North Carolina’s early voting would be scaled back by a week under a bill that won tentative approval from the state House on Thursday.
“This is clearly not an indictment against early voting,” said unaffiliated Rep. Bert Jones of Rockingham County, the sponsor of the bill. “I guess the question is, how long is enough?”
My print column this week examines the debate over voting systems that theorists and reformers have backed to replace the system prevalent in the U.S. and many other places, in which each voter gets one vote and the candidate with the most votes wins. Among possible alternative systems include some where voters rank candidates and others where they assign candidates scores.
Instant runoff, the focus of my column, has gotten the most traction so far. But some mathematicians point out that the system could give rise to various troubling results. Two significant ones: Voters who decide to shift their support from one candidate to a second can hurt that second candidate; and voters can get a worse outcome if they choose to show up to the polls, inadvertently helping their least-favorite candidate (the no-show paradox). Robert Z. Norman, Dartmouth College professor emeritus of mathematics, has simulated three-candidate elections in which each candidate has at least 25% of support and finds that each of these apparent paradoxes occur about one in five times.
Politically tinged legislation to cut North Carolina’s early voting period by a week hinges on Democratic worries they’ll lose voters and Republican insistence the shorter time is more efficient. The state House is scheduled to vote on the measure Monday. A tentative vote last week passed by a close margin, meaning a veto by Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue could block the measure.
More than 2.4 million voters — 55 percent of the electorate — cast ballots at one-stop sites in the 2008 general election marked by Barack Obama’s presidential victory. The first Democrat to receive North Carolina’s electoral votes in 32 years was powered in large part by a 300,000-vote advantage over Republican John McCain during early voting.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has hired two more lawyers and is planning to add another to help handle an expected workload increase resulting from the Republican-led Legislature’s recently ended session.
The ACLU, unions and some liberal and nonpartisan groups are gearing up for potential legal challenges to legislation as well as at least one of Gov. Rick Scott’s executive orders. They are reviewing measures that they say violate privacy, free speech, voting, due process, collective bargaining and other constitutional rights and requirements.
“I didn’t realize at the time of the election that when Gov. Scott said, ‘Let’s get to work,’ he was referring to the lawyers in the state, but that seems to be the way it’s working out,” Tallahassee lawyer Ron Meyer said. His clients include the Florida Education Association — the statewide teachers union — which is considering challenges to several measures.
“This legislative session has been maybe the biggest disaster for personal freedoms and human rights, and the list is long,” said Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida’s executive director. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, declined to comment, citing the pending lawsuits. Calls to Scott and Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, were not immediately returned.
Full Article: New Florida laws may face legal challenges | TBO.com.
Bills requiring local special elections to be held on general election days and bringing military voting guidelines in line with national standards passed the House Monday night.
The special election date bill, sponsored by Harry Warren, requires special elections – such as bond referendums – to be held when voters would also be going to the polls on general election dates. The military absentee bill, sponsored by Rep. Grier Martin, D-Wake, would align North Carolina’s law with national standards. It would set standards for electronic transmission of ballots.
Kathy Nickolaus, the county clerk at the center of the state Supreme Court election controversy and the focus of an ongoing state elections investigation, has been described by colleagues and acquaintances as headstrong and insular, hardworking and independent.
She came to local public office, where constituents are the boss, from a staff job at the state Capitol, where partisan politics and loyalty to the party caucus fomented team warfare.
“I dont think shes ever gotten past that,” said Pam Reeves, the Republican elected county treasurer two years before Nickolaus arrival at the courthouse. “From the beginning she put up walls: Youre not going to tell me what to do. Then she put up more walls.”
Wisconsin taxpayers so far are on the hook for more than a quarter-million dollars in the recount of votes in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The statewide recount of ballots in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race will cost the state at least $230,000, according to updated financial data gathered by Wisconsin Reporter.
As of Friday, initial recount cost estimates from 57 of the state’s 72 counties totaled $233,539, county officials said. That’s less than half of the Government Accountability Board’s initial estimate of $500,000, though figures from several of the state’s larger counties, including Milwaukee and Ozaukee, were unavailable.
Councilwoman Priscilla Leal wants a recount of Saturday’s election results and a state investigation into alleged voting problems in her district. Leal, who is seeking her fourth term as the District 3 representative, was forced into a runoff by three votes. She received 1,016 votes to challenger Roland Barrera’s 921 and Rose Marie Soto’s 99, according to complete, unofficial returns. Leal and Barrera will be in a runoff election June 11.
Leal met with City Secretary Armando Chapa late Monday afternoon to discuss her options and register complains about voting irregularities.
The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on Sunday made the bizarre demand for a re-poll using traditional ballots, saying that the Congress had rigged the electronic voting machines (EVMs) to win the Assam elections for the third straight time.
“Definitely there should be a re-election by way of ballots as we strongly believe the Congress party tampered and manipulated the electronic voting machines,” two-time former Chief Minister and AGP founder president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta told journalists. “We have formally apprised the Election Commission seeking a re-election in Assam,” he said.
The Voting News for 05/17/2011
Joanne Kloppenburg: Why recounts are a vital part of election process | JSOnline
The Journal Sentinel Editorial Board is entitled to its own opinions but it is not entitled to its own facts. The board’s speculation about my motives regarding the recount of the vote in the Supreme Court election is inaccurate. I appreciate this opportunity to set the record straight.
The recount process in Wisconsin is unfolding as prescribed by Wisconsin law. Votes are recounted in all 72 counties, and an official record is made of that process. When the Editorial Board says the recount is a “mere preamble to the court challenge,” it is wrong on the facts and wrong to prejudge my intentions.
Wisconsin law specifically anticipates that there may be court challenges to the recount, but those challenges can only happen after the recount is done. The recount is not “merely” a preamble to anything: It is a process that proceeds in prescribed ways when an election is this close.
Full Article: Why recounts are a vital part of election process — JSOnline.
North Carolina bill would shorten early voting timeframe | Sun Journal
North Carolina’s early voting would be scaled back by a week under a bill that won tentative approval from the state House on Thursday.
“This is clearly not an indictment against early voting,” said unaffiliated Rep. Bert Jones of Rockingham County, the sponsor of the bill. “I guess the question is, how long is enough?”
Jones said cutting back on the number of early voting days would help save money for local boards of elections and help candidates who’ve had to change their campaign strategy by sending mailers and purchasing ads weeks before election day.
Opponents, however, said it was misguided and would inconvenience voters at best, and would suppress voter turnout at worst. Currently, early voting starts on the Thursday that is 2½ weeks before an election. Jones’ bill would have early voting starting on the Thursday that is one and one-half weeks before an election.
Full Article: Bill would shorten early voting timeframe | timeframe, voting, bill — Sun Journal.
Tomorrow is election day and the country will become a network of hope, change and unity. To make sure that each of the 23.5-million votes cast will count – literally at least – there are three people and their teams who have been working tirelessly. They are Libisi Maphanga, the chief information officer for the Independent Electoral Commission, and his ICT heads Mervin Naidoo and Melanie du Plessis.
Naidoo, responsible for IT operations and Du Plessis, responsible for business systems, rattle off staggering numbers related to the setup. “There are actually 278 different elections [one for each municipality] taking place in the country tomorrow at 20859 voting stations,” says Du Plessis. Then there are 200000 staff who have to be managed, 70.5-million ballot papers to be printed, and distributed and the multimillion votes which have to be counted, captured and audited before we all hear the results.