Monthly Archives: February 2012

Mississippi SOS releases report identifying vulnerabilities in electoral process

The most glaring issue is absentee balloting, which Hosemann reports has been growing. In the past election cycle, 22 counties in the primary and 13 in the general election had more than 10 percent of ballots cast by absentee.

While absentee balloting has long been used to accommodate those who could vote in person at the polls – such as the disabled, the elderly and people out of town on Election Day – the practice has the potential for abuse because of lax laws and lax enforcement.

Hosemann’s observers found such things as several voters witnessed by the same person or no reason stated for the absentee vote.

Another glaring problem is out-of-date voter rolls. Purging voter rolls is a difficult process that can have its own issues with political manipulation. However, the difficulty also has led to other problems.  Those problems are obvious.

Hosemann’s office reports that 16 counties have more registered voters than the 2010 Census Bureau figures indicate are eligible to vote.  And, back to the absentee voting problem, of those 16 counties with bloated voter rolls, seven also had over 10 percent of absentee ballots cast.

Hosemann also points out other issues, including improper voter assistance, campaigning at the polls and improper signage at the polls

The full story can be read here.

More Details on Invalid Recall Sigs

 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:  “Separately Monday, the conservative groups True the Vote and Verify the Recall released their own analysis of the recall signatures against Walker. The governor asked in his filing with the accountability board that state officials take that analysis into account.

But Magney said the accountability board is not allowed by state law to do so.

“There is no legal basis for us to accept third-party challenges,” Magney said.

Mark Antill, executive director of True the Vote, said some people believe the accountability board could consider the petitions. He said the groups were considering whether to sue the accountability board if the elections agency doesn’t consider their findings.

“They would be remiss in not considering it,” he said.

The analysis looked through 138,200 of the total 152,500 pages of recall petitions. It found 534,685 signatures that were valid, 228,940 that needed further review and 55,608 that were ineligible.

Antill said the analysis didn’t reach a conclusion about whether there were enough recall petitions signed to trigger an election.”

“Davis files for class action certification” in Sec. 2 case

 A Marianas Variety story.  “ARNOLD “Dave” Davis yesterday filed a motion in the District Court of Guam to certify his lawsuit as a class action. Davis is challenging the Guam decolonization plebiscite, that it is unconstitutional as it discriminates against non-Chamorros.  Davis argues that the lawsuit should be certified as a class action as the proposed class consists of all registered voters of Guam “who cannot register to vote in the plebiscite solely because they are not ‘native inhabitants of Guam.’”