California: San Francisco Supervisors tangle over whether to kill or change ranked-choice elections this year | SF Public Press

Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors wrestled with changing the way the city elects mayors, district representatives and other officials. Two proposals would give San Francisco voters a choice: expand the instant – runoff voting system, in use since 2004, or return to a general election with a possible later top two runoff. On Feb. 14, the Board of Supervisors tabled Supervisor Mark Farrell’s proposal to repeal ranked-choice voting on a 6-5 vote. At the same meeting, Supervisor David Campos’ measure to amend the system was sent back to the Rules Committee on a unanimous vote. On March 6, Farrell introduced a modified proposal that would abolish ranked-choice voting in all citywide races, except for district supervisors. Both measures could see a vote on the November 2012 ballot.   Why does this matter? Opponents of ranked-choice say the relatively novel approach still confuses voters. Opponents of the two-election approach say it wastes money.

Illinois: New legislation may change Illinois voter identification requirements | Northern Star

Voters in Illinois may be required to show photo identification at the polls on election day, if current legislation is passed. SB2496 was introduced by Illinois State Senator Kyle McCarter in October of 2011 and is co-sponsored by 15 other republican senators. The bill would amend election law to require government issued photo ID be shown to election officials at the polls before voting. Currently, photo identification is only required when voting early. “To register in Illinois currently, you need 2 forms of ID,” said John J. Acardo, DeKalb County Clerk. “Not necessarily photo ID, but documents to confirm your current address.”

El Salvador: FMLN Suffers Minor Setback at the Polls | Upside Down World

By 1 p.m. in the afternoon on Sunday, the sun was beating down hard on the polling center in Metapán, a mid-sized town in El Salvador just 15 kilometers south of the Guatemalan border. While there was nothing strange about the scorching sun, these national assembly and municipal elections were the first of their kind. To the surprise of the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), the former rebel group turned political party whose candidate Mauricio Funes won the Presidency in 2009, the right-wing ARENA (National Republican Alliance) gained seats in the national assembly following electoral reforms that the right-wing had pushed through.

Editorials: Texas voter ID law may be headed to the Supreme Court | Rick Hasen/Star Telegram

On Monday, the Justice Department blocked implementation of Texas’ new voter identification law. Texas said the law is a necessary measure to prevent voter fraud. Justice responded that the law is unnecessary and will have a disproportionate impact on Hispanic voters who are less likely to have identification. The issue is heading to federal court, and it could well be the U.S. Supreme Court that weighs in, just months after it intervened in Texas’s redistricting dispute. So who’s right? As I explain in The Fraudulent Fraud Squad sneak preview of my forthcoming book The Voting Wars, Republican claims of a serious problem with voter impersonation are bogus. Many Republican legislators and political operatives support voter ID laws for two purposes: first, to depress Democratic turnout, and second to gin up the Republican base. But Democrats and those on the left sometimes inflate the potential negative effect of voter identification and other laws on voter turnout, especially among poor and minority voters. Just as Republicans use the scare of voter ID laws as a wedge issue to boost Republican turnout, Democrats use the scare of voter suppression to boost Democratic turnout.

Utah: Vote-by-mail effort in Utah gets a boost in the House | The Salt Lake Tribune

Utah could move toward voting by mail in upcoming elections under a bill that passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. HB172, sponsored by Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, would allow county clerks to conduct voting by mail, if they choose. It also directs the Lieutenant Governor’s Office to study how the state could move to vote by mail by 2015. Eliason noted that Utah has some of the nation’s worst voter-participation rates and said that studies have shown that vote-by-mail programs could increase turnout by as much as 40 percent.

Editorials: Crazy Idea: Laws To Encourage Voting | American Prospect

Voter ID laws have been all the rage around the country, with conservative lawmakers pushing to make it harder to vote, often by requiring some form of government-issued photo identification. The goal, at least according to rhetoric, is to keep the process safe from fraud—despite there being no real evidence of in-person voter fraud, the only kind such laws would actually prevent. In the meantime, states struggle with low-turnout rates and sometimes low registration rates. In Texas, which recently passed one of the more stringent ID requirements, residents vote at among the lowest rates in the country.  All of which makes Connecticut’s current voting debate somewhat shocking by comparison. The secretary of state has taken the lead in proposing measures to increase voter turnout by—get this—making it easier to vote. Two proposals make it easier to register by offering same-day registration for those who show up on Election Day and creating an online voter registration system so people can do it from home. Another measure would increasing penalties for voter intimidation. According to officials, the efforts are much-needed to increase turnout.

India: Officials count votes in 5 key state polls | seattlepi.com

Election officials counted votes Tuesday in crucial polls in five Indian states that could provide a boost for the ruling Congress party’s national coalition, or cripple it for the last two years of its term. The most critical results are expected from the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where Rahul Gandhi has put his reputation on the line for a strong Congress party showing. Gandhi, touted as Congress’ next prime ministerial candidate, campaigned relentlessly for months to oust the government of Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents bottom caste dalits. If Congress doesn’t significantly build on the paltry 22 seats it controls in the 403-strong state assembly, it would be a devastating blow to Gandhi’s aspirations to be taken seriously as a national leader.

Connecticut: Secretary of State Merrill voices call for new tech, laws to get people voting | Greenwich Post

The ability to use more technology, Election Day registration and increased outreach are what Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill called “modest first steps” to addressing the crisis of poor voter turnout numbers. In an appearance at Town Hall last Thursday, Feb. 2, Ms. Merrill discussed election issues and looked ahead to what can be done to get more people educated and motivated to vote. The Greenwich League of Women Voters invited Ms. Merrill to speak so residents could hear about the latest initiatives coming out of her office. She discussed the impacts of technology and where she sees voting trends going in years to come.

Idaho: With defeat of Loertscher bill, Idaho legislative primary elections stay in May « IdahoReporter.com

Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, didn’t get support from his own committee Wednesday in his push to move legislative primary elections to August. The House State Affairs Committee, a panel chaired by Loerstscher, voted down his measure after strong opposition from a number of county clerks and Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. Loertscher told his colleagues that the May primary election hampers legislators, who are typically required to be in the Statehouse from early January to late March or early April. He believes moving the primary back to August would allow lawmakers to focus on legislative work in the early months of the year and still run a full campaign later in the year. But the measure received little support in public testimony. A number of county clerks, in town for meetings with the Idaho Association of Counties, told the panel that pushing the primary back would cause too much work in a year when they are facing numerous obstacles.

India: 7 dead, 82% turnout in Manipur polls | The Times of India

The Election Commission’s assurance of peaceful elections came a cropper on the first day of polling in Manipur when seven persons, including a CRPF jawan and four poll officials, were killed even as an 82% turnout was recorded on Saturday. DGP R Baral said a suspected NSCN(IM) militant entered a booth at Thampi polling station in Chandel constituency and asked officials to stop polling. When they refused, he fired at them. A few CRPF men rushed in and returned fire, killing the rebel. “Six persons were killed on the spot. An injured later died in hospital,” said Baral. Among the deceased was a minor girl who had accompanied relatives to the booth. It’s learnt that three Naga militants entered the booth posing as voters. While one began firing from a pistol and was killed, the other two escaped, said a source.

Editorials: Science of elections: The problem with turnout | BBC

For veteran election-watcher Curtis Gans, who runs the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, this disenfranchisement is a major problem. “There are 50 million American citizens who aren’t registered to vote,” he says. “And there are 20 million names on registration lists that ought not to be there.” Alaska, Illinois, and South Dakota have more voters on their lists than there are citizens eligible to vote living there, Mr Gans has told Congress. And of 172 recognised democracies, the US is ranked 139th in voter participation, he says.

Virginia: Voter ID bill begins moving forward in House | HamptonRoads.com

The first in a series of measures aimed at tightening Virginia’s election laws began moving toward passage in the House of Delegates today. Del. Mark Cole’s bill, , provides that voters who are unable to present an approved form of identification at the polls would have to vote a provisional ballot – a ballot that would not be counted unless and until the voter’s identity is verified. The measure was approved 4-2 along party lines by a House subcommittee over the opposition of several interest groups that called it an attempt to suppress voter turnout, especially among minority and low-income Virginians.

Kazakhstan: Crushing election victory forecast for Kazakhstan’s ruling party | Deutsche Welle

Exit polls have predicted that Kazakhstan’s ruling party is headed for a crushing election victory. With three parties possibly entering parliament, democratic representation looks set to broaden slightly. Kazakhstan’s ruling party looked set to celebrate a crushing election victory on Sunday after exit polls gave President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party 81 percent of the vote. The poll of some 50,000 voters nationwide, conducted by Kazakh think tank Institute of Democracy, showed two other parties possibly entering parliament in the wake of Sunday’s vote.

National: Views on Implementing Federal Elections on a Weekend | U.S. GAO Report

Read the GAO Report

For the 2010 general election, 35 states and the District provided voters at least one alternative to casting their ballot on Election Day through in-person early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, or voting by mail. Specifically, 33 states and the District provided in-person early voting, 29 states and the District provided no-excuse absentee voting, and 2 states provided voting by mail to all or most voters. Of the 9 states and the District where GAO conducted interviews, all but 2 states provided voters the option of in-person early voting in the 2010 general election, and 5 states and the District offered both early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. Implementation and characteristics of in-person early voting varied among the 7 states and, in some cases, among the jurisdictions within a state. For example, 5 states and the District required local jurisdictions to include at least one Saturday, and 2 states allowed for some jurisdiction discretion to include weekend days.

National: Vote on the weekend? Government study inconclusive | CBS News

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released the first major U.S. report on the costs and benefits associated with holding elections on weekends – though it said it could not “draw valid conclusions” about what impact moving elections to weekends would have on voter turnout. Under federal law passed in 1845, elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Lawmakers chose Tuesday in order to give voters one travel day after the Sunday day of rest to get from their farms into town to vote. Critics say the practice of voting on Tuesdays is outdated and depresses turnout.

Editorials: Why National Popular Vote Is a Bad Idea | Curtis Gans/Huffington Post

As the National Popular Vote (NPV) movement steps up its effort to impose a direct election for president, attempting to enlist states with a sufficient number of electors to constitute a majority (268) and to bind them to the winner of the national popular vote, those states considering the proposal might first reflect on the nightmare aftermath of the 2000 presidential election.

Because there was a difference of less than 1,000 tabulated votes between George W. Bush and Al Gore in one state, Florida, the nation watched as 6 million votes were recounted by machine, several hundred thousand were recounted by hand in counties with differing recount standards, partisan litigators fought each other in state and federal courts, the secretary of state backed by the majority of state legislators (all Republicans) warred with the state’s majority Democratic judiciary — until 37 days after the election the U.S. Supreme Court, in a bitterly controversial 5-4 decision effectively declared Bush the winner.

Voting Blogs: Election Geekery 101: Turnout | Doug Chapin/PEEA

Yesterday, Twitter user DukeDuluth wrote the following which was picked up and re-Tweeted by many anxious for something to discuss in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses: State with highest % voter turnout in most recent general election should have first presidential contest. Reward Democracy. I will admit to having been involved in past efforts…

Editorials: Why vote on Tuesdays? No good reason | CNN.com

Today, Iowans will kick off the Republican nominating process for president of the United States with the first-in-the-nation caucuses. But why a Tuesday?
The short answer: We vote on Tuesday for absolutely no good reason. This is true especially when you consider the United States, arguably the world’s most famous democracy, has ranked near the bottom of all nations in voter participation for more than half a century. And that’s not because, as Mitt Romney suggested to me last month, we need great candidates to increase voter turnout. Heard of JFK? Reagan?

The little-bit-longer answer: We vote on Tuesday because of a law passed in 1845 meant to make voting convenient for Americans traveling by horse and buggy. Seriously. When Congress set out to pick a day for Americans to vote, ultimately settling on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, voting could take two days: a day to get to the county seat to vote and a day to get back for market day on Wednesday. They couldn’t travel on the Christian sabbath, so by process of elimination, Tuesday, the first convenient day of the week, was chosen. It was as simple as that.

Russia: Ballot stuffing suspected in Russian election | tvnz.co.nz

Dagmein Khaseinova beams with pride recalling the day her Chechen village, devastated a decade ago in a war launched by Vladimir Putin, gave the Russian ruler’s party nearly 100 percent support in a parliamentary vote this month. Her little village of Mekhketi, she said, is even on the way to winning the cash prize she says authorities have promised for the polling station registering the biggest turnout.

“We’ve already won the regional competition. In a few days we’ll hear whether we won throughout all of Chechnya,” Khaseinova, 53, said, wearing a traditional Chechen scarf over her head and squinting in the cold mountain air. “The organizers of the polling station have been promised some kind of prize money if they win,” she adds, hiding a smile. Putin’s United Russia recorded a higher percentage of votes in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, where federal troops fought two wars since the fall of the Soviet Union, than anywhere else in the country. Official results show support at 99.5% and voter turnout of 99.4%.

Nationwide, the party won just under half the votes, securing a slim majority in the State Duma. Even that outcome, critics said, was the result of ballot stuffing and fraud. Countless complaints have been filed; but not in Chechnya. Official monitors here have not lodged a single complaint of voting violations, but among many local residents, the outcome has stirred some incredulity, albeit cautiously expressed.

“United Russia is the party of Putin, and Chechnya would never vote for Putin,” said one middle-aged resident of the regional capital of Grozny, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution. “In the mind of every Chechen he is associated with the bombing that destroyed Grozny and other cities all over the region. Voting for Putin is about as absurd as any vote with a 99% outcome,” he said.

New Zealand: Online voting suggested to boost turnout | msn.co.nz

The Green Party wants parliament to consider online enrolment and voting for future elections, after a record low turnout for last month’s election.
The final election results, released on Saturday, show only 74 per cent of enrolled voters cast a vote in last month’s general election, down from 79 per cent in 2008.

Following the election, the Green Party called for parliament’s justice and electoral select committee to look at why voter turnout was so low as part of its regular post-election inquiry. The Greens have since undertaken an informal online survey, asking people what would make them more inclined to enrol or vote. The survey received 1,059 responses over a three day period.

Of those who were not enrolled to vote, two-thirds said they would have been more likely to do so if they could online. Currently, people can update their details online, but they have to either print out or be posted a form to sign and return. Of those who didn’t vote, 58 per cent said they would have been more likely to if secure online voting was available.

Egypt: Election commission says voter turnout ‘massive’ | silive.com

The head of Egypt’s election commission said turnout was “massive and unexpected” for the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, with millions participating peacefully in a spirit of hopefulness that surprised many after new protests broke out in the days leading up to the vote.

Long lines formed again today at polling centers around the capital Cairo and other cities on the second and final day of the first round of parliamentary elections. The historic election — which promises to be the country’s fairest and cleanest in living memory — will indicate whether one of America’s most important Middle East allies will turn down a more Islamic path with powerful religious parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood expected to dominate.

The Gambia: Gambian Incumbent President Jammeh re-elected with landslide victory, calls for national unity | NL-Aid

President Yahya Jammeh on Friday secured a new five-year term after the Independent Electoral Commission declared him winner of 24th November 2011 presidential election. Results announced by the returning officer and Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Mustapha L. Carayol, showed Jammeh polled 72% of the total votes cast while main opposition leader Ousainou Darboe polled 17%. Independent candidate Hamat Bah scored 11% of the total votes cast. Voter turnout was 83%, showing a massive jump from that of the 2006 elections, which was about 59%.

According to the IEC chairman, out of a total number of 796, 929 voters, Hamat Bah polled 73, 060 votes, Ousainou Darboe 114, 177 votes while President Yahya Jammeh polled 470, 550 votes. Jammeh’s victory, seen by many as a foregone conclusion, was also described as historic in the country’s politics, as Jammeh won with a landslide in all the 48 constituencies across the country.

Editorials: San Francisco Ranked-Choice Voting Draws Critics After Mayoral Race | Huffington Post

Ranked-choice voting was the cure for what ails American politics, boosters said. Now in use in four California cities, this new voting system was supposed to increase voter turnout, stanch the flow of special interest money and encourage high-minded, positive campaigns.

But it didn’t play out that way in the biggest ranked-choice election yet – the 2011 San Francisco mayoral race. Turnout was down, the worst in a competitive race in about 35 years, as the San Francisco Chronicle noted.

Maryland: Former Md. Gov. Ehrlich could testify in black voter-suppression case | The Washington Post

Former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and first lady Kendal Ehrlich have been added to the state’s witness list in a trial expected to begin today in Baltimore. The case is the first of two to settle whether members of Ehrlich’s campaign team sought to suppress black voter turnout last fall to help Ehrlich at the polls.

One of Ehrlich’s most trusted aides and a campaign consultant areaccused of orchestrating tens of thousands of anonymous election-night robo-calls last year that state prosecutors charge were part of a larger attempt to suppress the black vote.

New York: In Washington County, counting ballots to save dollars | poststar.com

Whether you voted or not, counties use that data to save money. But Board of Elections commissioners at Washington County take things a step further. Not only do they look at voter turnouts from previous elections, they’ve adopted a strategy similar to Wal-Mart’s “just-in-time” inventory, projecting the ballot needs of each polling site beforehand and hand-delivering extra ballots when needed.

With traditional lever-type voting machines, election boards simply stored a summary sheet along with affidavit, emergency and absentee ballots. But for the last two years, with electronic voting ballots in use, the state and printers have informally recommended that election boards look at the number of registered voters, then print out 110 percent of ballots needed, according to state and local officials.

Maine: Voting Rights Restored in Maine, Restricted in Mississippi | The Nation

Last night marked the first time that voters themselves could weigh in on the GOP’s war on voting. The results were mixed, as Maine voted to reinstate Election Day voter registration while Mississippi voted to mandate government-issued IDs in order to cast a ballot.

First, Maine. By an overwhelming twenty point margin, Mainers overruled the GOP governor and legislature and voted to restore Election Day registration, which had been on the books since 1973 before Republicans scrapped it this year. The Protect Maine Votes coalition gathered 70,000 signatures in less than a month, according to the Bangor Daily News, in order to place the issue on the ballot. Sixty-thousand Mainers registered on Election Day in 2008, and the convenience of same day registration helped explain why Maine consistently had one of the highest voter turnouts in the nation.

Canada: Can internet voting boost turnout without risk? | CBC News

Low voter turnout has become a lot like bad weather — something everyone talks about, at least around election time, but something that seems beyond remedy. Since various appeals to democratic principles have failed to move people off their couches to vote, some governments are considering internet voting to try and increase voter turnout.

Electronic voting has already been used in some provincial party leadership races and in municipal elections from Huntsville, Ont., to Halifax. But it also has staunch opponents, who warn it can be hacked and suggest it may not do anything to engage voters who are turned off politics.

“Technology . . . can be hacked to distort voter results in ways that can never be traced,” warns Duff Conacher, of the Ottawa-based advocacy group Democracy Watch.

Editorials: The Internet can’t fix democracy—only citizens can | Macleans.ca

The technology of voting has changed substantially since ancient Athenians tossed coloured stones in jars and scratched names on pottery shards. Today it’s paper ballots that seem ancient and outdated.

Poor turnout by voters in Manitoba and Ontario this month has prompted renewed calls for online voting. “We have to do something,” vowed Greg Selinger, recently elected premier of Manitoba, referring to his province’s depressing turnout numbers. “We’re going to take a look at e-voting.” Elections Canada plans to test electronic balloting in a federal by-election by 2013 sometime after 2013. Many municipalities across the country are already using the new technology.

The appeal of online voting is obvious. Voter turnout is poor across the board, but particularly dismal among the youngest cohort of voters. Since this generation has grown up immersed in online communications, its members might be enticed to vote in greater numbers if the ballot was in a format familiar and convenient to them. Voting at home via a smartphone certainly seems more attractive than walking down the street to a public school or community hall, standing behind a cardboard screen and putting an X on a piece of paper.

And yet it is not clear online voting actually has the power to draw more people to the polls, whatever their age. From the municipal election evidence in Canada, it appears online voting may boost the number of people who vote in advance polls, but does little to change overall voter turnout. A large-scale experiment in Britain was abandoned in 2007 after numerous technical glitches and no appreciable improvement in turnout. All of which suggests online voting provides already-committed voters with a more convenient means of voting, but fails to address the underlying apathy of those who don’t.

Voting Blogs: South Carolina GOP Operative: AP Story Showing Impact Of Voter ID On Blacks ‘Proves EXACTLY’ Why Law Is Needed | TPM

The Associated Press put out a story this week showing that South Carolina’s voter I.D. law “appears to be hitting black precincts in the state the hardest.” One person who really loved the story was Wesley Donehue, the CEO of Donehue Direct and a political strategist for the South Carolina Senate Republican Caucus, who took to Twitter to write that the story “proves EXACTLY why we need Voter ID in SC.”

It wasn’t long until Donehue’s tweet was bouncing all around the progressive twittersphere. In subsequent tweets, Donehue clarified that he wasn’t talking about the fact that the story showed, for example, that “among the state’s 2,134 precincts there are 10 precincts where nearly all of the law’s affect falls on nonwhite voters who don’t have a state-issued driver’s license or ID card, a total of 1,977 voters.” Rather Donehue said the story “has proven that a bunch of non-South Carolinians are voting in SC elections. Did they vote in other states too?? FRAUD!”

Wisconsin: Legislation introduced to exempt seniors from voter ID | Badger Herald

A state senator announced Monday he will propose legislation to exempt senior citizens from the recently signed voter ID law. Sen. Tim Carpenter, D–Milwaukee, is currently looking for co-sponsors for the legislation, and expects to introduce the bill by the end of the week. The proposal would allow registered seniors who are above the age of 65 to vote without having to present any identification, according to a statement from Carpenter.

The voter ID law, signed by Gov. Scott Walker on May 25 of this year states that starting next year, all registered Wisconsin voters will be required to present a valid, state-issued identification card in order to vote in any election.

“The voter ID bill prevents election fraud by requiring that the voter prove that they actually are who they say they are. In the past if someone else next to me says, ‘yeah that’s who he is,’ [the election attendants] will believe it,” Andrew Welhouse, spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said.