Former GOP House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich walked back his support for poll tests Friday, just a day after reiterating support for making young Americans pass an American history test in order to gain voting rights. In a brief interview at a campaign stop, ThinkProgress asked Gingrich about his comments the day…
The state Senate gave final legislative approval to a bill that would require Wisconsin voters to show photo identification during a ragged session Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Scott Walker to sign the measure into law next week. Assembly Republicans passed the measure in a late-night session last week. Republicans who control the Senate…
Update: : Supreme Court Recount Done in Waukesha County | Today’s TMJ4 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin News, Weather, Sports, WTMJ | Local News. More than six weeks after the election, Waukesha County is nearing the end of its recount in the supreme court race.
But opponents believe the measure will suppress voter turnout. An estimated 178,000 voters in South Carolina don’t have a driver’s license. Those voters will be able to get state-issued ID cards for free. However, in the middle of a budget crisis in South Carolina, there is no money to pay for it. “So it could be…
A Republican legislative aide is under investigation for possible vote fraud after she cast her ballot in the November election in Onalaska although she lives in Madison. La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke said he has forwarded the report from the Onalaska Police Department to Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to see if…
If it weren’t so grotesquely un-American, you’d almost want to congratulate them for the audacity and efficiency of the attack. Governor Scott and the anti-civil liberties State Legislature have achieved an astonishing voter suppression trifecta. With just one bill, they made it harder to register to vote, harder to cast your vote, and harder to…
Whatever happens Tuesday when voters are to pick Miami-Dade’s next mayor and two commissioners — plus various proposed county charter changes — will you be able to say that your choices were considered because you voted? Too few registered voters can say that today. Yet they will be the first to gripe about the winners…
In state after Republican-controlled state (now more than two-thirds of all states), there’s a tactical imperative high on the legislative agenda. No, it’s not job creation; it is, in fact, more along the lines of empire creation. That lofty ideal of the “permanent Republican majority” is again enjoying a chilling resurgence. Under the guise of…
According to the La Crosse County Clerk, new voter ID regulations could mean more paperwork, training and cost for La Crosse County. County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said municipalities will have to pay more for extra poll workers, there would be new voter ID training required for county clerks and additional paperwork for provisional ballots.
Wisconsin: Senate passes Wisconsin voter ID bill, sends to Walker | Wisconsin Law Journal The state Senate gave final legislative approval to a bill that would require Wisconsin voters to show photo identification during a ragged session Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Scott Walker to sign the measure into law next week. Assembly Republicans…
Arizona’s elections director said she inadvertently gave an incorrect timetable to the organizers of a drive to recall controversial Senate President Russell Pearce, forcing a change in strategy in the historic recall effort. Elections Director Amy Bjelland said she initially told recall organizer Randy Parraz that if he filed his signatures by May 25, there…
It looks as if the Sept. 13 special election to replace former GOP Rep. Dean Heller won’t be the flash mob of candidates that Republicans had feared. In a decision that stunned the Democratic Party and buoyed the GOP, a district judge Thursday overruled Secretary of State Ross Miller’s May 5 decision to allow any…
Computer connections were restored to all 131 branch offices of the Michigan Secretary of State this afternoon after a broken fiber link interrupted services. Officials cautioned it would take time to address the backlog created by the outage. According to the SOS, the break occurred on Wednesday on a mainframe computer essential to branch office…
Over the past week, several issues have dominated the voting news. The coordinated effort to establish restrictive voter identification requirements in state election codes and limiting early voting periods continued in spite of fierce opposition, with bills reaching governor’s desks in Florida, Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. All face legal challenges and the Department of Justice…
Hundreds of unregistered Montgomery County residents may have been allowed to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election, the county’s chief election official said Wednesday. And as Voter Services Director Joseph Passarella described it, that decision, made by a low-level staffer, eventually morphed into an unwritten policy that mistakenly added more than 3,000 people to…
In just under three weeks since its launch, nearly half a million families in five states across Venezuela have answered the national government’s call to register for its massive new public housing program which seeks to build two million new homes by the year 2017. The program, called Grand Mission “Housing Venezuela”, is the Chavez…
Paper ballots cast by New York City voters last year violated a technical but mandatory part of state election law, the city Board of Elections learned this week, but board officials dismissed the revelation as a “non-issue.” A provision of state election law requires that names of candidates on the ballot “shall be printed in…
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conceded Thursday in the special election race for a vacant Southern California congressional seat, handing a surprising second-place finish to little-known Republican Craig Huey. Huey, a wealthy advertising executive who spent $500,000 out of his own pocket, will face Democratic Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn in a July 12 runoff.…
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor on Wednesday laid the blame for political unrest and instability at the doorstep of leaders who subverted their countries’ constitutions to extend their stay in office. “I have witnessed from across Africa, the determination of citizens to exercise their democratic rights. Everywhere people are given the vote, they treasure it.…
Following the disastrous 2000 election and the implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), elections supervisors in the state of Florida have been faced with a host of election administration rules and regulation changes every election cycle and 2012 appears like it will be no different. Today, Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed…
Update May 20: Judge: No early voting Sunday in Miami-Dade election | MiamiHerald.com. Gov. Rick Scott has yet to sign a sweeping elections bill that rewrites much of the state’s voting laws, but the measure is already having repercussions in a South Florida mayoral race – and drawing challenges from Democrats in Florida and in…
A bill that would shorten North Carolina’s early voting period would create longer lines at the polls and increase the cost of elections, the executive director of the state elections board said Wednesday. Gary Bartlett’s comments came in a memo shortly after the House narrowly passed the measure that would reduce the current 21/2-week early…
Florida: Protests grow as Governor considers Florida elections bill | Orlando Sentinel Gov. Rick Scott has yet to sign a sweeping elections bill that rewrites much of the state’s voting laws, but the measure is already having repercussions in a South Florida mayoral race – and drawing challenges from Democrats in Florida and in Washington.…
State Senate Democrats used a procedural maneuver earlier this week to block the final roll call on the voter ID bill that Gov. Scott Walker and his allies have advanced in order to game the political process to favor their chosen candidates. The Democratic moves delayed the Senate vote until today, when it is likely that…
Elections officials could no longer send absentee ballot applications to all Franklin County voters, and the time for in-person early voting would be significantly reduced under an elections overhaul bill that passed the House today along party lines. The sweeping bill, which also would attempt to lessen the need to cast provisional ballots, allows election…
A highly controversial bill, passed by the Legislature earlier this month and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott at any moment, could mean all the difference in the 2012 presidential election. State Republican lawmakers who passed HB 1355 say they want to eliminate the potential for voter fraud, but Democrats claim…
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…
With The Black Eyed Peas blaring, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a bill Wednesday requiring people to show photo identification to vote, as opponents pledged to fight it through the U.S. Justice Department. Haley arrived at the bill signing with the hip-hop group’s “I Gotta Feeling” playing in the background, as Republican legislators and tea…
If the provincial government approves, Vancouver residents will be able to vote for their municipal representatives online this fall. Vancouver is set to join a small but growing number of Canadian municipalities that allow internet voting, subject to the province’s approval. That approval, according to City Councillor Andrea Reimer, is very likely, as the province is…
The state Senate is set to finally pass a bill that would require Wisconsinvoters to show photo identification at the polls. Republicans who control the chamber hoped to pass the bill on Tuesday. But Democrats railed against the plan for nine hours before ultimately using a procedural move to delay the vote until Thursday. Republicans have…