Virginia: State AG wants power to probe election issues | The Washington Post

Virginia’s attorney general is calling on the legislature to empower his office to launch investigations into allegations of vote-tampering like the incident that occurred last week in Harrisonburg. Ken Cuccinelli II on Monday sent a letter to Sen. Donald McEachin in response to his call for a probe at the state level into the Oct. 15 incident. In his response, Cuccinelli said he is not opening an investigation because he hasn’t yet been asked to do so.“My office does not have the authority to investigate election matters unless explicitly requested to do so by State Board of Elections, a local commonwealth’s attorney, or a local electoral board member,” the letter reads. “No such request has been made to date. … My hands are tied in this matter.”

Wisconsin: Wisconsin straight-party voting abolished | GazetteXtra

Records show that 54 percent of city of Milwaukee voters—or 149,546 of them—cast straight-party ballots in the 2008 presidential election and that 53 percent of them voted that way in 2010. In both elections, city of Milwaukee voters cast six straight-party Democratic ballots for every one cast for Republicans. Straight-party voting has also been popular elsewhere: In Jefferson County, 46 percent of 2010 voters cast straight-party ballots in 2010. In La Crosse County, almost 44 percent of all votes cast in 2010 were straight-party ballots. In Rock County, straight-party ballots were 39 percent of votes cast in 2010 and 2008. But straight-party ballots—used by voters wanting to vote for all candidates of one party, unless they make exceptions for individual offices—are no longer allowed in Wisconsin. In a change that was overshadowed by the controversy over whether voters should have to show a photo ID to cast a ballot, Republican state officials banned straight-ticket voting.

Russia: Opposition Stages Alternative Election | NYTimes

Late Sunday evening I walked down to Trubnaya Square in central Moscow. It was cordoned off, as it had been for two days; several police buses were parked nearby — down from dozens earlier in the day. Clumps of people crowded at two large white tents. The stage at one end of the square was lit but empty. 1980s music popular with the protest crowd continued to blare. A man, a woman and two teenagers sat in folding chairs behind the stage. They wore the facial expressions of people who had pulled off something huge: exhausted and beaming at the same time. They had indeed been part of something incredible: they had organized an honest and fair vote in Russia. Nearly 200,000 people had registered to choose their representatives from among 216 candidates for the Coordinating Council of the Opposition. The 45 people elected will be charged with devising an alternative system of representation for those who feel alienated by the Putin government.

Ukraine: Ukrainian parliamentary elections: Poll of the tired | Voice of Russia

Ukraine’s parliamentary election campaign has entered its final straight. Winners and losers will be known on Sunday. This election campaign has not become significant for either politicians or admass and moreover, it has become the most predictable and boring election in Ukraine. Such was the conclusion made by respondents of the Voice of Russia, experts and observers. The basic reason for such an apathy, according to them, is the voters’ tiredness, as well as the country’s political drama has nothing to do with the day-to-day life in Ukraine. The problems of medical insurance, corruption and doing business and tax rises worry ordinary people. All these problems have not been solved in the years of frequent elections and an unending “Orange Revolution”. This tiredness has seriously lowered the country’s protesting potential. Sentiment in the society is far from revolutionary, says Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Fesenko.

Connecticut: Easton Voting Machines Tested | The Weston Easton Daily Voice

Registrars and moderators for the Oct. 26 special election for treasurer and the Nov. 6 general election tested the town’s four voting machines Friday afternoon at Samuel Staples Elementary School. Sample ballots marked for individual candidates were fed into the machines, which counted the ballots and tabulated vote totals and then were checked for accuracy. “We prepare test ballots and feed them all in to make sure the machines are accurately reading votes, there are different levels of security,” said Ron Kowalski, the Democratic registrar.

National: Voting For the Leader of the Free World…From Your Couch? | Fox Business

Imagine if casting a vote for the next president of the United States were as easy as waking up and turning on your PC. Cyber security experts say online voting may not be that far off in the U.S. and could breathe new life into the American electoral process. Perhaps because Americans are already comfortable using the Internet to trade stocks, manage their finances and make online purchases, calls to modernize the voting system and potentially bring it online have started to grow louder. Barriers exist today, but voting for the leader of the free world via smartphone, laptop or tablet could be a reality within the next few presidential election cycles. … The biggest threats are malware on personal devices that could, unbeknownst to the voter, alter their vote or track who they voted for, as well as hostile people or groups who could hack into the system for malicious purposes and disrupt the voting process. Another major challenge is ensuring that a vote is anonymous while at the same time re-countable for auditing purposes.  “My concern is the potential for some rogue nation to attack our voting if it moves online, and not being prepared,” Snell said.

National: Report sees decline in voting glitches … but vote-by-mail sparks concern | NBC

The good news about voting technology is that the upgrades put into place since the controversial 2000 presidential election have made ballot tallies twice as accurate as they were — but the bad news is that the rise of early vote-by-mail systems could erode those gains. That’s the assessment from the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, which has been monitoring voting technology and election administration nationwide for nearly a dozen years — ever since the “hanging-chad” debacle of the Bush vs. Gore election. Coming less than three weeks before this year’s Election Day, the project’s latest report includes some recommendations that could improve the election process in as little as two years. But first, project co-director Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT, wants to celebrate the good news. “Voter registration is gradually getting better,” he told me. “Voting machines are clearly better. This is a voting-technology feel-good story. We’re getting the voter registration process into the 20th century, if not the 21st century.”

National: Effect of States’ Voter Laws Is Hard to Identify | WSJ.com

Voters in more than two dozen states next month will be asked to provide some form of identification before casting a ballot. How many Americans who would otherwise vote will be turned away or won’t turn up at all remains a hotly contested number. Some researchers have tried to count the number of voters affected, by surveying people about whether they have the required ID. This has produced a wide range of results, though, and some researchers question whether people whose IDs aren’t valid are aware of it, and whether they would rectify the situation if their state passed a tough ID law. Other researchers instead study actual effects of voter-ID laws on past turnouts. But the strictest forms of such laws—which require photographic identification and are studied most closely because they are thought likeliest to exclude the greatest number of people—took effect just before an exceptional presidential election that made it difficult to isolate their effect. As a result, such studies haven’t been able to convincingly demonstrate that these laws suppress turnout. “It’s so tricky to filter out unrelated factors, some of them unique to the election cycle, that may dissuade people from voting,” said Tim Vercellotti, a political scientist at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.

National: Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern | Forbes

It’s 3:00 a.m. on November 7, 2012. With the painfully close presidential election now down to who wins the battleground state of Ohio, no network dares to call the race and risk repeating the mistakes of 2000 when a few networks jumped the gun on picking a winner. As the magic boards used by the networks go ‘up close and personal’ on every county in the Buckeye State, word begins to circulate that there might be a snafu with some electronic voting machines in a number of Cincinnati based precincts. There have already been complaints that broken machines were not being quickly replaced in precincts that tend to lean Democratic and now, word is coming in that there may be some software issues. The network political departments get busy and, in short order, discover that the machines used in Hamilton County, Ohio—the county home of Cincinnati— are supplied by Hart Intercivic, a national provider of voting systems in use in a wide variety of counties scattered throughout the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Colorado and Ohio. A quick Internet search reveals that there may be reason for concern.

National: States struggling to meet deadlines for delivering absentee ballots | Stripes

Nearly three years after Congress passed a law to guarantee military and overseas voters receive their absentee ballots at least 45 days before a federal election, several states are still failing to comply with the law. The Department of Justice announced last week that it had filed a lawsuit against Vermont and its chief election official for not complying with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, also known as the MOVE Act, which was passed in 2009 to safeguard the voting rights of the military, their family members and U.S. citizens overseas by allowing them adequate time to request, receive and send in their ballots from overseas.

National: Supreme Court Arizona voter ID case may shape the future | UPI.com

The fight over whether states can demand some sort of identification before allowing voters to cast ballots has finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices agreed to hear argument on Arizona’s law requiring voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship. In the heat of the final days of the U.S. presidential election the case is not drawing much attention. Any argument and decision in the case won’t come until long after Election Day. And the arguments advanced by both sides in the case may seem as dry as unbuttered toast to the average American. The battle probably appeals mainly to political activists or Supreme Court wonks. But an eventual Supreme Court decision will help shape the voting landscape of the future.

Alabama: Tea Party offshoot working to clear names from Alabama voter rolls | al.com

A volunteer network started by Tea Party members in Texas has taken steps to verify the addresses of college students in Huntsville, prompting local Democrats to cry foul. True the Vote last month sent a fax to Oakwood University, a historically black Seventh-day Adventist college in Huntsville, to verify the addresses of more than 120 students who are registered voters. The list included names alongside dates of birth. “I’m outraged about this,” said Clete Wetli, chairman of the Madison County Democratic party. Wetli on Friday said True the Vote is “aligned with the far right and Tea Party activists” and is using “fear and suppression” to attempt to influence elections.

Florida: Florida elections officials to oversee duplication of flawed Palm Beach County absentee ballots | Palm Beach Post

Underscoring the deep concern surrounding Palm Beach County’s latest election snafu, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner is sending two observers here on Monday as workers begin an unprecedented process of duplicating an estimated 27,000 absentee ballots. In a letter to Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher late Friday, Detzner said he is sending two deputies to “observe and examine the registration and election processes and the condition, custody and operation of voting systems and equipment.” The deputies, he wrote, are empowered to “supervise the preparation of the voting equipment and procedures for the election.” Both will report their findings to him and file a written report with Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Sharon Bock. State law allows the secretary of state to take such action “as he sees fit.” But the law also allows candidates, party leaders and others to request that observers be sent in. A spokesman for Detzner said, “This was the secretary’s decision.”

Texas: The Texan behind the charge for voter ID laws | Houston Chronicle

Anyone listening to Catherine Engelbrecht for any length of time is likely to be convinced that voter fraud is one of the most insidious evils the nation faces. The articulate and passionate founder of True the Vote, a Houston-based tea party organization dedicated to strengthening laws against voter fraud, has convinced several state legislatures of the need for voters to show photo identification at the polling place. But after three years of national attention – and much success – opponents are pushing back. Courts have struck down, limited or delayed recently enacted voter ID laws, including in Texas. Election officials in several states, including the swing states of Ohio and North Carolina, have rejected many of the challenges that True the Vote volunteers have provided, usually on grounds of paltry evidence.

Pennsylvania: Ads create confusion and fear on voter ID, voting rights advocates say | Washington Post

Despite an Oct. 2 ruling by a Pennsylvania judge putting the state’s new voter ID law on hold, a series of misleading ads and announcements is sowing confusion and fear among residents with just two weeks until Election Day, civil rights and union leaders contend. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson ruled that election officials can still ask voters for photo identification but cannot require it. Simpson called the photo ID requirement reasonable and non-discriminatory but said there was not enough time before the Nov. 6 election to ensure that voters who lacked it were not disenfranchised by the change in the law. That critical detail in Simpson’s opinion — that photo ID is not required in this election — has been lost in much of the $5 million advertising campaign by the Pennsylvania Department of State, voters rights advocates charge. On buses, an ad displays a photo ID with “SHOW IT” in big block lettering. In smaller type, it says photo ID is not mandatory. Moreover, state officials acknowledge that it was not until Tuesday, a full two weeks after the court opinion, that the last of the pre-decision billboards announcing photo ID as a requirement came down.

Virginia: Man registering voters for GOP accused of tossing forms in trash | latimes.com

A man who was being paid to register voters by the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested Thursday after he was seen dumping eight registration forms into a dumpster. Colin Small, 31, was working as a supervisor as part of a registration operation in eight swing states financed by the Republican National Committee. Small, of Phoenixville, Pa., was first hired by Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm that was fired by the party after suspect voter forms surfaced in Florida and other states. The owner of a store in Harrisonburg, Va., told a local television station that he became suspicious when he saw a car with Pennsylvania plates dump an envelope in back of his store. He recovered the envelope and alerted authorities. “He made a mistake and he’s being charged with it, which we fully support,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The committee paid more than $3 million to state committees to finance the get-out-the-vote operation.

Canada: Turnout down slightly–hard to measure effect of e-voting in Nova Scotia election | Nova News Now

Turnout for Digby’s first electronic vote was down from 2008. In town, roughly 53 per cent or 786 of the 1467 eligible voters cast a ballot over the week-long voting period. In 2008, with the added interest of a race for mayor, 75 per cent or 933 people voted out of 1236 eligible voters. Information was not available by press time about the percentage of voters from 2004, the last time the town had mayoral election.

Russia: Russian Opposition Vote Derailed by Hacker Attack | RIA Novosti

Electronic voting to the coordination council of Russia’s street opposition was temporarily suspended Saturday over a hacker attack, the movement’s central election committee said via Twitter Saturday. “It is possible that the online voting has been affected by DDoS attacks,” the committee said, referring to a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack, a common form of hacking that denies users access to targeted websites. More than 165,000 people have registered to vote electronically for official leaders to the coordinating committee, which claims it is following up on the 10-month-old protest movement’s demand for free elections and fair representation.

United Kingdom: Scottish Nationalist Party threatens to defy watchdog on vote spend | Herald Scotland

In a speech to the SNP conference in Perth, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon gave the clearest indication yet that the Scottish Government is preparing to disregard impartial advice on campaign funding from the Electoral Commission. The neutral watchdog – handed a key role in setting referendum rules under the terms of the Edinburgh Agreement last week – favours higher spending limits for the two main campaign groups than those proposed by ministers.The commission also wants higher spending caps for political parties under a formula which the SNP claims would put it at a £1 million disadvantage.

Colorado: Voting in Colorado

Arapahoe County Colorado was in the news the week with the Denver Post reporting that envelopes containing absentee ballots mailed to over 230,000 voters included “I Voted” stickers, which rubbed up against the ballot and in some cases left a faint, near-linear mark that appeared exactly where voters draw a line to select their candidates. The Secretary of State has issued a list of procedures to address the potential of un-readable ballots and because there is a software independent record of the voted, officials are confident that the problem can be resolved. Unfortunately not all potential problems with the Colorado’s voting technology can be resolved.

For polling place and early voting, Colorado uses Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines and paper based optical scan systems as well as at least two counties doing hand count of paper ballots. About 70% of ballots cast in Colorado are returned by mail. Some counties have only residual use of DRE to satisfy HAVA requirements, others collect substantial votes on DRE in precinct polling places. Some counties receive paper ballots at polling places but count them centrally by optical scan.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly October 15-21 2012

National: Voter Intimidation Fears Renewed As Election Day Nears | ABC News

A series of billboards placed in poor, minority neighborhoods in Cleveland telling people that voter fraud is a felony have reignited concerns over voter intimidation and suppression tactics in key battleground states. Efforts to restrict or suppress the voting rights of certain groups are not new. Since 2011, several state governments have proposed or passed legislation either requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, or requiring photo identification in order to vote. Many voter rights groups view this as an intentional effort to disenfranchise minority voters. That’s because these acts tend to impact African Americans and Hispanics who live in low-income neighborhoods and are less likely to have government issued photo ID.

Russia: Opposition election hit by cyber attack – organisers | Reuters

An online election to choose a “shadow parliament” opposed to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was disrupted on Saturday by a cyber attack, activists said. “Today we already know that there are some problems with the server, there are some attacks,” Sergei Udaltsov, a prominent protest leader, said at rally on Saturday. Opponents of Putin say elections in Russia are rigged in favour of his ruling party and are instead holding their own internet contest which they hope will reinvigorate the flagging opposition movement. Information on their website, www.cvk2012.org, told visitors there could be problems casting their votes and to try again later. Organisers and activists did not suggest who was behind the attacks. The Kremlin has said it will ignore the opposition vote.

The Voting News Daily: Nightmare election scenarios worry both parties, Gains in voting-machine technologies could be cancelled out by errors introduced through mail and Internet voting

National: Gains in voting-machine technologies could be cancelled out by errors introduced through mail and Internet voting | phys.org When it comes to the integrity and accuracy of voting systems in the United States, the good news is that widespread technological upgrades have largely eliminated the voting-machine problems that were so evident when Florida’s disputed…

National: Gains in voting-machine technologies could be cancelled out by errors introduced through mail and Internet voting | phys.org

When it comes to the integrity and accuracy of voting systems in the United States, the good news is that widespread technological upgrades have largely eliminated the voting-machine problems that were so evident when Florida’s disputed recount determined the 2000 presidential election. The bad news is that some of those improvements in accuracy could be undermined by increases in early voting through the mail, which is turning out to be a relatively low-accuracy method of voting, according to a new research report released by MIT and the California Institute of Technology. “A lot of changes over the last decade have made voting in America better,” says Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, who co-authored the new report with five colleagues at four universities. “The possibility of a [situation like Florida’s 2000 election] is much lower now than it was 12 years ago.” However, Stewart adds, “We have possibly gotten way ahead of ourselves in encouraging people to vote by mail. It’s pretty clear that the improvement we’ve gotten by having better voting machines in the precincts may be given back by having more and more people voting at home.”

National: Nightmare election scenarios worry both parties | Huffington Post

Here in a county that knows a thing or two about Election Day meltdowns, both parties are fretting over what might go seriously wrong before, during or just after the Nov. 6 presidential election. “More than 50 percent of the provisional ballots are thrown in the trash in this state,” Florida state Rep. Mark Pafford told about 80 retirees who gathered for last week’s meeting of the Golden Lakes Democratic Club. That’s only a slight exaggeration – 48 percent of the provisional ballots cast in Florida in 2008 were rejected. And Pafford’s warning underscores anxiety in Florida and other states about legal challenges, ballot problems or bizarre outcomes that could bedevil a race that seems likely to be close – conceivably as close as the 2000 contest that people still quarrel about. The mere mention of that election unsettles people in Palm Beach County. The county’s poorly designed “butterfly ballot” confused thousands of voters, arguably costing Democrat Al Gore the state, and thereby the presidency.

Arizona: Spanish Voter ID Cards Give Incorrect Election Date | Fox News

The Arizona Democratic Party is calling for a meeting with the Maricopa County Recorder following yet another error in connection with the upcoming election. The wrong election date was printed on the mailer that comes with your voter ID that you punch out. The error was only made in Spanish, but some worry it will cause voters to show up on the wrong day. The recorder says it only affects a few dozen cards but others aren’t convinced it’s not more widespread. “We want to make sure no one’s vote is jeopardized in any way,” says Frank Camacho, Arizona State Democratic Party.

National: The state of the U.S. election system | MIT News

When it comes to the integrity and accuracy of voting systems in the United States, the good news is that widespread technological upgrades have largely eliminated the voting-machine problems that were so evident when Florida’s disputed recount determined the 2000 presidential election. The bad news is that some of those improvements in accuracy could be undermined by increases in early voting through the mail, which is turning out to be a relatively low-accuracy method of voting, according to a new research report released by MIT and the California Institute of Technology. “A lot of changes over the last decade have made voting in America better,” says Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, who co-authored the new report with five colleagues at four universities. “The possibility of a [situation like Florida’s 2000 election] is much lower now than it was 12 years ago.” However, Stewart adds, “We have possibly gotten way ahead of ourselves in encouraging people to vote by mail. It’s pretty clear that the improvement we’ve gotten by having better voting machines in the precincts may be given back by having more and more people voting at home.”

Florida: Questions raised about legality of Palm Beach County Elections | Palm Beach Post

Lawyers for rival presidential candidates Mitt Romney and President Obama descended on the Palm Beach County Elections Office today, trying to find out what procedures would be in place next week to assure an estimated 27,000 absentee ballots that contain printing errors would be copied accurately. Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said candidates or their representatives would be allowed to observe what is expected to be dozens of two-person teams duplicating the ballots. But, she said, the exact procedure won’t be announced until Friday. Ballots will begin being opened and copied on Monday at 10 a.m. “It will be first-come, first-served one person per candidate,” Bucher said. Representatives could come from the campaigns of anyone seeking office in the Nov. 6 election, from Obama and Romney to Palm Beach County Port Commissioner Jean Enright. How many will be allowed to watch each team will be a function of how much room is available.