Yearly Archives: 2014

More than a million Nigerians are internally displaced due to insurgency fighting in the northern part of the country, while some fear that their votes will not be counted in the upcoming 2015 general elections. On Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to do all that is in their administrative power to ensure that Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) could vote in the elections. According to figures released by the United Nations agency for refugees (UNHCR) this week, the number of IDP in Nigeria has reached 1.5 million, mainly due to the rise of Boko Haram militants. The extremist group has stepped up attacks this year and declared an Islamic state in areas it controls, mainly in the north of the country.

Tanzania: Prime Minister’s office vows to investigate election failures | Sabahi

Tanzania will conduct an investigation into the administrative failures that marred Sunday’s local government elections, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Hawa Ghasia said Monday. Ghasia apologised for the errors in the voting process and asked local administrators to submit a report on their election preparations to avoid a repeat of the same mistakes, Tanzania’s The Guardian reported. She said the National Electoral Commission (NEC) would take over election administration in 2019.

Tunisia: Voters head to the polls to cap off revolution | AFP

Tunisians vote in the second round of a presidential election on Sunday, capping off four years of a sometimes chaotic transition since their country sparked the Arab Spring. Incumbent Moncef Marzouki faces political veteran Beji Caid Essebsi in the vote – the first time Tunisians will be allowed to freely elect their president since independence from France in 1956. It was protests in Tunisia and the 2011 ouster of long-time ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali that set off the chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by citizens demanding democratic reforms. From Egypt and Libya to Syria and Yemen, violent unrest followed. But Tunisia has largely avoided the bloodshed that has plagued other Arab Spring states, and its citizens are feeling hopeful ahead of the run-off vote.

Uzbekistan: Election Commission says Uzbekistan ready to hold parliamentary elections | Trend

Uzbekistan is ready to hold elections to the legislative chamber of the parliament (Oliy Majlis) Dec. 21, the Chairman of Uzbekistan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov said Dec. 17. He made the remarks at a briefing for the diplomatic corps, representatives of international organizations accredited as observers, and the media. “The activity program for preparation and holding of elections, adopted in May, allowed organizing the entire electoral process at a high democracy level, to provide conditions for full realization of the citizens’ electoral rights and the active participation of political parties in the formation of public bodies,” he said.

Virginia: McAuliffe proposes $28 million to replace voting machines around the state | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe is proposing $28 million to fund digital scan voting machines for precincts across the state in time for the November 2015 general election. McAuliffe noted in a statement that 49 Virginia localities reported problems with voting equipment on Nov. 4. Virginia localities now use various types of equipment, including some machines with no paper trail. Under McAuliffe’s proposal the state would cover the cost of purchasing the new voting machines for 2,166 precincts across Virginia. The state would reimburse 401 precincts that have already purchased the approved type of machine. The new digital scan machines would have a paper trail. On Wednesday McAuliffe will brief the legislature’s money committees on his proposed amendments to the state’s two-hyear budget covering July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016. McAuliffe’s proposal will include $30,000 per budget year to update the Department of Elections’ website, which crashed on Election Night.

National: Every Election Is the Most Expensive Election. Or Not. | New York Times

Was this election the most expensive midterm in history? It’s possible, but nobody really knows for certain. That’s because we don’t know the total cost of the 2014 elections, or pretty much any federal election. Here’s why: Despite the efforts of the Federal Election Commission, which has been faithfully disseminating campaign finance data since 1975, there are limitations in the ways that data is collected and summarized that make generating totals and comparisons very difficult. And there are other problems, too. In describing federal elections, users of the F.E.C.’s data — The New York Times among them — have regularly cited statistics that are aren’t strictly accurate or have made comparisons without regard to the impact of inflation or population. In a paper presented at the American Political Science Association conference this year, Robin Kolodny, a political-science professor at Temple University, challenged the idea that we know each election is more expensive than previous ones, or that we even know how much campaigns really cost. This lack of knowledge fuels our perceptions of money in politics as an issue, she concludes.

National: The pros and cons of all-mail elections, as told by two Republican secretaries of state | The Washington Post

Weeks before Election Day, every registered voter in Oregon, Washington and Colorado got a ballot in the mail. They didn’t have to sign up, and no one had to make any special plans to head to out-of-the-way polling places within a specific window: Elections in those three states are conducted entirely by mail. It’s a controversial practice: Democrats who passed legislation creating all-mail elections say they help boost participation, especially for those who have to work on Election Day. Some Republicans say it’s a transparent attempt to tip the scales toward Democratic candidates, and that it’s ripe for fraud and abuse. But the Republican view on all-mail elections isn’t uniform: Kim Wyman (R), Washington’s secretary of state, is a big fan. Scott Gessler (R), Colorado’s secretary of state, isn’t.

Verified Voting Blog: Security not yet available for online voting

California’s record low turnout for November’s elections is indeed worrisome, and incoming Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s promises to increase the voter rolls are laudable. However, the editorial board’s desire to see online voting as the natural evolution of our voting systems is misplaced. Yes, we do bank, shop and communicate online, but a quick review of the latest headlines proves these transactions aren’t secure. Cybercrime is estimated to cost businesses billions every year. Elections are unlike financial transactions because they’re extremely vulnerable to undetectable hacking. Because we vote by secret ballot, there is no way to reconcile the votes recorded and the marks the voter actually makes with technology currently available.

Arizona: Recount over: McSally, Barber await fate Wednesday | Arizona Daily Star

Southern Arizonans will find out Wednesday who will represent them in Congressional District 2. A mandatory recount was triggered because the tally separating incumbent Democrat Ron Barber from Martha McSally, his Republican challenger, in the November general election was less than 200 votes. After completing an electronic recount of all the ballots cast for each candidate last week, a hand count of a sample of ballots from five percent of the precincts — the last step in the two-week recount process — was completed Monday morning.

Editorials: Los Angeles Seeks Increase in Voter Turnout | Dan Walters/Sacramento Bee

In the six weeks since the Nov. 4 election, much has been said about its extraordinarily low, record-shattering voter turnout. Scarcely 42 percent of California’s 17.8 million registered voters, and just 31 percent of its 24.3 million potentially eligible voters, actually cast ballots. It resulted, one could say, from the perfect calm – no hot statewide candidate races or blood-boiling ballot measures to spur voters into doing their civic duties. Nevertheless, it also continued a decades-long slide in California’s voter turnout, which is one of the nation’s lowest, and generated some political palaver about what might be done to raise it to more respectable levels. … Herb Wesson, a former speaker of the state Assembly who now is president of the Los Angeles City Council, has made raising local voter turnout a personal cause, saying it’s a civil rights matter.

Colorado: Adams County ballot troubles could wind up in court | The Denver Post

Adams County is coming under increasing scrutiny — including the prospect of a legal challenge in court — after County Clerk Karen Long did not disclose that nearly 200,000 ballots in the November election could be traced back to individual voters. Gary Mikes, chairman of the Adams County Republicans, said Long should have come forward about the erroneously marked ballots six weeks ago, when she first detected the problem in late October. Long did not notify the secretary of state’s office of the error until Dec. 9, and issued a news release the next day. “It was her responsibility to inform everybody when she found that out,” Mikes said.

Georgia: Voting case mirrors national struggle | Atlanta Constitution Journal

Four years ago, black candidates won a majority of seats on the Brooks County school board, which had always been controlled by whites. They did it through an organized absentee ballot effort that generated close to 1,000 votes. Here’s what happened next: Armed agents of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Secretary of State questioned more than 400 of those voters, a small percentage of whom said they did not fill out their own ballot or could not recall doing so. A dozen organizers, all of them black, were indicted for more than 100 election law violations, each of which carried the potential of up to 10 years in prison. The most common charge was illegal possession of a ballot, often for the act of taking a willing voter’s completed, sealed ballot, which they said they had voted as they wished, to the mailbox for them.

Iowa: Branstad seeks to end Iowa GOP straw poll | Associated Press

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is pushing to end the state’s Republican straw poll, but the state party chairman says the event may still go on next year. Branstad said Monday that the poll — traditionally held in Ames the summer before a contested presidential caucus — is a turnoff for many candidates and could diminish the power of the state’s caucuses. “I believe that a number of candidates have chosen not to participate because they don’t think it’s necessarily representative,” Branstad said. “The most important thing is to keep the Iowa precinct caucuses first in the nation and the first real test of strength of candidates.” But State Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said he thinks there’s interest in continuing the tradition, provided it’s permissible under Republican National Committee rules.

Mississippi: Hinds County to pay attorney to defend Election Commission | Clarion-Ledger

Hinds County will pay for a lawyer to defend the Election Commission in a lawsuit filed over its failure to order the number of ballots required by state law. But the vote the Board of Supervisors took Monday to do so did not come come without rancor. Jackson attorney Ali Shamsiddeen, who lost the Hinds County circuit judge race by about 4,000 votes to incumbent judge Jeff Weill, filed the lawsuit Nov. 24, claiming the commission’s actions affected the outcome of the election. District 1 Supervisor Robert Graham, who was not present at Monday’s board meeting, suggested Hinds County Election Commission Chairwoman Connie Cochran should have to pay the legal fees herself.

Editorials: Ohio’s redistricting breakthrough | Zachary Roth/MSNBC

For over a decade, Ohio has been the nation’s most fiercely contested swing state, and its politics are as polarized as anywhere in the country. And yet, lawmakers from both parties somehow came together last week to approve a widely-praised plan aimed at making the state’s redistricting system fairer and less partisan. The state Senate voted 32-1 Friday in favor of the plan. If it passes a final vote in the House, as expected, it will go before voters next fall. The breakthrough comes amid growing, nationwide concern that rampant partisan gerrymandering threatens the legitimacy and responsiveness of our democracy, producing a shrinking number of competitive races and a House of Representatives whose partisan alignment is badly out of whack with voters’ preferences. So, can Ohio offer the rest of the country any lessons? Perhaps, but there certainly aren’t any magic bullets.

Liberia: Ebola-hit Liberia delays election until weekend | AFP

A much-postponed election for half the seats in Ebola-hit Liberia’s Senate has been put back until the weekend — but cannot be further delayed, the country’s electoral commission said Monday. The vote for 15 seats in the upper house of parliament has been postponed twice already as the epidemic ravaged the impoverished west African nation.The National Elections Commission (NEC) said the poll will now be held on December 20. Football star George Weah — who played for Chelsea and AC Milan before retiring from the game in 2003 — and the son of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Robert Sirleaf, are among the 139 candidates in the running for a seat.

Editorials: A Chance to Close Sri Lanka’s One-Family Show | Razeen Sally/Wall Street Journal

When President Mahinda Rajapaksa called a snap election last month in Sri Lanka, it appeared he would cruise to a third term. But a hitherto feeble and divided opposition has since rallied behind a common presidential candidate for the Jan. 8 vote. Only a month ago, Maithripala Sirisena was a cabinet minister and general-secretary of the ruling party. Now suddenly Sri Lanka could be at a turning point after almost a decade of Rajapaksa rule. The president is campaigning on his economic record after comprehensively defeating the Tamil Tigers in 2009. And on the surface, Sri Lanka looks a lot better off for his leadership. After a quarter-century of civil war, people can go about their daily lives without fear. Roads, bridges, railways and power projects have come to fruition. Colombo and many other towns have been beautified. Tourism has bounced back, with postwar arrivals hitting all-time highs. But this surface reality is deceptive. Things have gone terribly wrong with Sri Lanka’s politics, ethnic relations, economy and foreign policy.

Tanzania: Elections Marred By Irregularities | allAfrica.com

Tanzania’s local government elections on Sunday (December 14th) were marred by irregularities that left many unable to vote, Tanzania’s The Citizen reported. Lack or shortage of voting materials as well as the mixing up of the names of candidates and voters forced many returning officers to call off the election at some polling centres. No region was unaffected, with chaos in some areas prompting intervention by police. Police fired tear gas to disperse angry voters at a number of centres and arrested party officials, candidates and voters who were accused of violating electoral rules.

Philippines: Smartmatic lone eligible bidder for touchscreen voting system | Rappler

The joint venture led by Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation was the only bidder that passed the first stage of the bidding for the lease of touchscreen voting machines for the 2016 national elections. On Tuesday, December 16, the bids and awards committee (BAC) of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) voted 3-2 to declare the Smartmatic-TIM joint venture eligible to proceed to the second stage of the bidding process. Bids committee chairperson Helen Aguila-Flores, vice chairperson Jubil Surmeida, and member Divina Blas-Perez voted for Smartmatic-TIM’s eligibility, while members Charlie Yap and Maria Juana Valeza deemed Smartmatic-TIM as ineligible.

Editorials: Would A ‘Top-2’ Primary Election Help Reduce Gridlock? | Greg Giroux/Bloomberg

Some ideas offered to curb the partisan gridlock that envelops Congress involve changing how voters select the candidates who appear on the November general-election ballots. One proposal is to eliminate separate party primaries–registered Democrats voting for Democrats, and registered Republicans voting for Republicans—and adopt a so-called “Top-2” primary, under which candidates of all partisan stripes would run on a single ballot. Then the top two vote-getters in the primary would advance to the November election, regardless of their party preference. This system, the idea goes, would produce less ideologically rigid representatives because the entire electorate would be eligible to participate, and candidates would have an incentive to reach out to a larger swath of voters. It might also increase voter participation. There’s very limited evidence to determine its rate of success or failure.

Arizona: 21 additional ballots discovered during CD2 recount | Green Valley News

More than a month after the Nov. 4 election, Congressional District 2 voters will learn next week who will represent them in Congress. Pima County on Wednesday finished the electronic recount of polling place, early and provisional ballots, and will begin a hand count of 5 percent of precincts Monday. The results will be turned over to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office by 5 p.m. Tuesday, and Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper will declare the results at a 10 a.m. hearing Wednesday in Phoenix.

Indiana: Court hears ex-Indiana elections chief’s appeal | Associated Press

An attorney for former Secretary of State Charlie White faced tough questioning Tuesday from Indiana’s three-judge appeals court during White’s latest bid to overturn the voter fraud convictions that forced him from office. Chief Judge Nancy Vaidik interrupted attorney Andrea Ciobanu only seconds after the attorney began her oral arguments and asked Ciobanu what her “strongest argument” was in White’s appeal of his convictions on six felony counts. Ciobanu said her most substantial argument in seeking to overturn White’s 2012 convictions is that the trial court in central Indiana’s Hamilton County failed to apply Indiana’s residency statute “at all” as his case played out. She said that left White unable to convey to jurors where his actual place of residence was as they heard evidence and eventually convicted him on three counts of voter fraud, two counts of perjury and one count of theft.

Maine: Long Island ballot mystery long on drama | Portland Press Herald

The month-long saga of the state Senate District 25 race is over. The controversy over a disputed recount and 21 mystery ballots from Long Island was resolved in a eureka moment Tuesday at the State House. When the dust settled, Democrat Cathy Breen of Falmouth finished ahead of Republican Cathy Manchester of Gray in the race to represent several towns in Portland’s northern suburbs, including the tiny Casco Bay island. The discovery stemmed from a mundane act that could have taken place before the entire mess started. All they needed to do was recount the ballots. It may be hard to imagine a crowd so riveted by people counting out loud to 171, the number of ballots on Long Island. But that’s how it was in the balmy, standing-room-only chambers when state officials opened up the locked ballot container from Long Island and double-checked the math.

New Hampshire: Is A Ban On ‘Ballot Selfies’ Overkill? | NPR

It started out as a seemingly harmless act: voters posting photos of their completed ballots on the Internet. One wrote in his deceased dog’s name for senator because he didn’t like any of the candidates, then shared his message of frustration on Facebook. A state legislator, and another a candidate for the state House, also publicly published photos of their ballots. Now they’re under investigation by the New Hampshire attorney general’s office. The reason? It turns out the act of photographing or sharing a marked ballot is illegal under state law — and in 43 other states.

New York: Election Boards Look to Modernize Vote Counting, Finance Filing Systems | Gotham Gazette

In the next two years, the New York City and State election boards may finally arrive in the 21st Century. The New York City and New York State Boards of Election are planning major technological upgrades to their vote counting and finance disclosure systems, staff told State Assembly members at a hearing Friday morning in Manhattan. By late 2015, voters in the city may know the results of most elections by 10 p.m. on election nights, thanks to tablets at every polling site that can upload vote counts just minutes after polls close. And in late 2016 or early 2017, the state board plans to launch a new campaign finance filing system, replacing a two-decade-old network that candidates say is difficult to use. On election night in New York City, poll workers and police officers usually transport memory sticks filled with vote count data to police precincts, where they are counted.

North Dakota: Legislative session could bring proposed changes to voting law | Prairie Public Broadcasting

Senate Minority Leader Mac Schneider says he has an idea of how to change North Dakota’s voter ID law. The 2014 election was the first election with the new law in effect. It requires a North Dakota voter to present a valid ID at their voting precinct, which means the information on the ID should match what’s on record with the DOT. Due to confusion at several precincts, some voters were turned away. Schneider says the new law was meant to address voter fraud, which he says is not a problem in North Dakota. He says he would prefer a return to the old law, which required that a voter would swear under oath that they are who they say they are to be able to vote. But he says if that is not possible, he has another proposal.

Texas: Secretary of State: Harrison County’s elections issues serious | The Marshall News Messenger

Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Secretary of State’s Office, described in a letter, addressed to Harrison County Judge Hugh Taylor, just how serious the mistakes and oversights made by the county’s elections administrator Becky Dotson were for the 2014 general election. The letter was one of the things the local elections commission took into consideration Friday as they called for Dotson’s termination, which was approved by the Harrison County Commissioners Court. “These issues are very serious,” Ingram wrote in the letter dated Nov. 26. Ingram said that after reading articles regarding the concerns and also a letter to the editor from Dotson printed in the Marshall News Messenger, he decided to give the county judge the Secretary of State’s perspective on the situation. In the letter, he noted how he became aware of the issues after being notified by military and overseas voters that they hadn’t received their ballots by the deadline in compliance with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

Wisconsin: Republicans seize on audit critical of state elections board | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

A report of the state’s ethics and elections agency released Friday found officials waited years in some cases to review whether felons had voted and did not promptly audit electronic voting equipment. The Government Accountability Board also avoided imposing late fees on candidates and political groups that hadn’t file their campaign finance reports on time. Republicans who control the Legislature pounced on the report by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, saying it provided evidence the accountability board needs to be dismantled. … The board’s director, Kevin Kennedy, said his agency had many successes but had fallen behind on some matters because its resources have been strained in recent years by a wave of recall elections; implementing a voter ID law that has been sidelined by courts; conducting the first statewide recount in more than 20 years; administering newly drawn legislative districts; and responding to litigation on such matters.

Greece: Presidential elections puts pressure on Samaras | The Irish Times

With only four days to go before Greece’s MPs begin voting for the country’s new president, it’s still far from clear how the coalition under prime minister Antonis Samaras will secure the necessary support to have its candidate elected. This it must do to prevent snap elections that would almost certainly see it lose power to a government led by the anti-memorandum Syriza party. Already a clear 25 votes short of the minimum required to elect a president, Mr Samaras earlier this week decided to take a gamble by making a surprise announcement that he was bringing the election for a new head of state forward by two months.

Japan: Abe coalition secures big Japan election win with record low turnout | Reuters