Editorials: Second-class Kansans | Wichita Eagle

Section 1 of the Kansas Bill of Rights states that we are all equal. But when it comes to voting and filing taxes, some Kansans are less equal than others. Secretary of State Kris Kobach is pushing a bizarre plan to create two categories of voters: those who can vote in all elections and those who can vote only in federal races. Kobach’s scheme is his response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June barring states from having more voter-registration requirements than those established by Congress. Kansas’ law requires new voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship, while federal law requires only that they pledge they are citizens under penalty of perjury. Rather than admit that the state overstepped and call for the Legislature to rescind Kansas’ law, Kobach concocted a two-tiered system in which Kansans who legally register but don’t provide documented proof of citizenship (about 18,000 people so far) would be allowed to vote for president and members of Congress but not in state and local elections. “It’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and there is no rational basis for it,” state Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, told Bloomberg News.

Minnesota: GOP dogs Secretary of State on online voter registration even though he’s a lame duck | MPRN

Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie won’t be seeking re-election next year, but that hasn’t slowed the Republican criticism that has dogged him through two terms. Republican lawmakers have been pounding Ritchie for developing an online voter registration system, without first obtaining legislative approval. Among them is state Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, who is considering another run for the secretary of state job she once held. Kiffmeyer lost her bid for a third term as secretary of state to Ritchie in 2006. “Doing anything online has a risk with it, and especially something like this, and I just want to be sure,” Kiffmeyer said. “My concerns are it hasn’t gone through the legislative process. It has not been vetted by our state IT department, nor the expertise that we have. It’s been done on a unilateral basis.” She and other Republicans want the Senate Subcommittee on Elections to hold a hearing to address their concerns.

Montana: Dark Money Operative Sees Hope for Meth House Documents Go Up in Smoke | ProPublica

In a sharply worded ruling, a federal judge in Montana said Tuesday that documents found inside a Colorado meth house pointing to possible election law violations will not be returned to the couple claiming the papers were stolen from one of their cars. Instead, the thousands of pages will remain where they are — with a federal grand jury in Montana, investigating the dark money group American Tradition Partnership, once known as Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP. The documents, detailed last fall in aFrontline documentary and ProPublica coverage, point to possible illegal coordination between candidates and WTP, which since 2008 has worked to replace moderate Republicans with more conservative candidates in both Montana and Colorado. The documents, including a folder labeled “Montana $ Bomb,” provided the first real glimpse inside a dark money group. Such so-called social welfare nonprofits, which have poured more than $350 million into federal election ads in recent years, don’t have to disclose their donors.

Nebraska: Voter ID plan by Secretary of State Gale would apply to narrow group of citizens | Omaha.com

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale thinks he has a less expensive, less intrusive “Nebraska” solution to the politically charged issue of requiring voters to present identification before casting a ballot. But it was hard to find anyone who liked his compromise plan on Wednesday. Gale said he plans to seek legislation that will require only a portion of registered voters — about 75,000 — to present ID before voting. Everyone else, about 94 percent of the 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska, would not have to present ID. The secretary of state said his “voter integrity” proposal resolves his concerns about previous voter ID legislation, which he felt would cost too much money to implement and would place a burden on too many people.

New Jersey: State online polling place locator serves up error messages for much of day | NJ.com

The state’s online application allowing residents to search for the location of their polling place returned error messages for many users today, prompting the state to replace it with another service. Today is the day New Jersey voters will choose a new U.S. senator in a special election. Bill Quinn, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, which oversees the state’s network of websites, said the application slowed down this morning and many people received error messages or may have had to try multiple times to get the site to load.

Voting Blogs: A Very Special Special Election: “Opposite-Day” in New Jersey? | State of Elections

On October 16, some five million New Jersey residents can head to the polls and cast their votes for the senator of their choice. And twenty days later, they can go to the polls again to vote for governor. The reason: New Jersey’s October 16 special election. On June 3, 2012, New Jersey Senator Frank S. Lautenberg died while serving as a New Jersey senator. The next day, NJ Governor Chris Christie issued a Writ of Election setting the date for primaries for the vacant seat on August 13, 2013, and a general election for the seat on October 16, 2013. For political pundits in New Jersey, Christmas comes twice this year. But state Democrats—as well as some Republicans, county governments, minority and public interest groups, and coastal communities – aren’t seeing it that way. For these groups, the October 16 special election is a political ploy— and an expensive one. The special election is estimated to cost the state $12 millionmore than having the senate vacancy election on Election Day 2013, according to anopinion issued this summer by the state’s bipartisan Office of Legislative Services, obtained by the Huffington Post. Democrats criticized Christie for wasting taxpayer money to serve his own political ends (namely, avoiding Cory Booker’s supporters at the polls in November).

Virginia: State kicks 40K off voter rolls over Democrats’ objection | The News Leader

Virginia elections officials say they have already purged nearly 40,000 names from the voter rolls, despite an ongoing lawsuit filed by Democrats seeking to keep those voters registered. The Democratic Party of Virginia filed suit in federal court earlier this month over plans to purge as many as 57,923 names ahead of November’s gubernatorial election between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli. State officials pushed for the purge based on evidence from a multistate database that the voters had subsequently registered in other states. Democrats say the list is riddled with errors. Democrats are seeking an injunction that would order the purged voters restored to the rolls. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday.

Australia: Western Australia Senate recount gets under way | WA Today

The first ever Senate recount since the advent of preferential Senate voting has begun in Perth. The Australian Electoral Commission is recounting WA’s 1.25 million above-the-line votes, after the Greens and the Australian Sports Party were successful in their bid to have the nailbiting result reviewed. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and the Sports Party’s Wayne Dropulich lost the election to the Palmer United Party’s Zhenya ‘Dio’ Wang and Labor’s Louise Pratt, who took the fifth and sixth available Senate spots. But the result hinged on a crucial 14-vote margin at one stage of the count, when the Shooters and Fishers Party edged out the Australian Christians, meaning preferences ultimately flowed to the PUP and Labor.

Madagascar: Elections in Madagascar: Better than nothing? | The Economist

Vehicles brandishing loudspeakers blast out propaganda in the streets of Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital. Candidates’ faces are plastered across buildings, buses and T-shirts given out at rallies. It has been a long time coming, but after months of wrangling, three postponements and a lot of international pressure, Madagascar is finally set to hold its first presidential elections since a coup in early 2009. The first round is supposed to take place on October 25th, the second on December 20th, along with parliamentary elections. This is good news, at least on the face of things. Of the 52 African countries measured by the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, Madagascar, a vast island off Africa’s east coast, registered the biggest deterioration in overall governance over the past 12 years. Since the coup, the economy has tanked.

Maldives: President doubts credibility of upcoming election | Business Standard

Maldives President Mohamed Waheed says he will remain an independent observer of the upcoming presidential election but expressed doubts over its credibility, Xinhua reported Wednesday citing local media. Speaking to the media on Eid-al Adha, Waheed, who earlier this week withdrew from running for a second term, insisted that he would not back any of the three candidates still in the fray. They include former president Mohammad Nasheed, who bagged 45.45 percent of the vote in the first round that was later annulled. The other two contenders are tycoon Gasim Ibrahim and autocratic former president Abdul Gayoom’s half-brother and MP, Abdulla Yamin. Both candidates polled nearly equally with only some 3,000 votes giving Yamin a slight edge. During the now defunct presidential poll held Sep 7, President Waheed obtained 5.13 percent of the popular vote, finishing last among the four candidates.

Nepal: Election Commission decides to print voters’ ID cards on its own | The Himalayan Times

Almost a week after the Election Commission scrapped its plan to get voters’ identity cards printed by the private sector, it is now mulling doing the herculean job on its own. Chief Election Commissioner Neel Kantha Uprety told THT that talks to engage printing machines to print voters’ identity cards were in the preliminary stage. “If we can print the voters identity cards on our own, we can them pack them in plastic pouches. Such cards, containing the photos of voters, can be used in one or two elections. We believe the government will distribute biometric identity cards based on the data collected by the EC, later,” Uprety said. Another EC official said the EC felt the need to print voters’ identity cards on its own to keep its word. “We have assured voters that we will distribute voters ID cards so we want to fulfill the promise,” the official added.

United Kingdom: Prisoners’ right-to-vote appeal rejected by supreme court | theguardian.com

Two convicted murderers who argued that European Union law gave them the right to vote in UK elections have had their appeals dismissed by the supreme court at Westminster. Peter Chester, who is serving a life sentence in England, and George McGeoch, who is behind bars in Scotland, both tried to sidestep British legislation over prisoner voting rights, the European court of human of rights in Strasbourg having in the past ruled illegal Britain’s voting ban for all those serving any sentence. A parliamentary committee is considering whether to enforce the rulings or defy the European judges. The supreme court justices observed that since Strasbourg had already declared the blanket ban on prisoners voting incompatible with human rights, there was no point in repeating it. David Cameron welcomed the unanimous supreme court decision. The prime minister tweeted: “The supreme court judgment on prisoner voting is a great victory for common sense.”

National: The next, next Citizens United | Washington Post

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case many — including my GovBeat colleague Niraj — have dubbed the next Citizens United. McCutcheon challenges the government-set aggregate limits on how much an individual can contribute to federal candidates. It’s the latest salvo in a coordinated drive by conservative lawyers to undermine campaign finance reforms. And those conservative lawyers aren’t waiting for McCutcheon to be decided before they tee up their next assault — this time on rules against corporations contributing to candidates. Last week, Indiana attorney Jim Bopp Jr., on behalf of the Iowa Right to Life Committee, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Iowa’s ban on political contributions by corporations. Bopp says Iowa’s rules, which allow labor unions to give but prohibit corporations from donating to candidates, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, along with the right to free speech.

Editorials: The Political-Monetary Complex | Thomas Edsall/New York Times

In its landmark 1976 decision Buckley v.Valeo, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of laws aimed at “the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates’ positions and on their actions if elected to office.” In that light, let’s take a look at the record of campaign contributions to Spencer Bachus, a Republican congressman from Alabama and a prime example of the interaction between special interest campaign contributions and the legislative process. For all intents and purposes, Bachus, who has announced that he plans to retire in January 2015, has spent his career as a wholly owned subsidiary of the finance industry. Bachus acknowledged as much in an interview with the Birmingham News on Dec. 9, 2010, shortly before he became chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services. “In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated,” the Alabama congressman told the News. “My view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

Editorials: Election reform can counter political dysfunction | Henry Bonilla/Charlie Gonzalez/The Hill

It has become painfully obvious that extreme partisanship in Washington is harming our economy, national security, and the future of our country.  The recent federal budget showdowns—and resulting risk to economic growth—are only the latest evidence.  While there is no one silver bullet, election reforms at the state level—including in Ohio—can improve on our national political dysfunction and reassure Ohioans and all Americans that our government can be restored to functionality. For example, many Americans deride the practice of drawing safe Republican and safe Democratic legislative districts that produces polarized candidates, reduces real competition and leaves voters without choices on Election Day.  Many share visceral reactions at the idea that one party in control can “stick it” to the other party when they draw district lines for the next decade.

Voting Blogs: What to Do About the Court: Two Views | More Soft Money Hard Law

A scan of recent days’ writing reveals two lines of argument about the Supreme Court’s failings in campaign finance. One holds that the Court’s understanding of politics is weak and leaves it helpless to grasp, in practical terms, the issues presented. It is suggested that Congress knows best; its members, also political candidates, are experts in the electoral process. Others argue that there is hope for the Court but it would require an improvement in the arguments it hears, and Professor Lessig and his allies continue to urge that the Justices be pressed on his “originalist” argument for an expansive view of the corruption—“dependence corruption”—that Congress should be empowered to control. There is more to add in each instance to round out what the proponents of these points of view have chosen to offer. The modern reform program does not generally invest much in the stalwart support of politicians. For the most part it is highly suspicious of pols. In gerrymandering, reform advocates contend that politicians invariably design districts to their narrow political advantage. In campaign finance, the Federal Election Commission is regularly reviled for being a hand-puppet of the two political parties who appoint Commissioners compliant with their wishes. Then there is ongoing accusation that elected officials fail or refuse to police their own ethics, through the legislative disciplinary bodies. In the House, this distrust led to the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics as an “independent” enforcement mechanism structured to compensate for official fecklessness.

Colorado: Stakes grow in new Colorado gun control recall effort | Los Angeles Times

When a pair of Colorado lawmakers were recalled last month in a referendum on gun control, opponents had this to console them: At least, they said, the twin defeats did not alter the balance of power in Denver, the state capital. Now gun rights advocates are looking to change that. Organizers have received official go-ahead to start gathering signatures in a bid to oust state Sen. Evie Hudak, a Democrat from the Denver suburb of Westminister, who was the target of a failed recall petition drive earlier this year. The group, certified by Colorado’s secretary of State, has until Dec. 3 to collect just over 18,900 signatures to force a vote. The stakes: control of the state Senate, which Democrats hold by a tenuous 18-17 edge.  Hudak, who is in her second term, was one of four lawmakers originally targeted after the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a series of sweeping gun controls in response to mass shootings last year in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. The measures, signed into law by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, include a requirement for universal background checks and a limit on ammunition magazines like the one used in the July 2012 theater shootings in Aurora, another suburb of Denver.

Editorials: Florida must be accurate this time on check of voter eligibility | Bradenton Herald

The integrity of America’s elections is paramount to our democracy. As Florida prepares to undertake another purge of voter rolls, though, last year’s botched attempt at cleansing registration records of noncitizens cannot be duplicated. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner just finished a tour of the state to try to ensure the public that officials would perform better this time — and not send county elections supervisors flawed lists of eligible voters and minorities. Detzner’s just ended “Project Integrity” tour hinged on the admission of fault in 2012 and the promise of more solid data this time. But there’s reason to suspect another debacle.

Indiana: Carl Brizzi tells court that if Charlie White testified, it would have been a ‘disaster’ | Indianapolis Star

Defense attorney Carl Brizzi testified this morning that allowing former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White to take the stand in his 2012 theft and voter fraud trial “would have been a disaster.” Brizzi had represented White in that case. White is now trying to erase his felony convictions for theft and voter fraud as he faces a one-year, home-detention sentence. White’s new attorney, Andrea Ciobanu, is trying to show that Brizzi provided incompetent counsel. This morning, she hammered Brizzi over why he didn’t allow anyone to testify in White’s defense. Brizzi, a former Marion County prosecutor, said White was tough to control during the proceedings in early 2012 and he believed White’s testimony would work against him. “It was all I could do to just keep him … to just maintain composure,” Brizzi said. As an example of White’s behavior, Brizzi described a newspaper interview he let White do as a “disaster.” Brizzi said if White had testified, deliberations would have been 30 minutes.

Indiana: Ex-elections chief wants convictions tossed | Associated Press

Indiana’s former elections chief was difficult to control and not allowed to take the stand at his 2012 voter fraud trial because he was a loose cannon, the attorney who defended him testified Tuesday. Carl Brizzi explained his defense strategy during a Hamilton County court hearing on ex-Secretary of State Charlie White’s petition to have his convictions overturned. White was sentenced to a year of home detention and was removed from office in February 2012 after a jury convicted him of voter fraud and other felony charges. The case stemmed from his use of his ex-wife’s home in Fishers as his voting address in 2010 while serving on the Indianapolis suburb’s town council and running for secretary of state. Prosecutors said White lived in a townhouse outside his council district with his then-fiancee but continued to receive his council salary and vote in his old precinct.

Editorials: Let’s not give Chris Christie a pass for election chicanery | Rob Richie/Salon.com

On October 16th – a Wednesday, no less – New Jersey voters are being asked to go to the polls to select a new U.S Senator to replace Jeffrey Chiesa, Gov. Chris Christie’s stand-in for the long-time Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, who died earlier this year. Bizarrely, this oh-so-special election takes place just 20 days before these same voters will be asked to return to the polls for the regularly scheduled election for governor and state legislature. The cost to New Jersey taxpayers? Some $12 million. The adverse impact on voter turnout for having two separate elections in 20 days? Significant. The partisan calculation behind the election date? Blatant. It’s hard to know when we’ll hit bottom in shameless manipulation of our electoral laws by leaders of both major parties, but let’s hope it doesn’t get much lower than Gov. Christie’s “datemander.” When announcing his election schedule last spring, Christie justified the October 16th date with his professed belief that New Jersey voters needed as many days as possible with an elected Senator – then proceeded to appoint a Republican who for four months opposed most of the positions held by the man originally elected by those voters.

Ohio: Renewed Debate Over Absentee Voter Applications | ideastream

The debate over unsolicited absentee voter applications first heated up in the fall of 2011. Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald wanted to send these forms to every voter in his county, which gives those individuals a chance to request an absentee ballot. Secretary of State Jon Husted disagreed with FitzGerald because of the lack of uniformity it would bring among the other counties. As part of a compromise, FitzGerald agreed to hold off on sending out the applications and instead, Husted’s office mailed them to voters throughout the entire state for 2012’s presidential election. Now Republican Senator Bill Coley, of southwest Ohio, wants to lock down the rules on these applications in state law. His proposed bill says the Secretary of State can mail unsolicited applications for absentee voter ballots, but only on an even-numbered year and only if the General Assembly provides the money.

South Carolina: Two Spartanburg County lawmakers to push bill to close primaries | GoUpstate.com

Two Spartanburg County legislators plan to pick up the fight for closed primaries when they reconvene with their colleagues in January. Rep. Bill Chumley, R-Woodruff, and Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, said they plan to pre-file legislation that would close the primaries. South Carolina voters would have to register by party and vote only in their own party’s primary. “I think Republican-minded people should choose our candidate and not have it part of a partisan strategy of who the other party would like to run against,” Chumley said. Such legislation has died in the Legislature before, but the lawmakers said they are undeterred and are optimistic this year could be different. “It’s something the party’s been pushing for a while,” Bright said. “I’m starting to hear it from people outside the establishment.”

France: National Front party wins bellwether by-election | BBC

A candidate for the French far-right National Front (FN) party has won a by-election in the south-east, amid signs the party is gaining in strength. Laurent Lopez won a seat in the Var regional council, defeating the centre-right UMP with 53.9% of votes. Speaking on TV, FN leader Marine Le Pen said the results showed “a real desire for change by the French”. The party, once seen as a pariah in French politics, has made significant gains in popularity in recent months. It has been expanding its appeal to disillusioned Socialist and opposition UMP voters with promises on crime and illegal immigrants. Sunday’s run-off poll was for a seat in the town of Brignoles, near Toulon. Observers say the FN win there suggests the party may make gains in the 2014 municipal and European Parliament elections.

Germany: To Form German Coalition, Merkel’s Party May Need to Support a Minimum Wage | New York Times

Germany has long held out against introducing a nationwide minimum wage, and over the weekend Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized her rejection of the idea. But it may be the price she has to pay to build the stable government she has promised voters. Ms. Merkel’s conservatives met Monday for a second round of preliminary talks with the Social Democrats, the center-left party that is demanding a base wage of 8.50 euros an hour, or $11.55, for workers across Germany, Europe’s largest economy. The issue emerged as a central sticking point the two sides must overcome if they are to proceed to the next step of formally trying to build a coalition. The chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union, along with its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, emerged from a Sept. 22 parliamentary election as the clear winners. But the parties fell five seats short of a majority that would have allowed them to govern alone. Their previous partner in government, the pro-business Free Democrats, was ousted from Parliament, leaving Ms. Merkel searching for a new partner. Ms. Merkel’s conservatives have held an initial round of discussions with the Social Democrats, as well as the Greens. Both meetings concluded with a decision to meet again to sound out whether there are enough common points to open formal negotiations over a coalition that would form the next government.

Ghana: Parties doubt EC’s ability to implement reforms | The New Statesman

Political parties in the country have cast doubt on the Electoral Commission’s ability to implement reforms following the challenges which confronted the 2012 polls. The Commission has come under criticisms by some political for its inability to deal effectively with some of the problems that bedevilled the elections, that some argue, could have been avoided. Speaking to Joy News on the sidelines of a workshop to discuss proposals for electoral reforms, some representatives of the political parties say the EC cannot be trusted to effectively carry out the reforms. MP for Manhyia East, Dr Matthew Opoku Prepmeh, who spoke for the New Patriotic Party, observed experience has shown that the Commission is not amenable to change.

Voting Blogs: The Maldives: a serial coup in progress? | openDemocracy

In the latest episode of what appears to be a serial coup in the Maldives, the country’s Supreme Court – apparently at the behest of allies of the former dictator,  Islamists, and powerful business figures – threw out the results of the first round of presidential elections just hours before the scheduled date of the second round in which pro-democracy leader Mohamed Nasheed was expected to win handily. On October 10, the Court also invalidated all registered voters (the greatest number of whom had supported Nasheed) and called for the re-registration of everyone who wished to participate in a new presidential election, which they scheduled for October 19, only nine days later. This has raised concerns that the rushed and largely unsupervised re-registration process will allow anti-democratic forces to add the names of non-existent supporters of their candidates to the rolls while purging large numbers of Nasheed supporters. The Economist, noting that the police were getting “suspiciously strong powers of oversight” in the repeat election, observed that the impact of the ruling of the Court, dominated by appointees of a former dictator, is that “the crooked and the powerful are telling voters to go away and try again until they come up with a different result. ”

United Kingdom: Eight-year standoff over prisoner voting rights approaches resolution | theguardian.com

The United Kingdom’s standoff with the European court of human rights (ECHR) over prisoner voting is approaching a final resolution after eight years of political and legal controversy. The Strasbourg court first ruled in 2005 that a blanket ban preventing all prisoners from voting in elections was incompatible with human rights. That opinion has been unsuccessfully challenged in the upper appeals chamber of the ECHR several times, most recently by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve QC, when he supported an Italian case arguing an identical principle.

National: Judge Who Framed Voter ID Laws As Constitutional Says He Got It Wrong | The Nation

When the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago issued a critical ruling defending the constitutionality of Voter ID laws, Judge Richard Posner authored the decision. The arguments Judge Posner made for upholding Indiana’s Voter ID law framed the some of the key underpinnings for the 2008 decision of the US Supreme Court that, since it was issued, has been employed as a justification for similar initiatives in states across the country. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “a total of 34 states have passed voter ID laws of some kind.” Not all of those laws have been implemented, with a number of them facing court challenges. So it should count for something that Judge Posner now says that he was mistaken in his determination. Indeed, the judge’s rethink ought to inspire a national rethink — about not just Voter ID laws but the broader issue of voter rights.

National: Poll: Americans support fine-tuning election policy | USAToday

The capital’s shutdowns and showdowns have tested the patience even of the Senate chaplain. “Save us from the madness,” he prayed at the opening of one session last week. But how, exactly? The roots of the nation’s polarized and sometimes paralyzed politics, decades in the making, are too complex and far-reaching to be easily reversed or resolved. Even so, some political scientists and politicians argue that making simple changes — expanding who can vote in primary elections, for instance, or rethinking how legislative districts are drawn — could make a difference in the kind of government that follows. A nationwide USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll finds a majority of Americans support a range of proposals aimed at easing hyper-partisanship and building confidence in elections. Some command the sort of broad bipartisan backing rare in national politics.