National: Wireless voting still has a long way to go | Computerworld With the widespread adoption of smartphones and the use of mobile tactics in U.S. presidential campaigns, could there come a day when Americans might vote wirelessly? That question was posed to a panel of mobile campaign experts at the Brookings Institution during a webcast…
One might guess that groups with names like Restore Our Future, Priorities USA, and Winning Our Future would all be campaigning for the same thing — but that could not be further from the truth. These similarly named groups are the Super PACs who are fighting each other in the presidential election. Their confusing names are paltry in comparison to the biggest concern: many of their real donors remain hidden from the public eye. With unlimited contributions made possible by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and subsequent court decisions, the groups have already raised millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, corporations, unions, and nonprofits. While President Obama is not immune from the Super PAC trend, the Republican nominees have raised more money in much larger amounts. Twelve billionaires donated to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, with contributions ranging from $50,000 to $1 million.
Last year, changes tightening Wisconsin voter ID laws sparked controversy among college students across the state, with some students and state officials claiming the new requirements would dissuade student participation in elections. Now, advocate groups have reacted to these concerns and sought to educate students about what they need for the polls. The Campus Vote Project, an initiative started in 2012 by the Fair Elections Legal Network, aims to mobilize students on college campuses across the country to work with college administrators and election officials to educate students about voting. According to Campus Vote Project’s website, the organization hopes to “overcome barriers students often face to voting that students often mention such as residency laws, registration deadlines, and strict voter ID requirements.” Students who contact the Campus Vote Project can receive a “tool kit,” which includes information about roadblocks to student voting and how to educate colleges about voting requirements.
February is supposed to be the lull in the craziness of this year’s GOP presidential primary, without a single contest between the Maine caucuses (which ended Saturday) and the Michigan and Arizona primaries on Feb. 28, but Super Tuesday has already begun. On Monday, early voting began for Georgia primary voters. The March 6 primary is three weeks off, but expect plenty of Georgians to vote between now and then. Of the 10 states where voting takes place on Super Tuesday, Georgia is the one with the most delegates: 76. But other states are significant, too. Ohio, another big prize, began its early-voting period last week. And Vermont’s began even earlier, a full 45 days before the primary is held. Tennessee’s begins Wednesday, and Oklahoma will have a brief period of early voting just before the primary.
Two dueling ballot measures to change San Francisco’s election system will go in front of the city’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. San Francisco’s current ranked-choice voting system allows voters to rank up to three candidates for each elected office, and those with the lowest vote totals are eliminated and their second- and third-place votes are reassigned until someone has a majority of the votes. But the two charter amendments being considered by the board to put on the June ballot are proposing to either overhaul the current system or make small tweaks and keep ranked-choice voting in the city.
The woman behind Citizen Center, a nonprofit organization that focuses on elections issues and more, is pushing Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office to hold a hearing prompted by her complaint about alleged voting irregularities in Saguache County. And today, she plans to announce a broader lawsuit focusing on Gessler and officials in several other counties. Marks’s background? “I used to be the primary owner and CEO of a trailer manufacturing firm,” she says. “I retired to Aspen in 2002 and ran for mayor in 2009 — and that experience caused me to get completely passionate about Colorado’s elections, which are some of the least transparent, most troublesome elections in the country. In the past almost-three years, I have become a full-time election-quality advocate: I have seven active lawsuits going on across the state on election transparency and election quality. And now, I’ve established a nonprofit so that I can continue my work in a more organized way.”
Republicans are pressuring their party’s leaders for a recount of Mitt Romney’s narrow victory over Ron Paul in Maine’s closely watched Republican caucuses. And some say it may be time to get rid of Maine’s quirky process for selecting presidential candidates and switch to conventional primary elections – with voting booths and counting machines. “If we are to do a primary, we need to bring that up before the Legislature,” said Kim Pettengill, a Republican State Committee member representing Kennebec County. “I, for one, am going to see if we can do that, (and) I’ve talked to other people who feel the same way.”
If Texas can still hold an April primary, now is when the state likely finds out. A federal court in San Antonio that has spent months refereeing a clash over bitterly disputed Texas voting maps reconvenes again Tuesday, and Republicans and Democrats are hoping to learn when the state’s primary elections will finally take place. April 3 is the currently scheduled date, but that no longer seems realistic since not even temporary maps for the 2012 elections in Texas are settled. Another weekend of court-ordered negotiations between the state and minority rights groups, meanwhile, ended with little to show for it.