Yearly Archives: 2013

Cambodia’s opposition leader, who lives in self-imposed exile abroad, has vowed to return to the country, in a move his party hailed Sunday as a boost to its chances in elections this month. Sam Rainsy, seen as the main challenger to strongman Hun Sen, promised to travel to Cambodia “before the election day” on July 28 in a video posted on his Facebook page. “The presence of Sam Rainsy will encourage voters to believe in CNRP (Cambodia National Rescue Party),” said opposition spokesman Yim Sovann. Rainsy’s presence would “create a strong force that would make a change and bring a positive result for the country”, he said, adding that the opposition leader was working to set a date for his return.

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood can run in next election, official says | PressTV

A spokesman of interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour says the Muslim Brotherhood can run candidates in the upcoming elections that are supposed to be held according to the military’s roadmap. “We extend our hand to everyone, everyone is a part of this nation,” Mansour’s media advisor, Ahmed al-Muslimani, stated on Saturday. “The Muslim Brotherhood has plenty of opportunities to run for all elections, including the coming presidential elections or the ones to follow,” he added. However, many Muslim Brotherhood supporters were not ready to quietly accept the military’s decision to oust President Mohamed Morsi.

Russia: Electoral Watchdog Dodges Government Ban | RIA Novosti

Russia’s leading election monitor, known for accusing the Kremlin of vote rigging and suspended over its alleged “foreign agent” status, found a way to continue its operations, the group’s representative said. Nongovernmental organization (NGO) Golos, would transform into a new legal entity with the same function as before, its deputy head Grigory Melkonyants told RIA Novosti on Thursday. Golos was formally re-established as a non-profit foundation to monitor the elections on Friday, Russian media said, though the necessary paperwork would only be completed next week.

Russia: Prosecutor Urges Six-Year Sentence for Opposition Leader | New York Times

In closing arguments on Friday, prosecutors urged a Russian judge to convict the political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny of embezzlement and sentence him to six years in jail — a verdict that would destroy his political career and eliminate him as a threat to President Vladimir V. Putin by imprisoning him until after the next presidential election. Mr. Navalny is the most prominent opposition figure in modern Russia to face prosecution, and he has accused the Kremlin of pursuing trumped-up charges as political retribution. While forcefully denying the allegations, he has long said he expects to be convicted in the trial, which was streamed live online from Kirov, a regional capital. The verdict is to be delivered on July 18. For more than a year, as Mr. Navalny helped to lead big street protests against Mr. Putin, the Kremlin seemed to waver between a desire to imprison him and a reluctance to galvanize his supporters by locking him up. Mr. Navalny has declared his candidacy for mayor of Moscow in an election to be held in September, but he has also said he hopes one day to be president.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly – July 1-7 2013

July 7, 2013

egypt The Supreme Ruling effectively invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will force voting rights advocates to rely on Section 2 to challenge election procedures which might impede voters. Section 3 is also being used to challenge redistricting maps in Texas. A bi-partisan pair of Senators are working to eliminate waivers in the MOVE Act of 2009 for states that that fail to mail ballots to military and overseas 45 days before elections. The New Jersey legislature has passed a bill that would consolidate the general election and the special election to replace US Senator Frank Lautenberg. Freed from Federal pre-clearance requirements by the Supreme Court, North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature is poised to establish a voter ID requirement and eliminate in-person early voting. Attorney Steve Hamm presented a report explaining the election meltdown in Richland County South Carolina last November. The Egyptian military removed the country’s first democratically-elected President and vowed to hold new elections later this year, while the Russia government has begun arresting popular opposition leaders ahead of scheduled elections.

National: Let the lawsuits begin: Advocates pivot strategy following Voting Rights Act ruling | NBC

One side effect of the Supreme Court’s decision to stop enforcement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is clear: a flood of new lawsuits that have already begun. The ruling all but guarantees that voting rights advocates will pivot toward filing lawsuits relying on a separate piece of the law, Section 2, to challenge procedures which might impede voters. Nine states, mostly in the South, and other jurisdictions in places from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Shannon County, S.D., had been covered by Section 5 of the law which required election officials to get either the Justice Department or a federal judge to pre-approve changes in voting procedures. Section 2, on the other hand, bans voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups — such as speakers of Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, or Navajo — identified in the VRA. In its decision Tuesday in a case involving Shelby County, Ala., the high court essentially made Section 5 unenforceable for now. It found that the formula to determine which jurisdictions were covered under the VRA was flawed, and Congress seems unlikely to write a new formula before the 2014 elections. Texas Secretary of State John Steen immediately announced that his state’s voter photo identification law — which had been passed by the Texas legislature in 2011, but then barred by a federal judge using section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — will now be in effect.

National: U.S. States Tighten Voter Restrictions | Independent European Daily Express

Advocacy groups here are reacting with frustration as several southern U.S. states have moved to enact stricter voting requirements in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision that rolled back key legislation that had safeguarded minority voters for decades. Following last week’s five-to-four Supreme Court decision overturning a key part of the Voting Rights Act, nine southern states with a history of discriminatory voting requirements are now able to change their election laws without approval from the federal government. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, stating: “Our country has changed. While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation is passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Yet just 48 hours after the decision, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina announced plans to push through together voting restrictions that critics are warning could disenfranchise minority voters.

National: Voting Rights Act Hands GOP Tough Questions | Fox News

Republicans face tough questions with no easy answers over how, and where, to attract voters even GOP leaders say the party needs to stay nationally competitive when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights act last week. The decision caught Republicans between newfound state autonomy that conservatives covet and the law’s popularity among minority, young and poor voters who tend to align with Democrats. It’s those voters that Republicans are eyeing to expand and invigorate the GOP’s core of older, white Americans. National GOP Chairman Reince Priebus began that effort well before the court’s decision by promising, among other initiatives, to hire non-white party activists to engage directly with black and Latino voters. Yet state and national Republicans reacted to the Voting Rights Act decision with a flurry of activity and comments that may not fit neatly into the national party’s vision. In Washington, Republicans like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia embraced the nuances of the ruling. The court didn’t actually strike down preclearance, instead tossing rules that determined which jurisdictions got oversight. Congress is free to rewrite those parameters and revive advance review.

National: Voting Rights Act Ruling Forces Justice Department Reassignments | Huffington Post

In striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last week, members of the Supreme Court didn’t just neuter a major component of landmark civil rights law. The justices also eliminated the workload of several dozen federal employees. Until the Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder on June 25, a few dozen of the 100 or so employees of the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division had been assigned to review the 14,000 to 20,000 voting changes submitted each year by jurisdictions that needed DOJ permission before implementing new rules or, say, changing the location of a polling place. DOJ is reassigning those attorneys and support staff after the Supreme Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act Section 4 — the part of the law that defined which localities needed to have their laws precleared under Section 5 — was unconstitutional. The court’s Section 4 declaration effectively eliminates Section 5 enforcement.

Arizona: Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision Contradicts Arizona Ruling | Highbrow Magazine

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last week, only two weeks after ruling that an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional. The Court’s decision last Tuesday and the idea underpinning it – that voter suppression of ethnic minority and poor voters is no longer an issue that warrants the same federal protections as it once did – sits at odds with their ruling on the Arizona voter ID law, which was a clear acknowledgment that state laws can, at times, be discriminatory. “Arizona is the poster child of the need for federal oversight,” said Democratic Senator Steve Gallardo. In a 5 to 4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court did away with Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that required Arizona and other states to get pre-approval from the federal government before implementing changes to their state voter laws.

Illinois: Quinn at Stevenson High to sign law expanding voting rights to more teens | Daily Herald

Seventeen-year-olds who turn 18 before the November 2014 general election will be able to vote in the March primary, under an Illinois law enacted Wednesday. Gov. Pat Quinn signed the law, dubbed “Suffrage at 17” by its champions, at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire. Government teacher Andrew Conneen and many of his students have lobbied for the proposal for years. Conneen, students and others looked on as Quinn signed the law on the running track outside the school. Behind him, the scoreboard clock read 2:26, the official number of the House bill.

New Hampshire: Trial scheduled for 2014 on voter registration forms | Fosters

A trial is tentatively set for February 2014 to decide whether New Hampshire will be allowed to use controversial language on its voter registration forms that was previously blocked by a judge. With last year’s general election approaching, Strafford County Superior Court Judge John Lewis issued a temporary injunction preventing the state from using new voter registration forms that included a paragraph discussing motor vehicle and residency requirements. Under state law, voters aren’t required to be permanent residents of New Hampshire to cast ballots here. Anyone who maintains a “domicile” in the state is eligible to vote in New Hampshire, including college students. However, Republican lawmakers enacted changes in 2012 that were intended to require anyone who chooses to vote in New Hampshire to also become a resident, falling under the purview of motor vehicle laws.

New York: South Asians in Queens to Get Ballots in Bengali | New York Times

When New York voters go to the polls for the primary on Sept. 10, South Asians in Queens will for the first time find ballots translated into Bengali, the first new language to be introduced at city polling booths in more than a decade, election officials said. The addition of Bengali-language ballots at 60 polling sites in Queens comes nearly two years after the federal government ordered the city to provide language assistance to South Asian minorities under a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The federal government had previously ordered the city’s English ballots to be translated into Spanish, and more recently Chinese, in 1993, and Korean, in 2001. The delay in the appearance of Bengali ballots prompted advocates for South Asian voters to sue the city’s Board of Elections on Tuesday over what they called its repeated failure to provide adequate language assistance in elections until now.

Editorials: North Carolina Speeds Up to Run Election Red Light? | Michael P. McDonald/Huffington Post

Republicans are at it again, making it harder to vote. This time, North Carolina Republicans are contemplating reducing the number of days of in-person early voting, including the Sunday before the election; axing the state’s “one-stop” voting which allows people to register and vote in-person early, and implementing a new voter photo identification law that may adversely affect seniors, students and minorities. It is no coincidence that these major voting changes are being considered a week after the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act in the recent decision, Shelby County v Holder. As a result, North Carolina and other states are no longer bound to seek approval from the federal government before implementing their new election laws, formerly required under Section 5.

Editorials: Bhutan at the polls: Happy and you know it? | The Economist

Arrows thud into a wooden target, and the men with bows sing in celebration. One of those watching the archery tournament is Gyeltshen, an 89-year-old who remembers Thimphu, Bhutan’s sprawling capital, as a “few houses and a forest”. Entering it without wearing your gho, a knee-length Bhutanese robe, meant risking arrest and a fine. Much is changing. He approves of how the king “granted us democracy” in 2008, when the Himalayan country had its first election. On July 13th Mr Gyeltshen will vote in the second. Like many in Thimphu, he says the ruling Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (Peace and Prosperity Party) kept its promises to build roads and airports and to provide hydro power. Almost everyone has a mobile phone, and most of the country has electricity. The party expects to win.

Guinea: Government and opposition parties reach deal for September election | IOL News

Guinea’s government and opposition parties reached a deal on Wednesday to hold long-delayed legislative elections at the end of September to complete the mineral-rich nation’s transition to civilian rule. Elections scheduled for June 30 were postponed after a wave of protests, with the opposition accusing President Alpha Conde of planning to rig the poll. Conde won a 2010 election in Guinea’s first democratic transition of power, but his victory was contested by the opposition. “We have reached an agreement,” Mouctar Diallo, one of the opposition’s leaders, told Reuters. “I hope the international community will guarantee the implementation of this deal.”

Japan: Campaign for Parliamentary Election Begins in Japan | New York Times

Campaigning for the July 21 parliamentary election began across Japan on Thursday, with opinion polls forecasting major gains for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his economic revival plan. At stake in the election are half of the seats in the upper house of Parliament, where his main opponents, the Democratic Party, now have control. Mr. Abe’s conservative governing party, the Liberal Democrats, soundly defeated the Democrats in December in elections for the more powerful lower house of Parliament, and the polls so far suggest that they will repeat that feat in the upper house. If they succeed, Mr. Abe will be the first Japanese prime minister in years to break a rapid cycle of rise and fall for the country’s leaders. Control of both houses of Parliament would give Mr. Abe more freedom to push forward a doctrine that his party now proudly calls Abenomics, a cocktail of monetary stimulus, government spending and promised economic changes meant to jolt Japan out of its long deflationary slump.

Malawi: Mesn lauds Malawi Electoral Commission for permitting 2014 election’s parallel vote tally centres | Malawi Nyasa Times

The Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) has applauded the Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) for its decision to allow the conduct of Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) in 2014 tripartite elections. The electoral body’s chairperson Justice Maxon Mbendera made the announcement at a highly consultative meeting with political parties and all electoral stakeholders held at Cross Roads Hotel in Lilongwe on June 28, 2013. The decision, according Mesn, is a right direction in enhancing accountability and credibility of election results.

Zimbabwe: Court rejects calls to shift July 31 vote date | AFP

Elections to choose a new government in Zimbabwe will go ahead on July 31, the disputed date that President Robert Mugabe, had unilaterally set, the country’s top court ruled on Thursday. The court dismissed appeals by both Mugabe and his nemesis Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to have the date postponed following pressure from regional leaders. “Elections should proceed on the 31st of July 2013 in terms of the proclamation by the president in compliance with the order of this court,” chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled. The presidential vote will be held on the same day as parliamentary elections to replace an uneasy power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in place since 2009. Mugabe had lodged an appeal to shift by two weeks the date that he had himself set, after regional bloc the Southern African Development Community (SADC) asked him to allow more time for preparations.

National: Senator Leahy to seek answers to Voting Rights Act | Associated Press

MIDDLESEX — U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy says he’s been consulting constitutional scholars since he’s been home in Vermont to see if they have suggestions about how to protect minority voting rights that many feel were threatened by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned part of the Voting Rights Act. Leahy, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he had consulted both liberal and conservative legal experts from around the country and he would encourage a range of witnesses at upcoming hearings of the committee. “I have no idea what the best answer is,” Leahy said Monday during an interview in Middlesex. “Then I can honestly say to both Republicans and Democrats, ‘Look, you call the witnesses you want, we’ll call witnesses. Let’s see if there is an answer,’ rather than saying this is the way it’s going to be, because it is entirely new ground.”

National: Senators aim to enhance voting rights for military | Associated Press

Two senators said Wednesday they want Congress to improve voting opportunities for hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel stationed abroad by tightening rules on states for getting absentee ballots to them. Ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, said they want to eliminate waivers for states that that fail to mail ballots overseas 45 days before an election. States that miss the deadline would be required to mail the ballots express mail, despite the much higher expense. The measure would toughen a 2010 law governing absentee voting in the military and the counting of those ballots. A congressional report estimated that 25 percent of ballots cast by military and overseas voters in the 2008 presidential election went uncounted.

National: White House says online election recount petition facts faulty | UPI.com

The White House Wednesday rejected an online petition requesting a 2012 presidential vote recount, saying the election was “decided fairly and democratically.” The Obama administration, which officially responds to any petition on its “We the People” website that garners at least 100,000 signatures, said in a statement that while those who signed the petition might be disappointed by the election’s outcome — in which Obama won a second term by defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney — “this election was decided fairly and democratically, and there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise.” The administration shot down the petition’s contention that Ohio’s Wood County has 98,213 eligible voters but had 106,258 votes cast — pointing out that the Ohio secretary of state’s records show the county had 108,014 registered voters at election time and only 64,342 actually voted.

California: Californians may get Saturday voting | Central Valley Business Times

For those who still don’t vote by mail in California, going to the polls might become a bit more convenient soon. The state Senate Elections Committee has approved a bill that would increase access to elections by requiring county elections officials to open an early voting location on a Saturday prior to Election Day. “The fact that elections are held on a workday leaves many Californians in a situation where they have to choose between voting and fulfilling personal and professional obligations,” says Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, author of the bill.

Voting Blogs: Ninth Circuit Upholds Denial of “Independent” Label on California Ballots, Leaves Option for Another Lawsuit Issue of Labels for Members of Unqualified Parties | Ballot Access News

On July 3, the Ninth Circuit upheld California law that requires independent candidates for Congress and partisan state office to have “No party preference” on the ballot instead of the label “independent.” However, the ruling leaves open for a future lawsuit the related issue of whether the law is unconstitutional as applied to members of unqualified parties; the law requires “no party preference” for them as well. The case is Chamness v Bowen, 11-56303. The 26-page opinion says there is no evidence that “no party preference”, instead of “independent”, injures independent candidates. The decision does not mention the point that California still permits independent presidential candidates to use the word “independent” on the ballot.

Idaho: Supreme Court ruling has officials talking about election processes | Idaho Reporter

In light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling June 25 that struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, state governments are now afforded more authority in the construction of their voting processes and procedures, and some southern states are already contemplating some adjustments. In Idaho, officials are open to election reforms, but there appears to be no discussion of urgent or eminent changes nor has a consensus on the matter emerged. “We have been making changes to our voting laws all along as the need has arisen,” said Tim Hurst, deputy secretary of state. “We have done this without any federal oversight,” he added to IdahoReporter.com. In its 5-4 ruling, Supreme Court justices said the voting act’s requirement that mainly states in the South must undergo special scrutiny before changing their voting laws is based on a 40-year-old formula that is no longer relevant to the nation’s changing racial circumstances.

Kentucky: Virginia Restores Voting Rights for Ex-Felons, Kentucky Still Waiting | Floyd County Times

FRANKFORT – Ex-felons in Virginia have gotten the call. Governor Bob McDonnell has expanded voting rights to nonviolent offenders who have served their time. That leaves Kentucky as one of just three states, along with Iowa and Florida, where an individual petition is the only way ex-felons can have their voting rights restored. According to Megan Naseman, a member of Kentuckians For the Commonwealth, a citizens’ group that pushes for restoration of voting rights, such restoration would lessen recidivism. “Statistics show that when people have their right to vote back, they’re less likely to be engaged in more crime,” she said. “I mean, it makes sense, if you have a voice you can use that voice.”

New York: Advocates Sue Elections Board To Get Bengali On NYC Ballots | New York Daily News

BOE lawyer Steve Richman said the agency — which is awaiting Gov. Cuomo’s verdict on whether the city can redeploy its old lever machines for the Sept. 10 primaries and a possible runoff to follow — is prepared to feature Bengali regardless of which machines are used. “The board is prepared to be at full compliance” with the law, Richman said at today’s BOE meeting. But Glenn Magpantay of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, speaking on behalf of a coalition filing suit against the BOE in federal court, said the Board vowed to roll out Bengali voting materials last June — and suddenly said in August that it wasn’t happening.

North Carolina: GOP eyes changes in state voter ID laws | Washington Times

The GOP majority in North Carolina is moving to pass a series of laws in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling striking down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, sparking outrage from civil rights activists. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that North Carolina Republicans plan to adopt stricter voter identification laws. The report also said the GOP is pushing to end the state’s early voting laws, Sunday voting and same-day voter registration. The Supreme Court ruled a week ago that states no longer can be judged by voting discrimination that went on decades ago. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that mainly Southern states undergo special scrutiny before changing their voting laws is based on a 40-year-old formula that is no longer relevant to changing racial circumstances.

South Carolina: Richland County Council agrees to pay $100K in election-related lawyers’ fees | The State

RICHLAND COUNTY, SC — Richland County Council finally agreed Tuesday to pay more than $100,000 in bills for the lawyers who cleaned up the county’s November election mess. But not until after some unusual procedural moves, a change of heart by two members and the chairman’s threat to enforce a time limit for Councilman Bill Malinowski as he questioned charges for travel and telephone conversations. The council, which had put off the decision twice before, agreed to pay $72,423.10 for lawyer Steve Hamm to investigate Election Day problems and recommend how to fix them; $9,348.75 for lawyer John Nichols, who represented demoted elections director Lillian McBride; and $17,924.20 for Helen McFadden, who kept the election results from being overturned in court. “Who didn’t have a lawyer?” Councilman Greg Pearce muttered at one point.

US Virgin Islands: Ballot review halted after group calls police to report ‘tampering’ | Virgin Islands Daily News