National: New Voter ID Laws: How Students Are Affected | NextGen Journal
New voter ID laws being enacted in states across the nation could prevent many college students from voting in the next election. These laws, which have been passed in states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, among others, have the stated goal of preventing fraud by requiring voters to present photo ID when they go to the polls. But these laws may have unintended consequences, both for young people and the two presidential candidates. Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, a nationwide organization that mobilizes young voters, said that while these laws vary from state to state, they all make it harder for young people to register and vote. “We have a very busy year ahead of us, and a very important one,” she said in an April 21 Reuters article. “What a shame if we can’t continue to engage this generation in the political process, because these laws have made it harder.” Read More
Editorials: Can State Laws Cohabit With Citizens United? | NYTimes.com
The Supreme Court is expected to respond in June to a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding the state’s Corrupt Practices Act, which bans corporations from making political expenditures from their general treasuries. American Tradition Partnership, a nonprofit group, and co-petitioners sued for a declaration that the act violates their freedom of speech. They contend the Citizens United decision so clearly invalidates the Montana law that the justices should reverse the state ruling without oral argument. Montana, however, makes a sound and compelling argument that Citizens United, which struck down a federal ban on independent spending in political campaigns by corporations and unions, does not bar it from fighting political corruption with a carefully tailored campaign law. The Supreme Court should quickly uphold the state ruling, or hear oral argument before making a decision. Read More
Gov. John Hickenlooper is weighing a controversial bill that some believe creates a separate class of the public in reviewing ballots following an election, with the aim of maintaining anonymity while also allowing for transparency. House Bill 1036 — which began as Senate Bill 155, but was grafted onto HB 1036 in the waning hours of the regular legislative session — would solidify in statute that ballots are open to the public under the Colorado Open Records Act, but not immediately available to all members of the public. Instead, the bill would create a category known as an “interested party,” which would include political parties and representatives of issue committees, or stakeholders involved in the outcome of the election. Those “interested parties” would be granted access to ballots starting 45 days before any election and until the election is certified, while the rest of the public — including the press and watchdog groups — would be prohibited from reviewing the ballots until the election is certified by county clerks. Read More
According to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, eligible voters will be removed from the voting rolls as a result of the massive voter purge ordered by Governor Rick Scott. “It will happen,” Mary Cooney, a spokeswoman for the Broward CouPress Thisnty Supervisor of Elections, told ThinkProgress. Late last year, Governor Scott ordered his Secretary of State, Kurt Browning to “to identify and remove non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls.” Browning could not get access to reliable citizenship data. So Scott urged election officials to identify non-U.S. citizens by comparing data from the state motor vehicle administration with the voting file. Read More
Florida officials made it clear Friday that the state will continue to purge as many as 182,000 suspected noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls — despite a coalition’s call to stop the process or prepare for court. In the last three weeks alone, the Florida secretary of state’s office has identified and started to purge what it says are at least 50,000 dead voters from the state’s rolls and stripped out about 7,000 convicted felons. Officials at the same time are defending a more controversial plan to remove as many as 182,000 suspected noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. “Florida has a very shameful history of purging minority voters based on false information before presidential elections,” said Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, director of voter protection projects for the Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to protect voter rights. The Advancement Project is one of the five organizations in the coalition that warned Florida last week to discontinue plans to purge alleged noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. It also called on the Department of Justice to temporarily halt the purge and investigate the state’s actions. “What’s happening now, is not only illegal but it’s inaccurate, Culliton-Gonzalez said. “There are actual citizens on these lists. So, what’s happening is completely counter to the fundamental principals of our democracy.” Read More
Michigan: McCotter Could Get Booted from Ballot | Roll Call
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) is at risk of losing his place on the Aug. 7 primary ballot due to problems with his petition signatures, wreaking havoc on the GOP’s once secure hold on his seat. In a Friday statement, McCotter announced the Secretary of State had questioned whether he collected sufficient signatures to make the ballot. “I have been apprised my campaign may have submitted insufficient petition signatures to appear on the August primary ballot as a candidate for the 11th Congressional District’s Republican nomination,” he said in the late-night statement. Read More
Pennsylvania: One voter-ID hurdle lowered, but for many, others remain | Philadelphia Inquirer
Amid the complexities of Pennsylvania’s new voter identification law, the news release sent out from Harrisburg on Wednesday promised to make things simpler. The Corbett administration was announcing it had worked out a way for PennDot to check with the state Health Department to verify state birth records – a “simplified method to obtain photo ID for Pennsylvania-born voters,” said the headline on the Department of State release. It may be simplified, but it still isn’t simple. The new wrinkle will lower one of the multiple hurdles the law has created for some of the people who don’t have driver’s licenses and need other forms of photo ID to vote in November’s general election. Read More
Whether it’s a case of a blind squirrel finding real acorns or a maligned activist coming into her own with important revelations, new questions raised about the Shelby County Election Commission by controversial Seattle-area voting-rights activist Bev Harris may well cause serious investigations and important procedural changes. Allegations from Harris last week that hundreds of Shelby County voters — almost all black Democrats — have had their voting history erased have put Election Commission officials on the defensive and prompted a demand from 9th District congressman Steve Cohen Sunday that the U.S. Department of Justice and Tennessee State Election Coordinator Mark Goins look into her charges. “The ballot must remain free and open to all,” said Cohen, who had made similar requests for DOJ scrutiny following a glitch in the August 2010 countywide election that caused several hundred voters to be turned away, at least temporarily, after an erroneous early-voting list had been fed into the county’s electronic voting log. Read More
Wisconsin: Stop the presses: Walker uncovers huge voter fraud | The Oshkosh Northwestern
The problem with the radioactive partisanship in Wisconsin is that otherwise intelligent folks who typically choose their words with care occasionally feel the need to launch rhetorical firebombs to stir up their respective political bases. This makes it virtually impossible for government leaders to come together to craft effective solutions to legitimate issues that require their attention. The latest example comes from Gov. Scott Walker, who as politicians go, is a straight talker, no doubt something he’s become more careful about these days since every syllable is scrutinized, inspected and combed for meaning. In an interview with The Weekly Standard, Walker said he was concerned about voter fraud in the coming June 5 recall election in the wake of the state’s controversial voter ID law being suspended by the courts. “I’ve always thought in this state, close elections, presidential elections, it means you probably have to win with at least 53 percent of the vote to account for fraud. One or two points, potentially,” he told the publication. Read More
Wisconsin: Scott Walker: Voter Fraud is Worth “One or Two Points” in Recall Election | Slate
Wisconsin native Steve Hayes offers a long, empathetic take on Scott Walker’s attempt to survive a recall election. The highlight: An interview with Walker, who apologizes for nothing (why should he?) and tries to get inside the heads of the liberals who hate him. Why are they so adamant about reversing a voter ID law?
“I’ve always thought in this state, close elections, presidential elections, it means you probably have to win with at least 53 percent of the vote to account for fraud. One or two points, potentially.” That’s enough to change the outcome of the election. “Absolutely. I mean there’s no question why they went to court and fought [to undo] voter ID.”
There might be some question. The voter fraud issue was investigated in Wisconsin fairly recently, in the form of an Election Fraud Task Force and a deep dive into 2008’s vote results. The yearlong investigation charged 20 people — this in an election with around 3 million ballots. For fraud to equal “one or two points” in that election, you’d have needed 30,000-60,000 phony ballots. The proven fraud actually amounted to 0.0007 percent of all votes. Read More
Egypt: Presidential candidates file appeals to election commission, charging vote fraud | Newser
Three top candidates in Egypt’s presidential race filed appeals to the election commission ahead of the deadline Sunday, alleging violations in the first round vote that they say could change the outcome. The appeals alleging fraud are likely to enflame an already explosive race. Preliminary results from last week’s election placed Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi and Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, as the two candidates entering a June 16-17 runoff. Thirteen candidates were on the ballot. Shafiq, who placed second after Morsi, said votes cast for him in one province were not included in the ballot count. Many voters reject both front-runners as polarizing extremists. Young, liberal secularists who led the popular rebellion that overthrew longtime leader Hosni Mubarak last year failed to place a candidate in the runoff. Read More
Egypt: Third-place finisher calls for partial vote recount | USAToday.com
The third-place finisher in Egypt’s presidential race called Saturday for a partial vote recount, citing violations, his spokesman said. Early results show that Hamdeen Sabahi came in third by a margin of some 700,000 votes, leaving him out of next month’s run-off between the two leading candidates. Sabahi’s spokesman Hossam Mounis said the campaign has found evidence of many violations during the two days of voting that would affect the final results. He declined to give details about the violations but said appeals would be filed Sunday. Read More
Egypt: Hamdin Sabbahi seeks recount | BBC
The candidate who is said to have come third – missing out on a run-off – in Egypt’s historic election has demanded a recount, citing many “violations”. Hamdin Sabbahi, from the leftist al-Karamah party, said conscripts had voted illegally. Mr Sabbahi missed out on the second round by 700,000 votes, according to unofficial results from state media. Next month’s run-off will be between candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mubarak-era regime. The Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Mursi, has a slight lead on former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, with a reported 25.3% of votes against 24.9%. Read More
Lesotho: Tense elections held in Lesotho | Reuters
Voters in the highland African kingdom of Lesotho went to the polls on Saturday in a wide-open election that analysts say could end without a clear result, as happened in 1998 when South Africa had to send in troops to quell unrest. The capital Maseru was quiet, with shops closed, as voters queued up on a crisp and clear southern hemisphere winter morning. Campaigning has been peaceful but a lack of opinion polls, and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s decision to quit the ruling party and go it alone under the banner of the new Democratic Congress (DC) party, have kept the landlocked nation’s two million people on tenterhooks. “I decided to go to the polls because I want changes. We are tired of this government, we need changes,” said Mohato Bereng, a local chief, planning to vote for the Lesotho Congress for Democracy. Read More
Mongolia: Corruption Trial of Enkhbayar Postponed | NYTimes.com
As he prepared to go on trial on corruption charges, the former president of Mongolia lay in a wrinkled hospital bed, where he was recovering from a 10-day hunger strike he waged to protest being held in detention by his successor’s government. Gaunt, barefoot and dressed in hospital-issue white pajamas, the former president, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, bore little resemblance to the populist leader who dominated Mongolian politics until he was defeated in 2009 by Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who now runs the country. But even in his apparently frail state, Mr. Enkhbayar angrily dismissed the charges against him in an interview on Wednesday, and criticized the timing of the trial as a ploy to remove him from the political arena just weeks before parliamentary elections. “If this is a political case, let’s do it now,” he said in fluent English. “But if we live in a real democratic country, and this is not just political theater, let’s take more time.” Read More
Papua New Guinea: PNG calls state of emergency in capital | Canberra Times
Papua New Guinea MPs have voted to declare a state of emergency in the nation’s capital after rogue police officers surrounded Parliament House. If adopted, the emergency rule would give increased powers to PNG’s police commissioner to arrest and detain. The leader of government business, Moses Maladina, put the motion yesterday at a special sitting of Parliament and it is expected to come into force today. The government also voted to reject the decision of three Supreme Court judges to reinstate Sir Michael Somare as the nation’s leader. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said cabinet would meet last night to prepare advice for Governor-General Sir Michael Ogio, who must approve the state of emergency. Mr O’Neill said the state of emergency would be extended to trouble spots such as the Southern Highlands and Hela province, site of a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project. Read More