A national organization aimed at encouraging participation in government has said it will no longer register Floridians to vote after state lawmakers approved a sweeping overhaul to the state’s election code. Lydia Galton, president of the League of Women Voters of Collier County and director of the state board, said Monday that the Florida association…
The fast pace of a bill requiring photo ID at the polls is the latest sign Republicans are moving quickly on their legislative agenda in the face of likely recall elections. The Joint Finance Committee approved the bill 12-2 Monday on party lines, despite fierce objections from Democrats that the bill was taken up when…
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa accused opposition groups Monday of manipulating the vote count in a referendum as his margin of victory narrowed on planned media, banking and judicial reforms. Certain provinces “are refusing to include their vote data in the national count in a protest to claim that there is a dead heat” on at least…
Canada: Online voting: An open invitation to voting fraud – Vancouver Sun The Internet voting system approved by Vancouver city council promises unprecedented and untraceable voter fraud if it is allowed to proceed. We can only hope the provincial government will have the good sense to reject the city’s plan. On the face of it,…
Albanians cast ballots Sunday to elect the local authorities amid reports of incidents among political rivals following an election campaign marred by violence. The main focus of the poll is the capital, Tirana, where the leader of the opposition and three-time Mayor Edi Rama is running for re-election against former Interior Minister Lulzim Basha of…
Steven Prieve saw a lot of interesting things in his 10 years of running a polling place in Madison. The 59-year-old retired repairman watched as groups of Hmong immigrants arrived with translators in tow. He witnessed droves of students vote in their first elections. And he helped many elderly take part in some of their last.…
If you’re planning on getting married and changing your name, or moving to another part of Florida, pay attention. The way you vote may be impacted. An election reform bill that sailed through the House and Senate, despite intense debate, is headed for Governor Scott’s desk. It aims to change a number of things about Florida’s…
Colorado Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer issued a response last Friday to the recent brief filed by Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers and the Colorado County Clerk AssociationТs (CCCA) amicus brief. The briefs were filed concerning the injunction entered against Myers by Secretary of State Scott Gessler in March to hand count ballots cast in…
Earlier this year, Congresswoman Jane Harman resigned her seat in Congress, triggering a special election in California’s reliably Democratic 36th Congressional district. Sixteen candidates have filed for the May 17 special election; under California’s newly adopted primary system, the top two finishers in that election will advance to a July runoff, regardless of party. Widely…
Canada: Internet voting fraud inevitable, says expert – CityCaucus.com It’s become an all too commonplace occurrence at Vancouver city council – a staff report is filed as ‘late distribution’ and posted on the Vancouver.ca website a day before it is to be voted upon. In this case it was about whether the City of Vancouver…
Last fall’s Republican wave in Wisconsin featured a surge in straight-party voting. In some places, close to half the electorate used the “straight-ticket” option on the ballot. And in most counties that keep track of it, those straight-ticket voters were disproportionately Republican. Yet it’s the GOP that is now poised to abolish straight-ticket voting, a longstanding feature…
Lawyers for a group of North Carolina residents who favor nonpartisan municipal elections in their city urged a federal appeals court in Washington today to strike down the federal law the U.S. Justice Department enforced to block a referendum to change the city’s electoral scheme. The city of Kinston, N.C., sought permission from the Justice…
Ten persons were arrested in Bankura and West Midnapore districts today for making fake Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). While six persons were arrested from Raghunathpur area of Bankura district, four were arrested from Pingla and Chandrakona town of West Midnapore district for making fake EVMs, officials said.
Supporters and opponents alike have acknowledged that the alternative vote would never be introduced for Westminster elections after the proposal received a thumping defeat in the national referendum. With 439 of the 440 voting areas counted, the no campaign had established a lead of 68% to 32%, another wounding blow to Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats…
After a long and twadry campaign on both sides where partisan politics and persoanlities took centre stage, the UK electorate has rejected the Alternative Vote (AV) system by a thumping majority of 67.9% to 32.1%. The final vote tallied at 6,152,607 voted Yes to the Alternative Vote, while 13,013,123 voted No, according to the official Electoral…
You recall the “found” votes in Brookfield City that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus added to her off-system computer a day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court election results and failed to tell the election canvassers about for two days, right? Those votes swung the election to the Republican, Prosser, by around 7,000 votes with a…
Council voted 10-1 Tuesday in favour of having online voting available for residents choosing to cast a ballot at advanced polls in the November municipal election. The move, however, will not eliminate voting stations. “It’s not to narrow choices, but expand them,” said Vision Vancouver Coun. Andrea Reimer, who led her party’s charge to experiment…
Alleging a regular racket involved in attempts to manipulate Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), CPI(M) today sought urgent intervention of the Election Commission to stop such instances. “There is a regular racket (rigging of EVMs) happening in every elections. It happened in Bihar also. People are coming and offering packages to candidates saying that you pay…
Instead of spending $2 million or more to implement a voter ID law in Wisconsin, the state should be spending that money on improving the overall voting process in the state. Lawmakers are getting ready to vote on a measure that would require everyone who wants to vote to show a valid identification card with a…
The second risk-limiting audit under California AB 2023 was conducted on May 6 in Monterey County. The contest was a Special all-mail election for Monterey Peninsula Water Management District Director, Division 1. Monterey uses Sequoia equipment. There were two candidates: Brenda Lewis and Thomas M. Mancini, and write-ins. 2111 ballots were cast in all. The reported totals were 1353 reported for Lewis, 742 for Mancini, and 13 write-ins. The remaining 3 ballots were recorded as undervotes and overvotes. Lewis was reported to have 64.18% of the valid votes.
Two members of the public observed the entire audit process, which took roughly 90 minutes including some preliminary explanation of the procedure. They confirmed that their interpretation of the ballots agreed with mine and the elections officials’, and they helped roll the dice used to select ballots at random. In conversations afterward, they seemed quite satisfied with the transparency of the procedure (although perhaps not utterly convinced by the mathematics that justified the details).
The audit was performed as follows. After the ballots had been tabulated officially, elections officials Bates-stamped each with a unique serial number (1962 ballots that were scanned had been stamped prior to audit day; the remaining 149 were stamped as part of the audit). It is my understanding that stamping the ballots took about 5 person-hours in all.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer has vetoed a bill to require a government-issued photo identification to cast a vote during an election. Schweitzer says the bill would have placed an unnecessary burden on low-income, elderly, disabled and student voters.
A report on allegations of voter fraud by Secretary of State Charlie White found “apparent, albeit rebuttable” indications that White intentionally used his ex-wife’s address to vote in the May 2010 primary. The report, released Thursday, offers just enough suspicion to excite Democrats, who have filed a complaint alleging that White wasn’t legally registered to…
Secretary of State Jason Gant announced today that the Sioux Falls School District will join the Yankton School District on Tuesday, May 24th to be the first two local elections in the state to utilize the State Election Reporting Systems for their local races. And, for the Sioux Falls School District, the election will also…
A controversial GOP-sponsored elections bill requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls is nearing the governor’s desk after clearing the Minnesota House Thursday. The measure passed on a 73-to-59 largely party-line vote after the Senate approved a similar bill last week. The unified show of Republican support is just the latest signal that the…
After dueling allegations that it was either a “protection against voting fraud” or a “disenfranchisement act,” Florida lawmakers on Thursday approved a 157-page overhaul of the state’s elections code. The House voted 77-38 along party lines to pass the bill (HB 1355); the Senate had voted 25-13 earlier in the day. Paula Dockery of Lakeland…
Colorado Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer issued a response last Friday to the recent brief filed by Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers and the Colorado County Clerk Association’s (CCCA) amicus brief. The briefs were filed concerning the injunction entered against Myers by Secretary of State Scott Gessler in March to hand count ballots cast in…
North Carolina currently ranks high in election integrity, but it wasn’t always so. Prior to 2000, we had no uniform standards for voting systems and election administration. Our 100 counties used 18 different types of voting machines, some nearly 40 years old. Four suppliers of the machines were no longer in business, maintenance was limited,…
ndiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s office today released a report compiled by then Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita at the request of the Indiana State Democratic Party. Rokita had petitioned to have the report exempt from public record requests, and the move by White comes after final approval from the Indiana Inspector General…
Recent events remind us that Florida truly is a Southern state. Legislation that would radically revise Florida’s election laws was passed Thursday by the Senate SB 1355 and now is headed back to the House for likely fast-tracked approval. These changes include: shrinking the early-voting period by half, from two weeks to one, removing provisions…
Although it seems like Gov. Rick Scott will make the bold and progressive move of banning bestiality, he still plans to screw voters. The election overhaul bill, which many see as backdoor disenfranchisement, cruised through the Legislature and now awaits the governor’s signature. Throughout the legislative session, Scott not only supported the bill verbally but…
