Editorials: For Citizens, Voting Rights and Responsibilities | NYTimes.com This little essay is about voting rights, but let’s start by looking at this national population chart from the 2010 census. The chart shows that America is more and more a multiracial and multiethnic country. More than a quarter of Americans now say that they are something other than…
A candidate’s request to inspect ballots cast in Aspen’s 2009 municipal election has set in motion similar efforts around Colorado. The end result might be new rules that govern the review of ballots or that withhold them from public inspection altogether.
Meanwhile, Aspen resident and 2009 mayoral candidate Marilyn Marks is expected to review on Tuesday 100 ballots cast in Pitkin County’s Nov. 1 election. Rather than simply eye the ballots, though, Marks has suggested that county Clerk and Recorder Janice Vos Caudill and a group of election officials look over 100 to 200 ballots with Marks and discuss whether any of them are “identifiable.”
The potential to link a voter to a particular ballot via various election information that is available to the public through the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) has emerged as a concern among county clerks across the state as they respond to ballot requests from Marks and others.
This little essay is about voting rights, but let’s start by looking at this national population chart from the 2010 census. The chart shows that America is more and more a multiracial and multiethnic country. More than a quarter of Americans now say that they are something other than simply “white.” Blacks are no longer the largest minority group; Hispanics are.
Since the last census in 2000, the Hispanic population has grown by 43%, and the Asian population has grown by 43.3%. The black and white populations are growing much more slowly, at 12.3% and 5.7% respectively.
And it’s interesting that the number of Americans who identify themselves as belonging to “two or more races” has grown by 32%. That percentage doesn’t count those Americans who, like our president, are of more than one race but who for whatever reason declined to identify themselves in that way on the census form.
Tough new voter identification laws have shaken up college campuses around the country, where students — one of the groups most affected by the measures — are scrambling to comply.
The new laws could also put Republicans in a bind: Even as the party has ramped up its youth outreach efforts — hoping to siphon some of the youth vote from President Barack Obama — it has also backed state-level laws that make it harder for college students to vote. The College Democrats have spoken out against the laws, but so far the College Republicans seem unconcerned. The groups’ opposing views of the laws mirror their parties’ positions: Democrats believe the laws suppress legitimate votes; Republicans insist they’re necessary to combat voter fraud. “It’s not about being a Democrat or a Republican; it’s about wanting to be able to vote,” said Alejandra Salinas, president of the College Democrats of America.
Ahead of Nov. 6, states are making innovative changes to make it easier to cast ballots and get information about where, when, and how to vote. On tap for next year: secretaries of state offices are set to carve out a larger presence on Facebook and Twitter, roll out pilot programs offering voters the chance to do everything from marking their ballot on a tablet to finding a polling place on a smartphone app, and allow expanded online voting for some in the military or living overseas.
In Oregon, where disabled residents used iPads to cast ballots during a pilot test for the special election earlier this month, officials say they are ready to deploy the tablets again in January. And the state’s step forward could very well spark a trend: the secretary of state’s office told POLITICO that Washington state, Idaho, California, West Virginia and Johnson County, Kansas have all contacted Oregon about the use of the iPads for voting.
With the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, our nation reached a critical juncture in its history – turning the page on a sad chapter of racial discrimination and voter suppression. In the nearly 50 years since, the United States has largely continued on a trajectory of reform and progress. Additional federal laws have streamlined and safeguarded the voter registration process; significantly expanded ballot box access, and increased political participation by traditionally underrepresented voters.
We witnessed the culmination of these positive changes in the 2008 presidential election – which had the largest and most demographically diverse electorate in U.S. history. There were record numbers of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and young voters, who overwhelmingly supported Sen. Barack Obama and Democratic candidates across the country.
Now, with the 2012 election fast approaching, Republicans are doing everything in their power to turn back the clock on this progress for political purposes.
A plan by former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s campaign manager to suppress black votes in Baltimore and Prince George’s County was hatched shortly before 3 p.m. on a desperate, hectic Election Day last year, prosecutors alleged Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court.
Needing low voter turnout in those jurisdictions, aides to Ehrlich, a Republican, conferred with political consultant Julius Henson on a strategy to keep those votes down, according to emails presented to the jury in the election fraud case against Ehrlich’s campaign manager, Paul Schurick, 55, of Crownsville.
“What does Julius need to make city turnout stay low?” campaign political director Bernie Marczyk wrote in a 2:53 p.m. email to Schurick, proposing additional bonuses for Henson if he could keep residents from the polls.
An interesting political trial got under way Tuesday in Baltimore. It involves robocalls made during the 2010 rematch between former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, a Republican, and the Democratic incumbent Gov. Martin O’Malley.
The calls were made Election Day afternoon by consultants working for the Ehrlich campaign and went to about 110,000 Democratic voters. The voters were told to “relax,” that “O’Malley and President Obama have been successful. Our goals have been met. The polls were correct, and we took it back.” The caller, never identified, went on to say that “the only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight.”
Norman P. Green was arraigned Monday in Chautauqua County Court on two election law misdemeanors. Green is the county’s Democratic election commissioner. The attempt to indict on felony charges failed to pass grand jury.
“I think it shows the system works, as far as grand juries,” said James Subjack, who is representing Green. “We’re looking forward to bringing the facts out to the public and I’m very confident that ultimately the charges will be dismissed either by motion or trial.” County Court Judge John Ward has recused himself from the case, which is now assigned to a Cattaraugus County judge.
Attempts by the state legislature to pass local bills requiring voters in some, but not all, counties to produce photo identification at the polls would fail to meet the constitutional guarantee of equal protection, according to a recent analysis by the N.C. Attorney General’s Office.
The state Department of Justice, in a Nov. 23 advisory letter sent to Gov. Bev Perdue’s office, indicated that a strategy by GOP leaders to circumvent Perdue’s June veto of a voter ID bill would run into constitutional issues. Having individual counties ask for more stringent identification rules would create an unconstitutional scenario where voters in some counties face more hurdles to vote than in other areas.
“It is therefore our views that significant equal protection concerns would arise if voter identification requirements were established for some voters and not others based merely on their county of residence,” wrote Grayson Kelley, the chief deputy Attorney General, in the letter. He later added, “The enactment of local acts applying photo voter identification requirements in only certain counties would raise serious equal protection issues under both the United States Constitution and North Carolina Constitution.”
Elections have passed throughout most of the Congo – voters are now suspended in a weird limbo of several weeks as they wait for election results to be announced. Sitting in bars and living rooms, people in Bukavu send and receive dozens of text messages a day regarding the results seen outside voting offices and compilation centers – “Vital is ahead in 8 out of 32 centers in Goma!” “Tshisekedi takes a surprising lead in Beni territory!”
I won’t delve into too much speculation about the result yet. It is too early to do so; results just began trickling into the central compilation centers in Kinshasa yesterday. It looks like Tshisekedi did well, and that the race will be close, but beyond scattered results here and there, there is more speculation than anything else.
Voting in parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo extended into a third day on Wednesday, after logistical problems prevented many voters from casting their ballots on election day, two days earlier. Some opposition leaders are already calling the elections a sham.
Four presidential candidates said the elections, which had been set to start and finish on Monday, should be cancelled. The official results are expected on December 6, and analysts are warning that violence could erupt unless all participants in the election agree to respect the final outcome.
The African Union and European Union have urged calm, calling on political forces in the country to only use legal means to challenge the results. The US said it was concerned by “anomalies”.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was leading in initial, partial results from Egypt’s parliamentary elections but it was facing stiff competition in many places both from more hard-line Islamic groups and from a liberal-secular alliance, judges overseeing counting said Wednesday. The trend from results so far mirrored expectations that the Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful fundamentalist group, would make the strongest showing in the first parliament elections since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
Still, it was too early to extrapolate whether their victory was bigger or smaller than expected, with counting still continuing from the first round of voting, which took place on Monday and Tuesday. The Brotherhood had the biggest share of votes in the capital Cairo and the country’s second biggest city, Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast, as well as the southern city of Luxor, Port Said on the Suez Canal, and Kafr el-Sheikh, a major city in the Nile Delta, according to judges in each area.
A massive election turnout in this largely conservative Muslim coastal city has contributed to what many are estimating to be a sweeping victory by Egypt’s Islamist parties in the country’s first democratic elections this week.
The voting, which began Monday in the country’s largest metropolitan areas and continues into January, will decide the makeup of the country’s first elected parliament since the ouster of strongman Hosni Mubarak. The newly-elected body will be empowered to craft a new constitution.
Troops fired warning shots into the air Wednesday as thousands rallied to support a presidential candidate whose apparent victory over a Kremlin-backed rival was annulled in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. A handful of soldiers who guarded the main government building in the capital of Tskhinvali fired the shots as several thousand supporters of Alla Dzhioyeva approached. Marching in the heavy snow, they chanted her name and shouted “Justice!”
South Ossetians broke away from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s. Spiraling tensions between pro-Russian separatists and the Western-learning Georgian government triggered a brief war between Russia and Georgia in 2008. Since then, Russia recognized South Ossetia as an independent nation, but only a few other nations around the world followed suit.
South Ossetia does not need a new presidential election, the candidate whose apparent victory over a Kremlin-backed rival was annulled in the breakaway Georgian province said Thursday. As anti-corruption crusader Alla Dzhioyeva spoke, armed troops surrounded the government building in the separatist capital of Tskhinvali, gearing up for a rally of her supporters.
Dzhioyeva declared herself president after she led with about 57 percent of Sunday’s runoff vote with ballots from 74 of the 85 precincts counted, while rival Anatoly Bibilov trailed with 40 percent. But the separatist government annulled the vote due to alleged violations and barred Dzhioyeva from participating in the new vote.
“I won my election, 17,000 out of 30,000 (voters) cast their ballots for me,” the 62-year-old former school principal told journalists. “This is our victory, and they want to steal it.” She said thousands of supporters would rally later in the day in front of the government building as South Ossetia’s Supreme Court deliberates her appeal on the annulment and whether she is allowed to run in the March re-vote.