Editorials: Identity Crisis: New voter ID laws subvert democracy and Catholic teaching | America Magazine

Photo ID, please.” An increasing number of Americans will be hearing these words when they show up to vote on election day. In a trend that has gained strength over the last several years and received a boost after the 2010 midterm elections, a growing number of states are passing laws requiring specific forms of photo identification for citizens to cast ballots at their local polling places. While this may strike some as a relatively minor technical adjustment in voting security, what is really going on is far more significant and deeply at odds with Catholic social teaching.

Over the past half-century the Catholic Church has emerged as one of the strongest voices on behalf of democracy in the political realm. Its core social teaching documents, from “Pacem in Terris” to “Centesimus Annus” to “Caritas in Veritate,” strongly endorse fundamental political and civil rights, the rule of law, regular elections and an open political system. The tradition points especially to a need for broad participation in the democratic process on an equal basis for all citizens and warns against the political exclusion of the socially marginalized, especially the poor and racial, ethnic or religious minorities.

Editorials: Voters astute enough to reinstate same-day registration | The Portland Press Herald

Maine has taken a step backward on voters’ rights. Along with five other concerned Mainers, I filed paperwork with the secretary of state to overturn legislation that eliminated Election Day voter registration.

For 38 years, Maine has allowed voters to show up on Election Day, register and then cast their ballots. It’s a system that has worked remarkably well, helping Maine to become a national leader in voter participation.

The legislation changing that was developed and passed, based largely on myth. But I am convinced that Maine voters can discern fact from fiction and will support our efforts to restore Election Day voter registration. The League of Women Voters of Maine, which I represent, is a nonpartisan organization committed to protecting voting rights and the integrity of elections at the local, state and federal levels.

Editorials: Polls: Voting problems inexcusable | The Clarion-Ledger

The types of problems experienced by voters at the polls Tuesday – machines not working, names missing from the ballots, lack of workers – are inexcusable. Mistakes happen and that seems to be the attitude of party officials in charge of the primary election. Well, no. They shouldn’t happen, not with elections.

Finding out at 7 a.m. on Election Day that a voting machine is not working properly or there is a malfunction that can’t be immediately fixed simply shows lack of preparation and ability to properly conduct an election. Not having enough poll workers or, worse, no poll workers to staff a precinct shows an inability to do the job.

Editorials: Turning away college students in Maine | Bangor Daily News

Here’s a great economic development strategy for the oldest state in the nation — treat college-educated young people as pariahs.

Rather than encourage these people to begin to put down roots and get involved in the local community, ensure that you are as unwelcoming as possible. Accuse them of fraud. Blame them when local elections didn’t go the way you wanted. Put up barriers making it harder for them to vote locally.

Earlier this week, Charlie Webster, head of the Maine Republican Party, held up a list he said showed 206 college students from other states have illegally voted in Maine.

Editorials: North Carolina Voter ID bill down, but not out | The Asheville Citizen-Times

North Carolina is safe, for the moment, from what appears to be little more than an attempt to disenfranchise people who might vote Democratic. But, as Andrew Jackson once put it, “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.”

The House fell five votes short Tuesday of the three-fifths vote needed to override Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a bill requiring North Carolinians to show a photo identification in order to vote. But the GOP performed a parliamentary maneuver to keep the bill alive through the remainder of the 2011-12 session.

Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Cornelius, was unhappy. “I am hopeful that North Carolinians will continue to express their support for this critical issue and that their representatives will respond appropriately,” he said after the vote.

Editorials: Election certainty needs a put-it-on-paper foundation | Tri-State Defender

Recently, you ran articles of an interview with the Shelby County Election Commission’s Chairman and Secretary in the Tri State Defender’s July 14, 2011 and July 21, 2011 editions. During those interviews, Chairman Robert Meyers, while admitting the voting machines are hackable, indicated that he did not believe that hacking or other manipulation was the case with the August 2010 elections. He stated that he believed that “demographics” explained the losses by those who were claiming something improper happened. The inference was that those nine Democrats who lost did so because the traditional Democratic voters did not turn out.

Further in the article, Secretary Norma Lester states that in essence since everything is politically balanced that it is very unlikely that any improper action would take place. As a former Election Commissioner (2 ½ years) and a plaintiff in both the 2006 and 2010 election contest challenges, I feel compelled to challenge these perspectives.

Editorials: Our View: Voter fraud: Lay it out in the open | Silver City Sun-News

When the state’s top election official makes a public allegation of criminal behavior during prior elections, it is something that should be taken seriously and looked at closely. Secretary of State Dianna Duran made just such an allegation in March during a legislative committee hearing. Duran told lawmakers she had uncovered evidence that 37 people who are not U.S. citizens had voted in New Mexico elections.

But, when the ACLU filed an open records request the next day to examine the registration records of the 37 voters highlighted by Duran during the public meeting of the Legislature, she refused to turn them over, hiding behind the weak and inappropriate excuse of “executive privilege.”

Executive privilege allows a president, governor or other member of the executive branch to confer with advisors in private, without divulging the nature of those discussions or the participants. For example, when Democrats wanted to know who had served on an energy task force several years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed executive privilege in denying that request. It does not allow a member of the executive branch to conceal evidence of an alleged crime.

Editorials: Sen. Finney: Voter ID law needless ploy to disenfranchise voters | The Daily News Journal

It is a little over a year until the 2012 elections, and you’re eligible to vote for the first time. Maybe you’ve moved to another county, or maybe you haven’t voted in a while and need to know your precinct. You call your local election office, where someone tells you that you will need a photo ID to vote. You learn that you’ll need several pieces of documentation to prove your identity in order to receive the ID.

If you live in any of the 54 counties — yes, 54! — where there is no drivers license center, you’ll have to travel to a neighboring county to get the ID. Unfortunately, this will be the new norm.

Since coming to the Senate in 2007, each year my fellow Democrats and I have opposed efforts to place barriers between voters and the polling booth. Earlier this year, the Republican majority passed a law requiring photo identification to vote, despite warnings that it would hurt thousands of voters and potentially cost the state millions in federal lawsuits.

Editorials: The GOP’s state-by-state crusade to disenfranchise voters | The Washington Post

With only a week left before the United States of America could default on its debt, it’s easy to look at the federal government and wonder how we ever made it this far. Who would have guessed that a committed gang of extremists could bring down the economy? And yet, that’s where we find ourselves today, cornered by a manufactured crisis and running out of time. As Larry Sabato rightly tweeted over the weekend, “For anybody who teaches the American system and believes in it, this has been an extremely discouraging week.”

Unfortunately, the assault on our democracy is not confined to Congress or the standoff over the debt ceiling. It is also seeping into the states, where voting rights — the fundamental underpinning of any democracy — are being curbed and crippled.

In states across the country, Republican legislatures are pushing through laws that make it more difficult for Americans to vote. The most popular include new laws requiring voters to bring official identification to the polls. Estimates suggest that more than 1 in 10 Americans lack an eligible form of ID, and thus would be turned away at their polling location. Most are minorities and young people, the most loyal constituencies of the Democratic Party.

Colorado: Guest Commentary: Wild West elections in one Colorado county | The Denver Post

The 2012 elections are big news, but the media are not reporting Colorado’s potential role in a national election fiasco.

Those who understand election equipment and procedures warn that Colorado elections cannot withstand close scrutiny. We call for changes to prevent humiliation if the national press attempts to verify Colorado’s election returns.

If Colorado were an “emerging democracy,” the Carter Center would reject calls to monitor our elections because we fail to meet their minimum transparency standards. If a national contest is decided by Colorado’s vote, as Bush/Gore was by Florida, press everywhere will severely criticize the “Wild West” elections in some Colorado counties.

Editorials: Election chance to restore faith – Cherokee election process under review | MuskogeePhoenix.com

The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court’s order for a new election gives the candidates for principal chief a second chance to declare a definitive win. It also gives the tribe’s embattled election commission a chance to restore faith in the system.

The contest between Principal Chief Chad Smith and challenger Bill John Baker became a back-and-forth tug-of-war during the days immediately following the June 25 general election.

After both candidates were declared winners — then losers — allegations of fraud and deception surfaced. The integrity of the tribe’s election process suffered, and at least one commissioner targeted for criticism became a casualty of the bitter contest.

Editorials: Governor Rick Scott wants his name off bad election law | St. Petersburg Times

So the governor wants his name off a lawsuit filed over Florida’s cynical new elections law. Can you blame him?

Gov. Rick Scott — already sued more times than your average crooked contractor — is named in a suit contesting a new law that brings controversial changes in how we vote. How controversial? His office got thousands of e-mails while the bill awaited his signature, most urging him to reject something so fundamentally wrong.

The bill’s supporters kept saying, honest, it’s all about stopping our terrible problem of voter fraud. Except we don’t have a terrible problem of voter fraud. And their specifics were beyond scarce. What the new law will do is make it harder for some citizens — minorities in particular — to vote. How many years would that set Florida back?

Editorials: States Dispute Criticism of New Voter Laws, Move to Offer Photo ID Free of Charge | FoxNews.com

Election officers in states with newly approved voter ID laws are trying to make sure voters can meet the new requirements without much hassle, pushing back on complaints that the laws are tantamount to a “poll tax.”

Seven states this year have approved new laws requiring or urging voters to show photo ID before casting their ballots. Critics have assailed these measures as a partisan Republican scheme to skew elections by disenfranchising voters who might be inclined to vote for Democrats but lack the proper identification.

But officials in those states say the criticism is unfair. All seven states are moving to offer residents at least one version of a photo ID card free of charge. Local agencies are planning various outreach efforts to get the word out about the new requirements, and the new laws generally allow voters without photo ID to fill out a provisional ballot under certain circumstances.

Editorials: Angering their own party, Rhode Island Democrats approve voter ID | stateline.org

Should voters be required to show photo identification at the polls? For years, the question has amounted to a demarcation line between Republicans and Democrats.

The 2011 legislative year was shaping up to be no different. Republicans seized on their sweeping electoral victories last November by enacting photo ID laws in Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, arguing that tougher rules are necessary to fight election fraud. Democratic governors in five other states — Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina — vetoed similar bills that their Republican legislatures passed, calling them an unfair burden on disadvantaged voters, chiefly minorities and senior citizens, who may not have driver’s licenses or other forms of government-issued ID. Behind the policy dispute are important political calculations, since Democrats claim that their supporters would be most of the people turned aside at the polls and that whole elections could hang in the balance.

California: Internet Voting In California? | California Progress Report

Election integrity advocates recently launched a campaign to block a bill, SB908, that would have introduced email voting for Californians living overseas. We fought it for several reasons.

First, paperless voting itself is dangerous because there is no independent way to check the results claimed by the machines, and no way to recover when something goes wrong, and it will. Voting across the Internet is worse, because it opens up the voting system to several more types of attack, from anywhere in the world, all of them dangerous. Voting by email attachment is even worse, because no attempt is made to encrypt the ballot as it travels from computer to computer across the globe on the way to its destination.

Any of these computers is quite capable of “photoshopping” or simply blocking any ballot that passes through. A ballot sent from Afghanistan could pass through computers in China, Iran, Russia, or any other country interested in “fixing” ballots headed for California. This is only one of several severe vulnerabilities in Internet voting.

Editorials: False charges delay Election Commission work | Bangkok Post

The Election Commission is to endorse the election of more MPs today. The work of the EC has been slowed down by numerous objections lodged after the July 3 election. By this point after the 2007 general election, the EC had completed its inspection of party-list candidates. This year, the number of protests, complaints and objections means that as of this morning, 142 seats have yet to be filled out of the 500 MP seats. There is strong evidence, including statements from the EC, that many of the complaints are frivolous.

Kudos, then, to the sometimes controversial Commissioner Sodsri Satayathum for speaking out against trivial complaints lodged against the winning candidates. There seems little doubt that a small number of hardline political followers hopes to sideline candidates from other parties by launching official complaints of cheating during the campaign or at the polls. The EC should deal with such tactics with its own harsh response.

Editorials: Should Wyoming voters be able to register online? Wyoming Tribune Eagle Online

It is unclear if Wyoming will join the growing number of states that are adding the ability of residents to register to vote online, state officials say. Recently passed legislation in Maryland makes it the 10th state to implement online voter registration. Advocates of abandoning the paper-only policy say it can save money and make voting more accessible to the public.

Jennie Bowser, a senior fellow with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said many states have considered adding the online option since Arizona became the first in 2002.

Editorials: Wisconsin voter ID law: Hurdles for voters, little to curb voter fraud & $7 million tab | Madison Independent

Governor Walker recently signed a bill that requires voters to show IDs at the polls. The new bill will cost Wisconsin taxpayers nearly $7 million in new spending and lost revenue, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Many claim that the measure will do little to prevent voter fraud and will disenfranchise thousands of minority, elderly and rural voters.

According to PolitiFact, Wisconsin’s law is one of the most restrictive, based on research on acceptable IDs and voting procedures for those without IDs from state election offices, and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Under the new law, citizens would be allowed to vote only after showing a photo ID such as a Wisconsin driver’s license, state-issued ID card, certain very limited student IDs, military IDs, passports, naturalization certificates or IDs issued by a tribe based in Wisconsin. The new law will be partially implemented in the upcoming recall elections this year, with full implementation beginning with the presidential election in 2012.

Editorials: Carded at the Polls – Will the Justice Department stop the assault on voting rights for minorities, the elderly, and the poor? | prospect.org

One consequence of Republican victories last November has been an onslaught of state legislation to require voters to show photo identification at polling places. This push builds on GOP efforts over the past decade to tighten ID requirements; at least 18 states have enacted more stringent rules since 2003, including, most recently, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Last week, 16 U.S. senators signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether the new ID requirements comply with federal law. Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, a Democrat, is gathering signatures on a similar letter from House members and held a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill with civil-rights leaders, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, to draw attention to her effort.

Editorials: Justice Rears Her Head in Wisconsin As Kathy Nickolaus is Investigated by GAB | PoliticusUSA

In case you were wondering where justice was hiding in Wisconsin, she’s reared her head in Waukesha County. County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus will be investigated by the Government Accountability Board, which certified the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in question.

A former Dane country prosecutor will finally be looking into Nickolaus’ conduct. And by conduct, I mean misconduct, including open ballot bags with no secure chain of custody, voter rolls with tags that don’t match ballot bags, a canvas called a day early which took place with Nickolaus never telling the other canvassers about the “lost” votes for two days during the canvas and much more.

Editorials: Will long lines sink new voter ID law? | Tri-State Defender

‘Not familiar with Voting Rights Act,’ says Tennessee official

Getting a driver’s license in Tennessee is a test of skill and endurance, but I’m not talking about the road test or written exam, I’m talking about the crazy long lines.

On Friday, I joined 40 people in an outdoor line at 6340 Summer Ave about 12:30 p.m. We huddled together outside of the service center for nearly two hours, standing one-behind the other in 90-plus degree temperatures and punishing humidity. There were no chairs, no water and no restroom breaks. As I steamed, my hair gallantly fought off frizz.

The security guard called four to five customers at a time inside, where we then stood in a second line for 45 additional minutes. It was then we received a customer number and the official wait began. (The Tennessee Department of Public Safety does not officially begin tracking its customer wait time until patrons receive this service ticket. Up to that point, we were just there visiting and hanging out.)

Editorials: The right to vote | The Manila Times

The right to vote is more technically called “suffrage.” It was first found in the US Constitution in 1787 (Dictionary.com). The Philippine Constitution provides: “Suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines, not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year and in the place wherein they propose to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.”

Clearly, it is not obligatory to exercise suffrage. It is due to this permissive provision of the Constitution that failure to cast one’s vote without justifiable excuse (an election offense under Section 261, sub-paragraph 1 of the Omnibus Election Code) is said to have been decriminalized. Under such 1978 penal provision, suffrage was more an obligation than a right.

Editorials: Defending direct elections | The Jakarta Post

The political reform movement that began in 1998 has significantly transformed the democratic atmosphere in Indonesia through amendments to the 1945 Constitution. One of the fundamental changes relates to the electoral mechanism for regional leaders.

We used to have indirect elections where governors, mayors and regents were chosen by members of local legislative councils. A year after the enactment of the 2004 Law on Regional Administration, regional leaders were elected directly through a “one man, one vote” mechanism.

Editorials: ‘Noodlegate’ an utter farce | Bangkok Post

On the other, the complaint that the top candidate as the next prime minister had bribed voters is actually enshrined in the election laws. The idea that Yingluck Shinawatra’s noodle cooking amounted to an election bribe is ludicrous. Unfortunately, because of a bad law that never was corrected, the EC is actually forced to consider reversing Ms Yingluck’s election and banning her from politics.

How did we get in one week from a universally praised free and fair election to the point where almost every campaign stop by every candidate is contested by hard-nosed opponents?

It is not as if this issue arose suddenly. It is almost three years since then-prime minister Samak Sundaravej was thrown out of office because he had once conducted cooking shows on television.

Editorials: Laughlin McDonald: Georgia’s photo ID law infringes on the right to vote | The Washington Post

In his June 23 letter, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brian Kemp, said his state’s photo ID law, which requires a photo ID for in-person voting, is necessary because “every year we investigate and penalize hundreds of people guilty of election and voter fraud.” He failed to note, however, that when Georgia’s photo ID law was challenged in federal court in 2005, the state was unable to point to a single instance of fraudulent in-person voting.

He also claimed that the photo ID law does not “reduce turnout among minority groups.” Again, he did not note the federal court’s finding that the photo ID law “is most likely to prevent Georgia’s elderly, poor, and African American voters from voting. For those citizens, the character and magnitude of their injury — the loss of their right to vote — is undeniably demoralizing and extreme.”

Editorials: Happy 26th Amendment Day! Enjoy It While It Lasts | Campus Progress

July 1, 1971 saw the 26th amendment, which reduced the minimum voting age from 21 to 18, and millions of college-age Americans were given the right to vote.

40 years later, lawmakers are attacking this Constitutional right by introducing so-called voter ID bills. These bills require voters to show specific types of photo identification at the polls, a requirement that 18 percent of young people in the United States currently do not meet.

Many laws also limit the use of student ID cards as acceptable forms of identification. The student activism that led to the passage of the 26th Amendment should inspire and direct student activism today to protect our rights.

Editorials: Bob Hall: Voter ID requirement a step backward | FayObserver.com

Forty years ago this month, North Carolina played a pivotal role in expanding voting rights for American citizens. On July 1, 1971, our General Assembly became the final state legislature needed to ratify the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

A few days later, at a signing ceremony for the amendment, President Richard Nixon looked around the room of assembled young people and said, “America’s new voters, America’s young generation, will provide what America needs as we approach our 200th birthday – not just strength and not just wealth, but the Spirit of ’76, a spirit of moral courage, a spirit of high idealism in which we believe … that the American dream can never be fulfilled until every American has an equal chance to fulfill it in his own life.”

Thousands of miles away, 18-year-old Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam. The cry of “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” had grown louder through the 1960s, and Congress finally proposed the 26th Amendment in March 1971. It sped through state legislatures, gaining the necessary ratification of three-fourth of the states with our General Assembly’s historic vote.

Later this month, the General Assembly will consider several bills with a far different purpose. They aim to restrict, rather than expand, opportunities for qualified voters.

Editorials: White claims vindication … but, please | Evansville Courier & Press

Despite a stern rebuke from the Indiana Recount Commission’s chairman, Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White claimed vindication after the three-member panel decided not to boot him out of office last week.

He said the secretary of state’s office, and he as its head, have lost no credibility as a result of voter fraud accusations that very well might result in White being forced out of office by a criminal trial in Hamilton County set to start in August.

His logic behind that claim? Voters knew about the accusations he faced, and still elected him. Therefore, he should be able to do the job with his name and reputation intact.

Please.

Editorials: Jennifer Wagner: Charlie White’s lonely outpost | The Indianapolis Star

If there’s one thing Indiana Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s that disgraced Secretary of State Charlie White should step down from the office he’s embarrassed since the day he took the oath.

On Tuesday, the Indiana Recount Commission granted White a temporary legal reprieve, ruling that the state’s election laws are sufficiently vague to prevent his removal from office. White faces criminal trial in August on seven felony counts of voter fraud, theft and perjury.

White has attempted to turn his failure to properly register to vote and his illegitimate service on the Fishers Town Council into an intricate personal tale: It wasn’t his fault he broke the law. Life just got too complicated to focus on the details.

Editorials: Voter-fraud bill misguided, wasteful | SentinelSource.com

QUESTION: What will cost New Hampshire taxpayers $108,670 during the next two years to address a problem that does not exist?

ANSWER: Senate Bill 129, the so-called Voter I.D. bill, which mandates that every voter in the state show photo identification before casting a ballot. The mandate is flawed, because some photo-IDs are deemed okay to use whereas others, such as photo IDs that are provided by town and city employers, are not necessarily okay. Also, the bill doesn’t guarantee secrecy for the provisional ballots that would be required of those voters who must scurry off to get acceptable photo IDs on election day.

However, these are piddling matters compared to the justification for the bill, and here we leave it to D.J. Bettencourt, the House Majority Leader, to argue the case. In a news release issued shortly after Governor John Lynch vetoed Senate Bill 129 this week, Bettencourt wrote: “It is mystifying to me why the governor of New Hampshire, elected to uphold our Constitution, would oppose legislation that would put an end to allegations of voter fraud that surface after every single election in our state.”

Allegations of fraud? How about actual fraud?