The Voting News Daily: NM SoS fires critics. Moldova voter roll hacked. Military Voters get your ballot!
Lawyers’ Committee Condemns DOJ and Georgia’s Maneuvers to Preclear New Registration Procedures…Hinds Co Mississippi to buy 300 used optical scanners for $350 ea…New Mexico SOS fires whistleblowers…WA SOS office straight talk on military vote…Military & Overseas Voters, Submit your Ballot Request for the Gen Election!. Get big discounts on express delivery of voted ballots back to the US with help of Overseas Vote Foundation & FedEx Express…Hacker attack on Moldova’s digital voter rolls caused electoral confusion…
All this and more in today’s voting news below…
Editor Note: If you have friends in military, or US friends overseas, please pass on this newsletter or the articles about military voting so that they can get their ballot on time. Thanks!
AR: Rural mail changes cause voting problems * (absentee mail ballots)
http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2010/sep/07/rural-mail-changes-cause-voting-problems/
Recent changes to rural residents’ mailing addresses led to a voting fiasco on Election Day when people arriving at the polls complained they never received early voting ballots.
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County officials became aware of the problem when the recorder’s office started receiving returned ballots. Starting July 1, the post office stopped delivering mail to highway carrier (HC) addresses. Residents must use physical addresses.
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All told, 1,414 registered voters had highway carrier addresses, and roughly 250 of those voters are on the permanent early ballot list.
During the election, those on the early ballot list had to vote provisionally, and then county officials had to make sure those voters hadn’t already cast ballots.
AZ: Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/politics/07candidates.html?_r=2&ref=republican_party
Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates.
CA: Alameda County braces for ranked-choice voting
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_15980147
Years after voters approved it, ranked-choice voting has come to Alameda County.
Voters in three cities — Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro — will use the new voting method in electing local officials, such as mayor and city council members.
DC: DC LEARNS ABOUT THE WEEK-LONG “ELECTION DAY”
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3296
GA: Lawyers’ Committee Condemns DOJ and Georgia’s Maneuvers to Preclear New Registration Procedures
http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/projects/voting_rights/page?id=0062
These maneuvers by the State and the Justice Department represent a departure from past practice and were apparently undertaken solely to prevent minority citizens of Georgia, as intervenors, from contesting preclearance.
MS: Hinds Hires New Administrator; Debates Voting Machines
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/hinds_hires_
new_administrator_debates_voting_machines_090710/ http://tinyurl.com/2v7lmyq
Supervisors also spent over half an hour discussing a request from the county Election Commission to purchase 300 used voting machines. Election Commissioners Lelia Rhodes and Marilyn Avery urged the board to approve buying the two-year-old machines, at a cost of $350 per machine. New voting machines can cost $3,000 each, Rhodes said. The machines would arrive by Dec.1, after the November congressional elections but in time to be used for the 2011 statewide elections, she added.
The purchase would come out of the $1.722 million remaining in a federal grant for election equipment. Supervisors approved the purchase of scanners for the Election Commission earlier this summer.