Editorials: Who controls Voting Rights? | Richard L. Hasen/The Great Debate (Reuters)

On Wednesday the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder,challenging the constitutionality of a key part of the Voting Rights Act. But in the wide public debate about this case, we are getting to the point where — as election law scholar Pam Karlanhas noted — everything has been said, but not necessarily by everybody. In addition to this Reuters symposium on “If the Court Strikes Down Section 5,” other symposia, commentaries and op-edshave considered whether the act still serves a vital purpose; whether the court should strike it down; and what should replace it if the court rules that Congress went too far in requiring certain states to continue to get federal permission when making changes in any voting rules until 2031. Even President Barack Obama has weighed in, urging the court to keep the act in place. He said the best way to protect voting rights is by having the federal government review voting changes before they can be implemented, to ensure that changes don’t make protected minority groups worse off. So it is worth taking a step back to look at the larger question of why this is a decision for the Supreme Court to make and not the political branches. After all, even back in 1965, Section 5 was “strong medicine.”

Editorials: Judging the Voting Rights Act – The Supreme Court should not substitute its judgment for Congress’ on voting rights | Los Angeles Times

Rightly regarded as one of the most lustrous legacies of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws discrimination in voting nationwide, but it also requires that states with a history of denying minorities the right to vote obtain the approval of a federal court or the U.S. Justice Department before changing election procedures. This “preclearance” provision, contained in Section 5 of the act, has been repeatedly reauthorized by Congress — most recently in 2006, when it was extended for another 25 years by margins of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate. Between 1982 and 2006, the Justice Department used the preclearance process to block the enforcement of more than 2,400 voting changes on the grounds that they would undermine minority voting rights. Yet this proven protection may be on constitutional life support. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case from Alabama that challenges Section 5 and the formula by which nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others (including California) are required to obtain preclearance when they redraw district lines, modify registration procedures or change any other practice that might disadvantage minority voters. Supporters of the Voting Rights Act fear that conservative members of the court — and perhaps not only conservatives — are poised to rule that the law violates the prerogatives of states that no longer practice the sort of blatant discrimination that inspired the original legislation.

Alabama: What Is Alabama’s Problem With the Voting Rights Act? | The Nation

History will repeat itself in the chambers of the Supreme Court this week. The very state where the fight for voting rights reached its critical peak nearly 50 years ago is once again at the center of the dispute over democracy in America. But oddly, the political and legal odds may now be tilting away from civil rights and back toward an era in which the federal government had limited power to protect voters of color in the South from the machinations of local leaders. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday from an Alabama county that is challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That section protects voters of color in sixteen states (some fully covered, some partially), many of which have long brutal histories of denying black Americans their voting rights. It does this by making covered jurisdictions “preclear” election law changes with the federal government before implementation.

Editorials: Alaska state leaders prefer cooked map to protecting Native voters | Shannyn Moore/Anchorage Daily News

The federal Voting Rights Act goes on trial this week. It was enacted in 1965, because some people were working really hard so some other people couldn’t vote (that’s a nice way to say they were “racists”). The federal government finally agreed to make sure that everyone with a constitutional right to vote would be allowed to vote, despite the bigots running state and local governments. In 1975, Alaska’s congressional delegation ensured that we were added to the list of states protected — because Alaska Native voters who didn’t speak or read English were being disenfranchised. Again, in 2006 under Republican rule, the Voting Rights Act was re-authorized by Congress to cover Alaska. Twenty languages spoken by First Alaskans were excluded from the ballot or voting information. Now Shelby County, Ala., is suing to get out from under federal oversight of voting rights. It beat Alaska to the punch. There’s also an Alaska vs. Holder suit pending, filed in August. Our state’s case, which has been stayed, will rise or fall with the decision of the Supreme Court in Shelby vs. Holder.

Arizona: Cost of Provisional Ballots, Maricopa County, AZ | The Pew Charitable Trusts

This past November, Maricopa County, Arizona, issued the most provisional ballots in its history. In an in-depth report, the county elections department provides detailed information including not just why these ballots were issued and rejected, but also estimates of how much they cost. More than 120,000 provisional ballots were issued in the county during this past presidential election, of which nearly 100,000 were counted. The report identifies 18 different reasons for issuing provisional ballots, with half used because the voter requested an early ballot but did not return it and then showed up at the polls to vote in person.

California: Path toward online voting stymied by fear of hacking | California Forward

While we can do just about everything on the Internet these days, like buy groceries, pay bills, and most importantly, waste hours watching cat videos, we can’t yet cast a ballot online. But the idea of e-Voting, as it’s called, isn’t so far-fetched. Eight years ago the small Baltic country of Estonia became the first country in the world to allow voters to cast ballots over the Internet, and it has actually worked rather well. After the successful launch of online voter registration last year, which allowed roughly 600,000 Californians to register online in the final 45 days before the 2012 election, electronic voting would seem like the logical next step. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to believe that California, home to Silicon Valley and birthplace of the Internet revolution, would lead the charge toward cyberspace voting. Don’t rush out and buy an iPad just yet; it’s unlikely that you’ll be voting for president, governor, or mayor on one anytime soon. In fact, voting security experts like Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to safeguarding elections in the digital age, hope to slow any expansion to Internet voting, for now anyway. Smith warns that online voting is a “dangerous idea” as there is currently no way to guarantee the security, integrity, and privacy of ballots cast over the Internet.

California: Will California Counties Develop Public Voting Systems? | GovTech

On Feb. 25, California Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) announced a new bill that would let counties in the state develop, own and operate their own public voting systems. SB 360, which would subject such systems to approval and certification by the California Secretary of State, would allow California counties, most of which purchase their voting systems from one of five private vendors, take control of public voting technology, according to a press release. Because the vendors offer a variety of systems and upgrades, the result is a complex system of various technologies throughout the state. The private vendors also consider their technology proprietary; they limit public access to both the operating software and hardware. This means that state election officials and the public are dependent upon these companies, which are not required to notify federal election officials or the public when their voting systems malfunction, or have vulnerabilities or defects.

Florida: Florida foils web-based voter fraud plot, but next attempt could be more elusive | Fox News

A Florida case could signal the wave of the future in voter fraud. South Florida election officials have reportedly foiled a plot to fraudulently apply online for thousands of absentee ballots in three 2012 primaries, but the masterminds remain at large amid concern that they could be successful the next time around by making minor adjustments. Officials in the state’s Miami-Dade region said they blocked the effort to get 2,552 absentee ballots in three August primaries because the requests rolled in just minutes apart on July 7, 2012, according to The Miami Herald, which conducted its own investigation. A six-month grand jury probe found the requests were made under the cover of international Internet provider addresses and were limited to three races — a congressional race in which the hackers tried to request absentee ballots for Democratic voters and two state legislative races in which they tried to get ballots for Republican voters.

Florida: The case of the phantom ballots: an electoral whodunit | Miami Herald

The first phantom absentee ballot request hit the Miami-Dade elections website at 9:11 p.m. Saturday, July 7. The next one came at 9:14. Then 9:17. 9:22. 9:24. 9:25. Within 2½ weeks, 2,552 online requests arrived from voters who had not applied for absentee ballots. They streamed in much too quickly for real people to be filling them out. They originated from only a handful of Internet Protocol addresses. And they were not random. It had all the appearances of a political dirty trick, a high-tech effort by an unknown hacker to sway three key Aug. 14 primary elections, a Miami Herald investigation has found. The plot failed. The elections department’s software flagged the requests as suspicious. The ballots weren’t sent out. But who was behind it? And next time, would a more skilled hacker be able to rig an election?

Kentucky: Senate Approves Electronic Voting Bill That Requires Snail Mail Returns | WFPL

The state Senate has passed a bill that allows Kentucky military personnel to register to vote and receive ballots electronically—but they’ll have to use snail mail to send the ballots back. Senate President Robert Stivers would allow deployed citizens to register to vote and receive their ballots electronically. Initially, a floor amendment to the bill would have allowed the military members to return the ballots electronically, but the amendment was withdrawn by sponsor Sen. Kathy Stein, a Lexington Democrat.

Kentucky: Military voting bill passes Kentucky Senate | The Courier-Journal

A bill to make voting easier for members of the military passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday with many Democrats saying they hope a provision allowing voting by email is restored to the bill. Senate President Robert Stivers, a Manchester Republican, sponsored the bill as a show of bipartisanship with Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who first proposed the idea. But last week Stivers stripped from the bill a provision that Grimes considers important — wording that would let overseas voters transmit their votes electronically by email or over the Internet. During floor debate Tuesday, Stivers said he deleted the provision because several county clerks had told him “they did not feel they could maintain the integrity of the ballot nor the anonymity of the voters.” He also said Richard Beliles, chairman of Common Cause of Kentucky, had expressed strong concerns about electronic voting.

New Mexico: GOP attempt to institute voter ID fails in Chaparral vote chaos fix | New Mexico Telegram

The members of the Republican Party in the House attempted a backdoor maneuver at adding voter ID language to state law. The effort was to add an amendment to a loosely-related bill — one that would increase voter access in Chaparral, where long lines plagued the area. The amendment was tabled 38-31. The final bill, sponsored by Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces, would require an early voting site for a population center of more than 1,500 residents that is more than 50 miles from the nearest early voting site. The bill passed on a 38-31 vote. The Secretary of State’s office was not on board with the legislation.

New Mexico: Vote-counting machines in $122M capital package | Albuquerque Journal

Money for new vote-counting machines around New Mexico has been folded into a $122.6 million package of statewide public works projects that members of a House committee were considering late Monday. The $6 million for vote-counting machines, or tabulators, was requested by Secretary of State Dianna Duran and would be the first infusion of cash needed to replace outdated machines used by county clerks statewide. “We would not be able to replace all the machines with that money,” Duran’s chief of staff, Ken Ortiz, said Monday. A revised version of a $122.6 million capital outlay package, House Bill 337, includes 121 public works projects around the state. Here are the five biggest projects by dollar amount: Money for the new vote-counting machines is one of the biggest revisions in the public works – or capital outlay – package that is larger than a previous Democratic-backed package. That $97 million version was held back this month amid concerns from Republican lawmakers that it was being rushed.

New Mexico: House OKs bill for 17-year-old voters | NM Capitol Report

Deaths of young soldiers in Vietnam helped give 18-year-olds the right to vote in America. Now, more than 40 years later, state Rep. Jeff Steinborn has momentum for his bill that would reduce the minimum age to vote in New Mexico primary elections. The state House of Representatives on Monday approved his bill allowing 17-year-olds to cast primary ballots if they will turn 18 by the general election. Steinborn, right, D-Las Cruces, has the bill a third of the way toward becoming law. It still has to get through the state Senate in the final three weeks of the legislative session, and then it would have to receive the signature of Gov. Susana Martinez. The House approved the measure 44-24, but one member who opposed it said the bill was on a path toward a veto by Martinez.

Wisconsin: Federal panel opens GOP computers in Wisconsin redistricting case | Journal Sentinel

A federal court gave groups suing the state broad access Monday to three computers used by the Legislature to develop Republican-friendly voting maps. The Legislature “must make these three computers available in their entirety immediately” to the groups suing the state, the three judges wrote. “The computers are extremely likely to contain relevant and responsive materials that should have been disclosed during pretrial discovery. Moreover, Plaintiffs have established that substantial numbers of documents were not disclosed, which satisfies the court that some form of ‘fraud, misrepresentation, or misconduct’ likely occurred,” the unanimous opinion said, quoting from a procedural rule. The ruling provided the latest setback for Republican lawmakers, who have consistently resisted releasing documents in the case. It will give the plaintiffs a chance to determine whether legislators and their attorneys improperly withheld additional documents before the case went to trial.

Italy: Inconclusive Vote in Italy Points to Fragmenting of Political System | NYTimes.com

In recent years, recession and financial turmoil have felled governments throughout Europe as voters looked for change in an era of economic distress. Now, experts are asking whether politicians are capable of promoting plans that offer a way out of the malaise — or whether they could be elected if they did. After its voters this week denied any party enough backing to form a credible government, Italy joined Greece in preventing establishment parties from achieving the mandate required to push through painful reforms, inviting new financial instability. That dynamic is quite familiar to Americans, who have watched President Obama and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives lock horns over the debt ceiling, the so-called fiscal cliff and now sequestration in what many experts consider the biggest threat to the economy. “The governing parties tilt ever more toward populism instead of making decisions that are important but unpopular,” said Eckhard Jesse, professor of political systems and institutions at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany. “The room to maneuver has gotten tighter, but the expectations have risen.”

Italy: Ingovernabilita! Inside Italy’s Election Limbo | The Daily Beast

One doesn’t need to be fluent in Italian to understand the post-election headlines across Italy: ingovernabilita, nervosismo, miracolo Berlusconi. Italians woke up on Tuesday morning to see their worst fears realized: the country’s first-ever hung parliament. Essentially, no one has enough support to lead the country out of its dire troubles. After a bitter campaign, Pier Luigi Bersani’s center-left coalition narrowly won in the lower house of parliament and will benefit by an automatic winner’s bonus of 54 percent of the house seats, but he barely eked out a win in the Italian senate, where it counts. There, the divisions are based on regions, and his win does not translate to a majority. His chief nemesis, Silvio Berlusconi, who rose from the ashes of a scandalous resignation in November 2011, was able to steer his center-right coalition to within a hair of the majority, but with no willing partners to help him reach the threshold. The big winner of these elections was Beppe Grillo, a comedian who captured the essence of Italy’s disgruntled set and has effectively become the kingmaker in both houses. His platform, which includes holding a referendum on Italy’s continuation in the euro and rethinking its involvement in military operations abroad, including logistical support in Mali, is seen as welcome change by many disgruntled Italian voters, especially the young and newly unemployed. Grillo refused to do any campaigning on Italian television and focused instead on new media, utilizing his popular blog, Facebook, and Twitter to rabble rouse.

Italy: Bersani says nation in dramatic situation | BBC

Centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani says Italy is in a “dramatic situation” after election results that leave the country in political stalemate. Stock markets and the euro have fallen amid concerns the deadlock could re-ignite the eurozone debt crisis. But Mr Bersani, whose coalition won most seats in parliament, did not identify a preferred partner in government. He said all political parties should take responsibility for the country. Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi said earlier fresh elections should be avoided, and called for a period of reflection, which correspondents suggest could mean he is considering a very awkward alliance with his opponents on the centre-left. Other European countries have urged Italian politicians to create a stable government as soon as possible – with France and Germany urging continued reform, and Spain describing the result as a “jump to nowhere”.

Editorials: The ‘politics of consensus’ in Nepal | openDemocracy

The phrase, ‘politics of consensus’ (PoC) may sound extremely positive. But it is rarely practiced in current competitive democratic systems throughout the world. In Nepal, it is regarded as a mantra relied upon to resolve the current political crisis. The ‘politics of consensus’ has therefore become both a panacea and a practise riven with contradictions, especially in those localities where consensus is undermined by one of the core values of democracy: ‘majority rule’. This is all the more problematic because of the constitutional vacuum, due to the dissolution of Constituent Assembly (CA) in June 2012, and subsequent problems in power sharing between the political parties. The idea of a PoC was initiated in 2006 in the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) between former rebel-Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M, hereafter Maoists)  – and the government of the Seven Party Alliance (SPA), to end a decade long civil war. The preamble of Nepal’s Interim Constitution 2007 clearly stated that PoC is one of the core values binding political parties to work together to reconstruct a new Nepal. This is an attempt to circumvent confrontation between parties when it came to re-building a new peaceful and prosperous Nepal, irrespective of divided political ideologies.

National: Messaging Ramps Up Before Key Voting Rights Case | Roll Call

A steady drumbeat of press briefings and messaging events is reaching a crescendo as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments Wednesday in a case that questions whether a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is still needed. Briefing breakfasts, afternoon seminars, information sessions on the Hill and a coordinated bus campaign that mimics the Freedom Rides of the 1960s all focus on influencing the outcome of Shelby County v. Holder. “While the justices play a distinct role in our society and in our country, they’re not divorced from society at large. I can’t see how they couldn’t be influenced by what people think about their actions,” said Ellen Buchman, vice president of field operations for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which is planning a rally during Wednesday’s oral arguments.

National: Experts Debate Effects of Voting Rights Act Provision on Native Americans | The Blog of Legal Times

Days before the U.S. Supreme Court was set to hear arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, legal experts said they feared that striking it down would hurt Indian Country and Native American voters. Enacted in 1965 as a temporary provision, Section 5 freezes election practices or procedures in certain states and local governments, mostly in the south, until the new procedures have been subjected to review or “precleared” by the Justice Department or a federal court. Congress has since reauthorized Section 5 four times. Currently, it is set to expire in 2031. In order to make changes to their voting rules, the states in question must demonstrate that the rules do not have the purpose of discriminating — or that regardless of intent, that the new rules will not have a discriminatory effect — based on race or color, or against a “language minority group,” including persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives, or of Spanish heritage.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act Case Pits the Rights of Humans Against the ‘Sovereignty’ of States | Garrett Epps/The Atlantic

Shelby County v. Holder,  the Voting Rights Act case the Supreme Court will hear Wednesday, is a peculiar case.  Its oddity is this: no one on either side contests that Congress has the power to enact a provision like § 5, the provision at issue here. And no one on either side questions that § 5 does what it was designed to do: keep the ballot box and the political process open to formerly excluded minority voters.  The Act, in other words, isn’t broken.  Nonetheless, argue the plaintiffs, this key provision must be scrapped. To understand why, consider this sentence from the Petitioners’ Brief filed on behalf of Shelby County, Alabama: “determining whether the formula is rational in practice is not a substitute for testing it in theory.” “The formula” is the heart of § 5, the so-called “preclearance” provision of the Act.  As devised by Congress in 1965, the Act imposes a special requirement on states or parts of states that met two conditions during the 1964 election cycle. First, those jurisdictions employed a “test or device” for voting that had been shown to lead to racial exclusion from the vote; and, second, less than 50 percent of the eligible voters actually voted that year.

Editorials: Section 5: Making sure race is considered | Janai S. Nelson/The Great Debate (Reuters)

The Voting Rights Act has worked for almost 50 years to remove racial discrimination from the electoral process and prevent its return. Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear oral argument on the constitutionality of Section 5, one of the act’s most powerful provisions. Section 5’s work is done, this argument goes, and the provision has outlived its usefulness. Yet some of Section 5’s most important work lies beyond its technical application. Section 5 requires that jurisdictions with a documented history of racial discrimination in voting seek federal approval for any voting changes. The aim is to ensure that new voting laws will not “retrogress” — or harm — minority voting rights. It subtly and constructively inserts race into electoral decision-making — creating a race consciousness among decision-makers that can often preempt discrimination. This deterrent effect, and its impact on the discourse of race in elections, may be Section 5’s most important — and unfinished — work.

Editorials: Push to overturn Voting Rights Act tied to GOP voter suppression efforts | MSNBC

The Washington D.C. lawyer representing the Alabama county that wants to strike down the heart of the most effective civil-rights law in historyspecialize in cases aimed at making voting harder for minorities. William Consovoy also last year argued on behalf of Republican officials in Florida and Ohio, who in both cases were seeking to significantly reduce the days allotted for early voting, which blacks take advantage of more than whites. Consovoy, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, is a partner at Wiley Rein, a Washington, D.C., law firm that bills itself as the best in the country for election law. Bert Rein, one of the firm’s principals, also is listed on court documents as representing the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in Shelby County v. Holder Wednesday. And the involvement of Consovoy and Rein in the case, which challenges the constitutionality of a key part of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), underlines the extent to which it’s a product of the broader partisan voter suppression campaign pushed by Republicans last year in a failed attempt to defeat President Obama.

Editorials: A ruling on racial progress | Jonah Golberg/Los Angeles Times

I can only hope that the scourge of racism is finally purged from Stewartstown and Pinkham’s Grant. These are two of 10 New Hampshire towns covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires local officials to get permission, or “preclearance,” on any changes to their election laws. Stewartstown has just over a thousand souls in it and is 99% white. In 1970, when it was put under the authority of Section 5, the census listed two blacks out of its 1,008 residents. Pinkham’s Grant boasts nine residents, and it must also beg Washington for permission to make any changes to how it votes. In 1970, New Hampshire required all of its citizens to pass a literacy test to register to vote. But Pinkham’s Grant, Stewartstown and the other eight towns also had low voter participation rates. These two factors — a test of any kind for voting and participation rates under 50% — met the criteria for oversight under Section 5. But after years of onerous preparation, the state filed for a “bailout” from the oversight provisions of Section 5 in November. And although the Justice Department hasn’t taken a whole state off its watch list since the early 1980s, New Hampshire will probably be let off the hook.

Voting Blogs: Are Election Day Precincts an Anachronism? | State of Elections

William & Mary’s recent Election Law Symposium played host to several of the leading luminaries in election administration, focusing upon issues of election delays, including but not limited to long lines.  On more than one occasion, participants discussed Election Day vote centers—large voting “big boxes” of sorts at which voters from multiple different precincts may vote—as a potential instrument to combat Election Day delays (see here for a brief discussion of voting at non-precinct polling places).  The subject was particularly appropriate for the panel assembled at W&M, as it included Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a lightning rod for controversy in election administration, whose state has had valuable experience with Election Day vote centers. A recent study by political scientists Robert Stein of Rice University and Greg Vonnahme of the University of Alabama has shown that use of such vote centers can increase voter turnout. Some at the conference expressed concerns about vote centers.   Panelists referred to the logistical difficulties of operating voting centers—notably that the centers must have the capacity to provide several different ballots for different precincts, including situations in which different ballots require different paper sizes (a problem rendered moot where sophisticated voting machines are used, as they can easily be programmed to contain multiple electronic ballots).

Arizona: Republicans seek overhaul of early voting process | Mohave Daily News

Efforts by Arizona Republican lawmakers to overhaul the early voting process and fight election fraud have drawn criticism from Democrats and civic groups who fear the proposed changes would limit turnout among the state’s growing Hispanic electorate. At least seven bills in the Senate and House this year seek to adjust the early voting process. One measure would remove voters from the permanent early-voting list if they don’t vote by mail and fail to respond to a notice. Another measure would prohibit groups from collecting early ballots from voters for delivery to county election officials. Another measure seeks notarized signatures for early voters. Republican legislators argue that they must rework Arizona’s early voting process to combat unlawful votes and reduce confusion at the polls.

West Virginia: Bill Would Eliminate Straight-Ticket Voting | Wheeling News-Register

Delegate Ryan Ferns has authored a bill to eliminate straight-ticket voting in West Virginia – a measure he said has the support of most leadership in the House of Delegates. Ferns, D-Ohio, said he dropped off his bill to the House clerk’s office Friday, and he expects it to be assigned a bill number and officially introduced today or Tuesday. “Straight-ticket voting encourages uneducated voting,” Ferns said. “We’re telling people if they don’t want to go through the read on a ballot, they have the option of voting for just one party. At the very least, voters should have to read the names for each candidate on the ballot.” …  West Virginia is one of 15 states to offer straight-ticket voting – the process of electing a party’s entire slate of candidates with just one marking, according to information compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Neighboring Pennsylvania and Kentucky have straight-ticket voting, as do Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Armenia: Polls free of ‘violations’: election commission | Global Post

The Armenian polls that saw President Serzh Sarkisian win re-election were free of any serious violations, the central elections commission said Monday as it released the poll’s final results. Serzh Sarkisian scored crushing victory in last week’s presidential elections seen as a crucial test for the ex-Soviet state. “In the course of the electoral campaign and the vote, there were no violations that could have affected the elections’ result,” said the head of the Central Elections Commission, Tigran Mukuchyan. “Serzh Azatovich Sarkisian has been elected President of the Republic of Armenia,” he announced.

Italy: Beppe Grillo’s Five Star revolution | openDemocracy

According to the latest polls from two weeks ago (there is now a poll ‘blackout’ until after the election), ‘M5S’ would secure over fifteen per cent of the national vote, putting it into third place, behind Bersani’s centre-left and Berlusconi’s centre right coalitions, but ahead of former PM Monti’s group. Some internal polling suggests M5S might do even better. Grillo’s movement translates to the ‘Five Star Movement’ in English. The five ‘stars’ represent its main themes: public water, transportation, development, internet connection and availability, and the environment.  Running on a simple manifesto based on these themes, he has enjoyed a rise in popularity perhaps unrivalled in post-War Western Europe: one year ago, he was polling at around five per cent. This is despite the party doing the precise reverse of what a political campaign strategist would advise: none of its members had been interviewed in the Italian media until last weekend, and its most famous member, Grillo himself, refuses to stand. What accounts for his meteoric rise? Last week, we released a new report based on a survey of almost 2,000 Facebook fans of Grillo and the M5S. The answer is a fascinating and powerful mix of anti-establishment rhetoric, new technology and old fashioned rallies and local action. If Grillo does as well as polls suggest, perhaps even so well to become kingmaker, then the whole of Europe should take note. I suspect there are plenty of other European countries where another Grillo might explode onto the scene and cause a similar political tremor: including the UK.