New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday New Yorkers affected by superstorm Sandy will be allowed to vote in Tuesday’s U.S. election in any polling place by presenting an affidavit. Cuomo said he was signing an executive order on Monday that will allow voters to cast ballots at voting stations other than the ones to which they are assigned.
Election Day could launch election month in Ohio, a weeks-long period in which deadlines for counting provisional or absentee votes and, if necessary, for a recount could delay the outcome of the presidential race until early December. If there is a recount of the presidential race — triggered by the victorious candidate winning by less than one-fourth of 1 percent of the total Ohio vote — state officials would have to shorten some timetables specified in state law to meet the deadline. Under Ohio election codes, Secretary of State Jon Husted has until Dec. 7 to certify the statewide results. Five days later, a recount could begin Dec. 12. Both dates, however, could be moved up — and would have to be if a particularly close race mandates a recount.
Election Day in Ohio is Tuesday, as in every other state in the union. But if the margin in the presidential contest is narrow here, as many polls predict, the winner may not be known until well into December. Ohio, like several of the other battleground states that are expected to determine the outcome of the election, has a labyrinthine recount procedure that ensures weeks of delay and the likelihood of a mountain of lawsuits. Election officials and election law experts are praying for a result here that Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University, described as “outside the margin of litigation.”
As a key battleground in this year’s presidential election, Ohio has already seen its share of voting-related litigation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has already weighed in with several rulings on the counting of provisional ballots and on expanded early voting hours. But there is another important legal issue peculiar to Ohio that hasn’t gotten much attention so far, though it will be a significant factor should the state’s election tally spark litigation. Under a little-noticed provision of Ohio law, federal election results cannot be challenged in state court.
Last week, Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello at FreePress.org reported an important story concerning what they described as “uncertified ‘experimental’ software patches” being installed at the last minute on electronic vote tabulation systems in 39 Ohio counties. The story included a copy of thecontract [PDF] between Republican Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted’s office and ES&S, the nation’s largest e-voting system manufacturer, for a new, last minute piece of software created to the custom specifications of the Sec. of State. The contract itself describes the software as “High-level enhancements to ES&S’ election reporting software that extend beyond the current features and functionality of the software to facilitate a custom-developed State Election Results Reporting File.”
Ukraine’s Central Elections Commission believes a partial re-vote may be needed in five key districts to determine who won parliamentary seats in Sunday’s elections. The decision came amid opposition accusations of vote-stealing by the ruling Party of Regions of President Viktor Yanukovych. An estimated 500 protesters are spending the night outside the CEC headquarters in Kiev as part of an open-ended protest action called by the opposition Batkyvshchyna, UDAR and Svoboda parties.
Ukraine’s opposition demanded a recount or a fresh vote in a dozen hotly contested constituencies on Monday, stepping up their campaign against a parliamentary election last month they say was rigged by President Viktor Yanukovich’s ruling party. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Central Electoral Commission headquarters in the capital Kiev to protest against fraud in the October 28 vote, defying warnings by police that the protest was illegal and might be broken up by force.