the bill. At least 40 of the 76 municipalities that would be affected, along with the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, also sent letters to the governor, according to Ken Strobeck, the league’s executive director. Read More »
Pressure is mounting for Queensland councils to resume control of local government elections after a woeful voter turnout. The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) will survey councils from next week, asking them to judge how the Electoral Commission of Queensland did running last weekend’s polls. It was the second time the electoral commission ran the elections, and LGAQ executive director Greg Hallam believes it should be the last. He says councils should resume control of the process, after a poor voter turn out of 60 per cent despite voting being compulsory. Read More »
A potential last-minute agreement between House Republicans and Democrats could end a bitter fight over the repeal of a GOP-crafted election-law overhaul. Just minutes before voting to repeal House Bill 194 — and as House Democrats bombed away on the GOP in floor speeches — House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, and Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, worked out a deal to suspend the vote. Republicans had planned to repeal House Bill 194 and end the November referendum effort. But Fair Elections Ohio, the coalition of Democrats and progressive groups that worked closely with President Barack Obama’s re-election team to challenge the law, resisted the repeal. The group argued that it would deny people the right to vote against the law and would have blocked early voting in the three days before Election Day. The group and other Democrats had promised to fight the GOP repeal effort in court. Republicans argued that the opposition simply was a political effort to keep the referendum to help drive up voter turnout. Read More »
In the run-up to the 2008 election, then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign orchestrated one of the largest voter registration efforts in history, blanketing the country to register people door-to-door, at rallies and on college campuses. The strategy paid off. In Colorado, the number of registered Democrats increased by roughly 186,000 — almost four times the number of new Republicans. Unaffiliated voters also grew more than Republicans, then broke hard for Obama on Election Day, helping him clinch a 9 percentage point victory here. The enthusiasm didn’t carry over to 2010. According to data provided by the secretary of state’s office and analyzed by The Denver Post, of voters from all parties registered in 2008, nearly one-third did not cast ballots in the midterm election two years later. Read More »
South Korea’s main opposition party said Monday its candidates, who had been forecast an easy victory, now faced a tight battle with conservatives in the run-up to this week’s general election. The centre-left Democratic United Party (DUP) had been tipped for an easy win in polls on Wednesday, a key test of sentiment before a presidential vote in December, but DUP leader Han Myeong-Sook admits the race is neck-and-neck. ”We are now in an emergency situation and seized with a sense of crisis,” Han told reporters. A higher voter turnout would benefit opposition candidates who are more popular among younger voters, the DUP leader said. ”If you cast ballots, the people will win. If not, the administration of (President) Lee Myung-Bak will win,” Han said. Read More »
The grip of the super PAC on the Republican primary season has been well-documented. They are wrecking balls operating outside the candidates’ direct control, fueled by massive influxes of cash from a handful of wealthy patrons. The millions spent by the pro-Santorum Red, White and Blue Fund and the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, have prolonged their respective candidates’ rivalry with the front-runner, Mitt Romney, whose own Restore Our Future has bludgeoned the competition from Iowa to Florida to Michigan. And that’s just the start. In the general election, super PACs will evolve into full-blown shadow campaigns. This transition is already underway, with the super PACs supporting Republican candidates beginning to take on voter persuasion operations — like sending direct mail and making phone calls — that have traditionally been reserved for a campaign operation or party committee. Read More »
The Minnesota Legislature is poised to vote on a proposed Constitutional amendment that would replace same-day voter registration with a new election system called provisional voting. Not only would this new system cost local governments tens of millions in new tax dollars, it would delay the reporting of election results while we all waited for 500,000-600,000 provisional ballots to be processed. Since one-third of all provisional ballots nationwide are never counted, this could reduce our overall vote count by up to 200,000, knocking us out of our position as the state with the highest voter turnout in the nation. Given that over half-million Minnesotans normally use same-day registration in big election years, this kind of radical change should not be taken lightly. Read More »
I had the pleasure of speaking with Kerry Miller of the Daily Circuit on Minnesota Public Radio on the subject of Voter ID laws. Minnesota currently has a proposed constitutional amendment moving through its legislature to impose strict photo ID restrictions on voters and possibly eliminate Election Day registration. I take great pride in the fact that my home state of Minnesota consistently has the highest turnout in the country, and I’m pained by this legislation that is sure to reduce opportunities for voter participation across the state. I want to correct a common misperception that came up during show, suggesting that voter turnout among Hispanic voters in Georgia has increased since the passage of its restrictive no-photo, no-vote photo ID law. Read More »
In my last blog I said that Georgia has a unique situation in terms of its voter ID law, which was put into effect in 2007. As is often cited by photo voter ID law proponents, voter turnout did in fact increase between the 2004 presidential elections, which did not feature a photo voter ID mandate, and the 2008 presidential elections, which did. The numbers on this can not be refuted, and Heritage Foundation’s Hans Von Spakovsky often excitedly refers to the Georgia case when making his pro-voter ID arguments and did so in a recent blog. Citing recent voter turnout data released by Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp in a presentation he made before the Conservative Leadership Conference of the Civitas Institute on March 2 to rally North Carolina up for passing a voter ID bill: Read More »
Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors wrestled with changing the way the city elects mayors, district representatives and other officials. Two proposals would give San Francisco voters a choice: expand the instant – runoff voting system, in use since 2004, or return to a general election with a possible later top two runoff. On Feb. 14, the Board of Supervisors tabled Supervisor Mark Farrell’s proposal to repeal ranked-choice voting on a 6-5 vote. At the same meeting, Supervisor David Campos’ measure to amend the system was sent back to the Rules Committee on a unanimous vote. On March 6, Farrell introduced a modified proposal that would abolish ranked-choice voting in all citywide races, except for district supervisors. Both measures could see a vote on the November 2012 ballot. Why does this matter? Opponents of ranked-choice say the relatively novel approach still confuses voters. Opponents of the two-election approach say it wastes money. Read More »
Voters in Illinois may be required to show photo identification at the polls on election day, if current legislation is passed. SB2496 was introduced by Illinois State Senator Kyle McCarter in October of 2011 and is co-sponsored by 15 other republican senators. The bill would amend election law to require government issued photo ID be shown to election officials at the polls before voting. Currently, photo identification is only required when voting early. “To register in Illinois currently, you need 2 forms of ID,” said John J. Acardo, DeKalb County Clerk. “Not necessarily photo ID, but documents to confirm your current address.” Read More »
By 1 p.m. in the afternoon on Sunday, the sun was beating down hard on the polling center in Metapán, a mid-sized town in El Salvador just 15 kilometers south of the Guatemalan border. While there was nothing strange about the scorching sun, these national assembly and municipal elections were the first of their kind. To the surprise of the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), the former rebel group turned political party whose candidate Mauricio Funes won the Presidency in 2009, the right-wing ARENA (National Republican Alliance) gained seats in the national assembly following electoral reforms that the right-wing had pushed through. Read More »
On Monday, the Justice Department blocked implementation of Texas’ new voter identification law. Texas said the law is a necessary measure to prevent voter fraud. Justice responded that the law is unnecessary and will have a disproportionate impact on Hispanic voters who are less likely to have identification. The issue is heading to federal court, and it could well be the U.S. Supreme Court that weighs in, just months after it intervened in Texas’s redistricting dispute. So who’s right? As I explain in The Fraudulent Fraud Squad sneak preview of my forthcoming book The Voting Wars, Republican claims of a serious problem with voter impersonation are bogus. Many Republican legislators and political operatives support voter ID laws for two purposes: first, to depress Democratic turnout, and second to gin up the Republican base. But Democrats and those on the left sometimes inflate the potential negative effect of voter identification and other laws on voter turnout, especially among poor and minority voters. Just as Republicans use the scare of voter ID laws as a wedge issue to boost Republican turnout, Democrats use the scare of voter suppression to boost Democratic turnout. Read More »
Utah could move toward voting by mail in upcoming elections under a bill that passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. HB172, sponsored by Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, would allow county clerks to conduct voting by mail, if they choose. It also directs the Lieutenant Governor’s Office to study how the state could move to vote by mail by 2015. Eliason noted that Utah has some of the nation’s worst voter-participation rates and said that studies have shown that vote-by-mail programs could increase turnout by as much as 40 percent. Read More »
Voter ID laws have been all the rage around the country, with conservative lawmakers pushing to make it harder to vote, often by requiring some form of government-issued photo identification. The goal, at least according to rhetoric, is to keep the process safe from fraud—despite there being no real evidence of in-person voter fraud, the only kind such laws would actually prevent. In the meantime, states struggle with low-turnout rates and sometimes low registration rates. In Texas, which recently passed one of the more stringent ID requirements, residents vote at among the lowest rates in the country. All of which makes Connecticut’s current voting debate somewhat shocking by comparison. The secretary of state has taken the lead in proposing measures to increase voter turnout by—get this—making it easier to vote. Two proposals make it easier to register by offering same-day registration for those who show up on Election Day and creating an online voter registration system so people can do it from home. Another measure would increasing penalties for voter intimidation. According to officials, the efforts are much-needed to increase turnout. Read More »
Election officials counted votes Tuesday in crucial polls in five Indian states that could provide a boost for the ruling Congress party’s national coalition, or cripple it for the last two years of its term. The most critical results are expected from the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where Rahul Gandhi has put his reputation on the line for a strong Congress party showing. Gandhi, touted as Congress’ next prime ministerial candidate, campaigned relentlessly for months to oust the government of Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents bottom caste dalits. If Congress doesn’t significantly build on the paltry 22 seats it controls in the 403-strong state assembly, it would be a devastating blow to Gandhi’s aspirations to be taken seriously as a national leader. Read More »
A bill that would require voters to show some form of identification before casting their ballots has strong support from some, but has drawn ire from others. The House Judiciary Committee heard public comment Feb. 27. While some pointed out the strengths of the bill, others noted that it would disenfranchise vulnerable groups, particularly minorities and senior citizens. Randy Myers, a Charleston resident and state president of AARP West Virginia, said the state would see a decrease in voter turnout if the bill passes because many seniors do not have any form of identification. He echoed the words of former Secretary of State Betty Ireland, who in 2008 said she would not support voter identification laws. ”I would rather take a small chance on someone not being who they are than for someone not to vote,” Myers said. He went on to say that many seniors lack proper documentation, such as birth certificates, to verify their identity. Read More »
The ability to use more technology, Election Day registration and increased outreach are what Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill called “modest first steps” to addressing the crisis of poor voter turnout numbers. In an appearance at Town Hall last Thursday, Feb. 2, Ms. Merrill discussed election issues and looked ahead to what can be done to get more people educated and motivated to vote. The Greenwich League of Women Voters invited Ms. Merrill to speak so residents could hear about the latest initiatives coming out of her office. She discussed the impacts of technology and where she sees voting trends going in years to come. Read More »
Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, didn’t get support from his own committee Wednesday in his push to move legislative primary elections to August. The House State Affairs Committee, a panel chaired by Loerstscher, voted down his measure after strong opposition from a number of county clerks and Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. Loertscher told his colleagues that the May primary election hampers legislators, who are typically required to be in the Statehouse from early January to late March or early April. He believes moving the primary back to August would allow lawmakers to focus on legislative work in the early months of the year and still run a full campaign later in the year. But the measure received little support in public testimony. A number of county clerks, in town for meetings with the Idaho Association of Counties, told the panel that pushing the primary back would cause too much work in a year when they are facing numerous obstacles. Read More »
The Election Commission’s assurance of peaceful elections came a cropper on the first day of polling in Manipur when seven persons, including a CRPF jawan and four poll officials, were killed even as an 82% turnout was recorded on Saturday. DGP R Baral said a suspected NSCN(IM) militant entered a booth at Thampi polling station in Chandel constituency and asked officials to stop polling. When they refused, he fired at them. A few CRPF men rushed in and returned fire, killing the rebel. “Six persons were killed on the spot. An injured later died in hospital,” said Baral. Among the deceased was a minor girl who had accompanied relatives to the booth. It’s learnt that three Naga militants entered the booth posing as voters. While one began firing from a pistol and was killed, the other two escaped, said a source. Read More »
For veteran election-watcher Curtis Gans, who runs the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, this disenfranchisement is a major problem. ”There are 50 million American citizens who aren’t registered to vote,” he says. “And there are 20 million names on registration lists that ought not to be there.” Alaska, Illinois, and South Dakota have more voters on their lists than there are citizens eligible to vote living there, Mr Gans has told Congress. And of 172 recognised democracies, the US is ranked 139th in voter participation, he says. Read More »
The first in a series of measures aimed at tightening Virginia’s election laws began moving toward passage in the House of Delegates today. Del. Mark Cole’s bill, , provides that voters who are unable to present an approved form of identification at the polls would have to vote a provisional ballot – a ballot that would not be counted unless and until the voter’s identity is verified. The measure was approved 4-2 along party lines by a House subcommittee over the opposition of several interest groups that called it an attempt to suppress voter turnout, especially among minority and low-income Virginians. Read More »
Exit polls have predicted that Kazakhstan’s ruling party is headed for a crushing election victory. With three parties possibly entering parliament, democratic representation looks set to broaden slightly. Kazakhstan’s ruling party looked set to celebrate a crushing election victory on Sunday after exit polls gave President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party 81 percent of the vote. The poll of some 50,000 voters nationwide, conducted by Kazakh think tank Institute of Democracy, showed two other parties possibly entering parliament in the wake of Sunday’s vote. Read More »
For the 2010 general election, 35 states and the District provided voters at least one alternative to casting their ballot on Election Day through in-person early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, or voting by mail. Specifically, 33 states and the District provided in-person early voting, 29 states and the District provided no-excuse absentee voting, and 2 states provided voting by mail to all or most voters. Of the 9 states and the District where GAO conducted interviews, all but 2 states provided voters the option of in-person early voting in the 2010 general election, and 5 states and the District offered both early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. Implementation and characteristics of in-person early voting varied among the 7 states and, in some cases, among the jurisdictions within a state. For example, 5 states and the District required local jurisdictions to include at least one Saturday, and 2 states allowed for some jurisdiction discretion to include weekend days. Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released the first major U.S. report on the costs and benefits associated with holding elections on weekends – though it said it could not “draw valid conclusions” about what impact moving elections to weekends would have on voter turnout. Under federal law passed in 1845, elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Lawmakers chose Tuesday in order to give voters one travel day after the Sunday day of rest to get from their farms into town to vote. Critics say the practice of voting on Tuesdays is outdated and depresses turnout. Read More »
As the National Popular Vote (NPV) movement steps up its effort to impose a direct election for president, attempting to enlist states with a sufficient number of electors to constitute a majority (268) and to bind them to the winner of the national popular vote, those states considering the proposal might first reflect on the nightmare aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. Because there was a difference of less than 1,000 tabulated votes between George W. Bush and Al Gore in one state, Florida, the nation watched as 6 million votes were recounted by machine, several hundred thousand were recounted by hand in counties with differing recount standards, partisan litigators fought each other in state and federal courts, the secretary of state backed by the majority of state legislators (all Republicans) warred with the state’s majority Democratic judiciary — until 37 days after the election the U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitterly controversial 5-4 decision effectively declared Bush the winner.
Yesterday, Twitter user DukeDuluth wrote the following which was picked up and re-Tweeted by many anxious for something to discuss in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses:
State with highest % voter turnout in most recent general election should have first presidential contest. Reward Democracy.
I will admit to having been involved in past efforts to study the primary scheduling process – so I will walk away from any discussion about whether DukeDuluth’s idea has merit. But his idea is a golden opportunity to discuss the question of turnout – especially since the concept is going to get a lot of airtime over the next year.
Generally speaking, turnout is the proportion of voters who participate in an election, usually expressed as a percentage. That’s where it stops being simple. Here’s why. Read More »
Today, Iowans will kick off the Republican nominating process for president of the United States with the first-in-the-nation caucuses. But why a Tuesday?
The short answer: We vote on Tuesday for absolutely no good reason. This is true especially when you consider the United States, arguably the world’s most famous democracy, has ranked near the bottom of all nations in voter participation for more than half a century. And that’s not because, as Mitt Romney suggested to me last month, we need great candidates to increase voter turnout. Heard of JFK? Reagan?
The little-bit-longer answer: We vote on Tuesday because of a law passed in 1845 meant to make voting convenient for Americans traveling by horse and buggy. Seriously. When Congress set out to pick a day for Americans to vote, ultimately settling on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, voting could take two days: a day to get to the county seat to vote and a day to get back for market day on Wednesday. They couldn’t travel on the Christian sabbath, so by process of elimination, Tuesday, the first convenient day of the week, was chosen. It was as simple as that. Read More »
Dagmein Khaseinova beams with pride recalling the day her Chechen village, devastated a decade ago in a war launched by Vladimir Putin, gave the Russian ruler’s party nearly 100 percent support in a parliamentary vote this month. Her little village of Mekhketi, she said, is even on the way to winning the cash prize she says authorities have promised for the polling station registering the biggest turnout.
“We’ve already won the regional competition. In a few days we’ll hear whether we won throughout all of Chechnya,” Khaseinova, 53, said, wearing a traditional Chechen scarf over her head and squinting in the cold mountain air. ”The organizers of the polling station have been promised some kind of prize money if they win,” she adds, hiding a smile. Putin’s United Russia recorded a higher percentage of votes in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, where federal troops fought two wars since the fall of the Soviet Union, than anywhere else in the country. Official results show support at 99.5% and voter turnout of 99.4%.
Nationwide, the party won just under half the votes, securing a slim majority in the State Duma. Even that outcome, critics said, was the result of ballot stuffing and fraud. Countless complaints have been filed; but not in Chechnya. Official monitors here have not lodged a single complaint of voting violations, but among many local residents, the outcome has stirred some incredulity, albeit cautiously expressed.
“United Russia is the party of Putin, and Chechnya would never vote for Putin,” said one middle-aged resident of the regional capital of Grozny, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution. “In the mind of every Chechen he is associated with the bombing that destroyed Grozny and other cities all over the region. Voting for Putin is about as absurd as any vote with a 99% outcome,” he said. Read More »
The Green Party wants parliament to consider online enrolment and voting for future elections, after a record low turnout for last month’s election.
The final election results, released on Saturday, show only 74 per cent of enrolled voters cast a vote in last month’s general election, down from 79 per cent in 2008.
Following the election, the Green Party called for parliament’s justice and electoral select committee to look at why voter turnout was so low as part of its regular post-election inquiry. The Greens have since undertaken an informal online survey, asking people what would make them more inclined to enrol or vote. The survey received 1,059 responses over a three day period.
Of those who were not enrolled to vote, two-thirds said they would have been more likely to do so if they could online. Currently, people can update their details online, but they have to either print out or be posted a form to sign and return. Of those who didn’t vote, 58 per cent said they would have been more likely to if secure online voting was available. Read More »
The head of Egypt’s election commission said turnout was “massive and unexpected” for the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, with millions participating peacefully in a spirit of hopefulness that surprised many after new protests broke out in the days leading up to the vote.
Long lines formed again today at polling centers around the capital Cairo and other cities on the second and final day of the first round of parliamentary elections. The historic election — which promises to be the country’s fairest and cleanest in living memory — will indicate whether one of America’s most important Middle East allies will turn down a more Islamic path with powerful religious parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood expected to dominate. Read More »
President Yahya Jammeh on Friday secured a new five-year term after the Independent Electoral Commission declared him winner of 24th November 2011 presidential election. Results announced by the returning officer and Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Mustapha L. Carayol, showed Jammeh polled 72% of the total votes cast while main opposition leader Ousainou Darboe polled 17%. Independent candidate Hamat Bah scored 11% of the total votes cast. Voter turnout was 83%, showing a massive jump from that of the 2006 elections, which was about 59%.
According to the IEC chairman, out of a total number of 796, 929 voters, Hamat Bah polled 73, 060 votes, Ousainou Darboe 114, 177 votes while President Yahya Jammeh polled 470, 550 votes. Jammeh’s victory, seen by many as a foregone conclusion, was also described as historic in the country’s politics, as Jammeh won with a landslide in all the 48 constituencies across the country. Read More »
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