National: Voting Rights Center Stage At South Carolina Capitol MLK Rally | WSPA The thousands who flocked to the South Carolina State House Monday to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy received a message that the fight for civil rights and voting equality is not relegated to history books. NAACP leaders said that the state’s…
National: Holder vows to protect voting rights at MLK event in South Carolina | CNN.com Attorney General Eric Holder joined NAACP leaders on the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia on Monday, with the Confederate flag fluttering overhead, to promise he will aggressively protect federal voting rights for minorities. NAACP National President Ben Jealous…
National: For King, the right to vote was sacred | CNN.com Every third Monday in January we gather as Americans to commemorate the values and beliefs — as well as the ultimate sacrifice — of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His tireless advocacy for civil rights, equal protection under the law, labor rights, and for the…
National: Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC: Testing the Limits of Citizens United | TIME.com Stephen Colbert is laughing at the U.S. Supreme Court. He started Thursday night, on his show, when Colbert transferred control of his super PAC to his mentor, business partner and friend, Jon Stewart. It’s a great set piece of comedic theater underscored…
Blogs: New Equation for Voting Technology: Auditing > Testing? | Doug Chapin/PEEA Berkeley’s Philip Stark and David Wagner recently shared a paper they have submitted for publication entitled “Evidence-Based Elections“. While subject matter is highly technical, the authors do a nice job of making it accessible to the informed layperson – and tucked into the…
National: Partisan feud escalates over voter ID laws in South Carolina, other states | CSMonitor.com The Obama administration’s recent decision to block a new voter ID law in South Carolina is fueling one of the biggest partisan debates of the day: Do stronger state voter ID laws really curtail the minority franchise? States have been on…
Editorials: Not Set in Granite | NYTimes.com Right now, while we indulge New Hampshire’s childish insistence on its presidential primary being “first in the nation,” Americans should decide to bury this tradition. Nearly a century is enough: the Granite State has somehow turned a fluke into an entitlement. Worse, its obsession with primacy prolongs, complicates…
National: Ballot Secrecy Keeps Voting Technology at Bay | Scientific American Voters in the recent Iowa caucuses and Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary will rely on paper ballots as they have for generations. In the very next primary on January 21, South Carolinians will vote with backlit touch-screen computers. In an age of electronic banking and online…
Editorials: Super PACs alter the dynamics of fundraising | The Washington Post Well-established candidates have always had the edge in fundraising, but under the new rules governing money in politics, it looks as if the rich are just getting richer. The vast majority of the $14 million in spending from “super PACs,” a new type of political…
National: E-voting machine freezes, misreads votes, U.S. agency says | Computerworld An electronic ballot scanning device slated for use in the upcoming presidential elections, misreads ballots, fails to log critical events and is prone to freezes and sudden lockups, the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission has found. The little noticed EAC report on the DS200 Precinct Count Optical Scanner…
Iowa: Moulton man challenges Iowa caucus results | Des Moines Register The Republican Party of Iowa says it has no reason to doubt the accuracy of results it reported from the state’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses despite a claim of an error that would change the outcome. The final vote count reported Tuesday gave former Massachusetts Gov.…
Editorials: Looking Ahead to the End of this New Year | Edward B. Foley/ElectionLaw@Moritz Will the rules, particularly recent changes in the rules, governing elections make a difference in the outcomes next November? Possibilities include the effect of changes in campaign finance laws or the laws governing voter identification and other aspects of the vote-casting…
Iowa: Iowa GOP officials say there will be no recount if Iowa caucus vote ends ‘too close to call’ | The Washington Post If the results of the Iowa caucuses are too close to call, they’ll stay that way. Iowa state GOP official Doug Heye said Tuesday there will be no recount, even if Rick Santorum…
Editorials: Tuesday’s Other Election | Mother Jones Tuesday is shaping up to be a big day in the world of politics. In Iowa, Republican caucus-goers officially kick off the 2012 presidential election cycle at 1,774 precincts across the state. In Egypt, voters in nine of the country’s 27 governorates head to the polls in the…
National: Redistricting Spurs Debate Over Voting Rights Act | Roll Call As new Members take the oath of office in January 2013, something unprecedented may occur: Not a single white Democrat from the Deep South could be a Member of the 113th Congress. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina already have just a single Democratic Representative…
Editorials: 2012 – the year of elections | Fareed Zakaria/CNN.com 2011 will likely be recorded as a year of historic change. Mass uprisings have upended governments across the Arab world. Economic mismanagement in Europe led to changes at the top in Italy, Greece and Spain. 365 days ago you couldn’t have predicted these events. You couldn’t…
Editorials: Voter ID Laws Could Keep Students From Voting in 2012 Elections | Camira Powell/PolicyMic College campuses across the nation are teeming with students ready to exercise their right to vote, one of the few perks that comes with turning 18. Yet, instead of encouraging students to take part in this rite of passage, some…
National: Civil Rights Groups Press Justice Department To Block Other Voter ID Laws | TPM It wasn’t long after the Justice Department blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law on Friday that Republicans accused the Obama administration of putting the President’s reelection ahead of preventing voter fraud. “Obama’s S.C. voter ID decision shows he’s putting the 2012 election above…
Editorials: Holder’s Legacy | Jeffrey Toobin/The New Yorker Two years ago, the Supreme Court decided a case that may, it now appears, save Barack Obama’s chances at reëlection—and, more importantly, preserve a precious corner of American democracy. For many years now, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been under assault. The law requires that any…
National: Americans Elect Makes Plans to Broker the 2012 Presidential Election | Irregular Times Richard Winger and Mark B. identify a revealing section of the Americans Elect corporate bylaws recently posted online by the states of Nevada and Florida. The Americans Elect corporation, which aims to arrange the election of its own candidates for President and Vice President of the…
Texas: Voter ID law may not be implemented in time for 2012 primaries | Star Telegram Seven months ago, Gov. Rick Perry stood at a lectern in the Texas Capitol flanked by dozens of fellow Republican state lawmakers to celebrate a new state law. “It’s our duty to ensure that elections are fair, beyond reproach, accurately…
National: Justice Department Rejects South Carolina’s Voter ID Law | NYTimes.com The Justice Department on Friday blocked a new South Carolina law that would require voters to present photo identification, saying the law would disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible minority voters. The move was the first time since 1994 that the department has exercised its…
Indiana: Judge says White ineligible to serve as Secretary of State | Evansville Courier & Press Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s two-front fight for his political life could be on its way to the state Supreme Court. A Marion County judge on Thursday ruled that White was not legally qualified as a candidate for the…
National: Americans Elect Seeks Third-Party Contender | TIME.com In a city that thrives on power, being attacked is often a sign that you have some. So in mid-December, when President Obama’s advisers took aim at Americans Elect, a bipartisan clutch of political elites planning to bankroll a third candidate in the 2012 presidential election, the…
Editorials: Avoiding the Florida Nightmare in 2012 | Iyer and Norden/Roll Call Opinion On Election Day 2000, tens of thousands of Floridians accidentally marked their ballots in ways that could not be read by the state’s voting machines. Their votes didn’t count. The identity of our next president hung in the balance for 36 days.…
Editorials: The Texas Redistricting Case and the Likely Continued Erosion of the Section 5 Process | Concurring Opinions The Supreme Court has decided to take up Texas’ redistricting plan on an expedited briefing and argument schedule. Even though it’s not directly a case involving preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, functionally the Court’s decision…
Maryland: Voter suppression: No free speech protection for fraud | baltimoresun.com “Come out to vote on November 6.” “Before you come to vote make sure you pay your parking tickets, motor vehicle tickets, overdue rent, and most important any warrants.” That’s the text of a flier distributed in African-American and Hispanic communities the weekend before Election…
National: The Dangers of Man-in-the-Middle in Voting Machines | ezinemark.com The Election Day is fast approaching in every state in the country. Security experts and researchers from Vulnerability Assessment Team or VAT at Argonne National Laboratories made a video that demonstrates a simple and non-cyber man-in-the middle or MITM attacks on the voting machine –…
National: Missouri researchers to study online voting | Washington Examiner Civic-minded soldiers stationed across the world could one day obtain absentee ballots from their laptops or mobile phones as part of a new federal research effort to increase participation among overseas troops and other voters who are out of the country during elections. A team…
National: In wake of robocalls case, Cardin seeks new federal law against election tricks | The Washington Post Maryland Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) on Wednesday said tricks designed to suppress voter turnout, especially those of historically disenfranchised minorities, require Congress to pass an update to the nation’s 50-year-old voting-rights legislation. Cardin said he would…