Pueblo Politics: Court overturns Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration
Story(219) CommentsPueblo Politics: Court overturns Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration
Rhonda Bodfield, Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star
Posted: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 11:07 am
Comments
Judge Sandra S. Ikuta .
..Related Documents
Related: Court ruling
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned Arizona’s requirement that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The split decision by a three-judge panel determined that the requirement to show proof of citizenship — passed by voters in 2004 — is not consistent with the National Voter Registration Act.
Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, temporarily sitting by designation, and Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, with chief judge Alex Kozinski dissenting, said Prop. 200 creates an additional hurdle, while the national act is intended to reduce “state-imposed obstacles” to registration.
The majority noted that Congress was well aware of the problem of voter fraud when it passed the voter act, and built in sufficient protections, including applying perjury penalties to applicants who lie about their eligibilty.
The court determined Arizona’s polling place photo identification requirement, however, is a minimal burden and does not violate the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment.
Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office is still reviewing the decision and was unavailable for comment.
Secretary of State Ken Bennett said he does not anticipate that the ruling will make any difference in voting next week, since it wasn’t in place when registration closed Oct. 4.
Bennett said the state plans to appeal the ruling, adding he disagrees the documentation sets up a barrier for registration. “I think it’s an outrage and a slap in the face of Arizonans who are concerned about the integrity of elections,” he said.
Copyright 2010 Arizona Daily Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
And, related from The Washington Examiner and Vision to America:
Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members
By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
10/26/10 6:12 PM EDT
Clark County is where three quarters of Nevada's residents and live and where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory is a county commissioner. Rory is also a Democratic candidate for governor.
Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is formerly the SEIU's top lobbyist, and former SEIU president Andy Stern was the most frequent vistor to the White House last year.
Just in Nevada, the SEIU has given a lot to groups that are heavily vested in the state -- in just one prominent example, the SEIU gave $500,000 to the Patriot Majority PAC, which has spent $1.3 million against Reid's opponent Sharron Angle. They've and have dropped large sums directly on candidates:
NV-3
Joe Heck (R)
Oppose
$140,000.00
NV-3
Dina Titus (D)
Support
$344,984.00
NV-Senate
Sharron E. Angle (R)
Oppose
$225,000.00
Now the county voting technicians aren't unique here -- many of Clark County's employees are also represented by the SEIU. But it is worth mentioning here, the SEIU is hyperpoliticized and has seen it's fair share of corruption. (It certainly seems more questionable than Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer with Republican ties that was at the center of many conspiracy theories on the left during the Bush administration.)
Unions increasingly have a major financial stake in election outcomes, both as a matter of their own election expenditures, and as a function of what they stand to gain if their legislative agenda is enacted. Should they really be responsible for tabulating the votes? That's certainly something voters ought to think long and hard about.
Below is Clark County's SEIU contract -- On Page 75, in Appendix A, Voting Machine technicians are listed as classified positions represented by SEIU.
Contract SEIU
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voting-machines-in-Clark-County-Nevada-automatically-checking-Harry-Reids-name-Voting-machine-technicians-are-members-of-SEIU-105815608.html#ixzz13Wm1UcwT
And, lastly, also related, from Vision to America and WLS Channel 7, Chicago, Illinois:
Possible glitch with vote-by-mail systemUpdated at 10:22 PM today
Tags:i-team, chuck goudie
Comment Now Email Print Report a typo
Chuck Goudie
More: Bio, Facebook, Twitter, News Team
October 26, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- This year marks the first Illinois election that any registered voter can cast their ballot by mail, no excuses necessary. Even as the deadline for those ballots to be postmarked nears, problems are brewing.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=7747672
Related Content
More: Full response from the Illinois Democratic Coordinated Campaign
An Illinois county election official is telling the ABC 7 I-Team that thousands -- potentially hundreds of thousands -- of voters who are expecting a ballot sent to them by mail may be disenfranchised.
Chicagoan Rosia Carter is one of 404,000 registered Illinois voters who recently received vote-by-mail requests that were sent by the Illinois Democratic Coordinated Campaign.
"By the time I filled it out and sent it in, my vote would not get counted," Carter said.
She and others called the I-Team when they noticed the return address is not their local election official but instead a PO box for the organization. IDCC officials claim they are entering ballot request information into their own database before sending the mailings on to election authorities who then mail voters the ballot.
The Lake County clerk received a shipment of 500 ballot requests from the IDCC Tuesday. By law, her office has two days to process the ballot requests. The problem is, Thursday is the deadline for election officials to get the ballots out.
IDCC told the clerk that another 1,500 ballot requests are headed to her office, which, she says, may not give her enough time to process all the ballots, potentially disenfranchising voters.
"I called Mike Madigan," Carter said, "and they said 'We farmed out this job, here's their phone number,' and I said 'I don't want the number, that's your job to call.' "
Carter and others who contacted the I-Team are furious that their vote may also be thrown out because the IDCC put the registered voters' wrong birthdate on the form.
"My birthdate is wrong," said Carter. "That means it doesn't match the election board of commissioners' records."
The IDCC says that less that "1 percent of the ballot applications have been affected by the date-of-birth glitch and that a voter's birthday is not a required piece of personal data to request a ballot."
"If it affects only one person, it's wrong. If it affected just me, it's wrong. System needs to be checked.
The IDCC told the I-Team that they used their PO box as the return address because they "are better able to track the process and make sure there are fewer problems."
Forty-five of the ballots the Lake County clerk received Tuesday from the IDCC should have gone to Will County. At the clerk's own expense, Lake County is having them delivered overnight to Will County so those voters won't be disenfranchised.
Full response from the Illinois Democratic Coordinated Campaign
Reponse to your inquiry from the Executive Director of the ILDCC, Dave Seman:
Less that 1 percent of the ballot applications have been affected by the glitch. Date of Birth is not a required piece of personal data to request a ballot. It was additional information that we included that may be wrong in some cases because of a vendor glitch. We are monitoring the problem but don't have any cause for alarm. We are simply encouraging voters to check the application to make sure their date of birth and all personal information is correct. The majority of applications we are getting back have been fixed by the voters themselves and we are confident that this glitch will remedy itself. The important thing is for people to fill out their absentee ballot application carefully and completely. We have the resources in place to make sure everyone's vote is valid and counted.
Why are you sending it to a PO Box instead of directly to an election authority?
We are doing everything we can to make sure our voters vote - this is pretty standard. In order to help Illinoisans apply for an absentee ballot the ILDCC incurred the cost of the postage so that we can help ensure folks get their ballot on time and that we know who is voting. Turn out as everyone knows is critical to this election. By working this through a PO Box we are better able to track the process and make sure there are fewer problems.
(Copyright ©2010 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
No comments:
Post a Comment