National: Presidential election 2012: Lawyers gird for possible recounts | POLITICO.com

As the frenzied race for the White House comes down to the wire, tens of thousands of partisan lawyers are mobilizing under the radar in battleground states, all steeling for one terrifying scenario: a recount that could decide the presidency. Their objective is to head off a repeat of the Gore-Bush fiasco 12 years ago in which Al Gore won the popular vote and George W. Bush captured the Electoral College and ultimately the presidency.“They are all bracing for Florida in 2000 — everyone wants to be in position so as not to be disadvantaged by a court decision in a tie,” says Steve Schmidt, who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “This [is] a preventive strategy. They are largely in search of problems that don’t yet exist. It’s like the Cold War and nuclear capability. You want to have what the other guy has. ”

National: Hurricane, and Other Worries, Buffet Presidential Race | NYTimes.com

In the dark of night, when they get what little sleep they get these days, the people running the campaigns for president have more than enough fodder for nightmares. Worse, come daybreak, they realize their worst fears may yet come true. Dancing in their heads are visions of recounts, contested ballots and lawsuits. The possibility that their candidate could win the popular vote yet lose the presidency. Even the outside chance of an Electoral College tie that throws the contest to Congress. Now add to that parade of potential horrors one more: a freakish two-in-one storm that could, if the more dire forecasts prove correct, warp an election two years and $2 billion in the making.

Editorials: Will Obama win Ohio thanks to Bush v. Gore? | Slate Magazine

ne part of the story of the 2012 voting wars is well known: Republican legislatures have passed a series of laws making it at least modestly harder for people to vote. These GOP-inspired rules have included limits on early voting, stricter rules for voter registration, and new voter ID laws to stamp out unproven allegations of voter fraud. Less well-known is that courts have reined in some of these excesses, including a decision to block Texas’s stringent voter ID law, an injunction putting Pennsylvania’s voter ID law on hold for this election, and a settlement  blocking the worst of Florida’s voter registration hurdles. The judicial record has been decidedly mixed. The Pennsylvania law will likely be approved by the 2014 elections, courts have allowed Republican secretaries of state to pursue purges of noncitizens from voting rolls despite ample evidence that the lists erroneously included many eligible voters, and federal courts recently refused to roll back Texas’ tough new voter registration rules.

National: Nightmare election scenarios worry both parties | Huffington Post

Here in a county that knows a thing or two about Election Day meltdowns, both parties are fretting over what might go seriously wrong before, during or just after the Nov. 6 presidential election. “More than 50 percent of the provisional ballots are thrown in the trash in this state,” Florida state Rep. Mark Pafford told about 80 retirees who gathered for last week’s meeting of the Golden Lakes Democratic Club. That’s only a slight exaggeration – 48 percent of the provisional ballots cast in Florida in 2008 were rejected. And Pafford’s warning underscores anxiety in Florida and other states about legal challenges, ballot problems or bizarre outcomes that could bedevil a race that seems likely to be close – conceivably as close as the 2000 contest that people still quarrel about. The mere mention of that election unsettles people in Palm Beach County. The county’s poorly designed “butterfly ballot” confused thousands of voters, arguably costing Democrat Al Gore the state, and thereby the presidency.

National: Parties Prepare for Post-Election Legal Battles | Roll Call

Election Day is still weeks away, but both parties are already gearing up for post-election legal battles over the House and Senate race outcomes.   Recounts in close races are only one scenario among many that party operatives refer to as “overtime” or “post-
election activities.” Lawyers and campaign committees are trying to be ready for whatever they may face on the morning of Nov. 7.  “On a weekly basis, we have been doing training with lawyers in key districts,” a national GOP operative said. “Each state is different; each process is different.”  Party committees are also actively fundraising to cover post-election legal fees.  Aides say that elections can be lost after the polls have closed and that being caught unprepared for a post-election dispute could be fatal to a campaign. One Democratic operative said he considers preparations for legal challenges as important as get-out-the-vote efforts.

Florida: One man’s election challenge of Brevard County FL primary continues | floridatoday.com

An employee of the Brevard County Clerk of Courts office wants to examine ballots from the Aug. 14 Republican primary, as he continues to express concerns about the results of the election, in which his boss was defeated. Sean Campbell, the chief deputy to Clerk of Courts Mitch Needelman, has been trading emails with Brevard County Supervisor of Elections Lori Scott, seeking to examine ballots from three election precincts. Campbell has suspicions about the accuracy of the reported vote counts, and wants to compare the paper ballots with reported totals. In the Republican primary, former Clerk of Courts Scott Ellis received 61 percent of the vote, to defeat Needelman, who got 39 percent.

Rhode Island: Supreme Court denies manual recount in Pawtucket House race | The Providence Journal

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has denied challenger Carlos Tobon’s bid for a manual recount of the Pawtucket House race he lost by one-vote, after four ballot counts produced four different results. In a 3-to-2 decision Friday, the high court said the state Board of Elections had already provided to Tobon – who lost to longtime state Rep. William San Bento 544 to 543 – all of the relief the law requires, including a “manual re-feeding of ballots” into the voting machines and “a manual recount of those ballots rejected by the machine.” Read the decision: Carlos Tobon v. Rhode Island Board of Elections et al. No. 2012-289-M.P. (Order).pdf

US Virgin Islands: St. Thomas-St. John primary to be recounted | Virgin Islands Daily News

Almost 300 paper ballots cast in the Sept. 8 primary will be counted a second time, the St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections decided Monday. The decision came in the form of approval of a request made by Jean Forde, who is the eight-place finisher in the Democratic primary for the St. Thomas-St. John Senate district. Forde, who asked for the recount in a notarized letter to the board, trails seventh-place finisher Justin Harrigan Sr. by five votes, 1,480 to 1,475, according to election results the board announced Friday. The meeting Monday was punctuated by flare-ups of a controversy that began at Friday’s meeting.

National: RNC Uses $5.3 Million Recount Fund To Bolster Total | Huffington Post

The Republican National Committee has counted more than $5 million in contributions it cannot use to help Republican candidates until after the November election as part of the pool of money it has available for the 2012 campaign. The RNC has taken in a whopping $5.29 million in donations for a recount fund that could be accessed if the results in the Nov. 6 election are indecisive. In the committee’s Federal Election Commission filings, the money is being counted among the $282,795,014 in total donations that it has received during the current electoral cycle. After the August fundraising period, the committee claimed to have $76,569,658 in cash on hand. In actuality, that figure is close to $71.2 million.

Connecticut: Mystery ballot fails to solve deadlocked primary race in Connecticut | U.S. News

Two recounts and a mystery absentee ballot have failed to produce a  winner in a deadlocked Democratic primary race in Connecticut’s 5th General Assembly District. The race between challenger Brandon McGee and party-endorsed candidate Leo Canty remained tied 774-774 after a second recount in Hartford on Tuesday resulted in no changes to the vote totals, The Hartford Courant reported. Election officials then thought an absentee ballot in an envelope labeled “deceased” would put an end to the race. That ballot had not been counted during the original election or during the two recounts, the Courant reported. Officials discovered Tuesday that the ballot was legitimate because it was cast by an elderly – but very much alive — woman who lives in a nursing home.

Connecticut: Voter mistaken for dead in crucial tied recount | UPI.com

The outcome of a Connecticut primary election hinges on the vote of a woman whose absentee ballot was marked “Deceased” but is very much alive, officials say. A recount Monday in the Democratic Party’s 5th General Assembly District primary found the party-endorsed candidate, Leo Canty, tied with challenger Brandon McGee at 774 votes each. At issue is an uncounted ballot, still in a sealed envelope and marked “Deceased,” the Hartford Courant reported Wednesday.

Connecticut: Ballot Cast By Woman Thought Dead Could Decide 5th House District Primary | Hartford Courant

An absentee ballot cast by an elderly Windsor woman who was thought to have been dead may decide the outcome of the disputed Democratic primary for the 5th General Assembly District nomination. That ballot, still contained in a sealed envelope, had not been counted either in the primary or in two recounts because it was marked “deceased.” But Windsor officials discovered Tuesday that the 91-year-old woman who cast the ballot is indeed alive and living in a local nursing home. The uncounted ballot could wind up being pivotal because a recount Monday in Windsor gave challenger Brandon McGee an additional vote, tying his race with party-endorsed candidate Leo Canty at 774 to 774. A recount of absentee ballots in Hartford Tuesday answered a lingering question about the tally, but didn’t change the result.

Florida: Lawmaker’s suit alleges absentee-ballot fraud at North Miami assisted living facilities, nursing homes | MiamiHerald.com

Charges of absentee-ballot fraud at assisted-living facilities and nursing homes are at the center of Rep. John Patrick Julien’s legal challenge to the results of the District 107 primary race for the Florida House. Julien, D-North Miami, who lost a razor-thin Democratic primary to Miami Gardens Rep. Barbara Watson last month, filed a court complaint Tuesday challenging the results of the race. After a recount, Watson won with 50.06 percent of the vote — a 13-vote edge. The court complaint, filed in Leon County, alleges that several absentee ballots tied to a North Miami nursing home may have been cast fraudulently. It highlights a political consultant who advertised herself as “The Queen of Absentee Ballots” and a woman who appeared on Haitian Creole radio, warning absentee voters to consult with “teacher Carline” before filling out their ballots. “We have meticulously researched the facts in this case and have very good evidence that the fraud in the District 107 is concentrated in ALFs and nursing homes,” said Juan-Carlos Planas, an attorney for Julien and a former Republican legislator.

Florida: Brevard County FL Clerk’s campaign aide seeks recount, suspects hacking | floridatoday.com

Sean Campbell, the chief deputy to Clerk of Courts Mitch Needelman, said he has suspicions about the results of the primary election last week that ousted his boss and want the Supervisor of Elections Office to check into it. Former Clerk Scott Ellis won that election, getting 61 percent of the vote to Needelman’s 39 percent. Campbell said he fears that the vote-counting system may have been hacked, either from within the Supervisor of Elections Office or from the outside, and the results reported were not the actual vote totals. He wants election officials to hand-count ballots from three randomly selected precincts to double-check the accuracy of the reported totals. “I’m not accusing anybody,” Campbell said. “I’m just concerned. If the results are what they are, well, OK.”

Georgia: State probes Fulton elections errors  | ajc.com

Fulton County made an array of errors in the July 31 primary, putting voters in the wrong elections, declaring results to the state more than an hour late and producing data that doesn’t add up. Now state elections officials want to know whether Fulton performed poorly enough to throw off some of the final results, a spokesman for Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed. The state has launched an investigation into the county’s elections procedures. “I wouldn’t restrict it or limit it to any race at this point,” Kemp spokesman Jared Thomas said, declining to elaborate.

Tennessee: Close Election Results Won’t Automatically Be Recounted | WREG

Memphis School Board Member Kenneth Whalum, Junior has been an outspoken member of the Memphis City School Board, “I cannot be bought, speak my mind and question things that need to be questioned.” When a new Shelby County School Board takes over in 2013, Whalum won’t be on it. In a nail biter, Whalum lost to Kevin Woods, 6,423 votes to 6,531. That’s a loss by a mere 108 votes. “I have never seen such an infusion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from outside Memphis in a local school board race. It was a miracle I was able to get 50 percent of the vote,” says Whalum.
What may be even more shocking to some, is there is no automatic recount in a race this close.

National: Is your vote secure? Many digital systems lack paper backups, study says | CSMonitor.com

In elections this March in Palm Beach County, Fla., an election management software glitch gave votes to the wrong candidate and the wrong contest. But paper ballots were available, and a recount was done. The mistake was corrected. Such failures are hardly unique. And often they are worse. In every national election in the past decade, computer voting systems have failed with memory-card glitches and other errors that resulted in votes lost or miscounted, according to a new national study, “Counting Votes 2012: A State by State Look at Voting Technology Preparedness.” More than 300 voting-machine problems were reported in the 2010 midterm elections and more than 1,800 in the 2008 general election, according to the study by Common Cause, Rutgers School of Law, and the Verified Voting Foundation. “Voting systems frequently fail,” the study concludes. “And when they fail, votes are lost. Voters in jurisdictions without paper ballots or records for every vote cast, including military and overseas votes, do not have the same protections as states that use paper ballot systems. This is not acceptable.” Download the Report

Colorado: Gessler could be pivotal in battleground Colorado | NBC Politics

Scott Gessler isn’t a household name in national politics, but could become famous in a hurry, just as Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris did during the 2000 presidential recount. Colorado’s swing state pattern in the last five presidential elections makes its nine electoral votes loom large this November. And, as Colorado’s Republican secretary of state, elected in 2010, Gessler could have a decisive influence on the November outcome in the state. He has launched efforts to remove ineligible people from the voter rolls. And if it’s a close vote, he would preside over any recount and be the official who certifies the state’s electoral vote to the U.S. House of Representatives after the election. Gessler scored a victory last week when the Department of Homeland Security agreed to let his agency to use DHS databases of non-citizens to cross-check the list of Colorado voters to ensure that non-citizens are not registered.

Wisconsin: Group seeks hand count of ballots from June vote | LaCrosse Tribune

A group that wants to examine all of the La Crosse County ballots from the June recall vote will have to wait until after the November election. County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said her staff doesn’t have the time right now to accommodate Election Fairness’ open records request to do a hand count. Election Fairness made the request to all 72 Wisconsin counties July 2. The group’s attorney, James Mueller, did not respond to a phone call Thursday for comment. But he told the Janesville Gazette earlier this month they believe electronic voting machines could be faulty and vulnerable to tampering. They want to see if discrepancies appear between their tally and the machines’ tally.

United Kingdom: Penlington-Pennington Denbighshire vote mix-up recount | BBC

The High Court has ordered a recount in a Denbighshire council election where votes for a Labour candidate were wrongly given to a Conservative rival with a similar name. Denbighshire blamed human error after votes cast for Labour’s Paul Penlington were counted for Allan Pennington. The council has admitted the Labour candidate would have won if his votes had been correctly allocated. The recount will take place in secrecy before a court official. Mr Pennington was declared winner of one of three seats in the Prestatyn North ward in the election on 3 May.

National: Electoral College tie possible in Obama-Romney race | CNN.com

It’s the white whale of American elections: elusive, mythical and never realized. But could it finally happen this year? The likelihood that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will each net 269 electoral votes in November, instead of the 270 needed to win, is actually not so farfetched — and for close observers of the Electoral College system, a tie would set off a wave of constitutional and political mayhem that would make the 2000 Florida recount seem like a tidy affair. Election results in key states would immediately be subject to legal challenges. Electors, normally an anonymous batch of party insiders elected to ratify each state’s winner with their electoral votes, would be lobbied to change their votes by friends, neighbors and political leaders. Swing states could decide U.S. election Alex Castellanos’ electoral map James Carville’s electoral map Ultimately, the House of Representatives could elect the next president, even if that candidate lost the popular vote.

Mexico: New protest at Pena Nieto election victory | BBC News

Thousands of protesters have been marching through the streets of Mexico City to protest against the official result of this month’s presidential election. The march was called by a new student movement, “Yo soy 132” (I am 132) which accuses the winner, Enrique Pena Nieto, of buying votes. They also say he arranged favourable coverage from main television network, Televisa. Mr Pena Nieto has rejected all charges. “No to fraud,” and “Out with Pena”, shouted the protesters in this latest march against the result of the 1 July vote. “Mexico wants a country that is honest and democratic,” protester Marlem Munoz told the AP news agency. The protest also attracted supporters of the runner up in the poll, left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has refused to accept the official result.

Editorials: Not Again! How Our Voting System Is Ripe For Theft and Meltdown in 2012 | AlterNet

The most fundamental of democratic processes has become more barrier-filled and error-prone than at anytime since Florida’s 2000 election, when voter list purges, flawed voting technology and a partisan U.S. Supreme Court majority ended a statewide recount and installed George W. Bush as president. This fall’s potential problems begin with a new generation of voter suppression laws and aging voting machines in a handful of presidential battleground states. And other important factors are in play, such as election officials curtailing voting options due to fiscal constraints, the increasing age of poll workers—volunteers averaging in their 70s—who must referee an ever more complex process, and the likelihood that close races will end up in post-Election Day legal fights. Voters tell academics they want consistency in voting. Yet emerging trends are poised to upend that hope in many states. This year’s big questions are: where will the meltdown—or meltdowns—occur, what will go wrong, on what scale, and, when it comes to computer failures or tampering, will we even know about it?

Mexico: Lopez Obrador challenges election result | BBC

The runner-up in Mexico’s presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has filed a legal challenge to the result of the 1 July vote. He said he would prove that illicit money was used to buy votes and secure the victory of centrist candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, who denies this. Mr Lopez Obrador wants the result of the vote to be deemed invalid. Mr Pena Nieto was confirmed the winner on Friday after a final recount, with 38.21% to Mr Lopez Obrador’s 31.59%. Mr Lopez Obrador, from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), lodged the challenge to Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) just hours before the midnight filing deadline. “The purchase and manipulation of millions of votes cannot give certainty to any result nor to the overall electoral process,” he told reporters.

Libya: Libya begins recount | Deutsche Welle

Officials have begun recounting votes and tallying absentee ballots in elections in Libya. Meanwhile, a rights group says militias still hold 5,000 detainees, despite a deadline to transfer prisoners for trial. Libya’s election commission has announced that it is also reviewing appeals lodged by candidates after the release of partial results over the past week. The full results of Libya’s first free nationwide vote, on July 7, had been expected as early as Saturday. Now, the election commission chief says the full official results may finally be announced on Monday.

Wisconsin: Wanggaard won’t challenge recall election loss | Green Bay Press Gazette

epublican state Sen. Van Wanggaard decided not to go to court to challenge his recall election loss, effectively conceding the race Tuesday to his challenger and giving Democrats at least a temporary majority in the Wisconsin Senate. Wanggaard, of Racine, lost to Democrat John Lehman by 819 votes, or about 1.1 percent of the nearly 72,000 ballots cast. Wanggaard had demanded a recount, which affirmed his loss. That left Wanggaard with two choices: File a challenge by Tuesday or concede the race. His campaign chose not to challenge, clearing the way for state election officials to certify the race Wednesday morning and make the outcome official.

Wisconsin: Investigating, fixing Nickolaus election errors to cost Wisconsin county $256,300 | JSOnline

A consultant’s report traces problems in reporting Waukesha County election results directly to mistakes by outgoing County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus – mistakes that will cost county taxpayers more than a quarter of a million dollars to fix. Nickolaus had promised to post timely results online and update them periodically for the April 3 election. But the public didn’t learn the results of contested local races for hours, while reporters and election reporting service representatives were forced to tabulate the vote totals themselves from long paper tapes hanging on the walls of a meeting room. The embattled county clerk already was under scrutiny because of her role in the 2011 state Supreme Court race, when she left the entire city of Brookfield out of countywide vote totals. When those 14,000 votes were added in, two days after the election, Justice David Prosser had won by 7,000 votes, instead of narrowly losing to Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, as the original count showed. But the uncertainty over the Waukesha County vote led to a statewide recount that confirmed Prosser’s victory.

Wisconsin: Racine County Sheriff’s Office finishes investigation into Wisconsin recall election allegations, reports sent to DA | Journal Times

The Racine County Sheriff’s Office has finished its investigation into several June 5 recall election complaints. “All the reports have been turned over to the district attorney,” Racine County Sheriff’s Lt. Steven Sikora said Monday. The sheriff’s office also on Monday turned over its investigation into allegations that a Raymond town supervisor ripped up nomination papers pertaining to a separate Raymond recall, Sikora said. Sikora couldn’t say if the sheriff’s office is recommending charges for any election related complaints. “It’s now in the DA’s hands,” Sikora said. Following the June 5 recall elections, in which former state Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine, defeated state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, multiple allegations of irregularities at the polls have come up.