Yearly Archives: 2015

An opponent of an election for Native Hawaiians says the decision to cancel the process proves it’s discriminatory. Kelii Akina is one of those challenging the election terminated Tuesday. He is a plaintiff in a lawsuit that argues Hawaii residents without Native Hawaiian ancestry are unconstitutionally excluded from voting. The challenge reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently granted an injunction to stop ballots from being counted.

Maine: Bill to control video recording at polling places among 50 vying for consideration | The Portland Press Herald

A proposal designed to ensure that video recording at polling places doesn’t intimidate voters is among about 50 bills that could be considered when a panel of legislative leaders meets Thursday. The Legislative Council will vote to determine if any of the bills will advance to the second regular session when the Legislature convenes in January. The poll recording bill was motivated by complaints that gun rights activists were intimidating voters when they gathered at several southern Maine polling places on Election Day to film the signature gathering effort by gun control activists hoping to advance a referendum next year. The proposal by Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, is one of 26 bills that have been submitted after the Sept. 25 deadline. Others include a proposal to allow towns to prohibit firearms on municipal property, a bill to improve college graduation rates and a bill to encourage roller derby.

Michigan: Senate GOP plans to pass straight-ticket voting ban, ditch absentee voting bill | MLive.com

Michigan will ban straight-ticket voting without expanding absentee ballot options — if Senate Republicans have their way. Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, said the upper chamber will move Wednesday to separate elections bills linked and approved last week by the House. Senate Bill 13 would eliminate the option for voters to choose all candidates of a single political party by marking a check box on their ballot. The proposal, which could help Republicans win down-ticket education seats they’ve struggled to secure in recent years, has faced pushback from local clerks who believe that eliminating the faster voting option will lead to longer lines on Election Day.

Missouri: Automatic voter registration filed by two house Democrats | The Missouri Times

While Republicans across the state look to pass legislation on photo voter ID laws (or get it on the ballot via petition in the case of Secretary of State candidate Jay Ashcroft), two house Democrats have a different idea concerning voter accessibility. Reps. Randy Dunn, D-Kansas City, and Kimberly Gardner, D-St. Louis, have both put forth separate pieces of legislation which would enable automatic voter registration based on driver’s license information instead of the current independent registration process. Dunn, speaking only for his own bill, hopes this bill boosts voter turnout by removing certain hoops that must be jumped through by individuals to become registered voters. “For me, I believe we need to be engaging as many people as possible in the political process,” Dunn said. “This is one vehicle to make sure we are getting more people registered.”

Voting Blogs: Vermont Begins Online Voter Registration | State of Elections

Vermont voting has entered the twenty-first century with a new online voter registration system. On October 12, 2015, Vermont’s Secretary of State, Jim Condos, launched a new online voter software allowing eligible Vermont citizens to prepare for election day online. The system allows voters to register to vote, find their polling place, request an absentee ballot and track its status, as well as view sample ballots. The software also includes features to aid local election officials in processing ballots, entering election results, and registering voters. The new software cost Vermont $2.8 million. However, 70% of the funds came from the federal government through the Help America Vote Act.

Wisconsin: Conservative groups helped gut Wisconsin election laws | Center for Public Integrity

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed into law on Wednesday measures that transform campaign finance rules and a government accountability board — two bills pushed by the very same conservative political groups implicated in an investigation into his campaign. The new laws arrive five months after Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court closed a three-year investigation into whether Walker and moneyed conservative nonprofits illegally coordinated campaign strategy during the Republican’s 2012 recall campaign for governor. The court cleared Walker and conservative allies of any wrongdoing on the basis that Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws were “unconstitutionally vague and broad,” opening the doors for legislative rewrite.

Central African Republic: CAR votes yes on constitutional referendum, partial results show | Associated Press

Central African Republic’s National Election Authority says partial results show citizens have voted yes on a constitutional referendum meant to usher stability into a nation wracked by years of sectarian violence. Authority spokesman Julius Rufin Ngoadebaba said Thursday 90 percent approved the proposals put forward in the referendum, while 10 percent voted against it.

Haiti: Prime Minister Advises President to Form Electoral Commission | Associated Press

Haitian Prime Minister Evans Paul called Thursday for creation of a special commission to guarantee the credibility of the Caribbean country’s elections before presidential and legislative runoffs can be held. In a statement posted on his Twitter account, Haiti’s No. 2 official said the commission should have three days to produce its recommendations to Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council and the government. A week-and-a-half before the scheduled Dec. 27 presidential and legislative runoffs, Paul said he advised President Michel Martelly that it’s now necessary to “ensure the credibility of the process” because “transparent, participatory and inclusive” elections are a must amid deepening suspicions of official results from earlier rounds of voting. He did not detail how many commission members would be needed, how they would be chosen or what the scope of their review would be.

Seychelles: Voting starts in presidential run-off | AFP

Victoria (Seychelles) (AFP) – Residents in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles voted Thursday, the second of three days of polls, with incumbent president James Michel facing the first serious challenge to his decade-long rule. Michel, 71, who is seeking a third five-year term, was forced into a second-round run-off against opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan after falling short of an outright majority in the first round in early December, winning just under 48 percent. Ramkalawan, 54, an Anglican priest who took 34 percent of the vote on his fifth run at the country’s top job, now has the backing of the second runner-up, Patrick Pillay, a former foreign and health minister, who won almost 15 percent.

Spain: Election Raises Unwelcome Prospect of Instability | Wall Street Journal

European eyes will turn anxiously toward Spain on Sunday. At the end of a turbulent year that saw a far left government take office in Greece and a left-wing coalition backed by communists empowered in Portugal, Spanish voters will go to the polls on Sunday to pass their verdict on four years of conservative government under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has led Spain through a period of extraordinary economic hardship following the country’s banking bust and now into recovery. Even before a vote is cast, the election promises to take Spain into uncharted waters. The old two-party system that has dominated the political landscape since the end of dictatorship in 1975 is being challenged by not one but two newly-arrived populist parties: the far left Podemos, a close ally of Greece’s Syriza party, and the centrist Ciudadanos, or “Citizens”.

Uganda: Electoral Commission Issues Final Voters List to Candidates | VoA News

The electoral commission of Uganda has issued the final voters list for next year’s general election to all participating presidential candidates and their parties. The country’s electoral law demands the electoral commission present an electronic copy of the voters list to the parties and their candidates after the nomination process. Two weeks before the presidential, parliamentary and local elections, the law requires the electoral commission to issue a paper copy, also called a hard copy, to the candidates.

National: Campaign Finance Disclosure Efforts Dealt Severe Blow in Omnibus | Election Law Blog

While campaign finance reformers were busy fighting off an attempt by Sen. McConnell to include a rider in the omnibus which would allow for unlimited coordinated party spending with candidates, three other very bad campaign finance provisions slipped into the must-pass congressional omnibus as riders. All three relate to disclosure. Via Jason Abel, one provision stops the IRS from engaging in rulemaking on 501c4 activity, which would rein in shadow Super PACs who have been engaging in heavy federal election activity without publicly disclosing their donors.

Editorials: Time doesn’t heal wounds from Bush v. Gore | Stephen Carter/The Morning Call

Saturday marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Bush v. Gore, which put a stop to the recount in Florida, and thereby handed George W. Bush the 2000 presidential election. The case excited considerable scholarly argument, along with a partisan rancor that continues to this day. Looking back, however, it’s hard to imagine an outcome that would have left the losing side satisfied — whichever side it happened to be. Let’s remember the background. First, the “election night” count awarded the state to Republican George W. Bush by 1,784 votes over Democrat Al Gore. An automatic recount, required by state law because of the small margin, determined that Bush had won the state by 537 votes. On Nov. 26, the state’s election authority certified that Bush had won. The Gore campaign protested that thousands of ballots — the so-called undervotes — had been rejected by the counting machines and should have been tabulated by hand. The Gore campaign sued, and the Florida Supreme Court, by a vote of 4-3, ordered a manual recount of all undervotes statewide. The Bush campaign then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on Dec. 11 and, on Dec. 12, ordered the recount stopped, on equal protection grounds, because the state had no clear standard for determining voter intent in tabulating the undervotes.

Colorado: Proposal to change how district maps are drawn met with sharp criticism | The Colorado Statesman

A high-profile bipartisan group of former lawmakers and state officials are reworking and resubmitting a ballot initiative that would transform the process through which voting districts are drawn in Colorado. The news comes after the project was unveiled last month with a splash, drawing approval from newspaper editorial boards but sharp criticism on the left — mainly from champions of ethnic minority communities who argue the new plan would unconstitutionally tamp down gains in electoral power made by the communities in recent decades. James Mejia, spokesman for the proposal, said the rollout hasn’t been pretty, but that it was likely never going to be very pretty. “Hey, my compliments to the people have been involved in this and pushing it forward, really,” he said. The proposal was submitted Nov. 17 and labeled Initiative 55 by the Legislative Council.

Florida: Senate rests case in redistricting trial | News Service of Florida

The Florida Senate rested its case in support of a proposed map during the second day of a redistricting trial Tuesday, as lawyers for voting-rights organizations prepared to grill the chief map-drawer for the chamber. The main witness Tuesday was University of Utah political-science professor Baodong Liu, who questioned whether plans offered by the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida would offer Hispanic and African-American voters a chance to elect candidates of their choice in some districts. That requirement is part of the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” amendments, which voters added to the state Constitution in 2010. An original Senate map, approved by lawmakers in 2012, has been set aside under an agreement between the voting-rights groups and the Legislature that acknowledged it would likely be struck down by the courts.

Minnesota: Counties face replacing vote machines | St. Cloud Times

It’s been more than a decade since the Help America Vote Act, which pumped federal dollars into states to upgrade their voting equipment to avoid a repeat of the disastrous problems of the 2000 election. Now, that equipment is starting to show signs of age. Local governments are starting to think about replacing it in the next few years — this time, without federal help. Sherburne County is the first area county to do so. On Tuesday, the county board voted to accept a bid from Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems for about $490,000 for a countywide upgrade of election equipment in time for the 2016 election.

Montana: Lawsuit challenging open primaries headed to trial | Associated Press

Montana Republican officials plan to file an emergency appeal seeking to close the June primary elections to voters who aren’t registered party members, their attorney said Tuesday. The decision by the 10 GOP county central committees to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after U.S. District Judge Brian Morris on Monday denied their request for an order to close the upcoming GOP primaries, attorney Matthew Monforton said. Morris ruled that the Republican plaintiffs have too many unproven claims in their constitutional challenge to the state’s open primary system to decide the case without a trial. They have presented enough evidence to continue the case, but must have data supporting their claims that the system harms their freedom to associate with other party members and forces candidates to change their messages.

North Carolina: State attorneys oppose call for preliminary injunction against photo ID law | Winston-Salem Journal

Attorneys for the state filed court papers Friday opposing the request for a preliminary injunction against the state’s photo ID requirement before the March primaries. The N.C. NAACP filed a motion for a preliminary injunction last month, arguing that allowing the photo ID requirement during the March primaries would cause “irreparable harm” to minority voters. They argue that state officials haven’t done enough to educate voters about the photo ID requirement or about changes that state Republican legislators made to the requirement in June.

North Carolina: Lawsuit: State isn’t complying with federal motor voter law | Associated Press

Advocacy groups and citizens sued North Carolina government leaders Tuesday over what they called a poor effort to fix previously disclosed problems that kept motorists and public assistance applicants from getting properly registered to vote. The state’s elections chief contends that many problems already have been addressed and registration levels are rebounding. The lawsuit in Greensboro federal court comes several months after watchdog organizations wrote elections and health officials and the Division of Motor Vehicles threatening litigation unless they rectified issues associated with carrying out the 1993 federal “motor voter” law. The concerns haven’t been addressed sufficiently, the lawsuit said, and now a court needs to intervene and ensure compliance.

Rwanda: Ahead of vote on term limits, Rwandans worry about presidential power grab | Al Jazeera

In her days as an active member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Eloise Umutoni did her best to show support for Rwanda’s ruling party and its leader, Paul Kagame. As a district-level party cadre, Umutoni was responsible for mobilizing youth in line with the RPF’s development agenda, widely considered to be one of the most ambitious…

Seychelles: Voting starts in Seychelles presidential run-off | Reuters

The Seychelles voted on Wednesday in the second round of a presidential election in which incumbent James Michel is seeking a third term by touting the Indian Ocean archipelago’s economic expansion under his watch. It is the first time a run-off ballot is being held in Seychelles, where voting runs over three days because of huge distances between some of the 115 islands that are home to 93,000 people. Results are expected late on Friday. Michel, 71, who whose ruling Parti Lepep party, or People’s Party in Creole, has been in power for 38 years, is seen having an edge over Wavel Ramkalawan, a 54-year-old Anglican priest-turned-politician.

Spain: Prime Minister says he’s open to pact after too-close-to-call election | Reuters

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, facing a likely slim win at the election on Sunday according to opinion polls, said on Wednesday he would consider a political pact to assure a stable government over the next term. Rajoy’s conservative ruling People’s Party (PP) which, over the last four years, has presided over one of the worst economic slumps in decades, is seen winning the election but well short of the parliamentary majority it has enjoyed since 2011. The PP’s three political rivals are close behind, with the traditional left-wing Socialists (PSOE) and newcomers including the liberal Ciudadanos and anti-austerity Podemos running neck and neck in the polls.

South Korea: Government passes bill simplifying overseas voter registration | The Korea Times

Overseas voter registration for South Korean elections just got easier thanks to a revised bill passed by the National Assembly last week. Under the bill, the South Korean government will work to install polling stations overseas and to simplify the registration process, starting next year following the April legislative election. Polling stations will be installed in regions with Korean nationals numbering more than 40,000. In New York, that means two stations will be installed in addition to the existing Consulate General.

United Kingdom: Ground rules set for landmark EU vote | The Financial Times

The EU referendum bill, having now passed through Parliament, faces only one final formality, receiving Royal assent, before it passes into law. The new legislation is of historic importance because it sets the ground rules for one of the biggest political contests in the modern history of Britain, governing the funding, the timing and the wording of the referendum. It will allow David Cameron to call a referendum as early as next summer, if he is minded to do so, with as little as 16 weeks’ notice. The government announced its original bill in the Queen’s Speech on May 27, 20 days after the Conservatives won the general election: it was introduced the day after.

National: Voter equality: The Supreme Court seems suddenly worried about partisan gerrymandering | The Economist

On December 8th, the Supreme Court heard back to back arguments in cases involving the idea that everyone’s vote should bear roughly equal weight—the so-called “one person, one vote” principle that was developed in a series of cases in the 1960s. Evenwel v Abbott, a challenge to the calculus Texas uses to work out population, makes an appearance in this week’s paper. Harris v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, which poses a similarly fraught question about district map-drawing, was argued one hour prior to Evenwel. Harris re-ignites a debate most court watchers thought was long settled: whether and to what extent America’s constitution permits partisan considerations to factor into the drawing of electoral maps. Until last week, the justices looked askance only at racial gerrymandering. Now at least a few Supremes seem to be entertaining the idea that there may be sharp limits on partisan political considerations as well, at least where voter equality is at stake.

National: Inside the 2016 black market for donor emails | Politico

Scott Walker has begun selling access to his email list to pay off his leftover presidential debt, renting out the email addresses of hundreds of thousands of supporters to former rivals, including Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. The solicitations arrive as if Walker’s donors magically landed on the lists of his old foes, as they plead for cash for themselves, linking to their own campaign sites. But there’s a catch. While it never says so in the emails from his old foes, or anywhere, the money that donors give isn’t necessarily all going to whichever smiling candidate is pictured on the site and writing the email. That is because Walker’s committee has struck secret deals with at least some of his old competitors to split the proceeds — unbeknownst to those doing the giving. It’s part of the presidential campaign’s hidden world of digging for donors online, where so-called revenue-sharing agreements — rev-shares, for short — are skyrocketing in popularity. “Is that ethical to the donor? I’m not sure,” Vincent Harris, chief digital strategist for Rand Paul’s campaign, said of such pacts. “I can say, if I was the donor, I would probably be pretty upset.”

Editorials: Bush v. Gore as Precedent in Ohio and Beyond | Richard Hasen/ACS

Almost from the moment in December 2000 that the Supreme Court decided its controversial opinion in Bush v. Gore ending the recount in Florida, there has been great debate about whether the case had any precedential value and, assuming it did, what precisely its equal protection principle stood for. Was it a one-day-only ticket? Is it a case about equality of procedures in the conduct of a jurisdiction-wide recount? Or does it require broader equal treatment of voters, so as to fulfill Bush v. Gore’s admonition against the government, by “arbitrary and disparate treatment, valu[ing] one person’s vote over that of another”? We may finally find out the case’s precedential value as soon as the 2016 elections. At the Supreme Court, Bush v. Gore has been a legal Voldemort, a case whose name a Court majority has dare not spoken since 2000. Only Justice Clarence Thomas has cited the case, in a dissenting opinion, and not speaking on its equal protection principles.

Editorials: Republicans’ coup de grace on voting rights? | Scott Lemieux/The Week

Last week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case called Evenwel v. Abbott. The case involves an issue of increasing importance to American politics: congressional districting. It got to the Supreme Court because conservative litigators with a successful track record of fighting against the right to vote are trying to turn the logic of pro-voter rights decisions on their head. And it’s very possible that they may succeed again. This most recent battle in the voting rights war involves two of the Warren Court’s most important decisions. One of the tactics that state legislatures used to disenfranchise African-Americans was to draw district lines (or refuse to revise them) in ways that left minority voters massively underrepresented. In Alabama in 1964, for example, some counties included 40 times more people than others. In Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, the Supreme Court held that such schemes were illegal. States were required to adhere to a “one person, one vote” standard when apportioning their legislatures. Combined with robust enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, these landmark cases helped to end Jim Crow disenfranchisement schemes.

Colorado: State Poised To Overhaul Voting System | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado is about to take a major step toward overhauling its voting equipment. This week a panel will recommend one or more electronic systems for the state to adopt. Counties currently use a patchwork of different voting systems. Secretary of State Wayne Williams said many of those haven’t been updated in more than a decade. “Do you still use the same phone as you used 15 years ago? Do you use the same computer as you used 15 ago?” he said. Williams says older voting technology is less reliable and secure than what’s on the market now. And having counties using a lot of different systems makes it hard for them to share expertise.

Florida: Political futures in balance as Senate redistricting trial begins | Orlando Sentinel