Gov. Bruce Rauner replaced a longtime state election regulator Wednesday. In paperwork filed with the Illinois Secretary of State, the Republican governor announced the end of former Bloomington Mayor Jesse Smart’s 14-year tenure on the Illinois State Board of Elections. Smart, who served as mayor of Bloomington from 1985 to 1997, is being replaced by Madison County Republican Party Chairman Andy Carruthers of Edwardsville.
Two voter ID measures, with one amended in its entirety to encompass a proposal from the 2013 session that would have created electronic poll books with voter photos, moved out of the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee on Thursday without a recommendation. Both Assembly Bill 253 by Assemblyman Lynn Stewart, R-Henderson, and Assembly Bill 266 by Assemblywoman Jill Dickman, R-Sparks, will be re-referred to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee because of the fiscal notes attached to the measures.
Nevada would scrap its caucus system for a presidential preference primary under a bill considered Wednesday by a Senate committee. Another bill would open Nevada primaries in partisan races to all candidates, with the top two winners advancing to the general election. Both were heard Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. The committee took no action on either bill. Senate Bill 421 presented by state Sen. James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, would replace Nevada’s presidential caucus system with a presidential preference election early in presidential election years. And it would move Nevada’s statewide primary election from June to February.
New York City is routinely described as a “global hub”, a place so thoroughly penetrated by international capital and migration that it seems at once within and without the United States. It is the centre of American commerce and media, but its politics, demographics and worldly outlook make the Big Apple an outlier. New York may be about to become even more distinct. The left-leaning New York City council is currently drafting legislation that would allow all legal residents, regardless of citizenship, the right to vote in city elections. If the measure passes into law, it would mark a major victory for a voting rights campaign that seeks to enfranchise non-citizen voters in local elections across the country. A few towns already permit non-citizen residents to vote locally, but New York City would be by far the largest jurisdiction to do so.
This past August the United States District Court in New Jersey dismissed a complaint brought by voters and independent interest groups to open state primaries and prevent the state from funding closed primaries. The coalition, formed by Endpartisanship.org, is appealing to the Third Circuit to end state funded primaries for the two major parties. Their complaint alleges that the New Jersey statute impermissibly funds closed primaries to the detriment of unaffiliated candidates and voters generally. Endpartisanship.org is a coalition of various groups that believe the two party system has been unfairly supported by the states and that the taxpayer funds supporting the parties creates an unfair advantage to the detriment of independent candidates. This is their first lawsuit as a coalition and it seems that they may have hit a major roadblock.
Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday vetoed some provisions tucked into the transportation budget bill that critics had predicted would deter out-of-state college students from voting in Ohio. But the governor let stand a 30-day time limit by which anyone who declares Ohio residency must re-register their cars and get a new driver’s license. A provision that listed registering to vote among several acts of declaring residency in the state had triggered criticism. Under the vetoed language, failure to re-register an out-of-state car and get a new driver’s license would have resulted in loss of all driving privileges in Ohio and open the driver to a minor misdemeanor charge and a fine.
Technology played a decisive role in helping Muhammadu Buhari become the first Nigerian to oust a sitting president at the ballot box, from social media campaigning to biometric machines preventing the widespread rigging that marred past polls. Three decades after seizing power in a military coup, part of the 72-year-old former general’s appeal to the electorate in Africa’s biggest economy lay in his successful rebranding as a man who embraced democracy. A good deal of that rebranding happened online, where campaigning from smartphones can build momentum at low cost.
Tanzania has postponed a referendum on a new constitution after delays in registering voters, the electoral body said Thursday. The postponement heightened tensions over the charter, which the main opposition parties have rejected. The delay also could complicate presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in October. The new constitution would replace one passed in 1977, when the state was under one-party rule. The opposition said it was approved last year without a quorum by an assembly dominated by President Jakaya Kikwete’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has been in power since Tanzania’s independence from Britain in 1961.
James Jackson, 71, does not have the right to vote in the UK, having become a victim of the rule preventing Britons from voting at home once they’ve been out of the country for 15 years. However, nothing in law stops him standing as a Parliamentary candidate in the general election, so he plans to throw his hat in the ring as a candidate for the safe Tory seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. In an interview with the getwestlondon news website, Mr Jackson said: “This Kafkaesque situation means that, theoretically, I could win a parliamentary seat and take my place in the House of Commons, despite living abroad and not having a vote.” The website reported that Mr Jackson formerly lived in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, working as treasurer of the former Colwyn Borough Council. He left the UK in 1996 to work as an internal auditor/treasurer for the Falkland Islands government and later retired to live in Narbonne, southern France.
As the short campaign of the this year’s general election begins apace, technologists and electoral reformers are wondering whether this will be the last time the country goes to the polls without access to some form of online voting. Back in January the House of Commons speaker John Bercow again raised the possibility that the next election, expected in 2020 now that parliament has a five-year fixed term, could be the first in which citizens can vote online. Experiments in other countries have led some to question the wisdom of such a move. Having worked as an election official in the 2008 US presidential election, Paco Hope, principal consultant at software security firm Cigital, warns that fraud could rise if the technology is implemented. “I’m not sure that you can secure it,” he says, arguing that the voting process could be hijacked by hackers. “We can’t make websites that are resistant to the type of attacks that target an election.”
Members of the House Oversight Committee are urging a review of the Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program for military personnel living overseas. The Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) assists military service members abroad and U.S. citizens living in foreign countries with absentee voting. Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Iraq War veteran, spearheaded the letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro asking the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation about the program’s effectiveness.
A piece of legislation that would allow voters over the age of 70 and the disabled to avoid waiting in line at polling places passed in the Alabama House today after little discussion. Rep. David Standridge, R-Hayden, said he sponsored the bill after witnessing elderly citizens standing in long lines waiting to cast their votes. “This would just merely allow them to move up in line if they so request it,” he said today on the House floor.
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill on Monday joined the Registrars of Voters Association of Connecticut in praising the legislative Government Administration and Elections Committee’s passage of Senate Bill No. 1051 “An Act Strengthening Connecticut Elections.” By an overwhelming vote of 13-2, the GAE committee approved a bill that will increase accountability and professionalism among Connecticut’s registrars of voters who are primarily charged with the responsibility of administering elections in Connecticut. Secretary Merrill had sought legislation to redefine the position of Registrar from two partisan, elected positions for each city and town to a professional hired locally by municipalities.
Gov. Eddie Calvo enacted several bills into law yesterday including legislation updates, prison contraband regulations and reforms to Guam’s voter registration laws. … In her first act as an island lawmaker, freshman Sen. Mary Camacho Torres, R-Santa Rita, authored three voter registration reform bills aimed at modernizing and streamlining the process. Two of the measures — Bills 23 and 24 — were deliberated and passed during the March session, but she agreed to send Bill 25 back to committee. “We’ve seen that democracy is so dependent on participation,” Torres said. “There’s a steady decline of participation in the voting process, we felt incumbent to do something to enable people to have better access to online voter registration.”
Finally, there’s good news for Aaron Schock. He can fulfill his wish to try to square things with his congressional district. And he can do it in the most sincere way possible politically: by putting his money where his mouth is. Schock can use his campaign cash — about $3.3 million — to cover the costs of special elections for his replacement. That’s the opinion of a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. … He has no obligation toward the special elections. Taxpayers get stuck with those surprise bills. How much? Hard to say. The 18th Congressional District has 21 separate voting entities: 19 counties, plus the cities of Peoria and Bloomington. Each will bear the expense of a primary election and general election this summer. Peoria County (not including the city) is looking at perhaps $150,000 in added costs. McLean County, which likely has the largest population base in the district, might have to pay $293,000 — and that doesn’t even include Bloomington.
A Wichita State University mathematician sued the top Kansas election official Wednesday seeking paper tapes from electronic voting machines, an effort to explain statistical anomalies favoring Republicans in counts coming from large precincts across the country. Beth Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit in Sedgwick County District Court as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. The lawsuit was amended Wednesday to name Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Sedgwick County Elections Commissioner Tabitha Lehman.
When Dexter Stanton got out of prison in 2009 after serving time for a felony drunk-driving conviction, he wanted to get involved in the community in a positive way. He volunteered for political campaigns, worked a phone bank, canvassed neighborhoods and was even elected caucus chairman for the local DFL party. What he couldn’t do, however, was vote. “I was a part of the community, and yet I was separate,” Stanton said. “I wasn’t a community member.” Stanton said it doesn’t seem right for someone to be working and paying taxes in the community, but not have a say in decisions. For someone from a family long active in politics, “it was really frustrating,” he said.
A change to Wake County elections, driven by state legislators, drew a step closer to passage Tuesday. After more than two weeks below the radar, Senate Bill 181 reappeared before a state House committee with less than 24 hours’ notice. Republican Sen. Chad Barefoot’s bill would redraw electoral district lines and create two new super-districts, each representing half the county, for the Wake County Board of Commissioners. Instead of casting ballots in each race, as they do now, voters would be limited to two races each. The change likely would curtail the influence of Raleigh’s heavy Democratic presence in current countywide elections. The new lines would consolidate partisan voters in some districts, to a potential Republican advantage.
A Virginia Department of Elections (DOE) report cites “serious security concerns” with certain voting equipment used during the November 2014 General Election. On Wednesday, the DOE released it’s “Interim Report on Voting Equipment Performance, Usage and Certification” that it said was conducted in response to the widespread report of voting machine irregularities during the November election. On election day, Gov. Terry McAuliffe told only 10 On Your Side that the voting machine irregularities were “unacceptable” and that he wanted an investigation. This was after the DOE confirmed technical difficulties with a number of touchscreen voting machines in Virginia Beach and Newport News. Other areas reported irregularities, including Spotsylvania and Henrico counties.
In becoming the first Nigerian to defeat a sitting president through the ballot box yesterday, Muhammadu Buhari’s victory turned into a political flashpoint for African hopefuls determined to set the same precedent in their country. In Kenya, five democratic elections have yet to see an opposition candidate successfully unseat a sitting president. But Raila Odinga, who lost in 2007 and 2013, said the outcome of Nigeria’s election gives him hope. Buhari, who is 72 years old, lost elections three times before his successful campaign. Odinga will be the same age when Kenya holds its sixth presidential elections in 2017. In Tanzania, a young presidential hopeful, January Makamba, hopes to unseat his country’s ruling party candidate in October. The incumbent president, Jakaya Kikwete, is ineligible to run for a third term. In the lead up to a hotly contested race, and in a climate of escalating sectarian tensions between Christian and Muslim communities in Tanzania, Makamba commended the importance of a ruling party concession.
While security fears always get a regular airing in debates about electronic voting, another question that has so far escaped attention is whether electronic voting itself can change who people vote for. We have known for decades that the structure of paper ballots has an impact on the way people vote. We know there is a small bias in favour higher placed candidates on the vertical lower house ballot paper, and a left to right bias on horizontal upper house ballot papers. This bias by position is as a result of the order in which people read the ballot paper. Some electors seem to stop and vote for the first candidate or party they recognise rather than look at all options. It can also lead to donkey voting, where people simply number candidates top to bottom or left to right. These factors get worse the larger the ballot paper. Some of the giant ballot papers in recent years have shown evidence of voter confusion as voters have struggled to find the parties they do know amongst a profusion of micro party offerings.
Over 60 percent of CSV voters and over 80 percent of ADR voters are against foreigner voting rights, a poll conducted by TNS Ilres has found. The Politmonitor, commissioned by the “Luxemburger Wort” and RTL, polled a representative group of 841 voters, asking them the three referendum questions as they will appear on the ballot. Only 44 percent answered “yes” to granting voting rights to foreigners on the condition of having lived in the country for at least ten years and having previously participated in a local or European election. This compared to 48 percent of voters against the measure and 8 percent undecided.
For months, White House hopefuls from both parties have been raising millions in unlimited contributions at upscale fund-raisers from Manhattan to Palm Springs, Calif. — all without officially declaring themselves candidates and becoming subject to federal caps on contributions. Only a few of some 20 would-be presidential candidates have even bothered to set up the exploratory committees that were once a time-tested way to declare interest in the White House — and that set off their own fund-raising restrictions. But two leading campaign finance groups charged on Tuesday that the spread of these unofficial campaigns in recent months was not only deceptive, but also illegal.
Arizona Republican legislators advanced several bills Monday that would restore key provisions of a sweeping election law that was repealed last year, saying they want to root out fraud and clarify existing state regulations. The proposals aim to allow donors to contribute more money to candidates, make it easier for judges to throw out signatures for technical errors on ballot measures and expand campaign signature requirements. Critics, including Democratic legislative leaders, say the efforts aim to make voting more difficult.
A Senate committee on Monday advanced a bill that would impose new restrictions on the petition process for ballot initiatives. The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee gave a “do pass” recommendation to Senate Bill 860 by Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana. Under the bill, the sponsor of a statewide initiative or referendum would be required to obtain background checks of all paid canvassers, at the sponsor’s expense, and register the results with the Arkansas State Police. Each paid canvasser also would have to sign a statement swearing that he or she has never been convicted of a felony, a violation of an election law, fraud, forgery or identity theft.
A special election to replace Aaron Schock in Congress will be later in the summer than expected after the federal government stepped in to ensure military voters have a chance to cast ballots. In action Tuesday, Gov. Bruce Rauner set the dates for the 18th Congressional District primary for June 8, but he acknowledged that it could be late June or early July once negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice conclude. The Republican governor set the general election for the post for July 24 but said it could be late August before balloting actually occurs.
Lawmakers are reviewing four Democrat-sponsored bills that would make voting easier and add more opportunities to register. Members of the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee held a hearing Monday for measures including SB237, a bill sponsored by Sen. Pat Spearman that would allow people to register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day. She’s also sponsoring SB203, which would allow people to vote at central polling centers in their home county on Election Day rather than only their designated neighborhood polling place. The measure also allows teens as young as 16 to pre-register to vote, and calls for the secretary of state to create a mobile app that could be used to register.
Top officials of the Town of Mamakating and Village of Bloomingburg have called on state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate what the officials call systemic examples of voter fraud in Bloomingburg over the past two years. In calling for an independent investigation in a joint statement, Mamakating Supervisor Bill Herrmann and Bloomingburg Mayor Frank Gerardi harshly criticized Sullivan County District Attorney James Farrell for neglecting to conduct his own investigation.
Pennsylvania’s decision to continue to keep the press from entering polling stations draws an arbitrary line and leaves room for foul play by ensuring that the voting process is not as transparent as possible. The 2012 election marked the first time that the Commonwealth would attempt to enforce its voter identification law. The law required all eligible voters to present an authorized government ID at the polls. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters’ wanted to gain access to the polling stations to observe the ID law, but were prevented from doing so due to a section of the Pennsylvania Election Code. The code stated that:
“[a]ll persons, except election officers, clerks, machine inspectors, overseers, watchers, persons in the course of voting, persons lawfully giving assistance to voters, and peace and police officers, when permitted by the provisions of this act, must remain at least ten (10) feet distant from the polling place during the progress of the voting.”
With elections rapidly approaching, the Guinean opposition is putting the pedal to the metal in its campaigns for the country’s communal and presidential contests. The last presidential elections in 2010 resulted in a victory for Alpha Condé, who won 52.5 percent of the vote in the second round of the election against former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo.