The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly July 9-15 2012

Irish E-Voting Machines Finally Put To Use

In a case that could undermine parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a Federal court heard arguments in a case challenging the Texas Voter ID law. Slate considered the potential for a repeat of Florida’s election meltdown this November. The sudden resignation of Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter may cost taxpayers $650,000 if a primary is required for the special election to fill his seat. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie came under fire for the title given to a measure of the November ballot. The New York Daily News proposed absentee ballots as a potential for controversy in a close election this November. The recyling that recently purchased Ireland’s un-used electronic voting equipment has donated €10,000 to a children’s charity. Libyans participated in their first nationwide elections in four decades and Mexico’s elections were marred by irregularities and bribery.

Blogs: Judges Seem Ready To Mess With Texas’ Voter ID Law | TPM
Florida: Florida looks ready to repeat many of the same mistakes in how it conducts its elections | Slate
Michigan: Special election to replace McCotter could be shelved | Detroit Free Press
Blogs: Minnesota Election Law Ballot Measure – So Much More than Just Voter ID | Brennan Center for Justice
Editorials: Meet the hanging chad of 2012 – absentee ballots | NY Daily News
Ireland: E-Voting machines finally put to use | TheJournal.ie
Libya: Libyans vote in 1st nationwide election in decades but violence underscores challenges ahead | The Washington Post
Mexico: Irregularities reveal Mexico’s election far from fair | guardian.co.uk

Jul 14, 2012
Blogs: Judges Seem Ready To Mess With Texas’ Voter ID Law | TPM

A panel of three federal judges in D.C. posed skeptical questions on Friday about Texas’ voter ID law during closing arguments in a trial about whether the measure is discriminatory. The panel of federal judges — George W. Bush appointee Rosemary M. Collyer, Clinton appointee David S. Tatel and Obama appointee Robert L. Wilkins — hopes to issue a ruling on the case in “quick order,” according to Collyer, who expressed doubts about the findings of Texas’ experts in the case. John Hughes, a lawyer for Texas, argued in his closing arguments that people who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it. Hughes argued that if the state’s voter ID law really disenfranchised anyone the D.C. “courtroom would be filled” with Texans who couldn’t obtain voter ID. In one of the more awkward exchanges, Hughes offered a semi-defense of literacy tests after one judge said that the reason literacy tests were racist years ago was because of inequalities in the education system. The judge asked if it was Texas’ theory that there would be a problem with literacy tests today. Setting aside other laws banning literacy tests and poll taxes, Hughes said he did not believe a literacy test would violate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

When a judge noted that some voters would have to travel 120 miles to the nearest DMV to obtain a voter ID, Hughes argued that people in those areas had to travel “long distances to do any number of things.” The judge pointed out that people who live more than 100 miles from a courtroom aren’t even allowed to be subpoenaed because it is “unduly burdensome,” but Hughes argued that traveling far distances was a “reality to life of choosing to live in that part of Texas.” The panel of judges were also highly critical of how Texas handled discovery during the case, pointing out that they did not request federal records about what Texas residents had forms of federal identification, such as passports. (Texas was making the case that many individuals who did not have a Texas drivers license might have a federal form of ID.)

Matthew Colangelo, a deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, argued that Texas’ voter ID law was “exactly the kind of law Congress had in mind” when it passed the Voting Rights Act. He said surveys indicating that even the majority of African-Americans and Latino voters believe voter ID laws are okay shouldn’t weigh on the case. “If there were a poll that said literacy tests or poll taxes were popular, that wouldn’t keep the court from striking them down,” Colangelo said.

Full Article: Texas Voter ID Trial Ends | TPMMuckraker.

Shortly before the 2000 election, Michael Obregon contacted the Miami-Dade Office of the Supervisor of Elections. Heads up: He had a new address in the city. Where should he go to cast his vote? “I received a letter,” remembers Obregon, “one page, saying I wasn’t eligible to vote because I had a felony on my record.” He takes out the letter—he keeps it in a manila envelope labeled “Vote Problem”—and reads the warning: “The court system has notified the elections department that you are ineligible to vote. Pursuant to statute 98.093, we have removed your name from the voter registration record. You may contact the office of executive clemency.” The problem: Obregon hadn’t committed a felony. Someone had apparently stolen the Bennigan’s bartender’s identity, opened some accounts, and gotten busted. That information churned into the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which alerted the Florida Department of State, which passed the information on to the local supervisor’s office, which kicked the nonfelonious Obregon off the rolls. “I had to send my fingerprints in,” says Obregon, “so I went to the police station, they took them, they sent them in. I got back a copy of my criminal record. It said, ‘There is no felony here.’ ” Thus began a mission to convince state bureaucrats in Tallahassee that he deserved the vote. It’s an ongoing mission. Twelve years later, Obregon still isn’t on the rolls.

As Obregon gives me more details and read from more paperwork, I grow progressively dumbfounded. Millions of people choose not to vote or forget come Election Day. But how do you let a state’s bureaucracy bounce you around for 12 years? Eventually, even if the various state agencies change their numbers or blow you off, don’t you try to go above them? “I could probably try harder,” says Obregon, “but I just get discouraged.” Here’s the paradox of the new voter ID crackdown, of the 38 states that have debated or passed legislation that puts more demands on voters. The new laws—and in Florida, new executive campaigns—ask voters to show driver’s licenses at the polls, or prove their eligibility with birth certificates, or prove that they’ve never had a felony, or prove that they are citizens of the United States.

Doing that involves navigating your state’s bureaucracies. Those bureaucracies have been shrunk or frozen by years of belt-tightening. They rely on data from other cost-cutting organs of the state. Imagine giving some endomorphic amateur athlete a low-calorie diet and limited access to a gym. He’s training for a mile-long fun run, so there’s no pressure. All of a sudden, you panic about the threat of Sprinting Fraud or something, and you inform the runner of his new task: Run a timed 3.5-mile circuit, tomorrow.

Full Article: Florida looks ready to repeat many of the same mistakes in how it conducts its elections – Slate Magazine.

Republican Nancy Cassis of Novi said Friday on public television’s “Off the Record” that she may withdraw as a candidate to avoid the $650,000 cost of a special election to fill the last six or seven weeks of former Republican Thad McCotter’s Oakland-Wayne congressional seat. If no more than one Democrat and one Republican file for the Sept. 5 special primary election, the special election – which county, city and township clerks say presents an unnecessary financial burden – would be canceled.

Both Cassis, a former Oakland County legislator from Novi, and Kerry Bentivolio, a teacher from Milford, said this week they would run in the special election. Both are also running for the regular two-year term for the new seat. Cassis said this morning that she may withdraw from the special election if only two candidates file the necessary 1,000 signatures on nominating petitions by next Friday. No Democrats have said they plan to run in the special election.

Full Article: Special election to replace McCotter could be shelved | Politics/Election 2012 | Detroit Free Press | freep.com….

This week, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie announced the title of the ballot measure addressing election administration for the November election. The new title of the measure is: CHANGES TO IN-PERSON & ABSENTEE VOTING & VOTER REGISTRATION; PROVISIONAL BALLOTS. Some proponents of the measure have cried foul, arguing this title is misleading. In fact, it is painfully accurate. Many voting rights advocates, including this blogger, have been loosely referring to the measure as the “Voter ID Amendment.” But the proposed amendment is much broader than simply drastically increasing the ID requirements for voters. This amendment goes further by limiting how registered voters are verified, impacting more than in-person voting on Election Day. It will undermine the long tradition of Election Day registration that many believe accounts for Minnesota’s consistently high voter turnout rates. Beyond that, it will affect how voters confined to their homes can vote and will necessitate the creation of a cumbersome and costly provisional balloting system.

Minnesota has a strong history of civic engagement. If the proposed amendment were merely a strict voter ID restriction — like the amendment passed in Mississippi and similar to the laws passed in South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee — then the debate could be limited to whether it is reasonable to limit voters to a short list of IDs that could exclude thousands of Minnesota citizens. But the conversation about this proposed constitutional amendment must be larger than that narrow issue. The debate must include whether Minnesotans want to see the disabled and elderly potentially barred from voting, and if they want to permanently change voter registration rules that have been in place since the state first required voter registration in 1973.

Changes to the state constitution are permanent. These changes cannot be reversed when the true impact of these laws on voters and on the budget are discovered. The solution proposed by proponents of the ballot measure changes the Minnesota constitution. No future legislature or court will be able to modify or change the rules. Future elected and judicial officials will not be able to respond to the needs of Minnesota’s citizens to ensure all residents have full and fair access to the polls.

Full Article: Minnesota Election Law Ballot Measure – So Much More than Just Voter ID | Brennan Center for Justice.

At this point in a closely fought presidential campaign, pundits and pollsters are checking their guts and sifting through data to try to predict November’s winner. Those of us who specialize in election law engage in a more heart-wrenching task: attempting to make an educated guess about the likelihood that one or another election irregularity will lead to a Bush v. Gore-style meltdown. My candidate for the honor of the next potential chad to dangle: absentee ballots. Competition for this year’s biggest potential ballot box nightmare is pretty stiff. We can expect the rise in voter identification laws to lead to some confusion at the polls. This confusion may arise both from the voters who face unfamiliar barriers to entry and from untrained poll workers who must enforce sometimes arcane, novel laws on the fly. This will probably lead to a large number of provisional ballots — the kind a poll worker gives you when they can’t find your name on the rolls. The legality of these would be determined in a post-election recount, if one comes to pass. But the silent, creeping revolution in the timing and method of voting presents bigger opportunities for trouble. In recent years, absentee and mail-in ballots have been steadily rising as a share of total ballots cast. The majority of states now allow “no-excuse absentee” voting, meaning anyone can ask to cast a ballot by mail. You don’t need the political equivalent of a doctor’s note, as was true previously.

According to the Census Bureau, more than 18% of voters in the 2010 election voted by mail. Another 8% voted early but “in person” at a polling place or vote center (a recent innovation that enables out-of-precinct voting). As a result, more than a quarter of voters ended up voting early or absentee — roughly double the rate in the 2000 election. In general, misfeasance — meaning, plain old mistake-making — is a bigger threat to voting than is corruption or malfeasance, and absentee ballots are no exception. Many interactions between the voter and the election authority must work without a hitch for the voter’s absentee ballot to be cast successfully:

The already registered voter must request the ballot; the administrator must receive and process the request; the administrator must in a timely manner send the ballot to the voter; the voter must receive the ballot; the voter must vote correctly, on time and provide the proper verifications (such as the voter’s own signature and/or that of a witness); the administrator must receive the ballot on time; and the administrator must count the ballot.

Full Article: Meet the hanging chad of 2012 – NY Daily News.

A Tullamore-based recycling company which recently purchased 7,500 mostly unused e-voting machines from the State has made a generous donation to a children’s charity. KMK Metals Recycling presented Barretstown with a cheque for €10,000 today after it decided to go ahead with the donation despite not being allowed to sell any of the machines for the cause. Kurt Kyck bought the machines last month with intentions of selling 100 of them to raise funds for the Kildare residential camp for children with serious illness. However, he was advised by the Department of the Environment that the machines should be put entirely beyond functional use and could not be sold. “My staff were disappointed and so when we looked at the figures it was agreed that we were in a position to go ahead with the donation to Barretstown,” he said.

Kyck and his wife have been involved with the charity for a number of years and Edeltraud Kyck has volunteered at the camps on a number of occasions. CEO of Barretstown Dee Ahern said, “This donation will give more children and their families the chance to experience the magic of Barretstown and to look to the future.” Barretstown offers a break from hospitals, white coats and medical treatment and a chance for sick children to be children again. Children get to participate in a range of adventurous and challenging activities, supported behind the scenes by safe, medical attention and care and always for free.

E-voting machines were purchased by the State at a cost of €51 million back in 2002 but were only ever used in three constituencies at the 2002 general election – Dublin North Dublin West and Meath – and the second referendum on the Nice Treaty later that year. Since then storage of them has cost the State around €4 million and led to much ridicule including from the Finance Minister Michael Noonan who suggested earlier this year that they could be put in pubs as the machines were “valueless”.

Source: E-Voting machines finally put to use · TheJournal.ie.

Jubilant Libyans chose a new parliament Saturday in their first nationwide vote in decades, but violence and protests in the restive east underscored the challenges ahead as the oil-rich North African nation struggles to restore stability after last year’s ouster of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Women ululated, while men distributed sweets and the elderly with canes or wheelchairs struggled to get to polling centers in a show of joy over the most visible step toward democracy since the eccentric ruler was killed by rebel forces in late October after months of bitter civil war. “Look at the lines. Everyone came of his and her own free will. I knew this day would come and Gadhafi would not be there forever,” said Riyadh al-Alagy, a 50-year-old civil servant in Tripoli. “He left us a nation with a distorted mind, a police state with no institutions. We want to start from zero.”

But attacks on polling centers in the east — where anger over perceived domination by rivals in the west is fueling a drive for autonomy — laid bare the rifts threatening to tear the nation apart. Still the election for a 200-seat parliament, which will be tasked with forming a new government, was the latest milestone in a revolution stemming from the Arab Spring revolts that led to the successful ouster of authoritarian leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and later Yemen.

Nearly 2.9 million Libyans, or 80 percent of Libyans eligible to vote, have registered for the election and more than 3,000 candidates have plastered the country with posters and billboards. Electoral officials said turnout was 60 percent and counting of the ballots had begun. “We are celebrating today and we want the whole world to celebrate with us,” Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib said after he cast his ballot in Tripoli.

Full Article: Libyans vote in 1st nationwide election in decades but violence underscores challenges ahead – The Washington Post.

The media rewrites history every day, and in so doing, it often impedes our understanding of the present. Mexico’s presidential election of a week ago is a case in point. Press reports tell us that Felipe Calderón, the outgoing president from the PAN (National Action party), “won the 2006 election by a narrow margin”. But this is not quite true, and without knowing what actually happened in 2006, it is perhaps more difficult to understand the widespread skepticism of the Mexican people toward the results of the current election. The official results show Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto winning 38.2% of the vote, to 31.6% for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and 25.4% for Josefina Vázquez Mota of the PAN. It does not help that the current election has been marred by widespread reports of vote-buying. From the Washington Post: ”‘It was neither a clean nor fair election,’ said Eduardo Huchim of the Civic Alliance, a Mexican watchdog group funded by the United Nations Development Program. ”‘This was bribery on a vast scale,’ said Huchim, a former [Federal Electoral Institute] official. ‘It was perhaps the biggest operation of vote-buying and coercion in the country’s history.’”

It may not have been enough to swing the presidential race, but for those who know what actually happened in 2006, the voters’ lack of faith in the results is completely understandable. The official margin of difference between Calderón and López Obrador of the PRD, who was also the PRD’s nominee in the 2006 election, was 0.58%. But there were massive irregularities.

The most prominent, which was largely ignored in the international press, was the “adding-up” problem at the majority of polling places. According to Mexico’s electoral procedures, each polling station gets a fixed number of blank ballots. After the vote, the number of remaining blank ballots plus the number of ballots cast are supposed to add up to the original blank ballots. For the majority of polling places, this did not happen. But it got worse than that: because of public pressure, the Mexican electoral authorities did two partial recounts of the vote. The second one was done for a huge sample: they recounted 9% of the ballots. But without offering any explanation, the electoral authorities refused to release the results of the recount to the public.

Full Article: Irregularities reveal Mexico’s election far from fair | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

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The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly July 9-15 2012

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