Voting Blogs: The Election Performance Index and Election Reform: The Early Returns Are Promising | Heather Gerken/Election Law Blog

I want to offer a brief response to Rick Hasen’s post about the release of Pew’s 2012 Election Performance Index.  Now that we can assess state performance across two comparable elections, he asks an excellent question:  Will we see states trying to improve their performance?  I suggested as much in my book, The Democracy Index:  Why Our System is Failing and How to Fix It, where I proposed creating a ranking like the EPI. It’s only been a few days, of course, but the early returns are heartening.  States are obviously paying attention; there are lots of stories about states touting their rise in the rankings or grumbling about their scores, with more discussions happening behind the scenes. More importantly, election officials are already using the EPI to push for reform.

Arkansas: Election board approves absentee ballot rules | Associated Press

Arkansas’ Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday adopted rules for handling absentee ballots under the state’s new voter ID law despite a lawsuit that accuses the board of overstepping its authority. The rules allow an absentee voter who does not provide a proper ID when voting until noon on the Monday after the election to provide an approved form of ID — such as a copy of a driver’s license. The rules also say those absentee voters should be notified via first class mail that they must submit approved forms of identification before their votes can be counted. “What we’re doing is making sure that we’re not disenfranchising any voters,” said Republican Secretary of State Mark Martin, the chairman of the election board.

Florida: Voters are told to hold everything – yes, everything – at some polling places | Sun Sentinel

Broward and Palm Beach County voters can rest easy. Elections supervisors in the two counties say they won’t implement the restroom ban imposed by Miami-Dade County. In the state’s most populous county, voters who need to go while waiting to vote aren’t allowed to do so. The media office at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department didn’t respond to a request for information about the rule. But it’s detailed by county officials in email exchanges with a disability rights lawyer. “It’s absolutely stunning,” said Marc  Dubin director of advocacy for the Center for Independent Living of South Florida, which serves people with disabilities in Miami-Dade County. He’s a former senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was responsible for ADA enforcement. “It is a current policy of the Department of Elections. It’s in effect right now,” Dubin said.

Florida: Purchase of new voting equipment will be delayed, Manatee County elections chief says | Bradenton Herald

A purchase of high-tech digital voting equipment will be delayed until after the November election, an official said Wednesday. “We were concerned we would not have the equipment in time to train for a major election,” said Mike Bennett, Manatee County supervisor of elections. Over the past few weeks, discussions have been continuing with an Omaha, Neb., company that manufactures digital high-speed scanners and specialized equipment designed to accommodate the handicapped, but those negotiations have ended for now, he said. “We can do with what we’ve got,” explained Bennett.

Illinois: Voter protection to appear on ballot | Chicago Tribune

Illinois voters this fall will get to decide a pair of constitutional amendments on ballot protections and crime victim rights. The Senate voted today to put both questions on the Nov. 4 ballot. House Speaker Michael Madigan’s proposed constitutional amendment to protect voter rights says no person should be denied registration and voting rights based on race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language or income.

New Mexico: Sandoval County secures more voting machines for shorter waits | Albuquerque Journal News

Sandoval County appears unlikely to see a repeat of the long lines of November 2012, with a large number of voting convenience centers and voting machines lined up for this year’s primary and general elections. In October, the Albuquerque Journal reported, the county commission approved 17 voting centers in Rio Rancho and two in Corrales for the two elections the county’s Bureau of Elections will conduct in 2014. Rio Rancho had just five voting convenience centers in the 2012 general election. Various reports from that night indicated some Rio Rancho residents waited between three and five hours to vote. For the June 3 primary, the bureau expects to have 66 computer stations set up at voting centers to print ballots on-demand as voters check in. The bureau also plans to have two voting machine for counting completed ballots in each voting center, spokesman Sidney Hill said. The voting centers that consolidate the most precincts will receive the most systems for printing ballots on demand, he said.

Ohio: House passes measure to void election-spending rule | Cincinnati Enquirer

Companies, nonprofits and unions wouldn’t have to disclose when they pay for an election advertisement, and corporations with state contracts would be allowed to spend money on elections, under a provision that passed the Ohio House Wednesday. The provision would void a rule implemented by former Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that governs election spending by corporations, nonprofits and labor unions. The rule requires the groups to disclose when they spend money to advocate for or against the election of a candidate, both through a statement included in the ad and through a form filed with the secretary of state’s office. But Republicans’ main issue with the rule, a spokesman said, is its prohibition of election-related spending by corporations with state or federal government contracts within one year of their receiving money from the government. They also wanted to void the part of the rule that prohibits spending in elections by corporations with more than 20 percent ownership by non-U.S. citizens or corporations based outside the U.S.

Rhode Island: Senate committee hears pros, cons of Rhode Island voter ID law | The Providence Journal

Impassioned at times, a debate gathered force again at the State House Thursday over the law that requires Rhode Island voters to present forms of identification at elections. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard from supporters of a bill sponsored by Sen. Gayle Goldin, D-Providence, that seeks the repeal of the voter ID law and from supporters of a bill by Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, who portrayed it as balancing worries over disenfranchised voters and worries over voter fraud. Metts’ bill would add several forms of identification — including some that would not have photos — to what was slated to be allowed for voters in 2014. That includes adding credit cards, public housing cards, documents issued by a government agency, a senior citizens ID, and U.S. citizen naturalization papers. Current law, phased in since 2011, holds that with the 2014 election, photos IDs are slated to be required. “I did my best to make sure that there was a balance to address the concerns of people concerned with disenfranchisement and also those concerned with fraud,” said Metts. He said his proposal includes provisional ballots for someone who does not have an ID.

Algeria: Violence mars Algeria campaign | Magharebia

Several acts of violence marred Algeria’s presidential election campaign over the last week, as voters prepare to head to the polls April 17th. In Bouira, a representative of Ali Benflis, a serious rival to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was prevented from holding a public meeting at a cinema on Tuesday (April 8th) by a group of campaigners. That followed an incident last Saturday, when protesters in Bejaia raided a community arts centre that was supposed to host a meeting led by Abdelmalek Sellal, who was forced to call off the event. Damage to the building was estimated at 100 million dinars, according to APS. Despite the condemnations that followed the acts of violence in Bejaia, where journalists from the private TV channel Ennahar and law enforcement officers were injured, young people ran into the street in Metlili, Ghardaia at the end of a Wednesday meeting staged by Sellal. Scuffles between youths and law enforcement officers ensued. The young demonstrators accused Sellal of failing to keep promises to improve living standards that he made while serving as prime minister.

Guinea-Bissau: Guinea Bissau Holds First Vote Since Coup in Bid to Lift Economy | Bloomberg

Guinea Bissau holds presidential and legislative elections on April 13 in a bid to help restore democracy two years after a coup that thwarted a previous vote and triggered an economic slide in the former Portuguese colony. As many as 775,500 voters out of a population of 1.6 million will cast ballots in an election that was delayed twice, according to the United Nations Integrated Peace-Building Office in Guinea Bissau. There are 13 presidential candidates, while 15 parties are vying for 102 seats in parliament. Former Finance Minister Jose Mario Vaz is considered the frontrunner in the presidential vote, according to Bjorn van Wees, Africa analyst at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit. Vaz is the candidate for Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde, or PAIGC, which fought a guerrilla war against the Portuguese and took power at independence in 1974.

India: Silicon Valley is using India’s elections as a PR exercise—and it’s working | Quartz

If you lived in New Delhi and went out to vote today, you could have used Uber’s recently launched India service to get there and back for free. All you’d need to do is enter a promo code into the Uber app to get two rides worth up to Rs 1,000 ($16.60) between 7am and 7pm. You wouldn’t even need to vote. And the thing is, it actually wouldn’t make much sense to use the codes to vote—the maximum distance a voter needs to travel to get to a polling booth in Delhi is 2 km (1.25 miles), a much smaller fare. The California-based transportation network’s promotional deal may end up having the perverse effect of encouraging voters to skip voting and go see friends instead—specially since election day is a holiday in Delhi. Uber probably has good intentions, even if the execution leads to undesirable outcomes. Its Silicon Valley peers Google and Facebook are also using India’s elections as an excuse to build their brands, but their exploitation of the aura of significance that surrounds voting in the world’s largest democracy is arguably more pernicious. Those companies are using the elections to sell a beguiling myth: that the internet promotes democracy. The reality is more complicated, as the outcome of the Arab Spring has shown, and as polemical thinkers such as Evgeny Morozov have argued.

Iraq: Violence in Iraq grows as polls near | Ahram Online

A series of attacks north of Baghdad killed eight soldiers Tuesday as Iraq’s election campaign enters its 10th day, leaving many believing that efforts taken to reach across the sectarian divide have failed. Iraq’s electioneering campaign officially started 1 April marking a transition in the country’s political crisis with the vote set for 30 April. The campaigning by candidates was matched by an increase in violence in some provinces. Not only will violence affect the political stability of Iraq, it also might raise — if it has not already raised — concern in Washington over the viability of the “democratic” system they brought to Iraq via military action over 10 years ago. Iraqi analysts agree that security forces must guarantee the security of the vote so as to encourage participation. Ahmed Ali, Iraq research analyst and Iraq Team lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington DC, told Ahram Online that pre-election violence in Iraq is common and has happened in previous elections. “The groups carrying out the violence, like ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), intend to disrupt the electoral process and prevent Iraqi Sunnis in particular from participating, leading to discrediting the political process.”

National: Obama, Citing New Laws, Says the G.O.P. Is Moving to Restrict Voting Rights | New York Times

President Obama deplored on Friday what he called a Republican campaign to deny voting rights to millions of Americans as he stepped up efforts to rally his political base heading into a competitive midterm campaign season. Appearing at the annual convention of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in Manhattan, Mr. Obama accused Republicans of trying to rig the elections by making it harder for older people, women, minorities and the impoverished to cast ballots in swing states that could determine control of the Senate. “The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago,” Mr. Obama said in a hotel ballroom filled with cheering supporters, most of them African-American. “Across the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote.”

National: Get Ready for the Datapalooza of Election Performance! | American Prospect

During the brief time in the election cycle when the voting booths are actually open, we hear a lot how smoothly elections are going—where voters are waiting in long lines, where ballots are getting rejected, and the like. Elections expert Doug Chapin, who heads the University of Minnesota’s Elections Academy, calls it “anec-data”—anecdotes substituting for hard numbers.  In a presidential election, we tend to hear all about problems in swing states, since the national press corps is already there, but we’re less likely to hear about issues in Montana or Connecticut, where the election outcome is almost a foregone conclusion. Good data would make it easy to compare states’ election performance, and more importantly, let us see how states are improving or declining from one election to the next. That’s why Pew’s 2012 Elections Performance Index is a big deal. Released this week, the index uses standardized data from the U.S. Census, the Elections Assistance Commission, and a major survey to assess states on 17 different variables and judge just how well they are running their elections. Because Pew offered an index for 2008 and 2010, we can now compare two different presidential elections to actually see whether election administration is getting better or worse—rather than just guess. It’s the first time such a tool has been available. For the most part, the results are encouraging. A quick perusal shows 40 of the 50 states have improved since 2008—wait times are down an average of three minutes and online registration is spreading quickly, with 13 states offering online voter registration during the 2012 election, up from just two in 2008. (Since the election, another five states have started offering it.) Many of the top-performing states in 2008, like North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Colorado, stayed on top in 2012 while low performers, like Mississippi, Alabama, California, and New York remained at the bottom.

Florida: For Miami-Dade County, a dispute over potty breaks for voters | Miami Herald

For Miami-Dade County voters who have had to wait up to seven hours on Election Day to cast their ballots, there’s an argument over what should take priority: the call to citizenship or the call of nature. Emails from a deputy elections supervisor and an assistant county attorney say Miami-Dade voters are banned from using restrooms at polling places. But the chief deputy elections supervisor pooh-poohed the notion. Number One and Number Two are fine in publicly owned voting sites, such as libraries and city halls, where bathrooms are open for anyone to use. The problem might arise when precincts are located in private buildings, which don’t have to allow public bathroom access, or in churches and other religious facilities, which are exempt from federal law requiring accessible restrooms for people with disabilities. Elections administrators have long relied on those locations to set up Miami-Dade’s more than 500 polling places.

Kansas: ACLU lawsuit against Kobach returned to Kansas court | Associated Press

A federal judge agreed Tuesday with the American Civil Liberties Union that a state court should decide a lawsuit challenging Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s enforcement of the state’s voter-citizenship rule. The lawsuit attacks a policy Kobach said he was considering to restrict Kansans who use a national voter-registration form to casting ballots only in presidential, U.S. Senate and congressional races. The ACLU argued Kobach has no authority under Kansas law to impose the policy and it would violate voters’ right to equal legal protection under the state constitution. U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in Wichita returned the case to Shawnee County District Court, where it initially was filed in November on behalf of two voters and the gay-rights group Equality Kansas.

North Carolina: After initial hysteria, back-pedaling over North Carolina voter fraud claims | Facing South

Last week, top staff of the N.C. State Board of Elections made a presentation to legislators about the state of voter registration in North Carolina. Out of the board’s 58-page PowerPoint presentation [pdf], only two of the slides (34 and 35) related to the Interstate Crosscheck, a project run by the Kansas secretary of state to root out suspected voter fraud. But the findings of North Carolina’s involvement in Crosscheck quickly ignited a media firestorm, especially in the conservative media: “N.C. State Board Finds More than 35K Incidents of ‘Double Voting’ in 2012” trumpeted National Review. “Oh My: Audit Finds Evidence of Widespread Voter Fraud in North Carolina” blared Townhall.com. Dick Morris, the conservative comentator and former political operative, made even more wild claims, claiming in an editorial for The Hill that North Carolina’s findings offered “concrete proof that massive voter fraud might have taken place in the 2012 election, sufficiently widespread to have tainted more than 1 million votes nationwide.” As Facing South was one of the first to report, however, the North Carolina election board’s data offered little proof of rampant fraud. The 35,750 figure represented people who, when plugged into Crosscheck’s database of voter files from 28 states, had the same first name, last name and date as birth of people who had voted in other states in 2012. But many of those can be explain by clerical errors and the fact that a surprisingly large number of people in different states share the same names and birthday.

Canada: Pierre Poilievre attacks head of Elections Canada | Toronto Star

As criticism of the Conservatives’ electoral reform bill continues to mount, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre launched an attack on Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.
Poilievre said Tuesday that Mayrand, the independent head of Elections Canada appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is criticizing the so-called Fair Elections Act out of a desire for more power. “The reality is that regardless of amendments and improvements that the bill potentially will have included, the CEO will not ultimately approve it,” Poilievre said.
“(Mayrand’s) recommendations really boil down to three broad requirements for him: he wants more power, a bigger budget, and less accountability.” Poilievre also accused Mayrand of “grasping at straws” and making “astounding” claims about Bill C-23 in an attempt to scuttle the legislation. Poilievre was asked to take back his comments in the House of Commons Tuesday. He declined, saying he stood by his testimony.

Algeria: Only woman in Algeria poll race ‘won’t hold back’ | Saudi Gazette

A string of white pearls around her neck, her hair tied in a bun, Louisa Hanoune, the only woman running for Algeria’s presidency, holds out her palms and declares: “I have clean hands”. The remark triggers an outburst of celebratory ululations and chants of “Louisa! Louisa!” among supporters of the 60-year-old leftist candidate, who is widely popular in Algeria, even among conservatives hostile to feminism. “I have clean hands,” she declares in a husky voice. “I have not held back, I have not sold off any businesses, I have not oppressed women.” She was speaking at a gathering in Kolea, about 40 km west of Algiers, where many women were among the roughly 300 supporters of the head of the Worker’s Party, who has been a member of parliament since 1997.

National: Clinton: Voting limits derail civil rights | The Hill

President Bill Clinton ripped the Supreme Court’s conservative justices and Republicans pushing voter identification laws on Wednesday, accusing them of undermining civil rights. Clinton, speaking at an event at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas celebrating the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, warned that some “would turn back the clock” on civil rights for short-term political gain. “Last year in one of the most radical departures from established legal decision-making in my lifetime the Supreme Court threw [The Voting Rights Act] out, or at least threw a very important provision of it out, and said ‘We don’t care what Congress found by 90 percent vote and we have no evidence to prove them wrong, but our opinion is they should not have extended the Voting Rights Act. And it sent a signal across the country,” he said.

Arkansas: Hearing set in voter ID lawsuit; plaintiffs oppose GOP’s intervention | Arkansas News

A hearing has been scheduled in a lawsuit over how absentee ballots should be handled under the state’s new voter ID law. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox on Tuesday scheduled a hearing on motions in the case for Monday at 9 a.m. The suit, filed March 12 by the Pulaski County Election Commission and Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane, alleges that the state Board of Election Commissioners exceeded its authority when it adopted an emergency rule in February concerning absentee ballots. Also this week, the commission argued in a filing that the state GOP should not be allowed to intervene in the case. The emergency rule states that if county election officials receive an absentee ballot that is not accompanied by a copy of the voter’s ID, as required under Act 595 of 2013, they should treat it as a provisional ballot and give the voter until noon on the Monday following the election to submit ID and have the ballot counted.

Arkansas: State panel approves permanent rules on absentee ballots | Arkansas News

The state Board of Election Commissioners voted Wednesday to approve proposed permanent rules on how absentee ballots should be handled under Arkansas’ new voter ID law. The rules state that if an absentee voter fails to submit a copy of his or her identification with an absentee ballot, as required under Act 595 of 2013, the ballot should be treated as a provisional ballot and the voter should be given until noon on the Monday following the election to submit ID and have the ballot counted. The rules go next to the Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council for review.

Illinois: Illinois looks to add right to vote to state constitution | MSNBC

Add Illinois to the list of states where voting rights could be on the ballot this fall. Land of Lincoln lawmakers are advancing a bill that would put a proposed constitutional amendment on voting rights before the state’s voters in November. The Democratic-controlled House overwhelmingly passed the measure Tuesday afternoon with strong Republican support, and it’s expected to pass the Senate, which also is run by Democrats. If approved by voters this November, the proposal would add to the state’s constitution an affirmative right to register and vote. Illinois joins Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and California, all of which may ask voters to weigh in on the issue of access to the ballot in November. But while Illinoisans and Ohioans may be considering efforts to protect the franchise, voters in those other four states could be mulling whether to impose new restrictions.

Illinois: House passes Madigan amendment banning voter-suppression tactics | Chicago Sun Times

Buoyed by bipartisan support, House Speaker Michael Madigan’s plan to amend the Illinois Constitution to ban voter suppression overwhelmingly passed the Illinois House Tuesday. The measure, which needed 71 votes to pass, cleared the House on a 109-5 roll call and now moves to the Senate. “The intent of this constitutional amendment is to provide in Illinois, constitutionally, that voter-suppression laws would not be permitted,” said Madigan, D-Chicago. “Some might say, ‘Well, today in Illinois, you don’t need this. Voter suppression wouldn’t happen in Illinois.’ “We don’t know that,” Madigan continued. “We don’t know what the future holds. What we do know is we can constitutionalize the protection of the right to vote.”

Iowa: State Supreme Court hears key voting rights case | Associated Press

Justices of the Iowa Supreme Court on Wednesday peppered lawyers with questions as they waded into the difficult issue of determining whether someone convicted of an aggravated misdemeanor should be disqualified from voting and holding public office in Iowa. The court heard arguments in a case in which state senate primary rival Ned Chiodo is seeking to disqualify Tony Bisignano based on his conviction for second-offense drunken driving. Both men are seeking the Democratic nomination for Des Moines-area seat to be vacated by Jack Hatch, a Democratic candidate for governor. At issue is whether an aggravated misdemeanor falls under the Iowa Constitution’s definition of an infamous crime, which would mean Bisignano cannot vote or hold public office.

Kentucky: Ex-judge, three others sentenced in vote fraud | The Courier-Journal

A former judge and three other officials in Eastern Kentucky have been sentenced to time served after pleading guilty to charges alleging widespread vote fraud. A federal judge said during a sentencing hearing Tuesday that three of the defendants — former Clay County Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle, former school superintendent Doug Adams and former election officer William Stivers — must serve 100 days of home incarceration. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports they were also place on supervised release for two years, along with the fourth defendant, former county clerk Freddy W. Thompson.

North Carolina: Who’s driving North Carolina’s latest voter fraud hysteria? | Facing South

This week, officials at the North Carolina State Board of Elections announced they had discovered possible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the battleground state. By cross-checking North Carolina voter rolls with those in 28 other states, leaders of the board told state lawmakers they had found 35,750 records of people who voted in North Carolina and whose first name, last name and date of birth matched people who had voted in other states. More surprisingly, it also revealed 765 North Carolina voters in 2012 whose last four Social Security digits also matched those of people who voted in other states that year. The announcement fueled news headlines and outrage from North Carolina politicians, including legislators on an elections oversight committee who said the findings affirmed the need for voting restrictions passed by the General Assembly in 2013. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate Leader Phil Berger issued a joint statement hailing the “newly discovered, alarming evidence of voter error, fraud.”

Ohio: Cuyahoga County Council gives final approval to Ed FitzGerald’s ‘voting rights law’ | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Cuyahoga County Council voted along party lines Tuesday night to assert the county’s right to mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications, despite a new state law that forbids the county from doing so. Identical to a preliminary committee vote last week, eight council Democrats voted to approve County Executive Ed FitzGerald’s “voting rights law,” with council’s three Republican members dissenting. The ordinance says the county will mail postage prepaid voting applications to county voters as necessary. FitzGerald, a Democrat who is running for governor, said the county would only do so if the state doesn’t. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has said he will mail the applications statewide before the upcoming November election, but any future mailings would require approval from the state legislature.

Ohio: Secretary of State Jon Husted sees ‘no reason’ for lawmakers to punish Cuyahoga County for ballot mailers | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Secretary of State Jon Husted on Tuesday criticized his Republican colleagues in the legislature for threatening to slash state funding to Cuyahoga County if the county proceeds with plans to mail absentee ballot applications to voters. At the same time, Husted said that there’s no reason for Cuyahoga County to mail absentee ballot applications to all county voters, as his office is already planning to do that statewide this fall. “It’s time for everybody to take a deep breath and act like reasonable adults,” Husted said in an interview Tuesday.

Ohio: Voting rights battle heating up | MSNBC

Ohio Republicans have backed down on an effort to penalize the state’s largest county for sending out absentee ballots. But the escalating battle over voting rights in the nation’s most pivotal swing state shows no sign of subsiding—with one top Democrat calling for a federal probe of GOP voter suppression. A spokesman for House Republicans said Tuesday afternoon that the GOP would drop a measure that would have cut funding by 10% for any county that doesn’t follow state law regarding absentee ballots. The proposal, inserted Monday into a larger budget bill, was a direct shot at the state’s largest county, Cuyahoga, which has asserted the right to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters—in defiance of a recently passed state law barring counties from doing so. Hours later, the Cuyahoga council voted to assert its “home rule” power, giving it the authority to send absentee ballots to all registered voters in the county.