Indiana: Dead-voter bill passes in Senate Elections Committee | The Republic

A local legislator’s bill that would ensure the votes of dead people count in the Indiana General Assembly passed Monday. State Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, introduced Senate Bill 155, which would require that an absentee ballot completed by a voter who subsequently dies before Election Day to be counted as it would be had the voter not died. The bill passed by a 9-0 vote Monday in the Senate Elections Committee, of which Walker is chairman. It now moves to the Senate floor for further consideration. The need for the bill is twofold, Walker said. First, current regulations regarding early ballots of deceased voters are too burdensome. Secondly, it’s important for families to know that the wishes of the deceased family member regarding their vote are honored.

Indiana: Bill would allow absentee ballots from dead voters to count | Associated Press

Someone who casts an absentee ballot but dies before Election Day would still have their vote count under a proposal being considered by Indiana lawmakers. The provision is part of a bill that the House Elections Committee took up Wednesday. Rep. Matt Pierce of Bloomington told members about how disappointed he was when former U.S. Rep. Frank McCloskey’s absentee vote that he cast while fighting cancer didn’t count because he died before Election Day in 2004. Pierce said that only some county clerks actively check for deaths of absentee voters.

New York: The dead can vote in New York City | New York Post

Death doesn’t necessarily disqualify you from voting in New York City. Investigators posing as dead voters were allowed to cast ballots for this year’s primary and general elections, thanks to antiquated Board of Election registration records and lax oversight by poll workers, authorities said. The election board’s susceptibility to voter fraud by people impersonating the departed was uncovered during a massive probe of the agency by the Department of Investigation. The probe uncovered 63 instances when voters’ names should have been stricken from the rolls, but weren’t — even though some of them had died years before. “The majority of those 63 individuals remained on the rolls nearly two years — and some as long as four years — since a death, felony conviction, or move outside of New York City,” said DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn.

Maldives: Fate of Maldives presidential polls to be decided by Supreme Court | The Economic Times

The fate of the first round of presidential elections in the Maldives, won by former President Mohamed Nasheed, would be decided by a full bench of the Supreme Court which started hearing the matter, media reports said here. A full bench of seven judges has admitted the plea of the Jumhooree Party seeking annulment of presidential elections and conducted its first hearing yesterday. The hearing will continue today, local media said. The Jumhooree Party (JP) whose candidate Gasim Ibrahim missed the second round, scheduled on September 28, by a whisker has alleged irregularities in the voters’ list and requested the apex court to annul first round of elections. Business tycoon Ibrahim’s running mate and former Attorney General Hassan Saeed alleged that voters’ list included bogus voters, repetition of names and inclusion of dead voters in the list.

Oregon: Too nice for voter fraud? Some say Oregon’s election system vulnerable despite few cases | NWWatchdog.org

Two dead people tried to vote in Oregon. The researcher and a voter integrity advocate who found the problem told election officials, who told them this kind of thing is rare, and the chances of it happening again are slim, given the state’s good track record, kindly nature and all that. “This is a very Oregon moment,” researcher Robert McCullough of the energy consulting firm McCullough Research said. “The Pacific Northwest is a very honest area, and so we have little in the way of checks and balances. But, luckily, we also have very few villains.”

Texas: Andrade resigns as Texas secretary of state | Houston Chronicle

Hope Andrade, the first Latina to serve as Texas secretary of state, abruptly announced her resignation Tuesday in the wake of controversy over a so-called voter purge. “It has been the highest honor of my professional life to serve as the secretary of state for the greatest state in our nation,” she said in a statement announcing her departure. In a letter to Gov. Rick Perry, who in 2008 named her to the post in which she served as Texas’ chief elections officer, the San Antonio resident said her resignation would be effective Friday. There was no immediate word on her replacement.

Texas: Dispute over ‘dead’ voters in Harris County is finally resolved | Houston Chronicle

The running dispute over presumed-dead voters on Harris County rolls was substantially resolved Wednesday between the Texas Secretary of State’s office and Harris County’s tax registrar just hours before a Travis County judge issued an order that temporarily prevents the removal of names from registration lists statewide. About 9,000 Harris County voters got letters this month from the office of Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners, who also serves as the voter registrar, stating that records suggested that they are deceased and that they must act within 30 days to stay on the rolls. The local names are among more than 70,000 on a statewide list generated by the secretary of state using the Social Security Administration’s master death file as required by state law. The federal agency’s compilation has been determined as sometimes incorrect.

North Carolina: Not dead, but still voting | WRAL.com

Carolyn Perry remembers voting in her first election. It was 1967 in Ohio, a municipal election, and she was 21 years old. “The people at the polls introduced me and said, ‘This is Carolyn and this is her first time to vote,'” recalled the retired special education teacher.  Perry, who has been registered to vote in North Carolina since at least 1975, according to election records, was dismayed to receive a letter this month from the Wake County Board of Elections suggesting she may no longer be qualified to vote because she might be dead.  “My initial reaction? I was mad as hell,” Perry said Monday morning. Her name was one of nearly 30,000 across the state that volunteers with the Voter Integrity Project identified two weeks ago as potentially being dead but still registered to vote. The Voter Integrity Project is a North Carolina offshoot of True the Vote, a national movement that purports to combat election fraud by challenging the voter registration of those they believe should not be on voter lists. “We’re not really interested in partisan politics,” said Jay DeLancy, a retired Air Force officer and director of Voter Integrity Project. “As an organization, we try to eliminate those kinds of biases in our research.”

Texas: Many Texans Bereaved Over ‘Dead’ Voter Purge | NPR

Quite a few Texas voters are seeing dead people in the mirror these days when they go to brush their teeth in the morning. In Houston, high school nurse Terry Collins got a letter informing her that after 34 years of voting she was off the Harris County rolls. Sorry. “Friday of last week, I got a letter saying that my voting registration would be revoked because I’m deceased, I’m dead. I was like, ‘Oh, no I’m not!’ ” Collins says. In order to stay on the rolls, the 52-year-old nurse had to call and inform the registrar of her status among the living. She tried, but it didn’t go so well. “When I tried to call I was on hold for an hour, never got anyone,” she says. “I called three days in a row and was on hold for an hour or more.” Collins, who is black, says she noticed that in Houston, quite a few of those who got the letters seemed to be older and black. “There’s one lady here. She’s 52. She’s African-American. Her dad is 80. They both got a letter saying they’re dead,” she says.

Texas: Harris County says state erred with lists of ‘dead’ voters | Houston Chronicle

The Harris County Attorney’s office on Tuesday defended Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners’ decision not to purge presumed-dead voters from the rolls until after the November election, and accused the secretary of state’s office of not following the law in providing a list of 9,000 such voters to the county. About 72,800 voters statewide have received or will receive letters telling them records suggest they may be dead and that they must act within 30 days to stay on the rolls. The list was generated by the secretary of state using the Social Security Administration’s master death file, as outlined in a new state law. “The notice from the secretary of state did not make the required determination that the voters on the list were deceased,” County Attorney Vince Ryan said, adding that two of his attorneys received the letters. “This action by the Texas secretary of state is outrageous, wrong, and unlawful.” Ryan also said the state cannot force Sumners, as the county voter registrar, to send the letters.

Texas: Sorting out the facts involving Texas’ dead voter “purge” | kvue.com

Some 600,000 names represent Travis County’s voting roll, and who’s on the list is the target of the latest round of election inspection.
Passed virtually unanimously during the 82nd Texas Legislature in 2011, HB 174 requires the state to verify its voter rolls against the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. “In addition to comparing against the information submitted by local officials concerning deceased persons, the Secretary of State must also obtain death information quarterly from the United States Social Security Administration and compare against this information as well,” states the bill’s summary. As a result, some voters have received letters saying some combination of their name and date of birth potentially match someone listed by the federal government as deceased, giving them 30 days to contact the county and avoid having their registration canceled.

Rhode Island: Secretary of State says voter fraud claims are ‘concerning’ | WPRI.com

Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis said the voter fraud allegations made by congressional candidate Anthony Gemma were “concerning” and questioned whether the candidate should have held a news conference to present his findings. “You have someone going on for a half hour with allegations and not much to back it up,” said Ralph Mollis. “You want people to participate and to have confidence in the process.” On Wednesday Anthony Gemma leveled stunning allegations of voter fraud against his Democratic rival, incumbent Congressman David Cicilline. Those allegations included coaxing people to vote, getting individuals to cast multiple ballots at multiple polling places, teaching underage individuals how to vote fraudulently, abusing the absentee ballot system, using dead voters’ names to cast ballots, tampering with electronic voting machines and registering to vote at businesses and vacant lots. Gemma claimed the fraud took place in Providence between 2002 and 2010.

Virginia: Board of Elections finds 10,000 dead voters on rolls | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The State Board of Elections has identified 10,000 dead individuals on the Virginia voter rolls. The voters were identified through a data comparison between the Social Security Administration’s death master file and the current list of registered voters in Virginia. Local registrars will now begin removing the names from the rolls, but the finding is likely the tip of the iceberg. Only 15 million of the 60 million records in the death master file have been matched against the state’s voter list thus far.

South Carolina: Charge of ‘dead voters’ disputed | TheState.com

“Zombies” are not voting in South Carolina, the state’s top election official said Wednesday, disputing claims by another state official that more than 950 dead voters have cast ballots in S.C. elections. Marci Andino, director of the S.C. State Election Commission, testified before a House panel that some of the voters the Department of Motor Vehicles claims are dead actually are alive. “In many cases, these are people that our (county election officials) know, and these people are very much alive,” Andino said.

South Carolina: New report of potential “dead voters” in South Carolina … and it’s not even Halloween | Election Law Blog

In the wake of James O’Keefe’s latest videos about fictitious “dead voters,” now comes a new investigation in South Carolina, looking for “actual” “dead voters.”  In reviewing the state’s motor vehicle records and its voting rolls, there is apparently evidence indicating that 900 people listed as deceased are also listed as voting in subsequent elections  (I’m not sure what time period is involved). With South Carolina filing a preclearance lawsuit over the new photo ID law that earned an objection from DOJ, and with the general media hubbub around the state’s upcoming presidential primary, expect this to get an awful lot of attention … along with an awful lot of misinformation.