West Virginia: Election Commission questions constitutionality of public finance | State Journal

The State Elections Commission in a July 31 emergency meeting approved a motion to “actively defend constitutionality of matching funds law passed by the Legislature.” Allen Loughry, a Republican running for West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, was the only candidate for that office hoping to take part in the state’s public financing pilot project. The Commission decided in a July 17 vote to not release public financing funds to Loughry.

West Virginia: State Supreme Court candidate suing over public funds | AP

Supreme Court candidate Allen Loughry, the sole recipient of public campaign funds from a West Virginia pilot project, announced Monday that he had petitioned the Supreme Court to compel the release of the program’s so-called rescue funding. The Republican also said that he has weighed in on a federal lawsuit that seeks to strike down the pilot project’s rescue funding provision. Neither filing was immediately available late Monday.

National: With Elections Awash in Cash, There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around | NYTimes.com

David Axelrod, President Obama’s political strategist, recently invoked a common perception about the 2012 campaign by blaming the Supreme Court for empowering 21st-century “robber barons trying to take over the government.” But that explanation does not account for another development that probably has been just as influential as the court’s Citizens United decision in creating the flood of money into the election: the demise of the public financing system for elections, hastened by Mr. Obama’s decision four years ago to abandon it. So far, Mr. Obama, Mitt Romney and their respective parties have raised more than $1.2 billion — five times the amount raised by all “super PACs” combined — as they race frenetically for the cash they need to pay for television advertising, sophisticated technology and old-fashioned get-out-the-vote efforts. Nor is there any reason to expect a slowdown. Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Romney plans to take the $92 million per candidate on offer from public financing for this general election season, and combined they have raised less than $10 million for spending on the general election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. More than 95 percent of their receipts so far are for use only through the late-summer nominating conventions, meaning they still have far to go to fill their general election bank accounts.

National: Kucinich Announces ‘Game Changing’ Constitutional Amendment to Publicly Finance Federal Elections | NationofChange

On the eve of the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the Supreme Court rul­ing known as Cit­i­zens United, which opened the flood­gate of un­lim­ited, shad­owy cor­po­rate spend­ing in pub­lic elec­tions, Con­gress­man Den­nis Kucinich (D-OH) has in­tro­duced H. J. Res. 100, a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment to res­cue Amer­i­can democ­racy from cor­po­rate money’s cor­rupt­ing in­flu­ence.

Editorials: Public financing of presidential campaigns becomes divisive | Las Vegas Sun

You know that little box at the top of your tax form, the one that invites you to “check here” to donate $3 toward a presidential campaign fund? The one no one ever checks anyway? That too is turning into a partisan wedge issue in Washington, D.C.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted to do away with the box and shutter the Election Assistance Commission that handles the funds. Republican backers (no Democrats voted for the legislation) called it an effort to save money by eliminating a “bloated federal agency” that “has long outlived its purpose.” Sen. Harry Reid pre-emptively declared the bill dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate: Getting rid of the little $3 box, he explained, is really an act of voter suppression.

“Instead of making it so it’s easier for people to vote, they want to do everything they can to make it harder for people to vote,” Reid said of the Republican Party, complaining of efforts in certain states, including Nevada, to eliminate same-day registration at the polls. “They want as few people to vote as possible.”

California: Zany instant runoff race in San Francisco gives voters thousands of choices | Ventura County Star

The city that is home to the crookedest street in the world is this fall witnessing what surely could be the zaniest election in America. There are 16 people running for mayor and hardly a gadfly in the bunch. The field includes the current appointed mayor, two county supervisors, a state senator, the public defender, the city attorney, the assessor-recorder and three former supervisors.

Each is eligible for up to $900,000 in public financing, so none will be starved for campaign funds. Even those who find themselves dropping in the polls will be able to keep battling through Election Day.

When voters receive their ballots, they will have not one, not two, not even just 16 choices to make. Rather, under the instant-runoff voting system that is being used for the first time in a San Francisco mayoral election, they will have 3,360 distinct ways they could fill out their ballot.

New Zealand: Public spending on election ads comes under spotlight again in New Zealand | NZ Herald News

A decision by the Electoral Commission to refer a parliamentary-funded postcard from Labour to the police is expected to raise questions again about the extent of election advertising that will be funded by taxpayers in the run-up to the election. The postcard in question opposed asset sales and was funded by Labour’s parliamentary budget.

The Electoral Commission believes that because the postcard was election advertising as defined by the Electoral Act it needed a promoter statement on it, saying who authorised it. Labour’s statements on the issue suggests it thinks that simply because it was funded by Parliament, means it cannot be election advertising.

“Labour had taken the view that the flyer was not an election advertisement under the Act, in part because it had received prior authorisation from the Parliamentary Service for its publication,” campaign spokesman Grant Robertson said.