Editorials: Disenfranchise No More | NYTimes.com Mississippi voters just approved a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. But that law will not go into effect immediately, thanks to the Voting Rights Act. Instead Mississippi will get in line behind Texas and South Carolina as the Department of Justice examines each…
Mississippi voters just approved a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. But that law will not go into effect immediately, thanks to the Voting Rights Act. Instead Mississippi will get in line behind Texas and South Carolina as the Department of Justice examines each state’s voter ID laws, in a process known as “preclearance.”
The Justice Department will allow each law to go into effect only if the state can show its law will not have a racially discriminatory purpose or effect. Such proof may be hard to come by: a recent study by The Associated Press found that African-American voters in South Carolina would be much harder hit by that state’s ID law than white voters because they often don’t have the right kind of identification.
“I’ve been doing elections for 33 years, and I think electronic poll-books have been the best advance in elections I’ve seen since we began computerizing many years ago,” says Wendy Noren, county clerk in Boone County, Mo.
What is an electronic poll-book? In Boone County, it is a system of networked computers in each polling place pre-loaded with data on registered voters. This system has shortened voter check-in time at polling places from 5 to 6 minutes to just 15 to 20 seconds, which everybody likes. That translates into huge savings; in 2012, Noren expects to hire 25 percent fewer poll workers, dramatically reducing one of her two largest expenses.
The other big expense? Training for poll workers. Here, too, electronic poll-books have provided savings. A well-designed, uncomplicated electronic poll-book reduces training needs and associated costs.
An upstart political reform group called Americans Elect is looking to blow apart the Democrat-Republican duopoly that dominates American politics. Its imaginative scheme: nominating an independent presidential candidate over the internet. The group is on the ballot in a half-dozen states, and the national buzz surrounding its initiative is growing—but so too are the questions about who’s bankrolling this effort and the security of the outfit’s voting procedures.
Americans Elect rose from the ashes of Unity08, a group formed in 2006 to increase access to the electoral system for independent presidential candidates. Via Americans Elect’s website, registered voters can sign up as “delegates” and nominate “any American [they] believe can be a great leader.” (For reference, the site offers a lengthy list of current political figures.) In April, delegates will winnow the field of candidates to six finalists, each of whom will then select a running mate from another party (if a finalist decides not to run, he or she can decline). And in June, Americans Elect plans to hold an online convention to decide which candidate will appear on the Americans Elect ballot line.
To become certified as a political party, the group must first collect a certain number of signatures in each state. All told, Americans Elect plans to spend $10 million on this effort.So far the group has been certified in six states, including key swing states Florida and Michigan. Certification is pending in California. That’s an encouraging sign for a group hoping to starting an electoral revolution.
The Indiana Elections Commission refused Friday to immediately approve Lake County’s purchase of remodeled electronic voting machines, which local officials say are crucial to reducing long lines of voters next year.
Sally LaSota, county elections director, said Friday more machines are needed before the 2012 primary election when President Barack Obama’s re-election bid is expected to bring out busloads of early voters. LaSota said she needs help handling the anticipated crowd and asked state elections officials to permit MicroVote, which has manufactured the 1,050 current machines, to provide more updated electronic voting stations.
The Douglas County Board has unanimously voted to oppose a state lawmaker’s attempt to require stringent photo identification to vote in Nebraska elections. If passed, Legislative Bill 239 would require people to have valid state-issued photo identification to vote. At this week’s meeting, County Board member Mike Boyle cited the unknown costs of the bill, plus the adverse effect it would have on elderly voters and particularly Hispanics if it became law.
A valid state ID, under the proposed legislation, is one that is unexpired and provides a current address. State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont introduced the bill. Adam Morfeld, executive director of Nebraskans for Civic Reform, said the County Board’s bipartisan opposition should signal that Janssen’s bill is a costly attempt to solve a problem that does not exist.
New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran said earlier this year that her state had a “culture of corruption” and referred 64,000 voter registration records to police that she thought were possible cases of voter fraud. Now a new report from her office proves she was completely right, 0.0296875 percent of the time.
Duran’s interim report now alleges that 104 voters — about one for every 10,577 on the rolls — were illegally registered to vote. Of that group, just 19 — or approximately one for every 57,894 registered voters — actually allegedly cast a ballot they shouldn’t have.
In a trip through the archives yesterday, I mentioned the ongoing drama in New York State about whether or not the state’s September 2012 primary would be moved up to give military and overseas voters enough time to vote in compliance with the MOVE Act.
New York has always had its own timetable with regard to implementation of federal election laws; the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken the state to court numerous times to enforce the Help America Vote Act’s requirements for a statewide voter registration database and accessible voting technology.
In Texas, one has to have a picture identification to buy beer, lottery tickets, cigarettes and spray paint, but efforts to require voters to meet those same requirements have been halted by the federal government.
Despite the efforts of Texas lawmakers to require voters to present picture identification in order to vote, on Nov. 16, the U.S. Department of Justice told state election officials that they have not provided enough information about racial statistics on Hispanics in each county for the law to receive preclearance.
Texas provided “incomplete” information on the state’s voter ID law that does not enable federal officials to determine whether the new law would illegally discriminate against minorities, officials said this afternoon. That means that it will likely delay the scheduled Jan. 1 start of enforcement of the new law, which will require Lone Star voters to show an approved photo identification before they can cast ballots. However, the next statewide election is the March primary, and it was unclear if the delay would affect that election.
Justice Department officials have 60 days to decide whether the new law violates the Voting Rights Act, once they receives the information from Texas officials.The law was a hot-button issue for conservative Republicans that Gov. Rick Perry had elevated to an emergency issue to get it quickly passed into law last spring. Democrats, voting-rights advocates and minority groups had harshly criticized the law, but were unable to block its passage in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Egypt’s electoral system is “complicated and difficult for any ordinary Egyptian to comprehend and implement,” experts believe, as political powers remain optimistic that it will help them secure a place in a parliament long dominated by members of the former regime.
The first parliamentary elections following the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak are expected to attract an electorate that traditionally boycotted elections. Over 18 million Egyptians voted in a referendum in March, an indication of voter confidence in a new era free of the rigging and electoral fraud that tainted the previous one. However, voters are concerned that they will find it difficult to figure out the system, which could ultimately spoil their vote.
Somaliland National Electoral Commission upheld the decision taken by Somaliland House of Representatives which said that the forthcoming local council elections will be held without voter registration. The Commission announced that they will abide by the decision made by Somaliland parliament.
The spokesman for Somaliland National Electoral commission Mr. Mohamed Hirsi Geele held briefing to local media in at his office in Hargeisa. Mr. Geele told the press the reasons attributed in declaring the voter registration null and void. He further pointed out that grave errors arise when it comes to the previous voter registration resulting that many people without registration.
National: National Coalition Formed To Confront Tough New Voter ID Laws | South Florida Times A coalition of nearly 20 organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, announced they have launched a “Stand for Freedom” voting rights campaign and also a major mobilization on Dec. 10 — United Nations Human Rights Day —…
A coalition of nearly 20 organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, announced they have launched a “Stand for Freedom” voting rights campaign and also a major mobilization on Dec. 10 — United Nations Human Rights Day — to protest what they say is an attack on voting rights throughout the country.
The campaign will take aim at election laws which, the coalition says, will suppress the rights of millions of Americans to vote in 2012 and beyond. In dozens of states, new rules will create what the coalition describes as a modern-day poll tax by requiring voters to obtain and present official photo ID in order to cast ballots. In many of those same states, new laws significantly cut early voting and Sunday voting, as well.
Ninety-seven-year-old Emma Lee Green balances an armload of old books and yellowing papers around the stacks of musty files in her San Bernardino attic. She remembers well the days of Jim Crow, poll taxes and literacy tests that barred many African-American citizens from the voting booth.
Americans set their clocks back one hour last Sunday. But a wave of new voting restrictions could turn back the clock to the days poll taxes and literacy tests meant to stop African-Americans from voting. She witnessed first-hand the valiant struggle to ensure that all American citizens could raise their voices on Election Day.
Ranked-choice voting was the cure for what ails American politics, boosters said. Now in use in four California cities, this new voting system was supposed to increase voter turnout, stanch the flow of special interest money and encourage high-minded, positive campaigns.
But it didn’t play out that way in the biggest ranked-choice election yet – the 2011 San Francisco mayoral race. Turnout was down, the worst in a competitive race in about 35 years, as the San Francisco Chronicle noted.
Aspen City Attorney John Worcester on Wednesday declined to release contents of his opinion surrounding the role and independence of the city’s Election Commission, saying that to do so would violate attorney-client privilege. Worcester rendered the opinion to members of the City Council and Election Commission on Tuesday. It deals with questions posed in a public meeting last week by election commissioner Ward Hauenstein, such as whether the government entity has the right to seek independent counsel and also if the commission is an official custodian of election records, such as ballots cast in past elections.
“The whole thing is confidential,” Worcester said. “I can’t waive that confidence. The City Council or Election Commission could if they wanted to. It’s not my privilege to waive, it’s theirs.” He said that an individual council member or commissioner cannot release the answers. The council or commission would have to meet as a whole, with a majority vote necessary to make the information public.
Oregon last week became the first state in the country to use iPads to allow people with disabilities to vote, and it intends to use them again for another election in January. Several other states are expected to follow suit with iPads or other tablets, possibly as early as for next year’s presidential election.
In a special primary election in five counties in Oregon, 89 people with disabilities marked their ballots on an iPad. They did not actually cast their votes online — Internet voting is an idea whose time has not yet come, several elections officials said.
“I Voted” took on a whole new meaning during the recent special election in Oregon when nearly 100 voters cast their ballots with the help of iPads. The tablet device, which many people associate with surfing the Web, was used to allow disabled voters better access to their ballots. According to Steve Trout, elections director for Oregon, the elections division hatched the idea of using the iPad for accessible voting as a way to save money and provide greater access.
“We have been spending large sums of money on our accessible voting system but having very few people use it. We wanted to see if there were alternatives that were less expensive, provided greater utility and were easier to use for both voters and election officials,” Trout explained. “We played around with the idea here long enough to think it was worthy of a pilot.”
The Texas voter ID law, one of Gov. Rick Perry’s top priorities during the 2011 Legislature, has been stalled by the U.S. Justice Department, which is insisting on demographic information about voters that state election officials say is virtually impossible to provide.
Texas Republicans expressed dismay Thursday after Justice Department officials said they need voter information about race and ethnicity before they can approve the controversial law, which is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. The ruling raises the possibility that the law will not be in place by the March 6 primary.
State election officials anticipate they will need an extra $650,000 next year for a new wave of recall efforts that will require them to review petitions with perhaps 1.5 million signatures. Those costs would go toward hiring 50 temporary workers, renting office space to house them and the petitions, and running advertisements about the state’s new requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls.
The preliminary estimates from the state Government Accountability Board do not include the recall costs for local officials, which are expected to be much higher than those for the state if enough signatures are gathered to hold elections. The board is still developing estimates for what the costs would be for local officials. Recall elections this year for nine state senators cost state and local taxpayers $2.1 million, according to the board.
Two commissioners and the director of elections have been dispatched to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to observe and monitor the presidential and legislative elections in the vast, resource-rich African country.
Technical support will be provided in the deployment of a technical team made up of IT and logistics officers, and in training programmes for CENI (the DRC’s National Independent Electoral Commission) members and deployment of the observer mission.
The Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) has proposed the use of the national express mail service (EMS) to deliver the ballots of Egyptian expats. Judge Abdel Mo’ez Ibrahim, head of the SEC, said that the commission is exploring the possibility and how to apply this mechanism from a legal standpoint.
The Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted Ibrahim as saying that so far only proposals have been tabled with regards to expat votes, but nothing concrete has yet been introduced to the constitutional declaration to legalize these measures. On Oct. 25, an Administrative Court ruled that Egyptians abroad long deprived of the vote under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, will have the right to cast their ballots in the upcoming polls.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has announced that persons who are listed in the 2011 Official List of Electors (OLE) but are not in possession of their Identification Cards will be allowed to vote. GECOM, in a release stated that information published that persons who do not possess their ID cards will not be allowed to vote, is misleading.
The only persons, who will not be allowed to vote at the elections, are persons whose names are not on the 2011 OLE. National Identification Cards and Valid Passports will be used to verify the identity of electors who are listed in the 2011 Official List of Electors (OLE). However, if an elector is not in possession of his/her ID card, the Oath of Identity will be administered in accordance with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03.
National: Advocates Urge Congress to Fight State Voting Changes | governing.com Five million. That’s the number of eligible voters that could find it harder to cast their ballot in the 2012 elections. It’s also the figure that advocates against state voting law changes repeatedly echoed during a Capitol Hill forum on new state voting laws…
Five million. That’s the number of eligible voters that could find it harder to cast their ballot in the 2012 elections. It’s also the figure that advocates against state voting law changes repeatedly echoed during a Capitol Hill forum on new state voting laws that several House Democrats, including Representatives John Conyers, Steny Hoyer, Robert Brady, Jerrold Nadler, and Keith Ellison called Monday.
The NAACP, ACLU and League of Women Voters, among other research and advocacy organizations asked lawmakers to pass legislation to protect voters’ rights. They also wanted Congress to pressure the Department of Justice to deny approval to the states that need it for their new laws to take effect. So far, this includes Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, which are among the nine states that need federal approval for any changes to voting laws under the Voting Rights Act.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) on Wednesday night said Republican governors and legislatures are purposefully pressing for the enactment of voter identification laws in order to suppress Democratic voter turnout in the 2012 election. “State legislatures are attempting to impose voting restrictions that are the modern day equivalent of poll taxes and…
The Jefferson County Commission is mulling its first round of cutbacks since filing the nation’s largest governmental bankruptcy last week. In committee on Tuesday, commissioners discussed cutting up to $880,000 from its budget for the March 2012 primary election and the potential April runoff election.
To achieve the cuts, the council will consider next week eliminating proposed contracts with Election Systems & Software that would provide about 20 experts to manage and troubleshoot the upcoming election.
A congressional panel has agreed to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s request to investigate new voting laws passed by Florida’s Legislature. Sen. Dick Durbin sent the Florida Democrat a letter Tuesday, saying that he agrees the new laws will disenfranchise a wide swath of Florida’s young, minority, senior, disabled, rural and low-income voters. Durbin chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.
Durbin says he is planning to hold a field hearing with his subcommittee to take a closer look at new voting laws in Florida and other states. Some of the new voting laws would reduce early voting days, impose new rules on voter registration drives and make it tougher to get citizen initiatives on the ballot.
New York has failed to come up with an effective plan to send election ballots to military personnel overseas, the Defense Department said Wednesday in rejecting the state’s request for more time to meet absentee-ballot requirements.
The decision raises the stakes for a legal showdown between federal lawyers and the state, which last year violated a federal law requiring that ballots be mailed at least 45 days before an election.