National: Federal bill would simplify absentee voting for troops | Army Times

One absentee ballot request from military and overseas voters would be good for an entire election cycle, under legislation introduced Friday in the House of Representatives. The bill, HR 5828, is aimed at clarifying confusion created in a 2009 overhaul of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The change can be interpreted as requiring separate absentee ballot requests for primary and general elections.

National: Churches tread lightly on politics in 2012 election | USAToday.com

With the 2012 election less than six months away, congregations are getting the message that Americans want religion out of politics. But that doesn’t mean they plan to keep mum in the public square. Instead, they’re revamping how congregations mobilize voters by focusing on a broader set of issues than in the past. Preachers are largely avoiding the political fray, and hot-button social issues are relegated to simmer in low-profile church study groups. Why? For one, Americans are growing impatient with religious politicking: 54% want houses of worship to keep out of politics (up from 52% in 2008 and 43% in 1996), according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Churches seem to be responding.

Arizona: Redistricting panel wants GOP suit tossed | Arizona Daily Star

The Independent Redistricting Commission wants a judge to throw out efforts by Republicans to void the map it created for the state’s nine congressional districts. Legal papers filed late Monday in Maricopa County Superior Court charge those seeking a new map are using “innuendo, selectively extracted transcript experts, and speculation to weave a conspiracy theory intended to cast doubt on the commission’s work.” Meanwhile, in a related lawsuit in U.S. District Court, a Democratic lawyer has questioned whether the judge hearing a challenge to the state’s 30 legislative district lines should be removed because 10 years ago he represented the Republicans in a similar fight over the redrawing of political boundaries. Republicans are challenging the new congressional and legislative district lines, saying the commission favored Democrats in drawing the lines, which will be used in elections for the next 10 years, and violated several mandates of the 2000 voter-approved initiative creating the commission, and in both cases the failure to follow procedures resulted in maps that do not meet the constitutional requirements.

Colorado: Wisconsin’s Walker echoes Colorado’s Gessler on voter fraud | The Colorado Independent

In the last two years, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has made voter fraud prevention a top priority. His efforts have included working to stop county clerks from sending absentee ballots to inactive voters, lobbying for a controversial voter ID law and leading an unprecedented effort to determine whether non-citizens are voting in the state. Critics have questioned Gessler’s priorities, given that the number of documented incidents of voter fraud in Colorado is tiny. Yet Gessler argued his case at committee hearings in Washington and Denver by citing statistics. There were hundreds and maybethousands of non-citizens registered to vote in Colorado who may or may not be casting ballots, he said, as an example. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has also sounded alarms on voter fraud. Taking a page from Gessler, he recently cited numbers to back up his claims.

Florida: Noncitizen voter database has flaws, local elections officials say | Tampa Bay Times

Florida election supervisors, at their annual convention in Tampa this week, find themselves focusing once again on a familiar and troubling issue: the accuracy and reliability of the state voter registration database. It’s not a problem of their making, and that only adds to their frustration. As the elections officials convene, they are simultaneously seeking to verify the legal status of about 2,700 voters who were red-flagged by the state motor vehicle agency as non-U.S. citizens and thus ineligible to vote. Problem is, some people on that list can legally vote. One of the people on the list is Manoly Castro-Williamson, 48, of Wesley Chapel, a U.S. citizen and a registered Republican who has voted in every election in Florida since 2004. She was one of 13 potential noncitizen voters forwarded to Pasco County by state elections officials.

Florida: Challenge to Florida’s Political Disclosure Law Rejected by 11th Circuit | campaignlegalcenter.org

On May 17, 2012, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Florida’s “electioneering communications” disclosure law in National Organization for Marriage (NOM) v. Sec. State of Florida in a per curiam decision. The Florida statute under challenge requires groups to register and report as an “electioneering communications organization” if they make over $5,000 of electioneering communications in a calendar year.  In August 8, 2011, a Florida district court upheld the law, finding that the disclosure requirements were neither vague nor overbroad, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed this decision.

Kansas: Redistricting case unlikely to move at Kobach’s pace | KansasCity.com

Three federal judges who will set new political boundaries for Kansas told Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Monday that they are uncomfortable resolving redistricting issues as quickly as he wants and that potential administrative problems in overseeing elections are not as important as gathering different perspectives on how lines should be drawn. Kobach was in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., for a pretrial hearing as the defendant in a lawsuit over state legislators’ failure to approve any redistricting proposals this year. Lawmakers were supposed to adjust the lines of congressional, state House, state Senate and State Board of Education districts to reflect population shifts over the past decade, but a bitter feud among Republicans prevented it.

Michigan: Protesters disrupt meeting; House to vote on election law changes | The Morning Sun

Protesters disrupted a Michigan House committee meeting on Tuesday as lawmakers were approving several proposed election law changes, including one that would require residents to present photo identification or a birth certificate when registering to vote. Michigan voters must now present a photo ID when they go to a polling place to vote, but not when they register. Supports say the measure would protect against voter fraud, but opponents argue it would hamper voter registration drives and disenfranchise elderly and poor residents who may not have a photo ID.

Minnesota: Could Photo ID be scuttled even if voters approve constitutional amendment? | MinnPost

The fate of Minnesota’s Voter ID constitutional amendment hinges on the November elections in more ways than one — and it could be procedurally defeated even if approved at the polls, according to some experts. Democrats may get a final chance to soften the blow they say the measure would cause voters if it truly became part of the Minnesota Constitution. Republicans will have to watch the gamble they took in deciding to bypass the governor and to leave the specifics of a Photo ID system to the next Legislature. The amendment, which polls show highly favored by the public, would require voters to show a photo ID in order to cast a ballot. Despite highly publicized campaigns against Voter ID, many opponents seem resigned to the likelihood that it will pass. But even if it does, it would be up to the next Legislature to fill in the statutory blanks of how the system would work, since the wording of the bite-size amendment speaks only in generalities.

Pennsylvania: Frankel Announces Package of Bills to Lessen “Damaging Effects” of New Voter ID Law | Essential Public Radio

Even as Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law goes through legal challenges, one lawmaker is introducing a package of bills aimed at “fixing” parts of the bill. The so-called “Every Voter Counts” package contains three parts. The first part would create an online voter registration system. The second would require the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to use new technology and mobile outreach to help registered voters obtain needed photo identification. “They would go into communities, into senior centers, go to places where people with disabilities congregate, go into distressed areas and rural areas where people need to obtain these voter IDs,” said Representative Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny). The third part would address the step that many need to take to get ID: obtaining a birth certificate. In Pennsylvania, the cost to get one is $10, but if someone was born out of state, the costs go up, and can be prohibitive for some. “That amounts to a poll tax for many people, in my view,” said Frankel. “In other words, you’re going to have to pay something in order to get the right to vote. That’s not constitutional. So my bill would reimburse everybody up to $50 for the cost of obtaining their birth certificates.”

Texas: Abbott drops opposition to depositions in voter ID case | Austin Statesman

In an effort to move to trial more quickly, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has quietly dropped his opposition to the Department of Justice’s request to take depositions from state lawmakers in the voter identification case. In March, Abbott asked a federal court in Washington to shield 12 state lawmakers from giving depositions in the state’s voter identification case against the Justice Department. Citing legislative privilege, Abbott’s office said that the department’s requests to depose lawmakers and subpoena records amounted to “an unwarranted federal intrusion into the operations of the Texas Legislature.” But now, Abbott has decided to stop trying to prevent the depositions, said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Abbott. “In order to move the case forward without delay, the State agreed to allow depositions to proceed,” Strickland said in a statement.

Virginia: Voter ID Law Comes With Hefty Price Tag | whsv.com

Virginia voters will see changes at the polls come November. They will now be required to provide identification within three days after the election for their vote to count. Although the new law is designed to combat voter fraud, it comes with a hefty price tag. The State Board of Elections said the cost of mailing voter cards will be about $1.36 million.

Canada: Law stripping voting rights from Canadian ex-pats unconstitutional, legal challenge argues | National Post

A law stripping voting rights from more than a million expatriate Canadians who have lived abroad for more than five years should be struck down as unconstitutional, according to a legal challenge served on the federal government Tuesday. The new application, filed in Ontario Superior Court on behalf of two Canadians living in the United States, argues the five-year rule in the Canada Elections Act is arbitrary and unreasonable. “I was very surprised to learn that I have no voting rights, that I have no capacity to interact with my government formally, that there’s no one representing me,” said Gillian Frank, 33, who works in Brooklyn, N.Y. “My sense of being disenfranchised and the fundamental unfairness of it all motivated me (to file the suit).”

Libya: Voters head to the polls in Benghazi local elections | BBC

Residents in Benghazi, the city where the Libyan uprising began, have voted in historic local elections. More than 400 people contested seats on the 44-member local council, even though the remit of local authorities has yet to be set. This was the first time such elections have been held in the city since the 1960s and turnout was high. National elections are expected to be held in June. Until then, the mandate of local councils will remain unclear.

United Kingdom: European Court Rules British Prisoners Must Be Granted Voting Rights | International Business Times

Some British MPs are outraged by a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that prisoners must be given the right to vote in political elections. The Court supported a prior ruling that a blanket prohibition on inmates in England and Wales voting was unlawful. British prisoners have been barred from voting for 140 years. However, the court suggested that the British government could have the right to extend voting rights only to certain prisoners, that is, by withholding enfranchisement to the worst criminals, including murderers and rapists. London now has six months to comply with the court’s ruling, or face the risk of court challenges and incurring large legal costs, including possibly paying compensation to 2,500 prisoners who have filed suit to overturn the ban. However, UK MPs, who last year overwhelmingly voted to continue the prohibition on prisoners voting, may be irked by European court dictating policy to them.

The Voting News Daily: NIST: Internet voting not yet feasible, Americans Elect Shows Voters May Be Ready For A Third Party Candidate, But Not A Third Party

National: NIST: Internet voting not yet feasible | FierceGovernmentIT Internet voting is not yet feasible, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have concluded. “Malware on voters’ personal computers poses a serious threat that could compromise the secrecy or integrity of voters’ ballots,” said Belinda Collins, senior advisor for voting standards within NIST’s information…

National: NIST: Internet voting not yet feasible | FierceGovernmentIT

Internet voting is not yet feasible, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have concluded. “Malware on voters’ personal computers poses a serious threat that could compromise the secrecy or integrity of voters’ ballots,” said Belinda Collins, senior advisor for voting standards within NIST’s information technology laboratory, in an May 18 statement. “And, the United States currently lacks an infrastructure for secure electronic voter authentication,” she added. Collins released the statement in response to an inquiry from Common Cause, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit active in campaign finance and election reform.

Voting Blogs: Americans Elect Shows Voters May Be Ready For A Third Party Candidate, But Not A Third Party | TPM

“None of the above” will now be the only real option for voters frustrated with the tired choice between two parties now that Americans Elect, the well-funded nonpartisan organization that sought to nominate a legitimate third-party candidate for president in 2012, has folded. (Only Nevada has an actual “none of the above” option on the ballot.) It seems that the inability to create a movement in this vein was less about the sentiment — polls show Americans are aren’t fans of either party specifically or the political process generally — but it was lacking a key ingredient: leadership. “You can’t fill a political vacuum with a concept,” Lee Miringoff, assistant professor of political science and director the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, told TPM. “The context is there, and the climate is right, but you need someone you can look at, a person, a candidate. Politics has become much more about personal qualities of individuals.”

National: Stephen Colbert spawns army of crazy super PACs | CNN

In late March, Stephen Colbert expanded his super PAC experiment, admonishing his late-night viewers to start organizations of their own on college campuses across America. They listened, and now the Federal Election Commission’s roster of approved super PACs is filled with groups registered to addresses in college towns. Danny Ben-David, a freshman at MIT, was one of the first to get in on the craze, after winning approval for his Why Not ZoidPAC? in March. “I was just sitting in my dorm room one night and said ‘oh hell, why not?’ It was almost frustratingly easy,” Ben-David said.

National: Ricketts’ Lesson In The Cost Of Politics | Buzzfield

The revelation last week that Joe Ricketts, the founder of TDAmeritrade, was considering spending $10 million on slashing personal attacks against President Barack Obama seemed the latest evidence of the flood of new money entering politics. Within hours of the New York Times’s scoop of a proposed ad, however, the lesson that emerged was a very different one: How dangerous and embarrassing it can be for corporate figures to play in partisan politics. Ricketts found himself frantically distancing himself from a proposal from adman Fred Davis while he scrambled to insulate his business interests — the brokerage he founded, a hyperlocal New York news group he owns, the Chicago Cubs — from potential fallout from livid liberal customers. It was the highest-profile of a handful of recent squalls revealing some of the natural, political limits to direct corporate influence in electoral politics. “I shall have no further comment on this or any other election year political issue,” a chastened Ricketts said in a statement Thursday.

National: Secret Political Donors Find Ways To Stay Anonymous | NPR

The latest deadline for the presidential candidates and the major superPACs to disclose their finances was Sunday night. The public and the media can find out who has been giving to the candidates, and how that money was spent. But there’s a lot of political spending that isn’t being reported. Outside money groups are spending millions of dollars, and the donors remain anonymous. Two recent court rulings could force those groups to file public disclosures, but there already seems to be a way around that. Unlike superPACs, these big-spending groups don’t disclose their donors. They operate mostly as tax-exempt advocacy organizations under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code. It’s a status that lets them hide the sources of their money.

Alaska: Anchorage Election Recount Results Show Confusion at Polls | alaskapublic.org

An Election Recount Board has released the results of a hand recount of the votes cast in 15 precincts during the Anchorage Municipal Election. The Board spent the past couple of weeks checking paper ballots against voting machine results and voter registries. The 12-person Election Recount Board met at City Hall Monday morning to sign off on their report. They found that most precincts were only off by one or two ballots. But Precinct 840 had 205 signatures more than ballots. Municipal Attorney Dennis Wheeler was on hand to explain. “The voters apparently signed the voter register but also signed the question register and had their ballots placed in question envelopes. And we think we have them all accounted for with the exception of eight.  It may be, we have some evidence of this, but it may be that those eight persons could not wait in line any longer. And, although they had signed the register, they left without actually casting a ballot, which is why you have more people who have signed than ballots cast,” Wheeler said.

California: Voter registration deadline looms; official worries of confusion with new primary system | Times-Standard

With television advertisements and lawn signs around every turn, campaign season is in full gear, but time is running out to register to cast a vote in the June election. Prospective voters have until the close of business Monday to drop off their registration forms at the Humboldt County Elections Office or get them postmarked if they wish to participate in the June primary election. The June 5 ballot will feature a number of local races — including those for 1st, 2nd and 3rd District supervisor — and candidates vying to represent the area in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the California State Assembly. The election will also be a historic one. It’s the first time the state will roll out its new “Top Two” primary system, which will see voters choose from a single list of candidates — regardless of political affiliations — for state and national offices other than that of president. The new system will then see the top two vote getters move on to a runoff in the general election in November. The new system does not apply to local races, in which candidates can still win outright and avoid a runoff election by winning 50 percent plus one vote in June.

Editorials: Not this fix: Hickenlooper should not sign Colorado ballot bill | Boulder Daily Camera

A little-known measure — we first editorialized against it in January — sailed through the legislative process in this statehouse session with little fanfare and less debate. It was designed, with the best intentions, to clear up a significant problem with Colorado’s ballots. The Colorado Constitution states: “All elections by the people shall be by ballot, and in case paper ballots are required to be used, no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.” The problem is that because of overlapping municipal districts — a fire district here, a local business improvement district there, a town board election and schools — it is conceivable that some ballots could be traced back to specific voters. Not likely, but certainly possible, and that flies in the face of the state constitution.

Florida: Election chiefs stung by state moves | Palm Beach Post

With August primaries and November elections looming, state and local elections officials last week appeared to be trying to repair their strained relationship. Recent actions by Florida’s secretary of state and his Division of Elections staff have left county elections supervisors smarting. Last month, Secretary of State Ken Detzner released, then backed away from, the results of a self-survey that graded the 67 supervisors based on items ranging from how quickly they submitted January presidential primary results to how fast they turned in the survey questionnaires. A few weeks later, Detzner’s office released a list of 2,600 names it wanted scrubbed from the voting rolls, contending the voters in question were not citizens. But supervisors have found the list included the names of some U.S.-born voters and naturalized citizens.

Voting Blogs: Florida Should Avoid Misdeeds of the Past | Brennan Center for Justice

Florida does not have a good track record with voter purges. In 2000, Florida’s efforts to purge persons with criminal convictions from the rolls led to, by conservative estimates, close to 12,000 eligible voters being removed because the state’s process was so imprecise that an eligible voter named John Michaels could be confused with an ineligible person named John Michaelson. In 2004, Florida’s purge had a blatant racial disparity. Now, in 2012, Florida’s Secretary of State recently announced new efforts to purge Florida’s voter rolls. The initiative purports to be targeting non-citizens and deceased persons for removal from the voter rolls, but because Florida’s past efforts purged eligible voters from the rolls, careful scrutiny is warranted to ensure eligible Americans will not be blocked from voting. Clean voter rolls are very important. We all benefit when states undertake responsible list maintenance procedures. Because the fundamental right to vote is at stake when voter list cleansing efforts are undertaken, the process must be transparent, accurate, and under reasonable time frames, especially when the list maintenance effort is of the scale Florida is proposing.

Montana: Attorney General urges U.S. Supreme Court to keep corporate spending ban | Missoulian

Attorney General Steve Bullock has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Montana’s century-old ban on corporate spending in political races and reject an attempt to dismantle it. In a brief filed Friday for the state, Bullock and two associates asked the court to deny the attempt by American Tradition Partnership and others to review and overturn the Montana Supreme Court’s decision in December that upheld the state Corrupt Practices Act. “No precedent of this court supports summary invalidation of a long-established state law so critical to its republican form of government,” wrote Bullock and attorneys Anthony Johnstone and James Molloy for the state.

New Hampshire: House ups ante with voter ID bill | NashuaTelegraph.com

If a voter ID bill fails to emerge from the state Legislature this year, supporters won’t have much trouble figuring out who to blame: their Republican “friends” in the House of Representatives. For perhaps lost in last week’s chaos of a Nazi salute and an insincere apology was the Republican-controlled chamber’s action on a bill to require voters to show a photo ID before getting a ballot. Specifically, it turned aside a Senate-approved bill that had earned the backing of Secretary of State William Gardner and the New Hampshire City & Town Clerks Association in favor of its own version that did not. And since Gov. John Lynch has made it clear he has no intention of permitting such a bill to pass without a veto fight – he already has won four veto showdowns over GOP-sponsored voter ID bills – every vote will count.

South Carolina: Chaotic primary season nears conclusion | The Times and Democrat

The 2012 South Carolina election cycle already promises to be memorable even before candidates hit the starting gate.
A S.C. Supreme Court decision that chopped about 200 candidates from the June 12 primary ballots started an avalanche of actions that threatened to postpone the primaries. State Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said the election will proceed as planned. “All county election commissions should proceed with the printing of absentee ballots, preparation of voting machines, mailing of absentee ballots and the opening of the in-office absentee machines,” Whitmire said. “The SEC and (county election commissions) are under no court order directing us to delay any election activities. We cannot delay these activities to see what a court may do. “Some counties were asking whether they should ‘wait and see’ on the outcomes of the various lawsuits before printing and/or issuing ballots. The answer is that we can’t do that.”

Wisconsin: Absentee voting begins for recall election | JSOnline

Absentee voters came to the polls in strong numbers Monday as the first day of early voting started ahead of Wisconsin’s June 5 recall. By 8 a.m., voters were already waiting for the Wausau city clerk’s office to open. In Madison, a line stretched out the door at lunchtime. In Brookfield, the city clerk’s office saw steady traffic throughout the day. “We’re extremely, extremely busy,” Wausau City Clerk Toni Rayala said. “We had much more than we expected, and much faster.” Clerks statewide reported much higher absentee turnout Monday than in the spring presidential primary as well as the May 8 recall primary. Most said the turnout for absentee voters appeared to be on par with that for a typical November general election.