National: Risk of Disenfranchisement High for Ex-Felons | New America Media

Walter Lomax can still remember the day he cast his first vote in an election. The emotion in his voice changes as he takes a pause, attempting to put into words how it felt to exercise the right after serving 40 years, wrongly convicted, in a Maryland prison. “I felt empowered,” said Lomax, sitting inside the Park Avenue Baltimore office where he now operates the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative (MJRI). “Being someone who spent two-thirds of my life in prison, being free and able to participate was refreshing. I played a part in the process.” Not a hint of bitterness can be detected as the slender, tall, man, now in his early sixties, reflects on the day he entered a Baltimore booth in 2007, just one year after his release, to vote for a slew of offices from mayor to city council members. “Now if we need a speed bump in our neighborhood, a stoplight, or a playground I can have a say because if you look in the records you’ll see that I am a voting constituent.” According to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy organization, one in 40 Americans stand to become disenfranchised even after they have served their time. That statistic is significantly higher when it comes to the African American population, where one in every 13 over the age of 18 has lost the right to vote.

National: Lawsuit highlights difficulty of third-party involvement in debates | latimes.com

The participants if this year’s presidential debates are set – Republican nominee Mitt Romney will face off against President Obama in a matchup that’s been obvious for months. But there are still other presidential candidates, and one in particular is keen on elbowing his way into the debates. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson earlier this month filed a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, claiming that the organization’s practices violate antitrust laws and alleging collusion between the commission and the country’s two dominant political parties. In the suit, Johnson and his campaign accuse the commission, along with the Republican and Democratic national committees, of a “conspiracy” to meet in secret and create the rules for the debates, excluding third-party candidates and participating in what the lawsuit contends is a “restraint of trade” violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Florida: GOP, Dems Voter Registration Numbers Lag, Mad Dash Now Across Fla To Sign People Up | WFSU

Florida’s voter registration numbers for both Republicans and Democrats stagnated over the course of about a year, and political experts say it’s mainly because of a law passed last year that put limits on third party voter registration. But, now that some of those restrictions have eased, there’s a mad dash around the state to ramp up voter registration drives before the October 9th deadline. “House Bill 1355 certainly had a dampening effect on voter registration in the state of Florida, when it went into effect July 1, 2011.” While he admits there are more registered voters today than there were for the last presidential election, University of Florida Political Scientist Daniel Smith says voter registration in Florida hasn’t been the same ever since a new election law passed last year.

Florida: Suspicious voter registration forms found in 10 Florida counties | latimes.com

Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant. The controversy in Florida — which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County —  has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million — routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.

Florida: Voter registration problems widening in Florida | Yahoo! News

What first appeared to be an isolated problem in one Florida county has now spread statewide, with election officials in nine counties informing prosecutors or state election officials about questionable voter registration forms filled out on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. State Republican officials already have fired the vendor it had hired to register voters, and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company, Strategic Allied Consulting, with state officials. That complaint was handed over Friday to state law-enforcement authorities. A spokesman for Florida’s GOP said the matter was being treated seriously. “We are doing what we can to find out how broad the scope is,” said Brian Burgess, the spokesman. Florida is the battleground state where past election problems led to the chaotic recount that followed the 2000 presidential election.

New Jersey: Essex County NJ man convicted of absentee ballot fraud | Politicker NJ

An Essex County campaign worker was convicted today of absentee ballot fraud that occurred during the 2007 election of state Sen. Teresa Ruiz. John Fernandez, 61, of Belleville, was found guilty of election fraud following a two-week trial.  The jury found Fernandez guilty of charges of conspiracy (2nd degree), election fraud (2nd degree), absentee ballot fraud (3rd degree), tampering with public records or information (3rd degree), and forgery (4th degree). The Mercer County jury found that  Fernandez, who works for the Essex County Department of Economic Development, fraudulently tampered with documentation for absentee ballots in Ruiz’s Nov. 6, 2007 general election, submitting ballots on behalf of voters who never received the ballots or had an opportunity to cast their votes.

Pennsylvania: Judge crafting a way to keep Pennsylvania voter ID law and allow people to vote | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The state appellate judge overseeing a new hearing on the voter ID law suggested as arguments closed this afternoon that he is considering halting a narrow section of that controversial law. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson interrogated attorneys from both sides as to how he could alter the photo identification requirement to prevent voter disenfranchisement. He focused largely on the section stating that anyone without a photo ID would be able to vote by provisional ballot, and that the ballot would be counted if they can show photo ID within six days of the election. “Provisional ballots seem to be the sticking point,” Judge Simpson said. “It’s not the smoothest part of [the law].”

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Photo ID May Be Headed Back to Supreme Court | Brad Blog

On Friday, Sept. 28, attorneys representing the petitioners in a lawsuitchallenging the legality of Pennsylvania’s draconian polling place Photo ID law filed a 26-page Post Hearing Brief [PDF] in which they counseled Commonwealth Judge Robert E. Simpson not to defy the state Supreme Court by issuing alimited injunction that could force a minimum of 90,000, but perhaps as many as 1.6 million voters, who lack the requisite Photo IDs, to cast provisional ballots during the Nov. 6, 2012 election. The brief was filed one day after Judge Simpson informed the parties that, despite evidence that there was no conceivable means by which the Commonwealth could supply all of the otherwise eligible voters with the requisite Photo IDs before the Nov. 6 election, he was inclined to enjoin only that portion of the Photo ID law’s provisional ballot section that contains disenfranchising language.

South Carolina: Proof of fraud scarce in two voter ID cases | CBS News

In September 2004, Terrence Hines appeared to register voters in the city of Florence, S.C., at a fast pace. Paid for each completed card by the South Carolina Progressive Network, Hines submitted 1,800 registrations. But it turned out that the signatures were forged. One easy clue for election officials was that Hines had signed up Frank Willis, who was then the town’s mayor. “He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,” said Florence County Solicitor Ed Clements, who referred Hines’s case to state investigators. Hines pleaded guilty to voter fraud charges in 2006. His is one of only three documented cases of voter fraud convictions in South Carolina going back to 2000, according to a CBS News review of the public record and interviews with election officials.

Tennessee: Judge tosses challenge to state voter ID law | chicagotribune.com

A civil rights lawyer said on Thursday he may appeal a Tennessee judge’s ruling that rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s voter identification law. Two Memphis women who had sought to use library cards that include photographs during early voting for an August election, were not harmed and do not have the standing to challenge the law, Davidson County Judge Carol McCoy ruled on Wednesday. The women and the city of Memphis were seeking a temporary injunction that would allow voters to cast ballots in the November 6 election without presenting state or federal photo identification. George Barrett, a Nashville-based civil rights attorney who represented the women and the city, said his clients had not decided whether to pursue the matter farther.

Tennessee: Davidson County election chief says ES&S is reason for ballot problems | The Tennessean

Davidson County voting machines that defaulted to Republican ballots during the Aug. 2 primary elections had been programmed like those used in a closed-primary system, which Tennessee doesn’t have, an election official said this week. Election Commissioner Steve Abernathy, who has defended the county’s use of the machines, known as “electronic poll books,” confirmed that vendor ES&S programmed them like the ones used in Maryland, where voters generally must be registered members of a party to vote in its primary. In Tennessee, the system is open, meaning voters don’t register as party members, and they can cast ballots in either primary. But the machines in 60 of Davidson County’s 160 precincts didn’t always work that way last month. Some voters, including Sheriff Daron Hall, an elected Democrat, have said the electronic poll books gave them Republican ballots if poll workers didn’t ask them which primary they wanted to vote in. The problem has drawn howls of outrage from Democrats, including Metro Council members and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper.

Virginia: Virginia Governor McDonnell on pace to restore voting rights to record number of felons | The Washington Post

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is on pace to achieve his campaign-trail pledge to restore the right to vote to more felons than any governor in Virginia history. Since announcing a streamlined, more efficient program in May 2010, McDonnell (R) has restored the rights of more than 3,800 felons and could clear hundreds more ahead of the November election. The issue is personal for McDonnell, a former prosecutor, and many are highlighting his record as progress on the issue. But others say that with an estimated 350,000 Virginians unable to vote because of a felony conviction, McDonnell could do more to re-enfranchise those who have paid their debt to society.

Belarus: After Rigged Elections, Belarus Opposition Expresses Despair | Newsweek

Aware of the possibility that the secret police were listening in, Belarussian dissident Anastasia Palazhanka whispered to the visitors: would they help her arrange her wedding to her fiancé, an imprisoned leader of the Young Front opposition? Palazhanka, a 21-year-old honored by Hillary Clinton last year with the prestigious International Women of Courage award, was conferring with observers from the Organization for Security and Co–operation in Europe (OSCE), who were on hand to monitor parliamentary elections in the former Soviet Republic. They’d dropped by the Soviet-era Hotel Yubileinaya in Minsk to listen to opposition members who -wanted to air concerns about the rule of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Georgian government warns of Russian build up as election nears | The Cable

As Georgians head to the polls Monday, analysts are warning that rising tensions could boil over just as the Russian military is conducting exercises near the de facto border line, a situation the Georgia government is worried Moscow could exploit. “We hope it will be made clear to Russia that a military invasion into Georgia with the goal of destroying Georgia’s sovereignty, which is still the goal of the Kremlin, will have a huge at minimum political price for Russia in its relationship with Western powers,” Georgia’s National Security Advisor Giga Bokeria told The Cable in a phone interview from Tbilisi. The European Union’s monitoring mission, which patrols the administrative boundary between Georgia and the Russian-occupied regions of Abkhasia and South Ossetia, noted in its most recent report that while the observers saw no movement of military equipment on the Georgian side that could be perceived as instigating an attack, the Russian forces on the other side of the boundary line are increasing. “The Mission has raised its concerns about this activity with the relevant Russian command structures,” their report stated.

Nigeria: Nigeria Electoral Commission to Issue ‘Permanent’ Voter Cards | VoA News

Nigeria’s Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) will soon issue millions of permanent voter cards in time for the next general election, according to Nick Dazang, the INEC deputy director public affairs. “INEC has given out a contract for the production of the first batch of 40 million permanent voter cards to be distributed before the 2015 general elections,” said Dazang. The electoral commission, which registered over 73 million new voters for the 2011 general elections, at the time, issued temporary cards to voters. But, Dazang said INEC has signed contracts for the production of permanent cards with special electronic security features.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly September 24-30 2012

Researchers at Princeton have released a report surveying the potential for election equipment failure in swing States. Voter registration fraud has been linked to Strategic Allied Consulting, which the RNC and state parties have hired in at least five States. With the wave of new Voter ID laws, there is concern that provisional ballots could create legal battles in close elections. The New York Times reported on the potential for voter harrasment in polling places this November and The Los Angeles Times considered the role that voter suppression has played in American history. A software error cancelled the registrations of hundreds of voters in Colorado. During hearings on Pennsylvania’s voter ID, the judge indicated that much of the controversial law will stand. The AVS WINVote voting machine, used only in Virginia, presents unique security issues because of it’s use of wi-fi. A decision to use electronic voting machines in Belgium has re-kindled controversy and tensions have flared on the eve of Gerogia’s parliamentary elections.

The Voting News Daily: Which States have the Highest Risk of an E-Voting Meltdown?, Students try to navigate voting laws, registration hassles

Blogs: Which States have the Highest Risk of an E-Voting Meltdown? | Freedom to Tinker Computer scientists, including us, have long been skeptical of electronic voting systems. E-voting systems are computers, with all of the attendant problems. If something goes wrong, can the problem be detected? Can it be fixed? Some e-voting systems are much…

Voting Blogs: Which States have the Highest Risk of an E-Voting Meltdown? | Freedom to Tinker

Computer scientists, including us, have long been skeptical of electronic voting systems. E-voting systems are computers, with all of the attendant problems. If something goes wrong, can the problem be detected? Can it be fixed? Some e-voting systems are much riskier than others. As the 2012 Presidential election approaches, we decided to evaluate the risk of a “meltdown scenario” in which problems with electronic voting equipment cause a state to cast the deciding electoral college vote that would flip the election winner from one candidate to the other. We’re interested in the risk of these technological problems, weighted by the relative voting power of each voter. So for example, here in New Jersey we use direct-recording electronic voting machines that have been found by a court to be inadequate, but with Obama polling at +14% it’s not likely that a snafu with these machines could change the entire state’s outcome. But in swing states that poll closer to even, like Virginia (where your voting machines can be modified to play Pac-Man), an electronic voting mix-up could have a much bigger impact. So, which states have the greatest risk of an e-voting meltdown affecting the result of the 2012 Presidential election?

National: Students try to navigate voting laws, registration hassles | Houston Chronicle

For young voters busy registering for classes, registering to vote isn’t always their No. 1 priority. Tack on changing registration laws and voting can turn into a struggle. “When students come back to school, they’re either more worried about schools or worried about, let’s be honest, parties,” said David Schultz, an election law expert at Hamline University. “The first thing on their mind is not registering to vote, especially for students who just turned 18. They don’t know much about the process.” California’s new same-day registration law is a blessing for students with planners already crammed with exam dates, Rock the Vote President Heather Smith said. But across the country there are technical issues students face that could complicate the process for them. Students new to voting often don’t know registration deadlines (in Texas, Oct. 9 and Oct. 12 in New York) or even that they need to register to vote, Smith said. “It’s frustrating when a young person navigating the process for the first time is calling our office on Election Day (saying), ‘I’m here and ready to vote and I didn’t realize I needed to register,’” Smith said. Proposed ID requirements to register, like Texas and Pennsylvania laws currently in the courts that don’t accept all student IDs, have been criticized as adding another hurdle for young voters. For example, students in the dorms or on campuses with good public transportation often don’t need a driver’s license, Smith said.

National: 2012 US campaigns have cost more than $4bn, election commission says | guardian.co.uk

More than $4bn was spent on the presidential and congressional candidates and campaigns in the first 18 months of the election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission. Presidential candidates have received $601.9m of that money, the data released on Wednesday, shows, while $1.21bn has been donated to congressional candidates donated to presidential candidates personally. The Federal Election Commission compiled campaign finance reports filed between 1 January 2011 and 30 June 2012 to produce the report. The time period covers the Republican primaries and the buildup to the presidential race. In total $4.06bn was received by presidential candidates, congressional candidates, party committees and PACs over the 18-month-period. There are no direct figures directly comparing the same period available from 2008 or earlier, but Bill Allison, from the non-profit Sunlight Foundation, said ultimately more money will be spent on the 2012 campaign. “This is 18 months and we’re at $4bn, 2008 the entire election cycle ended up being at $5.2bn, so there’s still a quarter of the money to go,” Allison said. “We’ll definitely top that number. The current projection is about $5.8bn that we’ll see for 2012.”

National: GOP’s ACORN moment | Salon.com

There are still plenty of conservatives who think ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama and will do it again this year. ACORN was everywhere four years ago. Even John McCain, late in his campaign and desperate to land a blow on Obama, ranan ad tying his challenger to the community-organizing group before saying in the final debate that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” How did ACORN steal the election? A number of the group’s paid canvassers had been caught submitting false voter registration forms in a handful of states, using the names of dead people or false addresses, in order to avoid working. Four years later, ACORN is dead, and a Republican firm contracted by the Republican National Committee has adopted its shady tactics. But, so far at least, there’s been hardly a peep from the same conservatives who seized on ACORN about one of their own engaging in almost identical fraudulent tactics. Prosecutors in Florida are looking into alleged voter registration fraud conducted by employees of Strategic Allied Consulting, which the RNC and state parties hired in at least five states. TheRNC has now cut ties with the firm after news broke that its employees had registered dead people and listed the addresses of a Land Rover dealership and other non-residences on registration forms. Paul Lux, the Republican supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County, Fla., who first brought the suspect registration forms to the attention of prosecutors, said as many as one in three were questionable. “It’s kind of ironic that the dead people they accused ACORN of registering are now being done by the RPOF [Republican Party of Florida],” Lux said.

National: Military voting threatens caucuses | Politico.com

In an unexpected political twist, a move to include overseas military personnel and wounded warriors in the presidential nominating process could threaten the caucuses in Iowa and other states. At both the Republican and Democratic national conventions over the summer, delegates proposed rules changes to enhance the ability of overseas service members and injured troops to participate in the caucuses. A Republican rules change asserting that states “shall use every means practical to guarantee” the participation of overseas and injured service members in the presidential nominating process was designed to enhance military voting. But in the case of Iowa and other caucus states, where voters must be present to participate, it also has the side effect of forcing changes in traditional procedures — and raising questions about the future viability of the caucuses themselves.

National: Provisional ballots could be hanging chads of 2012 | KNOE

New voting laws in key states could force a lot more voters to cast provisional ballots this election, delaying results in close races for days while election officials scrutinize ballots and campaigns wage legal battles over which ones should get counted. New laws in competitive states like Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could leave the outcome of the presidential election in doubt – if the vote is close – while new laws in Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could delay results in state or local elections. Some new laws requiring voters to show identification at the polls are still being challenged in court, adding to the uncertainty as the Nov. 6 election nears. “It’s a possibility of a complete meltdown for the election,” said Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida. Voters cast provisional ballots for a variety of reasons: They don’t bring proper ID to the polls; they fail to update their voter registration after moving; they try to vote at the wrong precinct; or their right to vote is challenged by someone.

National: Voter Harassment, Circa 2012 | NYTimes.com

This is how voter intimidation worked in 1966: White teenagers in Americus, Ga., harassed black citizens in line to vote, and the police refused to intervene. Black plantation workers in Mississippi had to vote in plantation stores, overseen by their bosses. Black voters in Choctaw County, Ala., had to hand their ballots directly to white election officials for inspection. This is how it works today: In an ostensible hunt for voter fraud, a Tea Party group, True the Vote, descends on a largely minority precinct and combs the registration records for the slightest misspelling or address error. It uses this information to challenge voters at the polls, and though almost every challenge is baseless, the arguments and delays frustrate those in line and reduce turnout. The thing that’s different from the days of overt discrimination is the phony pretext of combating voter fraud. Voter identity fraud is all but nonexistent, but the assertion that it might exist is used as an excuse to reduce the political rights of minorities, the poor, students, older Americans and other groups that tend to vote Democratic.

Editorials: Should partisans be in charge of our elections? | CBS News

Imagine that the umpire in a baseball game was affiliated with one of the teams on the field. Would you trust him to call the game fairly? You most likely would not. Yet when it comes to elections, Americans trust officials from the two political parties to oversee the process in a fair way. There are 36 states in which elections are overseen by an elected, partisan secretary of state or lieutenant governor, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State. In another three states – Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas – partisan secretaries of state appointed by the governor oversee elections. These officials vow to carry out their duties in an impartial manner. The Constitution of the National Association of Secretaries of State says that members commit to “practicing fair and unbiased election administration that recognizes each eligible citizen’s right to cast his or her vote, and for that vote to be counted with the highest regard to constitutional foundations.”

Editorials: Protecting the right to vote – history demonstrates that any effort to deny citizens the ability to vote can’t be ignored | latimes.com

Since their historic victories in the 2010 midterm elections,Republicans across the country have passed an array of voting laws — to require photo identification, to make it more difficult to register, to reduce periods of early voting or to purge voter rolls — and they are considering others. The Justice Department, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, theAmerican Civil Liberties Union and other groups have challenged many of these laws in court. A federal court recently rejected Texas’ voter ID law, and similar cases from Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin await final judicial action. Sound-bite analogies between these new laws and the fully mature Jim Crow system have been properly condemned as simplistic and misleading. But more careful study of the experience of a century ago may offer a cautionary lesson about today’s changes in election laws. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Southern Democrats used statutory and state constitutional restrictions — as well as violence, intimidation and ballot-box stuffing — to discourage and, ultimately, to disfranchise many poor whites and the vast majority of African Americans. Several popular misunderstandings about that “first disfranchisement” cloud the public’s view of recent legislation.

Colorado: Legal experts weigh in on ballot secrecy issue | TheMountainMail.com

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution of the state of Colorado does include a provision for a secret ballot, Colorado legal experts recently said. “The Colorado Constitution … provides for a secret ballot,” said Richard B. Collins, professor of law at the University of Colorado and director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law. “Article VII, Section 8 of the Colorado Constitution says ‘secrecy in voting is preserved,’” he said. With that provision and the section saying that “no ballot can be marked whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it,” he said, it seems clear that the state Constitution provides for a secret ballot. “No one is contradicting that,” he said.

Colorado: Software glitch nixes voter registration of nearly 800 Coloradans | The Denver Post

A software glitch on the Colorado Secretary of State’s mobile-optimized website prevented nearly 800 people using tablets and mobile phones from registering to vote. Secretary of State Scott Gessler said the problem occurred between Sept. 14 and Monday because of a software update to the site. The update indavertently caused a problem that prevented 779 people from registering, said Gessler, a Republican. “Frankly, our office did not engage in enough user testing before we rolled out a software fix,” he said, placing the blame squarely on his office. The office now has fixed the problem, having discovered it Monday, but it doesn’t know who the people are who tried to register. That’s why Gessler is asking people who think they registered during the days in question to check their registrations at govotecolorado.com.

Florida: Governor Rick Scott’s voter purge efforts start anew | Tampa Bay Times

Florida’s noncitizen voter purge efforts surged back to life Wednesday as Gov. Rick Scott’s elections office produced a new list of 198 potentially ineligible voters, including 39 who voted in past elections. The list was compiled from data maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the state calls highly reliable, and is headed to county election supervisors, who must give anyone listed 30 days to respond. Any noncitizen who registered illegally could face criminal charges. The decision to revive the controversial program 41 days before Election Day in the nation’s biggest battleground state is stirring new controversy, even though some names on the new list were on a previous — and flawed — list of nearly 2,700 suspected noncitizens released in May. “We are doing absolutely the right thing,” Scott said recently in defending the state’s efforts to remove noncitizens from the rolls. “We believe in honest, fair elections.”

Florida: GOP fires consulting firm after 108 questionable voter registrations in Palm Beach County | The Washington Post

Republicans on Thursday fired a vendor suspected of submitting 108 questionable new voter registrations in Florida’s Palm Beach County, ground zero for disputed ballots in 2000’s presidential race. The Republican Party of Florida used Virginia-based Strategic Allied Consulting to help register and turnout voters in Florida, one of a shrinking handful of states President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are contesting. The Florida state party had paid the firm more than $1.3 million so far, and the Republican National Committee used the group for almost $3 million of work in Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia.