Connecticut: Changes in voting laws designed to boost turnout | Stratford Star Bridgeport’s “ran-out-of-ballots” fiasco got Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s attention. “People were turned away at the polls and not allowed to vote!” she told a League of Women Voters meeting in Ridgefield recently. “We don’t need one more thing to cause people to…
National: Super Tuesday brings super PAC spending milestone | iWatch News by The Center for Public Integrity Heading into Super Tuesday, spending by super PACs aligned with presidential candidates has surpassed spending by all super PACs in the 2010 mid-term election. To date, super PACs aligned with one of the 2012 White House hopefuls have spent…
Blogs: Hacking the Polls: Vulnerability in Electronic Voting Systems | Independent Voter Network Among those who advocate for the “modernization” of our voting systems, internet-based electronic voting and registration platforms are often offered as an ideal solution to the problems inherent in our current registration and voting processes. A newly published paper describes the ease…
National: Secret donors to ‘C4s’ playing behind-the-scenes politics | latimes.com There’s no mystery about why a business or industry group might be shy about how it spends money on election campaigns. Just ask department store chain Target. In 2010, Target, which had been known for its progressive employment policies, faced a customer and shareholder backlash after…
National: ‘Super PACs,’ Not Campaigns, Do Bulk of Ad Spending | NYTimes.com The crucial role the “super PAC” now plays in modern presidential politics has been on vivid display in the week before the Super Tuesday primaries, as these outside groups have all outspent the campaigns and become their de facto advertising arms. The super PACs…
National: Internet voting systems too insecure, researcher warns | Computerworld Internet voting systems are inherently insecure and should not be allowed in the upcoming general elections, a noted security researcher said at the RSA Conference 2012 being held here this week. David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and chairman of the election…
National: Super PACs, candidates blur lines ahead of Nov. 6 | USAToday.com Presidential candidates and the super PACs accepting unlimited donations to help their campaigns cannot coordinate their activity, yet they are sharing consultants, donors and even advertising footage, raising new questions about the independence of outside groups. Campaign-finance experts say there’s little federal regulators can…
National: Wireless voting still has a long way to go | Computerworld With the widespread adoption of smartphones and the use of mobile tactics in U.S. presidential campaigns, could there come a day when Americans might vote wirelessly? That question was posed to a panel of mobile campaign experts at the Brookings Institution during a webcast…
National: Wireless voting still has a long way to go | Computerworld With the widespread adoption of smartphones and the use of mobile tactics in U.S. presidential campaigns, could there come a day when Americans might vote wirelessly? That question was posed to a panel of mobile campaign experts at the Brookings Institution during a webcast…
Editorials: The Strange Career of Voter Suppression | NYTimes.com The 2012 general election campaign is likely to be a fight for every last vote, which means that it will also be a fight over who gets to cast one. Partisan skirmishing over election procedures has been going on in state legislatures across the country for several…
National: Santorum suggests Romney rigged CPAC straw poll victory | The Hill Rick Santorum suggested on Sunday that Mitt Romney’s campaign may have rigged a straw poll of conservative activists by paying the entrance fee for supporters. Romney beat Santorum by 7 points Saturday in a straw poll of almost 3,500 attendees at the Conservative Political…
National: Overseas Vote Foundation Launches In-U.S. Voter Registration Service | TechPresident The Overseas Vote Foundation is launching a new domestic voter registration and absentee ballot site in this election season that aims to make it easy for voters to fill out and access state-specific election forms. OVF announced the new initiative, the U.S. Vote Foundation, at…
National: States line up to challenge stringent Section 5 voting rights provision | The Washington Post Conservative activists and Republican attorneys general have launched a series of lawsuits meant to challenge the most muscular provision of the Voting Rights Act 0f 1965 before a Supreme Court that has signaled it is suspicious of its constitutionality. Working…
Blogs: Saguache, CO Ballot Dispute: New Clerk, But Same Old Controversy | Doug Chapin/PEEA On January 24 Saguache County, CO voters overwhelmingly recalled County Clerk Melinda Myers. Myers had been under fire ever since presiding over a hotly-disputed 2010 election in which preliminary results – which showed some candidates, including Myers’ GOP opponent, leading –…
Nevada: Nevada caucuses: State GOP rolls snake eyes | Politico.com The biggest loser in Nevada’s Republican caucuses? The state’s feckless GOP. Unable to control how its county parties count and report results, state Republicans were scrambling Sunday to explain why, almost 24 hours after most caucuses ended, the votes still have not been counted. Here in Clark…
Indiana: Indiana election chief found guilty of voter fraud | The Associated Press Indiana’s top elections official could lose his job and his freedom after jurors convicted him of multiple voter fraud-related charges on Saturday, leaving in flux the fate of one of the state’s most powerful positions. Republican Secretary of State Charlie White has held…
National: Oscars vote vulnerable to cyber-attack under new online system, experts warn | guardian.co.uk Computer security experts have warned that the 2013 Oscars ballot may be vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences follows through on its decision…
National: Contests in battleground states could hinge on ‘invisible’ overseas voters | NBC Since the 2000 recount in Florida, voting procedures have been under the microscope; in close races, painstaking legal details and arcane rules can determine the results. Among those details is the handling of ballots cast by hundreds of thousands of “invisible” overseas voters.…
National: Study: SuperPACs Behind Nearly Half Of 2012 Ads | NPR A new analysis shows that in the deluge of TV ads in the early voting states for the Republican presidential primaries, nearly half of the ads are coming not from the candidates but from superPACs — the new breed of political committees that raise…
Alabama: One-man Washington nonprofit helps steer Shelby County voting case | al.com Shelby County’s name is on the case, but a one-man Washington, D.C., legal defense fund with private donors is the driving force behind one of the most important constitutional challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Project on Fair Representation is the nonprofit run by…
National: Military, overseas voting easier, report finds | Politico.com For military and overseas voters from 47 states and D.C., casting a ballot in 2012 will be a much different — and easier — experience than ever before. Since the 2009 passage of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, which called for improved election access for…
National: Civil rights law on Supreme Court’s mind | Thomson Reuters A recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that dealt with a narrow issue in a redistricting case from Texas suggests that the nation’s top court is ready to reconsider a key part of the Voting Rights Act, a major piece of civil rights legislation. In the Jan. 20…
Editorials: In Saguache, a vote for voters | The Denver Post The recall of Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers offers some lessons about transparency and the good sense of voters. Myers, who oversaw a messy election in which she prevailed over a challenger, was booted out of office this week with a resounding 68 percent of…
National: Disclose Act: Super PAC Transparency Legislation To Be Introduced By House Democrats | Huffington Post Amid growing concern over the growing influence of super PACs, congressional Democrats are set to introduce new legislation designed to bring an increased level of transparency to campaign-related expenditures. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) will introduce in the coming weeks…
National: ID bills target college-aged voters | The Temple News New voting laws requiring identification and eliminating absentee ballots disenfranchise young and low-income voters in various states. Students who move out-of-state to attend college normally shrug a slew of stresses on their shoulders. From a potentially higher tuition to possible travel expenses, most college students think…
Editorials: Citizens United: How Did it Happen? | John Wellington Ennis/Huffington Post Though the manifold problems of money pouring into our campaigns have become a source of daily news and mounting public backlash, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission is an opportunity to review how this transformative…
National: The winner of South Carolina’s primary: Super PACs | baltimoresun.com It has been two years since the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and we are only now just beginning to see how its overturning of a century of campaign finance law is distorting the electoral…
Texas: Supreme Court Rejects Judge-Drawn Maps in Texas Redistricting Case | NYTimes.com The Supreme Court on Friday instructed a lower court in Texas to take a fresh look at election maps it had drawn in place of a competing set of maps from the Texas Legislature. The justices said the lower court had not paid…
National: The Influence Industry: Activist groups want to undo ruling that led to ‘super PAC’ frenzy | The Washington Post Two years ago this week, the Supreme Court set the political world on its head by ruling that corporations could spend unlimited money on elections, rolling back decades of legal restrictions. An array of liberal-leaning activist…
National: Did Citizens United Lead to Super PACs? Setting the Record Straight | Election Law Blog Salon is out with an interview today with Floyd Abrams (noted First Amendment lawyer and campaign finance law opponent). Abrams took the NY Times to task for blaming the $5 million Adelson contribution to Super PACs on Citizens United. Abrams says it is Buckley v. Valeo, recognizing an…