Yearly Archives: 2013

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday granted the State’s summary judgment motion on substantive and procedural due process challenges to Virginia’s voter reinstatement process for convicted felons, as well as an Eighth Amendment challenge to the disenfranchisement of felons as cruel and unusual punishment. The court did, however, deny summary judgment on El-Amin’s Equal Protection challenge of lifetime felon disenfranchisement in Virginia.

Iran: Ahmadinejad Ally Swears Election Will Be Clean | Eurasia Review

Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, a close aide and advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has announced that the government will not allow anything to compromise the health and transparency of the presidential election. In an interview with the state news agency IRNA on Sunday March 24, Mashai said the president has announced that he will be ready to confront even the slightest shadow of doubt about the running of the elections. Iran’s presidential election is set for June 2013. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not eligible to run, having already served two consecutive terms, but he is reportedly intent on promoting his close advisor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, to run in the race.

Japan: Hiroshima Court Rules December Election Invalid in Two Districts | WSJ

In a landmark ruling Monday, a Hiroshima court ruled the results of the December lower-house election invalid in two districts due to the disproportionate weighting of votes in those districts. It was the first time a Japanese court ruled election results invalid on such grounds. It is seen as a victory for constitutional rights activists, who have long argued disparities in the weighting of votes in different districts violates the constitution. The ruling ups the ante on lawmakers to fix the system. A string of past court rulings has found that the current electoral system doesn’t uphold the principle of “one person, one vote,” as prescribed in the constitution. Still, the rulings acknowledged the validity of the results — until now. Yet neither of the winning candidates in the two districts — including Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida — will need to immediately worry about their jobs.

Kenya: Court orders a partial recount of presidential votes | Reuters

Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered a partial recount of ballots from the March 4 presidential election after losing candidate Raila Odinga alleged there were more votes cast at some polling stations than there were registered voters. A swift and transparent resolution of the dispute that has unnerved the stock market is seen as critical to restoring the reputation of Kenya as a stable democracy after violence following the 2007 election left more than 1,200 dead. This year’s election passed peacefully though and went a long way to restoring Kenya’s image. International observers said the voting was broadly credible, but the count then went for five days and monitors did not follow the entire process. Odinga has said there was “rampant illegality” in the first-round victory of his long-term rival Uhuru Kenyatta. The son of Kenya’s founding president, Kenyatta said the voting was “free and fair”. Adjudicating between the two political heavyweights is seen as a major test for the country’s reformed judiciary.

United Kingdom: Scots independence vote set for September 18, 2014 | Brechin Advertiser

Scotland’s referendum will be held on September 18 next year, First Minister Alex Salmond announced in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday, March 21. The date is contained in the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill, introduced to the Parliament and published today, which also confirms that voters will be asked the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”.

National: Congress votes to force USPS to keep Saturday delivery | Chicago Tribune

Congress foiled the financially beleaguered U.S. Postal Service’s plan to end Saturday delivery of first-class mail when it passed legislation on Thursday requiring six-day delivery. The Postal Service, which lost $16 billion last year, said last month it wanted to switch to five-day mail service to save $2 billion annually. Congress traditionally has included a provision in legislation to fund the federal government each year that has prevented the Postal Service from reducing delivery service. The Postal Service had asked Congress not to include the provision this time around.

Editorials: Internet voting for overseas military puts election security at risk | Pamela Smith/Hartford Courant

Connecticut lawmakers are considering legislation to allow military voters to cast ballots over the Internet. The intention of this legislation is well-meaning — Connecticut does need to improve the voting process for military voters — but Internet voting is not the answer. Every day, headlines reveal just how vulnerable and insecure any online network really is, and how sophisticated, tenacious and skilled today’s attackers are. Just last week, we learned that the U.S. has already experienced our first-ever documented attack on an election system, when a grand jury report revealed that someone hacked into the Miami-Dade primary elections system in August 2012. A chilling account in The Washington Post recently reported that most government entities in Washington, including congressional offices, federal agencies, government contractors, embassies, news organizations, think tanks and law firms, have been penetrated by Chinese hackers. They join a long list that includes the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, Bank of America, and on and on. These organizations have huge cybersecurity budgets and the most robust security tools available, and they have been unable to prevent hacking. Contrary to popular belief, online voting systems would not be any more secure.

Editorials: Voter Registration Measure Undermines Congress’s ‘Broad Power Over Federal Elections’ | ACS

This week, the Supreme Court heard argument in Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, a case at the intersection of two lines of cases which have been prominent on the Court’s docket in recent years. The case is an example of a challenge to Arizona’s apparently endless cornucopia of anti-immigrant legislation. It also tests measures which, according to some conservatives, are designed to preserve the integrity of the ballot box, but according to others are calculated tosuppress the minority vote. The case involves Arizona’s Proposition 200, passed in 2004, which requires prospective Arizona voters to provide proof of United States citizenship before registration. But the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 directed the federal Election Assistance Commission to create a federal form for voter registration (current version here). That form requires applicants to provide a date of birth and other identifying information, and an oath that the applicant is a citizen, but does not require independent documentary proof of citizenship. Federal law requires states to “accept and use” the federal form. The critical question is whether “accept and use” means that a properly completed form is sufficient for voter registration unless the state independently proves that it is fraudulent, or, rather, that the form is the beginning of an application process during which the state may freely add supplemental requirements and inquiries.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act should be left alone | Gregory B. Craig/The Washington Post

On Aug. 6, 1965, I was working in Coahoma County, Miss., trying to register new voters at the courthouse in Clarksdale. For many weeks, I and other civil rights workers in our project had been knocking on doors, persuading African Americans to go down to the courthouse, stand in line, risk retaliation, take a detailed written test and, inevitably, be rejected as unqualified. We would then ask each rejected applicant to sign an affidavit. We collected those affidavits and sent them in bundles to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The purpose of this effort was to show that African Americans in the South wanted to vote and that this particular person had been prevented from registering for no reason other than his or her race. That summer, we persuaded 500 African American citizens in Coahoma County to try to register to vote. Four or five passed the test. The rest signed affidavits. We prayed that federal officials would read the affidavits and do something about the situation. … Many months later, I asked one of my Harvard professors — a distinguished legal historian who was also the biographer of Oliver Wendell Holmes — whether there was any concern about the constitutionality of Congress passing a law that imposed requirements on some states when it did not impose the same requirements on other states. He said: “No. We fought a very bloody war about that same question: the proper role of the federal government when it came to protecting the rights of an American citizen. The South lost that war; and in 1870 the country, to make itself absolutely clear on that issue, adopted the 15th Amendment. That amendment put the issue to rest.”

Arizona: No special spot on voter registration form for Libertarians | Daily Sun

State lawmakers are free to provide special spots on voter registration forms to Democrats and Republicans that are not offered to other political parties, a federal judge has ruled. Judge Cindy Jorgenson acknowledged that the 2011 law does mean that those who want to register as Libertarians — or, for that matter, any minor party — have an additional hurdle. That’s because the registration forms have three spaces: Republican, Democrat and “other.” And that last option requires an individual to write out the name of the desired party. But Jorgenson rejected claims by an attorney for the Libertarian Party that the law amounts to illegal and unacceptable discrimination. She said the state has a legitimate interest in keeping the registration form simple.

Arkansas: Voter ID bill awaits action by governor | The Cabin

When manning the polls in Arkansas during an election, a poll worker is required to ask a voter for his or her identification. Legally, the voter is not required to present such documentation to the worker, but a bill sitting on the governor’s desk could change that. Senate Bill 2 — also known as the Voter ID Bill — has gone through the Arkansas Legislature and is awaiting action by the governor. If made into law, the bill would require voters “to provide proof of identity when voting and to provide for the issuance of a voter identification card.” Gov. Mike Beebe is likely to take action on the bill Monday, according to a staff member in the governor’s communication office.

California: Popularity of vote-by-mail adds extra complication to counting votes accurately | California Forward

Are absentee ballots the new hanging chads? More than 4 million presidential votes were lost in the 2000 election which was notoriously plagued by the hanging chads fiasco. Although voting technology has since vastly improved, the steady rise in absentee voting may undermine any gains in accuracy. Why is this important in California? Because last year’s presidential election was the first statewide general election in which a majority of Californians, 51 percent or 6.8 million to be exact, voted absentee. By comparison, less than 3 percent of California ballots cast in the 1962 general election were submitted by mail.

Montana: Group wants to stop bill to end same day voter registration | KTVQ

A public interest research group is calling on Montanans to let the Legislature know it shouldn’t approve a bill seeking to eliminate same-day voter registration. House Bill 30 was introduced by Republican Representative Ted Washburn of Bozeman in response to those huge lines that developed at the polls last November with a sudden push of unregistered voters. Those people were in line by the 8 p.m. closing time, but it took several more hours to process the lines with people needing “same day” voter registration.

New Hampshire: Repeal of voter ID law rejected in New Hampshire House | SeacoastOnline.com

The New Hampshire House rejected a proposal Thursday to repeal the state’s voter identification law, instead passing legislation that would prevent tighter regulations from taking effect until the attorney general’s office completes an inquiry into the last election. Rep. Timothy Horrigan, D-Durham, argued for repeal, saying the voter ID law is “an excessive solution to a virtually nonexistent problem.” Horrigan said no evidence of voter fraud exists in the state. But Rep. Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, countered that voter fraud in New Hampshire has never been found because no one has looked for it. Jasper said a number of “suspicious” cases from 2012 could prove to be fraud. He added that even if fraud isn’t widespread it could tip the scales in tight elections.

North Carolina: Voter ID debate may affect college students | Technician

The North Carolina General Assembly’s agenda for the current session shows the controversial voter identification legislation requiring voters to show photo identification at the poll is still making waves in the legislature. Supporters of voter ID legislation hope to prevent fraudulent voting at the polls and instill confidence in our democratic system. Interest groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Democracy N.C. and other national organizations oppose laws that would require voters to show photo identification. The NAACP compares the voter ID laws to the times of civil rights movements in the 1960s. Reverend William Barber, president of the NAACP, has stated that requiring a voter to show ID is comparable to a poll tax in early 20th century because of the cost to obtain licenses.

Texas: Driver surcharge program may have doomed voter ID law | Dallas Morning News

Was the Texas voter ID law undone by the troubled Texas Driver Responsibility Program? Although no study has ever been done on the link between the two, experts have speculated that the driving surcharge program — which has caused 1.3 million drivers to lose their licenses — made it much more difficult for Texas to defend its 2011 law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. In August, a federal appeals court refused to uphold the voter ID law in part because so many Texans lacked a driver’s license or state photo ID. Minorities made up a large percentage of them.

Virginia: Fairfax elections report doesn’t answer whether GOP hoped to discourage voting | The Washington Post

The most provocative question raised by the severe poll delays in parts of Fairfax County on Election Day in November was whether the problems resulted from a nefarious plot by the Republican-controlled elections apparatus to discourage voting in Virginia’s largest Democratic county. So it’s frustrating that that concern was precisely the one left unclarified in Tuesday’s bipartisan commission report on how to ensure that such waits don’t happen again. As I reported the week after the Nov. 6 election, there were signs that Republican-appointed elections overseers had been suspiciously slow to approve the appointment of precinct polling officials nominated by the Democrats. A shortage of such officials proved to be a major cause — though not the only one — of the voting delays. At some precincts, people didn’t finish voting until 10 p.m., or three hours after the polls were scheduled to close.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee County prosecutors charge 10 with voter fraud | Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County prosecutors Thursday filed voter fraud charges against 10 people, including two accused of double voting in 2012 elections and two felons ineligible to vote. Also among the fraud cases: a Milwaukee woman who is accused of signing a recall petition against Republican Gov. Scott Walker three times; and the petition circulator who collected those signatures.

Egypt: Supreme Administrative Court postpones appeal against elections suspension | Daily News Egypt

The Supreme Administrative Court’s appeals district postponed on Sunday the government’s appeal of an Administrative Judiciary Court ruling suspending elections to 7 April. The Judiciary Court had ruled to suspend the upcoming House of Representatives elections and referred the parliamentary election law to the Supreme Constitutional Court earlier in March. The court suspected the election law was unconstitutional and referred it to the Constitutional Court for review, meaning that elections for the lower house of parliament, initially scheduled to start on 22 April, would be postponed until the Supreme Constitutional Court deems the electoral law constitutional.

Liberia: Election Commission Nomination Sparks Opposition Protest | VoA News

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has nominated Counselor Jerome Kokoya as the next chairman of the country’s Elections Commission. But, the main opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) said Kokoya’ s nomination should be withdrawn because he is a member of the ruling Unity Party. CDC national chairman George Solo said his party will not participate in this year’s bi-election in Grand Bassa County if Sirleaf does not rescind the nomination of Kokoya. However, Kokoya said, while he once contested for a legislative seat on the ruling party’s ticket, it would not affect his role as election commission chairman. He said he’s legally qualified to be chairman.

Pakistan: Election Commission appoints caretaker Prime Minister | The Hindu

Mir Hazar Khan Khosa, an 84-year-old retired judge, will be Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister till a new National Assembly is elected by mid-May. His name was finalised on Sunday morning by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) after the political class failed to arrive on a consensus over caretaker premiership. The announcement was made around noon by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim after the matter was put to vote. Mr. Khosa’s candidature was suggested by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and its allies. And, he was voted in four-to-one by the five-member ECP.

Zimbabwe: British government to demand EU election observation role | Zimbabwe Mail

The British government will demand EU observation role in the coming Zimbabwe election during the re-engagement talks scheduled to begin in London tomorrow reports in a communiqué leaked to the Press reveals. By their nature, communiques are brief reports or outlines of deliberations undertaken and cannot be prepared before such deliberations. Although the Zimbabwe re-engagement team comprising of Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa; Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma, and Regional Integration and International Co-operation Minister Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga left for London yesterday, a full draft communiqué dated 26 March 2013 had already been prepared detailing Britain’s position and the perceived contributions from the re-engagement team. The 10-point communiqué is titled “Friends of Zimbabwe, 2013 Draft Communiqué”.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly March 18-24 2013

March 24, 2013

A cyberattack on absentee voting in Miami Dade County offers a glimpse of vulnerabilities posed by the use of the internet in elections. The Supreme Court hears arguments in another voting rights case. Verified Voting President Pamela Smith considered security issues around internet voting and safer options for easing the burdens faced by military and overseas voters as lawmakers in Kentucky consider the wisdom of allowing the electronic submission of voted ballots. The widespread use of electronic pollbooks also presents security concerns. The Oregon Secretary of State’s proposal for universal voter registration meets with opposition in the state legislature. The Fairfax County Election Commission recommended a transition to a paper ballot voting system and a report from the state-run Governance and Problem Analysis Center claims that last year’s elections were rigged in favor of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.

Verified Voting Blog: Internet voting for overseas military puts election security at risk

March 23, 2013

Editorials: The Other Big Voting Rights Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court | Juan Cartagena/Huffington Post

On March 18, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether Arizona’s incessant drive to suppress its Latino population can make it impossible for newly naturalized citizens to register to vote by mail. The case is Arizona v. The Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. and it represents Arizona’s attempt to thwart the will of Congress when it established national norms for voter registration in federal elections with the National Voter Registration Act of 1995. The NVRA established for the first time in history a government obligation to register voters by requiring agency-based registration. While simplified to its common name, the Motor Voter law because it includes motor vehicle agencies, the NVRA is unique in that it also requires the government to affirmatively register low-income voters who apply for traditional welfare, food stamp and Medicaid benefits. In New York the state law implementing the NVRA also includes unemployment insurance agencies, for example. Finally, it completely changed the landscape on street voter registration by requiring all states to accept mail-in voter registration forms for federal elections, which in turn, was applied to registration for all elections. This also was a significant reform in states that previously required street registration campaigns to be attended by official state registrars, and on limited hours.

Editorials: Should We Reform the Electoral College? | Cato Institute

Let’s start with the basics: In presidential races, each state has electoral votes equal to the number of its House representatives plus two for its senators. Currently, there are 435 House members and 100 senators, plus three votes for Washington, D.C. (thanks to the 23rd Amendment), for a total of 538. The candidate who garners a majority — 270 or more — wins, even if he loses the popular vote. That’s what happened in the 2000 Bush versus Gore election, which sparked the effort to switch to popular voting for presidential elections. Ordinarily, that switch would require a constitutional amendment; but a group of activists came up with a scheme — the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) — that could work without a constitutional amendment. Article II of the Constitution gives states broad authority to decide how their electoral votes are selected and divided among the candidates. In 48 states, the candidate who gets the most votes wins all of the state’s electoral votes. But the Constitution doesn’t require that rule. Maine and Nebraska have implemented district- by-district voting. One electoral vote goes to the winner in each congressional district, and the remaining two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote.

Voting Blogs: Early voting legislation biggest response to November lines so far | electionlineWeekly

Following the November election, just about every politician from the president on down vowed to do something about the lines some voters faced during the 2012 general election cycle. Now, with most Legislatures back at work — some have even completed their work for 2013 — altering, or allowing, early voting seems to be the most popular way legislators have chosen to tackle the problems of lines. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures 32 states and the District of Columbia allow voters to cast a ballot in person in advance of an election and Oregon and Washington offer all vote-by-mail thus making early voting a moot point. Of the remaining 16 states that did not offer early voting at the time of the November 2012 general election legislatures in more than half of those states are considering legislation that would allow voters to cast an early ballot. Bipartisan efforts to advance early voting have begun making their way through several statehouses.

Arizona: Latino youths protest Arizona election reform | NECN.com

A proposed overhaul of Arizona’s early voting laws has been blasted by Latino youth who say the Republican-backed effort would suppress minority turnout just as more Hispanics are registering to vote. Students on spring break are expected to lobby lawmakers at the Arizona Legislature Thursday in opposition to two measures that would limit who gets to vote early and how mail ballots are returned to local election officials. Hispanics leaders, including Arizona Democratic lawmakers, said the election bills are aimed at silencing voters who tend to vote for Democrats. Republicans currently control Arizona’s state government. “We are not going away,” said Daria Ovide, a Phoenix-based voting activist. “We are going to be voting no matter what and we are going to remember who was helpful and who was not helpful.”

Indiana: White blames lawyer for his voter fraud conviction | SFGate

Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White said in court documents Thursday that his attorney didn’t mount any defense to protect him from the conviction that forced him from office. The assertion is among several in a petition filed in Hamilton County asking a judge to toss out White’s convictions on voter fraud and other counts. White said the defense strategy used by his attorney — former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi — was “deficient and unreasonable.” Brizzi did not call any witnesses at White’s February 2012 trial and immediately rested the defense after the prosecution wrapped up its case. White was sentenced last year to one year of home detention and remains free on bail. The document says Brizzi’s defense was riddled with errors and that the former prosecutor was “ignorant of the law.”

Kentucky: Quarles appointed to committee on military voting bill, says lawmakers have not yet met | News-Graphic.com