New Zealand: Referendum education campaign kicks off in New Zealand | 3 News

The Electoral Commission has begun a six-month campaign to prepare voters for the question theyll be asked at the general election: not just which government they want, but whether they want to keep the current MMP [mixed member proportional] system or switch to one of four alternatives.

Its been 18 years since First Past the Post was ditched and MMP was introduced, and now the Government wants to see if voters still think its a good idea.

But its going to take more than just an extra form on voting day – an education campaign thatll cost $5 million dollars of taxpayers money has just got underway.

Bangladesh: Election Commission opens dialogue with Bangladesh parties from today | Financial Express

The Election Commission (EC) starts dialogue with the registered political parties from today (Tuesday) to collect their views to make the election laws time befitting, reports UNB.

During the dialogue with the political parties, the commission will discuss various issues including delimitation of constituencies, state funding for political parties and constitution process of the commission, use of electronic voting machine (EVM) and also amendment to the Representation of People’s Order (RPO).

Editorials: They Want to Make Voting Harder? | NYTimes.com

One of the most promising recent trends in expanding political participation has been allowing people to vote in the weeks before Election Day, either in person or by mail. Early voting, which enables people to skip long lines and vote at more convenient times, has been increasingly popular over the last 15 years. It skyrocketed to a third of the vote in 2008, rising particularly in the South and among black voters supporting Barack Obama.

And that, of course, is why Republican lawmakers in the South are trying desperately to cut it back. Two states in the region have already reduced early-voting periods, and lawmakers in others are considering doing so. It is the latest element of a well-coordinated effort by Republican state legislators across the country to disenfranchise voters who tend to support Democrats, particularly minorities and young people.

The biggest part of that effort, imposing cumbersome requirements that voters have a government ID, has been painted as a response to voter fraud, an essentially nonexistent problem. But Republican lawmakers also have taken a good look at voting patterns, realized that early voting might have played a role in Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory, and now want to reduce that possibility in 2012.

Wisconsin: Government Accountability Board mum on Nickolaus election inquiry | JSOnline

Although the state Government Accountability Board promised to release a detailed report of its April investigation of Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus’ election operation by late June, it’s unclear now when or if the report will be coming.

Reid Magney, spokesman for the board, said that because a formal complaint was filed with the board by the JoAnne Kloppenburg campaign, accusing Nickolaus of election law violations, new confidentiality restrictions apply under state law.

While he could confirm that a complaint was filed – one already released publicly by the Kloppenburg campaign – Magney said he couldn’t comment on whether there is an investigation, or when an investigation might be complete.

Editorials: Grant Petty: Real ‘wake-up call’ is for ballot security | Wisconsin State Journal

Despite the title of Wednesday’s editorial — “It’s a wake-up call, all right” — the editors appear to be asleep at the wheel.

Referring to the Kloppenburg versus Prosser election mess, they make the valid narrow point that judicial elections should be abolished, but they fail to acknowledge the far broader ramifications of a tainted election system that is now used in all Wisconsin elections — not just judicial ones.

In view of the fiascoes in Waukesha, Verona and elsewhere, mere failure to prove that election fraud and/or incompetence might have tipped a very close election will not be enough to restore voters’ confidence in this and future outcomes.

Editorials: Voter ID bills take stage | Amarillo Globe-News

The next great presidential election battle could turn on a simple and reasonable concept: Voters should be required to present valid identification before casting a ballot. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed legislation requiring a valid photo ID from Texas voters.

In many so-called “battleground states,” in which Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will fight for an edge over the other, this has become a potentially huge issue.

Michigan: Grand Rapids clerks, schools balk at shifting elections to November | MLive.com

Local clerks and Grand Rapids schools oppose legislation that would mandate school districts conduct board elections in November of even-numbered years.

“I want to increase voter turnout, save money and improve the efficiency of local governments and school districts,” said Rep. Kurt Heise, R-Plymouth, who introduced the legislation that also affects community college trustee elections.

Kent and Ottawa school districts have traditionally held spring elections. The legislation would not apply for millages, charter amendments or special elections.

Bangladesh: Opposition strike over change in electoral system grips Bangladesh | Individual.com

Steel helmeted riot police patrolled the streets of the capital today as a dusk-to-dawn general strike called by opposition groups to protest the government’s decision to change electoral system paralysed Bangladesh.

The strike was called after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party announced plans last week to scrap the country’s electoral system under which a caretaker government takes over during election time.

Philippines: House okays bill seeking to cleanse Philippine voters’ list | Zamboanga Today Online

Determined to eliminate flying voters, the House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a measure cleansing the national voters’ list from multiple registrants to curb cheating and ensure the results of elections are reflective of the genuine will of the people.

Tarlac Rep. Susan Yap, one of the authors of House Bill No. 3469, said those who shall be submitted for validation are voters registered as of May 10, 2010 national elections and those who will register under Republic Act No. 8189 or “The Voter’s Registration Act of 1996” without biometrics data.

Yap said the city and municipal Election Officer, through the use of Data Capturing Machines (DCMs), shall conduct the validation process by taking the biometrics of voters.

Peru: Accusations and acrimony as Peruvians go the polls | The Independent

Bitterly divided, and with the hand of history weighing uneasily on their shoulders, the people of Peru went to the polls yesterday to select a new President. The race is too close to call and, regardless of the outcome, seems likely to result in an acrimonious recount and allegations of voter fraud.

The election required voters to make what observers called an “unhappy choice” between two polarising figures from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Both candidates devoted recent weeks to explaining away scandalous episodes from their past, and convincing the nation that they won’t pursue an extremist agenda.

India: Activist goes to court for no-vote option | The Times of India

An activist has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay high court seeking directions to include a new panel for the negative vote on Electronic Voting Machines ( EVMs).

Dr Mahesh Bedekar feels this will allow voters to voice their dissent about the candidate or the party through the ballot. “Under the present election rules, a voter who does not want to cast his ballot to the listed candidates can do so by filling up form 17 A of the Election Commission. The presiding officer has to be requested to issue the said form and the voter can record his negative vote in the presence of the election staff. It is contrary to rules which provide for absolute secrecy in voting,” Dr Bedekar said.

National: Students in Crossfire in Battles Over Voting Rights | Brennan Center for Justice

Voting is a fundamental right for all American citizens over 18.  Some states — including Arizona and New York — have prioritized voting rights, with student engagement policies that should serve as models for other states.  Yet even as we should be encouraging the next generation to be civically engaged, in many states students are being targeted by bills that make it harder to register and to vote.

In the current legislative cycle, a majority of state legislatures have explored increasingly restrictive voter ID legislation.  College students are particularly impacted by many of these voter identification proposals, especially when student IDs do not qualify as photo identification for voting.  But even more disturbing is a new trend of bills that seek to explicitly make voting more difficult for college students.  The most notable recent example was New Hampshire House Bill 176, which would have created a special voter residency standard for students and members of the military who lived elsewhere—including elsewhere in the state—prior to matriculating or being stationed in New Hampshire, thereby preventing students from voting in state or local elections.  The Brennan Center forcefully opposed this bill, and argued that it would likely be unconstitutional.  Fortunately, after college students of all political stripes banded together to voice their opposition, the bill died on the House floor.

Estonia: Tallinn Looks to Disallow E-Voting at Local Elections | ERR

The Tallinn City Council has filed a motion with the Supreme Court to abolish e-voting at future local elections. City Council Chairman Toomas Vitsut says there are “questionable aspects” to the current regulations on e-voting.

Although the voting system introduced in 2005 is considered one of Estonia’s success stories, and security concerns are generally dismissed in an era of “hanging chads” and other irregularities with paper ballots, Vitsut made it clear he was talking about a different aspect.

“Voters who use different voting options make their decisions in conditions that are legally completely different,” he said. “Some can change their vote repeatedly while others cannot. Thus the elections are not uniform.”

The Voting News Daily: How state legislatures could affect the 2012 elections, Review of Wisconsin Democrats’ recalls extended a week

National: How state legislatures could affect the 2012 elections | POLITICO.com The push to rig the 2012 presidential election is under way. There’s nothing illegal about it: Across the country, state legislatures are embroiled in partisan battles over election-law changes that, by design or effect, could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the…

National: How state legislatures could affect the 2012 elections | POLITICO.com

The push to rig the 2012 presidential election is under way.

There’s nothing illegal about it: Across the country, state legislatures are embroiled in partisan battles over election-law changes that, by design or effect, could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the presidency.

So far this year, there’s been legislation aimed at overhauling the awarding of electoral votes, requiring that candidates present a birth certificate, not to mention a wide assortment of other voting rights and administration-related measures that could easily affect enough ballots to deliver a state to one candidate or another. Experts say the explosion of such efforts in the run-up to 2012 is unprecedented — and can be traced back to a familiar wellspring.

“Florida in 2000 taught people that election administration really can make a difference in the outcome of an election,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the liberal Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Wisconsin: Review of Wisconsin Democrats’ recalls extended a week – No election delay for Republicans; board sets date at July 12 | JSOnline

A Dane County judge on Friday granted state officials a week to determine whether three Democratic senators should be recalled, but declined to delay elections for six Republican senators.

Later Friday, the Government Accountability Board certified recall elections for July 12 for the Republican senators. Any recall elections for the Democrats would be held a week later, on July 19.

Pennsylvania: Will Pennsylvania follow other GOP states on photo ID bill? | Associated Press

About once a month on average since the beginning of the year, Republican-controlled states have approved laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Tennessee — all have either adopted new requirements or expanded existing identification laws to specify photo IDs, pushing the total number of states that require them to 13. Sixteen other states require non-photo identification.

Pennsylvania — with its huge Republican gains in last year’s midterm elections that included the governorship and control of both houses of the Legislature — is now poised to consider a photo ID bill. The House State Government Committee sent it to the floor and initial consideration could come as early as next week. Whether the state will join or buck the national trend is anyone’s guess.

Editorials: An attack on elections with broad implications in Wisconsin | JSOnline

The past few days in Wisconsin were made for the 24-hour news cycle. To start, over the howling protests of their lawyers, bipartisan election officials approved petitions signed by tens of thousands of voters that established special recall elections for three Republican state senators. Then, a circuit judge struck down a controversial new law that would severely curb union bargaining rights, finding that the Senate improperly passed the law without allowing for public comment. “The right of the people to monitor the people’s business is one of the core principles of democracy,” she admonished.

Finally, in case anyone’s blood pressure remained at normal levels, the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to gut the state’s Impartial Justice Act, which provides public funds for judges running for the state’s highest court.

Even worse, the plan is to use the savings – about $1.8 million – toward implementing the new $7 million voter ID law signed by Gov. Scott Walker. Under the plan, all those Wisconsin voters who checked the box on their income tax form designating some of their taxes to fund clean judicial elections will instead see their tax dollars used for an unnecessary ID policy that will make voting in the Badger State more difficult than anywhere else in the country.

Editorials: Voters should be outraged at Florida Legislature | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Over the past few months, the world’s attention has been focused on the struggle among Muslim states in the Middle East and North Africa toward the first, difficult steps of political freedom. Unfortunately for them, the road to democracy will be difficult at best, and we may not like the results. Americans understand this, as our own path to voting rights for all was long and bloody.

When the nation was founded, not everyone was able to vote, as religious clauses and property requirements limited full enfranchisement. The rights and privileges of citizenship were limited to a few land-owning, white males.

But, in the 1850s, provisions requiring citizens to own property and pay taxes in order to vote were eliminated. Not long after the end of the Civil War, black men were extended the right to vote with the 15th Amendment. Women would have to wait another half-century until the 19th Amendment in 1920 assured their right to vote.

Florida: ACLU, voting rights group sue to stop implementation of new Florida elections law | Palm Beach Post

The Florida ACLU and a Washington-based voting rights group filed a lawsuit Friday asking a federal court to halt statewide implementation of a new voting law until federal officials sign off.

The groups filed the lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration in federal court in Miami on behalf of two Democratic state lawmakers and nine voters in five counties that require U.S. Department of Justice approval of changes to elections laws. For federal approval, the state must prove the laws will not result in voter discrimination.

Florida: More details of lawsuit challenging Scott, Browning on election rules overhaul | Florida Independent

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Project Vote, a national voting rights group, filed suit in federal court Friday to challenge the implementation of Florida’s controversial new election law.

The case is being brought on behalf of nine voters in the Florida counties covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, including two state lawmakers, against Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Kurt Browning, the state’s top elections official. It asks a three-judge panel to block implementation of the law until it has been cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Voting News Weekly: TVN Weekly May 30-June 4 2011

A hearing was held in the dispute between Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler and Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers over access to ballots from the 2010 election. Barely finished with a grueling statewide recount, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Office came under partisan fire for their request for extension to complete the review of challenges…

Florida: Florida State law battles could be costly | TBO.com

For the second time this week, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it is hauling Gov. Rick Scott into court — this time, over a controversial makeover of Florida’s election laws — as another group prepares to sue him over a new law restricting what doctors can ask their patients.

More court challenges are expected in what appears to be a building wave of litigation over provocative bills the conservative state Legislature passed this spring. That could cost the state untold thousands, even millions, of dollars in what lawmakers have called the state’s toughest fiscal year in decades.

Canada: British Columbia government says no to online voting in Vancouver | The Vancouver Observer

Vancouver citizens will not be able to vote online in this year’s municipal election after all. Ida Chong, provincial Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, has written to Mayor Gregor Robertson that the province will not amend the Vancouver Charter to allow the city to conduct a pilot test of internet voting because of potential risks associated with voting online.

Recently, the Observer reported that the city was optimistic Chong would give her approval. City Councillor Andrea Reimer, who initiated the internet voting proposal, told the Observer that the provincial government was also interested in exploring giving voters an online option, and so should be willing to allow Vancouver to conduct its pilot.

Thailand: Election Commission prints extra ballot papers for Thailand election | Bangkok Post :

The Election Commission says the reason why it is producing millions more ballots than the number of eligible voters for the July 3 election is because it has to cater to advance voting.

EC deputy secretary-general Boonyakiat Rakchartcharoen yesterday said that although there were only 47.3 million eligible voters in Thailand, the commission ordered 53.5 million ballots to be produced for the party-list system because it had to prepare ballots for advance voting on June 26 as well.

He was responding to the Pheu Thai Party’s query as to why the EC was producing what it viewed to be an excessive number of ballots.

India: Plea to make provision for ‘negative vote’ in Indian Electronic Voting Machines | Business Line

A [Public Interest Litigation] PIL has urged the Bombay High Court to direct the Election Commission to introduce electoral reforms by making a provision for “negative vote” in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) during elections.

The PIL filed by Thane resident Mahesh Bedekar also urged the court to ensure that secrecy of the “negative vote” is maintained during elections as it is not being done under the existing rules.

The Voting News Daily: Saguache County, Colorado state officials at odds over access to ballots, Clerk Myers produces ES&S M650 audit logs

Colorado: Saguache County, Colorado state officials at odds over access to ballots | The Pueblo Chieftain Attorneys in a dispute between the Saguache County clerk and recorder and the secretary of state exchanged arguments Tuesday over the state’s authority to conduct an election review and the privacy of voted ballots. Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler…

National: Most Security Measures Easy to Breach, Expert Says | NBC Chicago

When things go really, really wrong, Roger Johnston has a really, really good day. After all, he’s usually the man who made them go wrong.

Johnston has a PhD, 10 patents to his name, and what every 10 year old kid would think is a dream job. As chief of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, he has made it is his mission to crack into every security system labeled as foolproof by their creators.

… One of the most frightening examples Johnston has turned up is in one of the nation’s most treasured franchises: the right to vote. He said he’s found that most voting machines have almost no security to reveal tampering. Thus, he said, it’s a fairly simple matter to tinker with the electronics while machines are in storage or being transported by the truckload. He has even demonstrated how he can turn cheating mechanisms in voting machines on and off by remote control.

“It’s much easier to steal the election, right at the electronic voting machine,” said Johnston. “In many cases, we see security devices or electronic voting machines where we really have to wonder, ‘Did anybody spend 60 seconds figuring out the security issues?”