When it comes to the integrity and accuracy of voting systems in the United States, the good news is that widespread technological upgrades have largely eliminated the voting-machine problems that were so evident when Florida’s disputed recount determined the 2000 presidential election. The bad news is that some of those improvements in accuracy could be undermined by increases in early voting through the mail, which is turning out to be a relatively low-accuracy method of voting, according to a new research report released by MIT and the California Institute of Technology. “A lot of changes over the last decade have made voting in America better,” says Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, who co-authored the new report with five colleagues at four universities. “The possibility of a [situation like Florida’s 2000 election] is much lower now than it was 12 years ago.” However, Stewart adds, “We have possibly gotten way ahead of ourselves in encouraging people to vote by mail. It’s pretty clear that the improvement we’ve gotten by having better voting machines in the precincts may be given back by having more and more people voting at home.” Read More
National: Nightmare election scenarios worry both parties | Huffington Post
Here in a county that knows a thing or two about Election Day meltdowns, both parties are fretting over what might go seriously wrong before, during or just after the Nov. 6 presidential election. “More than 50 percent of the provisional ballots are thrown in the trash in this state,” Florida state Rep. Mark Pafford told about 80 retirees who gathered for last week’s meeting of the Golden Lakes Democratic Club. That’s only a slight exaggeration – 48 percent of the provisional ballots cast in Florida in 2008 were rejected. And Pafford’s warning underscores anxiety in Florida and other states about legal challenges, ballot problems or bizarre outcomes that could bedevil a race that seems likely to be close – conceivably as close as the 2000 contest that people still quarrel about. The mere mention of that election unsettles people in Palm Beach County. The county’s poorly designed “butterfly ballot” confused thousands of voters, arguably costing Democrat Al Gore the state, and thereby the presidency. Read More
National: Report sees decline in voting glitches … but vote-by-mail sparks concern | NBC
The good news about voting technology is that the upgrades put into place since the controversial 2000 presidential election have made ballot tallies twice as accurate as they were — but the bad news is that the rise of early vote-by-mail systems could erode those gains. That’s the assessment from the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, which has been monitoring voting technology and election administration nationwide for nearly a dozen years — ever since the “hanging-chad” debacle of the Bush vs. Gore election. Coming less than three weeks before this year’s Election Day, the project’s latest report includes some recommendations that could improve the election process in as little as two years. But first, project co-director Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT, wants to celebrate the good news. “Voter registration is gradually getting better,” he told me. “Voting machines are clearly better. This is a voting-technology feel-good story. We’re getting the voter registration process into the 20th century, if not the 21st century.” Read More
National: The state of the U.S. election system | MIT News
When it comes to the integrity and accuracy of voting systems in the United States, the good news is that widespread technological upgrades have largely eliminated the voting-machine problems that were so evident when Florida’s disputed recount determined the 2000 presidential election. The bad news is that some of those improvements in accuracy could be undermined by increases in early voting through the mail, which is turning out to be a relatively low-accuracy method of voting, according to a new research report released by MIT and the California Institute of Technology. “A lot of changes over the last decade have made voting in America better,” says Charles Stewart III, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, who co-authored the new report with five colleagues at four universities. “The possibility of a [situation like Florida’s 2000 election] is much lower now than it was 12 years ago.” However, Stewart adds, “We have possibly gotten way ahead of ourselves in encouraging people to vote by mail. It’s pretty clear that the improvement we’ve gotten by having better voting machines in the precincts may be given back by having more and more people voting at home.” Read More
Florida: Questions raised about legality of Palm Beach County Elections | Palm Beach Post
Lawyers for rival presidential candidates Mitt Romney and President Obama descended on the Palm Beach County Elections Office today, trying to find out what procedures would be in place next week to assure an estimated 27,000 absentee ballots that contain printing errors would be copied accurately. Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said candidates or their representatives would be allowed to observe what is expected to be dozens of two-person teams duplicating the ballots. But, she said, the exact procedure won’t be announced until Friday. Ballots will begin being opened and copied on Monday at 10 a.m. “It will be first-come, first-served one person per candidate,” Bucher said. Representatives could come from the campaigns of anyone seeking office in the Nov. 6 election, from Obama and Romney to Palm Beach County Port Commissioner Jean Enright. How many will be allowed to watch each team will be a function of how much room is available. Read More
Maryland: The perils of online voter registration | Washington Post
The Post’s Aaron Davis reports on a group of technology experts who warned Maryland elections officials last month that the state’s online voter registration system is vulnerable to mischief. Among other things, they warned that wrongdoers with as little as a voter’s full name and birth date could change his or her address or party affiliation. Maryland officials responded that they believed such hacking would be highly unlikely, but the warnings should give some pause to D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who wants to allow D.C. residents to register to vote or change their registration data online. (Currently, you can go to the Board of Elections Web site and create a pre-filled form, but you still have to print it out, put it in a stamped envelope and drop it in the mail.) Read More
Recently, former Sen. Norm Coleman wrote a piece for the Star Tribune supporting the Voter ID amendment in Minnesota. In his opinion, he wrote:
Is there voter fraud in Minnesota? Yes. Is it rampant and out of control? Not yet. Can the level of fraud, no matter how small, affect the outcome of elections in our state and elsewhere in the nation? Absolutely.
I agree with his premise. Is voter fraud a good thing? No. Is it something we should strive to prevent? Of course. However, what he, and it seems many other conservatives have forgotten is that nothing is free. Everything, including this amendment, has a cost associated with it. Yet, for some reason, this aspect of the voter amendment has completely eluded those who purport to keep government spending in check. This amendment was passed by the Minnesota House and Senate by many politicians who ran on a platform of cutting wasteful government programs. Yet, if this amendment passes, Minnesotans will have to pay for a program that essentially provides no benefit. Is this not wasteful? Read More
North Dakota: Ex-GOP leader fights North Dakota Election Day campaign ban | The Associated Press
A former North Dakota Republican Party chairman who doesn’t want to take down the political signs in his yard before Nov. 6 has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a century-old state law that bans campaigning on Election Day. Gary Emineth argued Wednesday that the ban violates the free-speech rights of Republicans and Democrats alike. The law, which dates to 1911, bars anyone from attempting to influence others to vote, or not vote, for any candidate or ballot measure on Election Day. The current version exempts billboards and bumper stickers, but North Dakota’s political parties believe it applies to all other forms of advertising, including radio and television spots, newspaper ads and yard signs. To comply with the ban, political candidates and their supporters often scurry to take down yard signs and banners before midnight the day before Election Day. Read More
Ohio: Senate Democrats Demand Investigation Into Voter Fraud Group | City Beat
Ohio Senate Democrats sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday asking them to investigate True the Vote (TTV), a Tea Party group established to combat alleged voter fraud. The Democrats claim TTV is unnecessarily intimidating voters. In the letter, the Democrats say they would find voter fraud to be a serious problem if it was happening, but they also note recent studies have found no evidence of widespread voter impersonation fraud. An Oct. 4 Government Accountability Office study could not document a single case of voter impersonation fraud. A similar study by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found a total of 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. That’s less than one case a year. Read More
Tennessee: Appeals court to make decision on voter ID law in coming weeks | The Tennessean
Although Tennessee’s controversial voter ID law faces yet another legal challenge, it remains intact — at least for now. Attorneys representing two Memphis residents whose votes were not counted in the August primary because they lacked a government-issued photo ID asked a three-judge Appeals Court panel on Thursday to throw out the state’s voter ID law. They claim the law is unconstitutional and suppresses turnout among certain segments of the population. Janet Kleinfelter of the attorney general’s office pointed to a lower court’s recent decision upholding the Republican-backed voter ID law on the basis that the constitution allows legislators to enact laws that “secure the freedom of elections” and “the purity of the ballot box.” A decision is expected in the coming weeks, even though early voting for the general election started on Wednesday. Read More
Tennessee: More Problems for Early Voters in Shelby County | WREG.com
Voting problems are already causing a headache for some people on the very first day of early voting. News Channel 3 received calls from voters saying they had to wait nearly an hour for voting machines to be fixed. Andrea Williams waited in line for an hour and a half to cast her ballot. She says the line was moving pretty fast at Anointed Temple of Praise polling site, but then it stopped, “We asked what`s going on and the young lady came out and said the little ballot that you use to put in to vote stopped working.” The Election Commission says the ballot burner broke causing the machines to reject the cards. The Commission has technicians floating around town in case something like this happens, and they got to the polling site within an hour to fix the problem. Read More
Virginia: Man Tied To Virginia GOP Arrested In Voter Registration Form Destruction | TPM
A Pennsylvania man employed by a company working for the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested by investigators from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s office on Thursday and charged with destroying voter registration forms. Colin Small, a 31-year-old resident of Phoenixville, Pa., worked for Pinpoint, a company hired to register voters on behalf of the Republican Party of Virginia. Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice. Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson’s office said there was no indication that the activity was widespread in their jurisdiction and said the conduct “appears to be limited in nature.” His office said there is a possibility that additional charges may be filed. Read More
Lithuania: Labor Party Pledges Action Amid Voting Allegations | Businessweek
Lithuania’s Labor Party said it would expel any members found guilty of violating the election law amid allegations that some bribed voters during an Oct. 14 round of parliamentary elections that the party won. Police are looking at a video claiming to show prison inmates being offered money in return for voting for the Labor Party, the Prosecutor General’s Office in Vilnius, the capital, said on its website yesterday. The party called for a swift investigation of the allegations. “Media reports that some members of the Labor Party may have bribed voters are casting a shadow on our authority,” the party said on its website today. “If the mentioned facts are confirmed, the chairman of the Labor Party intends personally to propose the expulsion of any members who have broken the law.” Read More
Iran: Iranian Presidential Election: A Path to Reform | World Policy Institute
Last month, the Iranian Interior Ministry announced that the next presidential election had officially been scheduled for June 14, 2013. Despite mechanisms already in place to limit reformers’ influence in the government, including the vetting process performed by the Guardian Council and the willingness to falsify election results as occurred in the 2009 presidential election, Iran’s presidency remains an avenue to liberalize the Iranian government. For this reason, the Supreme Leader considers the presidency a potential threat and will likely influence the upcoming election to make sure one of his allies comes to power. However, the dire economic straits that Iran finds itself in are likely to make an anti-reformist hijacking of Iran’s premier elective office a much harder sell this time around. Read More
Palestine: Palestinians head to polls to vote for the first time since 2006 | The Times of India
Palestinians in the West Bank will head to the polls tomorrow day for the first time in nearly seven years, casting their ballots in local elections. But the long-delayed vote will only be held in the West Bank, with the first stage of voting to take place in 91 of the territory’s 353 municipalities. In another 181 localities, candidates were appointed unopposed, with elections to be held in the remaining areas at a date which has yet to be set, the Central Elections Commission (CEC) said. Read More
Ukraine: Ten days before polling day | The Economist
The ruling Party of Regions and its allies look set to win Ukraine’s parliamentary election on October 28th. They may even gain a constitutional majority with control of two-thirds of the parliament. This will likely happen despite the fact that most Ukrainians regularly tell pollsters their country is heading “in the wrong direction” and less than a quarter of them plan to vote for the Party of Regions. Perhaps the most important reason for this is that Ukraine has reverted to the mixed proportional and first-past-the-post system last used in 2002. Back then, it allowed Leonid Kuchma, an unpopular president, to secure a working majority in parliament thanks to a divided opposition and post-election defections to his camp. The same conditions are in place now for Viktor Yanukovych (pictured above), the current president. His candidates can come out on top in first-past-the-post constituencies where three or more opposition politicians are competing. On October 14th the two main anti-Yanukovych forces agreed to withdraw some of their candidates in some districts in order to limit this phenomenon, but they have stopped far short of a genuine alliance. It is testament to the current parliamentary opposition’s ineffectiveness that it allowed this electoral reform to pass last year, giving the ruling party a chance to retain power in an election that could be classed as free and fair (given that an elected parliament had agreed to its rules). Read More