Yearly Archives: 2014

The race to fill a single Broward County Commission seat has been so chaotic, the elections supervisor says laws need to change. Uncertainty and litigation have characterized the race to fill the District 2 seat in northern Broward, simply because a write-in candidate joined the contest. The signals voters are getting are crossed: The race was moved to November, but it’s still on the ballot in August. In November, voters from all parties will participate. In August, it’s on the ballot only for Democrats. And the case is on appeal, so no one’s positive when the race will be, or who’ll get to vote in it.

Hawaii: Puna election will go forward Friday | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

A state Circuit Court judge on Thursday ruled that the state Office of Elections can proceed with a vote Friday for two precincts in Puna that could not open for Saturday’s primary in the wake of Tropical Storm Iselle. U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who trails U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz by 1,635 votes in the Democratic primary for Senate, had asked for a temporary restraining order to delay the vote until residents in Puna have had more time to recover from the storm. Circuit Court Judge Greg Nakamura said that if a popular poll were taken right now, the poll would indicate that “there’s some lack of common sense to hold the election tomorrow in light of the natural disaster caused by Iselle and people are trying to recover from the property damage caused by storm conditions, the lack of ability to freely move about, the lack of electrical power, and difficulties in regard to obtaining food and water.

Kentucky: The Obscure Kentucky Contests That Could Alter Rand Paul’s 2016 Plans | National Journal

There are few contests for state Legislature in America that could affect the 2016 presidential race. This one, in far western Kentucky, is one of them. The incumbent Democrat, Rep. Will Coursey, has been hampered by a lawsuit alleging sexually inappropriate behavior. He denies the allegations and blames Republicans for engaging in tactics that are “feces of the species of poultry.” His GOP opponent, Keith Travis, says he’s trying to turn Marshall County red at the statehouse for the first time since the mid-1800s. “I just felt like, after 172 years, we ought to at least make that opportunity available,” he said. It’s small-town American politics with big-time national consequences for a top 2016 prospect: Rand Paul. This race, along with a handful of others across Kentucky, could determine whether or not Paul is allowed to run for president and for Senate at the same time, something he’s indicated he’s determined to do.

Mississippi: McDaniel filing challenge in Jones County today | Clarion-Ledger

A spokesman says Chris McDaniel will file his legal challenge of the June 24 GOP primary he lost to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran today in Jones County Circuit Court. Today is the deadline to file. McDaniel on Tuesday said his legal team has told him he has a “rock-solid” case to overturn the primary. His case includes affidavits from many volunteers listing what they claim are thousands of illegal or irregular votes. But Cochran lawyers and some election officials dispute these claims. They say McDaniel volunteers have found irregularities where none exist and that the election, which Cochran won by 7,667 votes, was fair and had no more problems than the human error involved in all elections. McDaniel’s first step was to file his challenge with the state Republican Party. But the party refused to hear the challenge, saying it’s too big a case for it to sort and that it should go straight to the courts.

Mississippi: McDaniel sues to be declared winner | Clarion-Ledger

Chris McDaniel wants a court to exclude 25,000 Hinds County votes — plus those from several other counties — from the June 24 runoff results and declare him the winner of the U.S. Senate GOP primary.McDaniel filed a lawsuit against incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in Jones County Circuit Court on Thursday, the legal deadline to file.If he’s not declared the winner, tea party-backed McDaniel asks the court to order the state Republican Party to hold a new statewide primary and require it to prevent “party raiding” by Democrats.In a written statement Thursday, McDaniel said his legal challenge details “rampant election integrity problems” including maintenance of ballot boxes, fraudulent votes, insecure ballot boxes and election records, wrongly accepted absentees, loosely documented security of voting machines and other problems.

North Dakota: Results stand in Foster County election | Jamestown Sun

The results of the June 10 election in Foster County will stand after the county canvassing board re-canvassed the results following last week’s recount that falsely showed 300 ballots were missing. “We re-fed all the official ballots that we had in our possession back through the election machine, and those counts matched with what the recount board hand counted last week, which is 1,153 (ballots),” County Auditor Teresa Risovi said. “Taking the official ballot count looking at how many ballots I had ordered, how many official ballots that were left that were never used based off of how many I sent out, how many were received and the difference, we ended up being short six ballots and in the (North Dakota) secretary of state’s mind that is dead on. The company I ordered the official ballots from, ES&S, they have a disclaimer that says their packets could be over or under five ballots each, so as far as the state is concerned, we’re golden.”

South Dakota: High-speed ballot-counting machines to Minnehaha coming for fall election | Argus Leader

Minnehaha County election workers will be able to count ballots faster this fall. Commissioners approved the purchase of two high-speed ballot-counting machines Tuesday, using $217,625 from the Help America Vote Act. The new machines can count 300 ballots a minute, more than twice as many as the four old machines that are being replaced. The new tabulators will used for this fall’s general election. Auditor Bob Litz said that will make results available more quickly on election night. Even as the county population grows, he said they’ll be able to keep up with ballot counting “and still not break a sweat.”

US Virgin Islands: Elections lags, fails to certify primary elections | Virgin Islands Daily News

Despite claims that the territory’s primary elections in both districts would be certified Tuesday, they were not. While both districts continued counting late into Tuesday night, V.I. Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes said that it was unlikely that the final results would be certified until today, or possibly later in the week. They also were not revealing numbers of all the walk-in, mail-in and provisional ballots at stake, nor were they revealing results, including those of several Senate candidates whose fates hang in the balance. The boards have until Aug. 17 to certify the elections. Last week, internal strife between St. Thomas-St. John Deputy Supervisor Nefredieza Barbel and district board Chairman Arturo Watlington Jr. marked the counting process in the St. Thomas-St. John office.

Canada: Conservative staffer Michael Sona guilty of robocalls voter obstruction | Toronto Star

Former Conservative party staffer Michael Sona has been convicted of trying to prevent voters from casting ballots during the 2011 federal election. Sona, 25, was the only person charged in what has come to be known as the robocalls scandal, in which automated calls were set up to target voters in Guelph — most of them Liberal supporters — with misleading instructions on where to vote. After a long recounting of the trial’s testimony, Superior Court Justice Gary Hearn said he was convinced “well beyond a reasonable doubt” that Sona was guilty. Sona hung his head and family members fought back tears as Hearn explained his decision.

Indonesia: Prabowo’s court move backfires | The Jakarta Post

The presidential election dispute hearing at the Constitutional Court took an unexpected turn on Thursday as one of the witnesses testified on the alleged involvement of local government heads in mobilizing votes for losing presidential ticket Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa in Papua. Nabire Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Tagor Hutapea testified via video link that Dogiyai Regent Thomas Tigi had attempted to interfere with vote tabulation by persuading members of the District Election Committee (PPD) to rig the vote in favor of the Prabowo-Hatta ticket. “During that time, the Dogiyai General Elections Commission [KPUD] chairman, Didimus, told them [the PPD] that if they wanted money, then they could get it from the regent. But the votes must be diverted toward the Prabowo-Hatta ticket,” he said.

Philippines: Reuse of Precinct Count Optical Scan machines recommended for 2016 polls | Rappler

The Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) is recommending the reuse of existing precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and the use of one or more voting technologies for the 2016 national elections. CAC Chairman Louie Casambre announced the body’s recommendations during the joint congressional oversight committee (JCOC) hearing on the automated election system at the Senate on Thursday, August 14. The recommendations were submitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday. The CAC recommended the optical mark reader (OMR) technology used by the PCOS machines to be the primary voting technology in 2016. “The electorate and the election officials are used to it already,” explained Casambre.

Russia: ‘Most Diverse’ Elections Offer No Real Choice | The Moscow Times

An all-time record 63 parties will compete in the upcoming regional elections next month, but pundits and opposition candidates say undesirables have been purged from the lists. “The intrigue is mostly about the turnout and runners-up in the gubernatorial polls,” regional analyst Alexei Titkov of the Higher School of Economics said Thursday. “If less than 30 percent of voters turn out, it may finally trigger the long-awaited public discussion about there being something not quite right about our elections,” Titkov said by telephone. On Wednesday, candidate registration closed for the more than 5,800 local elections that will take place across 84 of 85 Russian provinces on Sept. 14, according to the Central Election Commission. Thirty governor seats are up for grabs, from St. Petersburg to the far eastern Primorye region, and 14 regional legislatures will be re-elected, including in Moscow. But not a single incumbent, Kremlin-endorsed governor risks defeat, Titkov said — mostly because electoral authorities have banned all dangerous rivals from the race.

Editorials: Troubling Texas voting changes face court scrutiny | Carl Leubsdorf/Dallas Morning News

It’s August, and most of the federal government is on vacation. Members of Congress are on their annual August state or district “work period,” President Barack Obama is at Martha’s Vineyard, and the Supreme Court is off until early October. But not all of the federal machinery is idle, especially in Texas. In San Antonio, a three-judge federal court is hearing the latest arguments in a case challenging state legislative and congressional redistricting plans favorable to the GOP. Another court, in Corpus Christi, plans to hear a case Sept. 2 that questions the constitutionality of Texas’ voter identification law. The latter case exemplifies the Republican effort in states with GOP governors and legislatures to limit turnout among Democratic-leaning minority groups. The verdict could significantly affect the political futures of Texas and other states where the Justice Department filed or joined similar suits. Both Texas cases stem from the 2013 Supreme Court decision ruling unconstitutional the 1965 Voting Rights Act section that gives the department power to review in advance voting changes in states like Texas with a history of racial bias.

Hawaii: After a Hawaii Storm, a Moment in the Sun: A Rural Area Will Cast a Close Race’s Last Votes | New York Times

Politics seldom intrudes on the easternmost district of the Big Island of Hawaii, a hard-to-reach paradise where the homes are nestled among lava-formed cliffs and the papaya and macadamia nut harvests loom larger than the machinations in Honolulu, let alone in Washington. “Traditionally, Puna is the place time forgot,” said Dawn Hurwitz, 58, who has lived here for almost half of her life. “This is the Wild West.” But nobody has forgotten about Puna this week. Last week, the area was battered by Tropical Storm Iselle, which left thousands of people without power or running water. And while residents are focused on digging out after the storm, politicians, aides and television crews have swarmed in, well aware that voters here are poised to finally decide the long, bitter Senate primary race between the incumbent, Brian Schatz, and Representative Colleen Hanabusa.

Hawaii: Congresswoman Sues to Block Special Election in Hawaii | Wall Street Journal

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa filed suit Wednesday to block a special election scheduled for Friday for thousands of voters on Hawaii’s Big Island—a vote that could decide the state’s fiercely contested Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat. The election would be for voters at two polling places in the Puna District of the Big Island that were shut down by Tropical Storm Iselle over the weekend. In a statement, Ms. Hanabusa said large numbers of people in the area were still without power or water and not yet receiving regular mail service, making it difficult to hold a makeup election Friday.

Maryland: Ballots for blind residents case heard in court | The Washington Post

A federal lawsuit to require the state of Maryland to provide online absentee ballots designed to protect the privacy of blind and disabled voters went before a federal judge on Wednesday. The ballot-marking system enables the blind to mark their voting selections on a computer. Then, they would print out their ballot as a bar code that could not be read by someone who mails the ballot in for them. Attorneys for the American Federation of the Blind, which filed the lawsuit, are trying to persuade U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett to require Maryland to use the ballots in November’s election. Sixteen other states use the tool. However, attorneys for the American Council of the Blind in Maryland argued in court against implementing the Web-based ballot-marking system, saying it is subject to fraud and computer hackers.

Mississippi: ‘Hocus Pocus’: McDaniel Challenges Votes, Interprets Election Law | Jackson Free Press

The two-inch-thick “Election Integrity Challenge” binder, compiled and released by the U.S. Senate campaign of state Sen. Chris McDaniel, documents everything from alleged vote-buying schemes to illegal crossover voters to race-baiting tactics allegedly used by U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s campaign. Only thing, the presented evidence does not appear to add up to a pattern of election irregularities substantial enough to force a new election the McDaniel campaign hoped for. Not even the Mississippi Republican Party thinks the McDaniel camp’s claims warrant a hurried meeting of the state executive committee to review all the documents. On the night of Aug. 6, the state GOP punted and told McDaniel to take his issues to a state court instead. They have until Aug. 14 to seek judicial review. McDaniel’s campaign distributed its 250 pages of evidence to members of the news media as well as the Republican Party officials. However, the evidence the McDaniel campaign offers poses just as many questions as it purports to answer.

Ohio: Cuyahoga County puts voting rights issue on ballot | Associated Press

Cuyahoga County voters will decide in November whether to approve a charter amendment that county officials hope will provide them with more authority to file lawsuits to stop or overturn restrictions on voting rights. County council approved a measure to put the amendment on the ballot by an 8-3 vote, with council’s three Republicans dissenting. The measure was sponsored by Councilwoman Sunny Simon at the urging of county executive and Democratic governor candidate Ed FitzGerald. FitzGerald said Wednesday that the charter amendment would strengthen Cuyahoga County’s legal position should it need to sue over voting rules as several groups are now doing. He said attorneys in the county law department worry that a judge might not allow the county to sue because county boards of elections, and not county government, oversee voting. “We’re anticipating legal arguments down the line,” FitzGerald said.

Editorials: Texas is wasting time and money in defending the GOP’s political advantage | Houston Chronicle

Texans know about lines, including the sword-drawn line Col. William Barrett Travis allegedly scraped through soon-to-be-bloody Alamo sand to distinguish the brave from the not-so-brave. These days a three-judge federal panel meeting a few blocks from the Texas shrine is examining in tedious detail a set of lines that won’t be erased by an early-morning breeze. They’re drawn, not in sand, but on computers. Since these lines will determine for years to come how Texans choose their elected representatives, the state’s politically invested are fighting almost as ferociously as the two armies that clashed at the Alamo. Unfortunately, the fight will last a good deal longer than the 13 days it took the Alamo to fall.

Wisconsin: Federal judge refuses to put ruling halting voter ID on hold | Journal-Sentinel

A federal judge has denied the state’s request for a hold on his decision striking down Wisconsin’s law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen had made two different requests to halt the decision during the appeals process. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman denied the first of those Wednesday, leaving in place the decision that he had made in April to strike down the voter ID law for violating voters’ constitutional rights. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to rule on the other stay request made by Van Hollen, who is seeking to reinstate the law in time for the Nov. 4 election.

Afghanistan: Election Rivals Hit New Snags | Wall Street Journal

New strains have emerged in Afghanistan’s delicate political transition, just a week after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Kabul for the second time in a month to defuse a political crisis concerning who will take over from President Hamid Karzai. As the vote audit for a disputed election remains painfully slow and a crucial deadline looms, fresh suggestions of political fraud have emerged along with provocative comments from a key player. Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani are vying to succeed Mr. Karzai, who must step down after more than a decade in power. But the failure of a June 14 runoff to produce a clear winner led to a political standoff that brought the country close to civil war.

Brazil: Candidate’s death makes runoff more likely, pressures Rousseff | Reuters

The death of presidential candidate Eduardo Campos makes it even more likely Brazil’s October election goes to a second round and could put President Dilma Rousseff under more pressure as she seeks a second term. Campos died in a plane crash on Wednesday and his running mate Marina Silva is expected to pick up the baton and run for president herself. She is a popular figure who won 19.3 percent of the vote when she ran in 2010. Silva has greater name recognition and more supporters than Campos had given that the campaign is still in its early stages. Her candidacy could give his Brazilian Socialist Party a boost and deprive Rousseff of votes she needs to avoid a second-round runoff against her main contender, Senator Aecio Neves.

China: Why Hong Kong’s Voting Rights Could Be in Danger | CityLab

Former public officials in Hong Kong have been lobbying the United Kingdom and the international community overall to stand up for the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, where students and activists are pressing Beijing for the right to elect their chief executive in 2017. But there’s little that the U.K. is likely or willing to do. Thirty years ago, the British agreed to hand over Hong Kong, one of its last colonies, to Beijing under an international treaty known as the Joint Declaration. It “guaranteed Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years” under the idea of “one country, two systems,” meaning that Hong Kongers would live under the rule of law, with freedom of speech, assembly, and worship, elections and a “high degree of autonomy.” Now, many feel that those freedoms are quickly being erased. Over the next month, Beijing is expected to release guidelines for elections that will allow it to influence Hong Kong’s slate of candidates, effectively limiting the right to full suffrage.

Fiji: Australia to co-lead Multinational Observation Group with Indonesia, India and PNG | ABC

Australia is sending a team of observers to Fiji to ensure next month’s general elections are free and fair. It will be the first election in Fiji since Frank Bainimarama seized power in a coup in 2006. The Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia is co-leading a 14 member Multinational Observation Group with Indonesia, India and Papua New Guinea. She’s appointed former Defence and Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith to lead the Australian team, saying he has a “strong interest in supporting democracy internationally.” Mr Reith says it’s a very important moment for Fiji. “It’s a good opportunity for Fiji, and Australia is keen to be of assistance,” he said.

Indonesia: Election Dispute In the Hands of These Nine Judges | Wall Street Journal

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court will soon issue a decision on a legal challenge by presidential contender Prabowo Subianto to overturn the results of last month’s election, in which Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo was declared the winner. It will be one of the biggest decisions in the history of Indonesia’s young democracy, and it will be left to the court’s nine judges. The justices are appointed by the House of Representatives, the president and the Supreme Court, each of which is entitled to appoint three justices to serve five-year terms at two term limits. Exception lies with the chief justice, who is elected by the other court judges to serve a term of only 2.5 years. In a court whose responsibilities include dissolving political parties and resolving disputes over election results, the judges are a mixed group. Some have links to political groupings that have supported Mr. Subianto. Others are career judges, some with backgrounds in Islamic law.

Tunisia: Voters shun upcoming elections | Al Jazeera

Rania Jasmine has no plans to vote in Tunisia’s upcoming parliamentary and first-ever presidential elections. “I don’t want to vote because I don’t trust any political party,” the 24-year-old university student, studying English literature and linguistics, told Al Jazeera. While she voted for the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in the previous elections, she said she was disappointed by the party’s performance. “[Ennahda] really disappointed me before as they were not the ones who were actually running the country,” Jasmine said. “They were [too] afraid of the opposition. So I prefer not to regret my choice again like the first time I voted.” After Tunisians toppled the 23-year presidency of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country held its first democratic elections in October 2011 to form the Constituent Assembly, a temporary government put in place to run the country until this year’s elections.

Editorials: How the Open Source Election Technology Foundation is Remaking the Voter Experience | TechPresident

In its report released earlier this January, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration noted how an online registration tool developed by the Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation that being used by Virginia and groups like Rock the Vote “highlights the way that voter information can be entered by a user in one setting and, through a simple platform, seamlessly integrated with a state’s registration list.” Now, ahead of the 2014 midterms and with an eye to 2016, OSET”s Trust the Vote Project is stepping up its efforts to expand that functionality and other election innovations across the country, at the same time that the Bipartisan Policy Center has taken up the task of more broadly implementing the commission’s recommendations as a whole throughout the states. As techPresident wrote at the time, the commission’s report highlighted how it had identified technology and data problems at the root of the “long lines” that President Obama had directed the commission to address. “We have been working on various piece of what I call the overall ecosystem…of election administration,” Gregory Miller, co-founder and chief development officer of OSET said in a recent interview. “We’ve been looking at the pieces that do not require federal certification since the federal certification model is so broken.” While OSET has also been involved in discussions about changing the certification model, the more immediate focus of the initiative, he said, has been improving the voter experience rather than ballot transactions.

Arizona: New Yavapai County equipment improves process | The Prescott Daily Courier

One fun reason not to join Yavapai County’s Permanent Early Voting List is to check out the latest high-tech voting machines. The Yavapai County Recorder’s Office and its Elections Department have brand new touch-screen voting machines that talk to users and let them know if they voted for too many or too few candidates. While that’s the most visible of the new voting equipment, the county also has new ballot scanning machines. They count ballots so fast that poll workers at vote centers will no longer scan and modem results to the main Prescott office from various voting centers around the county. Instead, vote center workers will drive to Prescott with the ballots so they can be scanned and counted on the new high-speed machines. Noting that three-fourths of voters now vote early anyway, Recorder Leslie Hoffman and Elections Director Lynn Constabile think ballot counting will get done about the same time as it has in the past, since they are restricted on when they can start. “I have a feeling it’s going to be the same amount of time,” Constabile said.

Florida: Arguing Florida Failed Again, Dems Want Court-Drawn Map | Governing

Florida legislators completed their fix of a congressional redistricting map Monday, sending the plan to Gov. Rick Scott for approval as they scramble to meet Friday’s deadline set by a state court. In an attempt to address the concerns by Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, who said the map violated a constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering, the legislature ended a three-day special session by moving 368,000 voters in North and Central Florida into new districts as it changed the boundaries of seven congressional seats. The House and Senate voted for the map along party lines, as a handful of Jacksonville Democrats voted with Republicans in solidarity with U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat whose winding district was invalidated because it packed Democrats voters into the district so that Republicans in surrounding districts would face less competition. The new map makes the biggest changes to the districts now held by Brown, John Mica, R-Orlando, and Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden. Lewis ordered the Legislature to fix Districts 5 and 10, held by Brown and Webster, by Friday, saying they were in violation of the state’s Fair Districts rules. No South Florida districts were modified.

Hawaii: Hanabusa threatens to sue to block Friday’s election | Honolulu Star-Advertiser