The Voting News Weekly: TVN Weekly November 14-20 2011

The New York Times commented on a law requiring voter ID at the polls approved by voters in Mississippi. Mother Jones investigated the secrecy surrounding Americans Elect. The Department of Justice delayed a Texas voter ID law. Oregon experimented with iPads to facilitate voting for voters with disabilities despite security concerns. Demos considered difficulties faced by mobile young voters. With election day voting restored by a citizens’ veto, Maine Republicans are now pushing a voter ID law. The Kazahkstan President dissolved the parliament and called snap elections and elections in South Ossetia went to a run-off after none of the 11 candidates managed to top the 50 per cent of the vote required by law.

Editorials: Disenfranchise No More | NYTimes.com
Blogs: Meet the Political Reform Group That’s Fueled by Dark Money | Mother Jones
Blogs: Texas Voter ID law approval hits new snag | Postcards
Blogs: Voters in Oregon cast ballots with the help of iPads | electionlineWeekly
Blogs: To Be Young, Mobile and Unable to Vote | The Demos Blog
Editorials: Maine Republicans Want to Get There (Vote Suppression) From Here (Vote Turnout) | NYTimes.com
Kazakhstan: President dissolves parliament, calls snap election to create multiparty chamber | The Washington Post
South Ossetia: Presidential poll goes to second round | rt.com

Nov 19, 2011
Editorials: Disenfranchise No More | NYTimes.com

Mississippi voters just approved a new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. But that law will not go into effect immediately, thanks to the Voting Rights Act. Instead Mississippi will get in line behind Texas and South Carolina as the Department of Justice examines each state’s voter ID laws, in a process known as “preclearance.” The Justice Department will allow each law to go into effect only if the state can show its law will not have a racially discriminatory purpose or effect. Such proof may be hard to come by: a recent study by The Associated Press found that African-American voters in South Carolina would be much harder hit by that state’s ID law than white voters because they often don’t have the right kind of identification.

But this important preclearance procedure may not be around much longer. Before the next election season rolls around, the Supreme Court could well strike down this provision of the law as an unconstitutional infringement on states’ rights, leaving minority voters essentially unprotected from efforts to diminish their voting power. Congress needs to act before then to protect voting rights everywhere.

Back in 1965, Congress enacted the preclearance provision to prevent states with a history of discrimination from making changes in voting practices without first getting permission either from the Justice Department or, at the state’s option, from a three-judge federal court in Washington. In determining which jurisdictions should be covered, Congress used a formula based in part on voter turnout in 1964. The formula was reverse engineered to make sure it covered the states with the worst records of discrimination. The original provision was to last five years and covered much of the South. Congress renewed it twice in the 1970s, adding coverage for language minorities, including Hispanics and American Indians in all or parts of other states, including Arizona, California and Texas. It renewed the law twice more, most recently in 2006, to last until 2031.

Following renewal, an obscure Texas utility district backed by ideological opponents of the act challenged the constitutionality of the preclearance provision, claiming that it went beyond Congress’s power because Congress could no longer show that the law was necessary to prevent racially discriminatory voting.

Full Article: Disenfranchise No More — NYTimes.com….

An upstart political reform group called Americans Elect is looking to blow apart the Democrat-Republican duopoly that dominates American politics. Its imaginative scheme: nominating an independent presidential candidate over the internet. The group is on the ballot in a half-dozen states, and the national buzz surrounding its initiative is growing—but so too are the questions about who’s bankrolling this effort and the security of the outfit’s voting procedures.

Americans Elect rose from the ashes of Unity08, a group formed in 2006 to increase access to the electoral system for independent presidential candidates. Via Americans Elect’s website, registered voters can sign up as “delegates” and nominate “any American [they] believe can be a great leader.” (For reference, the site offers a lengthy list of current political figures.) In April, delegates will winnow the field of candidates to six finalists, each of whom will then select a running mate from another party (if a finalist decides not to run, he or she can decline). And in June, Americans Elect plans to hold an online convention to decide which candidate will appear on the Americans Elect ballot line.

To become certified as a political party, the group must first collect a certain number of signatures in each state. All told, Americans Elect plans to spend $10 million on this effort.So far the group has been certified in six states, including key swing states Florida and Michigan. Certification is pending in California. That’s an encouraging sign for a group hoping to starting an electoral revolution.

But campaign watchdogs are sounding the alarm about the group’s lack on transparency. In late 2010, Americans Elect changed its tax status from a tax-exempt 527 group to a 501©(4), or social-welfare organization—the same classification as Crossroads GPS and other dark money outfits. Under tax law, such groups are not permitted to make political advocacy the majority of their activity. Unlike 527 groups, which must publicly disclose its donors, 501©(4)s are under no such obligations.

In September, campaign finance watchdogs Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center requested that the IRS investigate whether Americans Elect and several other 501©(4)s qualify for tax-exempt status. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, says that Americans Elect is functioning like a political party, making it ineligible for tax exemption. “A political party cannot be a social-welfare organization under our tax laws,” Wertheimer says. “The danger to the integrity of the electoral system is the failure to disclose their donors, which is essential information in our political process.”

Dan Winslow, Americans Elect’s chief legal counsel, says the recent furor over dark-money groups “has been directed towards 501©(4)s that are actually [political] advocacy organizations, advancing the interests of an identifiable candidate or group of candidates.” But because Americans Elect focuses on reforming the election system and not on political advocacy, Winslow argues that it shouldn’t be lumped in with the others.

Americans Elect officials say they need secret contributions in order to upend a sclerotic system. “We have to be able to raise significant amounts of money to be able to take on the status quo,” says Kahlil Byrd, Americans Elect’s chief executive officer. Were the group compelled to disclose its donors, he says, there would be “a chilling effect…on people’s willingness to participate in this process.” That is, increased disclosure would dissuade potential big donors. (Before the group switched its tax status, the group received $1.55 million from its chairman, former financier Peter Ackerman, whose son, Elliot, is the group’s COO.)

Full Article: Meet the Political Reform Group That’s Fueled by Dark Money | Mother Jones.

Texas provided “incomplete” information on the state’s voter ID law that does not enable federal officials to determine whether the new law would illegally discriminate against minorities, officials said this afternoon. That means that it will likely delay the scheduled Jan. 1 start of enforcement of the new law, which will require Lone Star voters to show an approved photo identification before they can cast ballots. However, the next statewide election is the March primary, and it was unclear if the delay would affect that election.

Justice Department officials have 60 days to decide whether the new law violates the Voting Rights Act, once they receives the information from Texas officials.The law was a hot-button issue for conservative Republicans that Gov. Rick Perry had elevated to an emergency issue to get it quickly passed into law last spring. Democrats, voting-rights advocates and minority groups had harshly criticized the law, but were unable to block its passage in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In a letter Wednesday to state Elections Director Ann McGeehan, U.S. Department of Justice Department official T. Christian Herren Jr. said Texas officials did not supply required data on race that is necessary for the agency to make a decision on the controversial new law. In its earlier filings with the Justice Department, Texas officials said that because the voter-registration process does not require applicants to list their race, Texas officials instead were trying to compile that information from state police records.

Full Article: Voter ID law approval hits new snag | Postcards.

“I Voted” took on a whole new meaning during the recent special election in Oregon when nearly 100 voters cast their ballots with the help of iPads. The tablet device, which many people associate with surfing the Web, was used to allow disabled voters better access to their ballots. According to Steve Trout, elections director for Oregon, the elections division hatched the idea of using the iPad for accessible voting as a way to save money and provide greater access. “We have been spending large sums of money on our accessible voting system but having very few people use it. We wanted to see if there were alternatives that were less expensive, provided greater utility and were easier to use for both voters and election officials,” Trout explained. “We played around with the idea here long enough to think it was worthy of a pilot.”

Using software created by Everyone Counts, staff from the elections division spread out on Election Day to test the new program with seniors and voters with disabilities. The software allows voters to download their ballot, mark their choice, print out their ballot and return it just like they would their regular mail-in ballot. Like other accessible voting devices the iPad allows voters to enlarge their ballot for better visibility and is compatible with several accessibility devices such as Sip-and-Puff technology.

The pilot test in Oregon used Everyone Counts eLect Platform that automatically operates on any web-enabled device. The platform was customized for Oregon to include ballot data, voter registration data and the state’s seal colors and design formats. “We were really astounded by the success of the iPad pilot,” said Secretary of State Kate Brown. “We had 89 Oregonians use the iPad to mark their ballots in November, that is a huge increase from the last General Election in 2010 when only six people statewide used the accessible computer stations. We look forward to the second phase of the pilot in January making the ballot more accessible to Oregonians with disabilities.”

Among the 89 voters who participated in the iPad program not one reported a problem, although Trout pointed out that there were a few “lessons learned” that according to Trout will make the experience better next time around. For instance, because many of the participants were seniors, when they came to the step where they had to enter their birthdate, they had to scroll through quite a way to get to their correct birth year. Trout said they will look into changing the starting date range to somewhere around 1930.

… Although everyone seemed happy with the device, Pamela Smith with Verified Voting does have some security concerns. “Given there have been concerns in the past about being able to discern voters’ choices on other electronic voting devices through various means, even when that device is not (deliberately) networked, this would appear to amplify some of those concerns, especially for a device that is meant to preserve privacy,” Smith said. Smith noted that the program is just “a whisker away” from Internet voting.

Full Article: electionlineWeekly.

Last Tuesday, Mainers went to the polls and successfully defended Same-Day Registration in their state. Earlier this year, the Maine legislature had repealed the decades-old practice based on baseless claims of rampant voter fraud – fraud that Charlie Webster, Chair of Maine’s Republican Party, and Charlie Summers, Maine’s Secretary of State, failed to prove, try as they did, after dramatically launching an investigation of 206 University of Maine students originally from out of state.

Young would-be voters are being picked on all over the country — from the photo ID laws that don’t allow student IDs (as opposed to concealed handgun licenses) to changing domicile requirements so that out-of-state students are prevented from voting — because students are “foolish” and “vote with their feelings.” Plus, now they are also poor, so they really shouldn’t vote.

Young people already register and vote at lower levels than nearly any other group. Fewer than a quarter of 18–29 year olds voted in the 2010 election. And even when youth voter turnout hit a historical high in 2008 of 51 percent, it was still well behind their elders by 11 to 19 percentage points.

Age has long been considered one of the strongest predictors of political participation. A recent study by three political scientists show, however, that contrary to conventional wisdom, lower rates of youth political participation is not because of lower levels of civic resources, social capital or political interest, but almost entirely because of the higher rate of mobility and “the electoral procedures that tie registration to residential location.” Our youth are not too stupid nor apathetic to figure out the complex and arbitrary system of voter registration in America; rather, the residency-based voter registration system itself makes highly mobile young Americans less likely to be registered at the current/correct address.

Full Article: To Be Young, Mobile and Unable to Vote — The Demos Blog — PolicyShop.

Earlier this year, Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, a Tea Party favorite, helped Republican legislators enact a law eliminating Maine’s 38-year-old same-day voter registration policy. They offered the standard excuse Republicans have been using around the country to hinder turnout by Democratic-leaning groups – it was necessary to prevent voter fraud. Never mind that voter fraud – people trying to vote when they are not entitled to – is no bigger a problem in Maine than in the rest of the country, which is to say it’s not much of a problem at all. Maine has reported two cases in 38 years.

Last week, a resounding 60 percent of Maine’s voters nullified that law, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans in the state house from seeking new ways to combat an imaginary crisis. Now they’re pushing a bill that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls.

The GOP has already imposed voter ID laws on seven states and introduced them in more than 25 others. In each case the intent, or at least the effect, is the same: Voter suppression, mostly of the elderly and minority groups.

Full Article: Maine’s Voter ID Law — NYTimes.com….

Kazakhstan’s president issued a decree Wednesday to dissolve parliament and call a snap election that will end the governing party’s monopolistic grip over the legislature. Under a new election law, a minimum of two parties will enter parliament after the Jan. 15 polls, although no robust anti-government forces are believed to stand any real prospect of winning seats. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a government meeting Tuesday that the election should be brought forward — it was originally scheduled for August 2012 — to avoid the campaigning season coinciding with an anticipated global economic downturn.

The authoritarian, oil-rich former Soviet nation’s parliament is currently occupied exclusively by Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party. Changes to the law approved in 2009 mean the party that wins the second largest number of votes will be allocated seats even if it fails to pass the 7 percent threshold normally needed to get into parliament.

Kazakhstan has undertaken concerted efforts to project itself as a dynamic emerging economy, but its one-party parliament has long been a source of embarrassment and the subject of international criticism. Despite the apparent efforts to broaden representation in parliament, few believe any genuine opposition parties will win seats.

Full Article: Kazakhstan’s president dissolves parliament, calls snap election to create multiparty chamber — The Washington Post.

Presidential elections in the republic of South Ossetia will continue to a second round as none of the 11 candidates managed to top the 50 per cent of the vote required by law. “None of the candidates will be elected president of South Ossetia,” the head of the Central Election Commission, Bella Plieva, said on Monday after 98.84% of the votes had been counted. “Most of the votes went to Anatoly Bibilov (25.44%) and Alla Dzhioeva (25.37%)… If none of the candidates gets the necessary amount of ballots, the Central Election Commission calls a rerun election.”

Anatoly Bibilov is the incumbent head of South Ossetia’s Emergencies Ministry. Alla Dzhioeva is the former education minister of the republic. The two favorites will now compete in the second round, which has been scheduled for November 27.

Turnout was quite high in Sunday’s poll, with 67.5 per cent of registered voters casting their ballots. For the results to be recognized in the second round, the turnout must exceed 30 per cent. The winner will be whoever gets a simple majority of votes. However, the amount of ballots against him or her should not exceed the number of votes for the rival. Otherwise, another rerun will be required.

The term of the incumbent president, Eduard Kokoity, is expiring this December, so the November 13 election was called to choose his successor. On the same day, South Ossetia held a referendum on making Russian a state language in the republic. According to preliminary data, a majority of voters supported the proposal. Currently Ossetian is the only state language, although Russian has the status of an official language.

Source: South Ossetia presidential poll goes to second round — RT.

The Voting News Weekly: TVN Weekly November 14-20 2011

Author: admin

Related Posts