A close friend of mine is one of the great advocates for disability rights in Columbia — perhaps all of Boone County. She recently started a discussion on Facebook concerning Missouri’s Senate Bill 3, the voter identification bill, which now sits on the governor’s desk for signature or veto. My friend wrote that she may…
Back in 2006, when the 1965 Voting Rights Act was up for renewal, a number of Republican lawmakers protested that its time had passed; that the states and municipalities that once worked to keep blacks away from the polls and locked into second-class citizenry had learned their lesson. But it’s a lesson in which Florida…
Immediate steps are required on part of Election Commission of Pakistan to ensure transparency and credibility of the future elections in Pakistan. A Delegation headed by Mr. Samson Salamat, Director of Centre for Human Rights Education, a human rights organization observing a “Decade for Democracy in Pakistan” called on the Provincial Election Commissioner Mr. Akhtar…
The Election Commission is going to sit with registered political parties once again to discuss changes to the rules on the commissioner’s appointment and to the electoral laws. The commission plans to kick off the dialogue from June 7, election commissioner M Sakhawat Hossain told bdnews24.com on Tuesday. Reforms to the law on delimitation of electoral…
Many locals reject UK’s plan to move from the traditional first-past-the-post system. Residents of the Turks and Caicos Islands have made it abundantly clear to officials from Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and by extension, the United Kingdom (UK) Government, that they have no appetite for any proposed changes to the current voting system that…
The Election Commission (EC) is considering three options to avoid the publicising of any unofficial results in the next general election following such incidents happening in the recent Sarawak state election.
Its chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the three options were banning handphones from the tallying centres, imposing statutory declarations not to publicise any unofficial results, and all the ballot papers to be counted late or at 5pm although some polling centres might close early. He said a decision on the matter would be made next month.
The Montgomery County Board of Elections recommended Voter Services’ director and assistant director be suspended without pay for misleading the Election Board about people mistakenly registered to vote. On Wednesday, the Election Board voted 3-0 to recommend Director Joseph Passarella be suspended for two days without pay and Assistant Director Patricia Allen one day without…
Defense Department officials late last week announced more than $15 million in grants designed to improve how voter registration forms and absentee ballots are sent to overseas voters, in an effort to solve problems well in advance of the 2012 presidential election. Bob Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said officials don’t have…
In a milestone event for India’s electoral history, people of Gujarat recently participated in India’s first Internet election. … According to a release, this was the second time online voting was successfully used after a trial run in September 2010. And the results were quite impressive with 77.16% of registered voters casting their votes electronically.
Read HB 1355 – Florida’s Omnibus Elections Bill On the heels of a historic Jacksonville mayoral election with a narrow margin of victory, Gov. Rick Scott signed a major revision to Florida’s election laws. After the law goes into effect July 1, there will be fewer early-voting days and it will be more difficult for a…
Florida Governor Rick Scott’s elections chief is defending changes to election law that shrink the number of days for early voting by arguing that polling places will be open the same number of hours they are now. Yes, fewer days, Secretary of State Kurt Browning wrote in a May 23, 2011, guest column in the St. Petersburg Times.…
The North Carolina Senate will soon decide how early “early voting” can be. The state House has passed its version of a bill to reduce the amount of time polling sites can be open before elections, by one week. Republican backers of the idea suggest it will save county governments money, but the people who…
The Indiana Supreme Court said Friday the state recount commission should go ahead and reconsider whether Republican Secretary of State Charlie White was a valid candidate for the office to which he was elected. Democrats challenged White’s candidacy after the November election, saying he wasn’t eligible to seek the office. A Hamilton County grand jury…
Read the Court Order (PDF) Ruling on an emergency transfer request, the Indiana Supreme Court today accepted Secretary of State Charlie White’s appeal against the state’s Democratic Party and ruled it won’t put a halt to the case while a recount investigation and criminal voter fraud proceedings are ongoing. With that, the justices are allowing…
Democrats quietly have prepared an omnibus election bill that would move certain races to odd-numbered years, allow them to put their tax plan on the ballot in 2011 and, perhaps, move the September House special election to November, several well-placed sources confirm. The bill draft was being passed around late last week and Monday, with…
Update: Appeal Filed In Special Election – My News 4 – KRNV, Reno, NV The Republican Party would suffer irreparable harm if an unlimited number of candidates were allowed to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat left vacant by Dean Heller’s move to the Senate. So stated Carson City District Judge [James] Todd Russell in a…
The legal reasoning used by the state’s top election official to determine how candidates will be chosen for a special election to fill Nevada’s vacant U.S. House seat was “unreasonable and absurd,” a state judge said Monday. The 12-page written order released by Carson District Judge James [Todd] Russell codifies his verbal bench ruling last…
Rindo says it would cost the university more than $100,000 to replace all student IDs. A bill to cut down on voter fraud could have universities cutting up student IDs and starting over. Governor Walker is expected to sign a voter ID bill into law this week. Voters would be required to have a driver’s…
State elections officials on Monday certified the results of the recount of the April 5 election for state Supreme Court, declaring that Justice David Prosser has been re-elected to another 10-year term on the court by 7,004 votes. “I look forward to taking the oath of office and continuing to serve in a fair and independent…
San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system is constitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday in rejecting a challenge by a former candidate for supervisor. Ron Dudum, a small-business owner who lost to now-disgraced former Supervisor Ed Jew in 2006, sued San Francisco election officials in federal court last year. He claimed that the city’s system…
Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Maged Othman announced in a press conference today that Egypt will not use electronic voting in the next presidential election. Othman said electronic voting is currently too costly and requires extensive preparation to ensure the voting process is transparent and everyone is able to vote.
Egypt’s communication minister on Monday said the government is considering granting consuls abroad the authority to oversee voting by Egyptian expatriates during upcoming elections. Communication and Information Technology Minister Maged Othman told reporters the move would come as per a decree by the justice minister, adding that Egyptians abroad should register at embassies and consulates.
We have a basic right here in the United States. It’s called voting. It might sound familiar to you. It guarantees that each individual, regardless of age or status, has a say in his or her government. Does this ring a bell? Well thanks to Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican legislature, that right is now a…
“It doesn’t matter who the losing political party is. The scheme is an affront to democracy.” Florida Gov. Rick Scott hates regulations. Indeed, the phrase “job-killing regulations” has become a virtual motto. But while he has little use for rules intended to protect the public health, consumers or the environment, he doesn’t object to “vote-killing” regulations.…
I recently spoke at the State of the County event hosted by the local chapter of the League of Women Voters. I likened some of the changes in election law made by HB 1355 to a five-ring circus, and focused on issues that I felt voters needed to better understand: early voting, address changes on…
The League of Women Voters of Florida is gravely disappointed by Governor Rick Scott’s decision to approve HB 1355, a controversial elections bill that the League considers an assault on voters. By signing HB 1355, the governor indicated his support for burdensome and unnecessary regulations that will make it more difficult for eligible voters to…
Wisconsin: Prosser wins recount in Wisconsin Supreme Court race — Kloppenburg weighs challenge | JSOnline With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election. But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge…
Certified vote totals, minutes and other details are available at the Government Accountability Board website. With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election. But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge…
With Waukesha County’s plodding recount in the Supreme Court now over and with Justice David Prosser’s statewide win almost certain to be certified as early as Monday, the state’s top election official said lessons from the recount will not be ignored. “This isn’t something you do and just put it on the shelf,” said Kevin…
We buy on the Internet and do banking online. Yet we still vote with pen and paper. The interest in online voting is great, but above all unresolved security problems are an obstacle for e-voting. E-Voting in Practice: Two years ago, Austrian students selected their representatives in the National Union of Students (Students’ Union) for the…