Verified Voting

Obama appoints members to voting rights panel | The Hill

The Voting News — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:08:18 +0000

President Obama on Tuesday announced the eight new members who will round out his presidential commission on voting, jointing Bob Bauer, the general counsel to the president's reelection campaign, and Ben Ginsberg, the former general counsel to Mitt Romney's presidential effort, on the bipartisan panel. The appointments include Trey Grayson, Larry Loma, Michele Coleman Mayes, Ann McGeehan, Tammy Patrick and Christopher Thomas — all former state-level elections officials — as well as Brian Britton, a Walt Disney World executive, and Joe Echevarria, the general counsel for the New York Public library.

No Agreement on Election-Day Registration | Big Island Now

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:00:28 +0000

They tried during six different meetings, but state lawmakers last month could not reach an agreement on a bill that would have allowed Hawaii residents to register to vote on election day. House Bill 321 was introduced to increase access to voting. Current state law requires that a voter register 30 days before an election. In testimony submitted on the bill, the American Civil Liberties Union said in the 2012 election, 62% of Hawaii’s registered voters went to the polls – the lowest voter turnout in the nation.

Effort to change early voting in Maine kept alive by House vote | Bangor Daily News

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:45:01 +0000

An effort to allow residents who vote early to place their ballots directly into a ballot box or voting machine rather than seal them in signed envelopes and submit them to a municipal clerk survived an initial vote Monday in the Maine House. The House voted 90-50 in favor of a measure that would ask voters whether they want to amend the state constitution to allow towns and cities to set up early voting. Maine residents who wish to vote early now do so by completing absentee ballots, which are sealed in envelopes that the voter signs and held at a municipal clerk’s office until Election Day, when poll workers place them in ballot boxes or voting machines. While Monday’s majority vote allows the bill to stay alive, the measure will need at least two-thirds support in future House and Senate votes in order to send a ballot question to voters.

Another legislative session, and still no action on early voting | Kansas City Star

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:30:49 +0000

The 2013 session has come and gone, and Missouri still has no law allowing advance voting. According to one 2012 tally, 32 of the 50 states have a system that allows voters to cast ballots prior to Election Day. Kansas is one of those 32 states. But not Missouri, although both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, who serve as the state’s chief elections officer, have pushed for it in the last decade.

Senate puts brakes on plan to link in-state tuition to voting | The Columbus Dispatch

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:18:44 +0000

A House-passed budget provision that would have cost Ohio universities about $370 million a year in tuition payments is likely to be removed by the Senate, but that doesn’t mean the issue of out-of-state students voting in Ohio is dead. House Republicans last month put an amendment in the budget that would require universities to charge in-state tuition rates for out-of-state students who are given college documentation so they can vote in Ohio. The idea has drawn sharp criticism from university leaders, who do not want to be put in the middle of a political voting controversy, say they cannot afford the lost tuition revenue, and argue it would make the system unfair for in-state students whose families help subsidize state colleges through taxes.

Democrats Strike Back at GOP Voting Measures | Associated Press

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:17:45 +0000

In a bitter fight, Colorado Democrats recently muscled through the Statehouse a massive elections reform bill that allows voters to register up until Election Day and still cast their ballots. It's the latest - and most substantial - development in a nationwide Democratic Party effort to strike back at two years of Republican success in passing measures to require identification at polling places and purge rolls of suspect voters. Democratic-controlled states like California, Connecticut and Maryland also all have sought to make it easier to cast a ballot as late as possible. They recently passed versions of same-day voter registration measures, which traditionally help younger and poorer voters - the sort who lean Democratic. Undaunted, the GOP is aggressively fighting the efforts.

Confusion and Staff Troubles Rife at I.R.S. Office in Ohio – Unprepared Office Seemed Unclear About the Rules | New York Times

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:16:08 +0000

During the summer of 2010, the dozen or so accountants and tax agents of Group 7822 of the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati got a directive from their manager. A growing number of organizations identifying themselves as part of the Tea Party had begun applying for tax exemptions, the manager said, advising the workers to be on the lookout for them and other groups planning to get involved in elections. “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as rogue agents,” said Bonnie Esrig, a former senior manager in the I.R.S. office in Cincinnati. The specialists, hunched over laptops on the office’s fourth floor, rarely discussed politics, one former supervisor said. Low-level employees in what many in the I.R.S. consider a backwater, they processed thousands of applications a year, mostly from charities like private schools or hospitals.

IRS Probe Ignored Most Influential Groups | Associated Press

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:15:28 +0000

There's an irony in the Internal Revenue Service's crackdown on conservative groups. The nation's tax agency has admitted to inappropriately scrutinizing smaller tea party organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, and senior Treasury Department officials were notified in the midst of the 2012 presidential election season that an internal investigation was underway. But the IRS largely maintained a hands-off policy with the much larger, big-budget organizations on the left and right that were most influential in the elections and are organized under a section of the tax code that allows them to hide their donors.

IRS scandal is about donors, not tax | Roger Colinvaux/CNN

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:13:44 +0000

The outrage over the IRS's conduct in targeting certain tax-exempt groups is based on a misunderstanding. Obviously, mistakes were made in how the IRS examined the groups, but what should not get lost amid the resulting hue and cry is that this is fundamentally about disclosure of donors, not tax-exempt status. First of all, the IRS is to a certain extent in the "targeting" business. The agency's job -- like it or not -- is as an enforcer. It is supposed to go after tax scofflaws. It has to look for clues in tax returns and other materials to find the cheaters and dodgers. In the current scandal, the method of the "targeting" -- searching returns for names like "tea party" as indicators of possible misfeasance -- was a mistake. But it does not follow that the IRS should not have been looking at these and other groups as a class, without regard to political affiliation.

Theories of Corruption and the Separation of Powers | More Soft Money Hard Law

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:12:15 +0000

In a policy paper just published by the Cato Institute, John Samples takes up the constitutional amendments proposed in response to Citizens United and attempts to expose their dangers. Samples, a distinguished scholar of campaign finance, has much to offer here, regardless of where a reader stands on the feasibility of these proposals. It may be true, as Samples writes, that the constitutional amendments he criticizes “provide answers to constitutional questions, not a means for courts to reconsider those questions.” John Samples, Move to Defend: The Case against the Constitutional Amendments Seeking to Overturn Citizens United (April 2013) at 9. They do provide a means for others to reconsider those questions. And, in fact, Samples’ analysis leads him to return to first principles and to ask the question: what control should we entrust to the government in matters of campaign finance, and on what theory?

Counties seek election cost relief | Press-Enterprise

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:11:43 +0000

It’s been an expensive few months for counties holding special elections to fill legislative and congressional seats. And it’s not over yet. San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties have had two special ballots already to replace former state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, after her election to Congress in November. Now both counties will have to hold at least one, and probably two, special elections to replace Assemblywoman Norma Torres, who will be sworn in today as Negrete McLeod’s successor, in the 52nd Assembly District. Riverside, San Diego and Imperial counties had to put on a special election to replace former state Sen. Juan Vargas in the 40th Senate District. Fortunately for the counties’ coffers, then-Assemblyman Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, won the March 12 ballot outright, avoiding the need for a runoff. There are more special elections in the offing in San Diego, Los Angeles and the Central Valley. With each ballot costing around $1 million, counties are rallying around legislation sponsored by San Bernardino County that calls for state reimbursement of special election costs in 2012 and 2013.

Elections officials debunk claims of voter fraud | Bakersfield Californian

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:10:20 +0000

An Election Day-eve accusation by a Republican organization of massive, sweeping voter fraud in the 16th Senate District race fizzled Monday after Kern County elections officials reviewed vote-by-mail ballots cast in the race. None of the 26 vote-by-mail ballots alleged to have been hijacked were used to cast a vote. In fact, the U.S. Postal Service had simply returned them, untouched, to the Kern County elections office as undeliverable. Luis Alvarado, chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Los Angeles, had bombarded the media over the weekend with claims that his group had uncovered about 30 verified examples of voter fraud in Bakersfield. That, he said, meant that "hundreds, if not thousands, of votes were cast illegally" in the 16th District. The group's attorney, Ashlee N. Titus, wrote in a statement to the Kern County elections office that the group was "working on a 'get-out-the-vote' campaign" to fill the state Senate seat when it discovered what it believed was voter fraud. Titus works for the Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk firm, which also represents the California Republican Party.

North Miami mayoral candidates dispute ballot count | Miami Herald

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:09:17 +0000

Three days after the North Miami election, at least two mayoral candidates are calling into question the results, saying Miami-Dade’s Elections Department can’t account for some seven hundred absentee ballots that were cast. But the elections department said that was not true. All ballots have been counted, and the candidates are mistaken because of a clerical error, a spokesperson said. According to unofficial results, including absentee ballots and all precincts reporting, the mayoral race and two council seats are headed to a runoff between the top two vote-getters because no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote to win outright. At a press conference Friday afternoon, Dr. Smith Joseph, who came in third place in the mayoral race, called into question the numbers provided to him by the elections department on May 6.

No. 1 in barring ex-prisoners from voting | Action News

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:08:27 +0000

Florida leads the nation by a wide margin in the number of felons who have served their sentences but cannot vote. One of only 11 states in the U.S. that does not automatically return civil rights to former inmates, Florida had not restored the rights of 1.3 million former inmates as of 2010, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based nonprofit that favors alternatives to incarceration. The next closest state was Virginia at 351,943. A policy introduced by Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi makes most former convicts wait years before they can apply to restore their rights, which include serving on a jury and holding public office. Critics say the policy disproportionately affects minorities — 60 percent of Florida’s prison population — and cost thousands the ability to vote in 2012. But Scott and Bondi say felons must demonstrate a crime-free life after prison before regaining their civil rights.

Bill would allow 17-year-olds to vote during primaries | Quincy Herald-Whig

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:07:42 +0000

Legislation that would open primary elections to 17-year-olds in Illinois is on its way to Gov. Pat Quinn's desk after the Senate overwhelmingly approved it earlier this week. The teens will be able to vote in spring primaries if they will turn 18 by the general election in November. Nineteen other states have enacted similar laws. The Senate voted 43-9 Wednesday to send House Bill 226 to the governor. The House approved the proposal in April by a 95-22 vote.

Miller under attack as he pursues campaign finance reform | Las Vegas Sun

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:06:46 +0000

An out-of-state conservative group wants you to call Democratic Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller and tell him that you’re “sick of his costly hypocrisy.” If you think this sounds like a campaign ad, that’s because it is. A group called the State Government Leadership Foundation has attacked Miller for sponsoring a transparency and good-governance bill at the Legislature while alleging that Miller hasn’t been ethical himself. Ironically, some of the “lavish gifts” Miller has received would be curtailed under his banner bill, which he calls the Aurora Act. Miller also defends the gifts, which include football games, theatrical performances and UFC fights. “I disclose absolutely everything,” he said, noting that the gifts are legal.

Defeated Passaic candidate vows to sue over election results | NorthJersey.com

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:05:55 +0000

Jose Sandoval, one of four defeated candidates in Tuesday’s mayoral race, said he plans to legally challenge the election’s results because the paperless machines on which voters cast their ballots cannot verify votes. Sandoval went to a county warehouse Friday morning accompanied by defeated candidate Pablo Plaza and Passaic County elections officials to retrieve a printout from each of the machines used in the election. Mayor Alex D. Blanco crushed Sandoval, his closest contender in the election, by a margin of 4,377 to 1,880. Plaza ended up with just hundreds of votes. The printouts collected by county officials on Friday seemed to confirm those election results, Sandoval said. "This does not prove those machines had not been tampered with," Sandoval said about the voting printouts.

Dutchess college students win voting rights suit with federal court settlement | Daily Freeman

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:04:35 +0000

Dutchess County’s Republican elections commissioner has agreed to stop demanding college students provide the name of their dorms and their room number in order to register to vote. That agreement, approved on May 13 by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, settles a class action suit brought by four students attending colleges in Dutchess County who claimed they were illegally denied the right to vote in the 2012 election. Dutchess County Democratic Elections Commissioner Fran Knapp called the agreement “a great victory for student voting rights here in Dutchess County.”

Legislators tout benefits of online registration | The Columbus Dispatch

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:03:43 +0000

A Columbus Democrat says it’s time for Ohio to join the 21st century and allow online voter registration. “We currently pay our bills online, manage our bank accounts online, and even file our tax returns online, yet we don’t let citizens register to vote online,” said Rep. Michael Stinziano, the former director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. His bill would require the secretary of state to create a paperless online voter-registration system that would allow qualified Ohio citizens to register to vote or change their voter-registration information online. Sen. Frank LaRose, R-Fairlawn, said he will soon introduce a similar measure, and Sen. Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, has already proposed online voter registration as part of a larger elections bill.

Charleston County considering a switch to paper ballots | Charleston City Paper

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:02:29 +0000

Before the start of last Wednesday's sparsely attended Charleston County Board of Elections and Voter Registration meeting, Frank Heindel turned around in his seat to ask a question of the woman sitting behind him: "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?" Heindel, a Mt. Pleasant resident, has almost single-handedly taken up the crusade of reforming South Carolina's electronic voting system, and the idea he presented to the BEVR last week might sound crazy to the uninitiated: He wants the county to go back to using paper ballots. "I believe every citizen in Charleston County deserves an election process that is transparent, conforms to existing laws, and can produce an audit paper trail," Heindel said. The board heard him out, and it voted to have its executive director look into new options for the November 2013 general elections — including new electronic machines and old-school paper ballots read by optical scanners. Heindel's full proposal was that the county conduct some, if not all, local elections this November without using its iVotronic touchscreen voting machines, which the election-integrity hellraiser says are flawed due to problems like vulnerability to virus attacks and a lack of hard-copy verification. Heindel also asked the board to require a post-election audit be conducted.

‘Opposition? There is no such word here’ | guardian.co.uk

The Voting News — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:01:59 +0000

"I will vote," says Arash, a university student who has just turned 18. "I don't know any of the real candidates yet but I will vote, because I can. "We have to try to make changes," he explains amid a birthday party in the middle-class Tehran neighbourhood of Gisha. "By not doing anything, nothing will happen." He says those who fail to act are "living their lives like a herd of sheep by putting their fate in the hands of others. "For me, though, this is a chance to practise my democratic rights." For many Iranians who have become eligible to vote since the last presidential election, in 2009, the awakening of political consciousness came with the emergence of the opposition Green Movement and its violent suppression over the months that followed.

How the IRS seeded the clouds in 2010 for a political deluge three years later | The Washington Post

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:15:51 +0000

In early 2010, an Internal Revenue Service team in Cincinnati began noticing a stream of applications from groups with political-sounding names, setting in motion a dragnet aimed at separating legitimate tax-exempt groups from those working to get candidates elected. The IRS officials decided to single out one type of political group for particular scrutiny. “These cases involve various local organizations in the Tea Party movement,” read one internal IRS e-mail sent at the time. A few hours north in Fremont, Ohio, the owners of a drainage supply shop, Tom and Marion Bower, were wondering why it was taking so long to get a tax exemption for their new tea party group. “I didn’t think any of us thought we’d be targeted,” said Marion Bower, of American Patriots Against Government Excess. “We started the group because we wanted to learn about our country and educate people. Now I’m becoming a little paranoid. If they can do this, what else can they do?”

Dan Pfeiffer: Legal questions in IRS scandal ‘irrelevant’ to ‘inexcusable’ actions | Washington Post

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:14:30 +0000

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday the question of whether any laws were broken in the Internal Revenue Scandal is “irrelevant” to the fact that the agency’s actions were wrong and unjustifiable. “I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant,” Pfefiffer said on ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed to ensure it never happens again.” Stephanopoulos replied: “You don’t really mean the law is irrelevant, do you?” Pfeiffer responded: “What I mean is, whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. The Department of Justice has said that they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it does not happen again, regardless of how that turns out.”

IRS Probe Sheds Light on Nonprofit Election-Year Surge | Bloomberg

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:13:21 +0000

Patriot Majority USA, a social welfare nonprofit, told the Internal Revenue Service that its mission is “to encourage a discussion of economic issues.” In exchange for keeping its donors private and paying fewer taxes, it must limit its involvement in politics. Yet last year Patriot Majority, run by Democratic operative Craig Varoga in Washington, spent at least $7.5 million on TV ads attacking Republican candidates on issues such as women’s health screenings and equal pay. With the Nov. 6 election over, the nonprofit shows signs of going dormant with e-mails bouncing back unopened and phone calls unanswered.

The IRS tea party scandal: The lesson is better campaign finance disclosure laws | Slate

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:11:37 +0000

Let’s not make excuses for the IRS. The agency shouldn’t have subjected conservative groups to special scrutiny. Campaign finance reform groups should have immediately called for hearings when this scandal broke: Imagine the hue and cry if the IRS during the Bush administration had singled out “progressive” groups for special tax scrutiny and sent themunprecedented questions about their contributors and activities. Given the danger going back to President Richard Nixon of using the IRS against political enemies, the agency has to be scrupulously nonpartisan and fair. Congressional investigations and the Department of Justicecriminal investigation announced Tuesday are inevitable and warranted. But the larger picture here shows why the IRS felt itself forced into the role of campaign finance regulator, and why people also are calling for the Securities and Exchange Commissionand state attorneys general to regulate campaign contributions. This is all about the failure of Congress to require the disclosure of donors who bankroll groups designed to influence elections.

Exiting IRS Chief Denies Targeting as Republicans Pounce | Bloomberg

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:11:02 +0000

Steven Miller, who is being forced out as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told House lawmakers today that the IRS has learned from its mistakes while denying that it had targeted nonprofit groups for review because of their political views. Under persistent questioning from House Republicans at the first hearing on the agency’s scrutiny of small-government groups that applied for tax-exempt status, Miller insisted that IRS employees didn’t have partisan motivations. “What happened here is that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient,” Miller said at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing that lasted almost four hours.

Motor Voter at 20: Successes and Challenges | Miles Rapoport/Huffington Post

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:10:22 +0000

It may seem unthinkable now, but as late as the 1980s, Americans in many states had only one option if they wanted to register to vote: Show up in person at a central registrar's office, which might be open only during restricted business hours and located far from the voter's home. Even in places where voter registration applications could be distributed outside the registrar's office, strict limits often applied -- such as in Indianapolis where groups like the League of Women Voters were allowed to pick up only 25 voter registration applications at a time. Overly complicated and restrictive procedures meant that fewer and fewer eligible voters were registering -- and without registering, they couldn't vote. Voting rights advocates knew that America must fiercely protect the freedom to vote for all citizens, regardless of race or privilege. So, they began a multi-year campaign to make voter registration more accessible. Their efforts paid off in 1992 when Congress first passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), only to see President George H.W. Bush veto the bill. Not to be discouraged, the movement kept fighting, and 20 years ago this week, Congress passed the NVRA and President Clinton signed it into law.

Debate Over California Online Voting Bill Weighs Accessibilty Against Security | IVN

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:09:16 +0000

Independent voters now account for approximately 40 percent of all voters in the United States. Following the national trend, California voters are increasingly leaving the two major parties, with almost 3.7 million voters now registered under “No Party Preference” in the state. Overall voter turnout, however, decreased in 2012 election, with one million fewer Californians casting a ballot in the general election than in previous presidential elections. With independent voters now accounting for 21 percent of the electorate in California, how can the state ensure their voices are heard in Sacramento? Assemblymember Philip Ting proposes exploring online voting with Assembly Bill 19, or the “Internet Voting Pilot Program.” Passed on April 23 by the California Assembly Elections Committee, AB 19 proposes to change the legal definition of “voting system” to include the use of systems connected to the Internet in future California elections. This would authorize the creation of an Internet Voting Pilot Program, under which counties could offer voters the choice to vote online.

Ballot images from 2009 election online for public inspection | Aspen Daily News

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:08:07 +0000

Images of the ballots cast in the 2009 municipal election are available for public inspection now that a four-year legal battle between City Hall and an Aspen resident has come to a close. The city of Aspen made 2,415 ballot images available Thursday on its website, and released them to the attorney for Marilyn Marks, who sued the city for access to the ballots. There were a total of 2,544 ballots cast in the 2009 election; 129 of them have been withheld due to identifying markers that could be traced back to a voter. Marks, who on Thursday said she has not spent much time examining the images posted online, wondered why the city withheld 129 ballots and if officials plan to attempt to make contact with voters who cast them since it’s illegal to make distinguishing marks on a ballot.

Takoma Park might not be last city to grant teens right to vote | Gazette.Net

The Voting News — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:07:10 +0000

When Takoma Park’s next election day arrives in November, the lines of voters ready to cast their ballots for the City Council will include a new set of voters making history. During its Monday meeting, the Takoma Park City Council passed a series of city charter amendments regarding its voting and election laws, including one allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in city elections. With Monday’s vote, Takoma Park became the first city in the United States to lower its voting age — which was previously 18 — to 16. Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director for the political advocacy organization Common Cause Maryland, said the city’s decision marks “a really important step forward” and “a perfect way to get the youth vote mobilized.”