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

Over the past week, several issues have dominated the voting news. The coordinated effort to establish restrictive voter identification requirements in state election codes and limiting early voting periods continued in spite of fierce opposition, with bills reaching governor’s desks in Florida, Texas, Wisconsin and South Carolina. All face legal challenges and the Department of Justice has been asked to weigh in on Florida’s controversial bill.

The Wisconsin recount is over – challenger Joanne Kloppenburg defended the importance of the recount process and pointed out numerous chain of custody and other administrative issues that were revealed.

The city of Vancouver BC has given approval for internet voting in local elections this Fall apperently without thorough consideration of the security concerns surrounding the online submission of voted ballots.

Memory limitations may interfere with Egypt’s plan to use Indian electronic voting machines for their elections.

The Kansas Senate thought twice about the provisions of an election bill promoted by Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Tennessee has dialed back the reforms put in place with the 2008 Voter Confidence Act.

This Week’s Featured Articles

May 20, 2011: Senate passes Wisconsin voter ID bill, sends to Walker | Wisconsin Law Journal

The state Senate gave final legislative approval to a bill that would require Wisconsin voters to show photo identification during a ragged session Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Scott Walker to sign the measure into law next week.

Assembly Republicans passed the measure in a late-night session last week. Republicans who control the Senate brought the bill up for debate on Tuesday. Democrats railed against it into the early morning hours on Wednesday, finally using a procedural maneuver to delay the final vote until Thursday.

…Republicans have been pushing the photo ID bill for years. They contend it’s needed to curtail voter fraud. Democrats maintain widespread fraud doesn’t exist in Wisconsin and Republicans just want to disenfranchise Democrat constituencies such as senior citizens, college students and the poor. Only 20 voter fraud cases have been prosecuted by the state Department of Justice and Milwaukee County district attorney’s office stemming from the November 2008 presidential election. None of those prosecuted involved people voting using someone else’s name at the polls.

…A number of other changes would take effect immediately, including requiring voters to sign poll books and to live at their current address for 28 days rather than 10 before they could cast a ballot. Those changes would come into play during possible Senate recall elections later this year. Groups have targeted six Republican and three Democratic senators for recall over their stances on Walker’s collective bargaining law, which strips public workers of nearly all their union rights.

One estimate put the ID bill’s cost at more than $7 million.

Full Article: Senate passes voter ID bill, sends to Walker (UPDATE) « Wisconsin Law Journal.

A highly controversial bill, passed by the Legislature earlier this month and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott at any moment, could mean all the difference in the 2012 presidential election.

State Republican lawmakers who passed HB 1355 say they want to eliminate the potential for voter fraud, but Democrats claim the bill is nothing more than a partisan pre-election attack aimed at disenfranchising left-leaning voters, and note that there have been no serious cases of voter fraud in Florida during the past two election cycles.

Democrats, who are grossly outnumbered at the state level, could do little to prevent the bill from passing the House and Senate on party line votes. On the national level, however, Democrats are alerting the Department of Justice about the bill and what they claim is its potential to hinder a citizen’s right to vote. All six members of Florida’s congressional delegation, as well as U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, sent a letter Tuesday to the Department of Justice asking for a review of the bill. The review is enabled by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because of historic discrimination in five counties.

“We urge you to use the authority granted to the Department of Justice by the Voting Rights Act to review the impact of HB 1355 on the five Florida counties currently protected under Section 5 preclearance requirements. We are confident that any honest examination of this legislation will determine that it is in clear violation of the Voting Rights Act,” the letter reads in part.

HB 1355 decreases the number of days allowed for early voting from 14 to six. Democrats typically outnumber Republicans in early voting periods in Florida. The bill also prevents voters who move outside their former county from changing their address on the day of an election (although there is an exemption for military members and their families), and imposes fines and restrictions on third-party voter registration groups. Democrats claim those provisions are aimed at college students and civic groups that look to register voters.

In their letter to the Department of Justice, Florida’s congressional Democrats said those provisions would have a “chilling effect” on voter registration in the Sunshine State.

Full Article: Battle Looms Over Florida’s Elections Bill | Sunshine State News.

The Journal Sentinel Editorial Board is entitled to its own opinions but it is not entitled to its own facts. The board’s speculation about my motives regarding the recount of the vote in the Supreme Court election is inaccurate. I appreciate this opportunity to set the record straight.

The recount process in Wisconsin is unfolding as prescribed by Wisconsin law. Votes are recounted in all 72 counties, and an official record is made of that process. When the Editorial Board says the recount is a “mere preamble to the court challenge,” it is wrong on the facts and wrong to prejudge my intentions.

Wisconsin law specifically anticipates that there may be court challenges to the recount, but those challenges can only happen after the recount is done. The recount is not “merely” a preamble to anything: It is a process that proceeds in prescribed ways when an election is this close.

As I and my campaign have said repeatedly and consistently, I have not made the decision about whether to request judicial review. Once the recount is done and the record is complete, my attorneys and I will carefully review the evidence in that record and I will make a considered judgment based on the law and the facts. The Editorial Board has no evidence other than politically motivated claims by my opponent and his supporters on which to base its statement that “it appears” I will challenge the recount in court.

And, finally, it is the height of cynicism and the worst of politics as usual to undermine the rationale for, and benefits of, this recount in order to try to score political points as Justice David Prosser’s campaign continues to do. When races are this close, there is a significant public interest established both by statute and by common sense in determining that votes were counted and counted accurately. The recount has uncovered significant and widespread errors and anomalies in the securing of ballots and recording of votes on election day. There have been changes to vote totals in every county due to miscounted or missing votes.

Many bags of ballots have been found to be essentially unsealed or ripped to the extent that ballot security is compromised. A stack of ballots, unbagged, was found in a clerk’s office. Ballots were found in voting machines where they had been left. Seal numbers on ballot bags and tags were not recorded in the inspector’s reports, creating doubt that the bags were properly sealed on election night. Touchscreen voting machine tapes were missing votes, or worse, were entirely blank and had to be reproduced from machine memory to allow a recount of the vote.

Full Article: Why recounts are a vital part of election process — JSOnline.

If the provincial government approves, Vancouver residents will be able to vote for their municipal representatives online this fall. Vancouver is set to join a small but growing number of Canadian municipalities that allow internet voting, subject to the province’s approval. That approval, according to City Councillor Andrea Reimer, is very likely, as the province is also interested in exploring the potential of internet voting.

[Suzanne] Anton was the only councillor to vote against Reimer’s proposal. She has two major concerns, she says: voters will have no idea what happens to their vote after they cast it, and the city will have no idea of the circumstances under which the vote was cast, meaning voters could be intimidated into voting a particular way or even sell or give their vote to someone else to cast.

…Estonian scholars Űlle Madise, and Tarvi Martens say there is no evidence that internet voting has increased voter turnout, while Michael Alvarez of the California Institute of Technology notes that efforts to introduce internet voting in the United States have had mixed results. On the other hand, Canadian experiences have been positive, with Halifax and Markham voters enthusiastic about the experience and Markham reporting increased turnout in the advance polls.

After analyzing Estonia’s experience, Madise and Martens say that “the internet is an inherently insecure platform. Indeed, various attacks, including worms, viruses, spy ware, spoofing, denial of service and others, can be used to compromise the voting results, to break the voter’s anonymity, or to interrupt the elections.” And Joseph Hall, a computer scientist at the University of California (Berkeley), observes that while it’s easy to ensure that all voting machines in polling stations are secure, it’s impossible to inspect the home computer of every single eligible voter in a municipality to ensure it’s secure and free from malware.

Full Article: Vancouver voters to get online choice this fall | The Vancouver Observer.

After the revolution in Tahrir Square, Egyptian authorities consulted India’s Election Commission for help in conducting parliamentary polls in the country, only to get cautious advice from chief election commissioner (CEC) SY Quraishi. He asked his Egyptian counterpart to not import electronic voting machines (EVMs) from anywhere and get these manufactured domestically. Imported machines, however faultless they are, could be deemed suspect, he warned.

“The validity of any election lies in the fairness of the process, if the machine is imported from somewhere, there is always a possibility that the election will be questioned as being rigged through the machines,” he said, in an interview to FE. The recent campaign against the use of EVMs in Indian elections, Quraishi said, hinges on the chip, “which is manufactured outside the country and is therefore supposed to be suspect”.

“I was very clear that our process was very fair, but the indigenisation of manufacturing would make their elections invulnerable to such charges. I told anti-EVM campaigners as well, set up units which manufacture the chip in India, and we’ll talk,” he added.

While the Egyptians may take a call on whether or not to adhere to Quraishi’s advice, the CEC, at the end of a long season of conducting assembly polls in four states and one Union territory, said that the road to electoral reforms in India itself is a long and bumpy road. “Its been 18 years and counting,” he said.

Full Article: Imported voting machines can’t be trusted: CEC.

Kansas legislators are refusing to move up the starting date for a proof-of-citizenship requirement for people registering to vote for the first time or to give Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office new power to prosecute election fraud cases. The rejection of those proposals Wednesday by a bipartisan majority in the state Senate is a political defeat for the Republican secretary of state, who took office in January. It came after he successfully pushed for a law designed to combat election fraud, one he touted as model legislation for other states.

That law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, starting next year, and says anyone registering for the first time must provide a birth certificate, passport or other proof of citizenship to election officials, starting in 2013, though a Kansas driver’s license will be sufficient for many. Kobach had hoped the proof-of-citizenship rule would take effect next year and that his office would gain the power to file and prosecute election cases in state courts — and didn’t stop pushing even after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a compromise version of Kobach’s proposed Secure and Fair Elections Act.

The vote Wednesday in the Senate was 23–15 against a bill revising the election law enacted earlier this year. Some critics renewed longstanding arguments that election fraud is nowhere near as serious a problem as Kobach says it is, while others resented his efforts to revise a law that had strong bipartisan support.

“You don’t unravel the deal after it’s finished,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat. “And he needs to learn that.“

Kobach didn’t return messages left on his cellphone and his office did not issue a statement.

Full Article: Kan. Lawmakers Spank Kobach On Elections Bill — Politics News Story — KCTV Kansas City.

See Also:

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

Author: admin

Related Posts