Ohio: Cuyahoga County seeks bids for help with vote-by-mail project | 19 Action News Cuyahoga County’s Department of Public Works is seeking bids for help with the project approved by Cuyahoga County Council Monday evening to send a vote-by-mail application to all active Cuyahoga County voters. The request for bids was approved Monday morning by…
Ohio: Ed FitzGerald says Cuyahoga will fight back | WTAM Last week, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said he is considering banning the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections from processing applications from individuals who wish to vote by mail, if county government moves forward with a plan to mail unsolicited applications to all its…
Phoenix, the nation’s sixth largest city, aims to save money and add convenience by allowing its 650,000 registered voters to cast ballots for Tuesday’s city election at any of 26 voting centers. The centers replace 128 assigned polling places. While most Phoenix voters cast early ballots, typically mailing them in, those who vote in person formerly had to vote in their precincts.
Arizona is among nine states that either permit jurisdictions to replace precincts with vote centers or authorize pilot projects in selected administrations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The centers don’t necessarily boost overall turnout but can save money for governmental jurisdictions, a 2010 study by the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Indiana’s Ball State University found.
Phoenix, the first Arizona city to use voting centers, likely will save up to $350,000 on the previous $1 million cost of a city election, with reduced spending for hiring election workers, renting polling places and preprinting ballots, City Clerk Cris Meyer said.
When Pennsylvanians go to vote, unless it’s their first time at the polling place, all they typically need to do is tell a poll worker their name and then sign on the dotted line. They are then escorted to a machine behind a private curtain where they cast their ballot. House Republicans want the first part of that routine to change.
Rather than tell a poll worker your name, House lawmakers have passed a bill that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID along with their name and address. The bill will be taken up as early as next month when the state senate reconvenes.
“I’m very concerned about it,” said Madeline Rawley of Doylestown, a member of the Coalition for Voting Integrity. “You’re putting up barriers that make it difficult for seniors, the disabled and young people.”
New Jersey: County voting machines get chip upgrades | The Daily Journal | thedailyjournal.com Cumberland County recently replaced computer chips in all its voting machines and completed background checks on five technicians who service them as a safeguard against tampering and inaccuracy. But those upgrades, which are part of a statewide initiative, don’t sufficiently address…
With Republicans taking control of most U.S. capitols this year and a presidential race looming, states have passed the most election-related laws since 2003 in a push to tighten voting rules. Forty-seven states have enacted 285 election-related laws this year, and 60 percent were in states with Republican governors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats are pushing back by vetoing photo- identification laws in five states and trying to repeal other voting laws in Maine and Ohio, where President Barack Obama’s campaign is promoting the effort.
It’s the “battle before the battle” as both parties fight for what they think are the most advantageous and fairest rules, said Doug Chapin, director of an elections-administration program at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
“We’re at a level of activity that I don’t think I’ve ever seen,” Chapin said in a telephone interview. “You’ve got the combination of a fiercely divided nation, uncertainty about what the rules are and a belief that every single vote counts.”
Canada: Elections Canada lobbies for test of online voting | CBC News The head of the agency in charge of federal elections says it’s time to modernize Canada’s elections, including testing online voting and ending a ban on publishing early election results. In a report on the May 2 election (pdf), released Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer…
Tuesday’s primary election in Mississippi was plagued with voting machine malfunctions – candidates’ or entire contests missing from screens and machines that failed to boot up – highlighting national concern about the accuracy and reliability of electronic voting heading into next year’s Presidential election. The 46th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act was marked by an editorial in Politico and efforts by the Secretary of State of Florida to avoid Department of Justice pre-clearance of the most controversial sections of that state’s new election law. Several groups have also asked the DoJ to review South Carolina’s voter ID law. Wisconsin is reconsidering its plans to close 16 DMV offices just as new voter ID requirements go into affect. Meanwhile many voters in the state are receiving absentee ballot applications and other campaign material with incorrect filing deadlines and election dates. A Portland Press Herald editorial recommends that Maine voters reinstate same-day registration and massive cyber attacks against the IOC, UN and several governments underscored concerns about plans for the transmittal of voted ballots over the Internet.
Two weeks after announcing it would potentially close 16 Division of Motor Vehicles centers, the state reversed course Thursday and said it will maintain all of its licensing centers and will open four new locations.
The Legislature required the DMV this year to develop the most cost-effective program possible to implement a new law requiring people to show photo ID to vote and to ensure that voters will be able to obtain the state-issued photo IDs. The IDs will be required for voting starting in the spring.
Under an original proposal released July 22, the division said it may close 16 locations and open nine new ones, for a net loss of seven centers. The plan called for expanding hours at others. DMV Operations Manager Patrick Fernan said pressure from state lawmakers and citizens to keep the DMV accessible led to the decision not to close any branches. “It became clear that there was a strong desire to maintain service in all current locations,” Fernan said.
Mississippi: Malfunction of machines puzzling | The Clarion-Ledger A day after some electronic voting machines malfunctioned in Hinds County, the mystery remains. “Everyone I’ve talked to is baffled,” Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman Claude McInnis said Wednesday. At Wynndale Presbyterian Church, the electronic ballot failed to include races for governor or lieutenant governor. The precinct…
Blogs, Wisconsin: Bank Account Activity New Voting Requirement in Wisconsin? | Rock the Vote Blog Did you know that your constitutional right to vote actually hinges on how often you swipe your debit card at Starbucks? No? Neither did a Wisconsin voter who went to the DMV to get his “free” voter ID card. Since you…
California: Vote-by-mail service under threat in budget cuts | San Jose Mercury News California’s beloved vote-by-mail system will remain largely intact, despite state legislators’ raid on its relatively small pot of dollars. County election clerks say they likely will scrape up the $33 million the state sliced from the budget for elections. Permanent vote-by-mail allows voters to…
Youth, especially students, will face new challenges in states that have passed restrictive voter ID laws, many of which specifically exclude student IDs as accepted forms of identification. Estonia’s internet voting system continues to be questioned. After two recounts, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court threw out the election for chief and called for a re-vote. Fox News offered an editorial in support of Voter ID laws, while Congressional Democrats voiced their concerns to the Department of Justice. The hardships that some individuals will face in order to vote in South Carolina were are described in an article in The State. Election integrity activists, with the support of the Secretary of State, stopped a bill that would have allow the electronic submission of voted ballots through email in California. And the Thai election commission certified Yingluck Shinawatra’s election as MP, setting the stage for her to become that nation’s first female Prime Minister.
National: Youth Vote Faces Challenges With Voter ID Legislation | The Nation Voter fraud is an “epidemic.” It abounds, stealing elections from rightful candidates and places losers into unearned elected office. Republican dominated statehouses across the country are “combating” this problem through strict voter ID legislation, where a government-issued photo identification is required in order…
Voter fraud is an “epidemic.” It abounds, stealing elections from rightful candidates and places losers into unearned elected office. Republican dominated statehouses across the country are “combating” this problem through strict voter ID legislation, where a government-issued photo identification is required in order to vote. Seven states have already enacted legislation requiring state-issued photo ID at the polls and many more are pending.
One of the states, Wisconsin, enacted what Milwaukee Common Council Alderwoman Milele Coggs accurately called “the most restrictive voter ID legislation in the country.” It requires photo IDs issued by the state or federal government and only allows a forgetful voter’s provisional ballot to count if they return within three days with a proper ID.
College students are some of the unintended—or intended—citizens affected by the law. They broke for Barack Obama in 2008 by an astonishing 38 points and remained loyal to Democrats in 2010 by wide margins.
South Carolina: Many face fight to prove ID | TheState.com Ruth Johnson remembers being sent to the pay phone in the middle of the night to call the midwife when her mother’s labor pains started. “I called the midwife. She said she was coming. She never did show up,” Johnson said, thinking back to life…
New Jersey: Payment to ES&S delayed over vote count bug | New Jersey Herald Sussex County freeholders are withholding payment to the company that provides and services the county’s election computers until the board can get a face-to-face meeting with company representatives. “Just like there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no bugs in election software,”…
Rhode Island: Rhode Island embraces voter ID | stateline.org The Rhode Island Tea Party is praising the Democratic-led General Assembly and Governor Lincoln Chafee, an independent, for requiring voters in future elections to show identification at the polls. While many states have passed similar legislation this year, Rhode Island is notable because it was Democrats — and…
Any good student of Statistics 101 will tell you that correlation does not imply causation. Apparently, many voter ID supporters never got the memo.
Two and a half years ago, Justin Levitt wrote on this blog about how some proponents of voter ID requirements were asserting that stringent ID laws in Georgia and Indiana did not depress turnout in 2008. Those proponents thought they had found their magic bullet: turnout in Georgia and Indiana was higher in 2008 than in 2004, despite the implementation of strict ID laws in the interim.
Mr. Levitt gave them a simple statistics lesson. Even if turnout increases at the same time as the adoption of a new voter ID law, there may be something other than the voter ID law – Mr. Levitt identified campaign mobilization, in particular – that caused the turnout increase. In other words, correlation does not imply causation.
Florida: Hacker allegedly breaches Florida voting database | The Raw Story Voters concerned about the reliability of electronic voting may now have another reason to worry. A hacker known as Abhaxas claimed Saturday to have released data from one of Florida’s internal voting databases. “Who believes voting isn’t tampered with?” Abhaxas asked Twitter followers. Data in…
Editorials, National: 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…
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.
National: Senators concerned by photo ID requirement to vote | ajc.com Sixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in states that require photo identification in order for people to vote. The lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday to express concern that millions of voters do…
Sixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in states that require photo identification in order for people to vote.
The lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday to express concern that millions of voters do not have a government-issued ID — particularly older people, racial minorities, low-income voters and students. The senators say the photo ID requirements have the potential to block millions of eligible people from exercising their right to vote.
Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the department is monitoring, as it routinely does, this type of legislative activity in the states.
New Hampshire: Governor vetoes New Hampshire voter ID bill | NashuaTelegraph.com Gov. John Lynch vetoed a Senate bill that would have required voters to flash a photo ID before being allowed to enter the polls. The plan, Senate Bill 129, meant voters who couldn’t provide ID would get a provisional ballot that would be counted if…
Ohio: Husted draws line against party over photo IDs at voting booths | The Columbus Dispatch Secretary of State Jon Husted, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, was front and center this week in a dispute over photo IDs at voting booths – and his tiff was not with Democrats. Husted drew a line in the sand against his…
In a statement Friday afternoon that may earn him his own profile in courage award, new Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted parted ways with many of his former GOP colleagues, who are poised to pass a bill next week that would impose a new standard to vote in Ohio. Democrats and other election experts say it is both unnecessary and a likely violation of federal election law, and that it would leapfrog Ohio over Georgia and Indiana, two states whose voter laws are currently perceived as the harshest ones in the nation.
Husted minced no words on whether he would capitulate to or oppose an attempt by a Republican-led legislature to require an otherwise registered voter to present a valid photo ID before voting. The bill in question, HB 159, raced through the Ohio House and is expected to come to the floor of the Senate next week, where the GOP enjoys a lopsided majority of 23-10.
Yesterday, at a media conference held to discuss other matters, Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, who won the office last November with only 23.5 percent of registered voters or less than half of half of Ohio’s voting population, told reporters he anticipates signing the bill that would preempt voter fraud, a phenomena Republicans have long claimed is rampant while actual evidence for its practice is slim to none.
Bills requiring voters to present a photo ID have passed Republican-dominated legislatures in many states and several have been vetoed by Democratic Governors, including Governor Perdue’s veto this week in North Carolina. Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted challenged the Voter ID provisions included in an omnibus election bill by legislators from his own party. Indiana Secretary of White testified before the State Recount Commission regarding the status of his voter registration during the May 2010 primary – a decision on whether he can remain in office is expected next week. In a suspension vote requiring a two thirds majority, the US House defeated a bill that would have eliminated the Election Assistance Commission. An LA Times article reported on the explosion of recall elections across the country and a Washington Post editorial considered how the flurry of GOP-backed changes in state election codes will effect the 2012 election. Maine Governor LePage signed a controversial bill that would end nearly four decades of election day registration in the state, while a coalition of organization vowed to bring the measure to the ballot as a referendum in November. The Bangladesh National Party has announced it will boycott elections using electronic voting and computer scientist David Jefferson writes about the national security threat posed by email and fax delivery of voted ballots.
Pennsylvania: Voter ID bill is praised, panned in Pennsylvania | The Times Leader On a near-party line vote, the state House of Representatives approved a Republican-backed bill late Thursday night that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. The bill now moves to the Republican-controlled state Senate for consideration. The 108-88 vote…
North Carolina: Governor Perdue Vetoes GOP Voter-ID Bill | TPM North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) has vetoed a Voter-ID bill passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The proposed law was part of a wave of similar bills that have been pushed by Republican-led legislatures in the wake of the 2010 elections. Like those, it would…