Wisconsin: Elections bill would make it harder to recall municipal and school officials | Journal Sentinel

Municipal and school officials could be recalled from office only if they have been charged with a crime or ethics violation, under a sweeping elections bill quickly moving through the state Assembly. Under other provisions of the bill by Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), new limits would be enacted on when people can vote in clerks’ offices before an election, ballots could more easily be thrown out and restrictions would be eased on when lobbyists can give campaign donations to legislators and the governor. The bill wouldn’t affect state and county elected officials, who can be recalled for any reason under the Wisconsin constitution. As a result, the proposal would not have prevented the recall election of Gov. Scott Walker last year or the attempted recall of Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament after the pension scandal in 2002.

Wisconsin: Appeals court ruling doesn’t enact voter ID law | The Cap Times

A state appeals court overturned a Dane County Circuit Court ruling Thursday morning, handing proponents of the state’s controversial voter ID law a minor legal victory. The ruling from the 4th District Court of Appeals came in a case brought by the Wisconsin League of Women Voters. The league argued the law passed in 2011 violated a provision of the Wisconsin Constitution that guarantees every person the right to vote. Thursday’s ruling, however, will not result in the voter ID law being enacted. Three other lawsuits are still pending that challenge the legality of the law. In the other case brought in state courts, Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights group, and the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP won a permanent injunction against the voter ID law in Dane County Circuit Court. The state Department of Justice has asked for an appeals court review of the ruling.

Wyoming: Tough to get referendum, initiative on Wyoming ballot | Laramie Boomerang

Sponsors of an effort to repeal a new state law say they were so rushed by Wyoming’s referendum deadline that they didn’t have time to count how many signatures they had collected on the petitions they submitted this week. “The referendum process needs to be changed,” said Jennifer Young, of Torrington, who was among those submitting petition signatures Tuesday, minutes before the deadline. “It’s designed for the people to fail and the legislators to not lose a bill they want.” Wyoming’s referendum process is among the most restrictive in the nation, meaning residents have little chance of reaching the statewide ballot with their cause, public policy advocates say. In the last 30 years, only one referendum on a new state law succeeded in making the general election ballot. It failed at the polls.

Estonia: In E-Voting Scandal, Suspicions Arise Over MEP Kristiina Ojuland | ERR

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip has drawn a connection in the e-voting fraud scandal with MEP Kristiina Ojuland.
Ansip told Postimees after a party meeting that Ojuland has made payments from her personal bank account to compensate the party membership dues of 39 people whose identities are suspected to have been stolen. Võru County has emerged as the second voting district to be wrapped up in the Reform Party’s leadership election scandal, in which an insider is suspected of secretly casting e-votes on behalf of elderly party members who claim not to have voted. Only a few cases of identity theft are suspected in Võru County, as opposed to dozens in Lääne-Viru County, ERR radio reported.

Estonia: Alleging Flaws, E-Voting Critics Make Request for 2011 Log Files | ERR

The Center Party, which insists the country’s vaunted electronic voting system is flawed, has made a freedom of information request to the state electoral committee to get e-voting server log files from the 2011 general elections. “In light of our deep doubts about the security of e-elections, we are asking the electoral committee about e-voting software ownership issues and the contracts under which the software was commissioned,” said MP Priit Toobal. Toobal said Center was interested in whether the 2011 e-voting software was audited and if so, what the results of the audit were. Toobal also said the party made a proposal to test the 2013 local election e-voting system and software.

France: Fake votes mar France’s first electronic election | The Independent

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political party, already enfeebled by a chaotic national leadership election last year, faces further ridicule in a Paris town hall primary election which ends tonight. An “online-primary”, claimed as “fraud-proof” and “ultra secure”, has turned out to be vulnerable to multiple and fake voting. The four-day election has also the exposed the poisonous divisions created within the centre-right Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) by the law permitting gay marriage which took effect last week. France’s first “electronic election” had been expected 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. The former environment minister, known as “NKM”, was runaway favourite to win in the first round  until she abstained in the final parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage in late April. … What was already shaping up as a tense and close election was thrown into utter confusion at the weekend. Journalists from the news site Metronews proved that it was easy to breach the allegedly strict security of the election and vote several times using different names.

Guinea: Deaths of protesters herald Guinea’s election | Al Jazeera

Twelve people have been killed and at least 89 injured in the West African nation of Guinea over the past week, as waves of violence grip the country ahead of legislative elections scheduled for late June. More than 50 people have died since February in clashes between government forces and the opposition. Opposition members, who come primarily from the Peuhl ethnic group, blame the deaths on government security forces which are dominated by the Malinke ethnic group. The opposition says the past week’s fatalities are the result of security forces violently repressing legal protests. In a statement released on Monday, the government confirmed that twelve people had died in violent confrontations since May 21. More than half of the fatalities were the result of gunshot wounds, according to the statement, although the “origin of the shots remains unknown”. Altercations between opponents of President Alpha Condé’s administration and security forces have been an almost weekly occurrence in the capital, Conakry, for the past several months.

Malaysia: Premier Revamps Election Commission After Disputed Poll | Bloomberg

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced measures to overhaul the election commission after the ruling coalition retained power in a vote that was marred by fraud allegations. An independent bipartisan parliamentary committee of government and opposition members will oversee the commission to “strengthen public confidence” in it, Najib said today in a statement in the administrative capital of Putrajaya, near Kuala Lumpur. Najib’s Barisan Nasional alliance won 133 seats in the 222-member Parliament in the May 5 election to extend its 55-year rule over the Southeast Asian nation. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has disputed the outcome and said May 6 that his Pakatan Rakyat group would challenge some of the results because of fraud claims.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe to Comply With Election Ruling | allAfrica.com

President Mugabe yesterday said he will comply with the Constitutional Court ruling on Friday ordering him to proclaim dates for the harmonised elections and hold the polls before July 31, which judgment he described as fair. He said he would discuss with Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa to set the polling dates as soon as he returns home from Japan where he is attending the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD) which ends today. The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces was speaking in an interview with Zimbabwean journalists covering the conference. “Well, that’s the ruling of the court and when the court gives a ruling and the ruling is a judgement and the judgement is meant to establish how people should react to it, there is only one way of reacting to it which is accepting the judgement by our nation,” said President Mugabe. “We accepted that judgement and we will work in accordance with that judgement.”

France: French website casts fake votes in online Paris mayoral election | UPI.com

A French news website says it was able to cast “fake” votes in France’s first digital election by registering under different names. To register a vote in the opposition UMP party’s “open primary” to select a candidate for next year’s mayoral election in Paris, voters were required to provide a name, address, date of birth and credit card payment of three euros ($3.90). But website Metronews said it used the same card to pay for multiple votes and even registered once as ex-President and UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy, the BBC reported Monday.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 27 – June 2 2013

bhutanA Salon article discussed how the 2010 Citizens United decision created the perception that the rules for 501(c)(3) non-profits had changed. The New York Times editorialized against using mechanical lever machines in municipal elections. On the 20th anniversary of the signing of the National Voter Registration Act, Ohio has made moves to comply with the law’s requirements. Texas Governor called a special legislative session to consider court-ordered boundaries for congressional and legislative districts. Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell announced that he will automatically restore the voting rights of nonviolent felons who have completed their sentences. An appeals court in Wisconsin ruled that a 2012 Voter ID law does not violate the State constitution, though further legal challenges to the law are pending. Bhutan voted in the country’s second ever elections and Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has challenged the integrity of last month’s election.

Estonia: Prime Minister Ansip: Election Fraud Suspect Identified | ERR

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said a member of his party has admitted to manipulating e-votes in the Reform Party’s leadership election last week and in another election in 2011. “The party secretary has a specific individual’s explanation in written form in which the individual admits to having committed the acts at hand. And the individual has suggested that he or she did this at the request and knowing of someone else,” Ansip told ERR radio, without revealing any names as the investigation is still in progress.

National: Behind IRS scrutiny: Nonprofits and “electoral exceptionalism” | Salon.com

As the report of the IRS Inspector General shows, the agency’s scrutiny of conservative groups applying for non-profit status was, more than anything, a clumsy response to a task the IRS is ill-equipped to carry out – monitoring an accidental corner of campaign finance law, a corner that was relatively quiet until about 2010. That corner is the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, belonging to what are sometimes called “social welfare” groups, which enjoy the triple privilege of tax exemption (though not for their donors), freedom to engage in some limited election activity, and, unlike other political committees (PACs, SuperPACs, parties, etc.), freedom from any requirement to disclose information about donors or spending. The use of (c)(4)s as campaign vehicles didn’t originate with the Citizens United decision in 2010 (Citizens United, the organization that brought the case, was already a (c)(4)), but the decision seems to have created a sense that the rules had changed, and even small groups – especially, apparently, local Tea Party organizations — rushed to create (c)(4)s.

National: Online Voter Registration Gains Traction Nationwide | IVN

Online voter registration is a concept that has only recently been made available to U.S. citizens. At the moment, most states don’t have a system set up for it. However, that could change in the near future, if current trends are any indication. Unfortunately, there are a few issues that currently keep it from being used nationwide.For starters, when President Obama was first elected in 2008, only two states — Washington and Arizona — had online voter registration systems. In 2012, when he was reelected, 13 states had these systems. Now, a total of 23 states have or are about to have what is called “voter registration modernization.” Many believe that most states will enact online voter registration — sooner rather than later — now that word of the many advantages is spreading.

National: Future of voting rights at stake before Supreme Court | NBC

Before the current U.S. Supreme Court term ends in late June, the justices will decide the fate of the most potent part of a law widely considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress ― the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If the court were to strike down part of the law, which it has signaled a willingness to do in the past, it would dramatically reduce the federal government’s role in overseeing voter discrimination in a wide swath of the nation. The U.S. Supreme Court prepares to enter June with the term’s biggest cases yet to be decided.  NBC’s Pete Williams looks at what’s left on the docket. Signed by President Lyndon Johnson and renewed by Congress four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making adjustments to their election procedures.

National: What the IRS did right | Salon.com

Outrage first, facts later. That’s often the way American political “scandals” unfold, and it seems to be the case with the news that the IRS targeted conservative political groups for extra scrutiny before granting them tax-exempt status as social-welfare organizations. We knew from the beginning of the IRS mess that the only group actually denied tax-exempt status was the Maine chapter of a Democratic women’s group, Emerge America. Now we’re learning about some of the right-wing organizations that came in for extra scrutiny, as reported by the New York Times Monday: a conservative veterans’ group that only backed one candidate, a Republican, for Congress; an Alabama Tea Party group that took part in a “defeat Barack Obama” voter-turnout drive, and the “Ohio Liberty Coalition” led by a Republican activist who sent his members information on Mitt Romney campaign events and recruited them to volunteer for the GOP nominee.

Voting Blogs: Vote centers turn 10 – a decade later, jurisdictions slowly joining movement | electionlineWeekly

A decade ago, Larimer County, Colo. Clerk Scott Doyle was looking for a way to deal with many of the changes mandated by the Help America Vote Act. Working with the county’s elections department and practices already in place for early voting, Doyle and company created the concept of vote centers to use in all elections. Now, although Doyle has recently retired, his idea of consolidating voting precincts into a small number of come-one, come-all polling places is spreading to more and more counties across the country. “The success of vote centers is largely due to their attractiveness to voters who might not otherwise vote,” said Robert Stein, political science professor at Rice University who has studied vote centers. “They afford inexperienced votes many of the benefits in-person early voting offers, in those states that allow voters to ballot before Election Day. “ Counties making the move to vote centers cite a variety of reasons for making the switch, but the biggest factor of all seems to be cost savings.

Alaska: Judge to Alaska Redistricting Board: Get back to work | Alaska Dispatch

As the Alaska Redistricting Board sits mostly idle despite a December 2012 state Supreme Court decision that ordered all 40 voting districts to be redrawn, a Fairbanks Superior Court judge Thursday offered up a verbal smackdown to the board, chastising the inaction and ordering public hearings related to the next redrawing process. “Alaskans are no closer to having constitutional voting districts today” than they were in December, said Superior Court judge Michael McConahy.  Every 10 years, Alaska’s voting lines are ordered to be redrawn according to the latest U.S. Census data. In Alaska, not only are there state requirements to be met, but any redistricting plan must also appease the federal Voting Rights Act. Alaska is among several states requiring Department of Justice confirmation that minority groups aren’t subject to discrimination by proposed voting changes.

Illinois: Senate Approves Online Voter Registration Bill | Progress Illinois

At a time when 500,000 eligible Illinoisans aren’t registered to vote, and voter turnout is at staggeringly low levels, the Illinois Senate approved legislation Wednesday that would make online voter registration an option in the state. The bill, HB 2418, would make it possible by July 1, 2014 for residents to register to vote through the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website. After entering drivers’ license information and the last four digits of a Social Security number, potential voters would be mailed a voter registration card. The card would need to be presented at a polling place during voting. “We’re taking a bold step into the electronic world,” State Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), the bill’s primary sponsor in the Senate, said during the legislation’s debate. “This really is a key to getting young people involved in the process.”

Editorials: Restoring voting rights to Virginia felons | The Washington Post

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) nudged Virginia into the 21st century Wednesday by decreeing a new system to restore voting rights automatically to nonviolent felons who have paid their debt to society. The governor’s move is courageous and consequential: In time — more time than many would like — it should enfranchise tens of thousands of ex-convicts, most of whom would otherwise be frozen out of elections indefinitely. Mr. McDonnell’s move does not solve the entire problem. It excludes those convicted of violent felonies, including some drug crimes. At least 40 percent of the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 felons, plus several thousand released from prison each year, will remain ineligible to vote unless they undergo a lengthy waiting period and submit a complex application. In practice, few do so.

West Virginia: Funding an issue for Supreme Court candidate public financing; program to have $1.5M balance | Associated Press

Pleased that a public financing experiment for Supreme Court candidates is now a permanent program, West Virginia’s State Election Commission also noted Thursday that it will only have an estimated $1.5 million to offer when a court seat is next on the ballot in 2016. The commission voted to approve proposed revisions to the program’s rules, following passage of legislation expanding what had been a one-election pilot. But commission members were also mindful that the recently concluded session did not include additional funding or revenue sources for the program. Lawmakers instead took $1.5 million from the program’s balance, after Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin requested it for other budgetary needs. That leaves $1.1 million, while the state treasurer is scheduled to provide an additional $400,000 by July 2015, Timothy Leach, a lawyer for Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, said during Thursday’s meeting.

Wisconsin: Voter ID law constitutional, appeals court rules | Reuters

A Wisconsin appeals court on Thursday ruled the state’s controversial voter ID law is constitutional, a victory for supporters who say the measure limits fraud at the ballot box. The Fourth District Court of Appeals overturned a March 2012 decision by Dane County judge Richard Niess, who ruled in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which claimed that the law is too burdensome, denying potential voters the right to vote. The organization “makes no effective argument that, on its face, the requirement makes voting so difficult and inconvenient as to amount to a denial of the right to vote,” the appeals court wrote in its decision.

Guinea: President decrees start of campaign for contested legislative election | The Washington Post

Guinea’s president unilaterally decreed Wednesday the start of campaigning for a contested legislative election, which has been repeatedly delayed due to opposition complaints. The surprise move is bound to further heighten tensions between the ruling party and the country’s increasingly united opposition. In the decree read on national television on the evening news, President Alpha Conde announced that campaigning will begin at midnight and would end at the same time on June 28. The move hass taken the nation by surprise, and comes as the country’s opposition leaders on Wednesday led a motorized funeral procession to put to rest six of the 12 opposition members who were killed during last week’s protest against the planned poll.

Editorials: The Irrelevance of Iran’s Presidential Election | Mahmood Delkhasteh/Huffington Post

The main function of elections in democracies is to enable the exercise of the people’s authority over the power of the state by establishing a government to implement policies which the public has voted for. Iran’s government, however, is bound by a constitution which states that a “supreme leader” has ultimate power over all branches of state and government. Elections of such a government, in effect, legitimize a regime which deprives people of their right to determine the state in which they live. In fact, what appears to be the “election” in Iran is only the shell of a political form; a remnant of the early years of the revolution and the first draft of the country’s constitution in which the sole source of legitimacy for any government was to be the people’s vote. But due to a power struggle between democratic and dictatorial interests, the constitution was rewritten to enshrine two competing sources of legitimacy: the people’s vote and the Velayat-e Faqih (the rule of the jurist or supreme leader). At the time, the position of supreme leader was filled by the undisputed leadership of Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini. Eventually, this constant tension between the two sources of legitimacy led Khomeini, at the end of his life, to tilt the balance of power further towards the supreme leader, thereby increasing his role in the constitution from a mainly observatory status to one of absolute power. The preservation of the regime became an ultimate and absolute duty, thus justifying virtually any act towards this end.

Mozambique: New Printers Imported For Voter Registration | Bernama

All the printers used to produce voter cards in Mozambique’s current voter registration are being replaced, after massive problems with the existing printers, says Mozambican news agency, AIM. Citing reports on Thursday’s issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin”, produced by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa) and CIP (Centre for Public Integrity), AIM said across the country there have been problems with the computers and printers used in registration and, perhaps most embarrassing of all, some of the registration brigades have not even had toner for their printers. These problems meant that, in the largest province, Nampula, half the registration posts were not open on Wednesday.

Philippines: President Aquino signs amendments to overseas absentee voting law | Sun.Star

President Benigno Aquino III has signed into law a consolidated bill amending the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003, allowing more overseas Filipinos worldwide to cast their votes in Philippine elections. The Chief Executive signed last May 27 the Republic Act 10590 (An Act Amending Republic Act 9189, Entitled “An Act Providing for a System of Overseas Absentee Voting by Qualified Citizens of the Philippines Abroad, Appropriating Funds Therefor and for Other Purposes.”) The Act otherwise known as “The Overseas Voting Act of 2013” is a consolidation of Senate Bill 3312 and House Bill 6542. The Senate and the House of Representatives passed the consolidated measure on February 5, 2013 and February 6, 2013, respectively.

Zimbabwe: Cabinet tackles voter registration chaos | Zimbabwe Independent

Voteer registration, now a standing cabinet agenda item, once again dominated the government policy-making body meeting this week, resulting in Justice Minister Patrick Chinamsa, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson Rita Makarau, and Registrar General (RG) Tobaiwa Mudede being instructed to meet to deal with the issue threatening to throw the electoral process into chaos. Chinamasa, Mudede and Makarau were expected to meet yesterday to find ways of smoothening voter registration which is increasingly becoming a contentious issue ahead of crucial general elections. The meeting was expected to take stock of all the problems which affected the mobile voter registration exercise, discuss ways of how “aliens” will get documents to enable them to register as voters as provided for by the new constitution and look at plans to establish schools as registration centres where headmasters will become commissioners of oath to allow all Zimbabweans to be able to register.

National: Mark Pocan’s voting rights amendment stirs up progressive blogosphere | The Cap Times

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, aimed high with his first bill as a member of Congress: a constitutional amendment establishing the right to vote. As I explained in a recent post, the amendment may sound superfluous but legal scholars acknowledge that the right to vote is not currently guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and adding language to that effect could impact laws that affect voting, such as voter ID. The bill may have little chance of advancing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, but it is getting attention — for all it’s worth — from progressives across the country.

California: Bill to Modernize California’s Election System Approved by State Senate | California Newswire

The California State Senate today approved SB 361 by Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) on a bipartisan vote of 29 to 9. The bill would modernize California’s voter registration system and increase online access to elections information. The bill now goes to the Assembly for consideration. “While many states provide online tools that allow citizens to register to vote, verify their registration, determine their polling place location and even determine the status of their ballot, California has fallen behind,” said Padilla. A report released earlier this year by the Pew Center on the States, ranked California 48th out of 50 states in election administration. The report utilizes 17 indicators that include the adoption of voting technology, the accuracy of voter rolls, reported problems with registration and absentee ballots, the voter registration rate and election turnout.

Connecticut: GOP Concerned About Potential Removal Of Independent Party of Connecticut | Hartford Courant

Republicans were outraged Wednesday by a Democratic-written bill that would effectively eliminate the Independent Party of Connecticut. The bill, which is a working draft, says that the word “independent” would be removed from any political party in Connecticut. The reason given is that “independent” is often mistaken with the word “unaffiliated,” which is how hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents are registered. But the potential switch has huge political overtones in Connecticut because the Independent Party has most recently cross-endorsed Republican candidates, including Linda McMahon in her run for the U.S. Senate and conservative Republican Michael McLachlan in his three successful races for state Senate in Danbury and surrounding towns.