Yearly Archives: 2014

The attorney for an ex-felon charged with illegally voting must be allowed to question an aide to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad before the trial begins, a judge ruled Thursday. Kelli Jo Griffin’s attorney had claimed that Branstad aide Rebecca Elming, a prosecution witness, refused to be deposed last week on the advice of state lawyers. But Branstad spokesman Jimmy Centers disputed that Thursday, saying the deposition had not been scheduled. “Now that a deposition has been requested, we will work with the parties to make Elming available,” he said. Judge Mary Ann Brown said Griffin had a right to depose Elming before trial, which she delayed from Thursday until March 19 due to an attorney’s illness.

Iowa: Judge strikes down Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s voter purge efforts | Omaha World Herald

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz did not have the authority to create a new rule aimed at ridding voter registration rolls of voters who didn’t appear to be U.S. citizens, a judge said Wednesday. Polk County Judge Scott Rosenberg ordered the rule stricken and said Iowa’s secretary of state is “enjoined from taking any action” pursuant to the rule. Rosenberg gave a victory to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, which sued Schultz over the rule, saying it could intimidate or unfairly deny votes to immigrants. Schultz tried to pass it as an emergency rule just before the November 2012 general election. Another judge halted the rule before the election, concluding that it created confusion and mistrust in the voter registration process.

Maine: Early-voting measure falls short in Maine House | The Portland Press Herald

A bill proposing a constitutional amendment to allow an enhanced early-voting system in Maine fell short Wednesday in the House of Representatives. Lawmakers voted 87-57 in favor of the bill, but that was several votes shy of the two-thirds needed to send the issue to voters, who have final approval of changes to the Maine Constitution. No Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Four Republicans and three Democrats did not vote.

Maryland: Baltimore legislator wants to invite third parties to the political process | Baltimore City Paper

Baltimore City state Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-46th District) is worried about the state of democracy in Baltimore, across Maryland, and countrywide. “Voting is the fundamental building block of any democracy,” he says, “and the numbers of those voting is a smaller percentage than it should or could be, particularly if you look at age cohorts of young and middle-aged voters.” This creates a “looming” problem for democracy, he concludes, so lawmakers need to find “new ways to reach citizens no matter their political persuasion,” so that society has “an informed populace that engages in the process” of electing its leaders. The dismal state of voting affairs in Baltimore City were made manifest, to much public hand-wringing, in the 2011 mayoral election. In the Democratic primary—the tally that, by default, determines the winner in this nearly one-party burg—victor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake got 38,829 votes, 8 percent of Baltimore’s voting-age population. Less than 10 percent of some districts’ electorates backed the winners in the City Council races.

Minnesota: E-pollbook legislation likely, though enthusiasm has faded a bit | MinnPost

Lawmakers will likely move forward with limited electronic-pollbook legislation this session, but it appears that the sense of urgency behind the voting technology has faded a bit. A state Senate committee passed legislation on Wednesday — a day after its House counterpart — that came out of a pollbook task force in late January. The task force recommended yet another study of electronic pollbooks during the 2014 mid-term elections and putting standards for pollbooks in state law. The electronic pollbook systems consist of laptops or tablet computers installed with voting administration software that advocates say improves election speed, helps with accuracy and reduces some costs over the current paper pollbooks.

Canada: Ranked ballot voting moves closer to reality in Toronto | CTV

A new initiative looking to adopt a ranked ballot system to Toronto’s electoral system just got one step closer to approval at Queen’s Park on Thursday. Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter tabled a private member’s bill that would allow Toronto to adopt a ranked voting system – where voters rank candidates in order of preference – instead of the current “first-past-the post” system. Bill 166 passed second reading on Thursday afternoon and will now be sent to the legislature’s social policy committee for further study.

Canada: Conservative bill may ‘compromise’ elections, Marc Mayrand says | Toronto Star

The man in charge of elections in Canada has warned the Conservative government that voters are going to be turned away from ballot boxes in significant numbers in 2015 and that the new “Fair Elections Act” may create real unfairness among the political players. Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand was blunt when he spoke to one of the lead Conservative MPs during an often-testy Commons committee meeting on Thursday. “In the next election, if those rules go through, you will see in your riding how many people will be sent away,” Mayrand told MP Tom Lukiwski. “And that will be an issue.”

Colombia: Buying votes with cash, beer and bricks in Colombia’s upcoming parliamentary elections? | Reuters

In Colombia, it’s easy to tell when election season is in full swing. Potholes are suddenly filled with cement, stretches of roads are paved and local officials rush to inaugurate often unfinished public buildings. It’s one way to show that public funds have been well spent under their watch as a way of helping the political party they represent to do well at the polls. Election campaign posters and pamphlets stuffed in postboxes say “no to corruption” and “public funds are sacred”. Yet election-rigging scandals, allegations of election fraud and vote-buying are an all too common feature of the political landscape in Colombia. In Colombia’s parliamentary, local and presidential elections over the decades, local media have reported ineligible voters casting ballots, including some using fake or stolen identity cards, and tampered electoral registers that include the names of dead citizens or have names listed twice.

El Salvador: Ex-guerrilla closes in on El Salvador election win | Reuters

A former Marxist guerrilla leader looks poised to win El Salvador’s presidential election runoff on Sunday as voters embrace his ruling party’s social programs despite opposition allegations that he plans to veer the country to the radical left. Polls show Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a top leader of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebel army during the country’s 1980-92 civil war, with about 55 percent support ahead of the runoff vote, enough to secure his party a second consecutive term. His opponent Norman Quijano, the conservative former mayor of the capital, San Salvador, trails with about 45 percent amid waning support for his right-wing Arena party. Quijano has warned the ex-rebel will move El Salvador to the radical left and bow to the influence of Latin America’s leading U.S. antagonist, socialist-led Venezuela.

North Korea: Handicapping the North Korean Elections | Foreign Policy

North Korea is holding parliamentary elections. Well, sort of. Three days ahead of Sunday’s vote, the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland looks set to complete yet another clean sweep of the 687-seat Supreme People’s Assembly. But maintaining their unanimous hold on parliament shouldn’t be challenging: There are no opposition parties on the ballot. The Democratic Front, the governing coalition led by Kim Jong Un’s ruling Workers’ Party, has handpicked one — and only one — candidate for each district. It’s nearly impossible to determine which individuals and institutions hold real power within the secretive North Korean government, but one thing is clear: The Supreme People’s Assembly is not one of them. Parliamentary elections, which are held every five years, are little more than a progranda excercise for a regime ruled by its despotic dictatorship at the top. Still, the North Korean government remains determined to uphold at least the appearance of democratic legitimacy. On Wednesday, the state news agency KCNA reported that election preparations were “gaining momentum.” “Agitation activities are going on to encourage citizens to take active part in the election with high political enthusiasm and labour feats, amid the playing of ‘Song of the election.'” Let the horserace begin.

Editorials: North Korea elections: An empty show? | Al Jazeera

On March 8, virtually all North Korean adults will be expected (or rather required) to come to their local polling station in order to partake in the elections of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), the North Korean parliament.The ritual has been repeated every four or five years and hence is quite predictable. First, the voters form remarkably orderly cues, and upon entering the station they will make a deep bow to the portraits of the Leaders from the Kim family which has been running the country for almost 70 years. Having completed this important ritual, they will be issued ballot papers, whereupon they will proceed to a voting box. The ballot will have only one candidate, even though the voter has the theoretical option of voting against the candidate. If the North Korean media is to be believed, not a single person nationwide has exercised this theoretical right. The picture described above is quite typical of Stalinist electoral systems. First created in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, this pattern was then copied across the socialist bloc. The standout feature of this system was the non-competitive nature of the elections. There was only one candidate in every electoral district, thus the success of a given candidate was preordained. The party bureaucracy decided the names of the candidates well before the elections were held.

Iowa: Judge blocks rule canceling voter’s registration | Times Republican

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz did not have the authority to create a new rule aimed at ridding voter registration rolls of voters who didn’t appear to be U.S. citizens, a judge said Wednesday. Polk County Judge Scott Rosenberg delivered a victory to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, which sued Schultz over the rule. He tried to pass it as an emergency rule just before the November 2012 general election. Another judge halted the rule before the election, concluding that it created confusion and mistrust in the voter registration process. Schultz, however, proceeded to pass a similar rule through the regular rulemaking process last year but it too was halted by Rosenberg, who in September issued a temporary injunction preventing Schultz from acting on it until the court could further review the legal questions. Rosenberg said then that the rule would have a chilling effect on the right to vote and could cause irreparable harm.

Kansas: GOP pushes for legislation aimed at reducing party switching | Lawrence Journal-World

The Kansas Republican Party on Wednesday pushed for passage of a bill aimed at reducing the number of voters who switch parties before the primary to hurt the GOP. The bill would essentially prevent registered voters from changing their party affiliation from June 1 through Sept. 1. Currently, voters registered as Republicans, Democrats or Libertarian can change their party affiliation up to 21 days before the August primaries. Unaffiliated voters can declare a party affiliation at any time. Clay Barker, executive director of the state Republican Party, said the primary election belongs to the political party, not the general public, and is the party’s mechanism to select its candidates. Barker said he believed third-party groups were urging voters to switch parties to advance an inferior candidate who would then face the opposition party’s candidate in the general election. But neither Barker, nor state Rep. Keith Esau, R-Olathe, the main supporters of House Bill 2210, could provide examples of party-switching occurring as part of political gamesmanship.

Minnesota: Online voter registration advances in House | Star Tribune

Minnesotans should be able to register to vote online, a bipartisan panel of legislators voted on Tuesday. The House Elections Committee unanimously approved the practice that has been available — with considerable controversy — since last year. “I think it’s an issue that is kind of a no-brainer for the state of Minnesota,” said House Speaker Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis. DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office began accepting online registrations in September, although the law did not specifically permit it. DFLers, Republicans, Gov. Mark Dayton and the nonpartisan legislative auditor have said that the matter should have been approved by the Legislature first. Ritchie said existing law gave him the authority to start registering voters online.

Ohio: Lawsuit challenging voting bills would force GOP to prove fraud | Vindicator

Republican Gov. John Kasich has signed into law three bills that change the procedures for voting in Ohio. The measures were rammed through the GOP- controlled General Assembly, with proponents arguing, among other things, that they are designed to combat voter fraud. Not surprisingly, Democrats have been quick to respond, accusing the Republicans who control every statewide administrative office and six of the seven Supreme Court seats of attempting to restrict voting. The arguments from both sides should ring familiar. They have been used in previous battles over voting in Ohio. The GOP contends that unrestricted access to the polls is a recipe for disaster; the Democratic Party counters that voter suppression is at the heart of the Republican campaign. It notes that urban areas are hardest hit by the changes in voting procedures, with black voters, who mostly support Democratic candidates, being dissuaded from going to the polls.

Rhode Island: Design students reimagine election ballot | Turnto10

The typical signage at a Rhode Island voting place is not coordinated and sometimes not easy to understand. A solution from design students at the Rhode Island School of Design is to make the signs at least the same color. “You can follow the additional bright blue signs inside,” said Evan Brooks, a RISD senior. Brooks is one of a team of students who showed what they think are improved signs and ballots to the Board of Elections on Tuesday. “It just seemed incredibly confusing and intimidating. There’s no structure to it. You have to take everything out and sort through it, and just by designing it in a neater way saves work for both the Board of Elections and the volunteer poll workers who have to set everything up,” Brooks said.

Utah: Bill Creating Election-day Voter Registration Pilot Advances | City Weekly

In 2013, Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck came close to passing a bill that would require county and city clerks to allow voters to register and vote on election day. The bill was killed over a concerns about costs and possible fraud issues, but now Chavez-Houck has resurrected the bill as a pilot program that cities and counties would voluntarily opt into. With a pilot program, municipal and county clerks would be able to accept registration and then offer a provisional ballot on election day to a voter that would be counted after the vote was verified. As a pilot program participating counties would closely monitor the same-day votes and report back their findings to the Legislature to see if there are any concerns or abuse of the process.

Utah: Deal on Count My Vote gets OK | The Salt Lake Tribune

Despite grumbling and constitutional doubts, the Utah Legislature sent a deal to Gov. Gary Herbert that will overhaul the process for choosing candidates for office and bring to an end Count My Vote’s ballot initiative. “I don’t argue that this policy will be better than the caucus-convention process,” said Rep. Dan McCay, R-Riverton. “The vote today is not whether you like one [nominating system] over the other. … Your vote today is ‘do I preserve a history at the same time I grab the future?’ That is this bill.” While the bill, SB54s2, lets parties keep their existing caucus-and-convention system for nominating candidates, it also allows aspiring officeholders who collect enough petition signatures to go straight to the primary ballot. It also imposes certain requirements on state parties, and James Evans, chairman of the Utah Republican Party, has said the party has the right to nominate its candidates as it sees fit. Previously, he said an attorney the party hired recommended they not participate in the negotiations because it could weaken a potential lawsuit.

Wisconsin: Racine County favors state bill to shift recount costs | The Journal Times

Racine County’s recent election history includes multiple tight races that resulted in recounts. The last recount was in the 2012 state Senate recall race, in which John Lehman defeated Van Wanggaard by 819 votes. The recount — the third of three recounts between 2011 and 2012 — cost Racine County taxpayers about $5,400. A proposed state law change would shift more of the cost to the candidates. Racine County Clerk Wendy Christensen and the county’s Government Services Committee favor the change, saying it would close the gap between the fees charged to candidates and the county’s actual costs.

Australia: West Australian election recount a ‘disaster’: Keelty | Sydney Morning Herald

Former federal police chief Mick Keelty has described the handling of the West Australian Senate election recount as a “disaster”. Parliament’s electoral matters committee is investigating how 1370 ballots went missing in a recount of the 2013 Senate election in WA and measures to ensure it does not happen again. The loss has resulted in a court-ordered re-run of the WA Senate election on April 5, which could affect the Abbott government’s delivery of key election promises. Mr Keelty was hired to find out what went wrong, but was unable to put his finger on one specific fault or criminality. “This was a disaster,” he told the committee in Canberra on Wednesday.

Editorials: Canada Fair Elections Act attacks participation and debate | Toronto Star

For many months the Conservative government has blatantly taken away by fiat the right to strike of union members within federal jurisdiction. They are now threatening to shut down environmental charities that are talking about climate change. And they are ramming through Parliament changes to the elections act that will almost certainly mean that many thousands of Canadians will not be able to vote. In the language of fundamental rights, taken together these actions restrict freedom of association, limit freedom of speech and curtail a citizen’s right to vote. In short, there is a steady chipping away at the underpinnings of democracy. Inspired by the tried and tested voter suppression tactics used by the Republicans to disenfranchise marginalized groups in the U.S., the new election law would make it harder for certain groups to vote. The law would end the ability to “vouch” for the bona fides of a neighbour, a tool that allowed 120,000 voters — disproportionately aboriginal, youth and seniors — to cast ballots in the last election.

Costa Rica: Incumbent quits run-off election bid, paves way for leftist | Reuters

Costa Rica’s ruling party candidate Johnny Araya on Wednesday abandoned his presidential campaign a month before a runoff, a move that appeared to guarantee victory for leftist former diplomat Luis Guillermo Solis. Araya, of the ruling centrist National Liberation Party (PLN), said he would no longer campaign, though under the constitution his name will remain on the ballot. He said he had made the decision after polls showed him way behind Solis. A favorite to win before the first round of voting in February, Araya has been beset by voter resentment over government corruption scandals under President Laura Chinchilla and rising inequality. Solis scored a surprise win in that vote, and has stretched his lead dramatically in opinion polls. “There is an increasing will to replace the party in government,” Araya told a news conference, declining to take questions. “I will abstain from any electoral activity.”

India: Election Commission to introduce VVPAT countrywide on experimental basis | Moneycontrol

The Election Commission will introduce Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) countrywide on experimental basis to ensure a fair Lok Sabha poll. The VVPAT is a paper slip which will come out of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) once a voter casts his vote, showing which symbol and candidate the vote has been cast for. The slip will be automatically dropped in a sealed box attached to the EVM for use by the EC, Chief Electoral Officer in West Bengal Sunil Gupta today said.

North Korea: Kim Jong-un runs in legendary district | Reuters

North Korea, accused of human rights violations, elects its largely symbolic parliament this weekend, with leader Kim Jong-un, the third in his family dynasty to rule the totalitarian state, running unopposed in a legendary mountain district. State news agency KCNA said on Thursday that election preparations were “gaining momentum”, with voters confirming their names on electoral lists for the ballot held every five years. “Agitation activities are going on to encourage citizens to take active part in the election with high political enthusiasm and labour feats, amid the playing of ‘Song of the election’,” KCNA reported. North Koreans, it said, sought to “demonstrate once again the might of single-minded unity by casting ballots for their candidates”.

Iowa: Court throws out secretary of state’s controversial voter registration rule | The Des Moines Register

A Polk County court has struck down a controversial rule issued by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz meant to identify and remove ineligible voters from the state’s voter rolls. Judge Scott D. Rosenberg found that Schultz, a Republican who has built his reputation and focused his office on ballot security issues, exceeded his authority in adopting the rule. The order invalidates the rule and assesses costs associated with the case to Schultz’s office. A spokesman for the secretary said his office plans to appeal. The rule at issue set out a process for identifying and removing non-citizens from Iowa’s voter registration list first by screening registered voters against state and national lists of noncitizens and then running suspected foreign nationals through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database. Voters identified as ineligible would then be referred to their local county auditor, who would initiate a challenge to their registration.

North Carolina: Judge tells North Carolina to provide documents about voting law even after it was enacted | Associated Press

North Carolina must provide groups suing to overturn last year’s voting law with documents created even after it was signed in the summer, a judge has ruled. The federal magistrate judge’s order released Tuesday is important to civil rights groups and the U.S. government, which contend portions of the law are unconstitutional and discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. They argue they need documents about how the law is being implemented to show it’s going to hurt voters in minority groups. Attorneys defending the law argued that state agencies shouldn’t have to provide documents dated past Aug. 12, when Gov. Pat McCrory signed the law. They said the breadth of documents should be limited to before that date, when the General Assembly was developing the legislation.

Ohio: FitzGerald introduces voting legislation that contradicts recently-passed state law | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald has formally submitted legislation to County Council asserting his right to mail out unsolicited absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the county, a move that would be in direct contradiction to a recently-passed state law. FitzGerald, a Democrat who is running for governor, released the legislation — which he has deemed the “Cuyahoga County Voting Rights Law” — late Wednesday. The bill’s text says that despite any state laws to the contrary, the county will promote voter registration and promote “early voting and maximizing voter participation through voting by mail in Cuyahoga County, including, but not limited to, mailing applications to vote by mail, with postage-prepaid return envelopes, to all registered voters in Cuyahoga County.”

Utah: New Hampshire to Utah: The first-in-the-nation primary is ours, back off | The Salt Lake Tribune

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is urging Utah lawmakers to reject a bill that would try to put the Beehive State ahead of Iowa or New Hampshire in the presidential primary race, arguing that New Hampshire’s 100-year-old contest is the best test of candidates. A House committee this week advanced HB410, providing that if Utah wanted to fund an early presidential primary, it must do so a week before any similar balloting. It’s a clear shot at New Hampshire and Iowa, both of which grab the attention of the national news media and major candidates for months. Rep. Jon Cox, R-Ephraim, says it’s unfair for those two states to always get the spotlight and Utah could actually play a role in electing the next president. But Gardner, who by law must place the New Hampshire primary a week before any similar contest, says his state’s contest allows all candidates to compete on the same level, working town markets and holding house parties instead of campaigning through major television ads and fly-in-fly-out stump speeches.

India: India says elections to begin April 7, with voting held in stages | Associated Press

India said Wednesday it will begin national elections on April 7, kicking off a month-long contest in the largest democracy in the world. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Narendra Modi, has the momentum heading into the polls. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center said 63 percent of Indians prefer the Hindu nationalist BJP over the incumbent Congress party, which has dominated Indian politics for most of the country’s history since independence in 1947. The election is held over several weeks for reasons of logistics and safety in a country of 1.2 billion. More than 810 million people are eligible to vote this year — an increase of 100 million from five years ago, according to the Election Commission. Vote counting will be held May 16 and most results are expected the same day, Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath said.

National: Groups pledge to spend millions on secretary of state races in Ohio, other battleground states | Cleveland Plain Dealer