Yearly Archives: 2013

Madagascar’s interim government Wednesday postponed key elections, meant to end a four-year political deadlock on the island, after a special court found outside factors had derailed the poll preparations. The Government Council decided “to call on the CENIT (election commission) to determine an election calendar”, it announced in a statement, opening the way for a new vote date. An electoral court on Tuesday declared a force majeure had compromised organisation for the July 24 presidential and parliamentary polls. It found the suspension of donor funds and international rejection of three controversial presidential candidates made it unlikely the Indian Ocean island would be ready by that date.

Russia: Moscow’s mayor steps down to fight election | Russia Beyond The Headlines

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, announced Tuesday he is stepping down two years early to stand for a new term in office. Sobyanin suggested that the new mayoral election – Moscow’s first in 10 years – would take place on Sept. 8, the same day as the election for governor is scheduled to take place in the surrounding Moscow Region. The maneuver is largely being viewed as an effort to secure a five-year mayoral term at a time when his strongest potential opponents, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov and opposition activist Alexei Navalny, are likely to be deterred from running. Sobyanin announced his decision on June 4 at a meeting of Moscow’s Public Chamber, where its members urged Sobyanin, appointed mayor by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, to call early elections to boost his legitimacy among Muscovites. He is thought likely to continue as acting mayor after formally submitting his resignation to President Vladimir Putin, in the period leading up to the new mayoral election.

New York: Assembly Democrats Float Bill To Bring Back NYC Lever Voting, But Details Remain In The Works | New York Daily News

The bill sponsored by Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-S.I.) doesn’t match a previously passed Senate bill in several key areas. The Senate version permits the use of lever machines for any non-federal vote. Cusick’s proposal limits it to this year’s primary and possible runoff elections alone. With two weeks left in the legislative session, Senate bill sponsor Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) said he’s hopeful — but not convinced — an agreement can be struck.

Ohio: Democrats dispute Husted’s report of no voter suppression | The Columbus Dispatch

None? None! NONE!? A new report released yesterday by two Statehouse Democrats suggests there was all sorts of voter “suppression” in Ohio in 2012, an obvious contrast with a report from May 23 released by Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted. That one said there wasn’t any. “Zero? That should’ve triggered a bell, and it did for us too. Zero? Something is wrong with that,” said state Sen. Nina Turner, one of the Democrats behind yesterday’s report. Turner will likely challenge Husted for his office in 2014. The report released by Turner and Democratic state Rep. Kathleen Clyde of Kent cites tens of thousands of instances of voter “suppression,” counting all 34,299 provisional ballots rejected, all 13,190 absentee ballots rejected, 2,188 complaints from Ohio Democratic volunteer attorneys on Election Day, and the 122 votes rejected in the Ohio House 98th District race won narrowly by a Republican.

Wisconsin: GOP May Push Through New Voter ID Law | WPRN

Opponents of a new bill want more time to study the legislation that would require photo ID and repeal a ban on corporate campaign contributions. The new legislation, introduced as previous voter ID legislation is tied up in the courts, is 78 pages long, leaving may Democrats asking for more time to analyze it. Wisconsin’s voter ID law is currently tied up in the courts. Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale, believes his revised bill would be constitutional. Those who can’t afford a photo ID would have to reveal to election officials their lack of income or sign an affidavit why they don’t have a birth certificate to get an ID: “This is very similar to Indiana’s current photo ID law that was held in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

New Jersey: Christie faces major decision in Senate choice | Associated Press

In filling a vacant Senate seat, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces a significant choice fraught with political implications for his re-election campaign and, perhaps, a future presidential run. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s death Monday presents the state’s popular Republican governor with a series of decisions that carry consequences beyond who will serve as New Jersey’s next U.S. senator. While Republicans and Democrats alike will be watching Christie’s next moves closely, there’s no telling what the governor _ who has staked out a reputation for going his own way _ will do. “I give him praise on a life well-lived,” Christie said of the Democratic senator with whom he frequently tangled. The governor made the comment during an appearance at a women’s conference and then canceled the rest of his public schedule Monday, clearly mindful of the high stakes involved in choosing Lautenberg’s successor.

National: House Republicans put Election Assistance Commission in cross hairs | Washington Times

House Republicans are pressing to kill an independent government commission designed to improve state-level voting procedures, arguing the body has run its course, is ineffectual and is a waste of taxpayer money. The House Administration Committee will meet Tuesday to vote on amendments on a bill to repeal the Election Assistance Commission — created as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, that was designed to help modernize state-level voting systems in response to Florida’s ballot-counting troubles during the 2000 presidential election. But the commission has been in limbo since late 2010, when it last had a quorum. All four seats currently are vacant. Democrats, who support the agency, say that’s because Republicans have undermined its authority by holding up nominations and repeatedly trying to abolish it.

National: New tax chief Werfel pledges to correct ‘serious problems’ at IRS | The Hill

The new acting IRS chief stressed Monday that he was pressing ahead to fix the problems that allowed the agency to target conservative groups, saying the current controversies had sparked a difficult time at the IRS. Danny Werfel, in his first testimony on Capitol Hill, also stressed that the current controversy shouldn’t be used to tar the entire agency. Werfel, who has been acting commissioner for less than two weeks, told a House Appropriations subcommittee Monday that the singling out of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status was inexcusable. “We have a great deal of work ahead of us to review and correct the serious problems that have occurred at the IRS and continue the important work of the agency on behalf of taxpayers,” Werfel said in prepared remarks for his first congressional appearance in his new role.

National: Congressmen: You have no right to vote | Philadelphia Inquirer

Two members of the House of Representatives insist the Constitution doesn’t guarantee you the right to vote—and one leading fact-checking group says they may be correct, on a technicality. Mark Pocan, a representative from Wisconsin, has joined with Keith Ellison from Minnesota to introduce a new constitutional amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives that guarantees everyone 18 years and older the right to vote in elections. The folks at PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize–winning website in Florida, evaluated Pocan’s statement on the House floor that “nothing in the Constitution explicitly guarantees our right to vote.”

Editorials: Voting rights are still in danger | David Gans/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Before the end of this month, the Supreme Court is expected to decide Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder, a constitutional challenge to the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, one of the act’s most important guarantees against racial discrimination in voting. Shelby County has argued that the act is unnecessary and outdated and has urged the Supreme Court to hold it unconstitutional on that basis. With the court decision looming, a number of recent commentators have suggested that, in light of recent voter turnout data, the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed. They are wrong. In The Wall Street Journal last month, examining what he called the “good news about race and voting,” Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center argues that in recent presidential elections very few citizens, whatever their race, have reported difficulties going to the polls to exercise their right to vote. Mr. Kohut noted that in the last several presidential elections, African-American turnout has steadily increased. Based on the “good news” from this small slice of evidence, Mr. Kohut suggests that opponents of the Voting Rights Act could argue “the legislation has accomplished its objective of ending racial discrimination in voting and is no longer needed.”

Voting Blogs: Controversial Speech and the Education of Voters | More Soft Money Hard Law

No one questions that campaign finance law has struggled through multiple, agonized revisions in distinguishing issues from campaign speech and the discussion of campaign issues from advocacy for candidates or parties. The statute is little help; it speaks of the “purpose of influencing” an election,” 2 U.S.C. §431(8)(A)(i), and broader Commission glosses on the phrase, such as a test for whether a message was “electioneering” in content, eventually came to grief. The Supreme Court held the express advocacy line briefly, then gave in to a conception of the “functional equivalent” of express advocacy, and has since cast much of discussion into obsolescence by extending to corporations the right to make independent expenditures. Now tax policy-makers and tax law face pressure to work through the same issue, in limiting political intervention by 501(c)(4)s, and the results might be expected to be the same.

Alabama: Madison County Considering Costly Special Election In Effort To Save Money | WHNT

Many lawmakers believe counties could benefit by having one office do everything two offices do now when it comes to handling money. Madison County Chairman Dale Strong favors consolidating the tax collector’s and tax assessor’s office. First, a decision must be made about what to do and that will cost you money. Madison County has two offices affecting people’s wallets. One is the Tax Assessor’s. It is the keeper of records. It places value on property. The other is the Tax Collector’s. It gets your money.

Alaska: Kansas official takes active interest in Alaska elections | Anchorage Daily News

Why has Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach taken such an active interest in Alaska’s elections? The Kansan, an adviser to Mitt Romney last year on immigration policies and a national figure in the Republican party’s conservative wing, testified before the Alaska Legislature in support of a voter photo ID bill. He also recommended that Alaska join the “Kansas Project,” a multi-state effort to look for duplicate voter registrations. Alaska Natives say a photo ID rule would be a roadblock to voting in the Bush. A decline in turnout there, with its traditionally heavy Democratic vote, could affect the 2014 reelection hopes of U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat running in a Republican-leaning state. One of his potential rivals is Alaska’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell. Treadwell says he doesn’t support the voter ID bill, but Kobach says Treadwell was instrumental in getting him involved in promoting the Alaska legislation.

Florida: Congressman Joe Garcia: ‘Flawed’ absentee-voting system, ‘reckless abandon’ in politics contributed to ballot scandal | Miami Herald

Congressman Joe Garcia on Saturday attempted to control the damage inflicted on his office a day earlier, when he dismissed his chief of staff for apparently orchestrating a scheme to submit hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests. Meanwhile, Republicans nationwide and closer to home pummeled Garcia, questioning whether the first-term congressman was coming clean on his campaign’s involvement in the ballot scandal. In a news conference held at his West Miami-Dade office Saturday morning, Garcia, a Democrat, maintained that he had no knowledge of the failed plot during last year’s primary election. He said he learned about his campaign’s involvement only the previous afternoon from chief of staff Jeffrey Garcia, who is unrelated to the congressman and has long served as his top political strategist. “I cannot stress how angry I am at these events,” Joe Garcia said Saturday.

Idaho: Value of a vote: Low turnout election costs $15.80 per vote | KTVB

The May 21 election in Ada County saw extremely low voter turnout, with only 5.4% of registered voters going to the polls. With low turnout, 7 Investigates looked at how much each vote was “worth” in terms of the cost to the county taxpayers for each vote cast. On the May ballot in Ada County were issues from funding the Eagle City Hall to electing the board of the Greater Auditorium District and Kuna schools. Overall, 9,457 people voted. “I would say the voter turn-out was lower than we anticipated. I thought it would be below 10% for this election because it was still a very small district election, but I thought it would be much closer to that 10% mark as opposed to down to 5% where we actually ended up,” Ada County Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane said.

Ohio: Some used P.O. box as address: Is that vote fraud? | Cincinnati.com

A group of citizens has uncovered almost 100 people in Hamilton County who are allegedly registered to vote someplace other than where they live – which is illegal. Election records showtwo-thirds of them actually voted from those addresses, meaning they could have cast a vote in a local election in which they weren’t entitled to have a say. Did they commit a crime? Ohio law says people must reside at the address where they’re registered. That’s because people vote on local issues – councils, commissioners, levies. The Hamilton County Board of Elections today will discuss what to do about these cases. It could send those cases to the prosecutor for further investigation and even possible felony charges.

Pennsylvania: High court refuses to hear Post-Gazette appeal – Pennsylvania can continue to restrict poll access | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Journalists have no right to report and photograph inside Pennsylvania polling places, and the U.S. Supreme Court is letting that state restriction stand. Without comment, the court Monday refused to hear a case brought on appeal by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when its staffers were barred from voting sites in Allegheny and Beaver counties in the fall. State law bars anyone except voters, election workers and registered poll watchers from coming within 10 feet of entrances to polling places on Election Day. The denial means the Pennsylvania law can stay in effect unless the Legislature decides to change it.

Wisconsin: Recount spurs voting reforms | Journal Times

Weekend absentee voting would end and voter identification requirements would return under a sweeping new election law package partially inspired by issues in Racine. The bill from Greendale Republican Rep. Jeff Stone covers a wide swath of election-related territory, including numerous procedural changes for how electoral recounts are run. Those changes are partially the product of last summer’s recall recount in Racine, where tensions ran high and allegations of election fraud repeatedly surfaced, according to Stone’s office. Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said his office helped shape the final bill, bringing together what he called “a bunch of different ideas regarding elections to make them hopefully easier and more fair.” The result is the wide-ranging proposal planned for committee debate Tuesday.

France: French electronic voting allegedly easy to rig – Ballot stuffing claims | TechEye

France’s first electronic election has turned into a farce with reports coming in of the sort of election rigging that you would expect from third world countries like Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or the USA. An “online-primary” claimed as “fraud-proof” and as “ultra secure” as the Maginot Line, has turned out to be vulnerable to a Blizkrieg of multiple and fake voting. The election was supposed to anoint a rising star of the moderate right, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 39, as the party’s candidate in the election for mayor of Paris next spring. Some of her problems was that she abstained in the final parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage in late April and hard-right figures within the party urged militant opponents of gay marriage to swamp the open primary with votes for a young Paris city councillor, Pierre-Yves Bournazel. So it was going to be a tight election, and then journalists from Metronews proved that it was easy to breach the allegedly strict security of the election. They voted several times using different names to prove their point.

Ghana: Serial numbers irrelevant to election results – Afari-Gyan | GhanaWeb

Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) has told the Supreme Court in the ongoing election petition that the serial numbers embossed on electoral record papers (pink sheets) are irrelevant, and therefore, bear no significance to declared election results. The petitioners had claimed in their pleadings that duplication of serial numbers on pink sheets was one of the vehicles used by the president and the governing National Democratic Congress in collusion with the Electoral Commission to rig the 2012 elections. However, Dr. Afari-Gyan, on Monday, June 3, 2013 told the court during his evidence-in-chief that the serial numbers on the pink sheets have “absolutely no relevance to the compilation and declaration of results”. He maintained that “the pink sheets are distributed randomly”.

Iran: Paper linked to Ahmadinejad banned amid Iran election tensions | Telegraph

Authorities in Iran have imposed a six-month ban on a newspaper linked to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s president, as tensions rise in the run-up to next week’s presidential election. The prohibition on Iran, a state-owned newspaper under the administration of Mr Ahmadinejad’s government, was imposed for “false reporting”, according to local news agencies, although they did not elaborate. The ban is the latest sign of Mr Ahmadinejad’s increasing marginalisation within Iran’s theocratic system.

National: Voting rights in the balance as Supreme Court about to issue decision | NBC

The Supreme Court is expected to soon announce its decision on a case which many Latino organizations are closely watching – whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will be struck down. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires covered states and counties to obtain “preclearance” from the Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before implementing any voting changes. NBC News Justice correspondent Pete Williams says this is “the most potent part of a law widely considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress.” National civil rights organizations like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), National Council of la Raza, the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, argue that Section 5 has kept some counties and states from establishing voting laws or guidelines that make it more difficult for Latinos and other minorities to vote. Last year civil rights groups took issue with proposed voting laws in Texas and Florida which would have required stricter voter ID or would have limited early voting days, for example. Civil rights groups said these laws would have made it more difficult for Latinos and African Americans to vote.

Editorials: Striking down voting law will set back civil rights | Raul A. Reyes/NBC

Could a county in Alabama affect your ability to vote? Absolutely. Any day now, the Supreme Court will issue its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires states with a history of discrimination to get approval from the federal government before they change their voting laws. Most of these states are in the South. Shelby County, Alabama says this is unfair and wants Section 5 struck down. Section 5 is not just one part of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 is the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Getting rid of it would be a setback to civil rights. It would negatively impact Hispanic voters. And it would represent a troubling overreach by the Supreme Court into Congressional jurisdiction. The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution states that no citizen should be denied his right to vote on account of race or color. But Southern states for years found ways to prevent African Americans from voting. So in 1965 Congress passed Section 5, to ensure an end to poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means of obstructing access to the ballot box.

Editorials: Update Section 5 of Voting Rights Act, don’t toss it | Dallas Morning News

Every time we enter a voting booth, we collectively make a national statement that each of us matters, that we are free and independent and control our destiny. That we choose to be part of a community that engages in peaceful political engagement. Voting is to democracy what praying is to religion: an expression of a belief system. Voting is how we the people have actually formed a more perfect union. It defines who we are and what we aspire to be. It marked our evolution from a country dominated by white, male landowners to one that included — in every sense of the word — women and, ultimately, minorities. Sometime this month, perhaps as early as today, the Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision that could be pivotal for voting rights. Shelby County vs. Holder may become as much a part of our popular lexicon as Roe vs. Wade and Brown vs. Board of Education.

Alaska: Judge scolds Alaska Redistricting Board | Anchorage Daily News

A Fairbanks judge gave a stern rebuke to the Alaska Redistricting Board, saying in a decision Thursday that it was not worthy of the trust placed in it by the courts and accusing it of acting in a “dilatory” and “disingenuous” manner. Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy, the judge hearing challenges to the failed redistricting plan under which the 2012 election was held, said the board’s proposal to wait until August to begin crafting a new plan was unsatisfactory. He said the board had the computer power to draw new boundaries in a matter of days should it choose. “There is no reason to delay this process further,” he said.

Connecticut: Republicans Call Move To Abolish Independent Party ‘Power Grab’ | CT News Junkie

Senate Republican leader John McKinney called draft legislation that would bar the Independent Party of Connecticut from keeping its name a “disgusting, arrogant power grab,” by the Democratic majority. The working draft of the omnibus campaign finance bill would bar the use of the word “independent” in political party names. It’s a change that would force the Independent Party of Connecticut—which cross-endorsed several Republicans in legislative and Congressional races— to change its name. Sen. Michael McLachlan, R-Danbury, said the only reason the Democratic majority included that change in the bill is because the Independent Party of Connecticut received more votes than the Working Families Party, a third party that traditionally cross-endorses Democrats.

Maryland: In Takoma Park, starting the voting habit early | Baltimore Sun

Last week, the Takoma Park City Council voted 6-1 to change its charter to become the first city in America to lower the voting age to 16. While we are the first city to adopt this policy, we have little doubt that others will follow. Maryland already has been a national leader in extending voting rights to younger voters when it opened its primaries years ago to 17-year-olds. That practice has spread to more than 20 states, and the case for a lower voting age in local elections is similarly strong. The context for action was an accompanying measure backing an affirmative right to vote in the Constitution and local actions in support of suffrage. A task force will address why — like many cities, including Baltimore — Takoma Park has local election turnout rates below 20 percent, with large disparities based on age and neighborhood. The city will also establish Election Day voter registration and extend voting rights to more people with past felony convictions, and may adopt Minnesota’s policy of ensuring that candidates have access to apartment buildings to talk with residents.

North Dakota: State adjusts November vote counts | INFORUM

More than six months after North Dakotans voted in the November general election, U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp lost 174 votes and Gov. Jack Dalrymple gained one. Vote tallies for all statewide races and local races in Walsh County were changed by the State Canvassing Board on Thursday after the federal court system realized in mid-February that Walsh County had 300 more votes cast than the number of voters. Secretary of State Al Jaeger said human error happens, and he thinks the canvassing board has never met this long after an election before.

Texas: Special session on redistricting is damage control | Associated Press

When three federal judges in San Antonio released interim maps in November 2011, Democrats jumped for joy at how many seats they’d gain in Congress and the Texas House. Their grand plans, though, were short-lived. The U.S. Supreme Court interceded and said the lower-court judges had gone too far. Since neither that court, nor the one hearing another case in Washington D.C. had made a final ruling, the San Antonio judges could only repair the most egregious constitutional violations in the Legislature’s maps for the 2012 election. The San Antonio judges therefore redrew their maps, and Republicans maintained unquestioned control over Texas politics. But earlier this year the court in Washington D.C. ruled that Texas Republican lawmakers intentionally discriminated against minorities in drawing their maps. That clears the way for the San Antonio judges to return to the drawing board, and led Gov. Rick Perry to call a special session on redistricting to do damage control.

Editorials: Restoring the Vote in Virginia | New York Times