Wyoming: Senate committee tables voter ID bill for more work | Star Tribune

Old age and associated complications such as loss of mobility will affect almost all of us. But they shouldn’t block our most basic democratic right – the right to vote — said Lindi Kirkbride of AARP Wyoming. Kirkbride is especially concerned for senior citizens, but all Wyomingites in general, if Senate File 134 become law and residents are forced to show picture identification at polling places. “The scenario is it’s a terribly nasty day,” Kirkbride said. “Someone in a walker wants to go vote. The poll checkers are there and they’re trying to determine, ‘Oh, yours is expired. You can’t vote because your license is expired, sorry.’ It’s going to cause these big lines.” The bill won’t become law this year. But next year could be different.

Armenia: Presidential elections at stake after attack on candidate | Wikinews

An unidentified assailant shot at politician and Armenian presidential candidate Paruyr Hayrikyan and wounded him on Thursday just before midnight on a street in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. Hayrikyan was transported to hospital and his state is stable. The presidential elections are scheduled for February 18, although Armenian constitution allows to postpone elections for up to 40 days if any candidate is unable to participate in the race for reasons he is not responsible for. The deputy chairman of the parliament Eduard Sharmazanov also said the act was a “provocation against democratic, free and transparent elections”. A parliament speaker Hovik Abrahamyan admitted the election can be postponed.

Australia: Legal hurdles ahead for Assange political bid | Lawyers Weekly

An academic and former advisor to Julian Assange’s legal team has claimed the WikiLeaks founder will face significant eligibility and constitutional hurdles in his bid for an upper-house seat. WikiLeaks last week (30 January) confirmed that Assange would “run on a WikiLeaks party ticket” after Prime Minister Julia Gillard called an election for 14 September. Graeme Orr (pictured), a professor who specialises in the law of politics at the University of Queensland, told Lawyers Weekly that he was approached by Assange’s lawyers last year to provide advice on a potential Senate bid by the controversial activist. Orr claimed Assange’s first hurdle is being eligible to stand, which, under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, requires candidates to be registered to vote. “It is public knowledge that [Assange] is not on the electoral roll,” said Orr.

Botswana: Inside the Botswana Democratic Party 2014 puzzle | Mmegi Online

Following the lapse of the Botswana Democratic Party’s (BDP) deadline for expression of interest to hold public office yesterday, the party remains tight-lipped on the list of candidates for the primaries. BDP executive secretary Thabo Masalila confirmed yesterday that a huge number of members have shown interest in contesting in the party primaries, but would not reveal the candidates. “At the moment we can’t confirm who is who. It’s confidential. There are many files and many more letters are pouring in,” he said. He stated that the list would be passed on to the central committee, which will assess it and release the names to the public, as the date for primaries approaches. He added that the outcome of the delimitation commission would have an impact on the primaries.

Canada: B.C. high court to hear voter ID laws could prevent homeless, seniors from say | Global News

The contention that federal voting laws requiring all people to present identification at the ballot box could deny society’s most vulnerable people from ticking their preferred candidate will be put to the test for a second time, Monday in British Columbia’s highest court. Two anti-poverty activists and a visually impaired woman who couldn’t find the proper ID to vote in the last federal election are appealing a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that found the current law only presents a “minor inconvenience” for most. The plaintiffs plan to argue against the 2010 judgment, which failed to agree the law is unconstitutional.

Canada: Are voter ID laws too onerous? British Columbia court readies to hear arguments | Montreal Gazette

A B.C. court will be asked this coming week to decide whether the right to vote trumps all concerns about voter fraud, or whether protecting the system means turning some people away from the polls. The government has taken note of the case that resurfaced in 2012 following a two-year-hiatus during which the three applicants had to find themselves a new legal team. A summary of the case was contained in a briefing note to Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal with departmental officials adding they would keep Uppal apprised of further developments. When the case is finally heard in the first week of February, the onus will be on the three applicants from British Columbia — Rose Henry, Clyde Wright and Helen Eddlestone — to prove that the trial judge erred in his evaluation of the evidence. The three unsuccessfully argued in 2010 that Bill C-31, passed in 2007, places barriers between some Canadians and their constitutional right to vote. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is also asking the court to side with the three applicants.

Cuba: Cubans vote on new legislature; president, parliament chief to be picked later this month | The Washington Post

Millions of Cubans voted Sunday for parliamentary candidates in elections critics say are closed and offer no real competition, but that the government defends as grass-roots democracy. The elected unicameral legislature will convene Feb. 24 and pick a new parliament chief for the first time in two decades, with the body’s longtime leader, Ricardo Alarcon, not on the ballot. Voting began last October with municipal elections. Term limits do not exist in Cuba, but on various occasions Castro has proposed limiting public officials including the president to two consecutive periods in office. Government critics call Cuban elections perfunctory, noting that only the Communist Party is permitted on the island and only one approved candidate is on the ballot for each seat in parliament. Castro and his older brother Fidel, now retired, have headed up the government for five decades.

Virginia: Voter ID Bills Out of Committee, Headed to House and Senate | WVIR

For the second General Assembly session in a row, the fight over voter identification is creating tension in Richmond. Though Democrats say ID’s caused few problems in the 2012 elections, Republicans say changes must still be made to protect voter integrity in the commonwealth. Two bills, on their way to the floors of the House and Senate, take last year’s approved list of ID and whittle it down. House Bill 1337 and Senate Bill 719 would remove “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, or paycheck that shows the name and address of the voter” from the list of acceptable polling place identification.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly January 28 – February 3 2013

Reuters has posted a series of editorials by Election Law specialists on the upcoming Supreme Court debate on the future of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and the Edmonton Journal weighed in on Internet voting proposals in Alberta. The Nation considered the voting challenges facing Native Americans. Federal efforts aimed at easing the burden on overseas and military voters have been very successful in November’s election according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program. Political roadblocks have slowed plans to alter the allocation of electoral votes in several swing States. Legislation has been introduced in Indiana to eliminate direct recording electronic voting systems after 2015. The Virginia legislature has moved several election related bills and elections in Armenia may be delayed after an assasination attempt against one of the Presidential candidates.

National: Why the GOP’s electoral vote gambit won’t work | Washington Post

A Republican-backed plan to change the way certain states allocate electoral votes has fizzled as quickly as it sprung onto the national consciousness. The slate of upcoming 2014 governor’s races is a major reason why that happened. Last month, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus voiced some support for the effort to award electoral votes in a handful of battleground states by congressional district. Since many of those congressional districts lean Republican, the plan, if passed in several swing states, would give future GOP presidential nominees a leg up. But for the Republican governors in these states, endorsing the idea — which Democrats can easily cast as a partisan power grab — would carry immense political risk on the eve of reelection campaigns that already promise to be challenging. So, the governors have mostly distanced themselves from such proposals.

Editorials: If the court strikes Section 5 of Voting Rights Act | Richard Hasen/The Great Debate (Reuters)

We celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last week in the shadow of a fight over the constitutionality of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, raising the question whether Section 5 of the act, which requires that states and localities with a history of racial discrimination in voting get permission from the federal government before making any changes in election procedures, is now unconstitutional. The smart money is on the court striking down the law as an improper exercise of congressional power, although Justice Anthony Kennedy or another justice could still surprise. If the court strikes Section 5, the big question is: What comes next? Reuters has invited a number of leading academics, who focus on voting rights and election law, to contribute to a forum on this question. In this introductory piece, I sketch out what may happen and what’s at stake. One possibility is that nothing happens after Section 5 falls and minority voters in covered jurisdictions lose their important bargaining chip. Then, expect to see more brazen partisan gerrymanders, cutbacks in early voting and imposition of tougher voting and registration rules in the formerly covered jurisdictions.

Arizona: Lawmaker: Require notarized signatures for early voters | Cronkite News

Requiring Arizonans to have their signatures notarized to get on the permanent early ballot list or to receive early ballots would help prevent voter fraud, a state lawmaker contends. “When you go into the polls, you show your ID,” said Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix. “Every time you go into the polls, you show your ID. Well, if you’re going to vote by mail you’re not walking into the poll, so shouldn’t you have the same safeguards in place?” Seel said that the increase in people voting by mail prompted him to introduce HB 2350. “My bill is really almost a clean-up; that is, it stays consistent with that belief that anyone who votes truly should be authorized to vote,” he said.

Georgia: State investigators: Fulton election documents were altered | www.ajc.com

Someone altered Fulton County voter records after last year’s presidential election, using a red pen to add names to tally sheets of voters using paper ballots and marking that their votes all counted. Who is responsible remains a mystery, but it happened after managers from at least two precincts had signed off on the documents and submitted them to the main county elections office. “I know for certain that these additional names were added after,” Rosalyn Murphy, who served in November as an assistant poll manager at Church of the Redeemer in Sandy Springs, told the State Election Board during a hearing Thursday focusing on the performance of the county’s elections office. “That doesn’t even look like our handwriting.”

Michigan: Clerk: No-reason absentee voting to become reality with governor’s support | Source Newspapers

After hearing Gov. Rick Snyder call on the Michigan Legislature to address the issue during his State of the State Address, Shelby Township Clerk Stanley Grot says he remains confident that it is “just a matter of time” until no-reason absentee voting becomes a reality. “Approximately two months ago, I called on Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and the Michigan Legislature to implement no-reason absentee voting in the state of Michigan,” Grot said in a statement. “Since then, I have spoken with Johnson, Macomb County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh, State Rep. Peter Lund and the office of Gov. Snyder. I have found that to some degree, everyone I spoke to believes no-reason absentee voting is common-sense government reform and should be implemented promptly.”

Minnesota: “No-excuse” absentee voting bill gets a hearing | Minnesota Public Radio

A Minnesota House committee is considering a bill that would allow significantly more people to vote by absentee ballot beginning in 2014. Under the measure, eligible voters could get an absentee ballot without stating a reason why they can’t vote in person at their neighborhood polling place on Election Day. Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, told members of the House Election Committee today that his no-excuse absentee voting bill would put Minnesota in line with 27 other states. Simon said the current absentee system is unenforceable.

Pennsylvania: Lawmakers Hear Stories of Philadelphia Election Day Chaos Caused by Voter ID Law | CBS Philly

A group of Pennsylvania legislators today heard testimony from watchdog groups and voters on the state’s new voter ID law and problems it may have caused at the polls on Election Day 2012. The Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee heard testimony from a half-dozen voters and community groups, including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters.  All who testified gave accounts of confusion at the polls about voter ID and the identification requirements for first-time voters. “For election administrators, the voter ID law pretty much was a nightmare,” Philadelphia city commissioner Stephanie Singer told the committee. “It was an unfunded mandate with extremely short deadlines.”

Utah: Vote recount measure passes House committee | Deseret News

A measure aimed at providing consistency and fairness in election policy received a favorable recommendation Thursday from the House Government Operations Committee. HB85 would amend the state election code by changing the formula for determining when a voting recount may be requested by a losing candidate. Currently, a recount can be called for if a candidate loses by less than one vote per precinct. The proposed legislation, sponsored Rep. Craig Hall, R-West Valley City, would change the recount criteria to 0.25 percent of total number of votes cast.

Virginia: No charges for Patrick Moran in voter fraud investigation | The Washington Post

Arlington County police have decided not to charge Patrick Moran in connection with possible voter fraud, authorities announced Thursday. Arlington police and prosecutors initiated an investigation following an undercover video that was released in October showing Moran discussing possible voter fraud with an activist posing as a campaign worker. Authorities have closed their investigation, saying the person responsible for making the video was uncooperative. They also noted that Moran and the Jim Moran for Congress campaign provided “full cooperation.”

Virginia: Voter ID Bills Out of Committee, Headed to House and Senate | WVIR

For the second General Assembly session in a row, the fight over voter identification is creating tension in Richmond. Though Democrats say ID’s caused few problems in the 2012 elections, Republicans say changes must still be made to protect voter integrity in the commonwealth. Two bills, on their way to the floors of the House and Senate, take last year’s approved list of ID and whittle it down. House Bill 1337 and Senate Bill 719 would remove “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, or paycheck that shows the name and address of the voter” from the list of acceptable polling place identification.

Editorials: Republican Redistricting in Virginia: The Three-Fifths Compromise | The Root

GOP leaders in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — all blue states with Republican governors — have expressed interest in the electoral changes. But as Bloomberg columnist Albert Hunt writes, “If this sort of political coup had been pulled off earlier, instead of celebrations on the streets of Washington during last week’s presidential inauguration, there would have been violent protests.” Indeed. And African Americans may well have led the fight. This kind of disenfranchisement isn’t new to the black community, and its long, dark history has left too many scars to go unnoticed. Republicans were equally bold in their attempts to undermine minority votes ahead of the 2012 elections. Pennsylvania’s House Republican leader Mike Turzai declared that a voter-ID law would “help Mitt Romney win” — ostensibly by disenfranchising African Americans, college students and the elderly. In Ohio, a senior Republican official fought against extensions to voting hours, writing in an email that such a move would only serve the “urban — read African-American — voter turnout machine.”

Armenia: Shot Armenia presidential hopeful seeks vote delay | Boston.com

The shooting of a presidential candidate threw Armenia’s election into disarray Friday, with the wounded victim saying he will call for a delay of the vote. Paruir Airikian, 63, was shot and wounded by an unidentified assailant outside his home in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, on Thursday just before midnight. Airikian said from the hospital after surgery Friday that he would initiate proceedings as allowed by the constitution to delay the vote for 15 days due to his condition, but not longer. He is one of eight candidates in the Feb. 18 race in this landlocked former Soviet republic and wasn’t expected to get more than 1 percent of the vote. But postponing the election could help opponents of President Serge Sarkisian, who was expected to easily win a second five-year term. Sarkisian said after visiting Airikian in the hospital that the perpetrators of the attack ‘‘obviously had an intention to influence the normal election process.’’

Barbados: Political parties nominate candidates for upcoming election | Caribbean360

The two main political parties here have nominated candidates to contest the 30 seats in the February 21 general elections ahead of the official Nomination day on February 6. In the unprecedented move, not witnessed before in Caribbean politics, the main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) led by former prime minister Owen Arthur marched to the Treasury Building on Thursday to pay the required US$125 per candidate. “This is a party that knows how to plan and to take charge of its affairs. And today, you have seen for the first time in the history of Barbados, a group of candidates constituting themselves as team which can become the next government of Barbados coming together in unison.

Iran: Make no mistake: This time Ali Khamenei is determined to put one of his own in charge | The Economist

The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is sure that the approaching election to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose second term ends in June, will be free and fair. So sure, in fact, that he has forbidden discussion of it. This was the import of a speech he gave last month in the holy city of Qom. In the way of such speeches, it had the opposite effect to the one he wanted. There had been grumbles before Mr Khamenei’s intervention, mostly recalling the country’s last presidential poll, in 2009, which returned Mr Ahmadinejad in dubious circumstances at the expense of his reformist rivals. The supreme leader’s words were uttered on the same day that one of his clerical representatives, Ali Saeedi, bluntly called on the Revolutionary Guard to “engineer” the elections. The result, even in an increasingly authoritarian Iran, was uproar.

Pakistan: Counting continues: Army enters neighbourhoods, doesn’t make it to the door | The Express Tribune

After the opposition parties raised hue and cry over what they called was a botched verification of electoral rolls, the army was seen on Tuesday standing guard in some neighbourhoods. The election commission workers are completing the second phase of the voter verification process that began on January 10. Several political parties expressed, however, their reservations that the process was being carried out without the help of the army and Frontier Constabulary, which was against the Supreme Court orders. On Monday, the chief election commissioner, Fakhruddin G Ebrahim had assured the protesting parties that the army would be called in, but the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) – the media wing of the army – gave no confirmation.

Editorials: A vote cast against online voting | Edmonton Journal

Edmonton city council would be wise to exercise real caution before introducing Internet voting into the municipal election system. As tempting as it might be to blaze an electronic trail into the local democratic process, the notion of a vote that’s only a click away triggers some genuine concerns. City staff have recommended council approve online ballots in advance polls for next fall’s municipal election, following what was regarded as a successful mock vote last September that tested such a system with no discernible security breaches. That all-systems-go enthusiasm took a hit Monday when a local computer programmer informed council’s executive committee that he was able to cast two ballots in the mock election without being detected. Coun. Linda Sloan spoke for many citizens, and not just technophobes, when she expressed severe reservations about the integrity of a cyber-vote. “I’m not 100-per-cent confident in the security of the Internet and never have been, whether it’s my credit card information or my personal address or how I choose to vote,” Sloan said.

National: From Arizona to Montana, Native Voters Struggle for Democracy | The Nation

Leonard Gorman is a man of maps. He heads the Navajo Nation’s Human Rights Commission, which among other responsibilities, is charged with protecting and promoting Navajo voters’ rights to choose candidates who will reasonably represent their interests. He and his team all work out of their trailer office in Window Rick, Arizona—the Navajo Nation’s capitol—where they chart data that they’ve collected on the potential impacts of redistricting on the Navajo Nation. The first map Gorman’s team submitted to the Arizona Redistricting Commission resembled the letter J, encompassing the edge of Arizona’s eastern border and curving up towards the west. Although that map included large portions of Arizona’s Native population, the Navajo Nation later opted out of it because Arizona’s hardline anti-immigrants liked it too much. It included large southern border areas, where white conservative ranchers are more likely to vote Republican and would have infringed on Arizona’s growing Latino districts. “We immediately learned that the J map was playing into the extreme right position,” explains Gorman.

National: Total 2012 election spending: $7 billion | Sunlight Foundation

A new estimate from the Federal Election Commission puts total spending for the 2012 election at more than $7 billion — $1 billion more than previously thought. New FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub unveiled the latest estimate of the 2012 campaign’s record-shattering cost at the agency’s first open meeting of 2013, one that saw the departure of Cynthia Bauerly, one of the three Democratic commissioners. Though campaign spending was expected to break records after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that opened the door for unlimited contributions, the latest FEC estimate exceeds earlier expectations. The FEC processed more than 11 million documents to calculate the spending for the election and the counting isn’t yet complete: New filings covering the final quarter of 2012 are due at midnight.

National: Program exceeds expectations in reaching overseas and military absentee voters | Fort Hood Sentinel

The Federal Voting Assistance Program exceeded congressional expectations in the 2012 election cycle by getting guidance to service members so they could vote by absentee ballot, a senior FVAP official said here, Jan. 24. David Beirne, acting deputy director of technology programs for FVAP, participated in a “MOVE and the Military” panel discussion at George Washington University during the seventh annual summit of the Overseas Vote Foundation and U.S. Vote Foundation. MOVE refers to the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, designed to help military people serving overseas and citizens who live abroad to vote in U.S. elections.

National: Internet and Federal Act Ease Overseas U.S. Voting | NYTimes.com

Voting from abroad continued to become easier in last year’s U.S. election, thanks to the combined effects of federal law and Internet resources, according to a new study by the Overseas Vote Foundation, a nonpartisan voter-assistance group. Whereas a full half of expatriate American voters surveyed by the group after the 2008 election reported not receiving a ballot or receiving it too late, that figure declined to one-third for the 2010 election and to just one-fifth in last year’s presidential election. “The tipping point is in the use of technology,” said Claire M. Smith, research manager for the foundation. “There’s no going back.”

Editorials: Why Section 5 survives | Abigail Thernstrom/The Great Debate (Reuters)

“The smart money is on the court striking down [Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act] as an improper exercise of congressional power,” Rick Hasen has warned in his introduction to this forum. That bet is a poor one. The “experts” may well be proven wrong ‑ as they were in 2009 when the Supreme Court found no reason to rush into a constitutional judgment on the constitutionality of pre-clearance. “Our usual practice,” Chief Justice John Roberts said then, “is to avoid the unnecessary resolution of constitutional questions.” And that is just what the court did. Today, however, those worried about the future of the Voting Rights Act nervously point to a remark by the chief justice in a 2006 congressional redistricting case. “It is a sordid business,” Roberts said, “this divvying us up by race.” The remark suggested race-driven maps would not survive another review of Section 5’s constitutionality, and yet the enforcement of the pre-clearance provision has long involved race-conscious districting. To forbid “divvying up” is to insist that the Justice Department and the courts craft very different remedies for electoral discrimination than the familiar ones ‑ though a commitment to those race-based districting plans has long been a civil rights litmus test.