Monthly Archives: November 2014

Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday to choose city mayors and local councillors in a vote that will show how much support the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) has lost with its pro-China stance less than two years before a presidential election. The election will be the first chance for the island, which giant neighbor China views as a breakaway province, to make its views known since March when thousands of young people occupied parliament in an unprecedented protest against a planned trade pact calling for closer ties with Beijing. A record 11,130 seats are up for grabs in municipalities, counties, townships and villages, with the key battleground the capital, a KMT, or Nationalist Party, stronghold for nearly 20 years. Every Taiwan president was once the mayor of Taipei.

Taiwan: Wild, wooly, and partly a referendum on China | CSMonitor

Taiwan’s young democracy puts down deeper roots with every election cycle, and the island holds an important vote this weekend with 20,000 candidates for more than 10,000 offices. The most watched election is for mayor of Taipei, where candidate Ko Wen-je is causing panic in Taiwan’s ruling party and making Chinese leaders in Beijing nervous. A newcomer to politics, Mr. Ko has become a lighting rod for debates over national identity and traditional values in Taiwan. The independent candidate is receiving prominent media coverage, which he has been using to step outside mainstream politics and challenge the establishment. The quirky medical doctor has stayed comfortably on top of opinion polls while surviving a barrage of accusations and crude smears – such as charges that family loyalty to Japan several generations ago makes him unfit to be mayor — that have questioned his character and career as one of the island’s leading surgeons.

Tunisia: Tunisia Braces for Presidential Runoff | allAfrica.com

Tunisian presidential candidate Béji Caid Essebsi is six percentage points ahead of incumbent Moncef Marzouki, but the margin is not big enough to prevent a run-off election in a fortnight. The Nidaa Tounes party chief won about 1.3 million votes, or 39.4% in the landmark election Sunday, while the interim president took 1.1 million votes, or 33.4%, Tunisia’s Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) announced on Tuesday (November 25th). More than 3.18 million voters took part in the poll. “In case no other presidential candidate submits an appeal against the results, a run-off will be held between December 12th-14th,” ISIE member Nabil Boufon said. Popular Front candidate Hamma Hammami came in third in the Sunday ballot, with 7.2% of the vote. Other top contenders were Hachmi Haamdi of al-Aridha Chaabia, who won 5.75%, and the Free Patriotic Union’s Slim Riahi, who received 5.55 %.

Tunisia: One step closer to democracy in landmark presidential election | The National

Tunisia held its first free presidential election on Sunday, taking another step forward in its transition to democracy as voters hoped for greater stability and a better economy. Many Tunisians weighed security concerns against the freedoms brought by their revolution and by its democratic reforms, which have remained on track in sharp contrast to the upheavals brought by the Arab Spring elsewhere in the region, including the military coup in Egypt and the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya. It has not been easy for Tunisia, however, and the nearly four years since the revolution have been marked by social unrest, terrorist attacks and high inflation that pushed voters into punishing the moderate Islamists in last month’s parliamentary elections. “The thing I’m worried most about for the future is terrorism. Right now, we don’t know who’s coming into the country, and this is a problem,” said Amira Judei, 21, who voted in the southern city of Kasserine, near the border with Algeria and a point of terrorist attacks. Tunisia’s revolution began in areas such as Kasserine in the impoverished south. Voting hours in the rural regions along the border were reduced to five hours due to security fears.

National: Judge: FEC improperly narrowed disclosure rules | Associated Press

The Federal Election Commission impermissibly narrowed disclosure requirements for corporations and labor organizations that finance electioneering communications, the political ads that run close to an election, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. In setting aside an FEC regulation, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the commission initiated a rulemaking in response to a Supreme Court decision, but that nothing in the Supreme Court case amounted to a basis for the FEC to narrow the disclosure rules Congress had enacted. She said the FEC regulation was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.

Alabama: Photo voter ID law declared a success; not everyone agrees | AL.com

Secretary of State Jim Bennett said today that Alabama’s new photo voter ID law caused only a few inquiries to his office during the Nov. 4 election. The general election was the biggest test yet of the law, with 1.2 million people voting. It was in effect for the first time during the primaries in June. “We feel very good about the results of the implementation of that program,” Bennett said. The Republican-led Legislature passed the law in 2011, saying it would help prevent voter fraud. Voters were already required to show an ID, but could use those with no photo, like a Social Security card or utility bill. Many Democrats opposed the law, saying it was intended to suppress the vote by making it harder on the elderly and people with no driver’s license. Opponents also said there was little evidence of voter impersonation fraud.

Florida: Redistricting records: GOP-led process was an ‘illusion’ | Orlando Sentinel

Long before the first public maps were released, critics say Florida Republican political operatives were creating an “illusion” of non-partisanship over the once-a-decade redistricting process with a “wink and a nudge toward their collaborators in the Legislature.” That illusion was outed Tuesday when the Florida Supreme Court released thousands of pages of emails, testimony and sealed court records related to the GOP political consulting firm Data Targeting, which was at the center of the two-year legal fight over lawmakers’ attempts to implement anti-gerrymandering reforms passed by voters. The Gainesville-based company’s president, Pat Bainter, has been fighting to block the release of over 500 pages of emails, maps and other records from 2011 and 2012. The records provide some insight into the lengths to which the political operatives went to influence the 2012 redistricting process in which the Legislature had been tasked for the first time with drawing new legislative and congressional maps without partisan intent.

Florida: Redistricting records unsealed; revealing apparent scheme to funnel maps through members of the public to conceal the origins | Florida Times-Union

Previously secret testimony and documents about the 2012 redistricting process, released Tuesday by the Florida Supreme Court, provide the most detailed information yet about an alleged plan by Republican political consultants to funnel maps through members of the public to conceal the origins. The effort itself is not a surprise; revelations at a redistricting trial about a map submitted under the name of former Florida State University student Alex Posada had already indicated some maps submitted through the Legislature’s system to gather public ideas were not drawn by the people whose names were attached to them. But the records and testimony released Tuesday provide the clearest view yet of the breadth of the scheme and how the consultants tried to explain it away. “The documents that these political operatives worked so hard to hide from the public, along with their testimony given in closed proceedings, reveal in great detail how they manipulated the public process to achieve their partisan objectives,” said David King, a lawyer for voting-rights organizations challenging the state’s congressional districts.

Louisiana: Early voting days will not be extended after judge denies state representative’s motion | The Times-Picayune

Early voting will not be extended after 19th Judicial District Court judge Todd Hernandez denied part of motion by state Rep. Marcus Hunter, D-Monroe, filed earlier Tuesday. Early voting will be closed Thursday for Thanksgiving and Friday for Acadian Day. Hunter asked for a temporary restraining order to keep Sec. of State Tom Schedler from closing registrar offices Friday so that the early voting period would be open longer. Hernandez denied that motion, but he did set a hearing date for Dec. 4 to hear the merits of the original motion. By then, the early voting period would have closed. The general election is just two days later on Saturday, Dec. 6.

North Carolina: New election law blocked as many as 50,000 would-be voters this fall | Facing South

New voting restrictions and poll workers’ unpreparedness and confusion kept somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 eligible North Carolinians from voting in this fall’s general election. That’s the conclusion of a new report from Democracy North Carolina. The voting rights watchdog analyzed 500 reports from poll monitors in 38 counties and 1,400 calls to a voter assistance hotline to come up with its estimate, which does not include the thousands of people who might have voted before Election Day if the law had not cut the early voting period by a full week. The report found that most of the problems were due to three changes made by the law passed last year by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Gov. Pat McCrory: the repeal of same-day registration, which allowed qualified citizens to register and vote during the early voting period; the repeal of out-of-precinct voting, which allowed people to cast a valid provisional ballot at different polling sites in their county on Election Day; and the repeal of straight-party voting, which created backlogs at polling places and led to long waits for many. (Read the full report, which includes examples of specific challenges faced by voters, online here.)

North Carolina: Voting machine problems do not change election outcome | WRAL

Supreme Court Associate Justice Cheri Beasley won her re-election campaign against Forsyth County lawyer Mike Robinson despite vote tabulation errors discovered in several counties throughout the state. Beasley won by more than 5,000 votes in a race where more than 2.4 million votes were cast. Recount results, which the State Board of Elections certified during a teleconference meeting Tuesday, showed Robinson picked up a net of 17 votes across the state. Robinson has told State Board of Elections officials that he has conceded and will not seek a further recount. While the overall vote swing was not enough to make a meaningful dent in the election total, changes in Davidson, Lenoir and Wilson counties, all of which use touch-screen voting equipment, involved eye-catching totals of several hundred votes each. In Davidson County, Beasley picked up 520 votes and Robinson gained 884 votes since the time county elections officials originally canvassed votes. The problem, elections officials there say, was a faulty media card used to store and transfer votes from a touch-screen machine.

North Dakota: Voter ID proposals in the works to tweak law | Grand Forks Herald

The North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office and Grand Forks Democratic lawmakers are drafting separate bills to tweak the state’s voter identification law. The proposed legislation comes after reports of people being turned away from the polls on Election Day due to identification problems. This year marked the first major election since North Dakota passed a law in 2013 that removed the option to sign an affidavit, allowing voters who didn’t have proper ID to swear under the penalty of law that they are eligible to vote. Jim Silrum, deputy secretary of state, said Friday a proposed bill would allow someone with an acceptable North Dakota ID that doesn’t have an up-to-date address to use things like a bank statement, bill or U.S. Postal Service change of address form dated 30 days prior to the election to show a current address. “The legislation being drafted is trying to provide an option for those individuals that have not (updated their identification), that they can fall back on something else,” Secretary of State Al Jaeger said. “This is what we heard (and) this is how we’re trying to respond to address those situations.”

Ohio: Conservative and liberal groups agree Ohio’s redistricting process is ‘badly broken’ | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A conservative think tank and liberal advocacy group usually at odds with each other are on the same page on one issue — redistricting reform. State legislators are considering proposals to change how Ohio draws its congressional and legislative boundaries, a process that has become bitterly hyperpartisan as the party in power draws lines favoring their incumbents. Opportunity Ohio CEO Matt Mayer and ProgressOhio Executive Director Sandy Theis released a joint statement Tuesday calling on Ohio lawmakers to adopt “meaningful redistricting reform” by June 2015. “This reform must eliminate the gerrymandering of congressional and state legislative districts, which is more about empowering political parties and less about empowering voters,” Mayer and Theis said.

Oregon: Vote tally too close, recount ordered on Oregon GMO labeling | Reuters

The final vote tally on an Oregon ballot measure that would require labeling of foods made with genetically modified ingredients was so close that state officials are doing a recount, a spokesman for the state said on Tuesday. Final results show the Oregon measure losing by 812 votes out of a total of more than 1.5 million votes, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. “State law says that if the margin is no more than one-fifth of 1 percent of the total votes cast in that election…then there shall be an automatic hand recount,” said Tony Green, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. The recount is to take place Dec. 2-12, he said.

Bahrain: Widespread unrest continues in Bahrain | Al Bawaba

Bahrani troops have attacked people protesting the Al Khalifa regime security forces’ storming of a prominent cleric’s home, amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent. On Tuesday, the regime’s forces used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse protesters gathered on the streets of Diraz and Sadad, denouncing the raid on the house of Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Ahmed Qassem on Saturday. Witnesses said the regime forces took photos of the ID cards of all those present in the house in Diraz, west of the capital Manama.

India: Thousands vote in Indian Kashmir amid boycott call | Associated Press

Thousands of Kashmiris cast votes in state elections Tuesday despite a boycott call by Muslim separatist groups that reject India’s sovereignty over the disputed Himalayan region. Voter turnout was high at 70 percent despite cold temperatures and overcast skies, the Election Commission said. It described the first phase of the elections as “flawless” with no incidents marring the polls. Paramilitary soldiers and police officers patrolled near polling stations. Long lines of voters stretched around polling booths in Ganderbal and Bandipora, north of the main city of Srinagar.

Namibia: Polls face legal challenge by opposition | News24

Three opposition parties brought an urgent application before the Windhoek High Court on Tuesday requesting it to postpone Friday’s parliamentary and presidential elections. “We ask the court to direct the electoral commission to stop the use of electronic voting machines [EVMs] as they do not produce a verifiable paper trail for every vote cast by the voter,” the first applicant, August Maletzky, asked Judge Kobus Miller. “We further ask the court to declare a section of the recently promulgated new elections act, which allows to suspend certain clauses of the new act and to direct the commission to conduct free and fair elections in February 2015,” Maletzky added. Elections are slated for this coming Friday, when 1.24 million eligible voters will elect a new government.

Editorials: Catalonia wants a definitive vote on its future in a referendum like Scotland’s | Artur Mas/The Irish Times

The right to vote is one of the most prized rights in any democracy. All the other rights are more or less a direct consequence of the opportunity that citizens are granted to express their opinion on important subjects through their votes. In Catalonia there is a broad majority of citizens who want to vote and decide the political future of this territory in terms of it remaining a part of Spain or becoming an independent state. For this reason, on November 9th, 2,305,290 people voted in a singular and exemplary participatory process. It was singular because it took place despite the clear opposition of the Spanish government. It was also singular because it took place in the midst of a professional cyber-attack with clear political intentions, which also placed at risk the basic services provided to citizens by the Catalan government. And singular because the Spanish government tried by every means possible to scare citizens away from voting with legal threats.

Tunisia: Runoff Will Decide President of Tunisia | New York Times

Tunisia’s first democratic presidential election will be decided in a runoff next month between the two leading candidates, President Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi, a former prime minister, the election board announced on Tuesday. Preliminary results of the first round, held on Sunday, showed Mr. Essebsi in first place with 39.46 percent of the vote, and Mr. Marzouki second with 33.43 percent. The two front-runners will face each other in a runoff because no candidate secured a majority in the race. Given that only six percentage points separated them in the first round, the runoff may well be a closer contest than expected. It has already reopened the deep divisions in Tunisian society between secularists and Islamists and could frustrate hopes of a national unity government between the two main blocs in Parliament: Mr. Essebsi’s party, Nidaa Tounes, and the main Islamist party, Ennahda.

National: Southern states look to regional 2016 primary | Associated Press

On the gridiron, it takes a team to win, and some elected officials around the South are looking to band together rather than brawl over the 2016 presidential primaries. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp is among those pushing a regional March 1, 2016 contest known as the “SEC Primary,” named after the Southeastern Conference and would include states like Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi and possibly Alabama and Louisiana. “As someone who went to the University of Georgia and lives in Athens and understands how powerful the Southeastern Conference is in football today, that is exactly what we want to be when it comes to presidential politics,” Kemp said. Although the state primaries would be held for each party, much of the focus would be on the large group of Republican presidential contenders expected to vie for the nomination.

National: Democratic group to file complaint against GOP for ‘secret’ Twitter accounts | CNN

A Democratic group says it will file a formal complaint with federal regulators against three Republican organizations after a CNN investigation revealed that they shared internal polling data before the midterm elections by posting the information on anonymous Twitter accounts. The liberal advocacy group American Democracy Legal Fund alleged in a complaint meant to be filed Monday to the Federal Election Commission that the National Republican Congressional Committee, the American Action Network and American Crossroads broke federal rules that prohibit coordination between campaign committees and outside groups. “The NRCC and outside groups appear to have engaged in illegal coordination through sharing internal polling data,” according to the complaint, which was provided to CNN by American Democracy Legal Fund. “By hiding their communications on a public website, Respondents intentionally tried to create a loophole in the coordination rules. Such an intentional effort to knowingly flout campaign finance laws cannot be condoned.”

Arizona: Barber-McSally ballot flight unleashes flood of records requests | Arizona Daily Star

The fight to count some, if not all, of the 479 rejected provisional ballots cast in Congressional District 2 continues here in Pima County, with all indications it is headed for the courtroom. Legal teams representing the Ron Barber and Martha McSally campaigns have flooded the Pima County Recorder’s Office, making more than two dozen requests for public documents. Attorneys are also calling those who cast provisional ballots, asking them to offer up their stories that led to their ballots being rejected, and to sign declarations, likely to be used in future legal proceedings. Both campaigns have refused to discuss their legal strategies. But the requests seem to have set the stage that both sides are at least preparing to file legal challenges in Pima County. The requests have created a near constant din in County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez’s offices as her staff moves boxes, shuffles paperwork and feeds copiers to comply with the mounting requests.

Arizona: Barber sues to count 133 votes in McSally race | The Arizona Republic

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Barber filed suit in U.S. District Court Monday, seeking to count the ballots of 133 voters his campaign contends were disenfranchised in the congressional race against Republican Martha McSally. McSally has a razor-thin lead of 161 votes, out of more than 219,000 cast in the 2nd District race. A recount is scheduled for after Dec. 1, but it will be delayed if Barber’s legal challenge is heard by the courts. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop the state from certifying the results of the election on Dec. 1, less than a week away. Rodd McLeod, a campaign consultant for Barber, said a time or place for the hearing has not been set. Pima and Cochise counties last week rejected calls from the Barber campaign to delay certifying votes in those counties and examine disputed ballots. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett and the Pima and Cochise boards of supervisors are named in the suit, along with “all those acting in concert with them or under their direction.”

Florida: Scott orders special election for Tampa House seat | The Tampa Tribune

As expected, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday ordered a special election for the vacant seat in Florida’s House District 64 for Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The special primary election will be Feb. 10, with a special general election set for April 21. That means nearly 158,000 district residents won’t have representation in the state House of Representatives for the bulk of next year’s legislative session, which runs March 3-May 1. The move also potentially resets the field, with a new – though abbreviated – round of candidate qualifying set for 8 a.m. Dec. 15-noon Dec. 16. The previous incumbent, Republican Jamie Grant, on Monday said he will again file to run. He’s represented the district, covering northwest Hillsborough and eastern Pinellas, since 2010. His GOP challenger, Tampa engineer Miriam Steinberg, was less sure she would run again. In non-binding Nov. 4 results, Grant had won with 59.5 percent of the vote.

Kansas: Lawmakers study moving municipal elections | Salina Journal

A legislative committee is looking into changing the way municipal elections are conducted in Kansas to boost turnout. Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center, believes it’s time to abandon the system of holding city and school board races on a different cycle than federal and state races. He wants to combine municipal elections with higher-profile November races that generate larger turnout, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. “Plain and simple, turnout for the current system is pitiful, and it gets worse every two years,” Huebert said. “We need to either figure out a way to increase turnout for the current system or move the elections.” In the past five years, at least 10 municipal election bills have been offered. Some have proposed merging municipal races with state and federal races in even-numbered years while others have proposed holding them in November of odd-numbered years. And some have even proposed making them partisan races.

Oregon: Food label measure headed for recount | Associated Press

Statewide vote totals released Monday show an Oregon ballot measure that would require labeling of genetically modified foods was losing by a mere 809 votes and will go to an automatic recount. Results from all 36 counties three weeks after Election Day showed Measure 92 was defeated by a margin of only 0.06 percentage point, well under the 0.2 percent threshold for a recount. A hand tally of ballots is likely to begin the first week in December after Secretary of State Kate Brown certifies the election results, formally triggering the recount. Oregon is the fourth state in the West to reject a labeling requirement for genetically modified foods, but it was the closest tally yet. “Regardless of what the final outcome of this race is, this is a very encouraging sign for those of us who support labeling of genetically engineered foods,” said Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for the campaign promoting the measure. Machine counts are subject to a small margin of error, Kaushik said, and with such a razor-thin vote difference, “there is a plausible possibility that the outcome of this race will change.”

Texas: Election Season Headed for Overtime | The Texas Tribune

The Texas Legislature will start the 2015 session with a handful of empty chairs and unfinished elections. State Senator Glenn Hegar, a Republican, was elected state comptroller of public accounts, and Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio resigned after President Obama appointed him to be secretary of housing and urban development. Let the spree begin. State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, having lost the race for lieutenant governor, is running for mayor of her hometown. Representative Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, was just elected to another term in the House but wants the job Van de Putte is seeking. Representative Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican who also won re-election, is running for Hegar’s Senate seat. Representatives José Menéndez and Trey Martinez Fischer, both San Antonio Democrats, are eyeing Van de Putte’s Senate seat.

Virginia: Almost 800 cast provisional ballots because of voter ID law | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Election officials say that almost 800 Virginia voters cast provisional ballots on the Nov. 4 elections because they lacked valid identification under the state’s new photo ID law. “Localities are still entering provisional ballot information into the system, but so far, about half of these ballots were accepted and half rejected,” Edgardo Cortés, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections, said at a meeting of the State Board of Elections in Richmond on Monday. Cortés also called for a full review of the status of voting equipment in the state, following reports of malfunctions on Election Day in almost a dozen localities statewide. In Virginia Beach, several touch-screen voting machines were taken out of service after recording votes intended for Rep. Scott Rigell, R-2nd, as votes for his Democratic opponent Suzanne Patrick. Cortés said Monday that foul play was an unlikely cause for the malfunctions.

Bahrain: Polls close in boycotted Bahrain elections | Al Jazeera

Bahrainis have voted in legislative elections, the first since 2011 street protests, but the Shia opposition that led the pro-democracy movement did not take part in the vote. The government kept polling centres open for two more hours than planned, until 19:00 GMT, due to the massive voter turnout. The turnout is no more than 30 percent and 80 percent of the voters are military and government personnel in the security and public sector. Sheikh Ali Salman, general secretary of the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society The Gulf state’s electorate of almost 350,000 were called to choose 40 deputies, with most of the 266 candidates being Sunnis. Al-Wefaq, the main opposition group, warned that failure by the kingdom’s rulers to loosen their grip on power could trigger a surge in violence.

Poland: Opposition leader insists local election results ‘unreliable’ | Polskie Radio