The ACLU defends the Voting Rights Act in Alabama…Riverside Co CA delays certification of election results..Judge pleads not guilty of Monroe Co KY vote buying scheme…Michigan Agrees To Stop Unlawful Voter-Purge Programs…Mail ballot fraud charged in Passaic Co NJ…For Clean Campaigns: DISCLOSE and Amend…Magaloni,“The Game of Electoral Fraud and the Ousting of Authoritarian Rule”..Kenya launches online registration program for inmates…Was Oprah online voting contest rigged?
All this and more in today’s voting news below…
AL: Black residents file challenges to Shelby County voting rights suit
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/06/black_residents_file_challenge.html
On Tuesday the ACLU, on behalf of three black Montevallo voters, including City Councilman Willie Goldsmith; a white voter from Sterrett; and the Alabama branch of the NAACP, asked a judge for permission to intervene in the case.
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Last week, six black Shelby County residents, backed by the national NAACP office, filed a motion to intervene in the case to defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.
AL: Is runoff voting same as primary?
Democrats, Republicans have different rules for July 13 election
http://enewscourier.com/local/x1703936998/Is-runoff-voting-same-as-primary
AL: Absentee ballot requests trickle in
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100625/NEWS/100629805/1291?Title=Absentee-ballot-requests-trickle-in “If you vote by mail, you are required to have two witnesses and some form of valid identification,”
CA: Riverside County delays certification of election results
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-riverside-county-ballots-20100625,0,3380414.story
Some 12,500 mail-in ballots arrived a day after the June 8 primary because they had been forwarded from one post office to another. Activists want them counted.
CA: New election snafu intensifies scrutiny on Riverside County Registrar of Voters after primary http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/48916/
Riverside County supervisors are considering legal action to prevent 12,500 ballots found after the voting deadline in the June 8 primary from being thrown out.
…
Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore was prepared to certify the county’s election returns Wednesday, but Executive Officer Bill Luna directed her to delay certification after confirming with California Secretary of State Debra Bowen that there was no legal requirement for the process to go forward now.
CO: Judge assures Curry’s write-in status
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/141196
A federal judge has ruled against state Rep. Kathleen Curry in a lawsuit that sought to overturn a Colorado law requiring a candidate to register as an independent 17 months before an election to be able to make the ballot
CT: Hartford Courant Editoral Board interviews SOTS primary candidates
http://www.ctvoterscount.org/?p=3292
DC: Some Ward 8 Dems want FBI to oversee mayoral election
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2010/06/some_ward_8_
dems_want_fbi_to_o.html http://is.gd/d49Bk Some Democrats in Ward 8 are trying to get the FBI to oversee the D.C. mayoral election because they fear Adrian M. Fenty (D) and his ally, Ron Moten, will pay people to vote in the September primary.
…
Moten, the co-founder of Peaceoholics, strongly denies the allegation.
DC: Make sure you can still vote in D.C.!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/debonis/2010/06/make_
sure_you_can_still_vote_i.html http://is.gd/d49EB
This month, the city Board of Elections and Ethics moved to expunge 93,773 persons from the voter rolls, and to make sure you’re not one of them, open up this 21-megabyte PDF file and see if your name appears
FL: Florida Candidate, Kept off Ballot Because Filing Fee Check was Short One Cent, Won’t Sue http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/06/25/florida-candidate-kept-off-ballot-because-filing-fee-check-was-short-one-cent-wont-sue/
Guam: Bill makes promise to cover software debt
http://www.kuam.com/Global/story.asp?S=12707666 $140,000 is owed to ES&S for Decision 2008. If the vendor does not receive a commitment from the government that it will pay its debt it will not provide assistance in the upcoming election cycle, GEC staffers will be left handcounting ballots.
KY: Official, 6 others plead not guilty to vote buying
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/06/25/1323247/official-6-others-plead-not-guilty.html
The Glasgow Daily Times reported that Monroe County Judge-Executive Wilbur Graves entered the plea Wednesday in federal court in Bowling Green.
Six other people also entered not guilty pleas at the hearing. All seven are charged with vote buying or conspiracy to buy votes in the 2006 election.
ME: City panel crafts compromise on mayor, manager
http://www.pressherald.com/news/city-panel-crafts-compromise-on-mayor-manager_2010-06-25.html
MI: Michigan Agrees To Stop Unlawful Voter-Purge Programs
http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/michigan-agrees-stop-unlawful-voter-purge-programs
Agreement Follows Lawsuit By ACLU And Advancement Project
…
DETROIT – The state of Michigan has agreed to stop two voter-purge programs that unlawfully disfranchised thousands of Michigan voters in violation of federal law.
MN: Can’t make the Aug. 10 primary? Vote now
http://www.twincities.com/ci_15371784?nclick_check=1
Voters who will be on vacation, working out of state or otherwise unable to go to their polling places Aug. 10 can cast absentee ballots in person during regular business hours at their county auditor’s office and some city clerk’s offices
MN: eVoter Minnesota Launches With Start of Absentee Ballot Filing
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/evoter-minnesota-launches-with-start-of-absentee-ballot-filing-97149354.html
New Web Resource Offers Voters August 10, 2010 Primary Election Information.
‘Trust-us Elections’ in the ‘Show-Me State’
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7914 On Tuesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an OpEd by Cynthia Richards and Phillip Michaels of the non-partisan election integrity organization Missourians For Honest Elections.
NC: Wendell Fant Won’t Run as Independent for U.S. House in North Carolina
http://www.ballot-access.org/2010/06/25/wendell-fant-wont-run-as-independent-for-u-s-house-in-north-carolina/ On June 25, Wendell Fant, the first person in the history of North Carolina government-printed ballots to qualify as an independent candidate for U.S. House, said he will not run.
ND: Stenehjem says law backs putting Libertarian on ballot
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/166562/
Secretary of State Al Jaeger’s paperwork mistake shouldn’t keep a Libertarian candidate for the state Public Service Commission off the November ballot, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Thursday.
NJ: Investigators probe overturned election (mail-in ballots)
http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/passaic_politics/97135704
_Investigators_probe_overturned_election.html http://is.gd/d49GE
State investigators questioned Passaic County Democratic Chairman John Currie this week about the 49 uncounted votes that, discovered 21 days after the city’s municipal election, reversed the election’s results.
NY: Manorhaven Village Election Goes Into Recount* (write in vote issues)
http://www.antonnews.com/portwashingtonnews/news/8804-manorhaven-village-election-goes-into-recount.html . Currently, the election results for trustees and mayor have gone into a recount after a considerable write-in effort created a close vote.
…
Giovanna Giunta stated that she has compiled about one hundred sworn affidavits that have been signed and notarized from people who said they had difficulty voting for the Revival Party, which she believes cost her party votes – votes a recount would not find. She said that these people came to her to express the difficulties they faced with the voting machines and agreed to write and sign an affidavit.
TX: ELB: “Texas judge blocks Green Party from ballot”: AP offers this report. Political Wire also offers Perry Aide Pa… http://bit.ly/deC60l
TX: New Voter Registration Project Targets Harris County
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/texas-political-news/voter-registration-project-targets-harris-county/ The ethics reform lobbyist and campaign finance lawyer has launched a new nonpartisan voter registration drive that targets what he calculates are the 600,000 unregistered adult citizens there out of about 2.3 million who are eligible to vote.
TX: Houston Votes 2010 PSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM10DoQAxDk&feature=player_embedded
Houston’s Creative Get Out The Vote Video
WV: Lincoln Election Case Headed to Circuit Court
http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=81963
County Commissioners recuse themselves from hearing case.
HAMLIN — An allegation of voter fraud will now go court.
Internet Vote Watch
Why I Don’t Trust Online Voting
http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2010/06/24/why-i-dont-trust-online-voting/
Every fall, we start to hear about a bigger push for online voting for our major elections. I am one of those in the category of being firmly against online voting. There is too much room for things to go dreadfully wrong, with even less hope of fixing a problem if one occurs.
DC: Voters can soon send secret ballot from overseas
http://www.examiner.com/a-2693268~Voters_can_soon_send_secret_ballot_from_overseas.html
Washington voters who are overseas during an election – many of them military – will soon be able to vote by online secret ballot.
Oprah Winfrey Network Investigating Vote Rigging in Contest for Next TV Star
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/MindMoodNews/oprahs-network-zach-anner-dr-phyllis-voting-controversy/story?id=11002858
Thursday, the network confirmed to ABC that it had launched an investigation after several websites pointed out an unusual surge in votes for Tucker-Wicks.
National
NEW RESEARCH PAPER ON FRAUD: MAGALONI, “THE GAME OF ELECTORAL FRAUD AND THE OUSTING OF AUTHORITARIAN RULE”
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/?p=3256
…even when opposition parties have no military capacity to win a revolt, opposition unity and a consequent threat of massive civil disobedience can compel autocrats to hold clean elections and leave office by triggering splits within the state apparatus and the defection of the armed forces.
FVAP MARKS ARMED FORCES AND OVERSEAS CITIZENS’ VOTERS WEEK
http://www.fvap.gov/global/news/nr16-2010.html
Agency to Launch Online Voter Registration Assistant to Ease Registration Process
ELB: “Transparency Trumps Privacy In Petitions, Court Says”: NPR offers this report on Doe v. Reed. See also this … http://bit.ly/aWJc4p
DISCLOSE “NOT PERFECT,” BUT SHOULD BE PASSED, PREZ SEZ
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/016272.html
For Clean Campaigns: DISCLOSE and Amend
http://www.thenation.com/blog/36642/clean-campaigns-disclose-and-amend
As promised in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s January misruling in the case of Citizens United v. FEC — which essentially freed corporations to spend whatever they like to buy elections and influence policymaking — the Congressional Democrats have produced a legislative response.
But, while that response has some merit, it is insufficient — and potentially doomed.
Bill places limits on contractor spending (DISCLOSE ACT)
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0610/062510rb1.htm The House on Thursday passed far-reaching campaign reform legislation that would prevent many government contractors and other recipients of federal funds from spending freely on election-year advertisements.
Score for a complete participatory democracy: US = Not very good.
http://nonprofitvote.blogspot.com/2010/06/score-for-complete-participatory.html
Justice Department stands behind voter registration law
http://www.projectvote.org/blog/?p=649
This assertion—that getting a driver’s license and registering to vote are to be fully integrated as one process—is stunningly simple. But it also is not standard operating procedure in a majority of states.
Join us for a free webinar on voter participation basics for nonprofits
http://nonprofitvote.blogspot.com/2010/06/join-us-for-free-webinar-on-voter.html
“Voter Participation Basics for Nonprofits” July 1st 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET
International
Kenya: IIEC to electronically register Kenyan prisoners
http://www.kbc.co.ke/story.asp?ID=64866
The Interim Independent Electoral Commission-IIEC will use electronic voter registration in all the 70 prisons in the country with over 50,000 inmates to hasten the registration of prisoners for the August 4 constitutional referendum.
Pakistan: EC likely to go for e-voting machine
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=247080
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission (EC) has invited five world vendors on June 28-29 to demonstrate their products on the option of electronic voting machine (EVM), already in vogue in about 14 countries while 30 others are planning to adopt it, The News learnt here on Thursday.
Voting News by Joyce McCloy.Archives here at http://votingnews.blogspot.com/
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