California: Halting of Palmdale election may have implications for other cities | Los Angeles Times

A judge’s halting of Palmdale’s November election could have implications for other cities facing lawsuits under the California Voting Rights Act. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney on Monday canceled the election after earlier finding that Palmdale’s at-large method of choosing council members deprived minority voters of the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice. Officials plan to appeal, with City Atty. Matthew Ditzhazy calling the ruling “wildly unprecedented and radical.” Some voters already have been sent mail-in ballots, he said. Activists seeking minority representation on city councils, school boards and other governmental bodies have been pushing for by-district elections throughout California. Ethnically diverse jurisdictions that hold at-large elections and have few, if any, minority officeholders are especially vulnerable under state law, experts said.

Texas: House Approves Changes to Ballot Harvesting Bill | The Texas Tribune

The final version of a controversial bill filed to prevent so-called ballot harvesting was approved by the House, but not before a key provision was diluted in the Senate. House Bill 148, by state Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, was signed by the House on Friday. It makes it a crime to offer a person compensation based on the number of mail-in ballots he or she collects during an election. Proponents of the bill say the practice leads to voter fraud and possible voter intimidation.

California: Alleged voter fraud in Little Armenia being investigated | Los Angeles Times

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of voter fraud in Little Armenia, part of a Los Angeles City Council district where two candidates are waging a bitter battle for an open seat. According to a spokeswoman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, prosecutors are trying to determine whether backers of one candidate illegally filled out mail-in ballots for dozens of voters in the Armenian enclave in East Hollywood. The May 21 election will decide who succeeds Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor. In a complaint sent to Lacey’s office, an attorney for candidate John Choi accused backers of Choi’s opponent, Mitch O’Farrell, of “widespread voter fraud and illegal electioneering activities.”

Colorado: Elections bill stirs passions | Our Colorado News

A Democratic-sponsored bill that would put in place sweeping changes to how Colorado elections are conducted passed a state legislative committee on April 15, following a lengthy and heavily debated hearing that went deep into the night. House Bill 1303 would change the state’s election code to allow for same-day voter registration and would put ballots in the mailboxes of every registered voter. The bill also would do away with a system where “inactive” voters — those who did not vote in the previous election — do not continue to receive mail-in ballots. Democrats say the changes would encourage more involvement in the voting process, and would save taxpayer dollars on things like voting equipment, because fewer people would need to vote in person.

California: Success of mail-in ballots lengthens campaign, candidates say | Glendale News Press

More Glendale voters used the postal service to cast their votes than a polling center ballot box for the election on Tuesday, a trend that’s been on the rise in the city — and across the state — now for years. The shift, candidates and elections experts say, has meant harder and longer campaigns that must capture voters over a much longer period of time. “You have to make sure you get your message out there in time for the earlier voters,” said Lori Cox Han, professor of political science at Chapman University. City Council incumbent Laura Friedman’s campaign was a case in point. She timed her television ads, which ran on both cable and broadcast channels, to air around the time the sample ballots arrived. “The polls were open as soon as those absentee ballot were in their hands,” said Friedman, who, according to unofficial results released this week, recaptured her seat. About 62% of voters in Tuesday’s municipal election voted by mail, roughly the same as 2011, but up 5% since 2007.

Illinois: County clerk tells of possible campaign problems in Cicero | chicagotribune.com

Allegations such as voters being offered pizza coupons and campaign workers insisting on handling mail-in ballots for town residents have sprung up in Cicero as the heated race for town president heads into its final week. The Cook County clerk’s office has notified law enforcement officials, including the state’s attorney’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice, of such allegations and other claims of voter intimidation and voter fraud in the western suburb. Incumbent Larry Dominick is seeking his third term as town president. He will face former McPier executive Juan Ochoa and former town senior services director Joe Pontarelli next Tuesday. “The state’s attorney is out there (in Cicero) this week interviewing people about the allegations,” Cook County Clerk David Orr said Monday at a news conference. Orr said his office has gotten several complaints from voters. He said he is disturbed about town employees in uniforms who are allegedly campaigning and knocking on doors.

Nebraska: Mail-only election expansion sought | Columbus Telegram

Platte County is too large to use only mailed ballots during regular elections, but the county has taken advantage of an exception allowing them to mail Platte Center voters ballots in a special election on a new sales tax. But, the exception would become the rule if Election Commissioner Diane Olmer gets her way. During the Platte County Board of Supervisors regular meeting Wednesday, Olmer presented a letter to the supervisors addressed to District 22 Sen. Paul Schumacher urging him to work to revise a provision that bars counties with more than 10,000 residents from collecting only mailed ballots during general and primary elections. The letter asks the legislator to introduce a bill that raises or eliminates the population cap.

California: Mail ballots hit an all-time high in California general election | Sacramento Bee

California saw a record share of general election voters opt to cast their ballot by mail this year, with 51 percent of the state’s 13.2 million participants using mail-in ballots. The general election record, which still trails the state’s all-time high of 65 percent mail-in ballots set in this year’s primary, was announced today as Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s released the official statement of vote. The numbers include vote-by-mail ballots dropped off at polling stations as late as Election Day.

New Jersey: Slammed by Sandy, New Jersey counties seek more time to count ballots | Philadelphia Inquirer

Fourteen New Jersey counties, swamped with provisional and mail-in ballots in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, on Tuesday were granted more time to count. Those counties, including Burlington, Camden and Gloucester, have until next week to certify the results of the Nov. 6 election. That means a few close local races in towns such as Stratford, Laurel Springs, Delanco, Bordentown, and Moorestown will remain undecided a while longer. “Election offices are bombed here” because of overseas and provisional ballots, Camden County Election Commissioner Robert Venuti said Tuesday. The county has yet to start counting those ballots, he said.

National: Mail-in ballots: the hanging chads of 2012? | Reuters

Sloppy signatures on mail-in ballots might prove to be the hanging chads of the 2012 election. As Republicans and Democrats raise alarms about potential voter fraud and voter suppression, mail-in ballots have boomed as an uncontroversial form of convenient, inexpensive voting. In the critical swing states of Ohio and Florida, more than a fifth of voters chose the mail-in option 2010. In Colorado, another battleground, the number was nearly two-thirds. But there may be controversy to come. For a variety of reasons, mail-in ballots are much more likely to be rejected than conventional, in-person votes.

National: Mail-in ballots: the hanging chads of 2012? | Reuters

As Republicans and Democrats raise alarms about potential voter fraud and voter suppression, mail-in ballots have boomed as an uncontroversial form of convenient, inexpensive voting. In the critical swing states of Ohio and Florida, more than a fifth of voters chose the mail-in option 2010. In Colorado, another battleground, the number was nearly two-thirds. But there may be controversy to come. For a variety of reasons, mail-in ballots are much more likely to be rejected than conventional, in-person votes.

Colorado: Boulder County settles election lawsuit by allowing more access to ballot observers | Longmont Times-Call

Boulder County Clerk Hillary Hall agreed Monday to allow observers more access to the ballot counting process during the 2012 general election. Boulder County Libertarian Party chairman Ralph Shnelvar had filed a lawsuit alleging that Hall violated state law earlier this month by denying authorized election watchers’ ability “to meaningfully observe the handling” of mail-in absentee ballots and the ballots that active-duty members of the military and citizens living overseas have been sending back. The case was scheduled for a hearing Monday morning before Judge Maria Berkenkotter, but attorneys for both sides were able to reach an agreement without the hearing.

National: All Mail in Elections Beneficial in Some States | WREG

In The last Presidential election, 61% of eligible voters in Shelby County cast a ballot. In this past summer’s primary election saw a measly 17% voter turnout.  Some states, like Oregon and Washington, have started mailing people ballots. Those two states have some of the highest turnout every election. The voter fills out the ballot and and puts it back in the mailbox, casting their ballot. “I am voting and I think it would be a lot more convenient for everybody if we could do that,” said Stephanie Helay. While Shelby County saw that seventeen percent turnout in August Washington state saw an average of thirty-eight percent voter turnout.

Oklahoma: Mail-in ballots curtailed by new Oklahoma law | Tulsa World

Danya Curtis explains her 398-30 advantage from mail-in absentee votes in her Aug. 28 Adair County Clerk runoff with Cathy Jones Harrison very simply. “I identified about 1,200 people who did not vote in the primary who said they would vote for me, and I encouraged them to apply for absentee ballots.” Curtis lost the election day vote 925-748 and the early walk-in vote 85-35, but won because of write-in absentees. She also finished first in the three-way June 26 primary on the strength of mail-in absentee voting. “I followed the law. I helped with the request papers if they needed help and sent a notary to notarize the ballots if they needed that. “From my point of view, I honestly believe it was a matter of being able to get out and work.”

California: Bill Extends California Vote-Counting Deadline | The Associated Press

California would allow three extra days for mail-in ballots to be accepted by elections officials under a bill approved by the state Senate. Democratic Sen. Lou Correa of Anaheim says AB562 is needed because mail delivery may be delayed after the closure of five mail processing centers in California. The Senate passed the bill 28-9 Friday. It was headed to the Assembly for a final vote.

Editorials: Meet the hanging chad of 2012 – absentee ballots | NY Daily News

At this point in a closely fought presidential campaign, pundits and pollsters are checking their guts and sifting through data to try to predict November’s winner. Those of us who specialize in election law engage in a more heart-wrenching task: attempting to make an educated guess about the likelihood that one or another election irregularity will lead to a Bush v. Gore-style meltdown. My candidate for the honor of the next potential chad to dangle: absentee ballots. Competition for this year’s biggest potential ballot box nightmare is pretty stiff. We can expect the rise in voter identification laws to lead to some confusion at the polls. This confusion may arise both from the voters who face unfamiliar barriers to entry and from untrained poll workers who must enforce sometimes arcane, novel laws on the fly. This will probably lead to a large number of provisional ballots — the kind a poll worker gives you when they can’t find your name on the rolls. The legality of these would be determined in a post-election recount, if one comes to pass. But the silent, creeping revolution in the timing and method of voting presents bigger opportunities for trouble. In recent years, absentee and mail-in ballots have been steadily rising as a share of total ballots cast. The majority of states now allow “no-excuse absentee” voting, meaning anyone can ask to cast a ballot by mail. You don’t need the political equivalent of a doctor’s note, as was true previously.

Colorado: Technological problem delayed Tuesday’s vote tally in Pitkin County | AspenTimes.com

Though turnout in Tuesday’s election was light, the unofficial results couldn’t be released until nearly 1 a.m. because of a technological issue, Pitkin County elections manager Dwight Shellman III said Wednesday. The polls for the election, which featured a four-man open primary for the District 4 seat on the Board of County Commissioners, closed at 7 p.m. Nearly six hours later, after Shellman worked around the technology problem, the unofficial results were released, showing that Capitol Creek rancher Steve Child and former Snowmass Village Town Manager John B. Young were the two top vote-getters in the race, pulling 666 and 524 votes respectively. … Shellman said he discovered the problem at around 10:30 p.m. after most of the mail-in and Election Day precinct votes had already been tabulated. Turnout in the election — which also featured party primaries for congressional District 3, the District 61 state representative and district attorney for the 9th Judicial District — was 21.4 percent, or 1,789 ballots cast out of 8,356 active registered voters. “Everything was going just great,” Shellman said. “We had two, as we customarily do, optical scan machines programmed for the mail-in ballots, and the first one I uploaded had the majority, 621 ballots. It uploaded without a problem. And then I went to upload the second one, 319 mail-in ballots, and our tabulation software was giving me an error saying, ‘You’ve already uploaded this memory card.’ I’ve never encountered this before.” Shellman said he’s not exactly sure why he got the error message.

California: Uncounted ballots will settle Shasta County elections | Redding Record Searchlight

An estimated 13,075 ballots, the vast majority vote-by-mail, have yet to be counted in Shasta County, putting the results of some supervisor races in question. “We are all on pins and needles,” said Cathy Darling-Allen, the county clerk and registrar of voters. The vote-by-mail ballots were dropped off last week at polling stations around the county and the clerk’s office, she said. Poll workers reported around 5,478 absentee ballots turned in at polling places around the county. Others were dropped off at the clerk’s office on election day or were older and had yet to be counted. Shasta County also has 575 uncounted provisional ballots, according to the California Secretary of State’s count of unprocessed ballots Monday afternoon. Darling-Allen said her office had counted around 5,200 mail-in ballots turned in to poll workers so far.

California: San Diego Registrar of Voters Says Glitch Brought Down Results Website | San Diego 6

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office website crashed Tuesday night soon after posting its initial results from mail-in ballots and other early voting. Registrar Deborah Seiler told a local media outlet that some kind of glitch prevented results from being posting to the website, but there was no problem counting votes. The entire website was down for about two hours, until it returned around 10:20 p.m.

Colorado: Lawmakers battle over inactive voters | Aurora Sentinel

Senate Democrats moved to take down what they say is a roadblock that makes it more difficult for more than 100,000 voters to participate in the November elections, resurrecting a proposal Monday that House Republicans previously rejected. The legislative action would send mail-in ballots to so-called inactive voters who otherwise would have to cast ballots in person. And the implications are huge. About 37 percent of the affected voters are Democrats. Around 23 percent are Republicans. The remaining 40 percent are unaffiliated — a bloc both parties think they can use to pick up support. Democrats say they are pressing the issue to make voting easier, adding that the issue is more urgent with important state issues and the White House on the line. “I would think that we would want every possible soul who’s eligible to vote, to be able to vote in that election,” said Sen. Rollie Heath, the chair of the committee that brought back the plan.

California: Consultant wants Arcadia to split cost of Chinese-language ballot error | SGVTribune.com

The consultant who prepared the city’s General Election ballot with a critical error in its Chinese-language instructions said he wants the city to split the cost of the mistake. The mail-in ballots recently sent out to the city’s nearly 29,000 voters included instructions in four languages, but directed voters in Chinese to choose up to three instead of two City Council candidates in the race for two open seats. The mistake is expected to cost up to $10,000 and prompted the city to send out correction notices in the four languages to all voters, elections officials said. “We feel it should be a 50/50 split,” Scott Martin, president and owner of Anaheim-based Martin and Chapman Co., said. “We initiated it but they approved it. On our proof form, we emphasize to double check all spellings and translations.” A city election official signed a form stating that “Martin and Chapman Co. will not be responsible for any errors (including translations) found after the proofs are signed off.”

National: Postal Service to suspend closures during election season | The Washington Post

The U.S. Postal Service plans to suspend its planned closure of processing facilities and post offices during the November election season in response to concerns from state officials that the delivery of absentee or mail-in ballots might be lost or delayed in the shuffle. Postal officials announced plans last month to proceed with closing or consolidating at least 223 processing centers in the coming years in hopes of saving billions of dollars. USPS also plans to close thousands of post offices in the coming years in mostly rural communities. But state officials in Arizona, California, Ohio and Oregon, among others, complained that the changes could confuse voters accustomed to mailing ballots close to mail-in deadlines or Election Day.

California: Printing the elections: Mail processing’s role in the season Locals say consolidation affects campaigns, ballots | Times-Standard

If the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed mail processing center consolidation is implemented, local officials are concerned about possible repercussions on the upcoming election season. In addition to impacting the timeliness of mail-in votes, the consolidation may also raise the cost of printing and shipping ballots, according to local officials and Times Printing Co., the company that prints local election materials.

Postal Service spokesman James Wigdel said concerns surrounding the election, and others, are being discussed. ”That’s something that we would consider prior to a decision being made about the move,” he said.

At the Dec. 15 meeting regarding the consolidation of the Eureka mail processing center with one in Medford, Ore., Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich said the delay in processing could pose a problem for election mailings, especially mail-in ballots. Seventy-two percent of the voters in Humboldt County’s last election voted by mail. Crnich said the delay could mean ballots arriving late and not being counted.

Editorials: Maurice Emmer and Harvie Branscomb: Why insist on secrecy but dismiss anonymity? | AspenTimes.com

We both write repeatedly about the importance of election transparency. We present facts. We don’t make things up. Stories about revealing ballot “secrets” often sound like scary tales told to children. They are designed to frighten, not inform. Jack Johnson’s scary story recently published in another paper might trigger your instinct to fight, but that’s what fiction and political propaganda are intended to do.

Johnson’s column, and recent announcements by the city of Aspen, misconstrue election and open-records law as well as misrepresent the Marks v. Koch case and the Court of Appeals’ unanimous opinion in favor of ballot transparency. As untrue assertions have become Aspen’s norm, here we try to separate fact from fiction.

Spain: Cubans who became Spanish citizens recently are voting in Spain’s elections Sunday | bellinghamherald.com

Some Cubans will vote in their first democratic elections this Sunday. But they won’t be electing anyone in their own country. Instead, they will vote in Spain’s parliamentary elections because they are among the more than 25,000 Cubans who took advantage of a 2006 Spanish law that grants citizenship to the foreign-born grandchildren of Spanish emigrants.

More than 12,000 Spanish citizens living in Cuba requested mail-in ballots for Sunday’s parliamentary election, according to Spanish news media reports. Among them are expected to be some who were born Cuban and recently became Spaniards.

Maryland: Proposed Montgomery County legislation would allow voting by mail | gazette.net

Montgomery County voters would be able to cast their votes in special elections through a mail-in ballot under legislation proposed by a state lawmaker. Mail-in ballots would save the county money and encourage more voter participation in typically low-interest special elections, said Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville, who has prefiled the bill.

Voter turnout in the county for five special elections between April 2008 and May 2009 — made necessary after the deaths of two County Council members and the resignation of former U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn — ranged from 6.8 percent to 11.5 percent. Combined, those five elections cost $5.4 million. “I’m always on the lookout to save money,” said Forehand, who introduced similar vote-by-mail legislation in 2010 and 2011. Forehand also expects to introduce another bill during the General Assembly’s 90-day legislative session that would allow jurisdictions statewide to adopt voting by mail in special elections, Forehand said.