New Jersey: Email voting a casualty in Sandy’s wake | Politico.com

Storm-battered New Jersey’s first-in-the-nation decision to accept ballots by email is shaping up to be a model for how not to conduct Internet-based voting. The problems that arose — confusing rules, a laborious verification process and an ongoing tabulation headache — could invalidate many of the more than 10,000 ballots from people who believe they voted electronically. “My email began to run off the charts all day that Sunday, Monday and Tuesday,” Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella said. “We were getting so many requests, we could not open them quickly enough, print out the applications and have our staff answer them all.”

Ohio: Husted soothes Electoral College tempest – Says his comments ‘badly taken out of context’ | Cincinnati.com

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Wednesday disputed online reports that he was proposing a dramatic overhaul of how Ohio conducts presidential elections, saying he does not favor scrapping the Electoral College’s winner-take-all format in favor of awarding electoral votes by congressional districts. Husted, who frequently found himself engulfed in controversy throughout the presidential race, sought to extinguish another nascent political fire started by reports in recent days that he had called for division of electoral votes by congressional district in future years.

Pennsylvania: How gerrymandering helped GOP keep control of House | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Republicans misread polls in the run-up to Election Day, depended on glitchy get-out-the-vote technology and failed to get their presidential candidate elected despite the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. They sure know how to draw congressional districts, though. Building upon their 2010 midterm election wins, the GOP had a bulwark Nov. 6 that helped them hold onto the U.S. House even as President Barack Obama cruised to re-election and his party added members to the Senate. In Pennsylvania, U.S. Sen Bob Casey and three fellow Democrats for statewide row offices joined the president in wins.

Editorials: Puerto Rico deserves statehood | Merced Sun-Star

On Election Day, the citizens of Puerto Rico made history. For the first time, they voted for statehood. A resounding 61 percent of voters chose statehood. The other choices were independence (5 percent) or free association (33 percent). Seventy-seven percent of the island’s registered voters participated in this all-important decision. The question is: What will happen now? There are 3.9 million people in Puerto Rico. The legal residents are all U.S. citizens. They carry U.S. passports, and many fight and die in wars wearing uniforms of the U.S. armed forces. But they don’t have a vote in Congress, and they can’t vote for president.

Editorials: Wisconsin’s election day registration strengthens democracy | madison.com

For 36 years, Wisconsin has had election day voter registration. Gov. Scott Walker, in a recent speech in California, advocated ending election day registration. The 1976 legislation establishing it states: “The Legislature finds that the vote is the single most critical act in our democratic system of government.” It further states: “Therefore, pursuant to the policy of this state and nation to ensure all people the right to vote, the Legislature finds it imperative to expand voter registration procedures.” In March of 2011 the nonpartisan Wisconsin Government Accountability Board unanimously reaffirmed the value of election day registration (EDR). They based this not only on the convenience provided to voters, but also the financial savings to state and local governments, and the extra burden that would be placed on municipal clerks and poll workers should EDR be eliminated.

Canada: Citizen jury will recommend online voting for municipal elections | Global Edmonton

A citizens jury has decided it will recommend the city adopt internet voting as an option for the next municipal election. The jury- who voted 17-1 in favour- says internet voting will make the process easy, simple and fast. The idea behind a citizens jury is that given enough time and information, ordinary people can make decisions about complex policy issues. While internet voting is already offered in over 60 municipalities in Ontario and Nova Scotia, there are some concerns over security, fraud, privacy, accuracy and accessibility- to name a few.

Ghana: Political Parties Unhappy At Electoral Commission’s Failure to Release Voters’ Register | allAfrica.com

Political parties are angry with the Electoral Commission for failing for the second time, to give them copies of all the voters register as promised. Last week, Chairman of the Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan announced at an IPAC meeting that, hard copies of the registers would ready for distribution on Monday. But the parties were disappointed and EC officials assured them that soft copies of the registers were going to be made available to them on Wednesday. The Commission has again postponed it to next Monday.

Israel: Online voting breakdown dogs Israeli Likud primaries for national elections | Xinhua

Officials at branches of Israel’ s chief Likud party reported severe technical problems at polling stations countrywide Sunday morning, halting the outset of a daylong round of voting to set a party slate for national elections on Jan. 22 for the 19th Knesset (parliament). While party Chairman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who cast his ballot at party headquarters in Tel Aviv when polling stations opened at 9:00 a.m., exhorted members to head to the polls to make their voices heard, crashed internet servers kept more than 123,000 other members from voting at sites throughout the country.

Israel: Likud officials: Netanyahu likely to halt primaries over voting malfunctions Israel News | Haaretz

Likud officials said on Sunday that they believed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would accept an offer to halt electronic voting procedures in Likud’s primaries, opting to continue the elections through casting individual ballots. The proposal was raised by Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon, following a day rife with reports of voting computer malfunctions. Problems were reported at locations including Jerusalem’s main polling station — the International Convention Centers, where 80 computerized voting systems were shut down — and at the polling station in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Yad Eliyahu, which was also shut down. Other locations with reported malfunctions were Ramat Gan, Ashdod, Gan Yavne and Mt. Hebron Regional Council.

Spain: Catalans vote in election | Voice of Russia

Catalans have begun voting in elections that could lead to the north-eastern region breaking away from Spain, after the region’s leader Artur Mas made the running in the campaign by vowing to hold a referendum on independence for rich but indebted Catalonia. Catalonians on Sunday vote in local elections likely to install a government committed to pushing through a referendum on independence, that Madrid has said would be illegal under the Spanish constitution.

Spain: Catalan elections point to growing polarisation in independence debate | guardian.co.uk

Artur Mas, the Catalan president, was both clear winner and biggest loser in regional elections on Sunday, leaving his march towards statehood up in the air and ushering in years of messy strife with Madrid. “The next independent country within Europe,” as separatist posters across this stateless nation had billed Catalonia, will have to wait, and the region’s 7.5 million inhabitants risk being thrown into a bitter, confrontational internal debate. Mas’s Convergence and Union (CiU) nationalist coalition lost a fifth of its deputies in the 135-seat regional parliament, but its 50 deputies are still twice as many as any other party has. No one else can form a government and Mas can, in theory, choose between three partners to prop up the CiU.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly November 19-25 2012

Salon wrote about the curious fact that Election Assistance Commission has no commissioners. The New York Times and The Washington Post called for reforms to make the process of voting easier. The fate of the 1965 Voting Rights Act lies with the Supreme Court. Allen West conceded defeat after a partial recount in his Florida Congressional race and David Rouzer called for a recount in his contest with incumbent North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre. Email ballots present difficulties for New Jersey election officials and a citizen jury will determine whether Edmonton Alberta pursues an internet voting system.

Voting Blogs: Three Ways to Fix Our Democracy | Brennan Center for Justice

The 2012 election is over, but there are still clear challenges to the integrity of our democracy. A wave of laws passed in the last two years to make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote. Fortunately, most of the worst were blocked or weakened. But they had a clear impact on Election Day — long lines and confusion at the polls, compounded by broken voting machines and poorly trained poll workers. As President Obama said in his speech, “We have to fix that.” Here are three ways to improve our democracy and bring it into the 21st century.

American Samoa: Former territorial Senate president Moliga elected governor in special election | The Republic

Voters in American Samoa have elected former territorial Senate President Lolo Matalasi Moliga to be their governor. The special election was required after none of the six candidates in the Nov. 6 general election received a majority of the vote. Moliga received 53 percent of the ballots, or just over 6,600 votes, in Tuesday’s election. Lt. Gov. Faoa Aitofele Sunia won 47 percent. “This victory is not our victory but the people of American Samoa’s victory,” Moliga told supporters at his campaign headquarters. He said his campaign motto “People First” will remain throughout his term in office.

Editorials: Arizona’s nonpartisan redistricting creates fairer election outcomes | Arizona Daily Star

As Arizona’s election results become final, the benefits of nonpartisan redistricting become clear – at least if one believes that election results should reflect the will of the electorate. Compare what happened in Arizona’s congressional elections with the results in three states that were heavily gerrymandered. In Pennsylvania, 2,723,000 votes were cast for Democratic congressional candidates, while 2,652,000 were cast for Republicans. Had these votes been evenly divided among Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional districts, each party would have won nine. But instead, Democrats won only five seats, all in overwhelmingly Democratic congressional districts that they won with an average of 76.9 percent of the vote. Republicans, who the Republican-dominated legislature distributed more evenly among the other thirteen districts, won all thirteen with a much lower average 59.3 percent of the votes cast.

Florida: New Senate president: Elections will be improved | News-JournalOnline.com

Senate President Don Gaetz forcefully pledged that the Legislature will do something to avoid election embarrassment in two years, while also promising to reach out to Democrats and usher in a new era of more ethical conduct as he leads the Senate the next two years. Gaetz, a Republican from Niceville, was sworn in Tuesday as the 85th president of the state Senate as the Legislature held a short organizational session to admit new members elected earlier this month, and formally choose its leaders, though they’ve been known for months. The day also saw the Legislature’s 120 representatives and 40 senators taking their oaths of office two weeks after they were elected or re-elected.

Illinois: How a special election for Jesse Jackson Jr.’s open seat could work | Chicago Sun-Times

Election officials plan to ask a judge to waive the standard time frame and allow a special election to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. to occur at the same time as already-planned suburban elections. Cook County Clerk David Orr said he and his counterparts in Chicago, and Will and Kankakee counties — the four areas included in the 2nd Congressional District — want the special election held April 9, along with a primary on Feb. 26. The suburban areas all have elections already scheduled for those dates.

New York: Lever voting machine sales draw a light turnout | Times Union

They are complex machines, controlled by rows of switches and reset by a giant lever that activates a series of dials, switches, counters and a little bill. For decades these iron behemoths put a mechanical imprimatur on the annual rite of democracy, locking in the selections of millions of New Yorkers, from FDR to Nelson Rockefeller. Now they’re worth less than $42. The 2002 Help America Vote Act led to the statewide replacement of the old lever voting machines in time for the 2010 elections with paper ballots logged by electronic scanners. Since then counties have been either warehousing or auctioning off the old machines, or wondering in general how they can rid of them. “They have very little value anymore,” Saratoga County Republican Elections Commissioner Roger Schiera said.

Virginia: Lawmaker wants to stiffen new voter-ID law | HamptonRoads.com

Virginia’s voter identification policy will become tougher than it currently is if Del. Mark Cole has his druthers. Cole wants to remove several forms of ID now accepted for voting based on his belief that the recently revised law doesn’t do enough to thwart potential voter fraud. The Republican legislator would like the General Assembly to strike provisions that allow voters to present a current utility bill, bank statement, government check or pay stub with an address as valid ID at the polls. “Those never should have been added to the list of acceptable IDs,” said Cole, of Spotsylvania County.

Ghana: Ghana Prepares for December General Elections | VoA News

The National Democratic Congress, or NDC, has been at the helm for four years now, after wrestling power from the New Patriotic Party, or NPP, in the 2008 general elections. NDC leader and interim President John Mahama is asking voters to choose him for president based on sound management of the economy under his party’s leadership. The former vice president became interim president in July, after the sudden death of President John Atta Mills. Amin Joseph is the ruling party’s secretary in the Ashanti Region.  He said the NDC wants to retain the office to solidify economic gains.

Editorials: Japan’s elections: Pole dancers | The Economist

The old joke about Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is that it was neither liberal, democratic, nor even a proper party. Cobbled together from a ragbag of anti-socialist factions in the 1950s, the LDP nevertheless held together for over half a century before coming unstitched in 2009. Now, history seems to be repeating itself, as 14 different political parties have mobilised since Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, called a general election for December 16th. As Mr Noda’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) weakens, most of the newer parties are on the right, united in their desire to revitalise Japan, a strategy reflected in some of their names: Sunrise, Restoration, Renaissance. The question for Japan’s voters is whether anything else unites them?

Kazakhstan: Change put on hold in Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan | openDemocracy

Since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan’s ‘southern capital’, Almaty, has engaged in fairly extensive efforts at ‘Kazakhising’ local toponyms. Now the central arteries of the city, once part of the old Soviet planimetry, display ‘genuinely’ Kazakh names. Streets once bearing the names of Bolshevik icons like Kalinin and Kirov are now named after legendary heroes (Kabanbai Batyr) or other figures from Kazakhstan’s nomadic past (Bogenbai Batyr). The example of Furmanova ulitsa offers a fitting metaphor to describe the sense of political stagnation that pervades today’s Kazakhstan. A sense that much-needed change has been postponed until the inevitable, though not yet imminent, leadership change.

National: The election commission with no commissioners | Salon.com

Despite rampant concerns on both the right and left about the integrity of the election, we seem to have dodged a bullet on Nov. 7, at least on the presidential level. There were no serious problems reported — no hanging chads, endless recounts or credible evidence of widespread dirty tricks — and 97 percent of voters said they had no problems voting this year, aside from waiting in lines. It’s lucky that was the case, because the federal commission tasked with making elections function better has been stymied by partisan infighting that has left it with zero commissioners, with Republicans refusing to appoint new ones and blocking Democrats from doing the same.

Arizona: Pima County Supervisors reject request for special hand ballot audit | Arizona Daily Star

The Pima County Board of Supervisors denied a request from its Election Integrity Commission to sort early ballots by precinct for a special hand audit for this election. The board spent about an hour Tuesday listening to commissioners and activists describe the need for an improved ballot-counting process. Pima County is the only county in the state that doesn’t sort ballots by precinct, said commissioner Michael Duniho. “Resisting improvement in vote count auditing has earned Pima County a reputation for suspect elections,” he told the board. A precinct-level hand count would confirm the accuracy of the machine count, Duniho said.

Florida: Allen West’s Concession Won’t End Troubles for St. Lucie County Elections | Sunshine State News

U.S. Rep. Allen West may have ended his two-week battle with election officials in St. Lucie County on Tuesday, but the Treasure Coast office will continue to face scrutiny over how it handled the election. Florida Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, vowed she will pursue correcting how the supervisor of elections office reportedly double-counted some ballots and misplaced others in West’s defeat to Democrat Patrick Murphy of Jupiter. “We’re going to move forward looking very carefully at the recommendations, seeing exactly what they say and see what went wrong with this election process in St. Lucie County,” Harrell said Tuesday.

Illinois: Orr To Ask Judge To Adjust Schedule For Special Election To Replace Jackson | CBS Chicago

Now that Jesse Jackson Jr. has resigned his seat in Congress, Gov. Pat Quinn must set the date for an election to fill the seat. Cook County Clerk David Orr has a plan — and hopes the courts will go along. It would require a court order condensing the schedule so that the primary and general elections to replace Jackson would fit the existing suburban Cook County, Will and Kankakee County election schedules. All have primary elections Feb. 26 and general elections April 9. However, as it stands, there is a March 15 deadline to hold a special election. Orr said sticking to the existing deadline would mean staging extra elections — and incurring extra costs.

Iowa: Secretary of State set to resume campaign to root out voter fraud | TheGazette

A general election that went off with hardly a hitch hasn’t changed Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s determination to clean up voter registration rolls. Now that the election is over, Schultz plan to resume efforts to root out voter fraud as soon as a Polk County District Court judge lifts a temporary injunction preventing him from removing ineligible Iowans from voter registration rolls. “My position hasn’t changed: If you’re not a citizen you shouldn’t be voting,” the first-term Republican said. “It’s my job to protect the integrity of the vote. If every vote really does count, then it’s important for us to protect that.”

New Jersey: Slammed by Sandy, New Jersey counties seek more time to count ballots | Philadelphia Inquirer

Fourteen New Jersey counties, swamped with provisional and mail-in ballots in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, on Tuesday were granted more time to count. Those counties, including Burlington, Camden and Gloucester, have until next week to certify the results of the Nov. 6 election. That means a few close local races in towns such as Stratford, Laurel Springs, Delanco, Bordentown, and Moorestown will remain undecided a while longer. “Election offices are bombed here” because of overseas and provisional ballots, Camden County Election Commissioner Robert Venuti said Tuesday. The county has yet to start counting those ballots, he said.

Ohio: Cuyahoga County elections chief Jane Platten leaving to take job at prosecutor’s office | cleveland.com

Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Jane Platten, who helped bring credibility and efficiency to the once-broken office, announced Tuesday she is taking a job as chief of staff for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty. Platten’s resignation comes two weeks after a largely trouble-free general election in Cuyahoga County — an occurrence much less common under previous elections directors. “When I told people that I had accepted the job as Board of Elections director, many of the reactions I received were, ‘Are you crazy?’ or they laughed,” Platten recalled in an interview Tuesday. “People’s perception of the Board of Elections was that it was an agency of extreme turmoil and it was broken, and we turned it around.”