Russia: Putin Orders New System for Russian Parliamentary Elections | NYTimes.com

President Vladimir V. Putin has ordered a major change in the rules for parliamentary elections, a move that could help solidify his power and influence toward the end of his current term and insulate him from dwindling public support for United Russia, the party that nominated him and currently holds a majority in Parliament. At Mr. Putin’s direction, half of the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, would be filled using a proportional system based on votes for parties, with each party then filling its allotted seats. The other half would be filled by direct election of individual candidates, creating a potential opening for independent campaigns.

National: E-voting causing problems for Oscar voters, report says | CBS News

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences opted to try online voting for this year’s Oscars, and with one week left in the voting period multiple sources have told The Hollywood Reporter that the new system isn’t working well. Voting started December 17 and is set to end on January 3. THR reached out to several members of the Academy and roughly half told the paper they experienced problems, or were concerned that older, less technically-savvy Academy members would simply give up. (The median age of the Academy’s 5,765 members is 62, according to a study done by the Los Angeles Times.) Some told of repeated difficulties logging in and being locked out of the system.

National: Supreme Court will revisit the Voting Rights Act | Voxxi

The New Year is likely to amass a wave of issues that will affect Latinos including a pending case in the Supreme Court that revisits a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In Shelby County vs. Holder, the Supreme Court justices will be deciding whether it makes sense to pursue section 5. The provision requires that lawmakers who want to enact changes to voting laws are obligated to seek permission from the federal government in states with a history of discrimination. Advocates argue that without this key provision, federal judges would not have been able to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina. It also voided district maps in Texas and prevented early voting in parts of Florida. Yet, critics claim the provision is outdated.

National: Parties at odds over more election changes | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On election night, President Barack Obama thanked voters who braved long lines at polling places throughout the country. People waited as long as seven hours in some precincts in Florida, with some still waiting to cast a ballot long past midnight. In other states, such as Virginia and Maryland, lines also stretched into hours. “By the way, we have to fix that,” Mr. Obama said. But with the presidential election over, comprehensive overhauls to the patchwork of state election laws remain a distant goal. More than a decade after the 2000 Florida vote-count debacle, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week spotlighted complaints about the casting and counting of votes that persist despite a package of post-2000 adjustments.

Florida: Three-step election reform | HeraldTribune.com

Here is what Gov. Rick Scott recently said, during an interview with CNN about Florida’s elections: “We need to have bipartisan legislation that deals with three issues. One, the length of our ballot. Two, we’ve got to allow our supervisors more flexibility in the size of their polling locations and, three, the number of days we have. We’ve got to look back at the number of days of early voting we had.” We couldn’t have said it better. In fact, Herald-Tribune editorials focused on the 2012 general election have emphasized those same three points.

Iowa: Felons to have easier time getting voting rights restored in Iowa | TheGazette

Gov. Terry Branstad said Friday he has agreed to streamline the application for convicted felons who seek to have their voting rights restored. In response to concerns raised last month by leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Branstad said the application now has simplified instructions, removes the requirement for a credit history check for the voting application, and provides a more detailed “checklist of materials” to help applicants turn in a completed application.

Pennsylvania: Republicans look to alter state’s electoral vote system | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One year after requiring voters to show photo identification, state Republican leaders are set in 2013 to consider changing Pennsylvania’s nearly two-century-old method of awarding its presidential votes. As with voter ID, the proposal is being met with howls of protest from Democrats. Like 48 other states, Pennsylvania uses a winner-take-all system with its electoral votes: when Barack Obama won 52 percent of the state’s vote on Nov. 6 to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent, he bagged all 20 of them. A measure from state Sen. Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, would instead award 18 of them according to the popular vote breakdown and give two others to the state’s overall winner.

Wisconsin: Walker open to changing state’s Electoral College allocations | Journal Sentinel

Gov. Scott Walker is open to having Wisconsin allocate its Electoral College votes based on results from each congressional district – a move that would offer Republicans a chance to score at least a partial victory in a state that has gone Democratic in the last seven presidential elections. The idea is being considered in other battleground states that have tipped toward Democrats as Republicans try to develop a national plan to capture the presidency in future years. The GOP governor said he found the notion intriguing but neither embraced it nor rejected it. “To me, it’s an interesting concept, it’s a plausible concept, but it’s not one where I’m convinced either of its merits or lack thereof,” he said in a recent interview at the governor’s mansion in Maple Bluff. Democrats promised to fight such a change, saying they viewed it as a way for Republicans to try to rig elections to their advantage.

Egypt: Opposition alleges voter fraud in referendum on constitution | CSMonitor.com

Egypt’s opposition called Sunday for an investigation into allegations of vote fraud in the referendum on a deeply divisive Islamist-backed constitution after the Muslim Brotherhood, the main group backing the charter, claimed it passed with a 64 percent “yes” vote. Official results have not been released yet and are expected on Monday. If the unofficial numbers are confirmed, it will be a victory Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who is from the Brotherhood. But for many Egyptians, especially the tens of millions who live in extreme poverty, the results are unlikely to bring a hoped for end to the turmoil that has roiled their country for nearly two years since the uprising that ousted authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

National: Obama wins Electoral College vote; Republicans seek changes in state rules | Boston Herald

Despite predictions that the presidential election could end in an electoral vote tie, or that the winner of the popular vote could again be denied the White House by the Electoral College, President Barack Obama won his anticipated 126-vote landslide Monday as the 538 electors officially voted in statehouses. But 12 years after Al Gore’s defeat prompted some Democrats to call for changing to the constitutionally prescribed method of choosing the president, Republicans are now mounting efforts in key states to end the winner-take-all method that most states employ. Some Republican strategists believe that could counter the advantage Democrats have gained on the path to the needed 270 electoral votes.

National: Senate hearing on voting rights turns partisan | MiamiHerald.com

Senate Democrats and Republicans sparred Wednesday over whether voter ID laws, attempts to purge voter rolls and restricted early voting were legitimate efforts to stop fraud or mainly Republican strategies to hold down Democratic votes. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a onetime Republican who recently turned Democrat, said the state GOP aimed its efforts at Hispanics and African-Americans. They cited as one example the elimination of early voting on the Sunday before the election, when members of those groups historically vote after church.

Florida: Governor Rick Scott admits voting errors | Pensacola News Journal

Acknowledging the debacle in counting all the votes in Florida election day, Gov. Rick Scott said the state must consider adding early voting days and shortening the ballot to avoid the long lines that plagued elections in some counties this year. Scott suggested in interviews Wednesday aired on CNN and WNDB radio in Daytona Beach that local supervisors of elections should have more flexibility on polling locations in order to allow for more voting machines where they’re needed. But the most surprising thing the Republican governor suggested may be that he and GOP legislators may have erred in reducing the number of early voting days from 14 to eight for the 2012 elections.

Michigan: Snyder signs bills to overhaul recall rules despite opposition from Senate minority leader | The Detroit News

Without ceremony, Gov. Rick Snyder signed two bills Thursday that make sweeping changes to the process for recalling an elected official. Critics say the bills could make it nearly impossible to recall a state senator or representative by limiting signature gathering to 60 days — instead of the current 90-day window — and limiting recalls to May and November election dates. The legislation changes the dynamic of a recall election by requiring a challenger to run in the recall race against the elected official who is being recalled instead of holding a referendum on the incumbent. One of the bills creates a process for a special primary election to nominate a recall challenger. Governors, however, would still be subject to a yes-or-no recall vote, as stipulated in the state constitution.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia City Commissioner Singer Releases Provisional Ballot Report | Philadelphia Weekly

Philadelphia City Commissioner Stephanie Singer recently released a report which attempts to provide details as to why 27 thousand Philadelphians had to cast provisional ballots during this past November election. The report, conducted without the input of City Commissioner Co-chairs Al Schmidt and Anthony Clark, concludes that number “is not out of line with the general trend since provisional ballots were first introduced in 2004,” though details the reasons why provisional ballots were cast and what can be done to help fix the system. (Read the whole report here)

Editorials: Casting doubt on Internet voting for Edmonton | Chris Cates/Edmonton Journal

On Jan. 23, city council will decide whether Edmonton should begin using Internet voting next October in our municipal election. While city clerk Alayne Sinclair and others think Internet voting is secure, in reality it is not. Hackers have gained access to secure systems at the Pentagon, CIA and Canadian government organizations. If these groups with large budgets for network security can be penetrated, what makes a private firm think it can provide secure online voting? As a computer programmer and former network administrator, I embrace technology as much as I embrace democracy. While there are many technologies that benefit our lives, electronic voting is not one of them.

Egypt: Top Egyptian election official steps down | Al Jazeera

Tne of the top officials in charge of overseeing Egypt’s vote on a contentious draft constitution has resigned citing health problems, while critics believe the resignation was prompted by widespread irregularities. Zaghloul el-Balshi, the secretary general of the election committee, attributed his resignation to “a sudden health crisis”, according to a copy of a letter he sent to the committee on Wednesday that was published by several Egyptian dailies including the privately owned el-Watan. Relatives told local Egyptian media that el-Balshi had undergone eye surgery.

South Korea: Park Geun-hye wins South Korea’s presidential election | The Washington Post

Park Geun-hye spent part of her childhood in South Korea’s presidential palace, raised by an autocratic father who seized power in a military coup 51 years ago. She returns now as the democratically elected president of a nation concerned about its slowing economy and mounting social problems. With her narrow victory in Wednesday’s election, Park, 60, becomes an unlikely leader: She’s the first female president in a nation dominated by men, and she’s a conservative selected by voters to address their largely left-leaning wishes, including greater engagement with North Korea and a major expansion of government welfare spending.

National: U.S. Should Consider Automatic Voter Registration: Holder | Bloomberg

The U.S. should consider automatically registering eligible voters and extending voting hours to counter the November election’s long lines and administrative hurdles, Attorney General Eric Holder said. Holder, speaking today at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, proposed expanding access for voters and overhauling a registration system he called “antiquated.” “It is important for national leaders, academic experts, and members of the public to engage in a frank, thorough and inclusive discussion about how our election systems can be made stronger and more accessible,” Holder said in prepared remarks.

National: GOP consultant: Voter ID, long lines help “our side” | Salon.com

A Republican consultant admitted that Voter ID laws and long lines at the polls help Republicans win elections, saying that, “A lot of us are campaign officials — or campaign professionals — and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that’s voter ID, sometimes we think that’s longer lines — whatever it may be.” Huffington Post, which first pointed out the comments, reports that Tranter owns Vlytics, a “data consulting” company that was paid more than $3000 by Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Florida: Absentee ballots rejected over signatures; more than 1,400 Central Florida votes thrown out over signatures | Orlando Sentinel

Marine recruit Wesley Layman Clemons thought he’d done everything possible to vote while he was in training at U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina this fall. He requested an Orange County absentee ballot, filled it out, signed it, sealed it, stamped it and mailed it. Tuesday, he found out from a reporter that his ballot was thrown out — and his vote didn’t count in the Nov. 6 election. The reason: His signature on the ballot didn’t match an earlier one that was on file in the election office, a problem that caused more than 1,400 ballots to be rejected across Central Florida this fall.

New Jersey: Electronic voting after Sandy “A Complete Mess,” says senate president Sweeney | newjerseynewsroom.com

New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney said New Jersey’s county clerks were not properly prepared to handle the state’s requests for election ballots after Hurricane Sandy. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno allowed state residents affected by the storm to vote through e-mail or fax. Sweeney says county clerks told him they received thousands of requests for ballots in days leading up to the election. “There was no communication with local elections officials,” Sweeney told the Huffington Post. “It was a complete mess.” A spokesman for Guadagno said the decision was necessary because of the devastation of the storm.

Ohio: Husted: Feds should pay for new voting machines | Cincinnati.com

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday there is one major thing the federal government could do to help improve elections in Ohio: give the state the tens of millions of dollars it needs to upgrade or replace its aging voting machines. “Our machines are old – they’re wearing out,” Husted told a conference on the 2012 election sponsored by the Pew Center on the States. “We can’t run an … election system on the cheap.”

Pennsylvania: Voter-ID law’s fate likely won’t be settled until November | Philadelphia Inquirer

It could be nearly a year before Pennsylvanians know whether they will need to show photo identification at the polls for future elections. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. said Thursday he would decide within the next 10 days on a trial date to determine the constitutionality of the state’s new voter-ID law. But he said he was leaning toward the middle of summer. Given that timetable, Simpson said, he would be in a position to announce a decision by August. He said that he expected the case to again be appealed to the state Supreme Court, and that he wanted to give that court enough time to render its decision on the law’s constitutionality before the November 2013 election. “I think I need to keep them [Supreme Court] in the circle here,” Simpson said.

Wisconsin: Walker says ending same-day registration too costly | JSOnline

Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday that a Government Accountability Board report that says it would cost the state $5.2 million to end the state’s same-day registration law convinced him that he would not sign such a bill. “There is no way I’m signing a bill that costs that kind of money,” Walker told reporters. Walker cited a report by the state’s Government Accountability Board that concluded it would cost $5.2 million, and would do nothing to end the administrative work of clerks around the state. Walker said that, in light of the GAB report, he didn’t think members of the Legislature would even try to approve a bill to end the same-day registration law.

Ghana: President re-elected, a result opposition claims was ‘manipulated’ | CNN.com

Ghana’s election commission announced Sunday night that the West African nation’s president won re-election, though the main opposition party says it has “credible evidence” the results were manipulated. In a statement streamed live on the Internet, Electoral Commission Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan declared “John Dramani Mahama president-elect” after securing 50.7% of the vote. Nana Akufo-Addo, the candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), garnered 47.7% of the vote, according to the commission.
“We must celebrate together as Ghanaians and refrain from anything that will derail the peace and unity we have enjoyed over the years,” Mahama told supporters after the result was announced. But reiterating claims made earlier that the vote had been “manipulated,” the New Patriotic Party issued a statement it has “credible evidence (that) undermines the integrity of the electoral process and the results.”

National: If the Internet is magic, why can’t we vote on it? | Computerworld

Regular as clockwork — just after an election which generated far too many stories of people waiting far too long to vote (and far too many local election officials saying that everything went fine and that there were no problems) — come the calls for voting via the Internet. The press wonders if we are a third-world country, politicians posture and most securityexperts say “don’t go there.” Some examples: A headline in The Washington Post was “Estonia gets to vote online. Why can’t America?” New Jersey tells people they can vote via email. A famed Russian computer security expert is quoted by the BBC saying that “the lack of well-established online voting systems is a real threat to the democratic nations of the Western world” (because kids will not vote if they can’t do it online).

Anyone who has not been comatose these past few years already knows why we don’t vote over the Internet. Most vendors of electronic systems are generically incapable of producing secure ones. Just Google “voting machine security” for many examples, and if that is not enough try “SCADA security.”

Editorials: Why Voting Reform May Never Happen | The New Yorker

When President Obama claimed victory in last month’s election, he observed that many voters had waited on long lines to cast their ballots, adding, “By the way, we have to fix that.” That was a promise he won’t be able to keep. There’s no fix in the works—and there probably never will be. It was a pretty terrible election, as far as access to the polls goes. As usual, the worst situation was in Florida, where waits of four hours were common both in early voting and on Election Day. But, of course, 2012 wasn’t even the worst election in Florida in the last dozen years. Observers of American politics may recall certain difficulties with the 2000 race in the Sunshine State. But even that fiasco—which arguably (that is, probably, or rather definitely) changed the outcome in the state and nation—led to no significant reform. Because the problems in 2012 did not even arguably change the results, even in Florida, the urgency for reform is commensurably smaller.

Editorials: Is The Voting Rights Act Outdated? | NPR

For more than four decades, the Voting Rights Act never lost a court decision as it cut a path for minorities’ increased participation in elections. But the most effective civil rights law in U.S. history faces its most serious challenge as the Supreme Court prepares to re-examine its constitutionality. Why now? Some say it’s because of the law’s own success. The plaintiff in the case blames Congress for failing to amend part of the legislation to reflect changing times.

Arizona: High minority precincts cast more provisional ballots | Tucson Sentinel

Maricopa County voters living in precincts with higher percentages of minorities had a greater chance of casting provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 election, a Cronkite News Service analysis found. The statistical analysis drew upon a precinct-level summary of provisional ballots from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and precinct-level demographic data prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau and provided by the county to a reporter. It found strong relationship between provisional ballots as a percentage of total ballots in a precinct and the precinct’s percentage of minorities. That is, the likelihood that voters would cast provisional ballots tended to increase with a precinct’s minority population.

Florida: State will investigate voting problems in 5 counties | Tampa Bay Times

Florida lawmakers on Tuesday began scrutinizing all that went wrong at the polls last month, and Gov. Rick Scott’s elections team made plans to investigate five counties that “underperformed.” Secretary of State Ken Detzner said he and voting experts will make “fact-finding” trips next week to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Lee counties and report findings to the governor. Lines of voters in Miami-Dade were up to seven hours long, Palm Beach had to fix thousands of misprinted absentee ballots and St. Lucie was the only county that failed to count all ballots by a state deadline. The other two counties struggled with long lines, too. “Long lines are unacceptable,” Detzner testified.