Editorials: Ranked-Choice Ballot Upholds Voter Rights | Richie and Gronke/Roll Call

Once Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman dropped out of the Republican presidential nomination contest, their South Carolina and Florida backers who cast ballots early, including many military voters living overseas, essentially wasted their votes. They voted for candidates who didn’t want their support. Florida and South Carolina voters are not alone. Several upcoming primary states allow “no excuse required” absentee voting, meaning a far higher percentage of votes are now cast early. More than a quarter of Florida’s 400,000 absentee ballots had already been returned before Perry and Huntsman withdrew, and in 2008 nearly two-thirds of all Tennessee ballots were cast early. If you add in other states, more than a million voters have received ballots with the names of Perry, Huntsman and fellow candidate dropouts Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). Although many “early voters” cast ballots close to Election Day, that option isn’t available to service personnel whose ballot may need to traverse 10,000 miles.

Florida: Are shark attacks more common than voter fraud in Florida? | PolitiFact Florida

On March 1, 2012, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert moved in on Florida’s controversial new election law for a recurring segment, “People Who Are Destroying America.” The target: a Panhandle teacher named Dawn Quarles, who turned in 76 voter registration forms from her students beyond the state’s new 48-hour deadline. She could face a $1,000 fine. One of the people Colbert interviewed for his sarcastic report is Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. Florida officials claimed they needed to pass the law to prevent voter fraud, but these cases are actually pretty rare, he said. “There are probably a larger number of shark attacks in Florida than there are cases of voter fraud,” he said. We couldn’t resist diving in: Are there more shark attacks than cases of voter fraud in Florida?

Florida: DOJ Opposes Florida Laws On Voter Registration Groups, Early Voting | TPM

The Justice Department objected late Friday to new provisions of Florida election law which place strict regulations on third-party voter registration groups and cut down on the early voting period. DOJ alleged in a court filing that Florida was unable to prove the new provisions were not discriminatory under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. “As to the third-party voter registration and early voting changes enacted… respectively, the United States’ position is that the State has not met its burden, on behalf of its covered counties, that the two sets of proposed voting changes are entitled to preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” according to a court filing.

Michigan: Santorum camp accuses Michigan GOP of ‘political thuggery’ in awarding delegates to Romney | The Washington Post

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s campaign is accusing Michigan Republicans of engaging in “political thuggery” for awarding the state’s two at-large delegates to Mitt Romney (R) instead of dividing Republican presidential candidates (L-R) former U.S. senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. (JESSICA RINALDI – Reuters) them evenly between both candidates. Romney won Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in the Wolverine State with 41 percent to Santorum’s 38 percent. Each candidate won 7 of the state’s 14 congressional districts, evenly splitting the 28 of Michigan’s national convention delegates that are awarded winner-take-all by district. There has been confusion over how the remaining two at-large delegates were to be awarded. Originally, the state GOP had announced that those two delegates would be allocated proportionally based on the statewide vote – meaning Romney and Santorum would each get one. But the state Republican Party’s credentials committee voted Wednesday night to award both delegates to Romney, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Ohio: Rick Santorum’s Ohio Delegate Problems Pile Up | ABC News

Even if Rick Santorum wins Ohio on Super Tuesday, he won’t be able to claim all of its delegates. In fact, he is at risk of forfeiting more than one-quarter of them. In three of the state’s 16 congressional districts, including two that are near Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania, Santorum will lose any delegates he might have won because his campaign failed to meet the state’s eligibility requirements months ago. Those three districts alone take 9 delegates out of a total of 66 off the table for Santorum. But it gets worse: Nine more Ohio delegates may also be in jeopardy. Sources say that in six other congressional districts — the third, fourth, eighth, tenth, twelfth and sixteenth — Santorum submitted fewer names than required to be eligible for all three delegates up-for-grabs in each district. That means even if he wins in those places, he might not be able to receive the full contingent of delegates.

Wisconsin: Government Accountability Board seeks more time to review Walker recall petitions | Journal Sentinel

State election officials say they likely will need extra time to review recall signatures even though Gov. Scott Walker has said he will not challenge the petitions against him – a move that would give Walker more time to raise unlimited sums of money. Meanwhile, Republican legislators groused Wednesday that the Government Accountability Board was not doing a thorough enough analysis of the signatures even as it was asking them for $975,000 to do its work. “It just seems like they are doing the bare minimum but not enough to instill confidence in the system,” said Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.

Editorials: A powerful argument for blocking Wisconsin’s voter ID law | Cap Times

University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Mayer is one of the most serious and responsible analysts of the politics of the state. Widely respected as fair player, whose work is well regarded by members of both major political parties, Mayer is someone conservatives and liberals listen to for reasoned comment on the political processes of the state. So when Mayer talks about the challenges raised by Wisconsin’s new voter ID law, we should all take him seriously. In testimony this week before Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Flanagan, Mayer estimated that roughly 220,000 potential voters would be unable to cast ballots in coming elections because of the new voter identification measure.

Texas: Minority groups: New voting maps ‘total devastation for the Latino community across Texas’ | Associated Press

Disheartened and angry over the latest Texas voting maps handed down by federal judges, Democrats and minority rights groups looked Wednesday to a separate court in Washington as their last likely hope of cutting deeper into a solid Republican majority in the 2012 elections. The GOP stands poised to hardly lose any power under the latest Texas congressional and state House maps delivered this week by a San Antonio federal court, which confronted how the state’s political boundaries should be changed with more than 3 million new Hispanic residents.

Canada: Storm brews in Canada over election ‘robocalls’ | AFP

A probe into “robocalls” that misdirected Canadian voters to fake polling stations during last year’s election, won by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories, is casting suspicion on the results. It is not yet clear who was behind the automated telephone calls to voters in the town of Guelph, Ontario in spring 2011 that reportedly led to a chaotic scene at a polling station, and likely led some to give up on voting. The opposition parties, whose supporters were apparently targeted, pointed fingers at the Conservatives, but the Conservatives denied any involvement while hitting back at what they claimed was a “smear campaign.” Elections Canada, after being inundated with complaints, is now investigating the rogue calls, aided by the federal police, as new allegations are raised daily. At a press conference on Tuesday, outspoken New Democratic Party MP Pat Martin described the misleading pre-recorded calls claiming to be from Elections Canada as a “heinous affront to democracy.” “How is this different from a bunch of goons with clubs blocking the door to a voter station,” he said.

El Salvador: Parties Prepare Campaign Closing | Prensa Latina

El Salvador’s political parties prepare on Friday the closing of their campaigns when there are just eight days to the municipal and legislative elections on Sunday 11. The first party to announce their activities was the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which will hold this weekend a caravan that will travel throughout the country. Previously, the general secretary of the FMLN, Medardo Gonzalez said the party is working to expand the number of its deputies in the Legislative Assembly, in which it has 35 seats of 84.

Canada: Government shifts blame in robo-call scandal | AFP

Elections Canada said Friday it is investigating more than 31,000 complaints of alleged dirty tricks during last year’s election won by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories. The “high volume” of complaints regarding “robocalls” that misdirected voters to fake polling stations for the May 2, 2011 election is 100 times more than the elections watchdog usually receives for any Canadian ballot. “Elections Canada is reviewing these and will take action as appropriate,” spokesman John Enright said in an email.

Iran: Conservatives contest poll for parliament | BBC News

Voting in Iran’s parliamentary election has been extended by two hours because of a high turnout, state media report. It is the first poll since mass opposition protests were sparked by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed presidential election victory in 2009. The vote is widely viewed as a contest between his supporters and those of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The opposition Green Movement is not taking part. Its leaders have been under house arrest since February 2011.

Iran: High turnout reported in Iran for parliamentary elections | The Washington Post

Iranians voted Friday in parliamentary elections, the country’s first major ballot since the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 led to months of anti-government protests. No disturbances are expected to follow the vote this time around. The key question Friday was how many of the more than 48 million eligible voters would go to the polls to elect 290 new legislators. Late in the day, state TV reported a preliminary turnout of 64.5 percent, and voting was extended by five hours. While it was difficult to verify turnout, with no independent monitors on the ground, several polling stations in Tehran were receiving a constant stream of voters. Results are expected Sunday for larger cities and Monday for rural areas.

The Voting News Daily: Internet voting systems too insecure, Is Obama letting the civil rights law die before the Supreme Court kills it?

National: Internet voting systems too insecure, researcher warns | Computerworld Internet voting systems are inherently insecure and should not be allowed in the upcoming general elections, a noted security researcher said at the RSA Conference 2012 being held here this week. David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and chairman of the election…

National: Voting Rights Act: Is Obama letting the civil rights law die before the Supreme Court kills it? | Slate

When Georgia’s Republican leaders redrew the state’s election-district maps last year, Democrats and minorities instantly cried foul. In an increasingly diverse state where 47 percent of voters chose Obama in 2008, the new maps looked likely to hand the GOP 10 of the state’s 14 seats in Congress. Perhaps even more significantly, they were drawn so as to give Republicans a shot at a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the state legislature, allowing them to pass constitutional amendments unilaterally. They achieved this in part by “packing” the state’s black voters (who overwhelmingly vote Democratic) into a handful of districts in order to make others more solidly white (and Republican).

Fortunately for the state’s Democrats, federal law seemed to offer a time-tested remedy. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights bill passed in 1965 to crack down on poll taxes and other discriminatory practices, requires Georgia and a number of other Southern states to get federal approval for any changes to their voting laws. Any that harmed minorities’ chances of fair representation were to be thrown out. And that’s exactly what Georgia Democrats expected Obama’s Department of Justice to do with Republicans’ new maps. Just two years earlier, it had invoked Section 5 to block two Georgia voter-verification laws. Liberals gleefully predicted the Republican gerrymanders would likewise be “DOA at the DOJ.”

Voting Blogs: New Federal Lawsuit Provides U.S. DoJ Golden Opportunity to Challenge Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions Under Section 2 of Voting Rights Act | BradBlog

Last September’s hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights established that polling place photo ID restriction laws have nothing to do with eliminating “voter fraud.” They are, instead, part of what Judith Browne Dianis, a civil rights litigator at The Advancement Project, described at the time as the “largest legislative effort to roll back voting rights since the post-Reconstruction era” — part of the partisan, multi-state effort by the billionaire Koch brothers-funded, Paul Weyrich co-founded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-fueled GOP exercise in voter suppression. Her testimony established, yet again, that such laws have a disparate impact upon minorities, the poor, the elderly and students (all of whom happen to have the unfortunate tendency of voting Democratic).

Alabama: State, county officials blame each other for Alabama absentee ballot fiasco | The Montgomery Advertiser

The state of Alabama filed a response Wednesday to a temporary restraining order issued over absentee ballots that were sent late to military and overseas voters. The response filed Wednesday lists some of the precautions the secretary of state’s office took and the special circumstances that led to the delays. County and state election officials, meanwhile, sparred over where to place the blame for the delays. The U.S. Justice Department filed a suit late Friday against Alabama and Secretary of State Beth Chapman alleging that the state failed to send absentee ballots to military and overseas voters by the required deadline for the March 13 primaries. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued a temporary restraining order against Chapman and the state Tuesday that requires them to work with the Justice Department to decide on a remedy for the late ballots.

District of Columbia: House Backs D.C. Special Elections Bill | Roll Call

The House backed legislation this evening that would shorten the window between a vacancy in a local office and when a special election may be held to fill it. The bill passed on a voice vote. “Today [is a] small change to everyone except to the people of the District of Columbia, who consistently have to live under a rule that costs the voters and the residents of the District of Columbia … enormous additional dollars,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which oversees D.C. affairs. This is the second time Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has pursued such legislation, which would apply to unexpected D.C. Council, mayoral and attorney general vacancies.

Florida: Voter restrictions challenged | Politico.com

Florida will become the latest battleground in the national fight voter ID on Thursday, when a federal judge will hear a suit brought by Rock the Vote and other civic groups over new restrictions. “In states around the country, we’re witnessing the most significant assault on voting rights in a generation,” said Heather Smith, President of Rock the Vote, which encourages political participation. “It’s incredibly anti-American and undemocratic,” she said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

Georgia: State set to keep harsh ballot access law | Macon.com

In most states, independent and third-party candidates have to leap some hurdles to put their names in front of voters. In Georgia, the barriers build up to a wall. A proposed rewrite of ballot laws now seems likely to overlook a key committee’s advice and leave the biggest brick untouched. “If I wanted to run as an independent for the Bibb County Commission chair’s job,” said Macon businessman Tom Wagoner, “I was required by law to get a petition signed by 4,500 registered voters in the county.” Anyone who wants to run for county or district elected office has to get signatures from 5 percent of their prospective voters — people registered during the previous election. Getting on a statewide ballot, for governor or a U.S. Senate seat for example, would take about 58,000 signatures, 1 percent of Georgia’s registered voters.

Illinois: Voter ID Bill, Pushed By Republican State Senators, Held Up In Committee | WSOY

A group of nearly 20 Republican state senators in Illinois have quietly thrown their support behind legislation that would require the state’s voters to present a government-issued photo identification card to an election judge upon voting — a requirement that currently only applies to early voters. State Sen. Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon) last fall filed Senate Bill 2496 and in the months since then, fellow Republican state senators have also signed onto the measure. Earlier this month, the bill was assigned to a subcommittee but has failed to gain much additional traction.

Minnesota: Voter ID sponsor promises answers to come next year | StarTribune.com

As the photo ID constitutional amendment made an emotional passage through another committee Thursday, its Senate sponsor had a simple answer to queries about what will happen to absentee voters, mail-in voters, students voting away from home and provisional voters. Wait till next year, said Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson. Before the Senate Finance Committee approved his bill, Hutchinson recited his mantra: If voters approve the photo ID constitutional amendment in November, it will be up to the 2013 Legislature to decide how to implement the requirement that all voters at polling places “present an approved form of government-issued photo identification.”

New Mexico: Republican Commits Voter Fraud By Registering Dog As A Democrat | TPM

A Republican man in New Mexico wanted to show how easy he thought it was to commit voter fraud. So the Albuquerque man did just that: committed voter registration fraud by registering his dog, Buddy, to vote. Local news station KOB Eyewitness News 4 in New Mexico reported on the man’s stunt this week. “They should verify. Somebody should have verified this information and somebody should have come out and took a look at exactly who it was,” the unidentified man told the news station. “But I made up a birth date, and I made up a social security number and I had a voter registration card in my hand for Buddy two weeks later.” The news station interviewed the man on camera but granted the dog owner anonymity, and faded out any personal information, though it’s wasn’t clear why. Danielle Todesco, the reporter who put the piece together, said in an email to TPM that she discussed the decision to grant the man anonymity with her news director.

Iran: Iran: 48 million voters denied information, 48 journalists denied freedom | Reporters Without Borders

On the eve of tomorrow’s parliamentary elections in Iran, Reporters Without Borders condemns the censorship imposed on the media, which prevents them from playing their role during the polling, and the continuing, relentless crackdown on journalists. Iran’s 48 million voters are being denied the independently-reported news and information they need to make a choice. The crackdown on journalists and netizens has intensified. No independent media has been spared the political and judicial harassment that the various ruling clans have orchestrated since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection in June 2009. A total of 48 journalists and netizens are currently detained, making Iran the world’s third biggest prison for the media.

Iran: Key constituencies disillusioned as Iran votes | Reuters

Like many members of Iran’s paramilitary volunteer force, Mohammadreza Baqeri was a supporter of Iran’s conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nearly three years after Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election, the 27-year-old blogger says he will not vote for Ahminadejad’s camp in parliamentary elections on Friday. “I want new faces. I want a vocal parliament that can have an impact in the country,” said Baqeri, a member of the Basij paramilitary force. “I want a parliament with young and ambitious lawmakers.”

Madagascar: Madagascar unveils new electoral commission | Africa Review

Madagascar’s cabinet has agreed on a new elections body in another step towards holding a planned ballot this year after the term of its predecessor came to an end Wednesday. The Independent National Electoral Commission of the Transition (CENIT) replaces the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) unilaterally appointed in March 2010 by interim President Andry Rajoelina. CENI was also blamed for holding a controversial and widely-criticised referendum on November 17 of the same year. It is another step towards the envisaged holding of elections this year in keeping with a roadmap brokered by the SADC bloc last September.

Russia: Election Watchdog: Putin supporters ‘using illegal methods to ensure victory’ | Telegraph

Supporters of Vladimir Putin are using a raft of underhand and illegal methods to ensure his victory in Russia’s presidential poll, according to a report by the country’s top independent election watchdog. Golos said campaigning for the vote on Sunday, and for municipal elections in Moscow and other regions on the same day, was riddled with violations of electoral law. Monitors from the organisation reported that opposition figures had been intimidated, factory workers were being forced to vote under tight control at their place of work and Putin, Russia’s prime minister, had made widespread use of “administrative resources” to underwrite his own campaign. Golos said that public sector workers such as doctors and teachers were being pressured into casting their ballot for Putin.

Russia: Putin may win the election but for Russia political stability is over | guardian.co.uk

Supporters of Vladimir Putin are treating his win of the presidential election on 4 March as a foregone conclusion – and they’re probably right. Yet as the old adage goes: “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Even as the opposition’s protest movement in Russia continues unabated, Putin remains the most popular politician in the country. He has no strong competitor in this election – according to the latest data from the Levada-Center, Russia’s largest independent polling agency, 63 to 66% of voters who say they are coming to the polls will cast their ballot for Putin. Putin himself has warned that protest rallies following the elections could turn dangerous, because provocateurs from abroad are looking for a “sacrificial lamb” among the famous opposition members. None of this – the numbers, Putin’s own view of the situation – is all that surprising. But what makes for genuine news is that whichever way you cut it, Putin’s third term in the Kremlin is going to be difficult in an unprecedented way; because this much is clear – his government faces an inevitable decline.

United Kingdom: Data-matching: Electoral Commission throws a spanner in the database | politics.co.uk

Government plans to meddle with who gets to vote in British elections appear to have suffered another setback today. All parties support moves to switch from household registration to individual electoral registration (IER). But there are fears six million voters could fall off the list of those eligible to vote, and the coalition has been under serious pressure to come up with ways to fix this. Its solution is ‘data-matching’, which would see the government use its other databases – for driving licences, benefit payments and the like – to retain up to two-thirds of the current electoral register. Ministers have placed great store by this – constitutional reform minister Mark Harper, as recently as February 9th, stated: “I am confident we now have a set of proposals behind which we can all unite.”

Iran: Why Iran’s Election Is a Farce | NYTimes.com

ON just two occasions have recent elections in Iran reflected the people’s will and yielded particularly surprising and disorienting outcomes for the ruling establishment, first in 1997 with the election of Mohammad Khatami, and again, three years ago. In June 2009, the democratic opposition, led by the reformist Mir Hussein Moussavi — a former prime minister with a reputation for honesty, integrity and clean politics — polled strongly, only to have the election stolen from it through fraud. Popular protests were met with widespread arrests, street assaults and assassinations, and a show of force by police commandos, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, militia members and countless paid plainclothes vigilantes.  Soviet-style show trials and TV confessions followed. Since early 2010, except on one occasion, the ruling authoritarian clique has used sheer force, intimidation and fear to prevent public protests by the supporters of the opposition. Mr. Moussavi and a fellow opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, have been illegally under house arrest since February 2011.