State Rep. Richard Raymond regretted the adoption of a legislative proposal that would require people to present a photo ID when going to vote
"It is a measure implemented by the Republicans to try to control and prevent the vote of minorities to vote, it is definitely something that will affect Democrats, " said Raymond.
St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections Penny Halyburton wouldn’t have been disappointed if Gov. Rick Scott refused to sign the elections bill. “It puts an unnecessary burden on our voters,” she said.
The bill, called HB1355, enacts numerous election reforms in Florida. The two that most concern Halyburton are new rules regarding voters who change their address on election day and new restrictions to early voting periods.
Of the three ballot initiatives that voters will decide upon this fall, the generally thinking is that they favor Republicans and will drive up conservative turnout- and I think it’s fair to say they will all pass. These would be the first ballot initiatives to get the okay from voters, should they get majority support.
One of the initiatives voters will decide upon is a law to require voter identification at the polls. Throughout the country, voter ID is generally popular and there is no reason to believe it is any different in Mississippi. As it was the Mississippi Republican Party that spearheaded the signature drive, we know where the GOP stands and this is certainly a good issue for them.
Even before a single ballot was cast on election day in the special election in New York‘s 26thCongressional District, Republican Candidate Jane L. Corwin filed a request for a court order to prevent the election from being certified citing the closeness of the race in pre-voting polling.
On election day Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia issued an 11-page order preventing the elections boards in Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming, Livingston and Monroe counties from certifying the election until Buscaglia could hold a show-cause hearing on Thursday. Within the order, attorneys for Corwin had until Wednesday to serve copies of the court order to the affected county boards of elections, their sheriff‘s offices, the state board of elections and the other three candidates in the race.
A court hearing to challenge the results of the election results in the 26th District Congressional race has been cancelled.
The lawyer for the Jane Corwin campaign camp made a move to impound paper ballots, but the Republican candidate has since conceded victory to Democrat Kathy Hochul.
Questions as to whether Texas might move its primary from March into April appeared resolved late on Tuesday when the House amended a voting bill to keep the March primary intact. Turns out the uncertainty might not be over quite yet. Under the current arrangement, local May elections and early voting for primary runoffs would be just two days apart.
Senate Bill 100, which passed the House on third reading Wednesday, is aimed at trying to make it easier for military and overseas voters to cast absentee ballots. Federal law requires that Texas make the changes.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) will use fingerprints from the file of the Venezuelan Administrative Service of Identification, Migration and Citizenship (Saime) to complete the register of voters.
The electoral schedule 2012 may not be known until the fourth quarter of this year, but the technical restriction that prevented "joint" voting at different levels (for instance, elections for president and state governors) will be overcome by the implementation of the Comprehensive Authentication System (SAI).
The new electoral system will end individual competition for parliamentary elections as the candidates will be able to join the race as part of a list at the governorate or the Kingdom level, members of the National Dialogue Committee said on Wednesday.
The committee also agreed that the Kingdom list must include representatives from all governorates in order to ensure that all seats are distributed equally across all governorates and not concentrated in smaller ones.
Tunisia will keep the initial date of constituent assembly elections, the cabinet said on Tuesday (May 25th). The announcement came a few days after electoral commission chief Kamel Jendoubi suggested that the vote might be postponed until October due to "the lack of proper conditions".
The transitional government has been "committed" to free elections on July 24th "since the day it took office", the cabinet maintained in a communiqué. The same was said by Interim President Foued Mebazaa in March "after consultation and national consensus", the statement read.
A local project that uncovered a fatal flaw in Humboldt County’s old elections system just got some national recognition that may ultimately lead to its becoming the standard rather than the exception.
The federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) officially notified the Humboldt County Elections Office this week that it was receiving a $25,000 grant to fund and augment the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project so it can be replicated in… Read More
Wisconsin: Election officials wary as Walker signs Wisconsin voter ID bill into law
Election officials across Wisconsin are bracing for a difficult transition as the state rushes into place new rules for voting signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker Wednesday — including a controversial measure requiring voters to use photo IDs.
Passage of the controversial law, which has been discussed by Republicans for more than a decade, means those charged with enforcing it have just under two months to develop and implement… Read More
A local project that uncovered a fatal flaw in Humboldt County’s old elections system just got some national recognition that may ultimately lead to its becoming the standard rather than the exception.
The federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) officially notified the Humboldt County Elections Office this week that it was receiving a $25,000 grant to fund and augment the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project so it can be replicated in other places. While the grant is relatively small in comparison to the $1.5 million the EAC doled out in this round of grants, its impact could be huge, according to Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich.
Election officials across Wisconsin are bracing for a difficult transition as the state rushes into place new rules for voting signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker Wednesday — including a controversial measure requiring voters to use photo IDs. Passage of the controversial law, which has been discussed by Republicans for more than a decade, means those charged with enforcing it have just under two months to develop and implement the training needed to handle polls in the coming recall elections.
“This will be a huge undertaking, to get everything and everybody ready,” said Diane Hermann-Brown, Sun Prairie city clerk and president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association. “We still have questions about how this will work.”
Republicans on the Committee on House Administration have voted to eliminate the independent commission that was established to address election problems after the contested 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, has disbursed more than $3 billion in “requirements” payments to states to update voting machines and enhance election administration. But the commission has seen that funding significantly decline in recent years.
An effort by House Republicans to close the Election Assistance Commission cleared its first obstacle Wednesday. After some limited Democratic opposition, the House Administration Committee approved a bill that would remove funding from the EAC and transfer much of its responsibilities to the Federal Election Commission.
The bill, which was approved by voice vote, is expected to receive a vote on the House floor next month, and Republicans are optimistic of its passage. “Now is simply the time to end the EAC and to save the American taxpayers $14 million a year,” said Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the bill’s sponsor. “It doesn’t get any easier to find an example of wasteful spending.”
I believe that the Governor should follow-through on his promise to veto any election legislation that lacks broad bi-partisan support and should take a stand to protect the right to vote.
At a first glance, the requirement asking eligible voters to show a government-issued photo ID before being allowed to vote seems reasonable. After all, most Minnesotans have a photo ID. So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that in our Constitution voting is a right not a privilege. Many Minnesotans may be surprised to learn that over 10% of seniors do not have a government-issued photo ID and many more have one, but with the wrong address. This is especially true of those who no longer drive.
When Republican Gov. Nikki Haley strode out to the podium as The Black Eyed Peas song “I Gotta Feeling” pumped through a PA system in the background and her entourage began a slow, rolling clap, clap, clap before she sat down to sign perhaps one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation, it certainly raised some eyebrows in the packed State House lobby.
“They are disenfranchising voters to The Black Eyed Peas?” asked Orangeburg Democratic Rep. Bakari Sellers as he looked on. “Who does that?”
Sumter Democratic Rep. David Weeks had a more direct reaction.
Parliament has Wednesday given the nod to compel the executive facilitate the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission develop a modern electronic system. The system will legalize electronic voter registration in all polling stations in the country up to the national level in readiness for electronic voting come 2012.
The motion sponsored by Karachuonyo MP Eng. James Rege, unanimously received the backing of parliamentarians who termed the current manual system of collection, collation, transmission and tallying of votes as a sham prone to errors and manipulation.
The Election Commission (EC) is set to introduce electronic voting machines (EVM) in the coming general elections to stop malpractices during polling but the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has already rejected the plan.
Despite BNP’s rejection, the Election Commission will start a series of dialogues with registered political parties on June 7 to take their opinions on introduction of electronic voting machine and enactment of laws outlining criteria for appointment of Election Commissioners.
The Republican governor of Wisconsin signed a bill on Wednesday that will require voters in the state to show photo identification when they go to the polls.
The measure, which Democrats characterize as a voter suppression effort but Republicans defend as a protection against fraud at the polls, will take partial effect just as nine state senators — including six of Governor Scott Walker’s Republican allies — face recall challenges in mid-July.
Senior citizens who don’t drive and University of Wisconsin students who depend on their student IDs to vote are among those who could be turned away from the polls on election days.
Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday signed into law a bill requiring voters to show some form of photo identification — such as a driver’s license, state-issued ID card, military or tribal ID or passport — before they can vote. College students can vote with a student ID that bears a signature and an expiration date within two years of the card’s issuance, but UW student IDs currently don’t fulfill that requirement.
Wisconsin voters will be required to show identification at the polls before casting a ballot. Gov. Scott Walker signed the voter ID bill into law on Wednesday.
… The Government Accountability Board is already gearing up, preparing a $650,000 for public education campaign. “We will be working on developing billboards and television commercials and other sorts of communications to get the word out,” said Reid Magney of the Government Accountability Board.
Election officials around the state have to jump right in, especially those such as Milwaukee’s Sue Edman, who have Senate recall elections, just a little more than a month away.
Wonder which legislator did such a pitifully poor job writing a bill to spell out how a new House member should be chosen in Nevada in case of a midterm vacancy? Look no further than former Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Las Vegas.
In 2003, he sponsored Assembly Bill 344. But Perkins, now a lobbyist, thought so little of the bill that is now causing us so much of a ruckus that he handed the duties of carrying the bill to his intern.
The state’s candidate filing deadline and primary election runoff date would be changed under legislation the Texas House has overwhelmingly approved.
The filing deadline would move up from January of the election year to December, and runoffs would change from April to late May.
The state board of elections wants Montgomery County election officials to have more training in using electronic poll books and provisional ballots to prevent a repeat of mishaps that occurred in November's elections.
The state board on Wednesday signed off on a letter censuring Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz and the three members of the county electoral board who were serving during the Nov. 2, 2010, election, when some voters were allowed to cast ballots without having their registration verified. The letter formalizes the state board's April 29 decision to issue a censure based on findings by the state attorney general's office.
State and local officials in South Dakota praised new voting technology and methods used for the first time in Tuesday’s school board election in Sioux Falls.
The election was the first in the state to use electronic poll books and voting centers. The electronic poll books replace the large paper volumes of voters’ names and automate the voter check-in process, while the voting centers reduce the number of polling sites that need to be staffed while giving voters more options on where to cast ballots.
Election officials who subvert the process of free and fair polls will face tough punishment if amendments proposed by a House committee are passed.
The Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee has proposed that officials found guilty of interfering with elections be sentenced to three years in jail and fined Sh1 million.
The Election Commission (EC) has been urged to introduce finger or thumbprint readers in all future elections in the country to prevent fraud.
Sabah DAP Kepayan branch chief Stephen Jacob Jimbangan said the EC should consider implementing the proposal in the coming general election to ensure clean and fair polls.
A ‘No’ (to the introduction of divorce) result in the upcoming referendum will put the principles of tolerance and diversity at stake, said EU and International Affairs spokesperson for Alternattiva Demokratika Arnold Cassola, yesterday. He was speaking during a press conference held outside the university gates.
AD reminded people that Malta joined the EU in 2004 and urged the Maltese people to live up to the European Union’s motto ’United in diversity’ during this Saturday’s referendum. People should be tolerant to other people’s beliefs, even if they are different. Prof. Cassola said that ‘Yes’ votes are also a hope towards restoring the concept of equality among all Maltese citizens and not privileging those who can get a divorce from abroad, as is the current situation.
Tennessee: Bill wipes out voter safeguards in Tennessee | The Tennessean
In 2008, the Tennessee General Assembly voted almost unanimously to make elections more secure, dependable and trustworthy by requiring a verifiable paper trail for each vote. The step was long overdue — more than 30 states already have such security measures.
But three years later, secure elections in Tennessee remain at risk, and voters may never know if their votes are counted.
The legislature has passed a bill that… Read More
Wisconsin: Wisconsin Set to Pass Country’s Most Restrictive Voter ID Law | Colorlines
Wisconsin will soon have the what’s arguably the nation’s most restrictive voter ID law. The bill was passed through the the Republican-led Senate late last week and is expected be signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday. Voter rights advocates are worried that the new bill will keep some of the Democratic party’s key constituents away from the polls in 2012. And as more bills sweep across the… Read More
After an eight-year quest by GOP officials, Gov. Scott Walker will sign a bill Wednesday requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls.
But the measure costing more than $7 million in new spending and lost revenue could still face a legal challenge as opponents mulled over the possibility of suing to block it from taking effect.