Philippines: Comelec mulls ballot images as recount basis | Sun Star

Election protests will soon be cheaper once the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decide to give losing candidates an option to use ballot images as basis for the recount. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said this will be done by decrypting the image files from the compact flash cards. “This could save money for the protestant because he will only pay for the decryption and getting the (ballot) image,” he said. At present, the Comelec requires the presentation of contested ballots and ballot boxes in recount proceedings.

Venezuela: Electoral Council’s Election Audit Backs Outcome | Associated Press

Venezuela’s Electoral Council has completed an audit of results from April’s bitterly contested presidential election, and as expected it confirmed Nicolas Maduro’s 1.5 percentage-point victory. No government official appeared publicly to comment on the outcome, but an official at the council confirmed on Sunday a report by the state-run AVN news agency that the audit supported the official vote count. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to divulge the information. The opposition has complained that the council ignored its demand for a full recount. That would have included not just comparing votes electronically registered by machines with the paper ballot receipts they emitted, but also comparing those with the poll station registries that contain voter signatures and with digitally recorded fingerprints.

Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai hints at boycott | News24

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has warned that his party would consider boycotting the next elections if media and security reforms are not implemented before the key vote, according to a Newzimbabwe.com report. The Movement for Democratic Change leader’s threats come after Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court made a ruling last Friday that the country should hold elections by July 31. Tsvangirai, who has been pressing for the polls to be delayed to allow implementation of the reforms, slammed the court’s ruling, insisting that credible elections were not feasible before October. “We are worried about some individuals manipulating the courts on the issue of elections,” he said.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 3-9 2013

ChristieIn a party-line vote, the Committee on House Administration approved legislation that would eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. The Chief of Staff for Rep. Joe Garcia has been implicated in an absentee ballot fraud scheme in last year’s election. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faces criticism and at least one lawsuit over his decision to schedule a special election for US Senate on a Wednesday three weeks before the General Election this November. Faced with a tight schedule and the potential of a run-off election, the New York Assembly is considering a bill that would allow the use of State’s mechanical lever voting machines in elections later this year. Ohio Democrats questioned a report from Secretary of State Jon Husted suggesting that there were no incidences of voter suppression in the 2012 election. Wisconsin Republicans have indicated their intention to fast track legislation to require photo identification for polling place voting. The Estonian Prime Minister has drawn a connection in the country’s internet voting fraud scandal with EU Parliament member Kristiina Ojuland and a French news website reported that it was able to cast “fake” votes in France’s first internet election by registering under different names.

National: Republicans vote to end Election Assistance Commission | USAToday

Republicans moved a step forward Tuesday in their continuing effort to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission, which was created to help states run elections. A House committee approved legislation Tuesday to shut down the federal commission set up more than 10 years ago to help states improve their election systems. “This agency needs to go,” said Mississippi Republican Rep. Gregg Harper, who introduced the bill to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. “This agency has outlived its usefulness and to continue to fund it is the definition of irresponsibility.” The House Administration Committee approved the legislation by voice vote. This marks Harper’s third attempt in four years to close the bipartisan independent commission, which he called a “bloated bureaucracy.” It is not clear when the full House will vote on the measure. Harper said he’s working to persuade a senator to introduce a companion measure in that chamber.

National: Red flags and gray areas in IRS scandal | Politico.com

The conservative groups testifying about overzealous IRS scrutiny during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Tuesday can’t get around a simple fact: All have been involved in the kinds of political activity that’s ripe for red flags. Simple searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other news engines point to plenty of political activities that are the essence of what the IRS looks for when deciding who gets an exemption from Uncle Sam. The group leaders attended rallies to stop Obama administration priorities and ripped into the president’s work on health care and missile defense. They spoke openly about defeating President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. They pushed for winners in state and local election races. Their activities might not have run afoul of the rules. But for the murky world of charitable exemptions now under heightened political scrutiny, their backgrounds underscore the gray area the IRS was in as it posed questions to the groups.

National: Substantial Minority of Scrutinized Exempt Organizations Were Not Conservative | Tax Analysts

We know now that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” — names and policy views associated with conservative and Tea Party causes — for selecting applications for tax-exempt status for extra review. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration laid out the charges in a May 14 report, and the IRS has admitted it made errors. But TIGTA’s report doesn’t shed much light on whether other organizations were subject to similar review. As the early furor gives way to more careful investigations, it will be important to get a more complete picture of IRS processing of applications for tax exemption. The IRS has helped somewhat by releasing a list of all the “centralized” groups (that is, organizations whose applications were referred to specialists for closer review) that were granted tax-exempt status as of May 9, 2013. Though the overlap between the subset and the full set of centralized groups isn’t perfect, the list suggests that the majority of groups selected for extra scrutiny probably matched the political criteria the IRS used and backed conservative causes, the Tea Party, or limited government generally. But a substantial minority — almost one-third of the subset — did not fit that description.

National: House Republican Lawmakers See Elections Oversight Committees as Waste of Money | IVN

The community of federal campaign oversight will undergo significant downsizing following announcements from the Federal Election Commission and the House Administration Committee, Wednesday. Tony Herman, General Legal Counsel to the Federal Election Commission, will leave the agency this July and the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) moved one inch closer to being scrapped. In a statement, FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub said, “I want to thank Tony for his outstanding service to this agency and to the American public.” He will return to Covington & Burling, LLP where he was a partner before joining the FEC in 2011. The FEC has been understaffed since February when former commissioner, Cynthia Bauerly, left after serving nearly a 5-year term. Now with five out of six commissioners, each serving expired terms, the agency will need to locate a new General Counsel before July 7.

National: Shelby County’s Voting Rights Act case should get Supreme Court decision this month | al.com

Many are expecting the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a ruling this month on Shelby County’s challenge of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Section 5 “preclearance” provisions. In the case known as Shelby County V. Holder, lawyers representing Shelby County government are attempting to declare parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional as they pertain to 16 states including Alabama that need federal permission for changes in elections. Lawyers representing Shelby County, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27 in the case.

Voting Blogs: My Prediction in the Shelby County Case | Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog

We are getting close to a decision in the Supreme Court on Shelby County, Alabama’s challenge to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This is the part of the VRA which requires jurisdictions (mostly, but not only in the South) with a history of discrimination in voting on the basis of race to get permission from the federal government (either the Department of Justice or a three-judge court in DC) before making any changes in voting rules and procedures. The changes can be as large as a redistricting plan for 10 years, and as small as moving a polling place across the street. Shelby County claims that the law now exceeds congressional power over the states, because there is not enough evidence of intentional state discrimination on the basis of race to justify this interference with state’s rights. This federalism argument notes how the South has changed—the question is whether it has changed enough for the Supreme Court to hold that an Act, which was once constitutional is no longer constitutional thanks to changed circumstances.

Voting Blogs: Arizona Election Law Bill Amended to Vastly Increase Primary Ballot Access Petitions for Smaller Qualified Parties | Ballot Access News

On June 6, a conference committee in the Arizona legislature amended HB 2305 to make it vastly more difficult for members of small qualified parties to get themselves on a primary ballot. Current law sets the number of signatures needed for a candidate to get on his or her own party’s primary ballot as a percentage of the number of members of that party. But the bill changes that, so that the number of signatures needed is a percentage of all the registered voters from all parties.

New Jersey: Democrats slam cost for special election | The Asbury Park Press

Taxpayers will have to spend an additional $11.9 million for an Oct. 16 special election to replace Sen. Frank Lautenberg, now that Gov. Chris Christie decided against consolidating the vote with the Nov. 5 general election. Democrats charged that the move was all about politics, noting that Christie is on the November ballot seeking his second four-year term as governor. Democrats said the Republican governor wanted to avoid sharing that ballot with a strong Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, such as Newark Mayor Cory Booker or Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., despite the extra expense to the taxpayers. Christie insisted politics was not a consideration in laying out the separate election dates. “The costs associated with having the special election and primary, in my mind, cannot be measured against the value of having an elected member of the U.S. Senate. I don’t know what the costs are and, quite frankly, I don’t care,” Christie said.

Ohio: Law may require Lake County to spend $200,000 on 54 more voting machines | News Herald

Lake County commissioners and county election officials are concerned a provision in state law might force the county to purchase 54 additional voting machines this year. Commissioner Daniel P. Troy and Elections Board Director Scott E. Daisher discussed the matter during public comment at a recent commissioners meeting. Troy recently received correspondence from the County Commissioners Association of Ohio to make sure the commissioners were aware of a state law enacted in 2006 that would require each county to have a minimum ratio starting in 2013 to have one voting machine per 175 registered voters.

Ohio: Group ‘deeply disturbed’ over possible voter prosecution | Cincinnati.com

The League of Women Voters of Ohio is “deeply disturbed” by the possible prosecution of 39 Hamilton County voters. In an open letter sent to election officials, LWVO President Nancy Brown said the citizens involved in 39 cases of possible voter fraud acted in line with Ohio’s election law. The cases addressed in the letter involve voters who voted via provisional ballot after voting early. After reviewing the cases, the Hamilton County Board of Elections voted 2-2 along party lines last month to send the cases to the prosecutor’s office for further review. Later in May Ohio Secretary of State John Husted a Republican, made the tie-breaking decision, siding with the two Republican on the board to send the cases to the prosecutor’s office for further review. “The only ‘wrong’ committed by these voters was requesting an absentee ballot and then casting a provisional ballot at the polls on Election Day,” Brown wrote. “This activity is perfectly legal, and referring these cases to the prosecutor sends a dangerous and chilling message not only to Ohio voters but also to poll workers.”

Voting Blogs: Reflections from a Stormy Election Day in Ohio | Adam Ambrogi/Democracy Fund

Election Day, Cleveland, Ohio 2004.  I participated in an election observation trip for the newly established U.S. Election Assistance Commission, travelling around Cuyahoga County, Ohio, from dawn until dusk.  The goal was to observe as many different kinds of polling places as possible—more than a dozen locations that spanned Cleveland’s diverse neighborhoods. One polling place in particular sticks out in my mind as emblematic of the difficulties that we faced, then and now, in improving election administration.  It was in a location in the east side of Cleveland—one with a higher percentage of African-American voters.  Rain had started to fall, and while the line was long when we arrived—just before the lunchtime rush—it grew, snaking around the block so that the entrance to the polling place was no longer visible at the end of the line.  What was the problem?  After observing the polling place and talking to some of the frustrated poll workers, the answer soon became clear.  More than half of the voting stations—where voters were allowed to complete their ballots—were not set up and sat abandoned at the corner of the room. The chief poll worker saw that there was a greater number of voting system plugs compared to the electrical outlets in the polling place, and believed they only had power to assemble half of the machines.  Sadly, no-one recognized that: (a) the voting machines could be plugged, one into the other, ‘daisy chain’ style and (b) that because the system of voting was the last of the ‘punch card’ system—the purpose of the electricity was not to ‘power’ the machine, but to operate the light on the top of a movable, privacy-enhanced portable table.

Voting Blogs: Utah counties and towns considering vote-by-mail | electionlineWeekly

Although we are a nation built on westward expansion, when it comes to vote-by-mail it’s a movement built more on eastern expansion. Washington and Oregon are completely vote-by-mail, in the most recent presidential election more people voted by mail in California than cast ballots at the polls and the Colorado legislature recently approved a bill that will send a ballot to every registered voter. Recently, several towns and counties throughout Utah have been considering making the switch from polling-place based elections to vote-by-mail elections. “Over the past few years several state legislators have been excited by the idea of vote-by-mail,” said Mark Thomas chief deputy/director of elections Lieutenant Governor’s office. “They have passed several laws to make it easier to conduct election by-mail.”

Estonia: No Sweat for Vallbaum in E-Vote Rigging Scandal | ERR

One of the he-said, she-said conflicts in the Reform Party’s vote rigging scandal is whether Lääne-Viru County Governor Einar Vallbaum had any involvement. Regional development director Taimi Samblik had accused both MEP Kristiina Ojuland and Vallbaum of persuading her to rig the votes and later of trying to bribe her into taking full responsibility. Yesterday, Samblik left the party and Ojuland was kicked out. But Vallbaum, who had threatened to sue the party if he were expelled, was kept in, as the party said it did not find evidence that he was implicated, ERR reported. Moreover, Vallbaum said he believed Ojuland and claimed that Samblik had made the whole story up. “It’s too bad about Taimi. She did her work well, excluding the two incidents that she made up,” Vallbaum said.

Iran: Presidential election: You never know | The Economist

The last time Iran had a presidential vote, millions took to the streets calling foul when the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was declared the winner. Four years on, the Islamic Republic has not yet fully recovered from the ensuing political heart-attack. After a year of demonstrations and repression, the battle for Iran’s future was won by Iran’s conservative hardliners loyal to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Their reformist rivals were sidelined: Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the thwarted reformists’ favourite who claimed to have won the 2009 election, remains under house arrest, along with a fellow candidate, Mehdi Karroubi. Politics, even within the confines of the Islamic state, is as polarised as ever. Now the reformists are pondering how to pick themselves up for another fight: the first round of the coming presidential poll, on June 14th. Eight candidates are running, following a purge of hundreds of other aspirants by the Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and lawyers, half of them appointed by Mr Khamenei. The council controversially barred a former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom reformers would probably have backed, from running. Two reform-minded candidates remain: Hassan Rohani and Muhammad Reza Aref, both of whom stayed silent during the tumult after the 2009 poll. The reformists are mulling over whether to throw in their lot with one of them.

United Kingdom: Scottish independence: Bid to give prisoners voting rights thrown out by MSPs | BBC

A bid by two MSPs to give prisoners the chance to vote in next year’s Scottish independence referendum has been thrown out by a committee of MSPs. The Lib Dems’ Alison McInnes and Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie argued it was wrong for all prisoners to be automatically disenfranchised. But their amendments to the Referendum Franchise Bill were defeated in the Referendum Bill Committee. Scots will take part in the referendum on 18 September 2014. The committee also agreed that 16 and 17-year-olds, who will receive the right to vote for the first time, would have until 10 March next year to sign up to the electoral register. The Scottish government has consistently opposed giving prisoners a say in the vote.

Florida: Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff implicated in phantom absentee-ballot requests scheme | Miami Herald

Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff abruptly resigned Friday after being implicated in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests. Friday afternoon, Garcia said he had asked Jeffrey Garcia, no relation, for his resignation after the chief of staff — also the congressman’s top political strategist — took responsibility for the plot. Hours earlier, law enforcement investigators raided the homes of another of Joe Garcia’s employees and a former campaign aide in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter. “I’m shocked and disappointed about this,” Garcia, who said he was unaware of the scheme, told The Miami Herald. “This is something that hit me from left field. Until today, I had no earthly idea this was going on.”

National: With help of former aide, Miller seeks voter registration fix | The Macomb Daily

With the help of Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas, U.S. Rep. Candice Miller on Tuesday made the case on Capitol Hill that Congress must act to end millions of duplicate voter registrations nationwide from state to state. In testimony, Thomas told the Committee on House Administration, chaired by Miller, that federal legislation is needed to clear up the confusion caused when voters maintain an old driver license in one state but declare their voter registration in another state. A pending bill co-sponsored by Miller, former Michigan Secretary of State, and Rep. Todd Rokita, former Indiana Secretary of State, would require new state residents applying for a driver license to notify the state if they intend to use their new residency for the purpose of voting. If so, the legislation would mandate that the new state to notify the applicant’s previous state of residence so its chief election official can update voter lists accordingly.

Editorials: Texas Redistricting Fight Shows Why Voting Rights Act Still Needed | Ari Berman/The Nation

The last time Texas redrew its political maps in the middle of the decade, Texas Democrats fled to Oklahoma to protest Tom DeLay’s unprecedented power grab in 2003. Now Texas Republicans are at it again, with Governor Rick Perry calling a special session of the legislature to certify redistricting maps that were deemed intentionally discriminatory by a federal court in Washington and modified, with modest improvements, by a district court in San Antonio last year. Republicans want to quickly ratify the interim maps drawn for 2012 by the court in San Antonio before the court has a chance to improve them for 2014 and future elections. “Republicans figured out that if the courts rule on these maps, they’re going to make them better for Latinos and African-Americans,” says Matt Angle, director of the Texas Democratic Trust. The maps originally passed by the Texas legislature in 2011 personified how Republicans were responding to demographic change by trying to limit the power of an increasingly diverse electorate.

Florida: Electronic poll book could help with voting problems | News4

It’s no secret elections Florida have been coming under fire, with long lines, questionable ballots and the time it takes to check if someone is eligible to vote. Now a machine called an electronic poll book could help solve some of that. It’s already used in early voting to verify a voter. Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said he would like to see them in every county precinct on Election Day. He said it will benefit voters in many ways. “Plus, it takes away one of the possibilities that voters can vote twice, which currently today with paper registers they can go from one precinct to the next and vote twice and get away with it Election Day,” Holland said. “The electronic poll book negates that because they are interconnected.”

Editorials: Joe Garcia’s ballot scandal | MiamiHerald.com

U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia says he’s angry — and was clueless — that his chief of staff was involved in a cockamamie absentee-ballot scheme during last year’s Democratic Party primary in Congressional District 26, which stretches from the Florida Keys north to Kendall. His chief of staff, Jeffrey Garcia (no relation to the congressman) has resigned, and a Miami-Dade state attorney’s office investigation continues. Prosecutors should pursue the truth purposefully and with due diligence. No dilly-dallying. Voters whose choice in 2012 was between two political enemies — Mr. Garcia, the former head of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, and former U.S. Rep. David Rivera, a Republican who has his own troubles with campaign and tax laws — deserve to know exactly what went down in this race and to hold their elected representative accountable if it is found he played a role in this scheme.

Illinois: No funding for online voter registration | The Southern

State lawmakers last week approved legislation giving Illinoisans the ability to register to vote online. But, in the annual rush to adjourn for the summer, members of the House and Senate left town without allocating any money to pay for the proposal. “It’s something that we’re going to have to figure out,” said Rupert Borgsmiller, director of the Illinois State Board of Elections. “We’ll have to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Under legislation now awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature, the state would establish a system for applicants to register to vote through the state Board of Elections website, using a driver’s license and the last four digits of a Social Security number.

New Hampshire: House, Senate don’t agree on voting bills | NEWS06

The House Wednesday killed legislation that would change requirements for registering to vote, but agreed to negotiate with the state Senate on a conflicting versions of a separate bill addressing forms of identification required when someone steps into the polling place to cast a ballot. The House could not agree with Senate changes to the voter registration bill and agreed with Rep. Gary Richardson that “there is no ability to breach that divide” in a conference committee. It voted, 238-104, to “non-concur” with the Senate. On the voter ID bill, the House voted 286-52 to “non-concur” but also to ask the Senate for a committee of conference to negotiate differences.

New Jersey: Why New Jersey is holding a Wednesday election | Washington Post

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Tuesday set an Oct. 16 special election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Oct. 16 is a Wednesday. Elections are usually held on a Tuesday. What gives? The election is happening on a Wednesday because it’s the soonest possible date it could be held under the writ Christie issued. State law holds that the primary be held 70-76 days after the writ Christie issued Tuesday, with a general election to follow 64-70 days after that.

New Jersey: Several mull run for U.S. Senate special election while Democrats consider challenging it | NorthJersey.com

Potential U.S. Senate candidates scrambled to muster support as Democrats considered a legal challenge to the special election Governor Christie set for October and questions grew about the $24 million price tag, with one lawmaker pushing to move up the November election. With the primary over and the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s funeral behind him, Christie will soon decide on his appointment for the vacant seat, sources close to the governor said Wednesday. During his Tuesday news conference announcing the special election, Christie indicated he wanted to have a replacement in Washington, D.C. next week when Congress debates immigration reform. A spokesman for Newark Mayor Cory Booker said volunteers were out collecting signatures Wednesday, but would not say whether the Democrat would announce a run. Only one person has formally declared his candidacy for the August primary – former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, a conservative Republican. And some potential candidates have already taken themselves out of the running, Republican Sen. Tom Kean Jr. and Sen. Kevin O’Toole both said they are focused on winning reelection to their state offices. Democrats, meanwhile, are still exploring going to court to block the special election.

New Jersey: The cost of Christie’s decision | Asbury Park Press

Using New Jersey Office of Legislative Services estimates, Assembly Democrats say that a special primary election and a special general election, as ordered by Gov. Chris Christie, will cost a total of $23.8 million. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver said Christie could have saved $11.9 million in taxpayer money by having the special election on the same date as the Nov. 5 general election. The cost estimate is based on two main components: the expenses of the counties and municipalities in administering the election and the salaries of poll workers conducting the election. According to the Division of Elections in the Department of State, the costs for items such as ballot printing and postage, processing, legal advertising, polling place rental and voting machine delivery for a special election would be approximately $6.5 million.

New Jersey: Chris Christie’s Catch-22 — and why he made the right (political) decision | Washington Post

To hear the political media tell it, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) made a stinker of a decision Tuesday by setting the state’s special Senate election for Oct. 16 rather than on the same day as the general election either this year or in 2014. But the decision was probably the best of three bad options for Christie. The Star-Ledger editorial board blasted Christie for a “self-serving stunt“, and it was joined in that criticism by several politicians — most of them Democrats. But as is often the case with Senate vacancies — this one created by the death of Democratic Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg — the controversy was probably unavoidable. Giving a governor carte blanche to interpret the law and make an interim appointment these days often ends poorly (see: Blagojevich, Rod; Paterson; David; and Abercrombie, Neil). In addition, New Jersey special election law put Christie in an especially unenviable position because it is highly contradictory and totally open to interpretation.