Ohio: Opponents of new elections law collect signatures to challenge it | The Columbus Dispatch

Opponents of a new elections law scheduled to take effect Friday say they have collected enough signatures to challenge the law and hold it in abeyance until after the November 2012 election.

A Statehouse press conference is scheduled for Thursday by Fair Elections Ohio to announce that it has at least the 231,324 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters for a referendum on House Bill 194, signed into law on July 1 by Gov. John Kasich.

Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio and spokesman for Fair Elections Ohio, would not reveal the number of signatures gathered, but said, “We’re way ahead of projections and we expect to have a good day tomorrow.”

Ohio: Butler County settles voting machine lawsuit | Middletown Journal

Butler County’s lawsuit with Diebold Inc. and Premier Election Systems regarding faulty voting machines has been settled with the board of elections receiving equipment and services worth $1.5 million, which Director Tom Ellis said will be a “boost in the arm for the voting experience.” The suit was over a glitch in the system during the March 2008 primary election that early caused 200 votes to go uncounted.

Provided to the county at no cost as part of the suit are 400 electronic poll books, bar scanners, signature pads, and printers supported by seven years of software and hardware maintenance. The equipment and on-going maintenance support will be provided by Election Systems & Software, Inc.

“The Butler County Board of Elections is very satisfied with the terms of the settlement and enthusiastic about the new relationship with an industry leader such as ES&S and the use of the company’s well-regarded Express 5000, electronic poll book,” Ellis said.

South Carolina: More voters than first thought don’t have photo ID | MidlandsConnect.com

New numbers from the state Election Commission out late Tuesday show approximately 217,000 South Carolina voters don’t have a photo identification, which could be required if the U.S. Justice Department approves the state law.

That’s up from 178,000 voters without the ID in January 2010. The commission initially compared its voter lists with DMV records at legislators’ request. It re-compared the lists to comply with the law signed in May, which requires each of those voters to be notified. The update also answers a question from the U.S. Department of Justice, which is reviewing the law.

The Department of Motor Vehicles says nearly 700 people have called about getting a free ride to get a photo identification card to comply with South Carolina’s new voter ID law. According to the DMV, only 25 rides are scheduled for the one-day only free ride program, happening Wednesday, and most of the people who called the DMV were not interested in getting a ride.

West Virginia: County to refuse maintenance contract for voting machines | The Charleston Gazette

Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said he will refuse to sign a maintenance contract for the county’s electronic voting machines. Earlier this month, Carper and county commissioners Hoppy Shores and Dave Hardy reluctantly agreed to pay a contract to Election Systems & Software to provide maintenance for the county’s electronic voting machines. The maintenance contract would have cost the county $56,000 a year for four years.

In 2005, under former secretary of state Betty Ireland, state officials negotiated a sole-source contract with ES&S to provide touch-screen and optical-scan voting machines all over the state. State officials told county election officials earlier this year they would be passing on responsibility for maintaining the voting machines to county government.

The state contract gave ES&S a virtual monopoly on voting machines in West Virginia and a monopoly on fixing the machines if they break. In the past, Kanawha County officials have had trouble getting in touch with ES&S representatives and finding qualified technicians to work on the machines.

Wisconsin: Can students vote in the next election? | The UWM Post

More than 9,000 students at UW-Milwaukee could be ineligible to vote in future Wisconsin elections without substantive modifications to university ID cards. Based on previous studies, The UWM Post estimates that 9,179 students, approximately 30 percent of the campus, do not have valid, state-issued driver’s licenses, a prerequisite to voting in upcoming elections.

Black students ages 18 to 24 will be impacted most by the Voter ID Bill, on average being 27.5 percent less likely than white students to have a Wisconsin driver license, according to a 2005 study conducted by UWM’s Employment and Training Institute.

Hispanic students ages 18 to 24 will also be impacted considerably, with Hispanic women being 28 percent less likely than white women to have a driver license, and Hispanic men being 17 percent less likely than white men. Junior Julio Guerrero, chairman of the Latino Caucus of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said the bill will have a negative impact for students and Latinos alike.

Bermuda: Reform electoral system to combat racial polarisation UBP leader Kim Swan | Bermuda Politics

Bermuda must have electoral reform to rid the Island of racial polarisation, according to UBP MP Kim Swan. Mr Swan was reacting to a poll on Monday, for The Royal Gazette, which showed 38 percent of people said they would vote OBA in a general election, with 32 percent opting for the PLP. The Mindmaps poll was carried out shortly after the fledgling party’s debut conference.

But the survey found that the OBA is attracting much of its support from whites and the older generation. The survey found that the OBA had 72 percent of the white vote and 16 percent of the black vote, but the PLP took five percent of the white vote and 49 percent of the black vote.

In a statement yesterday Mr Swan said: “The Royal Gazette poll released on Monday, September 26, highlights that the repeated trends of racial polarisation, prevalent for the past four decades, continue in Bermuda in 2011.

Bhutan: Election Commission of India to Train Bhutanese Election Officials | Northern Voices Online

Chief Election Commissioner of India, Dr. S. Y. Quraishi visited Bhutan from 16th – 18th September 2011 at the invitation of his counterpart Dasho Kunzang Wangdi for strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two Election Commissions. He was accompanied by Akshay Rout, Director General.

The two Chief Election Commissioners signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a period of five years to facilitate exchange of knowledge and experience, information, material, expertise and technical knowhow, training of personnel and development of human resources in electoral matters and also for taking up joint initiatives and providing assistance to others.

Bulgaria: Ethnic tensions mar Bulgaria’s presidential elections | EurActiv

On a visit to Brussels, Rossen Plevneliev, the candidate for president of the EPP-affiliated GERB ruling party, condemned recent events in the town Katunitsa as “purely criminal actions.” He said the occurrences should not be politicised to avoid the risk of a ‘blame game’. Rather, he insisted, one should hold a real debate about policies.

Violence erupted in Katunitsa last week (23 September) when 19-year old ethnic Bulgaria was reportedly killed by a man employed by Roma mafia boss Kiril Rashkov, known locally as ‘Tsar Kiro’, sparking an unprecedented outburst of anger among the local population and the arson of the crime leader’s property.

Canada: Online elections sought by B.C. municipalities – concern that online voting could fall prey to hackers | CBC News

B.C. municipal leaders have endorsed the idea of online voting for the 2014 municipal elections — but debate on the issue has revealed deep divisions within the Union of B.C. Municipalities at its convention in Vancouver. A majority voted Wednesday to ask the province to do the work required to have online voting ready for the elections in three years.

Online voting is fraught with danger, said Coun. Donna Shugar, of the Sunshine Coast Regional District. “Particularly because you don’t know who is in the room with the voter, coercing or persuading,” Shugar said.

Many at the convention agreed with Shugar, and also expressed concern that online voting could fall prey to hackers.

Canada: Returning officer advises against electronic vote counting for Calgary | Calgary Herald

If Calgary’s returning officer gets her way, the next election night will still be all about the hands — the poll staff manually counting ballots, and the candidates chewing their nails as they await the slow trickle of results. Barb Clifford will recommend Monday that council avoid joining other large Canadian cities that electronically count votes, because she worries it’s a prohibitive expense.

“It’s pretty hard to justify $3.4 million for something that will be used one night every three or maybe four years,” she said Wednesday, after a report on vote-counting machines was released.

Germany: Berlin suggests sending election observers to Russia | The Local

The German government on Monday called on Russia to see that next year’s presidential election observed “democratic principles,” and added that it would welcome a plan to send in independent election observers. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said, “From a German point of view, it would be very helpful if a sufficient number of election observers were allowed into the country.”

But he also made it clear that the “strategic partnership” between Russia and Germany was of primary importance, and would be used as the basis for a continued close cooperation with any successor to President Dmitry Medvedev.

United Kingdom: Why the Electoral Commission disagrees with Harman on voter registration | politics.co.uk

Harriet Harman wrapped up today’s Labour conference with a speech attacking the coalition’s planned voter registration changes. What she didn’t mention is that the independent Electoral Commission is broadly in favour of the idea.

I’ve been going through its submission to the Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee, in which it states, in no uncertain terms:

“The Electoral Commission is clear that introducing IER is the right thing to do, because of the need:
• to improve the security of the system, making it less vulnerable to fraud
• to recognise people’s personal responsibility for this important stake in our democracy
• for a system that people recognise as up-to-date, not rooted in Victorian ideas about households and ‘heads of household'”

The Voting News Daily: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe, E-voting machines vulnerable to remote vote changing

Editorials: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe | NYTimes.com Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries. Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and…

Editorials: As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe | NYTimes.com

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box. “Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”

National: E-voting machines vulnerable to remote vote changing | CNET News

U.S. government researchers are warning that someone could sneak an inexpensive piece of electronics into e-voting machines like those to be used in the next national election and then remotely change votes after they have been cast.

The Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne Laboratory, which is a division of the Department of Energy, discovered this summer that Diebold touch-screen e-voting machines could be hijacked remotely, according to team leader Roger Johnston. Salon reported on it today, noting that as many as a quarter of American voters are expected to be using machines that are vulnerable to such attacks in the 2012 election.

Basically, when a voter pushes a button to record his or her votes electronically, the remote hijacker could use a Radio Frequency remote control to intercept that communication, change the votes, and then submit the fraudulent votes for recording.

Voting Blogs: Arizona and sham candidates — comparing different recall set ups | The Recall Elections Blog

Some interesting discussion by the Election Law Blogger himself, Professor Rick Hasen, focused on Olivia Cortes, the alleged sham candidate in the Russell Pearce. As I’ll explain below, because of the particularities of Arizona law, I don’t find the sham candidate problem that offensive.

For contrast, Hasen notes how California law works. California’s law eliminates sham candidates run to protect the targeted official. It provides for two concurrent votes, one on whether to actually recall the official, and the second (non-partisan) on the replacement. The removed official cannot run in the replacement race (which I believe was the source of debate during the adoption of the recall itself).

I think this is the best system, mainly because it limits costs and provides some contrasts between the official being recalled and the possible replacement. Though not a benefit, I believe the ability to draw a contrast with a successor actually benefits the elected official — as the official has somebody to attack rather than the potentially nebulous recall proponents.

Colorado: Elections Subcommittee Democrats Seek Investigation of Colorado Secretary of State | Committee on House Administration

In a letter to Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General in the Civil rights Division of the Department of Justice, Congressmen Bob Brady and Charles A. Gonzalez, the Ranking Members of the Committee on House Administration and its Subcommittee on Elections, respectively, have requested an investigation into actions taken by Colorado Secretary of State, Scott Gessler. Last week, Sec. Gessler petitioned the Denver District Court for an injunction to prevent the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s office from mailing ballots to eligible voters ahead of the November 01, 2011, election simply because they hadn’t voted in the last general election.

“No right is mentioned more times in the Constitution than the right to vote,” said Rep. Gonzalez. “It is the responsibility of every public official to ensure that eligible citizens are not denied that right. Secretary Gessler, instead, has taken steps that could prevent Coloradans’ civic participation. The Voting Section of the Department of Justice exists to protect this foundation of our democracy.”

Denver City and County Clerk and Record Debra Johnson has called this “a fundamental issue of fairness and of keeping voting accessible to as many eligible voters as possible” and the maps her office released suggest that districts with large minority populations would be particularly hard hit by Gessler’s rule. The congressmen were also concerned that eligible and registered voters who had missed the last election because of a disability or because they were deployed abroad at the time might miss their chance to vote this year.

Colorado: Congressmen ask U.S. to look into Gessler lawsuit against Denver clerk | The Denver Post

Two Democratic congressmen asked the U.S. Department of Justice Tuesday to investigate whether Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler violated federal law when he asked a judge to stop the Denver clerk and recorder from mailing ballots to inactive voters. The letter from Rep. Robert Brady of Pennsylvania and Charles Gonzalez of Texas says Gessler’s actions may violate the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory voting procedures.

“Given the diversity of the state of Colorado, and particularly that of Denver County, there is a high likelihood that the barrier to voting Secretary Gessler seeks to impose . . . will have such a discriminatory result,” the letter states.

It says that not mailing ballots to eligible voters listed as “inactive” because they didn’t vote last year “might make participation particularly hard” for disabled voters who may not have been able to get to the polls and Americans who may have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in 2010 but who want to vote Nov. 1.

Colorado: Enough signatures collected to recall Saguache County Clerk Myers | Valley Courier

The three-member Committee to Recall Melinda Myers announced Tuesday that volunteers have gathered 816 signatures within the time period prescribed by law, 200 more than needed to move forward and set a date for the county clerk’s recall election.

Committee members Steve Carlson, John Baker and Pat Jenkins supervised more than 10 volunteers who fanned out across rural Saguache County for two months to find signers for the petitions.

“All along I was very confident that the estimated numbers we needed were there,” former commissioner’s candidate Steve Carlson said. “It seemed like a huge task to get this accomplished in the time we had, so I’m proud, happy and thankful for all petition gatherers.” Carlson himself was able to collect signatures for a good number of petitions and several other volunteers filled out two petitions or more.

Maine: GOP leaders used same-day voting | The Morning Sentinel

A coalition that is campaigning to preserve same-day voter registration in Maine said Tuesday that many conservative leaders have done just what they support abolishing. Voting records reveal that Gov. Paul LePage, at least two state senators and eight state representatives have in the past registered to vote on election day or during the two business days preceding it. A new law that they all support would ban voter registration within two business days of an election.

The law, passed with Republican support, is now the subject of a people’s veto referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot, led by Protect Maine Votes.

Cited in a press release issued by the coalition Tuesday were Senate President Kevin Raye, R-Perry; Lance Dutson, chief executive officer of the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center; former Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Cianchette; and former Republican congressional candidate Dean Scontras.

New Jersey: Zirkles win Fairfield election; state can’t confirm investigation | NJ.com

The county and the courts had already expressed it but the voters of Fairfield Township made it official — again. Democratic County Committee candidates Cindy and Ernie Zirkle were elected Tuesday over competitors Mark and Vivian Henry, according to unofficial online results from the county Board of Elections.

Mail-in ballots had not been recorded by 10:30 p.m. but the Zirkles took 33 percent of the vote over the Henrys’ 17 percent. “We don’t trust the system,” said Cindy Zirkle, so a substantial number of absentee ballots were distributed.

“It’s a shame,” Zirkle began late Tuesday night, that certain opposition parties “refused to accept the Board of Elections’ admission.” That admission being Board Director Lizbeth Hernandez stating she inadvertently mismatched the names on the ballots and the results declared in June were the exact opposite.

Oklahoma: New court order allows all registered voters in special election | Cherokee Phoenix

All registered Cherokee voters will be permitted to cast their vote in a special election for principal chief during five open voting dates as a result of a new federal court ruling. Those dates are Sept. 29, Oct. 1, 4, 6 and 8. Voting must be done on a walk-in basis at the Cherokee Nation Election Commission office in Tahlequah.

During a Sept. 23 telephone hearing requested by both U.S. attorneys and Freedmen attorneys to discuss a complaint filed last week by Freedmen attorneys, a compromise was reached to allow all registered Cherokee voters to vote.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ruled on the complaint made by attorneys for Cherokee Freedmen descendants last week. The complaint alleged the tribes’ election commission did not comply with certain aspects of ruling made by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Sept. 21.

Wisconsin: GOP lawmakers consider changes to recall petition process | JSOnline

Republican lawmakers signaled Tuesday that they will likely give Gov. Scott Walker authority over how recall petitions can be gathered, just as Democrats gear up to recall him next year.

The move would allow Walker to halt a policy developed by nonpartisan election officials that, at least in theory, could make it easier for groups to gather signatures to recall the governor, as well as legislators from either party. “You have given the governor control of the chicken coop, so to say,” Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) told Republicans.

But GOP lawmakers raised concerns that election officials had gone too far with their interpretation of state laws and said the governor and lawmakers should have a chance to weigh in on them. Under the changes Republicans are considering, Walker would also get to decide whether universities can put stickers on their identification cards that would allow them to be used for voting.

Wisconsin: Moves to change recall election misguided | Political Heat

There’s been a strong push as of late, by Republican legislators in the state and news media alike, to restrict the terms under which recall elections can occur. This call has come after an historic nine recall elections occurred this year alone, more than doubling the number of recalls that had previously been seen at the state legislative level.

… To alter the conditions of recalls would also ignore the intent of what recalls were all about. Our state constitution doesn’t limit why recalls can happen — in fact, no recall election at the legislative level has ever occurred on the bases or merits that the proposed constitutional amendment would restrict them under.

Wisconsin: Election Official Violated Law, but won’t be Charged in Supreme Court Vote Tally | WUWM

The state Government Accountability Board has concluded an investigation into the behavior of Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus after the April election for state Supreme Court. The board says Nickolaus violated the law by not posting all returns on election night.

However, the board says her violation was not willful, and therefore did not constitute criminal misconduct. Initial results on election night posted by Nickolaus showed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg with a narrow lead over Justice David Prosser.

Two days after the election, Nickolaus announced that she had previously failed to report 14,000 votes. With the additional votes turned in, Prosser pulled into the lead.

Wisconsin: Independent investigator: Waukesha Clerk likely violated election law | 620 WTMJ

An independent investigation for the Government Accountability Board has found probable cause to believe that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus violated state election law on the night of the Supreme Court Election.  However, the investigator also found that the violation was not willful and therefore does not constitute criminal misconduct.

Nickolaus failed to report results from Brookfield on election night.  The failure led to an initial vote total that showed the race was too close to call.  Nickolaus caught the mistake before reporting final vote totals.

“It was pretty clear to me that there wasn’t fraud,” said, former Dane County Prosecutor Tim Verhoff who conducted the investigation.

National: Argonne researchers ‘hack’ Diebold e-voting system | Computerworld

Researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory this week showed how an electronic voting machine model that’s expected to be widely used to tally votes in the 2012 elections can be easily hacked using inexpensive, widely-available electronic components.

Roger Johnston, head of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s science and engineering reseaech lab, said the hack, which requires about $25 and very little technical expertise, would let cybercriminals “flip” votes gathered on Diebold Accuvote TS machines and change election results without raising any suspicion.

Johnston and his team have long warned about vulnerabilities in e-voting machines. And two years ago, the team demonstrated how a Sequoia touch screen e-voting machine could be similarly manipulated using cheap components. The latest research was first reported by the Salon news site.

Editorials: The Fundamental Right | NYTimes.com

The right to vote is sometimes said to be the most fundamental in American democracy. Yet legal challenges to the federal voting rights law are increasing even as they highlight the racial injustices that make it essential. In a ruling last week, Judge John Bates of Federal District Court rightly dismissed such a challenge by Shelby County, Ala., which sought to have a central part of the law declared unconstitutional.

That provision, Section 5, requires states and local governments with histories of racial discrimination to obtain “preclearance” of any changes in local voting rules with the Justice Department or a federal court. Because it was common for jurisdictions to adopt new discriminatory practices after a court struck down old ones, the 1965 Voting Rights Act required the “covered” jurisdictions — six Southern states, and other counties and cities around the country — to show that any proposed rule change would not discriminate against minorities. Congress renewed Section 5 in 2006.

Editorials: Democracy Under Attack | Judith Browne Dianis/Huffington Post

Today, we are witnessing the greatest assault on democracy in over a century.

Through a spate of state laws that restrict the type of identification a voter may use, limit early voting, place strict requirements on voter registration, and deny voting rights to Americans with criminal records, many voters will be cast out of the democratic process before they even make it to the polls. Those who do make it will face additional challenges. To complement legislative efforts to suppress the vote, the Tea Party and its allies have vowed to place millions of challengers at polls in 2012 to dispute voters’ eligibility in ways that may intimidate eligible voters and disrupt polling place operations. This two-prong strategy will impede American voters at every step of the voting process.

Not since the days of poll taxes and literacy tests has our country seen such blatant attempts to suppress the vote. Model legislative proposals crafted and strategically disseminated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative legislative advocacy group that receives funding from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation prompted some 34 states to introduce repressive photo identification legislation this year. While the bills vary slightly from state to state, they share one common thread. All of them require that voters must show non-expired, photo ID issued by that particular state or the federal government in order to cast a ballot. And all of them do so under the guise of preventing rampant voter fraud.

Canada: Online voting for municipal elections still years away: Ida Chong | Vancouver Sun

The provincial government wants to bring in online voting for municipal elections as early as 2014, but has to change legislation first, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Ida Chong said Wednesday. Speaking to reporters at the Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention in Vancouver, Chong said both she and Premier Christy Clark support the concept of voting over the Internet.

“I don’t believe it is impossible. We’re very keen on it,” she said, but cautioned, “It is still two-and-a-half, three years away in terms of changing legislation. I think it is possible.”

Her comments came as UBCM delegates called on the province to enact changes that would allow them to conduct online votes, even though some delegates raised concerns about security and the potential for ballot fraud.