Zimbabwe does not have the $400 million needed to organise elections this year, Finance minister Tendai Biti has said. Mr Biti said the coalition government also faces a $150 million deficit this year because it had missed all revenue targets with almost half the year gone. The government has set a revenue target of $2.7 billion…
WI: Recount reasonable — just ask a Republican – madison.com Candidates in close races who find themselves contemplating whether to seek a recount of the ballots — and the resolution of related questions about the quality and character of the initial count — need to have some standard for determining when it is reasonable to…
Heading into a presidential election in which North Carolina could be pivotal, a new Republican-backed bill would curtail early voting in the state and bar new voters from registering at the polls. The Senate bill introduced last week would shrink the early-voting period by at least a week, end it on Sundays and stop so-called “same-day…
Two bills that would close loopholes and increase transparency in Nevada’s election and campaign finance laws won approval in the Assembly today with no time to spare. Secretary of State Ross Miller is seeking the bills restricting the use of multiple political action committees to bypass campaign contribution limits and requiring electronic filing of campaign contribution…
Charlie White is asking a Marion County judge to temporarily stop Democrats’ challenge to his eligibility to serve as secretary of state. If his request is granted, Democrats’ plan to oust White through a civil complaint could be derailed. They claim he wasn’t legally registered to vote at the time he declared his candidacy and wasn’t…
Georgia’s election law should be changed to allow more third-party candidates, voting machines with paper records and vetting of presidential hopefuls, according to 19 witnesses at Wednesday’s initial meeting of the Georgia Election Advisory Council. Secretary of State Brian Kemp, whose office oversees elections, conceived the council and appointed it 15 members of legislators, academics…
If anyone needs a clue as to why the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature is making proposals that puts early voting in its cross hairs, one place to look might be Time magazine’s Oct. 30, 2008 issue. In it was a piece titled “How Early Voting Could Cost McCain Florida.” It detailed how early-voting Democrats, many of…
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy used the Citizens’ Election Program to great advantage in his winning race for governor last year. Strange, then, that he would preside over the destruction of the landmark program and its host agency, the venerable state Elections Enforcement Commission. That’s what will happen if the state budget as currently written becomes law. Mr.…
Candidates in close races who find themselves contemplating whether to seek a recount of the ballots — and the resolution of related questions about the quality and character of the initial count — need to have some standard for determining when it is reasonable to make the demand. Certainly, if the difference is a handful…
WI: Wisconsin Supreme Court recount begins Wednesday, required to be done by May 9 – StarTribune.com The recount in the state Supreme Court race will begin Wednesday and barring a court-ordered extension, must be finished by May 9. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board discussed the recount procedure Monday with local election officials from nearly all…
The main opposition figures are boycotting after their demands for electoral reform were not met. There are concerns that the boycott could affect voters turnout. Mr Deby, who has faced two attempted coups since the last polls, has recently mended relations with Sudan, where rebel fighters were based. The BBC’s former correspondent in Chad, Celeste Hicks, says…
The recount in the state Supreme Court race will begin Wednesday and barring a court-ordered extension, must be finished by May 9. Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board discussed the recount procedure Monday with local election officials from nearly all 72 counties. Given the rarity of a statewide recount, clerks on the conference call peppered board attorneys…
The Tennessee General Assembly had the right idea in 2008 with passage of the aptly named Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. Voters should be able to be completely confident in the electoral process or the government loses credibility.
A funny thing happened recently to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on its way to nailing an alleged illegal voter. Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigative arm found that clerical mistakes are sometimes made and that people can be accused of trying to vote illegally when they actually didn’t. The investigators, with the…
A Marion County judge has ordered the IndianaRecount Commission and the State Republican chairman to explain why they haven’t moved quickly to resolve Democrats’ challenge to Charlie White’s eligibility to serve as secretary of state. On April 7, Marion Circuit Court Judge Louis F. Rosenberg ruled the Democrats’ challenge is valid and told the Recount…
College students seeking to vote at their campus precinct will find it harder to do. So will women who’ve changed their name but not re-registered before an election. The time for early voting would be cut from 14 days to six. Groups like the League of Women Voters will find it tougher to register voters. And citizens…
Oak Ridge, spear phishing, and internet voting – Freedom to Tinker Oak Ridge National Labs (one of the US national energy labs, along with Sandia, Livermore, Los Alamos, etc) had a bunch of people fall for a spear phishing attack (see articles in Computerworld and many other descriptions). For those not familiar with the term, spear…
The leader of an observer mission at last weekend’s presidential election in Nigeria says the vote was largely free and fair. It was a significant improvement over the 2007 general elections, said Robin Carnahan of the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute [NDI], and the secretary of state of the U.S. state of Missouri. Most observers described those…
A plan to require paper ballots in next year’s elections is on the verge of being repealed, the latest in a series of actions taken by Republicans in the state legislature to rewrite Tennessee election laws. State representatives are trying to reverse most of a 2008 law that called for the replacement of electronic voting…
A few days after New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran notified all 33 county clerks that their biennial voter purge would be canceled this year, Deputy Bernalillo County Clerk Robert Adams made a disturbing discovery — 44,601 county files stored on the state’s voter registration database had been accessed and altered. Accustomed to spending…
Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler on Wednesday announced the settlement of a claim against Premier Elections Solutions, formerly known as Diebold. The settlement, negotiated by the Office of Attorney General, will be worth more than $3 million to the State. In 2008, the Attorney General, on behalf of the State Board of Elections, brought a…
Voting rights advocates say that Kansas’ new law that requires a photo ID to cast a ballot is bad enough, but what’s worse is its requirement that to register to vote a person, must prove U.S. citizenship. “That part is actually far more troubling,” said Ernestine Krehbiel, president of the League of Women Voters of…
With a fast-approaching presidential election expected to bring more than 8.5 million Floridians to the polls, the Legislature is battling over sweeping changes to nearly every aspect of state election law. Supporters tout the changes as fighting fraud. Opponents say they are disenfranchising. And the people charged with counting ballots wonder why lawmakers are trying…
Four candidates are running for Clerk & Recorder in Denver, and one of them, Jacob Werther, is claiming the all-mail ballot election is costing the City too much. “I’m thinking about four dollars a ballot,” said Werther. “When you factor in the paper and the labor involved in handling 290-thousand ballots it’s about 1.2 million dollars.”…
Tucson city leaders voted two weeks ago to hold all mail elections. It was a way to save money for a cash starved city and increase voter turnout. But Republicans at the state legislature have different ideas. After the city vote, the lawmakers inserted language in SB 1331 which in essence says Tucson can’t do that. Any…
This is what a recount looks like: An indoor sports arena is filled with poll workers from every municipality in Milwaukee County, each in their own area. At each station, poll workers examine and count ballots one by one. And as they count, campaign volunteers, attorneys and journalists watch their every move – with the campaign…
Members of the Sumner County Commission recently voted to send a proposal to state legislators to either repeal or fund a bill currently being considered that mandates the use of paper ballots in local elections. “We just purchased new machines that are electronic, and if they mandate paper ballots we’ll have to go to a…
Oak Ridge National Labs (one of the US national energy labs, along with Sandia, Livermore, Los Alamos, etc) had a bunch of people fall for a spear phishing attack (see articles in Computerworld and many other descriptions). For those not familiar with the term, spear phishing is sending targeted emails at specific recipients, designed to…
FL: Election bills rap democracy: Public short-served by GOP legislation – OrlandoSentinel.com Time to stop calling the gang running Florida’s government conservative. They’re busy concocting a liberal dose of new regulations that would serve their fortunes first, and Floridians dead last. It amounts to their ripping apart election laws that have made it easier for…
It’s still a year and a half until the presidential election, but members of Florida’s Legislature are already jockeying over who will be able to vote and how. Republicans — who control both Florida’s House and Senate — are sponsoring bills that would restrict the ability of third-party groups to conduct voter registration drives.…