The Voting News Daily: The Job of an Election Official, Voter ID bill passes out of committee in WI
AL: Chapman Releases Legislative Wish List | ABC 32 WNCF TV
Secretary of State Beth Chapman released her legislative wish list today highlighting her top two priorities: military voting and photo voter identification. Chapman is continuing her fight to expedite military voting in Alabama and has a proven electronic system used successfully by another state’s pilot program in the last election. “The process my staff, the military votingtask force and I have been advocating for has been tested and proven to work. It has the instant ability to increase the number of military and overseas voters’ ballots returned to our state by fifty percent or more,” Chapman said. The number of military absentee ballots requested in Alabama in the most recent election was 4,875; the number returned was only 1,125. That is a 23% return rate. Chapman says this is a problem nationwide, but is a worse problem in Alabama due to the length of time required by state law to receive ballots by U.S. Postal Service only. Read More
CT: What It Takes To Be A Registrar – Connecticut News Story – WFSB Hartford
The often overlooked role of Connecticut’s Registrars of Voters, the people who oversee elections, was put into sharp focus when the state waited two weeks until a winner in the race for governor was declared last November. So the Channel 3 Eyewitness News I-Team started asking questions about registrars: how they get their jobs, how they do their jobs and what training do they receive for a job some call one of the last bastions of political patronage in our state.Connecticut has a new governor, but who that governor was going to be was in doubt for two long weeks in November, and at the center of the controversy was the registrars of voters.In Bridgeport, one of Connecticut’s largest cities, registrars did not order enough ballots, so photocopies were provided and polling hours were extended. There were also challenges to the ballots that were cast and recounts.”That usually seems to be a problem in the bigger cities for whatever reason,” said John Daly, of Manchester. Read More
ID: Idaho bill requires election workers to register – KHQ Right Now
Lawmakers in Idaho are considering a measure to require people carrying out official election duties, such as poll watching, to be registered voters in the state. The measure is being introduced in the Idaho Legislature a year after state lawmakers passed a law requiring voters to provide photo identification to cast their ballots. Read More
IN: Vote center bill signed into law | Journal and Courier
Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a bill into law Tuesday authorizing the continued use of vote centers in Indiana. Early work on the legislation ensured it did not get caught up in the legislative rancor that led to Tuesday’s boycott by Democratic House members. “This is the first bill in the current session to be approved by the Senate, passed out of the House of Representatives and signed into law by Gov.