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The Voting News Weekly: November 21-27, 2011

Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 12:43 pm
Column: Voting News

The Voting News Weekly: November 21-27, 2011

Elections were held amid protests and violence in Morocco and Egypt. An election recount for a Provo Utah city council race reveals errors that may have been caused by election management software. Opponents of a new election law in Ohio have succeeded in gathering sufficient petition signatures to place the measure on the 2012 ballot. The South Carolina Supreme Court voted to require counties to provide voting equipment, staff, and polling locations for party primaries. In the face of concerns about privacy and security British Colombia election officials continue to lobby for internet voting pilot projects. The Los Angeles Times investigated Americans Elect and supporters of the effort to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have received death threats.

Nov 26, 2011 10:03 am

Morocco: Moroccan elections challenged by voter mistrust | Yahoo! News

It should be a moment of excitement: Moroccans are choosing a parliament in elections Friday prompted by the Arab Spring’s clamor for freedom. Yet there are few signs here that elections are even taking place. Posters and raucous rallies for candidates are absent in the cities and instead there are just stark official banners urging citizens to “do their national duty” and “participate in the change the country is undergoing.”

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“The parties have presented the same people for the past 30 years, the least they could do is change their candidates,” said Hassan Rafiq, a vegetable vendor in the capital Rabat, who said he didn’t plan to vote. Like elsewhere in the Arab world, Moroccans hit the streets in the first half of 2011 calling for more democracy, and King Mohammed VI responded by amending the constitution and bringing forward elections. But since then the sense of change has dissipated.

The real challenge for these polls, in which an opposition Islamist party and a pro-palace coalition are expected to do well, will be if many people come out to vote in the face of a strident boycott campaign by democracy campaigners. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said that since Oct. 20 government has taken more than 100 activist in for questioning for advocating a boycott. “Summoning scores of boycott activists in cities around the country to police stations for questioning amounts to a state policy of harassment,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Mideast director in a statement Wednesday. It’s a sharp contrast to the electric atmosphere that characterized Tunisia’s first free elections just last month.

“Moroccans feel that aside from the constitutional reform, nothing has really changed, meaning that the elections of 2011 will be a copy of the elections 2007 and that is what will probably keep the participation low,” said Abdellah Baha, deputy secretary general of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

Full Article: Moroccan elections challenged by voter mistrust — Yahoo! News.

Nov 26, 2011 07:21 am

Egypt: Egypt’s election: Another charade | The Economist

Elections in Egypt tend to produce not just one but two solid majorities. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has never, since its creation in 1978, failed to win less than a two-thirds majority of seats in Egypt’s parliament. And since that time, the vast majority of voting-age Egyptians have never bothered to vote. Predictability under a veneer of democracy has given three decades of stability to the most populous and politically pivotal Arab state. But it has also produced a ruling class increasingly remote from an increasingly bitter people.

The general election due on November 28th looks set, as ever, to favour Egypt’s rulers—and to disfavour, perhaps more than ever before, the cause of democracy. The NDP is likely to capture as many as 400 of the 508 seats being contested. Turnout, meanwhile, is unlikely to surpass the 25% of registered voters reached in the last parliamentary poll, in 2005.

But the vote may not lack drama. Banners and noisy rallies have created a carnival air, darkened by ugly clashes between supporters of rival candidates within the NDP, often involving hired thugs, and between backers of the Muslim Brotherhood and the police, whose plain-clothes men often look like hired thugs. At least three people have been killed. The Brotherhood, which is officially banned but fields candidates as “independents”, says some 1,300 of its members have been arrested for brief periods. Some of its candidates have been disqualified, meetings disrupted and posters ripped down.

Although few doubt that the NDP will triumph again, the incoming parliament may look different from the outgoing one. In 2005 the Brotherhood surprised the NDP by winning more than half of the 150 seats it contested, emerging as by far the strongest opposition force in the assembly. Chastened, the ruling party changed rules in the interim. It brought in a constitutional ban on religion-based parties, adding yet another legal obstacle to the Brothers, and inserted a quota of 64 seats for women, perhaps on the assumption that Islamists would be unlikely to contest many of them. No longer would judges oversee the vote, as they had done by time-honoured tradition. Instead, a feebly staffed, government-appointed electoral commission was to run the poll.

Full Article: Egypt’s election: Another charade | The Economist.

Nov 25, 2011 08:10 am

Utah: Election recount reveals ballot scanner malfunctions in Provo District 1 race | Deseret News

Paper ballots in the Municipal Council District 1 race will be counted by hand Wednesday because of a technical problem that may have resulted in a miscount in a very close race.

The unofficial vote tally after Election Day separated winner Gary Winterton from Bonnie Morrow by just nine votes — 804 to 795. Morrow asked for a recount, which was taking place Tuesday when county election officials concluded they had machine problems. “The numbers were varying too much,” said Utah County Chief Deputy Clerk/Auditor Scott Hogensen. “It became obvious the machines weren’t counting things correctly.”

The county was bringing in technical support from the machines’ vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The scanners read paper ballots and feed results into computer software that totals the results.

Utah County Clerk/Auditor Bryan E. Thompson said late Tuesday it wasn’t yet known whether the scanners themselves malfunctioned or whether the tallying software is to blame. He said the candidates are being invited to observe the hand recount Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Winterton said he has been tracking the recount process and was aware the county had found a problem with vote tallying. “We thought we would be done with all of this Nov. 9,” he said.

Morrow said she asked for the recount to be done by hand in the first place but the request was denied. She said she was told she came out the winner during a recount Tuesday morning, and plans to be present when the ballots are again counted by hand Wednesday morning.

“We’re doing recounts of recounts of recounts. I just want to make sure the law is followed,” Morrorw said, saying Tuesday’s events have shaken her confidence in the process.

Hogensen said the county does not believe machine malfunctions affect the outcome of any other races in the county. Thompson said the county’s focus is on the District 1 race because that’s where the recount was requested, but he left open the possibility a tallying problem could affect totals in other Provo races.

“Some totals could change,” Thompson said. “If there are any questions, we’ll be above board and transparent to make sure everybody has confidence in the outcome.”

Source: Election recount reveals ballot scanner malfunctions in Provo District 1 race | Deseret News.

Nov 24, 2011 08:10 am

Ohio: Ohio ballot in ’12 likely to include election law | Toledo Blade

Opponents of a new law limiting absentee voting and early voting and making numerous other changes to Ohio elections law filed an additional 166,481 signatures Tuesday to virtually guarantee that voters will serve as final judges on the measure next year.

Led largely by former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and fellow Democrats and with support from President Obama’s campaign, the latest petition filings are expected to be far more than the roughly 10,000 needed to patch a hole in the coalition’s first filing at the end of September.

The group never stopped gathering signatures during the period that boards of elections scrutinized their first petitions. The referendum on House Bill 194 would appear on the November, 2012, ballot. In the meantime, the law will remain on hold.

Supporters of the law said it was needed to put all of Ohio’s 88 counties on the same page, particularly when it came to offering extra hours for early voting and the counting of provisional ballots, the ballot of last resort for voters whose eligibility is in question.

Full Article: Ohio ballot in ’12 likely to include election law — Toledo Blade.

Nov 23, 2011 08:09 am

South Carolina: State Supreme Court Sides with GOP, Requires Counties Hold 2012 Primary | Mauldin, SC Patch

The South Carolina Supreme Court voted Tuesday to require the State Election Commission and all counties to hold the 2012 Primary despite county contentions that the election lacked a mandate. The Court voted 3–2 in favor of the South Carolina Republican Party and the Election Commission, and as a result, counties must provide voting equipment, locations and staffing for the Jan. 21 primary. The court heard arguments on Nov. 14 after four South Carolina counties — Beaufort, Chester, Greenville and Spartanburg — filed suit to block the primary.

The main controversies in the case arose over whether a statute enacted for the 2008 primary carried over to 2012 and whether budget provisos that authorized the state election commission to fund the primary actually required it to do so.

Greenville County Director of Voter Registration and Elections Conway Belangia said he hasn’t had a chance to read the official decision, as he is staffing his office for a runoff election, but had heard about the 3–2 vote.

“We’ll abide by the results of the court,” Belangia said. “There is always the potential for a one-time hearing.”

Full Article: S.C. Supreme Court Sides with GOP, Requires Counties Hold 2012 Primary — Mauldin, SC Patch.

Nov 22, 2011 08:05 am

Canada: B.C. province backs online voting trials | Vancouver Sun

B.C. could soon be testing Internet voting after a formal request to try the idea received a verbal endorsement from the provincial government Monday. Elections B.C. wants permission to run pilot projects on online voting and other new technologies, chief electoral officer Keith Archer said in a report tabled in the legislature.

The independent elections agency wants the freedom to try new technologies and look at security issues, Archer said. “We want to have the mandate to at least have the exploration of this topic,” he said.

Elections B.C. released a discussion paper on the subject in September, concluding Internet voting could make it more convenient but also presents more security risks than in-person voting. “I love the idea,” said Attorney General Shirley Bond, who would be responsible for amending the Elections Act to accommodate Archer’s wishes.

“I’m currently working on how we will put in place an expert panel that will look at online voting in British Columbia.” Premier Christy Clark has also expressed support, said Bond, but the technology chosen needs to be safe and secure.

Full Article: Province backs online voting trials.

Nov 21, 2011 08:12 am

Editorials: Who’s behind Americans Elect and what they want | Los Angeles Times

A few weeks ago I wrote about an effort to put a centrist “third party” candidate on the presidential ballot next year, launched by an organization called Americans Elect. The privately funded group plans to stage a wide-open primary on the Internet, to enable voters to choose a ticket drawn from the middle of the political spectrum. Voters can propose anyone they like, but the process is designed for potential centrist candidates such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

That column provoked a torrent of questions from readers. Some asked: Isn’t this just a Republican plot to seduce independents away from President Obama? Others asked: Isn’t this just a Democratic plot to seduce moderates away from the GOP? These are fair questions in an age in which seemingly benign proposals sometimes conceal hidden agendas. So I did some more digging to find out who is behind Americans Elect and what it’s really after.

The answer will disappoint anyone who likes a good conspiracy. It’s just a collection of dissatisfied moderates, both Republicans and Democrats, who want to shake up the political system — and who don’t really know whether their project will help one side or the other next year.

Americans Elect plans to hold its national primary election in the spring. It envisions several rounds of Internet voting, with nominees from the electorate (candidates can nominate themselves too). Anyone can vote; the group hopes to arrive at a final nominee in June.

Full Article: Doyle McManus: Who’s behind Americans Elect and what they want — latimes.com….

Nov 21, 2011 04:36 am

Wisconsin: Walker Opponents Plagued By Threats, Thefts | WISC Madison

Opponents of Gov. Scott Walker said they have faced threats and thefts in the days since the recall effort began. Two volunteers in the petition drive reported violent threats made against them to the police. Neighbors in Monona also complained to authorities of politically motivated thefts from their yards.

The threats involved phone calls from an area code in Minnesota. The calls came overnight after Walker’s opponents began the recall, said Madison resident Tom Peer, who said he received a call at 2 a.m. on Thursday. “They said, ‘If you don’t stop circulating recall petitions, we will kill you,’” said Peer.

A similar call came to Heather DuBois Bourenane, of Sun Prairie. The United Wisconsin recall worker jumped out of bed when her phone rang around 4 a.m. on Thursday.

“He said I had attracted the attention of some very bad people, and my life and the lives of my family were in danger,” Bourenane said. She called Sun Prairie police, who confirmed investigators were working on the case.

… The United Wisconsin recall effort had gotten 105,000 signatures by Saturday, the group reported. “Ninety-nine percent of the people who drive by or people who come up to our petition centers are very polite and very kind,” DuBois Bourenane said. “But every now and then you have someone who wishes we weren’t there and has something to say about it.”

Peer, the recall volunteer helping with signatures on Madison’s east side, said most of his interactions this week had been positive. “Mostly, I’m getting a lot of honks and waves from people who’ve already signed,” he said. “Others, they sign up and they say, ‘Thanks for being out here.’”

“I’m a peaceful guy. I don’t want any violence or any negative actions out of what’s going on in our political situation.”

Full Article: Walker Opponents Plagued By Threats, Thefts — Politics News Story — WISC Madison.

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