Yearly Archives: 2014

More Indonesians from among the country’s 300,000 early voters in Malaysia have come out to cast their vote in their presidential election. After early voting in Kuala Lumpur and Johor on Saturday, it was the turn of Indonesians working and living in Sarawak, Sabah and Penang to go to the polls yesterday. Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Herman Prayitno said there were 420,643 eligible voters in Malaysia. Indonesian Consul-General Djoko Hardjanto and his wife Rosa Triana were among those who cast their votes as soon as the polling station in Kuching opened at 9am.

Libya: Vote results scrapped in 24 polling stations | News24

Libya’s electoral commission announced Sunday it was scrapping the results from 24 polling stations due to fraud in a parliamentary election contested at 1 600 stations in June. An investigation has been launched and those responsible for the alleged fraud will be put on trial, said commission chief Imed al-Sayeh. Sayeh was speaking at a news conference to announce preliminary results for the June 25 election, which was marred by a poor turnout, violence and the murder of a leading women’s rights activist.

Nepal: CPN-UML faction against electronic voting machines | eKantipur

The CPN-UML faction led by Madhav Kumar Nepal has rejected the party’s decision to use Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for the Central Committee (CC) election. The Nepal faction has expressed a serious reservation over the effort of the organising committee of the ongoing ninth UML National Congress to use the EVMs for election. Organising a separate press meet on Saturday, UML politburo member, Raghuji Pant, said that a large section of the party representatives are skeptical about the use of EVMs, and demanded the use of paper ballot for the election.

New Zealand: The rights and wrongs of MMP | Northern Advocate

MMP has enjoyed more than a two-decade tenure as New Zealand’s voting system. But three months out from the general election, cracks are showing. Cassandra Mason investigates the prides and pitfalls of MMP and whether there’s room for change. New Zealand’s mixed member proportional system (MMP) ousted first past the post (FPP) when it was voted in in 1993. The change answered calls from an increasingly diverse New Zealand that Parliament more closely resemble its population. With September’s election on the horizon, the system’s more controversial characteristics are fuelling debate.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 30 – July 6 2014

July 6, 2014

voting-technology_260 A decade after Congress appropriated billions in funding for voting equipment that equipment is quickly becoming obsolete and cash-strapped states and counties are unable to replace it. An expert testifying in the federal voting rights trial in Anchorage said Monday it’s possible to trace Alaska’s current failure to provide full language assistance to Native language speakers to territorial days when Alaska Natives were denied citizenship unless they renounced their own culture. The right to vote for President for American citizens from U.S. territories is at issue in a Guam lawsuit headed to federal court. The American Civil Liberties Union asked a Kansas judge Friday to prevent Secretary of State Kris Kobach from starting a “dual” voting system to help the conservative Republican enforce a proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters that he championed. Though he has yet to present evidence to support his claim that voter fraud pushed Senate incumbent Thad Cochran to victory in Mississippi’s GOP runoff, State Senator Chris McDaniel continues to threaten to contest the election in court. The hackers who breached the Oregon Secretary of State’s website in February probably exploited software that cybersecurity websites had identified as vulnerable but that state IT officials had not patched. After a potential opening last week to ease Afghanistan’s political crisis, the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah signaled on Sunday that more deadlock was ahead and voters in Indonesia head to the polls to elect a new President.

National: The Looming Crisis in Voting Technology | Governing.com

More and more often these days, Neal Kelley and his staff find themselves rooting through shelves at used computer stores in Orange County, Calif., looking for something they can’t find anywhere else: laptops that run on Windows 2000. Kelley is the registrar of voters in Orange County, and one component of his election equipment still runs on the Microsoft operating system from 14 years ago. As in most places around the country, Orange County’s voting technology is based on federal standards set after Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. The razor-thin presidential election in 2000 between Al Gore and George W. Bush revealed that outdated technology had left thousands of votes uncounted. With HAVA, Congress encouraged local governments to install electronic voting equipment, resulting in a wave of upgrades across the country. Between 2002 and 2004, Congress allocated more than $3 billion for some 8,000 local jurisdictions to replace the punch card devices and lever machines they had been using for more than 30 years. But today, a decade later, that upgraded election infrastructure is quickly becoming obsolete. In a worst-case scenario, current equipment will start to fail in the next couple years, forcing fewer voting booths to process more ballots, a recipe for longer lines and voter frustration. “What you don’t want is disenfranchised voters who are deciding not to cast a ballot because of these issues,” says Kelley. “We can’t let ourselves get to that point. We need to be ahead of this curve.”

National: Rules of the game: New laws tough for some voters | CNN.com

Edna Griggs keenly remembers the anger and outrage she felt during the 2012 general election when she watched as African-American senior citizens were forced to wait in long lines in the Houston heat as they cued up to vote at the Acres Homes Multi-Service Center. A member of her local NAACP chapter, Griggs says she was told that she couldn’t bring them water to drink or chairs to rest in. “A poll watcher approached me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He told me I couldn’t do that. They thought we were trying to sway their votes by giving them water,” she said. “It was really sad to me because it was like a reflection of the stories I heard from my grandmother and mother when they had to pay to vote. It was a reflection of everything our people have gone through.”

Alaska: Official testifies in voting rights trial | Associated Press

A top Alaska elections official testifying in a federal Native voting rights trial disputed claims that villages with sizable populations of limited English speakers vote in lower proportions than elsewhere in the state. Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai took the stand Wednesday as the state’s last witness in the Voting Rights Act lawsuit filed by village tribal organizations and elders against her and other election officials. Fenumiai testified that most of the village precincts beat the state’s average turnout in the 2012 presidential election if only precinct-level turnout numbers were examined, the Anchorage Daily News (http://is.gd/5OYggI ) reported. Fenumiai’s office, however, provides more voter services in urban areas, such as easy access to early voting and absentee balloting. She said voters who cast absentee or early ballots aren’t counted in the turnout numbers of their home precincts.

Guam: Equality: No matter where they live, all citizens should have vote for president | Pacific Daily News

Today is Independence Day, when we mark the decision of the Founding Fathers to break away from a tyrannical monarchy and establish our representative democracy. The hallmark of our form of government is that it is of, for and by the people. We, the people, decide who will lead us in government, including who will serve us as president — unless you are a U.S. citizen who’s a resident of Guam or one of the other territories. Then you have no vote, and thus no voice, in who will lead the country. A new federal lawsuit being developed by the We the People Project, a nonprofit that fights for the day residents of Guam and other U.S. territories, aims to change that.

Illinois: Madigan won’t defend Lake County election commission | Daily Herald

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office will drop its defense of a controversial plan to take election-running powers from the Lake County clerk and create a new government commission instead. A lower court had previously struck down part of a law that would create the new government, and Madigan’s office appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court because the attorney general is responsible for defending state laws. Madigan spokeswoman Natalie Bauer said Thursday the office would drop that appeal.

Mississippi: Challenger offers bounty for vote fraud evidence | USA Today

Challenger Chris McDaniel is offering $1,000 rewards for voter fraud evidence as he moves to overturn results of the June 24 Republican Senate primary he lost to incumbent Thad Cochran. McDaniel is asking supporters for donations to fund up to 15 such bounties for evidence that leads to arrests and convictions and for help financing his challenge of the vote. He claims Cochran and others stole the primary through vote buying and other skullduggery. The Cochran campaign says the claims are baseless.

Missouri: ACLU Challenges Legislature’s Early Voting Proposal | Ozarks First

The American Civil Liberties Union charges the legislature has put a misleading early voting proposal on the November ballot. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit saying the ballot language written by the General Assembly is “untrue.” The ballot language says, “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to permit voting in person or by mail for a period of six business days prior to and including Wednesday before the election day in all general elections.”

South Dakota: A new lieutenant for Myers, but law doesn’t allow switch | Argus Leader

On Tuesday, independent gubernatorial candidate Mike Myers will announce a new running mate after his previous pick for lieutenant governor backed out due to a family health problem. Whoever Myers unveils next week, however, it will be Caitlin Collier’s name who appears on the ballot in November. In a possible oversight, South Dakota law doesn’t provide for an independent candidate to replace his or her running mate. “Her name cannot be removed from the ballot,” said Secretary of State Jason Gant. “There is not a law that states how an independent candidate can be replaced.” Lieutenant governor candidates nominated by a political party might be able to be replaced, though Gant said needed to review the law before speaking definitively.

Afghanistan: Was the Afghan Election Stolen? | Foreign Policy

Recent developments have diminished the trust of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission IEC in the public mindset and further weakened the institution’s credibility and impartiality. Public trust in the IEC reached a new low following a press conference in which the IEC Chairman, Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, announced that the voter turnout was above 7 million only two hours after polling had closed. The basis on which this figure was calculated is highly problematic as election staff from all thirty-four provinces could not have had enough time to report their data to the IEC. Moreover, the trouble with the IEC’s 7 million-plus figure was that it crossed the record voter turnout of 6.9 million in the first round of the presidential election. As the first round fielded nine presidential candidates and the provincial council elections, it was expected that the combination of the two would generate a higher voter turnout. Critics therefore called into question the IEC’s seven million-plus number as the second round of the presidential election did not have provincial council elections and only fielded two presidential candidates.

Editorials: Why elections won’t save Libya | Al Jazeera

On June 25, Libyans went to the polls to elect a new 200-seat Council of Deputies that would replace the General National Congress. Three years after Libya’s revolution overthrew Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, the country’s security continues to deteriorate, and its economy has been crippled by endless protests at its oil facilities. The ruling Congress, whose mandate expired in February but which has continued to limp along until these latest elections, became so dysfunctional that many of its members simply stopped attending meetings. Most Libyans feel their politicians have failed to deliver basic government. As such, many hoped the elections would offer the promise of a much-needed new start and help salvage the country’s ailing transition. But these elections may not usher in a new era. Libya’s political institutions have proved weak and ineffectual, and there is little to suggest that the new ruling body will be any different. Moreover, the struggle between liberal and Islamist political forces, which left the Congress paralyzed and prompted calls for its dissolution, continues to play out in the country.

Nigeria: Senate Passes Amendment to 2010 Electoral Act | allAfrica

In compliance with stipulations in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol on Good Governance which asks parliaments to pass electoral acts not less than six months before elections, the Senate yesterday passed 2014 Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill with a provision empowering the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to adopt electronic voting device if it so wishes. This decision was a marked departure from the parliament’s earlier decision which prohibited the use of electronic voting machine as provided in Section 152 (2) of the 2010 Electoral Act. This provision was however, amended in 2014 Electoral Act with a view to enabling INEC to determine the form of voting it chooses to adopt whether it is electronic or otherwise. “Voting at an election under this Act shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the INEC,” it said.

Slovenia: Prime Minister halts privatizations before election | Reuters

Slovenia is halting all privatizations until a new government is formed after a snap election on July 13, outgoing Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said on Thursday, drawing a sharp response from the finance minister in her own government. Analysts said the move was aimed at raising Bratusek’s popularity with voters, who generally oppose attempts to sell local companies. Finance Minister Uros Cufer called the decision a part of “pre-election hysteria”. The decision could ultimately deter investors or bring down the prices of companies sold, analysts said, and delay much needed revenue for a country that had to inject 3.3 billion euros ($4.5 billion) into its banks in December to avoid an international bailout.

Alaska: Expert in Native voting rights trial says Alaska has long history of discrimination | Anchorage

An expert testifying in the federal voting rights trial in Anchorage said Monday it’s possible to trace Alaska’s current failure to provide full language assistance to Native language speakers to territorial days when Alaska Natives were denied citizenship unless they renounced their own culture. “This represents the continuing organizational culture, looking at the law as something they’re forced to do, instead of looking at the policy goal of being sure that everyone has the opportunity to participate,” said University of Utah political science professor Daniel McCool. “It’s part of a pattern I see over a long period of time, a consistent culture — they’re going to fight this. When forced to do something, they’re going to do it, but only when they’ve been ordered to.”

Arizona: Preparing for county elections | Benson News-Sun

In preparation for the upcoming primary and general elections, Juanita Murray, director of the Elections Department and Special Districts, held a meeting for poll workers and the interested public to update them on the changes in technology that they will be able to use. “We’re 100 times more prepared for this election cycle,” Murray said. “I’m a firm believer that there is always room for improvement to make the process more efficient. One of my main goals today is to improve communication, so that when the election rolls around you’ll be able to answer any questions at the polls.” More than 300 people will be hired to help with the elections from poll workers to troubleshooters. That means a lot of training time to get them ready for the election days.

Guam: Presidential vote issue may be brought to federal court | Pacific Daily News

Whether residents of Guam should be able to vote for President may be brought up in federal court. We the People Project, a nonprofit organization that aims to fight for the rights of residents in Guam and other U.S. territories, is hoping to file a federal lawsuit on the issue by fall, according to a press release. “It’s simple — the right to vote for president should not depend on where you live,” Neil Weare, president and founder of the project, said in the release “That’s not how democracy is supposed to work. Guam’s sons and daughters proudly serve in uniform to defend democracy overseas; they should have the right to fully participate in democracy at home.”

National: Court: Super PAC not independent enough | Politico

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that free-spending political groups can lose the right to make unlimited expenditures in certain situations. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in Vermont Right to Life v. Sorrell that an anti-abortion, state-level super PAC was not “functionally distinct” enough from a sister committee that gives cash to political candidates and parties. As a result, the court found that the ostensibly separate group may not have been acting independently and can be subject to Vermont’s campaign finance caps. Vermont Right to Life Committee splits its political activities into two arms: the VRLC political committee and the VRLC fund for independent political expenditures.

Editorials: Gerrymandering Efficiency Gap: A Better Way to Measure Gerrymandering | Nicholas Stephanopoulos/New Republic

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then litigants who challenge gerrymandering must be mad. Last month, a federal court threw out the Texas Democratic Party’s claim that the state’s new congressional and state house districts are unlawful. This was the twelfth time in a row that this sort of claim has failed in the current cycle. Plaintiffs’ record of futility now spans at least three dozen cases over four decades. It doesn’t have to be this way. Litigants keep losing these lawsuits because they keep proposing standards the courts have already rejected (such as partisan intent). They’re failing to capitalize on encouraging comments by the Supreme Court, which show that it’s open to a test based on partisan symmetry—the idea that district plans should treat the parties equally. In a forthcoming law review article, Eric McGhee and I lay out just such a test. If plaintiffs were to use it in litigation, they’d have a fighting chance at winning. And if they were to win, then the whole landscape of redistricting in America would be transformed.

Delaware: Same day voter registration supporters criticize State Senate for failure to vote on bill | DPM

Local advocacy groups are expressing their disappointment over Delaware’s State Senate failing to consider same day voter registration as the 147th General Assembly drew to a close Monday. The Same Day Registration Coalition, an assembly of more than a dozen organizations including ACLU Delaware and Common Cause Delaware, called on lawmakers to take up the issue again in 2015. Apryl Walker, a spokesperson for the group, says lawmakers worried about keeping their seats in an election year was just one factor contributing to HB 105 not getting a vote before the close of the legislative session on Monday.

Mississippi: Lawsuit alleges voter fraud in Thad Cochran runoff win over Chris McDaniel | UPI

Conservatives backing Mississippi tea partier Chris McDaniel have filed a lawsuit against the Republican Party of Mississippi and the Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann claiming that voters who supported Sen. Thad Cochran in his come-from-behind runoff victory last week broke the law by also voting in the Democratic primary. McDaniel, a state senator who eked out a victory over Cochran in the June 3 Republican primary, has refused to concede after losing the June 24 runoff by a 6,700-vote margin. He alleges that Cochran’s successful effort to expand his voter base to include Democrats resulted in “thousands or irregularities in the voting process.” The lawsuit, filed by the conservative group True the Vote, names 13 voters who it says “double-voted” — cast ballots in Mississippi’s Democratic primary and then in the Republican runoff.

Missouri: Judge hears arguments in ballot summaries | Houston Herald

With absentee voting already under way for the August election, a Missouri judge is considering whether to strike down the ballot summaries prepared for voters on proposed constitutional amendments addressing gun rights and transportation taxes. Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem heard arguments on lawsuits claiming that the summaries prepared by the Republican-led Legislature are insufficient because they don’t mention some aspects of the measures. The lawsuit against the transportation sales tax also challenges the official financial summary, which states that it would generate $480 million annually for the state and $54 million for local governments. If Beetem rejects the ballot summaries, he could write new ones, which could invalidate any votes already cast under the current summaries.

North Carolina: Elimination of voter preregistration program creates confusion for DMV and elections officials | Charlotte Observer

The General Assembly’s decision to do away with voter pre-registration in 2013 has created confusion in state driver’s license offices, where 50,000 teenagers a year had been signed up in a program that automatically added their names to voter rolls when they turned 18. Since September, when part of the sweeping elections overhaul bill took effect, state Division of Motor Vehicles officials have had difficulty figuring out at what age newly licensed drivers should be allowed to register to vote. This issue is one of many expected to be raised next week in federal court by lawyers representing the U.S. Justice Department, the NAACP and others challenging the 2013 elections overhaul bill. The parties are scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder on Monday in a Winston-Salem federal courtroom.

Ohio: NAACP, others file lawsuit to restore voting ‘golden week’ in Ohio | The Columbus Dispatch

The Ohio Conference of the NAACP is asking a federal judge to expand early voting by restoring “ golden week” and allowing in-person ballots to be cast on more Sundays and during evening hours. Meanwhile, a coalition led by the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus said yesterday that it will continue its signature-gathering efforts to get an Ohio Voter Bill of Rights before voters, but it will not make the 2014 ballot. The NAACP lawsuit was filed with the same federal judge who two weeks ago required Secretary of State Jon Husted to implement early voting on the three days before Election Day. But the lawsuit filed this week with U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus says that does not go far enough to ensure access to the ballot.

Texas: Man gets three years in prison for casting a single vote | abc13.com

Adrian Heath was recently sentenced to three years in prison and slapped with a $10,000 fine, and he has become an unlikely face for voter fraud in Texas. His sentencing in a Montgomery County court capped a four-year journey that began with Heath’s plan to bring more oversight to a special utility district and ended with Heath a convicted felon. Heath’s interest was in The Woodlands Road Utility District, a 2,400-acre taxing body that weaves through the suburb. The district was collecting taxes to pay off bond debt and Heath wanted a say. He argued that even though his home wasn’t exactly in the district — few residences were — it imposed taxes indirectly on him because he did much of his shopping and dining there. “We learned there was an election pending,” Heath said. “Three seats open. So we said, ‘Why don’t we just get some people to run for those seats?'” In May 2010, Heath, along with a handful of his neighbors booked rooms at a Residence Inn inside the Road Utility District.

Afghanistan: Election results delayed amid fraud accusations | Reuters

Preliminary results from Afghanistan’s presidential election, due to be announced on Wednesday, have been delayed, an election official said, amid accusations of fraud that threaten to split the fragile country along ethnic lines. Votes from around 2,000 polling stations in the June 14 run-off are to be reviewed and recounted, said Sharifa Zurmati Wardak of the Independent Election Commission (IEC). The contest pitted former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah against former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani. “This will take nearly a week and the final result won’t be announced on time,” Wardak told Reuters.

China: Hong Kong, Beijing Consider New Reality After Pro-Democracy Referendum | VoA News