Philippines: Comelec advisors pick optical scan technology for 2013 Philippines elections | GMA News

The Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) has officially recommended to the country’s elections body the adoption of Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology in the 2013 elections.In an exclusive interview with Louis Napoleon Casambre, executive director of the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) and chair of the CAC, said the council has already sent two resolutions to the Comelec recommending the use of OMR technology. It is now up to the Comelec to decide whether or not it would adopt the recommendation of the CAC. If the poll body decides to stick with the CAC recommendation, its next step would be to pick the type of OMR technology that will be used in the elections. The country also used OMR technology, specifically PCOS (precinct count optical scan), in the 2010 national elections.

Indiana: White’s fate could be decided Friday – prosecutor rushed from courthouse in ambulance | WISH-TV

Special prosecutor Dan Sigler was taken from the Hamilton County Courthouse in an ambulance Friday, just minutes after delivering his closing arguments in the trial against Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White. Sigler left the courtroom quietly and summoned for his wife before being taken out on a gurney. There are still two remaining prosecutors on the state’s team so closing arguments will continue uninterrupted. White is charged with seven felony counts, including fraud, perjury and theft. If White is convicted of a single count, he faces removal from office and possible prison time. Special prosecutor DJ Sigler told the jury Charlie White knew what he was doing was wrong but he did it anyway in pursuit of political power. He told the jury the evidence “all fits together”

The Voting News Daily: Oscars vote vulnerable to cyber-attack under new online system, experts warn, Summit addresses military and overseas voters – despite progress, challenges remain

National: Oscars vote vulnerable to cyber-attack under new online system, experts warn | guardian.co.uk Computer security experts have warned that the 2013 Oscars ballot may be vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences follows through on its decision…

National: Summit addresses military and overseas voters – despite progress, challenges remain | electionlineWeekly

The Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) hosted its Sixth Annual UOCAVA Summit last week, where participants highlighted progress made and noted the challenges that still remain in ensuring that military and overseas voters can successfully cast their absentee ballots.

A new report from the Pew Center on the States noted in the past two years, 47 states and the District of Columbia enacted laws to protect the voting rights of military and overseas citizens. This year’s election will be the first presidential election since many of these changes went into effect. The report, Democracy from Afar, found that many states have implemented changes to their laws or administrative codes.

Editorials: States are cracking down on political speech with burdensome laws | George Will/Washington Post

Dina Galassini does not seem to pose a threat to Arizona’s civic integrity. But the government of this desert community believes that you cannot be too careful. And state law empowers local governments to be vigilant against the lurking danger that political speech might occur before the speakers notify the government and comply with all the speech rules. Last October, Galassini became annoyed — like many Ron Paul supporters, she is easily annoyed by government — about the city’s plan to augment its spending with a $29.6 million bond issue, to be voted on by mail by Nov. 8. On Oct. 6, she sent e-mails to 23 friends and acquaintances, urging them to write letters to newspapers and join her in two demonstrations against the bond measure. On Oct. 12, before she could organize the demonstrations, she received a stern letter from the town clerk: “I would strongly encourage you to cease any campaign-related activities until the requirements of the law have been met.”

Alabama: Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman asks Supreme Court to review conviction | al.com

Former Gov. Don Siegelman today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his 2006 conviction in a government corruption case arguing that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of bribery. The petition was filed with the high court today, according to Siegelman lawyer Sam Heldman. “By granting review, this court would have the opportunity to right an injustice, to exonerate a man who has committed no crime, and to clarify the law in a manner that will be important to all candidates, elected officials, and politically engaged citizens,” Siegelman’s lawyers wrote in the petition.

Indiana: Cellphone records to be called in Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s trial | The Indianapolis Star

A Sprint representative could shed light today on where Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White lived while he campaigned for office in late 2009 and 2010. Prosecutors  say White’s cellphone records will show he lived in a townhouse with his then-fiancee — instead of in a home with his ex-wife, as he has claimed.Evidence on where White lived during that time could convince a Hamilton Superior Court jury as to his guilt or innocence on seven felony charges, including voter fraud and theft. The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today.

Indiana: Indiana election chief’s defense rests without presenting case against voter fraud charges | The Washington Post

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s defense lawyer rested Thursday without presenting a case against voter fraud charges that could oust White from office. Closing arguments in the weeklong trial are set for Friday, when the case is expected to go to jurors in Hamilton County Superior Court. White is charged with seven felony counts, including fraud, perjury and theft. If White is convicted of a single count, he faces removal from office and possible prison time.

Kansas: New Kansas voter ID regs hitting voters in nursing home | Kansas Reporter

About 50 residents at Westview Manor, an adult care facility, not only face the challenges of sickness and old age, but they could be sideswiped by strict voter identification requirements. Only nine of the residents at the Peabody center have current identification cards and two have birth certificates that can be used to obtain a state ID cards, said Bonita Robertson-Boydston, executive director at Westview Manor. The chances that the more than 35 registered voters will get sufficient identification soon seem slim, she said. Without proper identification, the residents will not be permitted to vote in the south central Kansas community where they’ve voted for years, she said. The law applies to the Aug. 7 primary and Nov. 6 general elections.

Minnesota: Opponents of Voter ID amendment pack Senate hearing | Minnesota Public Radio

A proposed constitutional amendment to require Minnesotans to show photo identification in order to vote is facing a rough road at the State Capitol. Amendment opponents packed a Senate hearing on the measure Wednesday and dozens took turns to criticize the bill, providing most of the five hours of testimony. Republicans on the Committee on Local Government and Elections appear supportive of the bill, and they have the votes to advance it. The panel recessed without taking action or saying when the debate would resume.

Nevada: GOP race turns to Nevada amid caucus turmoil | bellinghamherald.com

This was supposed to be the Nevada GOP’s year of redemption, a chance for Republicans to have a prominent role in picking a challenger for President Barack Obama four years after bungling its first attempt to turn the state into a major player in presidential politics. But 2012 has not gone as planned. It’s now anyone’s guess as to how soon a Nevada victor will be declared after Saturday’s caucuses. Voting in all but one caucus – a special, late-evening one for Jewish voters in Clark County that is expected to draw fewer than 300 people – will end by 3 p.m. Pacific time. Most of Nevada’s counties will be through with voting by noon. But the state GOP doesn’t plan to release any results until 5 p.m., which could raise questions about the validity of the count.

Ohio: Senate bill proposes repeal of election law | news-herald.com

A proposal to repeal Ohio’s contentious new election law will soon be introduced in the state’s Senate, the leader of the Republican-led chamber said Wednesday. The law trims early voting in the presidential battleground state, among other changes. It’s been on hold since September, until voters can decide this fall whether it should be tossed. Plans to replace the law are still being discussed, Senate President Tom Niehaus told reporters. The New Richmond Republican said it’s too early to tell whether any new legislation could be passed before November’s general election. “The goal is, whatever we do, that there be clarity for the November elections,” Niehaus said.

Oregon: Oregon Escapes Notice in Voter Photo ID Battle | Roll Call

More than 200,000 people voted in this week’s special election in Oregon’s 1st district, and none of them had to show photo identification before they cast their ballot. As the voter ID battle rages on in states across the country, the Beaver State hardly registers within the movement, even though it’s possible for an Oregonian to vote without ever having to show a photo ID. “For people arguing about photo IDs, they just haven’t even taken Oregon under consideration,” one GOP strategist said.

Texas: State looks at possibility of two primaries | Daily Progress

Texas faces the possibility of hosting two primary dates for November elections. While the district courts in San Antonio work to approve a map that appeases the attorney general’s office, Democrats, Republicans and minority groups, a deadline for hosting a uniform primary looms. If the court approves redistricting maps on Monday, the state would be able to maintain a joint April 3 primary date, said Chris Elam, spokesperson for the Republican Party of Texas. If they are approved by Feb. 20, the primary date would move to April 17, Elam said. But if it takes longer, the state may be faced with splitting the elections in two.

Virginia: Virginia House approves voter ID measure | chicagotribune.com

Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates passed a measure on Wednesday that would restrict voters without valid identification to casting only a provisional ballot at the polls. Under current state law, voters without proper ID may still vote using an official ballot after signing a sworn statement that they are who they claim to be. Giving a false statement is a felony offense.The measure approved 69-30 by House lawmakers dictates that those votes would be counted only after verification of the voter’s identity. The legislation now moves to the state Senate for consideration.

Belarus: 2012 Parliamentary Elections: Boycott or Participation? | Belarus Digest

In September 2012, Belarusians will be asked to elect a new parliament. Opposition is still deciding whether to take part in the elections. They are not sure for a good reason – election fraud has become common practice in the country at all levels. Although Lukashenka recently announced that he would implement political reforms, no one is taking his words seriously. The regime opponents choose from two options – boycott or participation. Boycott would help to delegitimize the elections in the eyes of the international community while active participation could be used as a good opportunity to train activists and to deliver their message to the people.

Congo: Leader’s party loses 45 percent of its seats | The Associated Press

President Joseph Kabila’s party has lost 45 percent of the legislative seats it held before November elections that were denounced as fraudulent and chaotic, according to belated results announced Thursday by Congo’s electoral commission. Kabila still will command a majority in parliament, where his coalition of several parties has won about 260 of the 500 seats, down from more than 300 in the previous assembly. Officials from the discredited electoral commission announced the last of the winning legislators Thursday in results it has issued piecemeal and following a suspension of the count from the Nov. 28 balloting.

Kuwait: Islamists favourites as Kuwaitis vote | The Daily Star

Kuwaitis were casting ballots Thursday in a snap vote to elect the fourth parliament in less than six years, with unofficial polls showing the Islamist-led opposition in the lead. The vote in the wealthy Gulf state, which follows a campaign marred by violence, seeks to end political disputes that have hurt the country for years. Female voters, dressed in clothes ranging from black traditional abayas to casual Western-style jeans, lined up in short queues in voting stations set up for women, as lines of men formed at separate polling booths. Women voters make up 54 percent of the electorate and 23 women are among 286 candidates running for the 50-seat legislative body.

National: UK Guardian: Oscars vote vulnerable to cyber-attack under new online system, experts warn

Computer security experts have warned that the 2013 Oscars ballot may be vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences follows through on its decision to switch to internet voting for its members. The Academy announced last week that it would be ditching its current vote-by-mail system and allowing its members to fill out electronic ballots from their home or office computers to make their choices for best picture and the other big Hollywood prizes, starting in 2013. It announced a partnership with Everyone Counts, a California-based company which has developed software for internet elections from Australia to Florida, and boasted it would incorporate “multiple layers of security” and “military-grade encryption techniques” to maintain its reputation for scrupulous honesty in respecting its members’ voting preferences. The change will be a culture shock for an Academy voting community that tends to skew older and more conservative: indeed, concerns are already surfacing whether all of the Academy voters even have email addresses. And the claims have been met with deep scepticism by a computer scientist community which has grappled for years with the problem of making online elections fully verifiable while maintaining ballot secrecy – in other words, being rigorous about auditing the voting process but still making sure nobody knows who voted for what. So far, nobody has demonstrated that such a thing is possible. “Everybody would like there to be secure internet voting, but some very smart people have looked at the problem and can’t figure out how to do it,” said David Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford University and founder of the election transparency group Verified Voting. “The problem arises as soon as you decouple the voter from the recorded vote. If someone casts a ballot for best actor A and the vote is recorded for best actor B, the voter has no way of knowing the ballot has been altered, and the auditor won’t be able to see it either.”

The Voting News Daily: Contests in battleground states could hinge on ‘invisible’ overseas voters, Citizens United Lawyer: I Hate Super PACs Too

National: Contests in battleground states could hinge on ‘invisible’ overseas voters | NBC Since the 2000 recount in Florida, voting procedures have been under the microscope; in close races, painstaking legal details and arcane rules can determine the results. Among those details is the handling of ballots cast by hundreds of thousands of “invisible” overseas voters.…

National: Contests in battleground states could hinge on ‘invisible’ overseas voters | NBC

Since the 2000 recount in Florida, voting procedures have been under the microscope; in close races, painstaking legal details and arcane rules can determine the results. Among those details is the handling of ballots cast by hundreds of thousands of “invisible” overseas voters. In the swing state of Virginia this November, 10,000 votes could decide the outcome in the presidential race, or the U.S. Senate race. In 2006, Democrat Jim Webb won Virginia’s Senate seat by a margin of 9,329 out of the nearly 2.4 million votes that were cast, a mere four-tenths of one percent margin of victory. Likewise in 2008, in another battleground state, Missouri, Republican presidential candidate John McCain beat Democrat Barack Obama by 3,903 votes, a one-tenth of one percent margin.

National: Citizens United Lawyer: I Hate Super PACs Too | TPM

The Republican lawyer on the case that arguably helped pave the way for the creation of so-called “super PACs” told TPM this week that he hopes politicians will realize that the contribution limits on their campaigns are putting them at a huge disadvantage, and will pass legislation dashing such restrictions. An odd position for a key player in the opening of the anonymous-campaign-cash floodgates to have? James Bopp Jr. says no. “I’m very hopeful and actually expect that incumbent politicians are going to look at themselves and say we are severely handicapped” in comparison to super PACs, Bopp told TPM, arguing that political campaigns were more accountable to voters than super PACs. “It is of course possible that there would be a court decision that would effect that. But I think the more likely scenario is that members of Congress will realize they have cut their own throat,” Bopp said.

National: Campaign Finance Reports Show ‘Super PAC’ Donors | NYTimes.com

Close to 60 corporations and wealthy individuals gave checks of $100,000 or more to a “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney in the months leading up to the Iowa caucuses, according to documents released on Tuesday, underwriting a $17 million blitz of advertising that has swamped his Republican rivals in the early primary states. President Obama reported raising some $39.9 million in the fourth quarter, not including money he raised for the Democratic National Committee or transfers to a joint fund-raising account with the party. The filings to the Federal Election Commission, the first detailed look at a crucial source of support for Mr. Romney, showed his ability to win substantial backing from a small number of his party’s most influential and wealthy patrons, each contributing to the super PAC far more than the $2,500 check each could legally write to his campaign. All told, the group, Restore Our Future, raised about $18 million from just 200 donors in the second half of 2011.

National: Goldman Sachs Joins Wall Street to Fund Romney | Bloomberg

Mitt Romney’s investment background, criticized by some of his Republican presidential rivals, is helping him build a financial advantage over them.
In the fourth quarter of last year, eight of the 10 biggest donors to Romney, co-founder of Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, a private-equity firm, worked for banks and investment funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on U.S. Federal Election Commission information released yesterday. Citigroup Inc. (C) employees gave $196,600. Those at JPMorgan Chase & Co. donated $180,518, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) workers contributed $106,580.

National: Senate Dems plan super PAC hearings | MSNBC

Senate Democrats decried the influx of millions in unregulated dollars in the 2012 elections, announcing Wednesday that they will hold hearings looking into the impact of super PACs. New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrats’ messaging chief in the Senate, announced that the Rules committee will begin hearings this month on super PACs. Joined by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Al Franken (D-MN), Schumer pointed to Mitt Romney’s victory in Florida’s Republican primary as evidence of the outsize influence of super PACs. He then bashed Karl Rove-tied groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS for raising money by the millions without having to disclose all of its donors.

Voting Blogs: Do Nothing ‘Til You Hear From Me: EAC Shutdown of HAVA Boards Provokes Resistance from State Election Officials | Doug Chapin/PEEA

Last week, the Acting Executive Director and General Counsel of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission issued a memo directing the EAC’s 37-member Board of Advisors and 110-memberStandards Board to cease all official activities. The two boards, created as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, have wide-ranging responsibilities and – in the wake of the resignations of the remaining Commissioners due in part to the growing partisan battle over the EAC’s future in Congress – had been the most active in carrying out the duties of the agency.

Voting Blogs: SuperPac Disclosure Data and “Citizens United as the Root of All Evil” Watch: Part II | Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog

Several months ago I wrote to argue against the constantly-repeated storyline that cast Citizens United as responsible for the explosion of SuperPacs in this election cycle.  Though I have written critically about the Court’s decision, I was also skeptical of the tendency to blame the Court’s decision for all the forms of newly emerging election financing in this cycle that critics disliked.  Citizens United did liberate corporate and union general-treasury funds to engage in independent election spending, but it did not otherwise change the constitutional architecture originally constructed in Buckley v. Valeo, back in 1976.

Editorials: Congress can fix the Super PAC problem | Salon.com

Election junkies circled January 31st on their calendars months ago — but not because of Florida’s primary today, no matter how important it is to Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Tuesday’s real significance deals with Super PACs — it’s the day “independent” groups, dominating the 2012 election, must file their financial disclosures for the last six months. Candidate-specific Super PACS — which can take unlimited sums from individuals and corporations, and likewise spend without limits — are like nothing seen in any previous election.  They’ve eviscerated the post-Watergate contribution limits that Congress enacted to curb corruption, and they’ve hit the presidential campaign with the force of a freight train.

Indiana: Prosecutors in Charlie White’s trial say documents prove voter fraud | The Indianapolis Star

Prosecutors delved into documents regarding Charlie White’s home loan and employment during his trial Tuesday to try to show that he lived in a townhome with his new wife when he claimed to be sharing a home with his ex-wife. They say they’ll also present records that show the Indiana secretary of state has lived at the townhome since late 2009. Confusion over White’s address from late 2009 through 2010 led a grand jury to indict him on seven felony charges, including theft and voter fraud, in March. If convicted of any of those charges, he’ll lose his elected position and face prison time.

Editorials: Editorial: Ex-felons’ voting rights in Kentucky | The Courier-Journal

In a list found on the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures, state after state after state is on the books as restoring the voting rights of felons upon the completion of their sentence, probation and/or parole. Kentucky is not — but it is time for the Bluegrass State to join the ranks of the fair and enlightened. House Bill 70 proposes to amend the Kentucky state constitution “to allow persons convicted of a felony other than treason, intentional killing, a sex crime or bribery the right to vote after expiration of probation, final discharge from parole, or maximum expiration of sentence.” The amendment would be placed before voters for ratification or rejection. At the very least, the people of Kentucky ought to have the opportunity to weigh in on whether to correct the state’s virtual disenfranchisement for ex-felons, even after they have served their prescribed sentences. To allow a governor’s restoration of civil rights as the only way back to citizenship is unfair and onerous.