Maine: GOP chairman says if students want to vote, they should pay taxes | Bangor Daily News Charlie Webster sounds a lot like LeRoy Symm. Symm, the registrar of voters in Waller County, Texas, had a special questionnaire he used for college students. It included questions such as: Do you own property in the county? Where…
Charlie Webster sounds a lot like LeRoy Symm. Symm, the registrar of voters in Waller County, Texas, had a special questionnaire he used for college students. It included questions such as: Do you own property in the county? Where did you attend church? What are your job plans?
If Symm and his deputies knew a voter by name and face, they were simply registered. College students had to pass Symm’s test. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 said this violated the Constitution, thereby establishing the practice of allowing college students to list their dormitory as their residence for the purposes of voting.
Three decades later, the ruling has not deterred Webster, the Maine Republican Party chairman, who weeks ago brandished a list of more than 200 college students he said likely engaged in voter fraud.
The State of Arizona and its Republican Governor Jan Brewer received a lot of negative press and garnered national attention last year over its immigration legislation that allowed for racial profiling. It also drew the attention of the Obama administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Last week, Arizona filed a lawsuit challenging the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Tom Horne said that the requirement for the state to get prior approval from the DOJ for any changes to the state’s election laws is unconstitutional.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder responded to the Arizona suit that the Voting Rights Act is vital to ensure that “every American has the right to vote and have that vote counted.” Holder added, “The provisions challenged in this case, including the preclearance requirement, were reauthorized by Congress in 2006 with overwhelming and bipartisan support.” Holder said the DOJ “will continue to enforce the Voting Rights Act, including each of the provisions challenged today.”
As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. “What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century,” says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.
Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP’s effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.
Last fall’s general election in sparsely populated Saguache County already is one of the most scrutinized in Colorado history, having prompted a report by the secretary of state, a statewide grand jury investigation and at least three lawsuits. Yet this week Saguache is setting a new precedent for election transparency in Colorado, playing host to what state officials believe is the first public review of voted ballots and other election materials of its kind.
And when the days-long recount of the approximately 2,500 ballots is complete — possibly late today, maybe Thursday — absolutely none of last fall’s results will change. That’s OK with Steve Carlson, the 2010 Republican candidate for county commissioner who went home on election night thinking he’d won, only to have the results flipped a few days later. While his race is one of the two controversial races being recounted, Carlson insists what’s at play here is something more important than a commissioner’s seat.
According to District Judge Martin Gonzales, Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers must allow Secretary of State Scott Gessler to have access to Saguache County’s voted ballots from the November 2010 election. 31. He plans to recount them the end of August. As promised prior to the hearing,
Myers has agreed to follow the Judge’s ruling and turn over ballots. But even as the Clerk and Commissioners sought clarity on the ballot issue, a group of citizens calling themselves the Committee to Recall Melinda Myers as County Clerk and Recorder continue to gather signatures on a recall petition. They hope to put the recall on the ballot in a special election, probably after the November 2011 regular election.
The Wisconsin state bar civil rights section’s chairwoman wants the U.S. Department of Justice to review the state’s new voter photo identification law and monitor its implementation.
In an Aug. 26 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder released Wednesday, Sally Stix says the law could potentially suppress the vote of thousands of Wisconsin residents without solving any voter fraud problems.
Maine college students are under attack by the chairman of the state’s Republican Party who recently “brandished a list of more than 200 college students he said likely engaged in voter fraud.”
The problem? There’s no evidence that any of the 206 young people who voted in recent elections did anything wrong.
Republican Party chair Charlie Webster is attempting to challenge students’ right to register and vote where they attend school, indicating some had registered in their home state and then re-registered on campus, according to a report this week from the Bangor Daily News.
Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie today (Tuesday, Aug. 30) announced that his office is currently seeking grant proposals from cities, townships and counties for accessibility improvements to polling places in Minnesota.
The approximately $400,000 in Federal Election Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities (EAID) grants are provided through the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Funds must be used to improve polling place accessibility for voters with disabilities and cannot be used for general improvements to structures.
Gov. Nikki Haley’s invitation Wednesday to voters who lack the photo ID necessary to vote under South Carolina’s new law echoed a rental car slogan. “We’re picking you up,” she said.
The Department of Motor Vehicles has set aside Wednesday, Sept. 28, for anyone who needs a ride. Voters who lack transportation can call a toll-free number to arrange a pickup from a DMV employee, Haley said.
… Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian called it a lame attempt to quiet critics. “This is ridiculous. One day to get this done for 178,000 people is dishonest and cruel. This is a useless gesture,” he said. “This is not even a good PR stunt.”
The state, not the counties, will pay the $539,137 cost of the Sept. 13 special congressional election spawned by disgraced John Ensign’s decision last spring to quit the U.S. Senate. After bickering about the cost Wednesday, members of the Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee agreed unanimously to take the money out of their contingency fund, rather than making counties pay for the election.
Secretary of State Ross Miller, the state’s chief election officer, said that the counties had no time to prepare for the special election and that forcing them to cover costs out of their current budgets would pose a hardship. Counties typically pay their own election costs. The election would have cost Clark County about $33,000, according to a June estimate by the elections department.
Liberian voters have rejected a raft of highly contested constitutional changes at a referendum, the electoral commission announced Wednesday. The stickiest proposed change was to shorten from 10 to five consecutive years the amount of time that presidential and vice-presidential candidates would be required to have lived in Liberia.
The existing clause was suspended in 2005 elections as most candidates had just recently returned from post-war exile. While more of those who turned out to vote in the referendum on August 23 backed the move than opposed it, by 292,318 votes to 246,473, the measure was nonetheless defeated as the ‘yes’ vote fell short of the necessary threshold of two-thirds of votes cast.
Ghana’s 2012 General Election is just around the corner barely Fifteen months from now. Electronic Registration is fast becoming a preferred method of voter registration in many countries. The multi-million questions that many Ghanaians are contemplating about the Electronic Voter Registration day-in, day-out, among others are;
-Is the Electoral Commission facing serious set-backs with regards to the Electronic /Biometric Voter Registration, if no, what is preventing them from starting the exercise now.
-Is the Electoral Commission’s Budget for the 2012 General Elections being met by the Government?
Cameroon will hold its presidential poll October 9. The country’s longtime president, Paul Biya, is expected to seek re-election despite calls to step down. Voter registration closes Wednesday in Cameroon, just one day after President Biya signed a decree setting the poll date for October 9.
The 78-year-old president has not yet said whether he will seek another seven-year term. Ruling party officials have urged him to run. Biya’s party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, or CPDM, will choose its candidate at a congress on September 15 and 16 in the capital Yaounde. Journalist Christopher Ambe in Cameroon says some want Biya to step aside.
Ohio: Cuyahoga County seeks bids for help with vote-by-mail project | 19 Action News Cuyahoga County’s Department of Public Works is seeking bids for help with the project approved by Cuyahoga County Council Monday evening to send a vote-by-mail application to all active Cuyahoga County voters. The request for bids was approved Monday morning by…
Cuyahoga County’s Department of Public Works is seeking bids for help with the project approved by Cuyahoga County Council Monday evening to send a vote-by-mail application to all active Cuyahoga County voters.
The request for bids was approved Monday morning by Cuyahoga County’s Executive Board of Control in advance of the County Council’s Monday evening vote. Specifically, county government seeks help with manufacturing envelopes to be used in the mailing and mailhouse data processing.
Embattled Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White will represent himself as state Democrats’ challenge to his candidacy works its way through the next round of court hearings.
As 24-Hour News 8 reporter Jim Shella first reported in his blog at noon Tuesday, Republican attorney Jim Bopp confirmed Tuesday that he had resigned as White’s lawyer.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has asked federal authorities to intervene on behalf of Cuyahoga County voters. Kucinich sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice Monday asking U.S. attorneys to “use all the investigative and Prosecutorial power” of their office to look at the state’s ban on unsolicited absentee ballots.
Ohio Secretary of State John Husted recently banned from sending unsolicited absentee ballot counties applications to voters. Cuyahoga County ballot Executive Ed Fitzgerald plans to continue the practice of sending every registered voter in absentee.
Perhaps we now know why the earth rumbled beneath the Eastern Seaboard then sustained the wrath of Hurricane Irene as she barreled ashore — in the same area and in the same week. The spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., who was immortalized with a memorial on the National Mall, may have been aroused to anger as yet another state, this one Arizona, is tampering with the Voting Rights Act, one of the measures for which he and others selflessly sacrificed their lives.
Republican attorney general Tom Horne, obviously executing the whims of powerful GOP operatives, has decided to challenge Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a measure that was implemented specifically to protect the rights of the minority electorate. This is a bold and obvious move to further bolster conservatives’ obsession with making President Obama a one-term president.
The same body of individuals has doubtlessly ordered a systematic challenge to this law across the country after the U.S. Supreme Court mysteriously ruled that voting districts could be exempt from the federal law if they can show they’re no longer engaged in race discrimination.
North Las Vegas refuses to foot the bill for lawsuits Councilman Wade Wagner and former Mayor Mike Montandon filed against the city in June over a new election. Wagner is asking for more than $72,000 in attorney’s fees. Montandon, along with North Las Vegas resident Jay King, claims the city should pay $40,000 for a joint lawsuit that halted a special election in Ward 4.
Wagner won the Ward 4 general election against former Councilman Richard Cherchio by a single vote. The Clark County Elections Department later found one invalid vote. The Council voted to hold a new election in Precinct 4306, where the one invalid vote was cast, which prompted Cherchio to sue the city, joined later by Montandon.
According to court documents, North Las Vegas has filed an opposition to Wagner’s request, stating that the Council had the right to vote for a new election and that Wagner’s attorney, Todd Bice, stated in open court that he was “not getting paid” and was representing him because he “believed in the cause.”
Nora Elze is 88, and still pretty spry, so she’d still like to do her own errands. But when it comes to driving around Savannah, well, her car is still in the garage. That’s because she can’t get aGeorgia driver’s license and it has nothing to do with her age, it has to do with her name.
Elze and her husband Warren lived in Savannah for fourteen years. “so from 1985 to 1999, I had a Georgia’s driver’s license,” she tells me. She and Mr. Elze moved back from Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. “And we went right in to get our licenses. My husband got his without any trouble, but I couldn’t get mine,’ she tells me.
Mrs. Elze was told that because her birth certificate had her maiden name on it and her Pennsylvania ID had her married name, she would need to prove that she was married. “I think this is crazy, we got married in 1946,” she told me.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Voting Section requested more information from the State of South Carolina regarding a new photo ID law for voters. DOJ is reviewing the new law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires some states and jurisdictions – including SC – to submit their voting changes for approval before they can be enforced.
The request for more information – which gives the state 60 days to respond and will delay DOJ’s decision up to 60 days after the receipt of the new data – came in a letter from Section chief Chris Herren to the office of Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Doug Chapin’s post today on his blog digs down into the Department of Justice’s data request from South Carolina, seeking more detailed data concerning who does, and who doesn’t, have the identification required to vote in that state, as a consequence of their new voter ID law. I agree entirely with Doug’s top-line reaction — At last! Some real data.
At the same time, the request seems to miss an opportunity to find out more about whether voter identification laws will have a disenfranchising effect, and in particular, a disproportional effect on minority voters. The reason is that the disproportional effect may not be so much on whether whites and blacks have drivers licenses, but whether they have drivers licenses with the voter’s current address.
Ballot papers for the September 20 tripartite elections will be flown directly to Lusaka from Durban, Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) chairperson Justice Ireen Mambilima has said.
Justice Mambilima told journalists at a Press briefing held atUniversal Print Group (UPG) that the ballot papers would be flown directly to Lusaka unlike in the past when they used to go through Johannesburg. She said the UPG would make arrangements to charter a cargo plane which would deliver the ballot papers directly to Lusaka.
Secretary Election Commission Ishtiaq Ahmad Khan called on Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani here on Tuesday and apprised him of the preparation of reforms being undertaken by the Commission to ensure fair, transparent and credible elections in the country. The Secretary informed the Prime Minister about Election Commission of Pakistan’s Strategic Plan 2010-14 which has been prepared in consultation with all the stakeholders including all political parties, civil society and media.
He informed the Prime Minister that the Computerized Electoral Rolls are being prepared in collaboration with NADRA and current door to door verification throughout Pakistan is underway until September 2011, and that final Computerized Electoral Rolls will be ready by April 2012. Secretary Election Commission thanked the Prime Minister for extending full support to make Election Commission of Pakistan an autonomous.
South Carolina: Department of Justice seeks info on voter ID law | The Post and Courier Read the Department of Justice’s request for more information on SC’s Voter ID law. South Carolina voters will have wait to find out whether the U.S. Department of Justice will authorize the state’s new voter ID law, following an announcement Monday…
Read the Department of Justice’s request for more information on SC’s Voter ID law.
South Carolina voters will have wait to find out whether the U.S. Department of Justice will authorize the state’s new voter ID law, following an announcement Monday that federal officials need more information from the state.
Chris Whitmire, spokesman for the State Election Commission, said once state officials supply the information to the Justice Department, a 60-day window will begin for the federal agency to render a decision on the law. The law could be in effect for the November elections, but that will depend on how long the state takes to respond and if the Justice Department takes two full months to decide.
Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald wants the county’s congressional delegation to help stop Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted from banning the Board of Elections from processing mail-in absentee voter applications.
Husted said Friday he is considering prohibiting Cuyahoga County’s Board of Elections from processing applications from people who wish to vote by mail if FitzGerald’s administration goes forward with a plan to mail applications to all active registered voters in the county.
Fitzgerald says the secretary of state’s remarks raise issues about voters’ rights and voter suppression that merit a review by the U.S. Department of Justice. He said his office will forward a transcript of Husted’s remarks to members of the delegation so they can help raise the issue.
South Carolina is prepared to pursue litigation on several fronts “up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said. Wilson was one of several elected state constitutional officers who spoke at an Orangeburg County Republican Party fundraiser Monday.
One issue involved the state voter ID law submitted to the U.S. Justice Department for review. Wilson said he has “no faith that it will do the right thing.” “I can tell you we won’t lay down on this,” he said.
The state Democratic Caucus lodged a formal objection to the law with the Justice Department last week. The law passed on the strength of the Republican majority in the General Assembly. Justice requested more information Monday before making a decision.
A fascinating battle is shaping up in Cuyahoga County, OH where County Executive Ed FitzGerald is preparing to ask the County Board to defy a recent directive by Secretary of State Jon Husted prohibiting county election offices from mailing out unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters by having the County use non-election funds to do so.
The substantive issues in this dispute are important – especially given the growing number of voters in Ohio who cast their ballots outside of a traditional polling place – but just as interesting is the tug of war developing between Husted (a Republican) and FitzGerald (a Democrat) about ultimate control over election policy in Cuyahoga County, which is home to the city of Cleveland and its suburbs.
What’s at stake in the Cuyahoga dispute is nothing less than who will have ultimate control of local election policy in Ohio – and maybe elsewhere.