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The Voting News for 26 July 2011
The Voting News for 26 July 2011
Apart from the various considerations of political ideology, influence and process regarding Americans Elect, there’s the simple matter of technology. Americans Elect plans to use all-internet-voting to nominate a presidential candidate and to broker the selection of the actual president in an Electoral College showdown. Will a binding internet vote be pulled off with accuracy and without getting hacked? Or is online voting subject to tampering?
Internet votes can be pulled off. The city of Honolulu managed an internet election for neighborhood councils in 2009. Estonia is often mentioned by internet-voting advocates, although more than 98% of votes cast in Estonia’s 2005 e-vote were old-fashioned paper ballots, and Estonia is a small country that had 9,681 electronic votes to verify that year.
A brave Wisconsin woman videotaped the ordeal of getting her son a Voter ID, which is now a minimum requirement for non-drivers in the state to participate in elections.
She and her son succeeded, but only after a long process that included need to show banking statements (which at first were rejected because they didn't show enough activity). And after finally completing the endeavor, they were told to pay $28 (a poll tax?) even though the Voter ID's are supposed to be completely free.
Gov. Scott Walker's administration is working on finalizing a plan to close as many as 10 offices where people can obtain driver's licenses in order to expand hours elsewhere and come into compliance with new requirements that voters show photo IDs at the polls.
One Democratic lawmaker said Friday it appeared the decisions were based on politics, with the department targeting offices for closure in Democratic areas and expanding hours for those in Republican districts.
A high-ranking DOT official rejected that claim, saying the changes were based on economics, not politics. Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the state Department of Transportation to reconsider its plants to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center. The department plans to expand by four hours a week the hours of a center about 30 minutes away in Watertown.
Ohio: Rep. Marcia Fudge seeks Justice Department oversight over voter ID laws | cleveland.com
Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge is asking Attorney General Eric Holder to examine whether voter photo identification laws that have been proposed in Ohio and adopted in several other states would violate the Voting Rights Act.
"Many of these bills only have one true purpose, the disenfranchisement of eligible voters - especially the elderly, young voters, students, minorities and low-income voters," said a letter that Fudge sent Holder today with more than 100 House Democrats.
Maine: GOP chairman says university students behind voter fraud | Bangor Daily News
Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster hand-delivered to the Secretary of State’s office on Monday the names of 206 individuals whom he believes committed voter fraud in the 2010 election. Webster said his recent research has concluded that the state’s election system is rife with abuse and he called for the secretary of state and attorney general to investigate his claims.
All 206 names — which were not provided to the media — were students at one of Maine’s public universities in 2010. Webster said if he had access to enrollment data for the state’s private colleges, he believes the list of potential violators would be in the thousands. “This ought to concern Maine residents,” he said late Monday morning from the State House. “This fraud is outrageous.”
Maine: GOP leader Webster claims voter fraud | The Kennebec Journal, Augusta, ME
Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster said Monday he's uncovered more than 200 cases of election fraud in Maine. And he says as many as 8 to 10 percent of the out-of-state students he saw registered to vote in Maine were registered to vote in two places.
Maine election law states that, in order to register, a voter has to declare Maine as his or her residence and intends to return there after absences. "Our election laws need reform and I believe are being abused," Webster said at a State House news conference.
… Webster's claims of fraud were quickly shot down by Democrats and leaders of a coalition trying to force a statewide repeal vote.
Colorado, Editorials: Guest Commentary: Wild West elections in one Colorado county | The Denver Post
The 2012 elections are big news, but the media are not reporting Colorado's potential role in a national election fiasco.
Those who understand election equipment and procedures warn that Colorado elections cannot withstand close scrutiny. We call for changes to prevent humiliation if the national press attempts to verify Colorado's election returns.
If Colorado were an "emerging democracy," the Carter Center would reject calls to monitor our elections because we fail to meet their minimum transparency standards. If a national contest is decided by Colorado's vote, as Bush/Gore was by Florida, press everywhere will severely criticize the "Wild West" elections in some Colorado counties.
The Media Policy Institute commented on the decision of the Central Election Commission of Kyrgyzstan to refuse accreditation of the eleven news agencies to take part in the election campaign on presidential elections of 2011. 24.kg news agency publishes the comments of the Media Policy Institute’s lawyer Aliya Abdraimova with abridgements.
According to her, “publication of the list of accredited mass media of KR (Kyrgyz Republic) for participation in the election campaign for the upcoming elections of the president of the country caused a stormy public debate, as one of the national information agency was not presented.”
Latvia: Latvia Referendum Dissolves Parliament | Bloomberg
Latvians may elect a new premier to lead the country’s deficit-cutting government after a weekend referendum dissolved parliament and propelled a new party to the top of opinion polls.
Almost 95 percent of voters on July 23 backed former President Valdis Zatlers’s call to dismiss lawmakers as part of an anti-corruption drive. The wave that swept away parliament drove Zatlers’s Reform Party, founded in June, into a first- place tie with the pro-Russian Harmony Center in opinion polls, followed by Premier Valdis Dombrovskis’s Unity party.
Indonesia: Parties propose rescheduled gubernatorial election in Aceh | The Jakarta Post
Political tensions were expected to calm gradually in the once-restive Aceh after parties agreed to accept nominations of independent candidates on the condition that the gubernatorial election would be rescheduled.
In a meeting with the Aceh and Papua Desk at the House of Representatives, all local and national party functionaries in Aceh retracted their protests against the Constitutional Court’s controversial verdict on independent candidates to prevent the regulatory conflict from igniting into a greater conflict.
The timing of elections in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) and the milestones that have to be met before such elections can be held has resulted in questions, opinions and concerns being aired by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
Direct rule was imposed on the TCI almost two years ago in August 2009. One year earlier, current Governor Gordon Wetherell arrived and began immediately to introduce restraints on the then elected government of the Progressive National Party (PNP).
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