Editorials: 2012 – the year of elections | Fareed Zakaria/CNN.com 2011 will likely be recorded as a year of historic change. Mass uprisings have upended governments across the Arab world. Economic mismanagement in Europe led to changes at the top in Italy, Greece and Spain. 365 days ago you couldn’t have predicted these events. You couldn’t…
2011 will likely be recorded as a year of historic change. Mass uprisings have upended governments across the Arab world. Economic mismanagement in Europe led to changes at the top in Italy, Greece and Spain. 365 days ago you couldn’t have predicted these events. You couldn’t have imagined so many leaders would lose their jobs. So what if I told you that you can predict that in 2012, a lot of leaders will say goodbye? No, I’m not gazing into a magic crystal ball. You see, 2012 is the year of elections.
59 countries will be tallying up votes – local, state or national. There are 193 countries in the world so that’s about a third of the world’s nations. 26 of these may see a change in national leadership. Together, these changes could affect 53% of the world’s population, representing half of the world’s GDP. And a lot of the change is concentrated in the world’s most powerful countries. Four out of the five U.N. Security Council members could see changes at the top. That’s Russia, China, France, and, of course, the U.S. These four countries alone represent 40% of the world’s GDP.
On the Friday before Christmas Day, the Department of Justice formally objected to a new South Carolina law requiring voters to produce an approved form of photo ID in order to vote. That move already has drawn cheers from the left and jeers from the right. The DoJ said South Carolina could not show that its new law would not have an adverse impact on racial minorities, who are less likely to have acceptable forms of identification.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley denounced the DoJ decision blocking the law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: “It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this terrible, clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th Amendment rights.” The state’s attorney general vowed to fight the DoJ move in court, and thanks to an odd quirk in the law, the issue could get fast-tracked to the Supreme Court, which could well use it to strike down the Voting Rights Act provision as unconstitutional before the 2012 elections.
The current dispute has an eerie echo. More than 45 years ago, South Carolina also went to the Supreme Court to complain that Section 5 unconstitutionally intruded on its sovereignty. Under the 1965 Act, states with a history of racial discrimination like South Carolina could not make changes in its voting rules—from major changes like redistricting to changes as minor as moving a polling place across the street—without getting the permission of either the U.S. Department of Justice or a three-judge court in Washington, D.C. The state had to show the law was not enacted with the purpose, or effect, of making minority voters worse off than they already were.
A Christmas scrooge stole credit card information from a Texas-based company Saturday, by hacking into its website. We’ve told you about a cyber threat that could impact the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd. Turns out, this latest internet breach could be affiliated with the same group of hackers, which released credit card information from Stratfor, a think-tank that concentrates on security issues, totaling losses of $1 million.
The group thought to be behind it is called Anonymous. That’s the same one responsible for threats made against the upcoming Iowa caucuses. How the group could hamper the process is unknown. University of Iowa professor, Douglas Jones, has two theories.
Iowa GOP chair Matt Strawn was largely mum when I asked yesterday about a tip I got that the state party was moving the vote-tabulation away from their headquarters to an “undisclosed location.” But after the Iowa GOP HQ was flooded today with questions from Ron Paul backers and conspiracy-minded types about why the Republicans were compiling the votes from the state’s 99 counties in private, the state party’s executive director confirmed that they were going off-site and said it was only to avoid a sabotage.
“The Party is simply moving off-site in the event that protesters or others attempt to disrupt the reporting process by cutting phone lines, etc,” said party ED Chad Olsen. He added: “Every vote is counted. Every vote is reported. The vote-counting process is carried out in public.”
The Montana Supreme Court today upheld Montana’s century-old ban on corporate political expenditures in state elections. The Court’s 5-2 ruling sets up the first direct challenge to the US Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which equated corporations with people under the First Amendment and swept away longstanding precedent that had barred corporate expenditures in federal elections. Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act came under legal attack following the Citizens United decision, and Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock has vigorously defended the state’s law in the Montana courts, leading to today’s state supreme court ruling.
“[T]he State of Montana, or more accurately its voters, clearly had a compelling interest to enact the challenged statute in 1912,” wrote Chief Justice Mike McGrath for the Court’s the majority opinion in the case of Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. State of Montana. “At that time the State of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests.”
In elections past, Rhode Island has not required photo identification for a ballot to be counted. However, with the passage of a new law the state has at least superficially joined the ranks of states which have approved legislation that will hamper the voting rights of its most vulnerable citizens. Yet the truth may not be so simple. Rhode Island’s law is less restrictive and more benign than legislation passed by other states which may explain the unique politics behind the passage of RI’s new photo identification bill.
The law will be implemented in two stages. “The first stage will require non-photo ID beginning Jan. 1, 2012. The second stage will require photo ID beginning Jan. 1, 2014.” For the upcoming 2012 election, voters are able to vote by establishing their identity through possession of forms of ID that do not have their photo, “including without limitation”: a birth certificate, social security card, or government-issued medical card. The language “without limitation” can reasonably be construed as meaning that “any current photo identification that includes the name and photograph of the voter will be accepted.”
Rick Perry appears to be riding into the sunset, but he is not leaving the stage without exercising a true politician’s prerogative of cheerfully sacrificing any principle, no matter how strongly stated, when it becomes inconvenient.
If there’s one thing we know about Perry — one dry-gulch bedrock to his cowboy constitutional philosophy — it’s that he just hates them activist judges and all the perverted things they have done to the Fourteenth Amendment. “[T]he Fourteenth Amendment is abused by the Court to carry out whatever policy choices it wants to make in the form of judicial activism,” he lamented in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. In particular, courts “should be particularly protective of our founding structure — a unique structure of dual sovereigns that placed power as close to the people as was practical so that the people could govern themselves.”
Surely that would mean that the people of Virginia should have a right to determine what level of support a candidate needs to be a serious presidential candidate, deserving of a place on its primary ballot? Or should that decision be made by “unelected judges”? Well, actually, unelected judges are suddenly looking right good to Gov. Perry. Perry last week failed to qualify for the Virginia Republican Primary ballot, both a humiliating blow to his dignity and a concrete setback to his hope of remaining in the presidential race after his expected low showing in Iowa.
Out of the blue, Bosnia’s leaders have agreed to form a government, almost 15 months after the October 2010 general election. The country’s politicians had supposedly been on the verge of agreement for so long that most observers had lost faith they would ever be able to strike a deal. There was even talk of a new election.
The deal came on December 28th. “We did not get what we thought we should, but no one got everything they wanted,” said Milorad Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-dominated half of the country. A corruption investigation into Mr Dodik was dropped on the same day the deal was struck. Vjekoslav Bevanda, a member of one of the two main Bosnian Croat parties, has been nominated for the post of prime minister.
The heavily criticised director of ‘An African Election’ – a movie on the 2008 elections of Ghana – Jarreth Merz, has revealed that his political neutrality and background did the trick to give him access to the Strong Room of the Electoral Commission of Ghana.
The director of the award-winning movie said he sought permission from the Electoral Commission and mainly the political parties’ representatives in the Strong Room after a gentleman’s agreement was reached that he will not make the video clips public until the elections were over. He stated that one of the major reasons why he was allowed to film all the actions in the Strong Room uncensored was due to the fact that he was seen to be a “neutral” person.
Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi hereon Friday, issued strict guidelines to ensure free and fair assembly elections in Uttarakhand. Briefing the mediapersons about the preparations, the Chief Election Commissioner revealed that observer’s teams will keep a tab on all activities of the candidates to ascertain if they are indulging in resorting to money and muscle power including luring the voters with liquor.
“Our general observers and expenditure observers will keep an alert eye on money, muscle power and liquor during the state polls and they would check that any such things do not affect the elections,” said Qureshi. He mentioned that the Election Commission has specified all necessary guidelines and that it is monitoring the pre-polls process in the five states where polls are scheduled to take place.
Kiribati has put its presidential election on hold until next year so citizens travelling to celebrate the New Year can vote. Elections were held in mid October, with over 100 candidates contesting the 23 constituencies.
Three successful politicians have nominated to contest the presidency, the incumbent Anote Tong, the opposition leader in the last parliament Rimeta Beniamina, and Doctor Tetaua Taitai. Mr Tong said the vote would now be held on the 13 of January.
Presidential politics in Senegal is in full swing now that President Abdoulaye Wade’s party made official his controversial bid for a third term in the February elections. The announcement has re-ignited a six-month-old opposition movement.
President Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party [PDS] chose a controversial date to announce a controversial decision. The party confirmed that the president is its candidate for the February 26 election at a rally on Friday, which is the six-month anniversary of one of his biggest political defeats. It was on June 23 – in the face of protests and riots – that Wade was forced to withdraw a proposed constitutional referendum to make it easier for him to win the upcoming election in the first round.
With less than two months before the February 12 presidential elections in Turkmenistan, 14 rival candidates have now appeared on the scene in the last week, following the announcement of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s nomination December 15.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the opposition website gundogar.org have reported on these predictable figures selected from reliable ministry bureaucrats, provincial government administrators and factory managers to compete against the incumbent… All of them were nominated by state-controlled industrial or civic groups. The State News Agency of Turkmenistan has maintained enthusiastic coverage of this simulated of democracy with declarations like this:
This meeting like all activities in this most important social-political campaign for the elections of president of Turkmenistan took place under conditions of glasnost’ and openness, which once again vividly reflected the opportunity, established by law, for citizens of our country to freely and fully realize their constitutional rights.
When it comes to elections, what does California do well? What could California do better? How have we led, and how have we perhaps lagged behind? These are questions that a diverse group of individuals and organizations asked themselves and one another over the course of three months, with an aim to envision the future of California’s elections. It turned out to be an extraordinary conversation and a process which could very well serve as a model for other states as well. One driving force in the process was the convening organization, the James Irvine Foundation, which has long worked on issues of importance to Californians. The participants included a diverse range of representatives with a concern for voters and not-yet voters, for elections and how they function, and for California’s democracy.
Editorials: Voter ID Laws Could Keep Students From Voting in 2012 Elections | Camira Powell/PolicyMic College campuses across the nation are teeming with students ready to exercise their right to vote, one of the few perks that comes with turning 18. Yet, instead of encouraging students to take part in this rite of passage, some…
College campuses across the nation are teeming with students ready to exercise their right to vote, one of the few perks that comes with turning 18. Yet, instead of encouraging students to take part in this rite of passage, some states are imposing voter ID requirements that make it much harder for them to vote. The fact that some Republicans see these new voter restrictions as a good thing shows their complete disregard for the democratic process. Moreover, it is demonstrative of their reasonable fear of losing the upcoming presidential election.
At first glance, the laws do no seem that restrictive. The new laws are requiring voters to present government-issued IDs, such as a passport or drivers license. However, when considering that a significant portion of students only carry a form of student ID, it becomes an issue. Additionally, other laws being endorsed by Republican lawmakers regarding voter ID can be interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state drivers’ licenses; thus, excluding more students from being able to vote.
The Justice Department’s decision last week to block a new South Carolina law requiring voters to present photo identification is only the first of what will be a year-long battle between advocates and opponents of stricter voting laws. And the results of those fights could determine the winner of the 2012 presidential election.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, said her state will appeal DOJ’s decision in court, casting it as “bullying” by the federal government. At the same time, civil right groups are promising to fight similar provisions in states such as Wisconsin and Texas, arguing these laws unfairly target minorities, who are less likely to hold photo identification.
When the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it was approving Georgia’s new House, Senate and Congressional district maps, it was the first time ever that all three Georgia maps had been “pre-cleared” on the first try.
“I am proud to say that this year was the first time Republicans ever controlled the redistricting process and both the process and the product were very different than anything Georgia has seen before,” said former state senator Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg. Seabaugh, now deputy state treasurer, served as chairman of the Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee this summer.
For all of their years of claims that massive voter fraud is going on at the polling place, such that Photo ID restrictions are required to ensure the integrity of the vote, you’d think that when Republicans have a chance to run their own elections, they’d be sure to want it to be as “fraud” free as possible.
Nonetheless, despite onerous polling place Photo ID requirements now passed into law in about a dozen states where the GOP controls both the legislative and executive branches, voters will be able to cast their ballot in next Tuesday’s “First-in-the-Nation” Republican Iowa Caucuses without bothering to show a Photo ID — even though the Republican Party itself sets their own rules for voting there.
Unlike most primary elections where an official state election board or agency sets the rules and runs the registration and balloting processes, the Iowa Republican Party runs its own state caucuses, determines the rules, tabulates all the votes and announces the results to the public and media themselves. They have complete control over the entire process, and yet they don’t bother to ask their own voters to show a state-issued Photo ID before casting their ballot.
The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a state law that requires a live operator on the phone before any recorded message is delivered does not violate the right to free speech or the right to participate in political speech.
The 4-1 decision involves a case that began in 2006 in which FreeEats.com, an automated phone messaging operator, sought to overturn an Indiana law that forbade so-called robocalls, or unsolicited calls with automated messages.
The case stemmed from automated calls the company made on behalf of a group called the Economic Freedom Fund during the 2006 congressional campaign.
A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — filled when the Department of Justice barred the city of Kinston, N.C. from holding nonpartisan elections — reasoning that lack of access to party affiliation would discriminate against minority voters who otherwise wouldn’t know how to find Democratic candidates on a ballot.
The challenge was initiated after the Justice Department rejected a 2008 referendum vote in which the city of Kinston voted to stop listing candidates’ party affiliations on ballots. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department must approve changes to election law in regions with a history, however distant, of racial discrimination.
The Justice Department prevented the 2008 referendum change, arguing in part that “the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice.”
When the U.S. Justice Department last week blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law because of possible discrimination against minorities, attention quickly focused on Texas, which passed similar legislation this year.
Tentatively set to go into effect Sunday, the Texas law requires that a valid photo ID be presented at the polls along with a voter registration card. The accepted forms of identification are: Texas driver’s license, Texas election ID (issued by the Department of Public Safety), a personal identification card from the DPS, a Texas concealed handgun license, U.S. military ID card, U.S. citizenship certificate or U.S. passport.
In rejecting South Carolina’s law, the Justice Department used the state’s own data to show that tens of thousands of residents did not possess the required photo IDs, and that nonwhite voters would be most burdened under the statute.
Mitt Romney is having fun with Newt Gingrich’s inability to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, likening him to Lucille Ball in the famous episode of “I Love Lucy” where she can’t keep up with a conveyor belt of chocolates. “You’ve got to get it organized,” Mr. Romney chided Tuesday in New Hampshire. But to Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker and a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the ballot failure is no laughing matter.
He also has influential Virginians who agree that it was wrong to exclude Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry from the March 6 Virginia primary. Each had submitted more than the required 10,000 signatures, but on Dec. 24, state election officials deemed that they did not have enough valid signatures to qualify.
Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are the only two candidates to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot. Other major contenders, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, did not attempt to collect the necessary signatures.
Two former state political party chairmen are asking for emergency legislation to get more Republican presidential candidates on Virginia’s March 6 primary ballot.
Standing outside the State Capitol, Paul Goldman, the onetime state Democratic Party chairman, and ex-Republican Party chairman Patrick McSweeney called Virginia’s ballot-qualification rules onerous and flawed. They urged lawmakers to change them immediately when they convene Jan. 11 so voters can choose from an array of Republican candidates on Super Tuesday.
Their appeal came the same day that state election officials approved the Virginia GOP’s request for a closed primary – meaning that would-be voters must promise to vote for the eventual Republican presidential nominee in the November election before they’ll be given a primary ballot.
A judge Thursday ruled against recall campaigns that sought to intervene in a lawsuit over how state election officials check recall signatures. Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis also set Jan. 5 for the next hearing in the case, in which the Friends of Scott Walker and Stephan Thompson, executive director of the state Republican Party, asked Davis to order the state Government Accountability Board to look for and eliminate duplicate signatures, clearly fake names and illegible addresses. All of the issues in the case are expected to be handled during that hearing.
Jeremy Levinson, attorney for recall groups targeting Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and three Republican state senators, had sought to make the groups, and some individuals connected with them, parties in the case. Levinson also sought to have the Republicans submit to discovery, which could potentially have opened Walker campaign records to scrutiny by Democrats. With Davis denying the motion to intervene, discovery won’t occur, as an attorney for the accountability board said it didn’t see a need to conduct discovery.
Changing its earlier decision, the Election Commission has allowed the disbursement of relief funds, which it had earlier said had been deferred till the election process in Punjab, which goes to polls on January 30, was over. The Commission has further also allowed giving compensation to the farmers whose land was earlier acquired by the government. The EC conveyed that the same be disbursed only by the officers and not by any political leader.
Earlier, Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer, had said the Commission has deferred the disbursement of relief funds till the election process in the state is over. “We have received a revised order in the evening only, as per which only the officers will be allowed to disburse the funds to the already identified beneficiaries,” Special Chief Electoral Officer of Punjab Usha R Sharma said.
Suggestions are to be drawn up early next year for the disposal of the 7,000 unused electronic voting machines that have so far cost taxpayers €54.7 million. Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has asked the taskforce, which was set up to supervise the winding down of the project, to outline proposals soon for their disposal.
A Department of the Environment spokesman said the “priority is to pursue the most economically advantageous approach, with a view to achieving the maximum recovery of cost possible in the circumstances, consistent with environmental and other obligations”. Government sources are privately sceptical about recouping some of the costs involved, given that the machines are regarded as out of date.
The Cabinet approved during its session yesterday that was chaired by Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh, a law governing the independent commission that will oversee and manage parliamentary elections.
Under the draft law which will become effective after being published in the Official Gazette and after passing through all its constitutional stages, the commission will oversee and manage parliamentary elections. The commission will also oversee other elections decided by the Cabinet in line with legislation.
The interior minister yesterday made an unprecedented decision by forming special teams with the participation of members of non-governmental organizations to combat vote-buying ahead of the forthcoming general elections. Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah, who is also defense minister, formed five teams, one in each electoral constituency, consisting of the head of the police station in the concerned areas in addition to members from the Kuwait Transparency Society, Kuwait Lawyers Association and Kuw
ait Journalists Association.
The decision comes amid allegations of rampant vote-buying in all the constituencies and accusations that “political money” was being used in a massive way to influence the outcome of the Feb 2 elections. The move comes a day after Kuwait Transparency Society announced a reward of KD 5,000 for those who inform about any vote-buying case in all the constituencies, and urged the government to sponsor the idea. Head of the society Salah Al-Ghazali said the money was donated by a private person and called on t
he government to take a similar measure in order to curb vote-buying. Hours after their formation, assistant undersecretary for public security Maj Gen Mahmoud Al-Dossari chaired a meeting of the teams which discussed ways and means to apply the law and prevent irregularities during the elections.