Here is the list of Secretaries of State submitting waiver requests:

Hon. Douglas La Follette
PO Box 7848
Madison, WI 53707-7848

Hon. A. Ralph Mollis
82 Smith St, State House Rm 217
Providence, RI 02903

Hon. John McDonough
State House
Annapolis, MD 21401

Hon. Stephanie Scott
1350 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Suite 419
Washington, DC 20004

Hon. William Gardner
State House, Room 204
Concord, NH 03301

Hon. James “Duke” Aiona
State Capitol, Room 415
Honolulu, HI 96813

Hon. Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
1 Commerce Plaza, 99 Washington Ave., Suite 1100
Albany, NY 12231

Hon. Jeffrey Bullock
401 Federal St., Suite 3
Dover, DE 19901

Hon. Gregory Francis
18 Kongens Gade
St. Thomas, VI 00801

Hon. Craig E. Campbell
PO Box 110015
Juneau, AK 99811-0015

Hon. William Galvin
State House, Room 337
Boston, MA 02133

Hon. Sam Reed
PO Box 40220 Olympia, WA 98504-0220

Hon. A. Ralph Mollis
82 Smith St, State House Rm 217
Providence, RI 02903

Hon. Bernie Buescher
1700 Broadway, Suite 250
Denver, CO 802

A second editorial in Friday’s Washington Times on the Justice Department failing to aggressively enforce laws to protect military voters.  The bottom line in both articles is that there are states, right now, this moment, not in compliance with MOVE who have not asked for a waiver.  A lawsuit could be filed tomorrow.  But based on the experiences of Mr. Eversole, he writes that the Voting Section will be acting slowly, without urgency and too late if at all. Thank God our soldiers aren’t like that.  But this second editorial by the Washington Times puts some of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Pentagon (FVAP) for not even releasing the waiver requests.  Indeed, we asked the Pentagon for the waiver requests weeks ago.  In fact, we simply asked for the names of the states submitting waivers.  Here is the editorial:

“Military voting rights still aren’t protected. That’s the message from former Justice Department official M. Eric Eversole, who argues in a column at the front of this section that his former employer is undermining the new law requiring states to mail ballots to military voters at least 45 days before the November elections. If anything, the situation might be even worse than Mr. Eversole suggests.

The Obama administration refuses to release the waiver requests filed by a dozen states and territories claiming an inability to meet the legal deadline. Mr. Eversole and 17 members of Congress led by Rep. Robert E. Latta, Ohio Republican, sought this information through formal requests.

One of the states requesting a waiver, Colorado, held its primary three days ago – a whopping 84 days ahead of the November election. It defies belief that the Centennial State would claim that it doesn’t have enough time to mail ballots to military voters by the law’s deadline of Sept. 18. Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher, a Democrat, insists that he is unable to comply, and his spokesman Rich Coolidge admitted that some military votes won’t get counted as a result. Mr. Buescher did post online the letter he sent with the waiver request, in which he claimed compliance would be “extremely difficult” in light of the state’s Sept. 3 date for “ballot certification.”

That leaves 15 days after certification to print and mail the ballots. With all the modern technology available, it’s hardly credible that this is something that cannot be made to happen. Other states that are dragging their feet and demanding waivers include Washington state, where the primary is Aug. 17, and Alaska, where the primary is Aug. 24. Again, these dates are well ahead of the legal deadline.

In the eight states where primaries are not held until Sept. 14, the waiver requests make some sense. Nonetheless, the law requires that these jurisdictions find some other way to guarantee that military votes can be cast and counted on time and that they detail how this will be accomplished despite missing the 45-day deadline. The public has a right to see and evaluate all such plans.

The lack of transparency on this issue makes it difficult to know whether the Justice Department takes seriously the right of military personnel serving overseas to have a say in the way our government is run. Those who risk their lives on behalf of this country should not be disenfranchised because the administration refuses to do its job.”

Former DOJ Voting Section lawyer Eric Eversole has this piece  in the Friday Washington Times:

“Notwithstanding overwhelming evidence in 2008 that military voters needed at least 45 days to receive and return their absentee ballots, the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division stood by as more than 20 states failed to provide military voters with sufficient time to vote. This failure alone cost thousands of military members the right to vote.

Now, 10 months after its passage, nearly one-third of the states have failed to implement one or more of the key provisions of the MOVE Act. At least 11 states (Hawaii, New York, Delaware, Alaska, Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Colorado) and the District of Columbia have not implemented the 45-day deadline for mailing absentee ballots. At least five states (Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri and New Hampshire) have not implemented the electronic-delivery requirement under the MOVE Act.

For its part, the Voting Section appears to be in no hurry to enforce the new law and, more problematic, appears to be hiding how many states have failed to comply fully with the MOVE Act.

This latter point was evident in a recent letter to Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican. While the letter repeatedly emphasized the department’s commitment to enforce the law, it avoided Mr. Cornyn’s specific request to identify noncompliant states. Nor did the letter answer Mr. Cornyn’s question about the department’s plan to ensure full compliance with the MOVE Act. Instead, the department promised to meet with Mr. Cornyn at a future date.

There is a good reason, of course, why the department wants to avoid Mr. Cornyn’s questions. Given the volume of noncompliant states, can the department or Voting Section realistically guarantee full compliance before the November election?

With so few days left before the election, the passage of each day makes it more and more unlikely that the Voting Section can ensure that each state will be compliant with the MOVE Act. It takes a significant amount of time to draft a complaint and request for an injunction, file it in federal court, set it for hearing, hold the hearing, issue a remedy and ensure compliance. Multiply these tasks by five, 10 or 16, and unlikelihood of full compliance is evident to most reasonable people.

Yet the Voting Section continues to wait and ignore reality, hoping states will comply voluntarily with the MOVE Act in the next few weeks. It should know better.”

Full article at this link.

Portland considers becoming the next jurisdiction to allow non-citizens to participate in local elections.  Many places in Maryland and other states already allow this.

Commentary from today’s Plain Dealer about the Cuyahoga case.

The firing today of Reggie Wilson by Nancy Rodrigues gets even more bizarre.  Lets hope the Governor gets this mess cleaned up soon before morale collapses there in advance of a very important election in November.  From another reader:
 

“Virginia was among the first states to publish real-time election results on the internet on election night. We owe that to Reggie Wilson. Virginia was among the first states to implement electronic filing and interned publishing of campaign finance disclosure reports. Again, he helped make that happen.  Wilson’s work on major statewide projects helped in  Virginia receiving the prestigious  2002 Grace Hopper  Government Technology Leadership Awards.

As  the agency’s Business Manager, Mr. Wilson supervised the agency’s procurement and contractual services coordinator.    In this capacity, he participated in the Waste Fraud & Abuse Hotline investigation into Paul Stenjborn’s contract. 

The firing appears to continue a pattern of unfair treatment and retaliation against employees who participated in the investigation of the illegal Paul Stenjborn contract.    Mr. Wilson is the third employee, who participated in the Stenjborn investigation, that  Rodgriues terminated  under  questionable allegations.  Ms. Rodrigues requested and received police escort to the Department of Human Resource Management office to fire Mr. Wilson.   It is also reported from reliable sources that Capitol police were patrolling inside of SBE’s offices through out the day.  As a final humiliating and highly unusual action, it is reported that James Alcorn, the Deputy Secretary, delivered notices to building security guards stating that Reggie Wilson is not allowed in the government building unless specifically authorized by Nancy Rodrigues.  There have been no reported allegations of threats made by Mr. Wilson.  So, why the humiliation of police patrols and banishment from government building after the questionable firing.”

Regarding Mr. Stenjborn, we sent Mr. Stenbjorn a list of questions on July 22, 2010 regarding information we have received about the management of the SBE.  Mr. Stenjborn said he would get back to us, but never did.  The questions we asked are below.  Since Mr. Stenbjorn did not provide answers, perhaps some SBE employees can contact us and provide some information:

“More questions, sorry:

1. Were you present in October or November 2008 in a full staff meeting when Nancy Rodrigues referred to XXXXXXX, an african-american employee, as her “slave?”

After we first posted the story of the firing of 25 year employee Reggie Wilson by the Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections Nancy Rodrigues, we received numerous emails describing the top quality work of Mr. Wilson from multiple parties who have firsthand information about what is taking place at the Virginia State Board of Elections.   One reader gave us permission to post this account:

“Today, SBE lost one of its veteran employees, Reggie Wilson.  Mr. Wilson has worked tirelessly advancing elections in Virginia.  As the agency’s Business Manager, he was instrumental in developing the agency’s ability to report election results electronically.  The agency received the Gracie Award in recognition of this achievement.  The agency’s Campaign Finance electronic software application was implemented years ago, in large part, because of Mr. Wilson’s efforts.  While the technology has changed over the years, Mr. Wilson was a visionary who saw a need to move from paper filing to electronic filing.  Mr. Wilson was also the person who established numerous databases throughout the agency to improve the efficiency of the work for various departments at SBE.  However, today, Ms. Rodrigues undermined Mr. Wilson’s accomplished career by tainting Mr. Wilson’s reputation and defaming him.  In her zest to retaliate against Mr. Wilson because of her engagement in improper, illegal  . . .  behavior in procuring the Election Information Services contract, Mr. Rodrigues set out to destroy the livelihood of a dedicated and loyal employee.”

Election Law Center has been monitoring events at the Virginia SBE and has accumulated a great deal of information about mismanagement, abuse and contract corruption at the SBE.  There are apparently individuals who work there, namely the executive director, who could be fired tomorrow for this mess.  So far, it seems that the only people being fired are the hard working employees who make the trains run despite the mismanagement of the agency.

An update  from the Plain Dealer about the dispute between DOJ and Cuyahoga regarding Spanish language ballots there.

From press accounts, it would seem Cuyahoga is in the driver’s seat at this early stage of the dispute.  Firstly, because the election is so close, DOJ would have a very difficult time carrying their burden for a preliminary injunction for the November 2010 election, especially because nothing was done for so long and only on the eve of printing ballots.  Secondly, DOJ would have some significant statistical burdens that would most likely need to be introduced through expert testimony.  For example, the actual number of protected Spanish speakers who really need a Spanish ballot would need to be established.  While that might not be a terribly difficult task, under the time pressures it would be.  Plus there is a question whether DOJ would have even hired an expert this early in the litigation and therefore they would be unprepared to present such testimony.  Remember that this concern is unique to the preliminary injunction phase.  Thirdly, if printing a Spanish language ballot would be $500,000 alone for the upcoming election, or even close to that, Cuyahoga has every incentive to disagree to every remedy proposed by DOJ that would impose such a cost.  There are remedies short of what is now being demanded that would not cost so much, and might provide an opportunity to collect data for Cuyahoga to inform actual need for future elections.  Fourthly, there are some legal uncertainties about 4e triggers and remedial obligations that endanger any movant carrying burdens. 

Either way, because DOJ is running out of time, and because, according to the article, DOJ waited so long to bring the matter, time is now on the side of Cuyahoga and there is no reason to settle the matter.  All of this changes of course after the election when the sound of a ticking clock becomes less relevant.

Sources tell us that a long time veteran of the Virginia State Board of Elections, and an African-American, Reggie Wilson was fired today by Secretary Nancy Rodrigues.  These same sources tell us the firing was not supportable by the facts.  Wilson had been at the SBE for between 10-20 years.  We are told that Rodrigues justified the firing by questioning the competence of the long time employee.

We previously reported on the chaos at the Virginia State Board of Elections here and here and here.

Other sources tell us that more firings may be coming to the Virginia SBE, but this time it might be an office with oversight authority of the SBE firing management of the SBE.  Stay tuned.

Congresman Lamar Smith continues to address the black panther matter.