Monthly Archives: May 2011

These were the welcoming remarks by Professor Itse Sagay when Sunday Trust visited his office in Lagos for this interview: “I have every reason to be worried. Since I made a remark criticizing the last elections especially in the South East and South-south as not being credible, I have not rested.

I have received calls from people in power asking why I made such remarks. Nigeria is not the safest country in the world and that was why when I saw your huge group, I began to be worried if you are truly a media team.” In this explosive interview, the Delta state born legal luminary who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), though expressed fears for his life but stuck to his guns that elections in the two regions were essentially rigged by what he described as ‘unintelligent riggers’ and ‘barbarians’ who were bent on pleasing President Jonathan with block votes.

Malta: Air Malta offers reduced fares for those wanting to vote | Malta Independent online

Just like for the 2008 general election and the 2009 European Parliament election, travel arrangements have been made for eligible voters living abroad to enable them to vote in Malta in the forthcoming divorce referendum on 28 May.

Bookings opened as from noon yesterday and Air Malta will be making available return tickets, at a charge of €35, inclusive of taxes and other charges, to persons whose name appears in the electoral register published last October.

New Jersey: New Jersey mail-in ballot bill should be shoo-in | The Asbury Park Press

A few years ago, New Jersey began allowing anyone who wanted to vote in elections using a mail-in absentee ballot to do so. It was a good idea that caught on with aging voters who have trouble getting out and with time-strapped voters who simply find it easier to vote at their leisure than to go to a polling place on Election Day.

Now, legislation passed by both the state Senate and Assembly will make it that much easier for people who vote by mail to ensure they continue to receive mail-in ballots, if Gov. Chris Christie signs it into law, as he should.

China: Special teams on ground in China to ensure fair elections | People’s Daily Online

The Party’s top member-managing and discipline-inspecting departments have jointly sent supervisory teams to 14 provinces and autonomous regions to ensure there is no misconduct during the local leadership reshuffles as officials at various levels finish their five-year terms.

The teams, comprising officials from the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection, will supervise, examine and instruct those involved in local elections and leadership reshuffles in the provinces and autonomous regions of Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Tibet and Xinjiang, according to a statement by the Organization Department on Sunday.

Editorials: Teh Tarik: Majority vote | The Star Online

Following the rationale of one man, one vote, should not the outcome of an election reflect the true will of the people? Is it really fair? In Singapore’s elections last week, the People’s Action Party won 81 out of 87 seats even though only about 60% of voters chose it. Yes, the island republic officially has “democracy”, but the other 40% could be wondering if their views will count for much at all.

Democracy and elections are imperfect creatures which have slowly evolved over time.

Australia: Hanson election challenge begins in court | ABC Newcastle NSW

The New South Wales Electoral Commission has been ordered by a Sydney court to hand over all the information it has about the alleged sabotage of votes for Pauline Hanson.

The One Nation founder has lodged a petition in the Court of Disputed Returns after her failed bid to win a seat in the state's Legislative Council at the March election.

Egypt: Indian Chief Election Commissioner says Egypt can’t trust imported voting machines can’t be trusted | Financial Express

After the revolution in Tahrir Square, Egyptian authorities consulted India’s Election Commission for help in conducting parliamentary polls in the country, only to get cautious advice from chief election commissioner (CEC) SY Quraishi. He asked his Egyptian counterpart to not import electronic voting machines (EVMs) from anywhere and get these manufactured domestically. Imported machines, however faultless they are, could be deemed suspect, he warned.

“The validity of any election lies in the fairness of the process, if the machine is imported from somewhere, there is always a possibility that the election will be questioned as being rigged through the machines,” he said, in an interview to FE. The recent campaign against the use of EVMs in Indian elections, Quraishi said, hinges on the chip, “which is manufactured outside the country and is therefore supposed to be suspect”.

Kansas: Kansas Lawmakers Spank Kobach On Elections Bill | KCTV Kansas City

That law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, starting next year, and says anyone registering for the first time must provide a birth certificate, passport or other proof of citizenship to election officials, starting in 2013, though a Kansas driver’s license will be sufficient for many. Kobach had hoped the proof-of-citizenship rule would take effect next year and that his office would gain the power to file and prosecute election cases in state courts — and didn’t stop pushing even after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a compromise version of Kobach’s proposed Secure and Fair Elections Act.

Louisiana: Louisiana explores special election process in effort to cut costs | DailyComet.com

Lawmakers are zeroing in on ways to cut the cost to taxpayers for holding elections. Recent months have seen a long string of special elections, even locally.

With term limits taking effect, state senators are abandoning ship for statewide posts and new public jobs. Representatives are stepping up to become senators, and their vacancies are prompting promotions for parish councilmen and mayors across Louisiana.

Tennessee: Tennessee Senate Votes To Undo Voter Confidence Act Requirements | Chattanoogan.com

House Bill 386 as approved by the Senate would delete the requirement for more secure voting machines with a verifiable paper trail. The touch-screen voting machine system used in many Tennessee counties has been called by experts as “the least secure voting system” in the country.

Venezuela: Venezuela’s electoral body approves major changes in voting system | El Universal

The directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE) approved, after a seven-hour meeting, a new project called “Improvements to the Automated Voting System,” which includes the establishment of a Comprehensive Authentication System (SAI) of voters to be implemented in the upcoming elections.

The decision taken by the CNE directors involves a major modification in the voting system, as it includes changes in electronic ballots, fingerprint reading machines, software applications, tally sheets, and the roles of principal poll workers.

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe parties resume constitution process | AFP

Parties to Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal resumed the constitutional process Saturday after reaching a compromise on how to analyse views gathered from the public, an official said. The process stalled on Wednesday over disagreements between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) over the weight given to the public submissions.

MDC spokesman Douglass Mwonzora said the parties agreed to resume after ending the dispute over methods to be used in analyzing data collected during outreach meetings across the country.

Thailand: Will Thailand’s military allow free elections? | msnbc.com

It’s official. Thailand will go to the polls on July 3. It’s supposed to be a goodnews after more than two tumultuous years of political unrest under Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s administration.

It is the first election since street demonstrations in Bangkok last year by the anti-government “Red Shirt” protesters, supporters of deposed former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, led to violent clashes with the security forces that left 91 people dead.

Fiji: Elections Office in Fiji recommends one day elections in 2014 | Radio New Zealand

The Elections Office in Fiji is recommending the interim government hold one-day elections in 2014.

The Acting Supervisor for Elections, Soro Toutou has told FijiLive that as part of the voting system, individual voters will go to a designated polling station on polling day.

South Africa: South Africa Independent Electoral Commission ponders e-votes | ITWeb

As the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) gears up for about 20 million South Africans to make their cross next Wednesday, electronic voting could be in the pipeline as the commission is pondering the seemingly futuristic technology.

More than 23 million people are registered to vote in this year’s municipal elections, and the IEC has printed 70.5 million ballot papers, for the first time printing the sheets in colour. Previously, only national election ballots were printed in colour.

The Voting News Daily: Tennessee Senate Dials Back Election Reform, Kansas Senators “Spank” the Secretary of State

TN: Senate Votes To Undo Voter Confidence Act Requirements | Chattanoogan.com

The state Senate voted on Thursday to undo requirements of the Voter Confidence Act passed three years ago. Supporters said the action will ensure that more accurate voting machines would be implemented across the state as the legislature reversed requirements approved three years ago. “The strength of our political system lies in our citizens’ trust that their votes count,” Senator Roy Herron said. “Our current voting machines endanger that trust.” House Bill 386 as approved by the Senate would delete the requirement for more secure voting machines with a verifiable paper trail. The touch-screen voting machine system used in many Tennessee counties has been called by experts as “the least secure voting system” in the country. Numerous incidents of machine hacking and vote flipping by the machines have occurred throughout the country, officials said. In 2008, machines in Decatur County were reported to have changed votes in the presidential race. Full Article

KS: Lawmakers Spank Kobach On Elections Bill – Politics News Story – KCTV Kansas City

Kansas legislators are refusing to move up the starting date for a proof-of-citizenship requirement for people registering to vote for the first time or to give Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office new power to prosecute election fraud cases. The rejection of those proposals Wednesday by a bipartisan majority in the state Senate is a political defeat for the Republican secretary of state, who took office in January. It came after he successfully pushed for a law designed to combat election fraud, one he touted as model legislation for other states. That law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, starting next year, and says anyone registering for the first time must provide a birth certificate, passport or other proof of citizenship to election officials, starting in 2013, though a Kansas driver’s license will be sufficient for many. Kobach had hoped the proof-of-citizenship rule would take effect next year and that his office would gain the power to file and prosecute election cases in state courts — and didn’t stop pushing even after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a compromise version of Kobach’s proposed Secure and Fair Elections Act. The vote Wednesday in the Senate was 23-15 against a bill revising the election law enacted earlier this year. Some critics renewed longstanding arguments that election fraud is nowhere near as serious a problem as Kobach says it is, while others resented his efforts to revise a law that had strong bipartisan support. “You don’t unravel the deal after it’s finished,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat. “And he needs to learn that.” Kobach didn’t return messages left on his cellphone and his office did not issue a statement. Full Article

Connecticut: Connecticut Senate Approves Election Reform Bill | Courant.com

Responding to last November’s highly publicized Election Day problems in municipalities including Bridgeport, where a shortage of paper ballots contributed to a days-long delay in the declaration of a new governor, the Senate has approved a bill establishing standards to ensure local registrars buy enough ballots. The 34-0 vote Thursday sent the bill to the House for action in coming weeks.

The bill says local voter registrars must certify to the secretary of the state that they have ordered enough ballots for each polling place. They also would need to show that they have considered all relevant factors in determining how many they need. Unless registrars clear their plans with the secretary of the state, they would have to order one ballot for each registered voter.

Kansas: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach won’t end push to get voter ID requirements in place by 2012 | LJWorld.com

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Thursday that he’s not giving up on having a proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters in place ahead of next year’s elections, despite the state Senate’s rejection of the idea.

State law already says that people who are registering to vote for the first time in Kansas will have to provide a birth certificate, passport, or other proof of U.S. citizenship to election officials. The rule was enacted this year at Kobach’s urging but doesn’t take effect until January 2013, a year later than he wanted.

National: Congressman Gregg Harper seeks to eliminate Election Assitance Commission | The Daily Caller

With America facing a debt crisis, legislatures have gone spelunking for areas of government to cut. Mississippi Republican Rep. Gregg Harper has surfaced with a proposal to eliminate what Ronald Reagan once quipped was the nearest thing to eternal life: a government agency.

Harper’s bill would terminate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which Congress created in 2002 to implement the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The act was passed primarily to distribute funds to update equipment, a job which Harper says is essentially complete. He is not the only one that believes that. Last year, the National Association of Secretaries of State reaffirmed a 2005 resolution requesting that Congress eliminate the EAC since the body had “served its purpose.”

India: AGP blames machine manipulation for defeat | Hindustan Times

Assam’s beleaguered main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on Friday blamed “manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVM) by the ruling Congress party” for its rout in the assembly elections even as the Congress got a decisive mandate for a third successive term.

“We knew the Congress would do something and they did so by manipulating the EVMs. Otherwise such a result would not have come,” former two-time chief minister and senior AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta told reporters.

Bulgaria: Bulgarian Parliament to Discuss Election Code Amendments | Sofia News Agency

The Bulgarian Parliament is expected to discuss Friday the proposed amendments in the country’s Election Code after the Constitutional Court revoked some of the texts in it.

A much discussed texts among the revoked amendments is the permanent residency requirement for local elections, which provided that only Bulgarian citizens, who had lived in the respective city or town for the last 12 months, can vote for mayors and members of municipal councils. It was introduced by the ruling centrist-right GERB in an attempt to counter tampering with election results by transporting voters from one location to another – the so-called “election tourism.”

Taiwan: Central Election Commission says Taiwanese need more time to accept, trust e-voting | The China Post

Taiwanese need more time to accept, trust e-voting: CEC A Central Election Commission (CEC) official yesterday said it will take more time for Taiwanese people to accept and trust digitization before the government decided to ultimately replace the traditional ballot system with an electric-voting one.

“E-voting is technically feasible but the problem lies on whether or not citizens can put their trust in the system,” said Liu I-chou (劉義周), CEC vice chairman yesterday in Taipei City.

New York: New York Must Defend Its Count of Double Votes | Courthouse News Service

Smaller political parties can sue over a New York state law that they say is robbing them of votes because it lets candidates appear on the ballot for multiple parties, a federal judge ruled. Last September, the Conservative Party of New York State and the Working Families Party sued the commissioners of the New York State Board of Elections over its practice of counting votes when a ballot is marked multiple times.

“Fusion voting” lets candidates run on multiple platforms, but if a voter chooses a candidate on a two platforms, only the “first” party gets the vote.

Wisconsin: City of Brookfield Ballot Bags Found “Wide Open” in Waukesha County, Wisconsin | Truthout

Five out of six bags of ballots from first batch to be counted out of the City of Brookfield in Waukesha County, Wisconsin today were discovered “almost wide open” during Day 9 of the statewide Supreme Court election “recount.” The bags were open and unsealed, according to both photographic evidence and an eye-witnesses account from the counting room.

“When the ballot bags were taken out and placed upon the counting table, we were literally stunned,” one of the citizen observers, Mary Magnuson, a Kloppenburg volunteer, told The BRAD BLOG this morning. “5 out of the 6 ballot bags were almost literally wide open, and ballots could be clearly seen.”

Editorials: Our view: Reject plan to require Voter ID | St. Cloud Times

Despite no credible evidence voter fraud exists on more than a minuscule scale, Republican majorities in the House and Senate are pushing for a showdown on Voter ID, first with Gov. Mark Dayton this session and then with Minnesota voters in 2012. Dayton should reject this legislation, and Minnesota voters should do the same in 2012.

We’ve opposed such measures since at least 2006, and we continue to do so simply because if applied, they will discourage — yes, even disenfranchise — many more honest Minnesota voters than the dishonest voters they will supposedly catch. (If they even can catch people; after all, look how effective photo IDs are in stopping minors from mayhem or catching illegal immigrants.)

Rhode Island: Rhode Island Senate passes voter identification bill | Boston.com

Voters would have to show identification at the polls starting next year under a bill passed Thursday by the Rhode Island Senate. A driver’s license, a passport, military ID or a voter identification card are among the forms of identification allowed under the proposal. The bill would require the state to provide free voter identification cards. Those without identification could cast provisional ballots.

The requirements would go into effect for 2012 elections. Until 2014, voters could also use a birth certificate, Social Security card or Medicare card. The Senate voted 27-6 in favor of the legislation Thursday. The bill now moves to the House, where a voter ID bill has already been introduced.

US Virgin Islands: Elections Board creates new committees | Virgin Islands Daily News

The V.I. Joint Board of Elections met Wednesday on St. John and created two new committees to deal with major issues, including legislative changes and the applications for supervisor and deputy supervisor of elections, said Board Chairman Rupert Ross Jr.

But no report came out of the Election Reform Committee, which a number of people are watching and awaiting action on issues that played out in the last election cycle, Ross said.

Ohio: Ohio Bill would aid military in voting | vindy.com

State Rep. Mike Dovilla was serving in Iraq four years ago when he attempted to obtain an absentee ballot to vote in that year’s municipal elections. The Cleveland-area Republican said he submitted the paperwork to the board of elections but later was told he didn’t include all of the required information.

“Through no fault of my own, and despite a proactive effort to obtain a ballot, I was disenfranchised in that year in the municipal elections,” Dovilla said. “Since that time, I’ve vowed that if I were ever in a position to be able to address this public- policy challenge and prevent it from happening to others in the military service, I would do so.”

Maryland: Glenarden absentee ballot complaints spur hearing in Maryland | Gazette.net

A Ward 3 candidate denies allegations that she offered to drop off and pick up absentee ballots for Glenarden residents and a hearing has been scheduled for next week to investigate election complaints which, if verified, could change the results of the mayoral race and land the candidate in trouble with state law.

The meeting will be held 5 p.m. May 18 before the city’s Board of Elections Chairwoman Geraldine Langford to discuss issues such as a note on Ward 3 candidate Judy Diggs’ website that states residents can do “early voting” from April 8 to April 29. The city never established an early voting date separate from the May 2 election day.

North Carolina: North Carolina House panel moves to cut early voting | WRAL.com