Voting Blogs: Court Rulings Impact Elections in 2014 | The Canvass

Users of a different kind of gavel have been busy setting rules for voters and election administrators in 2014. Courts, and not legislatures, have been the major force shaping state election laws this year, with some key rulings landing just days before voters headed to the polling places. And it’s not just district circuit justices who have been asked to rule on litigation about photo ID requirements for voters, early voting and same-day voter registration. Several notable rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court this year have addressed how elections are run. And some of those decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court have hardly settled election matters. The brief court orders in a few October cases— often two sentences— have addressed simply the timing of changes to the elections process; these cases are still to be decided on their merits by the courts with jurisdiction.

Editorials: The Racist Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement | Brent Staples/New York Times

The state laws that barred nearly six million people with felony convictions from voting in the midterm elections this month date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Southern lawmakers were working feverishly to neutralize the black electorate. Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and cross burnings were effective weapons in this campaign. But statutes that allowed correctional systems to arbitrarily and permanently strip large numbers of people of the right to vote were a particularly potent tool in the campaign to undercut African-American political power. This racially freighted system has normalized disenfranchisement in the United States — at a time when our peers in the democratic world rightly see it as an aberration. It has also stripped one in every 13 black persons of the right to vote — a rate four times that of nonblacks nationally. At the same time, it has allowed disenfranchisement to move beyond that black population — which makes up 38 percent of those denied the vote — into the body politic as a whole. One lesson here is that punishments designed for one pariah group can be easily expanded to include others as well. The history of disenfranchisement was laid out in a fascinating 2003 study by Angela Behrens, Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza. They found that state felony bans exploded in number during the late 1860s and 1870s, particularly in the wake of the Fifteenth Amendment, which ostensibly guaranteed black Americans the right to vote. They also found that the larger the state’s black population, the more likely the state was to pass the most stringent laws that permanently denied people convicted of crimes the right to vote. These bans were subsequently strengthened as the Jim Crow era began to take hold.

Editorials: The SCOTUS Should Reject Alabama’s Legislative Districts | Jim Sleeper/The Washington Monthly

With roughly 80% of Alabama whites voting Republican and 90% of African-Americans voting Democrat, it’s been easy for the state’s legislative leaders to deny they had any explicitly racial intent in compressing black voters into a few electoral districts and “whitening” the neighboring districts to elect more Republicans. Districting along party lines is the prerogative of whatever party controls the process, and if citizens are voting in racial blocs, what can a loyal Republican or Democrat line-drawer do but follow that pattern — and perhaps even intensify it when “voting rights” laws facilitate the design of “majority-minority” districts to enhance non-white voters’ opportunities to elect “candidates of their choice”? That’s the gist of Alabama’s defense this week in a suit brought by the state’s Legislative Black Caucus. The Supreme Court must decide whether the line-drawers acted racially, and therefore unconstitutionally, or for purely partisan purposes. But poor leadership on both sides of this question has intensified racial polarization even when voters have tried to transcend it, even in the Deep South. The Court should rebuff line-drawers in a way that points beyond both racialism and partisanship in districting.

Arizona: Barber’s bid to delay vote canvass rejected | Arizona Republic

Lawyers for U.S. Rep. Ron Barber asked Pima County on Tuesday to delay finalizing the canvass of the Nov. 4 election, with the campaign saying it had sworn statements from 132 voters that they were disenfranchised by poll-worker errors. Pima County rejected the request and finalized the canvass of votes at midday Tuesday. Barber, a Democrat, is locked in one of the closest elections in Arizona history with Republican challenger Martha McSally, whose lead in the race is a minuscule 161 votes out of more than 219,000 cast. If nothing changes, the race will head to Arizona’s first-ever general-election recount for Congress. A recount will not start before Dec. 1.

District of Columbia: Election Over, Workers Keep Counting Ballots — Thousands Of Them | WAMU

“It’s exhausting.” That’s how Clifford Tatum, the executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections, describes the work that has taken place after the Nov. 4 general election. Though the campaign signs are coming down, public attention has shifted away and most of the top-ticket races — mayor, attorney general, D.C. Council seats, the marijuana legalization initiative — were settled after votes were tallied on election night, work has since continued for Tatum and his staff. That’s because as with every election, the elections board is charged with counting every ballot that’s properly cast. The bulk of those come during early voting or on Election Day — 25,750 residents voted early, while 125,606 voted on Nov. 4. But for those residents living outside the city, or those who fall into a number of categories that may require that they vote using a special — or provisional — ballot, their votes are counted in the two weeks following the election. For the general election, that adds up to a lot of ballots — close to 6,000 absentee ballots and over 20,000 special ballots.

Florida: Drive to restore voting rights for ex-felons coming to Florida? | SaintPetersBlog

A coalition of groups in Florida are preparing to try to get a constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot in Florida that would restore the voting rights of most individuals with past felony convictions upon completion of their sentence. These groups include the ACLU of Florida, the League of Women Voters, Faith in Florida and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.  The proposed constitutional amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense. The state’s current policy regarding ex-felons was an issue that Charlie Crist occasionally discussed during the recent gubernatorial campaign. When he took office after being elected in 2007, the then Republican governor was able to persuade a majority of the Florida Cabinet to change the policy to provide ex-offenders convicted of less serious offenses the right to regain their rights without a hearing, while those convicted of crimes such as murder required a more thorough investigation and a hearing. But that was repealed in 2011, when newly elected Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the process was too easy for released felons.  Shortly after she made those comments, she and the rest of the Cabinet scrapped the process and set a minimum of a five-year waiting period.

Florida: State House rejects elections returns for District 64 | Miami Herald

Residents of Carrollwood, Citrus Park, Oldsmar and Safety Harbor won’t have a representative in the Florida House — for now, at least. State lawmakers voted Tuesday to throw out the results of the House District 64 election, creating a vacancy in that district. Gov. Rick Scott is expected to call a special election. State Rep. Jamie Grant, R-Tampa, had already raised questions about the integrity of the Nov. 4 contest, which he won comfortably. Earlier this month, he pointed out that an appellate judge deemed the election unconstitutional. “You can’t send a candidate to Tallahassee to office on the back of an election that was deemed unconstitutional,” he told the Herald/Times.

Illinois: Illinois treasurer’s race close; Kirk seeks probe | Associated Press

The race for state treasurer remains undecided nearly two weeks after Election Day, with both campaigns agreeing fewer than 400 votes now separate the candidates in what could be the closest statewide race in Illinois in at least a century. The remarkably slim margin seems to point to a recount under an untested law put in place after the previously close-contest champ, the 1982 battle for governor. The match is rife with charges of “voting irregularities and ballot mishandling” in Chicago, prompting Illinois’ Republican U.S. senator call for an investigation Monday. Election officials have until Tuesday to finish counting ballots from the Nov. 4 election, including in the treasurer’s race between Republican Tom Cross and Democrat Mike Frerichs. Neither side was talking about recounts Monday, saying they’re waiting for all the votes to be counted. “Everyone knew that this was going to be a very close election. Mike’s been coming from behind the whole time,” said Dave Clarkin, spokesman for Frerichs, a state senator from Champaign. “Now we’re all just doing whatever we can to monitor everything closely.”

Illinois: Danville election official, criticized over absentee ballots, opts for retirement | News-Gazette

Almost three weeks after local Republicans called for the firing of Danville Election Commission Director Barbara Dreher for counting absentee ballots early, she has decided to retire. Dreher said Monday that she was planning to retire next year or the year after, but the election commission board members decided they couldn’t support her any more. She said she’s over the age of 60 and has more than 22 years of employment with Vermilion County, including the last 10 leading the election commission, so she will retire effective Dec. 1. But her last day will be today as she has vacation and personal time to use, she said. “I don’t need this,” said Dreher, adding that this election was very stressful with all the changes in voting times, policies and procedures. Barb Bailey, who is chairman of the three commissioners who oversee the election commission office, said Monday that she and the other two commissioners, Tom Mellen and Charles Bostic, knew this was coming. Bailey did not confirm whether the commissioners asked Dreher to resign but said that they felt Dreher’s leaving “was best.”

Iowa: Upgrades for Iowa voting system sought | Sioux City Journal

Newly elected Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said Tuesday he is anxious to make changes to improve the state’s voting system. He expects the upgrades will require money and new technology to achieve. Pate is a former state senator who served as secretary of state from 1995 to 1999 and defeated Democrat Brad Anderson in the Nov. 4 election. He said he wants to expand use of computer-based poll books used in 66 counties to move voters through polling places more quickly and strengthen election security. Under his plan, Pate would tie the voter registration data to the Iowa Department of Transportation driver’s license database, which includes a bar code, photo and signature for additional verification. “It won’t happen overnight, but it has to happen,” said Pate, who discussed his ideas with about 30 Polk County Republicans at a breakfast meeting Tuesday.

Kentucky: Rand Paul’s ballot time-bomb: Why he may have to sue to run for president | Salon

OK, sure, there’s little doubt that Rand Paul is going to win the next presidential election by a 538-0 electoral vote margin. But there’s maybe .000001 percent possibility he won’t that we can’t fully rule out. He could lose the general election, for example, if the Democrat Party Voter Fraud Machine tries to steal it. He could also lose to one of the other ~35 Republican presidential candidates in the primary. And then what does he do? Go home to Kentucky and be a boring old eye doctor for the rest of his life? He’d probably like to return to the Senate, where he’s up for reelection in 2016. This is the problem. Kentucky law states that “no candidate’s name shall appear on any voting machine or absentee ballot more than once.” That means that on May 17, 2016, the day of the Kentucky primary, Rand Paul cannot be a candidate in both the presidential primary and Senate primary. Kentucky Republicans had hoped to change this law. The Republican-controlled state Senate has already passed a bill to allow Paul to run for both. But Republicans failed to win control of the state House on election night, and the Democratic House speaker, Greg Stumbo, has blocked the bill. He claims “the state constitution bars lawmakers from passing ‘special legislation’ that would benefit only one person.” He added, a bit more to the point: “I’m not a fan of Sen. Paul, and I’m not eager to see my country turned over to him.”

Mississippi: Unused Hinds ballot money paid for counting machine | Clarion-Ledger

Instead of spending county-appropriated money on the required number of ballots for Hinds County residents to vote in multiple elections, the Hinds County Election Commission purchased a new absentee vote counting machine. While county officials said Tuesday the purchase of the machine was approved by both the county budget office and the board of supervisors, many residents were unable to vote Nov. 4 because of a shortage in ballots. The Hinds County Board of Supervisors asked county attorneys Monday to investigate the actions of Hinds County Election Commission Chairwoman Connie Cochran after she admitted to not ordering the number of ballots required by state law for any of the past four county-wide elections. In defense, Cochran said she was “just trying to save the county money.”

Oregon: 94 percent of people haven’t fixed their ballots | Statesman Journal

Ninety-four percent of the Oregonians with problem ballots have yet to fix theirs, and the deadline to do so is Tuesday evening. That may not seem like a lot, but 6 percent — or 752 people — is significantly more ballot corrections than the Secretary of State normally sees following an election, spokesman Tony Green said. Only about 2 percent of people usually correct their ballot. Their ballots had a signature that didn’t match what their county clerk had on file. Why the bump in signature fixes? It’s likely due to the fact that for the first time the Secretary of State’s Office made the “challenged ballot” list public before the deadline.

Poland: Vote returns delayed by computer glitch | Associated Press

A computer system failure is delaying returns from Poland’s local elections while exit polls suggest the nationalist opposition winning in the countryside and the ruling party taking the big cities. Based on exit polls, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has congratulated the opposition Law and Justice party for its apparent victory before the 2015 general election. The State Electoral Commission said Monday that the computer problem has been fixed, but it wasn’t clear when the full returns would be known.

Romania: Second Minister resigns over expat vote fiasco | Associated Press

Romania’s foreign minister resigned Tuesday, after barely a week in office, after thousands of citizens overseas were unable to vote in this weekend’s presidential elections. Teodor Melescanu stepped down following the weekend’s runoff vote. His predecessor resigned last week after similar problems with the first-round vote. Images have poured in of Romanians standing in snaking lines to vote all over Europe. Anger at the problems contributed to the surprise victory of Klaus Iohannis over Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Reacting to public anger, Parliament’s lower chamber on Tuesday scrapped a controversial draft amnesty law that would have freed politicians and other officials serving prison sentences for corruption.

Solomon Islands: Islanders journey to home electorates for landmark election | ABC

People have been travelling for the past two days and nights, making huge journeys back to their constituencies to vote. Absentee voting is not permitted in the November 19 elections, so people from the outer islands must travel to their home provinces to place their ballots. Bransby was standing on the jetty in Honiara, as hundreds of voters queued for boats for days and nights, to return home to exercise their democratic rights. This will be Solomon Islands’ first general election since the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) military personnel left the country late last year.

Tunisia: Two presidential candidates pull out in the same day | Middle East Eye

Two Tunisian politicians pulled out of the country’s upcoming presidential elections scheduled to take place at the end of the week on 23 November. On Monday, former central bank governor Mustapha Kamal Nabli, running as an independent, ended his presidential campaign in the northern city of Bizerte. The announcement came hours after the withdrawal of another candidate, Nourredine Hachad, a diplomat and labour minister during the rule of Zine Abidine Ben Ali, ousted in a popular uprising in 2011. Millions of Tunisians are expected to head to polling stations across the country to select a new president, the first to be elected following the overthrow of Ben Ali. The elections will take place after legislative elections were successfully held in October.

National: How the GOP used Twitter to stretch election laws | CNN.com

Republicans and outside groups used anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterm elections, CNN has learned, a practice that raises questions about whether they violated campaign finance laws that prohibit coordination. The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information, according to a source with knowledge of the activities. The practice is the latest effort in the quest by political operatives to exploit the murky world of campaign finance laws at a time when limits on spending in politics are eroding and regulators are being defanged. The law says that outside groups, such as super PACs and non-profits, can spend freely on political causes as long as they don’t coordinate their plans with campaigns. Sharing costly internal polls in private, for instance, could signal to the campaign committees where to focus precious time and resources. The groups behind the operation had a sense of humor about what they were doing. One Twitter account was named after Bruno Gianelli, a fictional character in The West Wing who pressed his colleagues to use ethically questionable “soft money” to fund campaigns. A typical tweet read: “CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52–>49/476-10s.” The source said posts like that — which would look like gibberish to most people — represented polling data for various House races. Posting the information on Twitter, which is technically public, could provide a convenient loophole to the law — or could run afoul of it.

Editorials: ‘Sweet Spot’ Elusive in Voting Case | Marcia Coyle/National Law Journal

Race and voting once again appeared to badly divide the U.S. Supreme Court as it struggled on Wednesday over what to do with an Alabama legislative redistricting plan challenged as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The justices heard expanded arguments in two consolidated cases in which the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Confer­ence contend that the Republican-led Legislature packed black voters into districts in which minority voters already comprised a majority to make other districts more white and Republican. Under Supreme Court voting rights decisions, state lawmakers cross a constitutional line if race is the predominant motive in their redistricting plans. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — before a high court ruling last year — prohibited so-called covered states, including Alabama, from drawing plans that impede minority voters’ ability to elect candidates of their choice. The combination of both directives, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. said, requires legislatures to “hit the sweet spot” between using some race in redistricting but not too much. Some justices appeared sympathetic to Alabama’s argument that it was attempting to comply with the Voting Rights Act and other requirements for drawing constitutional lines. Others said the number of black voters shifted into majority-black districts told a very different story. And some suggested the case ought to be sent back to the district court to determine the motive behind each legislative district.

Alaska: Unity ticket defeats Alaska GOP Gov. Sean Parnell in drawn-out race | Los Angeles Times

A novel unity ticket featuring independent Bill Walker and Democrat Byron Mallott has defeated Republican Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska in an election so excruciatingly close that its outcome was not known until 10 days after the polls closed. As of late Friday, Alaska elections officials said Walker and Mallott’s ticket received 47.9% of the vote to 46% for the incumbent Parnell. That amounted to a margin of less than 4,700 votes out of almost 270,000 cast. The Associated Press called the race late Friday. The campaign itself was unusual: Mallott had won the Democratic nomination earlier this year, but he and Walker deduced that a three-person race would be won by Parnell, so the two formed a unity ticket.

Arizona: US justices could toss legislative maps in Arizona | Arizona Daily Star

The fact that politics may have been involved in drawing new legislative district lines is no reason to declare them illegal, the attorney for the Independent Redistricting Commission told the U.S. Supreme Court. In legal arguments to the court, Mary O’Grady does not dispute that two federal judges found that some of the commissioners altered the boundaries of at least one district to make it more politically competitive, a move that would give Democratic candidates a better chance of getting elected. And O’Grady conceded the final map for the 30 districts had a population differential of 8.8 percent between the largest and smallest, despite requirements for equal population. But she said the full commission approved the plan not out of partisan motives but because the panel believed it would provide the best chance of complying with the federal Voting Rights Act. That law generally prohibits political changes that dilute minority voting strength. And that, she told the justices, justifies the changes, as well as the population differential. The effort by challengers to void the map is more than a debate about legal niceties.

Connecticut: Panel Studying Hartford Elections Begins Seeking Documents, Witnesses | Hartford Courant

A committee formed to investigate problems that delayed voting at some city polls on Election Day is seeking records and will conduct interviews in an effort to learn what went wrong. The committee, composed of six council members — five voting and one non-voting — held its first meeting Monday. It pledged to review documents, conduct “informal” interviews and schedule formal proceedings, though members did not say when each would occur. Attorney Ross Garber, one of two lawyers helping the panel on a voluntary basis, said he and others are “in the process getting documents now.” He declined to specify what the committee has requested, though the probe is expected to focus on the Hartford voter registrars office. Garber said the panel would conduct an “expeditious investigation.” “We intend to be thorough and fair and follow the facts,” he said.

Illinois: Treasurer race, less than 400 votes apart, could lead to recount | The State Journal-Register

The race for state treasurer remains undecided nearly two weeks after Election Day, with both campaigns agreeing fewer than 400 votes now separate the candidates in what could be the closest statewide race in Illinois in at least a century. The remarkably slim margin seems to point to a recount under an untested law put in place after the previously close-contest champ, the 1982 battle for governor. The match is rife with charges of “voting irregularities and ballot mishandling” in Chicago, prompting Illinois’ Republican U.S. senator call for an investigation Monday. Election officials have until Tuesday to finish counting ballots from the Nov. 4 election, including in the treasurer’s race between Republican Tom Cross and Democrat Mike Frerichs. Neither side was talking about recounts Monday, saying they’re waiting for all the votes to be counted.

Michigan: Not Much Enthusiasm For Michigan Electoral Vote Change Proposal | WEMU

A plan to change the way Michigan awards its electoral votes for president got largely panned at a state House hearing on Monday. The legislation would award up to seven of the state’s 16 Electoral College votes to the presidential runner-up in Michigan. The number of votes they get would depend on how close the popular vote is. Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who directs the nonpartisan Michigan Center for Election Law, admits the current winner-take-all electoral system is not ideal. “So reform is needed, but not this reform,” she told the state House Elections and Ethics Committee.

Mississippi: Hinds Election Snafu Could Bring Sanctions Against Commissioners | Jackson Free Press

The Hinds County supervisors are calling on the local district attorney and the state attorney general to sanction the county election commission for failure to order the number of ballots state law requires for the Nov. 4 general election. Despite only one-third of the county’s 156,000 registered voters going to the polls for the mid-term election, some precincts did have unexpectedly high turnout. Some of those polling places ran out of ballots late in the evening, which touched off a mad scramble to print more. Agitated by the long waits, some voters left without casting their ballots. Later, Connie Cochran—the chairwoman of the Hinds County Election Commission—admitted that the commission failed to follow a state law mandating that enough ballots be printed for 75 percent of registered voters. Cochran took responsibility for making the call to save the county money.

Ohio: Redistricting proposal would give majority party more power, critics say | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Critics say new proposals intended to make Ohio’s process for drawing congressional and legislative district lines less partisan would actually make gerrymandering worse. Rep. Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, introduced a pair of resolutions last week intended to amplify minority party members’ voices on the panels that draw the lines. Dan Tokaji, a law professor at OSU’s Moritz College of Law, said the proposals also remove safeguards that allow Ohio citizens and public officials to challenge newly drawn district maps. Tokaji said the resolutions don’t allow a citizen-initiated referendum or a governor’s veto of the congressional map approved by state lawmakers. “This will ensure the majority party can ram through the plan they want without any votes from the minority party and any realistic plan of it being reversed,” Tokaji told reporters Monday.

South Dakota: Complaints surface about fall election | Argus Leader

The Minnehaha County Commission pushed off until Nov. 18 a review of the general election, marked by ballot counting that did not conclude until the next morning and questions about why some voters received incorrect ballots. Three people didn’t want to wait. They used the public comment portion of a commission meeting Wednesday to voice complaints and observations about the election. Commissioners listened to the testimony but did not comment. Lori Stacey, head of South Dakota’s Constitution Party, brought a broadly focused indictment of the election to commissioners’ attention. She claimed two of her party’s candidates, Curtis Strong, who planned to run for governor and Charles Haan who was going to run for the U.S. House, were incorrectly denied a place on the ballot. Having faced no primary opposition, they should have automatically been on the general election ballot, Stacey said. Instead, Secretary of State Jason Gant and Attorney General Marty Jackley ruled those candidates did not meet the threshold of petition signatures necessary to get on the ballot.

US Virgin Islands: Counting comes to an end in time for runoff | Virgin Islands Daily News

With the certification of the 2014 General Election accomplished in both districts on Saturday, the V.I. Elections System received the final numbers in each of last week’s races, which will require a runoff election in the gubernatorial race that has been scheduled for Tuesday. Voters across the territory went to the polls Nov. 4 and cast votes for senators, delegate to Congress and members of their district boards of elections, and they also were tasked with selecting from among five candidate teams who they wanted as the next governor and lieutenant governor of the territory. By the end of the tabulations Saturday, the ticket of Kenneth Mapp and Osbert Potter had garnered more of the popular votes. However, they still had not received the 50 percent of the votes plus one that would make them an outright winner under local law.

Pakistan: Election Commission says it cannot give final opinion on electronic voting | Dawn

The Election Commission of Pakistan told the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms on Monday that in the absence of a permanent Chief Election Commissioner it cannot give a final opinion on whether the electronic voting machines (EVMs) should be used or not to make the electoral process transparent in future. Briefing reporters after a meeting of the sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, its convener Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid said the meeting had been informed that the use of EVMs would not alone ensure a perfect and transparent election. He said about 270,000 EVMs would be required for a general election and each would cost between Rs60,000 and Rs70,000.

Editorials: Romania’s Election Surprise Came From Abroad | Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg

The unexpected victory of the opposition candidate Klaus Johannis in Romania’s presidential election yesterday  is an important development — not just for Romania, but for the European Union as a whole. Migration within the union, which has led to the rise of anti-EU political groups in some wealthier nations, including the U.K., is paying off: It is helping nations on the periphery such as Romania adopt the best practices of  the older, core democracies. In the first round of the vote, Prime Minister Victor Ponta beat Johannis, the center-right mayor of the Transylvanian town of Sibiu. Johannis, an ethnic German, didn’t appear likely to prevail in the run-off. He is Lutheran, and not Orthodox Christian like most Romanians, and he ran a rather boring campaign. The election, however, was marred by complaints from Romanians abroad who had trouble casting their ballots. There were long lines at polling stations in Italy and Spain, where Romanians are the biggest immigrant group, as well as in France and the U.K., which also have large Romanian populations.