Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Wednesday 5/28/08

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CANTON - — When Jacob H. Myers invented the lever voting machine booth, first used in 1892, he said it would discourage "rascaldom" in elections.

Rascaldom has survived, but more than 3,000 lever voting machines were mothballed when the state switched to optical scanner machines in November.

Now it's up to Town Clerk Linda Smith to find good homes for Canton's long-serving machines, cooling their heels in a storage room at town hall.

"They're not very valuable, but they are historic," Smith said. "And in someone else's eye, maybe they're more valuable."

Courant

TUPELO - When asked about his favorite candidate in this year's presidential race, 31-year-old Steven Hubbard didn't hesitate to say, "Obama's my man."

But that's where his political voice ends. Hubbard, a convicted felon from Tupelo, is one of nearly 150,000 inmates and convicted felons in Mississippi who've lost their right to vote, nearly 7 percent of the state's adult population.

...

Mississippi has a procedure that would allow Hubbard to have his rights restored. But with the presidential election less than six months away, some people have begun to wonder about the effect of having so many voting-age Americans disenfranchised, particularly black voters.

...

The good news for Hubbard and others in his position is most voting bans aren't permanent. In Mississippi, after completion of a sentence, an individual must go to his or her legislator and persuade the lawmaker to personally author a bill re-enfranchising that individual. Both houses of the Legislature must then pass the bill, and the governor must sign it.

Each year about 10-12 people are re-enfranchised in Mississippi. But it isn't automatic - some bills are rejected. All felons stripped of voting rights must go through this procedure to have them restored.

Daily Journal

On May 28, the 5th circuit reversed a U.S. District Court in the Mississippi Democratic Party’s lawsuit. The U.S. District Court had ruled that Mississippi must give the Democratic Party an opportunity to close its primary to outsiders.

The 5th circuit said that the case should be dismissed, because the Democratic Party has not passed any Bylaws on closing its primaries, and because it has not asked the U.S. Justice Department, Voting Rights Section, to preclear such bylaws. Mississippi is one of the states covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which means that neither the government, nor political parties, may change election rules without getting approval from the federal government.

The case is Mississippi State Democratic Party v Barbour, 07-60667.

The decision erroneously cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Renne v Geary, to strengthen itself. The 5th circuit decision says, “MSDP’s situation more closely resembles that of the Democrat Party in Renne v Geary. The party challenged a California statute that prohibited political parties from endorsing candidates for nonpartisan office.” This sentence is factually erroneous. The Democratic Party was not a plaintiff in Renne v Geary, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court said the plaintiffs (various county central committee members of the San Francisco Democratic Party) didn’t have standing. In the current Mississippi case, the Democratic Party is a plaintiff. The 5th circuit opinion is by Judge Edith Jones, who shows her bias by referring to the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Party.” She is somewhat well-known for being a partisan Republican. Thanks to Steve Rankin for the news.

Ballot Access

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned a ruling that would have forced Mississippians to register by political party and to show photo identification at the polls to be able to vote. U.S. District Judge Allen Pepper in Mississippi ruled last year that the state should reregister all voters to allow people to declare themselves as Democrats, Republicans or members of another party. Or, Pepper said, people could register as unaffiliated with any party.

Pepper said Mississippi must restructure its party primary system by Aug. 31, 2008. Under current law, Mississippians do not declare a party affiliation when they register to vote. Pepper had also ordered the state to enact a voter identification law in time for the 2009 elections. The Mississippi Democratic Party, which brought the lawsuit in 2006 seeking to keep nonparty members from voting in its primaries, appealed Pepper's ruling. Some black Democrats have complained that whites sympathetic to Republicans have been voting in the Democratic primaries. Joining the Democrats in the appeal were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the state and the Mississippi Republican Party.

Ellis Turnage of Cleveland, attorney for the Democratic Party, was out of his office and was not available for comment. Brad White, executive director of the Mississippi GOP, said the decision puts everyone back to where they were before the Democrats' lawsuit. "We continue to say our primaries are open to all individuals who share our beliefs and support Republican candidates. We're not about making it more difficult for people to vote in our primaries," White said. The New Orleans court said Pepper's ruling spawned a free-for-all on appeal. The court noted the Democratic Party had appealed the mandatory photo ID requirement. The GOP appealed on grounds that Pepper's order brought Republicans into a lawsuit they did not support. And attorneys for the Mississippi NAACP opposed the voter ID and re-registration portions of Pepper's order. There also were briefs filed by the attorney general, the governor and the secretary of state. "The state is divided ... We will put the parties out of their litigation misery," wrote Chief Judge Edith H. Jones for the three-judge panel. Jones said if the Democratic Party had taken steps to keep non-Democrats out of its primaries and been stopped, then the party would have had grounds to sue. "It is certainly conceivable, for instance, that the party's mere public announcement of its intent to challenge suspected non-Democrat voters would discourage raiding attempts," wrote Jones.

WLOX

WESSON - Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann extolled on the finer points of the state's pending voter ID bill at the Mississippi American Legion Boys State program at Copiah-Lincoln Community College Tuesday.

Hosemann attempted to bypass politics and show the incoming high school seniors why a voter ID bill - a hot topic in the 2008 regular and special sessions of the Legislature - is necessary for the state to end false voter rolls and vote selling.

Hosemann said 24 of the state's 82 counties have more registered voters than residents. Long, inaccurate voter rolls such as these, he said, are the main reason why 85 percent of Mississippians believe that some form of voter fraud took place during recent elections.

"It makes good, common sense that people should identify themselves when they go to the polls, like everywhere else," Hosemann said. "It's a worn and tired argument to say that voter ID has been brought before the Legislature before and should be postponed. We should focus on it once and for all."

Hosemann said the passage of a voter ID bill would not immediately terminate all forms of voter fraud in the state, but would be the first of many steps to ensure fair and accurate elections. The main thing such a bill would accomplish presently, he said, is lowering the percentage of voters who have no confidence in the system.

The Daily Leader

PRAIRIE VIEW, Tex. — “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston.

The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Supreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. But disputes over minority voting rights — along with accusations of election fraud — continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales.

“The cold war’s not over — they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The federal Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details.

Meanwhile, the attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law.

NY TImes

Testimony continued Wednesday in a Dallas federal court in a lawsuit in which three Hispanic residents are trying to force Farmers Branch to elect City Council members by district rather than citywide.

The three contend that the current, at-large system dilutes the voting strength of Latinos. Although Farmers Branch was 37 percent Hispanic at the time of the 2000 census, the plaintiffs say, history has shown that a Hispanic cannot win a city election.

They contend that if the city were divided into districts, it would be possible to create one with a Hispanic voting majority could be created, which would increasing the chances of a Latino winning a council seat.

“All they want is to be able to elect a candidate of their choice,” plaintiffs’ attorney Rolando Rios said Tuesday during the first day of testimony.

Dallas News

ASUU Government Relations Director Jordan Breighner said previous attempts to bring early voting to the U have been curbed by logistical problems, but the excitement surrounding the 2008 presidential election has motivated everyone to work out the kinks.

"It's essentially a done deal," Breighner said. "This election is like a perfect storm that has everybody, especially young voters, eager to get out and vote. A lot of students who are registered to vote in places like Draper can't always make the commute. An early voting station on campus would solve all that."

Utah first allowed early voting in 2006 when the state switched to electronic voting machines in response to the Help America Vote Act the Congress passed in 2002 in an attempt to fix errors made in the 2000 presidential election.

Early voting stations, which will open two weeks prior to election day, can be used by registered voters within a given county, regardless of their usual polling location.

Daily Utah Chronicle

On May 27, Judge Robert H. Hobgood signed a 17-page opinion, upholding North Carolina’s ballot access laws for new and previously unqualified parties. Judge Hobgood is a Superior Court Judge in Wake County. Superior Court Judges in North Carolina do not have law clerks, so it is customary for judges to ask each side to write a proposed opinion. In this case, Judge Hobgood signed the opinion that had been written by the Attorney General’s office. The only reasons this opinion mentions for upholding the petition requirement are that any lesser restriction would result in a large ballot, which would cause election-administration problems.

Since this opinion was written by the Attorney General’s office, it naturally omitted a great deal of evidence that this fear is unfounded. The plaintiffs, the Libertarian and Green Parties, will appeal.

No lower state court has ever held that its state requires too many signatures to place a party, or a candidate, on the ballot, under the constitution (whether federal constitution or state constitution). The only state courts that have ever declared the number of signatures unconstitutional have been the highest state court in that state. These instances were in New York in 1912, Michigan in 1981, Alaska in 1982, and Maryland in 2003. In all four cases, the lower courts had upheld the challenged laws.

The opinion has no immediate impact on the Libertarian Party, since it completed this year’s petition anyway. But it will keep any other party from qualifying this year. The law requires 69,734 valid signatures this year, and probably 80,000 or so in 2010.

Ballot Access

Representatives with the Secretary of State’s office said Jane Butcher has filed for a recanvass of last Tuesday’s primary for 34th District Judgeship.

A recanvass is not a total recount of every single ballot, but rather a review of voting machine totals in each precinct.

Butcher came in a close third during the primary, with only 10 fewer votes than Fred White, who came in second. The top two vote-getters in the primary move on to the general election in November.

The 34th judicial district covers Whitley and McCreary counties.

As of press time, Butcher couldn’t be reached for comment.

Times Tribune

When the Independence County Democratic Central Committee met Tuesday night, one of the items discussed was the need for a recount of the last three boxes in the May 20 election.

While the tallies of two of the closest races spanned 60 something votes, the last three boxes were the deciding factor.

Two races — one for sheriff, the other for state representative — changed course after the final tallies were in. With 26 of 29 boxes in, Dennis Wood was leading the sheriff’s race against incumbent Keith Bowers, and Vickie Critcher was ahead, of James McLean.

...

Attorney Tom Allen told the Guard this morning he had received word from a member of the Independence County Democratic Central Committee that a resolution had been passed unanimously urging the election commission to recount three ballot boxes.

“Specifically, Batesville Ward 1, the early voting box and the absentee box,” Allen said.

Batesville Daily Guard

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced today it will be targeting Rep. John Shadegg (R-3) with robo calls aimed at highlighting what it calls "Republican double talk" over the welfare of veterans. The calls feature former Democratic presidential contender Gen. Wesley Clark, and target four other Republican congressmen as well as Shadegg.

"This new phase of our campaign will hold Republicans accountable for their double speak and playing politics with the bill to fund our troops and veterans," said Jennifer Crider, DCCC spokeswoman, in the release announcing the calls. "Our troops don’t have the luxury of abandoning the battlefield like the Republicans did by voting against the new GI Bill for the 21st century. America’s troops and veterans deserve better.”

...

Shadegg was also targeted by the Arizona Democratic Party in February after he voted "no" on the economic stimulus package.

Politicker

Published May 28, 2008

Tuesday’s primary election in DeKalb County will not include Fischer, East Highland and Pine Ridge residents back at their rightful voting locations.

DeKalb County Administrator Matt Sharp said the changes should be implemented by the general election in November.

Even though the state Legislature and governor signed the bill into law in late April, Sharp said final approval must come from the U.S. Justice Department.

“The still needs information concerning the number of voters affected,” Sharp said. “We are waiting on the Board of Registrars to provide this information to us.”

Times Journal

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - The campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are working hard to encourage their supporters to vote early in American Indian communities and elsewhere in South Dakota.

But election officials in some reservation areas are not sure turnout among Indian voters will be high for Tuesday's primary election. The voting in South Dakota and Montana will mark the final primaries between the two Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Election officials for the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservations say some people have voted early during special events held on those reservations. But they see no signs that voter turnout will be heavy in Indian communities.

Montana's News Station

RUSHVILLE, Neb. (AP) - A misplaced decimal point on a couple of ballot measures amounts to big losses for a couple of Nebraska Panhandle volunteer fire districts.

The Hay Springs and Rushville fire districts are reviewing their options after the mistake on primary election ballots left them with just a fraction of the tax revenue they had expected.

The Hay Springs fire levy was intended to be 3 cents for every $100 of assessed value. The ballot blunder changed that to three-one-hundredths of a cent. The Rushville fire levy was to be 6-cents per $100 of value, but came out as six-one-hundredths of a cent.

Voters overwhelmingly passed the proposed tax levies.

Omaha World Herald

Meet Samantha, Jane, and Tom, three Pennsylvania voters who went to the polls on April 22nd:

Samantha found a local candidate outside her polling place videotaping her every move.

Jane encountered a group of men who blocked the doorway and ridiculed her when she asked them to move.

Tom faced a barrage of obscenities shouted through bullhorns by a candidate's supporters.

When Election Day rolls around in November, will Samantha, Jane, and Tom be afraid to return to their polling places?

It's up to you. Send Congress the Election Protection Primaries Report and demand they make voter deception, intimidation, and suppression illegal once and for all.

We changed these voters' names, but their stories couldn't be more real. So don't let Congress hide their heads in the sand. The Election Protection Report details how even just a few bad apples in a few cities, combined with an overwhelmed election administration system, can cause mass problems at the polls.

When you send the Election Protection Report to Congress, you're sending a message: it's time for Congress to get serious about fair elections. You're also saying that it is long past time for them to support the two most important bills currently in Congress:

* The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, which would criminalize voter deception and intimidation, create a new system to disseminate correct information to voters, and make it easier for voters to report voting problems.
* The Caging Prohibition Act, which would require any private party who challenges the right of another citizen to vote (or register to vote) to set forth in writing, under penalty of perjury, the specific grounds for the alleged ineligibility.

When citizens are thwarted in their attempt to cast a ballot, it undermines the very foundation of the American system - accountability, representative democracy, consent of the governed. To have your vote challenged, or be intimidated or turned away at the polls is to be told: Your voice doesn't matter.

News From Underground

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled for Alabama's governor in a dispute over his attempt to fill a county commission vacancy with a fellow Republican appointee.

In a 7-2 ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says Gov. Bob Riley did not need advance approval from the federal government to fill the vacancy.

The case involves a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that requires Alabama and several other states — most of them in the South — to get federal approval before changing election procedures that affect minority voters.

Ginsburg says the issue in this case is a narrow one that does not have broader application to voting rights disputes.

AP

The expanded blitz includes and a new series of Web videos against the targeted Republicans and a recorded phone message from retired Gen. Wesley Clark.

In his phone message, Clark says: “Congressman had the opportunity to stand up for our veterans. Instead he voted against expanding the GI bill for the first time since World War II to provide a free college education for veterans. That’s leaving our veterans behind.”

The messaging targets House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and four vulnerable Republican incumbents – Reps. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), John “Randy” Kuhl (R-N.Y.), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).

Earlier this month, 132 House Republicans, including Boehner (Ohio), voted “present” during the recent House vote on Iraq and Afghanistan funding to protest against domestic-spending items inserted in the legislation, which helped led to the defeat of the measure.

Politico

Those people who believe all problems have solutions may be unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Democratic Party.

On Saturday, the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will try to solve a big problem, in order to avoid a huge problem in order to prevent a train wreck.

The big problem is what to do about Michigan and Florida, two states stripped last year of their delegates to the Democratic National Convention because both broke party rules and moved their primaries up too early in the election year.

The rules committee will try to work out a compromise Saturday to try to seat those states in some form or fashion. It will be difficult, and the 30 members of the committee, who come from all over the nation, have been warned to keep their hotel rooms Saturday night, because the meeting may go into Sunday.

Politico

The Democratic National Committee acted with "proper authority and jurisdiction" earlier this year when it stripped Michigan and Florida of all of their presidential convention delegates as punishment for scheduling their primaries before party rules allowed, a DNC staff analysis has concluded.

A 17-page memo outlining the findings was sent last night to the 30 members of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, who on Saturday will consider the two states' appeals of the sanctions. The finding repudiates at least one of the states' claims—that the committee overstepped its authority. And the report contains possible compromises that would seat only half the states' delegations. Hillary Clinton, in her last-ditch effort to remain a viable contender, has been fighting to have all of the states' delegates recognized.

In the analysis, staffers examined two compromise scenarios: One would allow the states to seat half of their delegates at the convention; the other would allow all delegates to be seated, but each would get a half vote. A statement released this afternoon by the DNC says the "staff analysis is intentionally neutral; it does not make specific recommendations. The analysis lays out a rules framework for each challenge, and the issues raised with each challenge."

But it is how those delegates could be divvied up between Clinton and Barack Obama that will have all eyes on the committee on Saturday.

US News

On May 27, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina, a Clinton appointee in the District of Columbia, dismissed Ralph Nader’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee for its actions taken against Nader voters and Nader in 2004.

Nader had filed the case in 2007, and had hoped that the Court would allow a trial to show the elements of a conspiracy.

The case is Nader v Democratic National Committee, 07-2136.

Ballot Access

KUWAIT: Najla Al-Naqqi, a former candidate to the National Assembly and a women's rights activist delivered a lecture on women's role in politics. Former candidates Ayesha Al-Amairi, Jamila Al-Fouadri, Dr. Layla Al-Sabaan and Sameera Al-Shatti attended the event. Al-Naqqi said that even though female candidates could not secure a seat at the Parliament, they put in good efforts and held influential election campaigns. She noted that Kuwaiti women faced many challenges like reduced electoral constituencies (from a previous 25). She expressed hope that Kuwait will be announced as a single electoral constituency in the near future.

Al-Naqqi said that the new five-constituency electoral system has some benefits, even though negative aspects like votes buying exists, reported Al-Watan. She said that the new electronic system used to count votes was not fool-proof.

She highlighted the discrepancy in vote counting by citing the example of a female candidate who received 330 votes when an electronic count was performed. After the votes were counted manually, however, it was found that she had received 442 votes.

Kuwait Times