Free Republic

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced a bill in Congress Wednesday that would prohibit all states from requiring photo identification at the polls. “The Voter Access Protection Act” comes at a time when states across the nation, including Minnesota, have moved to establish photo ID laws as a protection against voter fraud. Legislatures in 20 states introduced such a bill in 2011, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. “This legislation would prohibit one of the most pernicious forms of voter suppression, requiring a strict photo identification card at the polls,” said the bill’s co-author, Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., in...

Today, our young volunteer learns about the rampant abuse of absentee ballots… Pavel was staring at the wall of pens at his local office supply store, wondering what on earth he had gotten himself into. Running errands for Pockets, the Deputy Committeeman of the 51st Ward organization, he had occasionally gotten coffee, picked up pizza, and delivered messages all around the neighborhood… on his bike in good weather, usually on foot in bad. But they had always been relatively normal requests. Now he looked at Pockets’ chicken scratchings on the note in his hand, and was genuinely perplexed. “Ballpoints: One...

TROY, NY -- A grand jury has spoken in the Troy voting scandal. This morning, 116 felony charges were handed down against City Councilman Michael Loporto and Elections Commissioner Ed McDonough. The special prosecutor on the case said 50 Troy citizens had their right to vote taken away during the September 2009 primary. Both Loporto and McDonough are accused of writing the voters' names on the ballots, and sending them in to win the Working Families Party line for the Democrats. The prosecution said both men chose to take advantage of those who did not speak English, and at least...

A vote-counting error has thrown a contentious Long Island congressional race into chaos and may put an end to the four-term career of Rep. Tim Bishop. The Democrat's victory in Tuesday's midterm elections is now in dispute after Suffolk County Board of Elections officials announced their tally was off by nearly 4,000 votes. Board member Wayne Rogers says a routine check of voting-machine memory cards Friday showed that instead of Bishop leading by 3,461 votes, he was actually losing to Republican Randy Altschuler by a little less than 400. MISCOUNT: Rep. Tim Bishop (left) is trailing GOP opponent Randy Altschuler....

The election campaign that never seemed to end finally reaches the finish line today as an estimated 9.5 million voters will cast ballots across California.While polls elsewhere in the country suggest the possibility of a Republican sweep that could grab control of the House from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats and possibly capture the Senate, there's no guarantee that a GOP wave will make it past the Sierra Nevada.In the top-of-the-ticket races, Democrats Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown and Republicans Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman closed out their efforts Monday by once again barnstorming the state in a final...

NEW YORK — November 2 is not here yet, but polling problems have begun. From possibly malfunctioning ballot gear to potential fraud, the 2010 mid-term vote is marred even before Election Day has dawned. •Like jurors who deliberate before a trial concludes, some Nevadans who have tried voting early for Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle instead have seen Democrat Harry Reid’s name appear on their electronic voting machines. Some voters have complained about this apparent glitch, but how many others unwittingly have miscast their ballots? Intriguingly, these machines are maintained in Las Vegas by members of the Service Employees International...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal judge in Maryland today granted the Military Voter Protection Project’s request for a preliminary injunction to ensure that Maryland’s military members have sufficient time to vote in November. Under the terms of the order, the Maryland State Board of Elections will be required to count all military and overseas absentee ballots so long as the ballot has been cast on or before Election Day and is returned by 5:00 p.m. on November 22, 2010. The MVP Project filed this case after the Maryland State Board of Elections sent military voters an absentee ballot that only...

Absentee and early voting returns across the country so far in 2010 indicate that the composition of the electorate will be dramatically different than it was in 2008.  The Republican National Committee, working with state Republican parties, has placed a strong emphasis this year on encouraging presidential-year-only Republicans to cast their votes by absentee ballot or early-in -person through both paid and volunteer voter contact. To date, the RNC has mailed 7.4 million absentee ballot application forms to voters in competitive congressional districts and placed 6 million paid phone calls to low- and mid-propensity recipients to encourage them to vote...

In the race for the coveted absentee vote, Republicans are out to a commanding lead in Duval County. According to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections, registered Republicans have requested 40,226 absentee ballots compared to 29,293 requested by Democrats. Coming in a distant third is the 7,852 requested by those with no party affiliation. The early vote is seen as becoming increasingly important. Of the 2.5 million people who voted during the primary races, 56 percent did so before election day.

In 2008, President Obama won Ohio 51%-47%. A key ingredient of the win was early and absentee voting. With that in mind, there has been a lot of chest thumping from Ted Strickland recently about absentee voting showing no enthusiasm gap in the Governor's race. If only that were true. A look at the three big counties should have Strickland worried. Using numbers from Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton counties from Monday, it's clear that things aren't shaping up the way Strickland would like them to. First, let's start with Cuyahoga. In 2010, there have been 85,492 absentee ballots returned to...

While Rep. Joe Sestak (D) appears to have seized the momentum in Pennsylvania’s Senate contest, Keystone State Republicans are far more active than Democrats in early voting activity, according to absentee balloting figures released by the state Wednesday at Roll Call’s request. Pennsylvania voters have requested nearly 127,000 absentee ballots so far. Of that total, Republican voters made up 50 percent and Democrats made up 42 percent, according to figures collected Tuesday afternoon. The state records show Republicans are returning their absentee ballots in greater numbers as well. The state has received about 40 percent of requested ballots, and Republican...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa residents likely will set a state record for early voting in a midterm election, and while Democrats hold the lead in ballots requested before Election Day, Republicans are closing the gap. Secretary of State Michael Mauro said Thursday that voters had requested 249,513 absentee ballots, and he expects that number to reach 300,000. Mauro said he's confident the state will break its early voting record for a midterm election set in 2006, when 242,485 people voted early. Mauro said up to 30 percent of voting will be done early through absentee ballots or voting at...

Election Day is still more than two weeks away, but Americans across the country are already voting. Absentee ballots are starting to come in, all of this voting by mail gives the Bay Area an interesting advantage. There are a million more registered voters in Los Angeles than the Bay Area. So you'd figure LA candidates have a big advantage, but that's not true this year. In Contra Costa County, they're already getting absentee ballots returned. Like the rest of the Bay Area, Contra Costa County has a high percentage of voters who vote by mail. ... LA relies instead...

Yesterday we looked at the size and performance of our ground-game, the “boots-on-the-ground” volunteer voter contact effort that can move so many votes in close elections. That effort is more robust than any previous mid-term cycle, and bigger even than many presidential cycles’ volunteer efforts. The question now is whether all that volunteer voter contact is having a positive impact. One early indicator is partisan performance in absentee and early voting states. There is early or in-person absentee voting going on in a dozen states right now, with five more opening next week. More than 30 states have mailed out...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg slammed the state's Board of Elections on Monday for failing to mail out absentee ballots to military and overseas voters from New York City and four additional counties. "I don’t know whether or not the Board of Elections has failed to send out absentee ballots to the military or anybody else, but if they have failed it really is reprehensible," Bloomberg told Fox News. "We send our young men and women overseas to fight and to die for us and we don’t care enough to make sure they get the right to exercise their...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats in Ohio's three largest counties have asked for absentee ballots this year -- an ominous sign for the party hoping to repel GOP forces on Election Day. Roughly three out of 10 registered Ohio voters live in Franklin, Hamilton and Cuyahoga counties.

Card check -- the scheme that violates the traditional American freedom of the secret ballot in labor union organizing elections -- has just captured a beachhead in New York State general election law, arguably opening the floodgates to massive ACORN-style voter fraud and intimidation. The event at hand involves absentee ballot "reforms" hurriedly signed into law by New York's hapless accidental governor David A. Paterson. In the era before the Australian "secret ballot" came to America, voting could be a tricky -- and often violent -- proposition. Goons from such big-city machines as Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall knew how you...

Look at the video and then read the comments at the link. They are still trying to steal this election in Mass.

If it turns out to that blank absentee ballots were handed out in Massachusetts today, those saying Scott Brown will defeat Martha Coakley will be proven wrong.

Virginia's incoming governor Bob McDonnell (R) congratulated Virginia's newest senator Dave Marsden (D) tonight on his upset against Steve Hunt (R) in Fairfax County. "I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead in his new capacity,'' McDonnell said. "In these tough economic times, Virginians need leaders in Richmond who will work together to create new jobs and more opportunities. While we may not agree on every issue, I know that Dave and I share a commitment to making this a better Virginia for all our citizens." Marsden will be sworn in tomorrow at noon when...

KSTP investigated absentee ballot inconsistencies and reported their findings last night, and you can watch the video here. Many cities put up roadblocks to their investigation request -- and Bloomington threatened felony charges against KSTP if they reported on their findings. The most damning part is Sec. of State Mark Ritchie's denial of problems and response when asked to look at ballot envelopes and comment. "Ritchie first told us he could not read our examples, then said he wouldn't look at photocopies of absentee ballot envelopes." A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigation has found that mistakes made with absentee ballots in...

Last year, we covered some of the problems in the counting of military absentee ballots in Virginia, as did others. This problem has not gone away. It has just moved. The day before election day 2008, the McCain campaign filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia to force Virginia to count military absentee ballots that came in after election day. McCain lost Virginia by more than enough votes, but the case went on with the Department of Justice replacing the McCain campaign.There were filings last month and will likely be a hearing this month. So what? The Virginia...

Republican Norm Coleman called on the Minnesota Supreme Court today to reverse a victory for Democrat Al Franken, and several justices sharply challenged Coleman's argument for counting more ballots. Coleman attorney Joe Friedberg said thousands of additional absentee ballots should be tallied under looser standards adopted by many local officials on Election Day. He said local customs led to counting ballots in Democratic areas that were similar to those rejected by officials in Republican areas applying a stricter standard. But several justices said he failed to provide proof that such practices were widespread or affected the outcome. "You're offering little...

Meanwhile, back in the Minnesota Senate recount, the three-judge panel reviewing the race has declared Democrat Al Franken the winner. Republican Norm Coleman intends to appeal to the state's Supreme Court, while Democrats and the press corps pressure him to surrender. We hope Mr. Coleman keeps fighting, because the outcome so far hangs on the fact that some votes have been counted differently from others. Even after the recount and panel-findings, the 312-vote margin separating the two men equals about .01% of the 2.9 million votes cast. Even without any irregularities, this is as close to a "tie" as it...

In its recent order, the three-judge election contest court in Minnesota reiterated a common theme during the Coleman versus Franken Senate recount--notwithstanding the numerous questions raised regarding the fairness of the election, "Citizens of Minnesota should be proud of their electoral system, a system which has one of the highest voter-participation rates in the country." The court emphasized: "the facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of absentee voters in the 2008 general election." Accordingly, without any discussion of those facts, the court refused to review several groups of absentee ballots including many rejected ballots from military...

- - Will Ask Three Judge Panel To Determine Which Ballots Were Wrongly Rejected ST. PAUL – Fritz Knaak, lead recount attorney for the Coleman for Senate campaign today made the following statement: “Next week begins an important step in getting to an accurate and valid number, and to determine who really won the 2008 United States Senate election. As we indicated at the end of the canvassing board proceedings, we believe the process was broken. And, one area where it clearly broke and has yet to be fixed is in the area of rejected absentee ballots. The discrepancies, problems...

- - Former GOP MN secretary of state says absentee ballots should not have been included in recount Former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer is now criticizing the handling of the U.S. Senate election recount in the race between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman that ended with Franken on top. Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, now a freshman state representative from District 16B, did not speak publicly about the recount while it was ongoing, but is willing to talk about it now that the results are certified and the dispute has moved into the courts. Kiffmeyer, who from 1999 to...

Many U.S. troops serving overseas are effectively excluded from voting because they are not given enough time to cast absentee ballots, according to a report released on Tuesday. Sixteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia do not send out their absentee ballots early enough to allow those serving in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan to fill them out and return them before their voting deadline, the Pew Center on the States found. Another six states force soldiers, sailors and marines to return their ballots by fax or e-mail to meet the deadline, risking the privacy and security of their...

A Ramsey County judge has denied a bid by lawyers representing Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign to delay the opening of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis. Last update: November 9, 2008 - 7:31 AM A Ramsey County judge on Saturday denied a bid by lawyers representing U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign to delay the opening of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis. The request touched off a fresh war of words in a Senate race where 221 votes separate Republican Coleman and DFLer Al Franken in unofficial tallies. The 32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late...

MD-1: Democrat Frank Kratovil leads Republican Andy Harris by 2,003 votes in this district that includes all of Maryland's Eastern Shore and parts of three counties west of the bay. Harris's campaign thinks there are about 10,000 outstanding provisional and absentee ballots. In order to win, the remaining ballots need to go 3-2 for Harris. Earlier today, the Associated Press and CNN called the race for Kratovil. Harris hasn't conceded, and Kratovil cautioned against premature celebration. CA-4: Tom McClintock netted another 118 votes over Democrat Charlie Brown in their nail-biting race to represent California's Fourth District, stretching from the Sacramento...

A federal judge has ordered election officials in Virginia to preserve late-arriving absentee ballots that Republican John McCain's campaign claims should be counted.

This is a headline on foxnews.com, no story yet.

RICHMOND, Va.: Republican John McCain's presidential campaign sued the Virginia election board Monday, claiming absentee ballots weren't mailed on time to military members serving overseas. The complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Richmond to order the state to count absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 14. It contends that thousands of troops' ballots, many of which would go to McCain, will not be counted. The deadline for ballots to be received is 7 p.m. Election Day, which is Tuesday. The lawsuit is the second in a week to challenge preparations for the presidential election in Virginia,...

(Very important information included in the comment for South Florida residents) Republican Party leaders are asking the U.S. Justice Department to monitor post offices as well as polling precincts, upping the ante in their allegations that postal workers might throw away ballots. The request for Justice Department monitors came hours after the National Association of Letter Carriers demanded an apology. The GOP is concerned that absentee ballot envelopes identify the voter’s party affiliation. Here’s a copy of the Republican Party’s press release: Download file

Low Return On Absentee Ballots Expected; Some Officers Refuse To Vote To Underscore Political Neutrality. Soldiers must request by mail an absentee ballot from the local election district where they last lived. Then they are sent a paper ballot to fill out and mail back. Some soldiers said they never got ballots. The number of absentee military ballots applied for that ultimately get counted is consistently low. In the last federal election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied...

Military absentee votes will be counted in Fairfax County, Virginia thanks to an opinion just issued by Virginia's Attorney General Bob McDonnell. The just-issued opinion smacks down the partisan effort by Fairfax registrar Rokey Suleman who -- contrary to federal law -- was requiring military absentee ballots to show the address of the witness countersigning the ballot. O'Donnell's opinion finds that federal law preempts the Virginia law which requires the ballots to show witnesses' addresses. The press release from O'Donnell's office says: McDonnell Opinion: Count all Absentee Military Ballots Opinion Finds Federal Law Preempts State Law; Federal Ballots without Witness...

Surprise — at least one poll shows a huge McCain lead: “[Senator John] McCain, R-Ariz., handily defeated Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 68 percent to 23 percent in a voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard, and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, and Air Force Times.” Or perhaps not so surprising: there’s a history involved here. In 1864 the nation was nearing the end of the Civil War — but some wanted it ended sooner than others. Democrats offered a platform declaring that it was “the sense of the American people, that after...

Gwinnett County elections officials will have to hand-copy votes from at least 10,000 absentee ballots onto new ballots that can be read by a machine. The original ballots, designed to be filled out by hand, are flawed because of a printing error. The circle beside the candidate’s name is too thick and somewhat misshapen, and consequently an optical scanning machine won’t be able to read the votes on Election Day. The county discovered the problem last week during routine testing. Gwinnett had already mailed out 19,700 flawed ballots before it realized the problem. Of those, 10,000 have already been marked...

I was troubled today by yet another story demonstrating the alarming lack of regard for the fact that our military men and women are being disenfranchised from our democratic voting process. In Fairfax County, VA, it has been reported that military ballots are being literally thrown in the garbage because of a “technicality” in the absentee ballot form. Furthermore, the Justice Department has now filed a lawsuit against the State of Vermont and Vermont Secretary of State Deborah L. Markowitz, for failure to comply with the Uniformed Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), legislation intended to ensure that uniformed military...

Missing Miltary Absentee BallotsPosted By: Mike Igoe 10 hrs ago Election Day is just a few weeks away now. And people who can't make it to the polls, such as those serving in the military, have the option of using an absentee ballot. Darelene Hedges of Depew called 2 On Your Side on behalf of her son who discovered there was a problem with his. Her son Joshua is serving with the National Guard in Afghanistan. He was told the absentee ballots for his overseas base had been lost. Darlene tells us her son, and the people serving with him,...

Polling News & Notes Overlooked Recent Polling And Insights • October 9, 2008 How Many Votes Will Be Cast Before Election Day? Every state allows voters to mail in absentee ballots, but more and more states are allowing voters to cast ballots in person before the election, a process known as “early voting.” Twelve states allowed early voting in 2004; 34 states and the District of Columbia will have an early voting process this year. Ten of this year’ battleground states have early voting, and five of them did in 2004, with between 31% and 52% of all of the...

In brief, Texas Court upholds law that limits an absentee ballot witness to witnessing just one ballot. Ends practice of Dems pulling massive voter fraud with "absentee ballots" all witnessed by the same person.

Last Tuesday, 6 November, 2007, was Election Day here in Philadelphia. On an average Election Day there are between 100 and 150 absentee ballots from active duty service members. This election there were 8. Maybe only 8 men and women voted. Maybe this is much ado about nothing, but it does seem suspicious. Special Forces officer David Oh was on the ballot for a City Council At-Large seat. It is a close election. Votes are still being tallied. Currently only about a dozen votes separate him and his challenger. We are actively soliciting anyone from Philadelphia, PA who has a...

Election commission: 57,000 ballots were cast in ’06 WASHINGTON — Overseas military voters had less than half of their votes counted in last year’s congressional elections, according to data released by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Monday. “One thing is clear: At every level of government, we need to do a better job,” said Donetta Davidson, chair of the commission. “We must make sure all eligible voters are getting their opportunities.” The figures, released at the commission’s annual conference on ways to improve and troubleshoot the absentee voting process, showed that only about 992,000 of the nearly 6 million...

Denver election workers were still counting votes Sunday. They have about 18,000 absentee ballots to count as a result of computer and equipment problems from the election. They also have 3,000 provisional ballots that won't be counted until Monday. More than 49,000 absentee ballots have been counted so far. About 3,000 provisional ballots won't be counted until Monday. Provisional ballots are usually cast by voters whose eligibility is in question. Denver police have been helping sort the ballots because of tighter new election security rules. The Denver Post reported the Denver Election Commission's technology chief Anthony Rainey has been placed...

I've been doing my best to keep up with data on Republican and Democrat use of absentee ballots and early voting. Both of these are said to be good predictors of turnout. Here's what I have so far: State of Maryland Party identification is 52% D 23% R according to the Pew Center. About 78K Democrats requested absentee ballots. If requests had been proportional to registration 34,2320 GOP voters would have made requests. The number of requestors has been TWICE the expected number: about 68K. These numbers are nothing short of remarkable--and all that is necessary to explain The Washington...

(WJZ/AP) Baltimore, MD -- Several top Maryland Democrats are urging Governor Robert Ehrlich to push for an extension of the deadline for voters to postmark absentee ballots. In a letter to Ehrlich dated Sunday, the group asked the governor to instruct his appointees on the Maryland Board of Elections to allow ballots postmarked on election day to be counted. The current deadline is today. The letter cites shortages in absentee ballots because of the high number of requests this year. The letter comes on the heels of a similar request by a coalition of attorneys' groups and civil rights organizations....

Patrick Eddington Comment by Patrick Eddington | 2006/11/03 at 18:45:44 |e I am glad to see this blog talking about the need to enfranchise all voters. I share your view that voting is imperative, and that members of our Armed Forces should vote in the upcoming election. However, I object to your mischaracterization of Mr. Holt’s letter to Secretary Rumsfeld. To assert that Mr. Holt’s effort to secure the votes of service members is somehow “hatred” of the military is absurd. A panel of four non-partisan independent computer scientists who evaluated the current voting system found several problems, among them:...

This year more voters than ever will cast ballots early. The result may be that we get the final election results late. It's possible we won't know which party controls either house of Congress for days or even weeks because of all the disputes and delays caused by absentee ballots. Thirty states now allow anybody to cast an absentee ballot without having to give an excuse for missing Election Day. That's up from just 20 states six years ago. Several other states also allow early voting at government buildings or even grocery stores. This year, it's expected that over one...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — For millions of Americans, Election Day is already over. Thirty states now allow no-excuse absentee voting, and most of them also allow voters to cast early ballots in person at county clerks’ offices or satellite polling places.