Politico.  “For all the talk of the gender gap in American politics, the truth is that the marriage gap is even more profound. In 2012, unmarried women supported Obama over Mitt Romney by 36 percentage points, a massive margin that helped stem other losses. Even though Obama lost the votes of married women by 7 points in 2012, he made up for it with his overwhelming support among unmarried women”

Roll Call has a story on the status of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).  The deadlock and dysfunction part is old news and sour grapes by an activist bureaucracy but now there is talk of the demise of the agency.  

Already short one officer, the Federal Election Commission will soon
have a dubious distinction: As of April 30, all five of its remaining
commissioners will be serving expired terms.  By now President Barack Obama’s failure to fully staff the
dysfunctional agency barely even riles government watchdogs. In theory
composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, the FEC has been
deadlocked for so long that, some argue, the agency could hardly grind
to more of a halt.

…Some conservatives argue that the agency should just be shut down. At
the recent Conservative Political Action Conference held near
Washington, D.C., a panel of three GOP attorneys argued that the agency
has “greatly overreached” its regulatory authority, according to a writeup by the Center for Public Integrity.

The Arkansas Senate has approved legislation that would create a
“voter integrity” unit within the secretary of state’s office to
investigate complaints of election fraud.
By a 30-5 vote, the Senate approved the measure by
Republican Sen. Bryan King of Green Forest that would set up a
four-person unit among existing staff in the secretary of state’s
office.

More at the Link.

North Carolina House Republicans said Thursday their proposal to
require voters to show photo identification to cast ballots would be
phased in over three years and takes into account the apprehensions of
older adults, the disabled and the poor.

GOP legislators, holding
a news conference to unveil details of a bill introduced later in the
day, said the legislation’s details reflected in part what they heard at
a public hearing last month and from advocacy groups. link.

Budget cuts at Elections Canada have pushed a pilot project on Internet voting off the agenda indefinitely.The body that runs Canada’s federal voting had hoped to introduce online voting for byelections held in 2013…  More at Canada.com

The Virginia Pilot reports: A grand jury indicted six people Thursday on allegations that they gave false statements when registering to vote.  The cases involve convicted felons who tried to register to vote,
said Bill Prince, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office. The Virginia
State Board of Elections launched the investigation, which was handled
by Virginia State Police, he said.

This account at Yahoo News almost gets it right.  However, it does reveal the chaos that Democrats will falsely generate to try to keep one of their voting schemes in place.  Despite the general lack of integrity to the process of same day registration and voting, Democrats normally ignore those warnings and support the measure because their activists push for it and they believe it marginally helps them at the ballot box.  Montana gives us a snapshot of the issue:

Over loud objections from Democrats, Montana‘s Republican-controlled Senate on Friday voted to put proposals on the 2014 ballot that would tighten voter registration and restrict the rights of third parties to compete in general elections.The measures, which are expected to be approved by the Republican-majority House, do not need approval from the Democratic governor. They would go before Montana voters in November of next year. Democrats tried to stall action on the bills through a
rarely used parliamentary procedure, demanding that the vote be delayed
until a missing Democratic senator was found and brought into the
chamber.

Chaos reigned as Democrats unveiled their true progressive nature.  Montana Democrats purposefully lied to the citizens of Montana and leadership of the Montana Senate that one of their senators was missing, whereabouts unknown, to avoid a vote of the legally constituted legislature of Montana.  In furtherance of the lie, they screamed, they voiced their loud objections, they pounded their desks, they talked over recognized speakers, and they demanded to be heard; all to further the lie and charade.  According to this account, their missing Senator wasn’t looking for a cup of coffee, he was purposefully closeted.

Sen. Shannon Augare, D-Browning, left the Capitol on Friday in order to
set the stage for a “call of the Senate” motion, a parliamentary
procedure that allows a minority body to call on a missing member before
business can resume. Sources say Augare may have headed to Browning.
Augare’s disappearance was designed to force a stop to all business in
the Senate on a critical deadline day for bills proposing referendums.

Meet the lying and missing state senator.

A Republican called it “disgraceful.”  The Democrat Governor, feigning a
lack of knowledge, called the “tone” worse than DC.  Right on both counts.  One account predicted that as a result of the falsely generated chaos by Montana Democrats, there will be a unified Republican Party
in the closing weeks of the legislature.  The rest of the country should take notes for future reference on the motivations and tactics of Democrats on voting issues.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday vowed to aggressively enforce
federal voting rights laws no matter what the Supreme Court decides this
year about ending a controversial part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  More at CNN. 

If the court strikes down Section 5, it won’t stop the enforcement of voting rights.  Such a decision would only remove the most constitutionally suspect provision of the statute.

House Republicans unveiled their long-awaited voter ID bill Thursday,
offering a less restrictive version than the measure that was vetoed by
Democratic Gov. Bev. Perdue two years ago.  Link to story.

The Republican Party said at a news conference that Operation Vote
Arkansas would include efforts to educate voters on the new
requirements, provide transportation for those needing help obtaining
identification and revamp the party’s website with additional voting
information.

Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb said he would also
travel the state to spread word of the new law and raise awareness.   Link to ArkansasOnline.com.