Slovenia: Prime Minister calls for deal over early elections | New Age Online

Slovenia’s prime minister urged all political sides in the tiny EU state Friday to reach an agreement on early elections, after his coalition suffered a new blow this week.

“The political sphere has to reach an agreement on how to appoint a new government through early elections,” Borut Pahor wrote in a commentary published in the daily Vecer. “In the current complicated circumstances, a political crisis is a luxury we cannot afford and we have to take quick and energetic steps.”

Montenegro: Montenegro To Make Another Attempt to Pass Election Law | Daily News Montenegro

The Montenegrin parliament must pass a new election law in order to continue on the path towards EU membership. The EU has been very clear in it’s message — without a revised election law there will be no EU membership.
Nonetheless, the Montenegrin parliament has failed to pass the needed law — after seven attempts. Unfortunately, there is little reason to hope that this attempt will fare better.

Serbian nationalist parties within the Montenegrin parliament are refusing to allow the EU membership to move forward unless Montenegro agrees to change it’s national language to Serbian and returns to teaching Serbian in Montenegrin schools.

Texas: Vet ID holders cannot vote? | San Antonio Express-News

Local Democrats are up in arms about a controversial voter ID bill that would exclude veterans’ identification cards from the short list of photo IDs required to cast a vote in Texas. Ann McGeehan, director of the Secretary of State’s elections division, said last week at a seminar in Austin that photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are not acceptable forms of military ID to vote, according to a recording provided by the Texas Democratic Party. Jordy Keith, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state, backpedaled Friday on that determination.

“It was an informal Q&A, and (McGeehan) was answering based on what was expressly called out in Senate Bill 14,” Keith said. “Right now our office has not issued a final determination on that.”

Passed after Gov. Rick Perry declared voter ID an emergency issue in the last session, the strict bill is touted by Republicans as a way to reduce voter fraud but decried by Democrats as an effort to lower voter turnout among minorities and the elderly, disabled and poor.

South Carolina: County voting records absent in South Carolina state audit | The Times and Democrat

An audit of electronic voting records by South Carolina election officials did not include local files, Orangeburg County Voter Registration Director Howard Jackson says. “The state sent our office a software program to extract data from the (November 2010) general election,” Jackson said. “When we installed it, it crashed the whole computer system.

“We now have a new system in place but that data is gone. We usually catalog and save data soon after an election but we ran into problems involving the special election for (Orangeburg County) sheriff.”

Following the November 2010 election, the Election Commission determined several counties certified inaccurate election results. As a result, it conducted audits of all 46 counties’ results beginning in January. Federal law mandates voting records must be stored for 22 months. Jackson said he provided state officials with paper tapes taken from the voting machines used in each precinct in the election.

Guatemala: Electoral Violence Escalates in Guatemala | InSight

It is estimated that 38 people have died so far in the run-up to the Guatemalan 2011 general elections, an even higher number than was recorded during 2007 contest. The head of Guatemalan Civil Rights Office (Procuraduría de Derechos Humanos) has described the current level of violence as “alarming,” and likely to worsen over the coming month, prior to the September 11 vote. An advisor to the presidential candidate Otto Perez Molina, who is currently tipped as the favourite to win, was also gunned down recently, along with his son.

According to Guatemalan NGO, Mirador Electoral, the pre-election period presents “high levels of danger” in at least 24 of the country’s 333 municipalities, due to the presence of criminal groups. As reported by Insight Crime, Mexican criminal gangs such as the Zetas have been stepping up their presence in Guatemala, which could explain the higher level of pre-election violence this year.

Kansas: Election officials want Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to wait on citizenship requirement | LJWorld.com

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s proposal to move up the date when Kansans must show proof of citizenship to register to vote is not getting good reviews from the people who run elections.

“If you rush implementation of a policy, you have a stronger chance of mistakes,” said Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew. He said voting is a constitutional right, “so you don’t want to make a decision on the fly about who gets to participate and who doesn’t get to participate.”

Wisconsin: Recalls let clerks test new Wisconsin voting rules | Green Bay Press Gazette

Sara Peeters waited at the First United Presbyterian Church in De Pere for an hour to register and vote in Tuesday’s recall election. It didn’t deter her from casting a ballot — “I came here for a reason,” she said — but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an inconvenience.

“It’s not an efficient system,” Peeters said. “I work in a pharmacy. No one would put up with that in a pharmacy.”

Lines at several precincts in the region topped an hour in Tuesday’s high-turnout races, a dry run for clerks and poll workers to test some of the new voting laws the Republican-led Legislature recently approved. Voters had to sign a poll book and were asked to show a form of identification, although the latter wasn’t required.

California: New primary system could shake up California politics | SignOnSanDiego.com

California voters will engage in a new election process next year that does away with traditional political party nominations and replaces them with primaries that could result in two candidates from the same party squaring off in the general election. In the so-called top-two primary election in June, state and congressional candidates of all parties will appear on the same ballot, allowing all voters to choose nominees without partisan constraints.

The new election system, approved by voters last November, will go into effect after the once-a-decade redrawing of political districts was done for the first time by an independent citizens commission, rather than the politicians themselves.

Proponents say the top-two primary, along with the new districts, will spur competition, help guard against spoiler candidates and potentially lead to more moderate lawmakers being elected. They further hope a new dynamic will emerge to lessen partisan rancor. But critics contend the new primary will limit choice, drive up the cost of campaigning and spell the end of third-party candidates.

US Virgin Islands: Abramson’s tenure extended in 10-3 vote | Virgin Islands Daily News

In a frenzied but semi-functional reconvened meeting of the V.I. Joint Board of Elections on Wednesday, the board reappointed the current supervisor of elections and took some long-awaited, though slightly retroactive, steps toward election reform. The meeting, which was recessed while in executive session on July 12, reconvened about 9:45 a.m., still in executive session for the purpose of discussing the position of supervisor of the V.I. Election System.

Within an hour, the board re-opened to the public, and St. Croix member Dodson James reported that they had discussed the findings of the Screening Committee, which recommended two names: current Elections Supervisor John Abramson Jr. and James Weber III.

Afghanistan: U.N. pushes risky plan to resolve Afghan election impasse | MiamiHerald.com

The United Nations is quietly pushing a plan aimed at healing a rupture between President Hamid Karzai and the opposition-dominated parliament that threatens to ignite a full-blown constitutional crisis, two international officials said.

The proposal, however, risks inflaming the feud and triggering charges of foreign interference with the country’s electoral commission, which is supposed to be independent but has had its credibility battered by two successive fraud-marred national elections.

The U.N. is pressing the commission to overturn for alleged fraud the results of 17 of last year’s 249 races for parliament’s lower house, the officials said on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The number is far fewer than the 62 contests that Karzai wanted reversed, but stops short of granting opposition lawmakers’ calls for no changes at all.

Angola: Vice-minister presses for stronger engagement in electoral register update | Angola Press

The Angolan vice-minister of Territory Administration for Institutional and Electoral Affairs, Adão de Almeida, Saturday in Luanda appealed to all citizens to participate in raising civic awareness on the electoral register update.

“Electoral register is a commitment with peace and democracy, therefore everyone who likes peace must participate in the process. We are all devoted to consolidating peace and promoting the development of democracy in Angola,” said the Government official.

Armenia: Central Election Commission to elect district committee members | Trend

Armenian’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has launched an open voting to elect members to district electoral committees, Tert.am reported.

The voting session attended by reporters comes to mark the 50th day of adopting amendments to the Electoral Code. And even though today is not a working day in Armenia, the voting was held extraordinarily since the law mandates that district electoral committees be set up upon the expiry of the above time limit.

Congo: Democratic Republic of Congo gears up for general elections | Newsday

More than 31 million voters have registered for the forthcoming general election scheduled for November in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This represents a significant increase compared to about 25,6 million that registered for the last election held in 2006.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni) has said it is happy with the way the electoral process is progressing, adding that the response from voters had been overwhelming. “It is more than we expected,” Ceni chairperson Daniel Ngoy Mulunda said at a Press conference following the completion of the first phase of the updating of the electoral roll. He said overwhelming response is a positive sign that people are willing to participate in national development.

Tunisia: Tunisians slow to register for ballot | AFP

Only about half of potential voters in Tunisia have registered to cast their ballot in October polls, the first since the January ouster of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, early figures showed Sunday. Just over 3.7 million of an estimated seven million potential voters had added their names to the roll, a member of the independent election commission, Larbi Chouikha, told AFP ahead of the close of registration at midnight (2300 GMT).

The provisional figure, which does not include an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 Tunisians of voting age abroad, represented about 52 percent of potential voters still in the country. The commission will release official figures on Tuesday. Registration opened on July 11 and was supposed to close on August 2, but was prolonged due to a slow turnout.

The Voting News Weekly: TVN Weekly August 8-14 2011

Saguache County Clerk and Recorder Melinda Myers with records in the county vault

A district court ruled that Saguache County clerk Melinda Myers must turn over ballots from 2010 election to the Colorado Secretary of State. In a related decision the same court threatened to hold Election Systems and Software in contempt for failing to appear for depositions retaed to their M650 central count tabulators and related software. Though charges of double voting against three Wake County North Carolina residents were quickly used in support of a voter ID bill recently vetoed by Governor Perdue, the law would not have stopped the voters from attempting to vote twice. Current law did, however. Post-election ballot counting in the Hinds County Mississippi primary election marred by voting machine malfunctions became chaotic. Florida’s new election law received pre-clearance by the Department of Justice – except for its most controversial provisions. The Post and Courier gave an account of the obstacles faced by one South Carolina citizen in trying to obtain required identification to allow her to vote. And from the Verified Voting Blog, a plea to let the provisions of the Federal MOVE Act have a chance to work before considering the electronic return of voted ballots.

Colorado: Saguache Co. clerk ordered to turn over ballots | The Denver Post

The Saguache County clerk must turn over ballots from the problem-plagued 2010 general election for inspection by the Colorado secretary of state, a district court judge ruled today.

“To prevent errors in future elections, the Secretary as a higher authority must be allowed (sic) review all aspects of a prior election to determine whether the clerks have complied with existing procedures,” Judge Martin Gonzales stated in a written order. “Otherwise, the errors may be repeated in future elections.”

Gonzales also said voted ballots “may be subjected to public inspection” as long as they do not disclose the voter’s identity. Secretary of State Scott Gessler sued Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers earlier this year, after Myers refused to turn over ballots for a public review by Gessler’s office.

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico edges closer to U.S. voting rights | AHN

Puerto Ricans’ chances of winning a right to vote in U.S. elections are as close now as at any time in American history. A First Circuit Court of Appeals decision last week has set up the conditions needed for the Supreme Court to review the possibility of voting rights for Puerto Rico’s four million residents.

The appeals court deadlocked 3-to-3 on whether to hear a case in which a lower court already denied Puerto Ricans a right to vote. A tied vote means any previous rulings are left to stand. The issue has arisen previously in the federal courts but never when there was a Supreme Court justice of Puerto Rican ancestry and presidential candidates were working so hard to win Hispanic votes.

Voting Blogs: A review of the FVAP UOCAVA workshop | Freedom to Tinker

The US Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) is the Department of Defense Agency charged with assisting military and overseas voters with all aspects of voting, including registering to vote, obtaining ballots, and returning ballots. FVAP’s interpretations of Federal law (*) says that they must perform a demonstration of electronic return of marked ballots by overseas military voters (**) in a Federal election at the first Federal election that occurs one year after the adoption of guidelines by the US Election Assistance Commission. Since the EAC hasn’t adopted such guidelines yet (and isn’t expected to for at least another year or two), the clock hasn’t started ticking, so a 2012 demonstration is impossible and a 2014 demonstration looks highly unlikely. Hence, this isn’t a matter of imminent urgency; however, such systems are complex and FVAP is trying to get the ball rolling on what such a system would look like.

As has been discussed previously on this blog, nearly all computer security experts are very concerned about the prospect of marked ballot return over the internet (which we will henceforth refer to as “internet voting”). Issues include vulnerability of client computers, issues with auditability, concerns about usability and coercion, etc. On the flip side, many states and localities are marching full steam ahead on their own internet voting systems, generally ignoring the concerns of computer scientists, and focusing on the perceived greater convenience and hoped-for increased turnout. Many of these systems include email return of marked ballots, which computer scientists generally consider to be even riskier than web-based voting.

Colorado: Saguache ballots to be part of election review | The Pueblo Chieftain

The state can conduct a public review of November’s election in Saguache County election that includes voted ballots, District Court Judge Martin Gonzales ruled Thursday evening. Secretary of State Scott Gessler sued county Clerk & Recorder Melinda Myers in March after she had refused to turn over the ballots and argued that a public review would violate the secrecy of the ballot.

Gonzales ruled the defense had not established that ballots contained information that would identify a voter. Moreover, the ruling stated that requesting the ballots for the review was within Gessler’s powers.

It compared inclusion of ballots in the review to an auditor’s need to see invoices, checks and receipts.  “Likewise, the secretary cannot review the adequacy of procedures used in ballot counts without reviewing the voted ballots,” the ruling stated.

Colorado: Myers says SOS would ok ES&S M650 use for recall | Center Post Dispatch

According to an article on the BOCC recall petition hearing in the Pueblo Chieftain last week, Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers says the Secretary of State’s (SOS) Office would permit the use of the M650 to tabulate recall election results.

The recall committee for Myers represented by former commissioner’s candidate Steve Carlson requested Aug. 2 that Saguache Commissioners appoint an official other than Myers to conduct the recall election and asked that the votes in the election be counted by hand.

Commissioner Sam Pace announced that Saguache Treasurer Connie Trujillo had been appointed to oversee the recall election and would be assisted by a retired Colorado county clerk or other individual familiar with election processes. The decision to hand count the ballots would need to be made by Trujillo and her assistant, Pace said.

Mississippi: Hinds County Sheriff McMillin on race — and conceding race | WLBT 3/Jackson, MS

Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin says he won’t challenge the election results from last week’s Democratic primary. He notified the media through a press release Thursday. On Friday, WLBT News got an exclusive interview with the outgoing sheriff.

McMillin has a history of making colorful remarks. His press release actually had some comments on color, directed at his opponent. McMillin says he will not challenge the votes, because he doesn’t believe examining them would make any difference, due to the problems in the election.

Texas: Comparing Texas’ Voter ID Law to Other States | Texas Tribune

When Texas voters are asked to show a photo ID at the polls in January, they will join voters in 29 other states that  have adopted voter identification requirements — but only six of which require photo identification.

The Legislature passed the controversial requirement during the regular session that ended in May. Because of Texas’ history of racial discrimination, section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act gives the U.S. Department of Justice or the federal courts the authority to review laws that would affect voter participation before they are enacted. Before the change in law, Texas voters could show a voter registration certificate or another document, such as a utility bill, that listed their name but didn’t necessarily have a photo on it.

US Virgin Islands: Joint Elections Board chairman outlines steps to move ahead Stalled reform Intimidating meetings | Virgin Islands Daily News

In a move to address many of the troubles plaguing the V.I. Joint Board of Elections, the board’s chairman held a press conference Thursday to clear the air. So far, the board’s two-year cycle has gotten off to a rocky start, and Joint Board Chairman Rupert Ross Jr. wanted to dispel the impression that little has been done to address the problems, he said.

Ross offered members of the media information about what he felt had contributed to the current state of apparent disarray and outlined how the board plans to move forward despite the obstacles. Ross discussed how he and V.I. Elections Supervisor John Abramson Jr., who was reappointed to another 8-year term by the board on Wednesday, were preparing the board for the upcoming election cycle and how they were attempting to push forward much-needed legislation in time for the 2012 elections.

Most of the Joint Board meetings this year have been dramatic affairs with a lot of back-and-forth between members. Many have ended in an uproar involving yelling matches and even threats from the public in attendance. Some board members have sought a police presence at meetings to ensure their safety.

Arizona: Arizona state senator recall election can go forward, judge rules | CNN.com

An Arizona judge ruled Friday that a special election to recall state Senate President Russell Pearce, the primary sponsor behind a controversial anti-illegal immigration law that a federal court struck down in April, can be held November 8 as planned.

In an 11-page ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Hugh E. Hegyi rejected nearly all of the arguments alleging problems with the recall petition.
The suit was filed by Franklin Bruce Ross, who backs Pearce and who alleged problems in the way the recall petitions were filled out. The suit cited as an example the language in the oath sworn by the circulators of the recall petitions did not state that the signatures collected were “genuine” or the “functional equivalent.”

But Hegyi concluded that the legislation concerning recall elections does not mandate that the oath contain the word “genuine.” “It merely requires ‘an’ oath that the Petition signatures are genuine, but does not prescribe a specific oath that will accomplish that objective,” the judge wrote. In this case, the requirements of the law — which he described as constitutional — have been met, he said.

Editorials: Total recall no instant cure for cranky voters | Sydney Morning Herald

During the final year of the Labor government in NSW there was an outpouring of frustration from an electorate that had clearly made its mind up to throw it out, but was powerless to do so. The reason was NSW’s system of four-year fixed parliamentary terms.

What emerged was a proposal to introduce US-style ”recall” elections, whereby a government can be dragged to the polls early if enough of the electorate desires it. The same mechanism helped Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor’s mansion in California in 2003.

In the heat of a looming election – and after much coverage of the idea by the Herald – both Kristina Keneally and Barry O’Farrell declared the idea worthy of consideration. O’Farrell has made good on his word and has convened an expert panel to consider how it might work in NSW.

Bhutan: The 16-vote tiebreaker in election for Punakha’s Goenshari gup | Kuensel Online/Bhutan

The reelection for post of Punakha’s Goenshari gup yesterday ended with Kinley Dorji winning by 16 votes over his opponent Kinley Wangchuk. The candidates were caught in a deadlock situation in the recent local government elections securing 85 votes each.

In the tiebreaker election yesterday, Kinley Dorji, 36, from Zhelngoesa chiwog secured 157 votes. Kinley Dorji said he was delighted with the result. “I’m thankful to people for having faith in me,” the father of three said. “And it will, no doubt, be a huge responsibility.”

Bhutan: Local leaders meet and elect | Kuensel Online/Bhutan

In the first Dzongkhag Tshogdu meeting after the local government elections, the four elected gups of Bumthang elected the chairperson and vice chairperson yesterday.

Chokor gup elect and the former chairperson of the DYT was re-elected as the chairperson after winning five votes, one more than his opponent, Ura gup Dorji Wangchuk. The nine tshogdu members used an electronic voting machine to vote. Thromdey member,Karma Legden, was chosen as the vice chairperson through a “Yes” and “No” votes.

Kenya: Kitutu Masaba MP loses seat in petition | Capital News/Kenya

Kitutu Masaba Member of Parliament Walter Nyambati (National Labour Party) has lost a petition filed against his 2007 poll win, joining a long list of MPs whose election have been nullified by the High Court. Kisii Resident Judge Milton Makhandia who delivered the ruling on Friday said the MP was elected irregularly.

Mr Nyambati’s election was challenged by Justus Omiti who had also sued a Returning Officer of the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya and the Interim Independent Electoral Commission. In issuing the ruling, the judge said the petitioner had proved beyond reasonable doubt that there were irregularities in the polls. Mr Nyambati becomes the eleventh MP in the current Parliament to lose an election petition.