Cambodia: Voting numbers questioned | Phnom Penh Post

Voting results at more than 200 newly established polling stations were “heavily skewed” towards the ruling party at the July election, while seven communes recorded voter turnouts in excess of 110 per cent of eligible voters, a new report from an umbrella group of election monitors has found. Sixty-nine per cent of the 209 new polling stations established for this election were won by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, “well above the nationwide average where the ruling party won 53% of the time”, the Electoral Reform Alliance (ERA) says in the report officially slated for release on December 13 but posted online by the opposition party on Thursday. Of the 902 polling stations created for the election, 691 of them were formed from the splitting of existing stations, 209 were newly established, and two relocated, says the report, prepared by groups including Transparency International, the National Democratic Institute, Comfrel, NICFEC and Licadho.

Nepal: Vote Count Begins | Wall Street Journal

Officials began counting votes on Wednesday that were cast during election for a new constituent assembly to draw up a long-delayed constitution and pick a new Nepal government. Election Commission official Bir Bahadur Rai said the counting started in several districts and that boxes filled with ballot papers had reached counting centers in at least 20 districts. In the capital, Katmandu, election officials opened ballot boxes collected from all 10 constituencies at the International Convention Center and began counting the thousands of ballot papers. Mr. Rai said arrangements were being made to fly ballot boxes from some mountain areas by helicopter because snow had blocked roads. Nepal has 75 districts of which most of them are mountainous. More than 70% of the 12 million eligible voters cast their votes during Tuesday’s election in Nepal to choose the 601-member Constituent Assembly that would double as the parliament. First results are expected by late Wednesday and final results are going to take at least a week.

Pennsylvania: DePasquale: $1M on Voter ID Ads Like Betting $1M on Steelers | PoliticsPA

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale thinks the Department of State is out of line to spend $1 million this year on its Voter ID ads. The campaign instructs voters to show photo identification at the polls in November, despite a Commonwealth Court injunction on the requirement. Voters are not required to present photo ID. “Wasting $1 million to promote a law that is not even in effect is like putting $1 million on my 2-4 Steelers to win this year’s Super Bowl,” said DePasquale, a Pittsburgh native. “Instead of spending $1 million on a voter education problem that doesn’t exist, we should invest in making it easier for eligible voters to cast their ballot.”

Nepal: Panel considers splinter group’s demands | The Hindu

With the Election Commission’s mid-August deadline — to settle political negotiations to hold the elections for a second Constituent Assembly (CA) on November 19 — on time, parties in Nepal intensified negotiations this week to bring the dissenting parties on board. “The roulette wheel is turning, we’ll find out by Sunday where the ball lands,” said Upendra Yadav, whose party Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has been asking for the Chairman of the Council of Ministers to resign as Chief Justice; to raise the number for proportional representation in the proposed Assembly to be 58 per cent; to reopen the voter registration drive to include approximately four million eligible voters currently missing from the voter roll; and to delineate the constituencies based on population. Similar demands have been raised by another dissenting party, the Federal Socialist Party (FSP), which wants the government to make provision for Nepalis residing abroad to vote; and has called for an “all party conference” to guide the country’s political future until the elections are held. “If polls are held under the status quo, the country will return to conflict,” warned Mr. Yadav, echoed by FSP. Both parties are vying for concessions to improve their electoral arithmetic.

Iowa: Secretary of State expects results of fraud probe soon | Quad City Times

After a couple of “hiccups” getting started, a state investigation into voter fraud is “moving in the right direction” and Iowans will begin seeing results soon, Secretary of State Matt Schultz said. “We had a couple of setbacks, but we’re doing the best we can,” the first-term Republican said Wednesday while in Coralville. Shortly after the investigation began, a Division of Criminal Investigation agent assigned to look into voter fraud allegations was called to active duty in the National Guard, and a second agent had to be assigned to the cases. “It’s been like trying to use a shovel to move a mountain,” Schultz said. “Quite frankly, we could use more resources, but I anticipate having answers soon.” The investigation has not been without detractors. Chief among them is Democrat Brad Anderson, who wants Schultz’s job. Anderson, who worked for former Gov. Chet Culver and was state director of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, has called the investigation a waste. “Look,” Anderson said Thursday, “any secretary of state should be diligent about going after voter fraud. But he should go about it without disenfranchising voters.”

Oregon: Senate rejects universal voter registration proposal | Oregon Live

Legislation aimed at adding hundreds of thousands of registered voters in Oregon failed by a single vote in the state Senate on Sunday. Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, joined with all 14 Republicans to defeat a bill that would automatically register eligible voters when they received new or updated driver licenses in Oregon. Secretary of State Kate Brown had promoted House Bill 3521 as an ambitious way to remove barriers to voting and greatly increase voting participation in the state.  But critics, particularly from the Republican Party, said they feared the bill would lead to greater voter fraud in Oregon and that anyone who cared enough to vote should take personal responsibility for registering.

Alaska: Voter case under review | Juneau Empire

It appears someone registered to vote in Alaska and another state cast ballots in both states during the November election, an Alaska elections official said Thursday. Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai said the matter was sent to the criminal division of the Department of Law for review earlier this month. “At this point in time, it appears to be the same person,” Fenumiai told The Associated Press. “Signatures look the same. Other information matches. And I believe it’s the same person.” She declined to identify the other state.

New York: Bill would remove ‘insignificant’technicalities on affidavit ballots | Legislative Gazette

Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk and Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, joined by Board of Elections’ officials from several counties, announced legislation they say would protect New Yorkers’ right to vote and ensure their votes are counted. One of the measures (S.4270/A.6817) would prevent affidavit ballots from being disqualified for “insignificant, hyper technical reasons,” the sponsors say, as long as the voter is eligible, registered and in substantial compliance with voting regulations. Specifically, the bill removes the requirement in Election Law that a voter filing an affidavit ballot include in that document the address from which they were last registered to vote. In addition, the bill adds “substantial compliance” to the requirements for demonstrating completion of the affidavit and ballot.

Editorials: In Oregon, the right to vote should be automatic | OregonLive.com

Every time Oregon holds an election, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh gets a vote. Probably, he gets thousands of votes — or at least keeps other people from casting them. In 1986, following the Rajneeshees’ comical but vicious attempt to take over Wasco County by busing in homeless people to vote, Oregon voters enacted a registration cutoff 20 days before an election. The bhagwan is long gone, but every election thousands of Oregon voters who get interested in a contest too late are kept out of the election process. Now Secretary of State Kate Brown has a proposal, based on what Oregon has learned over two decades’ experience with the mail ballot: Getting to vote should be easy, not hard.

National: Supreme Court rejects call to change voting district head counts | Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court has rejected a conservative challenge to the common practice of counting everyone, not just U.S. citizens, when adjusting the size of voting districts across the nation. Without comment, the justices let stand a redistricting rule that benefits urban areas like Los Angeles and Chicago that have a higher percentage of noncitizens as residents. Since the 1960s, the court has said that election districts should be equal in size under the so-called one person, one vote rule. Under this rule, U.S. representatives, state legislators, city council members and county board members usually represent about the same number of people. But the court had not ruled directly on whether these districts should be counted based on the number of persons who live there or on the number of citizens who are eligible to vote.

Virginia: Advocacy groups urge McDonnell to veto voter ID bills | Augusta Free Press

The ACLU of Virginia and more than a dozen other groups concerned about voting rights today sent a letter to Governor Bob McDonnell urging him to veto legislation that imposes stricter identification requirements at the polls, which the groups expect will limit eligible voters’ access on Election Day. “We all agree that the integrity of our electoral process is paramount,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga.  “And part of maintaining the integrity of the process is ensuring that no eligible voter is denied the right to vote. Last year, Virginia changed its voter ID laws and spent $2 million in taxpayer dollars to issue new voter registration cards and launch a voter education campaign,” added Gastañaga.  “Now, following an election with long lines but no instances of fraud, we are looking at legislation that imposes even stricter ID requirements that are unnecessary and will be burdensome, particularly for voters who are elderly, racial and ethnic minorities, students, persons with disabilities, and low-income.”

Australia: Electoral Commission bids for change | Bunbury Mail

Many people who turned up to cast their vote on Saturday were surprised to find out they were one of 240,000 West Australians that were not listed on the electoral roll, prompting the WA Electoral Commission to look to other states for a solution. WA Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately said while the commission often contacted people at what were believed to be their new addresses, the onus was for voters to respond and provide their details so they could be enrolled. Some people simply chose not to turn up, despite voting being compulsory. Mr Gately said a solution which had been picked up in New South Wales, was to enrol people automatically as a result of change of address information supplied to government departments. For this to happen, legislative change is required.

Voting Blogs: True The Vote Fudges the Numbers in New Turnout Study | FairVote.org

True the Vote, an organization dedicated to eradicating voter fraud through controversial methods, issued a report on February 27 concluding that voter ID laws and other election changes allegedly meant to reduce voter fraud not only did not have an adverse impact on turnout in the 2012 elections, but may have helped to increased turnout. Its findings have been trumpeted by many news outlets who do not believe such laws suppress voter turnout. But it turns out the report’s authors made a huge methodological mistake. They compared turnout of eligible voters in 2008 to turnout of registered voters in 2012. Correcting this error reverses their findings. All but one of the states with these new laws experienced a decline in voter turnout, and most experienced a decline greater than the national turnout decline from 2008 to 2012.

Cyprus: Last-minute dash to register for elections | Cyprus Mail

Hundreds of Cypriots made last minute applications yesterday to become eligible to vote in next month’s presidential elections.
According to head of the Interior Ministry’s Electoral Service, Demetris Demetriou, the number of people who registered on the electoral roll in the last five days equalled the tally collected for the last three months. The Electoral Service, District Offices, and Citizen’s Service Centres around the island closed their doors at 5pm yesterday to those eligible voters wishing to add their names to the electoral roll, both domestically and abroad, ahead of the February 17 presidential elections.

Editorials: Nationalize Oversight and Control of Elections | NYTimes.com

Long lines. New voting machines that don’t work right. Poll workers wrongfully asking for photo ID. Democratic election officials keeping Republican poll watchers out of Philadelphia polling places. We have come to expect such stories on Election Day. As much drama is generated by the obstacles voters must overcome as by their choice of candidate. A nonpartisan board, with a chief selected by a Congressional supermajority, could set standards and choose procedures. There is a better way. We can do things as they are done in most mature democracies, like Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Nationalize our elections and impose professional nonpartisan administrators. A neutral election board with its allegiance to the integrity of the voting process rather than to a political party should take on the basic tasks of voting. The goal would be to make sure that all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, could cast a vote that would be accurately counted.

Vanuatu: Electoral commission chair spells out need for new roll | Radio New Zealand

The chairman of Vanuatu’s Electoral Commission says he’s told political leaders that the country critically needs a new electoral roll for the next general election. The Commission’s official number of registered voters in the recent general election – over 192,000 – is believed to be a huge inflation of the real number of eligible voters. The chairman John Taleo says the blowout is partly explained by that fact that changes to the voter circumstances, such as people moving to different islands or overseas, or people dying, are often not recorded properly.

Ohio: All Ohioans’ votes will count, Husted says | Toledo Blade

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said he believes every Ohioan will be able to easily vote in Nov. 6 election — a message somewhat overshadowed by his opinion that recent federal court rulings hinder the state’s ability to run an election. He was the keynote speaker at a day-long symposium Friday at the University of Toledo college of law. During a half-hour talk, the Republican secretary of state addressed voting accuracy and accessibility and spoke of updates in the state’s voter information that will lead to increased confidence in elections. Sponsored by the Toledo Law Review, the legal symposium focused on how elections are financed and monitored. Titled “Votes and Voices in 2012: Issues Surrounding the November Election and Beyond,” the conference included four panels discussing issues.

Minnesota: Voter ID foes decry unfairness to seniors | Winona Daily News

For nearly 70 years, Christeen Stone has voted in every election without having to present a document to prove she is a qualified voter. Stone has voted in the same precinct since 1944, when she moved into her Maplewood home. That’s one reason she said she strongly objects to a proposed constitutional amendment that would require Minnesota voters to present photo identification at the polls. “It’s just an insult to people who have voted all their lives,” said Stone, 91. “They’ve been good citizens, and then to go in and be suspects in their own country, I don’t like that.“ Opponents of the constitutional amendment claim the proposed requirement would it make harder, if not impossible, for thousands of people to cast a ballot. They say senior citizens are among those most likely to face hurdles, because many of them cannot readily produce the documents to prove their identity.

Pakistan: What is an error-free voters’ list? | Naeem Sadiq

Pakistan is rapidly heading for another electoral disaster. It continues to retain its archaic and unnecessary electoral list-making process that can do no better than what it did last time. While it ended up manufacturing 37 million fake voters in 2008, the results will not be much different this time around. There are at least four types of flaws that call for immediate attention. Based on the 1998 census, Pakistan’s current population should be around 190 million people. Fifty-one percent of our population is above 18 years. This means there are 97 million Pakistanis who are eligible to vote. The voters’ list released by the Election Commission of Pakistan shows only 84.4 million voters. It simply means that there are 12.6 million eligible voters who are not included in the current voters’ list. Organisations such as the Free and Fair Elections Network consider the gap to be much higher.

Voting Blogs: Thousands of Non-Citizen Voters? It’s Déjà Vu in Michigan | Brennan Center for Justice

Michigan’s Secretary of State is joining a growing trend among state elections officials: Declare that thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote and then use those allegations to justify efforts that confuse, intimidate, and in some cases purge eligible voters on the eve of the election. But similar claims about ineligible voters in Florida and Colorado were debunked within a matter of weeks after being publicly disclosed. So why is Sec. Ruth Johnson jumping on the bandwagon, saying there are 4,000 non-citizens registered to vote? Is there something different about Michigan? Almost certainly not. To quickly recap: In Florida it was initially asserted that as many as 180,000 potential non-citizens were registered to vote. Claims of registered non-citizens in Colorado were smaller, but still in the thousands — over 11,000. But as time went by, these lists decreased in size. In Florida, 180,000 morphed into 2,600 and later into 198, while in the Centennial state 11,000 shrunk to 3,900 and then to 141. The final numbers represent thousandths of a percent of all registered voters in each state. But Michigan is a different state. Perhaps Johnson has learned from these fiascos and developed a more reliable and efficient system for identifying the extremely small percentage of non-citizens who may be on the rolls? Unfortunately, no.

Voting Blogs: Thousands of Non-Citizen Voters? It’s Déjà Vu in Michigan | Brennan Center for Justice

Michigan’s Secretary of State is joining a growing trend among state elections officials: Declare that thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote and then use those allegations to justify efforts that confuse, intimidate, and in some cases purge eligible voters on the eve of the election. But similar claims about ineligible voters in Florida and Colorado were debunked within a matter of weeks after being publicly disclosed. So why is Sec. Ruth Johnson jumping on the bandwagon, saying there are 4,000 non-citizens registered to vote? Is there something different about Michigan? Almost certainly not. To quickly recap: In Florida it was initially asserted that as many as 180,000 potential non-citizens were registered to vote. Claims of registered non-citizens in Colorado were smaller, but still in the thousands — over 11,000. But as time went by, these lists decreased in size. In Florida, 180,000 morphed into 2,600 and later into 198, while in the Centennial state 11,000 shrunk to 3,900 and then to 141. The final numbers represent thousandths of a percent of all registered voters in each state. But Michigan is a different state. Perhaps Johnson has learned from these fiascos and developed a more reliable and efficient system for identifying the extremely small percentage of non-citizens who may be on the rolls? Unfortunately, no.

Florida: Governor Rick Scott’s voter purge efforts start anew | Tampa Bay Times

Florida’s noncitizen voter purge efforts surged back to life Wednesday as Gov. Rick Scott’s elections office produced a new list of 198 potentially ineligible voters, including 39 who voted in past elections. The list was compiled from data maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the state calls highly reliable, and is headed to county election supervisors, who must give anyone listed 30 days to respond. Any noncitizen who registered illegally could face criminal charges. The decision to revive the controversial program 41 days before Election Day in the nation’s biggest battleground state is stirring new controversy, even though some names on the new list were on a previous — and flawed — list of nearly 2,700 suspected noncitizens released in May. “We are doing absolutely the right thing,” Scott said recently in defending the state’s efforts to remove noncitizens from the rolls. “We believe in honest, fair elections.”

Belarus: Boycotted Belarus election declared valid | UPI.com

Enough residents voted in otherwise-boycotted Parliamentary elections in Belarus to make the results valid, the country’s Central Election Commission has declared. The commission ruled Sunday that more than 50 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the elections for all 110 seats in the Belarus National Assembly, the nation’s lower house of Parliament, RIA Novosti reported. The country’s two main opposition parties — the United Civic and BPF parties –boycotted the polls because of alleged fraud, urging voters to skip what they called “pseudo-elections” for the “rubber-stamp” lower house.

Iowa: Immigrant advocates again voice concerns over new voter-registration rules | Des Moines Register

New state rules meant to identify noncitizens on Iowa’s voter rolls could have the unintended effect of intimidating eligible voters, several Iowans and immigrant advocates told a state panel on Tuesday. The rules at issue – passed this summer through an emergency process without public input – outline procedures for the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to use a federal database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters in Iowa. Secretary of State Matt Schultz has been seeking access to the database for several months, after determining using state Department of Transportation records that more than 3,500 people who are in the country legally but are not citizens are registered to vote in Iowa. Tapping the federal data would allow Schultz’s office to determine more accurately which of those voters are not citizens and thus ineligible to vote. The new rules are meant to satisfy the federal government’s demands for how the database will be used.

Iowa: Voter fraud rules criticized as ‘chilling’ | The Des Moines Register

New state rules meant to identify noncitizens on Iowa’s voter rolls could have the unintended effect of intimidating eligible voters, several Iowans and immigrant advocates told a state panel on Tuesday. The rules at issue — passed this summer through an emergency process without public input — outline procedures for the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to use a federal database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters in Iowa. Secretary of State Matt Schultz has been seeking access to the database for several months. By using state Department of Transportation records, Schultz believes he has identified more than 3,500 people who are in the country legally and are registered to vote in Iowa, but are not citizens. Tapping the federal data would allow Schultz’s office to determine more accurately which of those voters are not citizens and thus ineligible to vote. The new rules are meant to satisfy the federal government’s demands for how the database will be used.

Iowa: Secretary of State clarifies ineligible voter rules | The Des Moines Register

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz on Friday provided the fullest explanation yet of his office’s search for ineligible voters and picked up bipartisan support for the effort. Schultz, a Republican, was joined by Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller at a news conference to announce the state’s formal response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and a Latino group challenging new administrative rules related to voter registration. Miller backed up Schultz’s actions and said the state would oppose the ACLU’s request to prevent the rules from taking effect.

Texas: GOP vows to defend Voter ID; Latino vote in Southwest could decline | Open Channel

Every month for the next two decades, 50,000 Latinos in the U.S. will turn 18 years old. With that many new eligible voters and dramatic population growth expected, Latinos could dominate voting in the Southwest, particularly Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. Every year, 600,000 more Latinos become eligible voters, making them a potentially potent voting force. However,  Latinos have a historically low turnout at the polls: Only around 30 percent of eligible Latinos vote, according to the non-profit Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. Advocacy groups see the national push toward more stringent voter identification laws as a way to suppress an already apathetic Latino vote.

Colorado: Gessler asks 4,000 prove eligibility or get off Colorado voter rolls | The Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has mailed letters to about 4,000 registered voters his office suspects may be noncitizens, asking them to either verify that they have become citizens or to voluntarily remove themselves from the state’s voter rolls. The letters, sent Wednesday to people who used a noncitizen identification when they applied for a Colorado driver’s license and who also are registered to vote, includes a “verification of voter eligibility” form for people who have become citizens to fill out and return. The letters also include instructions on how noncitizens may withdraw their registration. “Our approach improves the integrity of our voter rolls,” Gessler said in a statement Thursday. “Once we cut through the political noise, voters will see a measured approach that enforces the law and ensures that legal votes aren’t cancelled out by illegal voters.”

National: New voting rules make getting Latinos to polls harder than ever | Tucson Sentinel

Every month for the next two decades, 50,000 Latinos will turn 18 years old. With that many new eligible voters and dramatic population growth expected, Latinos could dominate voting in the Southwest, particularly Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. Every year, 600,000 more Latinos become eligible voters, making them a potentially potent voting force. However,  Latinos have a historically low turnout at the polls: Only around 30 percent of eligible Latinos vote, according to the non-profit Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center. Advocacy groups see the national push toward more stringent voter identification laws as a way to suppress an already apathetic Latino vote. Of the nation’s 21.3 million eligible Latino voters, only 6.6 million voted in the 2010 elections, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. White and black voters had higher turnout — 48.6 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

Editorials: Why Today’s Voter ID Face-off in Pennsylvania Is Crucial | The Nation

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele had a message for the hundreds of people gathered at the State Capitol yesterday to rally against voter ID laws: “Go home” and find ways to make their fellow citizens comply with the state’s controversial law. “We hope that some of the people who are outside would go home from this rally,” said Aichele during a closed-door press conference. “Focus that energy, go home and find five people who need transportation to a [driver’s license] ID center and take those people to get photo identification.” Today, a court will begin hearing arguments in a case to determine whether the state’s voters must in fact carry Aichele’s burden. Ten Pennsylvania residents will seek to demonstrate how the state denied them ID for voting purposes, thereby showing the harmful effect of the law that is required to knock it down. The voters’ lawyers are seeking an injunction to stop the law due to the problems it poses for hundreds of thousands of voters. For an injunction, they don’t have to prove the law violates voters’ rights. They need only to convince a judge that there are too many unresolved issues with the law that deserve deeper scrutiny. The legal push and pull over voter ID laws has moved through a growing number of states, as federal and state courts weigh the laws’ constitutionality. The fight in Pennsylvania, like an earlier one in Wisconsin, stands out in that plaintiffs believe they’ll be able to show clear harm to specific groups of people, including along racial lines.