The Voting News for May 30, 2011

The Voting News for May 30, 2011

Maryland: Takoma Park explores online absentee voting | Gazette.net

Takoma Park may offer absentee voters the option to vote online in this falls city council and mayoral election.

The city Board of Elections is working with Scantegrity, a research group that ran the citys 2009 elections, to develop a system in which absentee voters could vote online. The city will still be conducting traditional voting at polling places, regardless of whether an online absentee system is implemented, City Clerk Jessie Carpenter said.

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Wisconsin: Numerous Challenges Could Push Back Date of Wisconsin Recall Election | Fox Point-Bayside, WI Patch

Challenges filed by state Sen. Alberta Darling and three other senators against the recall petitions filed against them could push back the date of the recall elections, the state Government Accountability Board said Friday.

The board had tentatively set the date for all recall elections for July 12. However, that date was set before the four incumbents - Darling, and Democrats Jim Holperin, Robert Wirch and Dave Hansen - raised "numerous factual and legal issues" regarding the petitions, the board said.

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National: Republican States Push Revisions to Voting Laws | NYTimes.com

Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.

Republican legislators say the new rules, which have advanced in 13 states in the past two months, offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.

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Pennsylvania: Recount to begin in close Pennsylvania Democratic primary race for Commonwealth Court judge | Philly.com

Election boards in Pennsylvania's 67 counties are poised to start recounting hundreds of thousands of ballots in a tightly contested statewide judicial primary race.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele on Thursday ordered a mandatory recount in the Democratic primary election for Commonwealth Court judge.

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Editorials, Maine: Ben Chipman: Bill to end same-day voter registration in Maine could take away right to vote for thousands of people | Portland Daily Sun

For the last forty years, Maine has allowed people to register to vote on Election Day and cast a ballot if they have proof of residency and some form of identification. A bill making its way through the Maine Legislature this session, L.D. 1376, would prohibit same-day voter registration and eliminate voting rights we have had since 1972.

It is hard enough to get people to vote now. Why would anyone propose making voting more difficult? Some have said that processing new registrations on Election Day is too much of a burden for city and town clerks and that allowing people to register and vote the same day opens up the potential for fraud.

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India: Electronic voting machines invalidated India SCBA election, claims Delhi HC suit | Legally India

The contentious Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) election has now been challenged in the Delhi High Court, claiming that the use of electronic voting machines (EVM) was unconstitutional and the election results invalid.

This follows incumbent candidate Ram Jethmalani having strongly questioned his defeat at the hands of PH Parekh earlier in mid-May.

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Philippines: Bill seeks to get biometric data of all Filipino voters | Articles | FutureGov — Transforming Government | Education | Healthcare

The Philippine government is seeking to institutionalize the use of biometrics in voter registration to clean the voter record in preparation for the midterm elections in 2013. House Bill 3469 which requires all voters to have their biometrics data — photographs, fingerprints and signature — taken by an election officer and prohibits those without biometric data from voting has now hurdled Third Reading at the House of Representatives.

According to the author of the bill, 2nd district Tarlac Representative Susan Yap, the move will “cure the perennial problem of multiple registrants and flying voters” since every registrant is assigned a unique key of identification.

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Editorials, Nevada: Jon Ralston: If only Heller had done his job as secretary of state, we wouldn’t have mess to replace him as U.S. representative | Reno Gazette-Journal

If only Secretary of State Dean Heller had written regulations for a House special election, we wouldn't have such controversy over filling U.S. Sen. Dean Heller's seat.

But the Republican did not, as a 2003 law instructed, write any rules, so now we have chaos, thanks to a Carson City judge's stunning decision last week that overturned the guidelines proposed by Heller's Democratic successor, Ross Miller. And reading through the 97-page transcript of Judge Todd Russell's decision reveals a jurist who seemed immediately predisposed to the GOP argument that party central committees should nominate and hostile to the Democratic Party claim that it should be, as Miller calls it, a "ballot royale."

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Arizona: Group Determined to Get More Signatures to Arizona Senate President Recall Pearce | myFoxPhoenix.com

Tuesday marks the deadline for one group looking to force a recall election of state Sen. President Russell Pearce. The group needs thousands of valid signatures from Mesa residents in order to move the recall effort forward.

Organizers with the Citizens for a Better Arizona believe they not only have enough signatures, they're going for a kind of end zone spike symbolic victory as well.

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California, Editorials: Dean Logan and Michael Alvarez: Needed — a 21st century voter registration system for California | San Francisco Chronicle

The world looks to California for 21st century innovation, especially for the application of technology that makes life less costly and more efficient.

Californians are well into the 21st century, working in the cloud, using smart phones and tablet computers, and getting their entertainment on-demand by satellite. But when it comes to voter registration, California seems to be stuck in the 18th century. State law won't allow eligible citizens in our state to register online until at least 2015 -- and maybe much later.

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Spain: Spain’s election commission says weekend protests illegal | AFP

Spain's electoral commission declared late Thursday that protests set for this weekend by thousands of people angry over the economic crisis are illegal.

The Central Electoral Commission (JEC) said protests planned for Saturday and for Sunday, the day when regional and municipal polls are scheduled, "go beyond the constitutionally guaranteed right to demonstrate."

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Tunisia: Electoral Commission Wants Vote Delay | ThirdAge

Tunisia's electoral commission announced Thursday it wants the first national election since the toppling of the country's longtime strongman delayed for three months.

According to CBS News, the commission wants to hold the vote for a constituent assembly on Oct. 16 instead of in July to allow organizers more time.

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Pakistan: Election Commission impasse: Pakistan Government to introduce 20th amendment | The Express Tribune

The government announced on Sunday that it would introduce the 20th amendment to the constitution, in a bid to pre-empt a likely Supreme Court decision to disqualify 26 lawmakers for having been elected through by-elections that were held without a fully constituted Election Commission of Pakistan.

The move is likely to trigger fresh concerns about the priorities of the government at a time when the country is facing severe security and economic challenges. The Pakistan Peoples Party-led coalition is bleeding political capital even as the opposition Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz is actively campaigning against what it describes as the government’s failures.

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Zimbabwe: How Zanu-PF plans to steal the Zimbabwe elections | Politicsweb

Despite clear and binding international agreements to the contrary, evidence now available shows that President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF is again planning to steal the next elections with the help of a grossly rigged electoral register.

After the 2008 elections, in which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change won a parliamentary majority but in which the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was forced to withdraw from the ensuing presidential election due to the overwhelming level of government-orchestrated violence, Zimbabwe's neighbours in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) stitched together a deal, the Global Political Agreement, which saw Mugabe remain as President with Tsvangirai as Prime Minister and a commitment to a new constitution with free and fair elections.

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Malaysia: Solid proof to declare Sarawak polls null and void | Free Malaysia Today

A political activist said he has visual and documented evidence to prove that rampant vote-buying in the recent Sarawak polls was a well-oiled plot from the very top. BK Ong, who was deported from Kuching last Tuesday, claimed he has the evidence which revealed cheques and vouchers to voters were issued from the Chief Minister’s Office.

“The evidence is strong enough to declare Sarawak polls null and void,” said Ong, a coordinator of the Malaysian Election Observers Network (MEO-Net).
Ong claimed that BN candidates were the main culprits in buying votes with monetary payments to secure ‘default’ victories.

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Vietnam: Impressive Election Day in Vietnam | VOVNEWS.VN

Last weekend Vietnam held general elections for its National Assembly (NA) and all levels of People's Councils. Such elections are held every five years but this year's elections were particularly significant because it was the first time the NA and People's Councils were elected simultaneously.

… Electronic voting has not yet appeared in Vietnam and the ballots are still counted by hand, similar to the way I voted in the small town where I lived in the USA. While this method may take longer to count and ostensibly have greater potential for human error, it does avoid fiascos like the infamous "dangling chads" of the US 2000 presidential elections.

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