Reports from North Carolina show that turnout has increases and even higher than the mid-term in 2010.

More people cast primary ballots in North Carolina during the 10-day voting period compared with the last midterm primary, according to the State Board of Elections. Nearly 228,000 people voted in person through Friday, and tens of thousands more were expected Saturday.

There were 17 early voting days in 2010. Legislators reduced the number of days last year while requiring the same number of hours in each county compared with 2010. While exceptions were granted for some counties, the total number of hours statewide fell by 1.3 percent, the board calculated.

Link:  

Link to presser.

Diana Balderas Castaneda, 48, of Donna, pleaded guilty to one count of vote-buying before U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa in the Southern District of Texas.   Sentencing has been scheduled for July 25, 2014.

According to a factual statement read during the plea hearing, a general election was held on Nov. 6, 2012, in Donna for the presidential election, as well as various state, county and local offices, including the Donna School Board.   Balderas assisted in the campaign to elect four candidates to the Donna School Board.   In the course of that work, Balderas knowingly and willfully paid and offered to pay voters for voting in this election.  In addition, at least two campaign managers paid voters in her presence.

It has been over four years since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling opening the doors to corporate and union political funding, but a bitterly divided Federal Election Commission still hasn’t rewritten their rules to reflect the constitutional change.

The reason: Democrats on the FEC want to use the rewrite to open the door to sweeping new donor disclosure requirements, while Republicans want to make only the changes needed to comply with the Jan. 21, 2010, decision. Each side blames the other for inaction.

Republicans on the commission have repeatedly tried to update the regulations, offering at least three proposals. Two were killed on 3-3 votes, and the third has failed to move forward due to Democratic opposition.

“It’s a point of embarrassment,” said FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, who has made updating the 544-page “Code of Federal Regulations” a top priority of his one-year leadership term.

Former Georgia secretary of state Karen Handel has pulled into second place in the tight GOP Senate primary race, and is in a virtual tie with leader David Perdue, a poll released Thursday showed. Handel, who attracted wide media attention when a leaked video showed Perdue criticizing her for not having a college degree, and then snagged an endorsement from Sarah Palin, elbowed past Rep. Jack Kingston, who poured big money into TV advertising, the survey by Insider Advantage for Fox News’ Atlanta affiliate showed.

Perdue, a former CEO of Dollar General, topped the poll with 22 percent, Handel had 21 percent and Kingston slipped to third with 17 percent. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

Mr. Rahall is a prime example of how red-state Democrats are trying to survive in what’s shaping up to be a tough year for the party. He is the only Democrat in the three-person West Virginia House delegation. If he loses, West Virginia will have an all-Republican House delegation for the first time since 1922.

….Democrats also face the loss of the West Virginia Senate seat held by Jay Rockefeller, who is retiring at the end of the year after 30 years in that position. Mr. Rockefeller often faced token opposition, but Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican who represents the state’s 2nd District, is leading in the Senate campaign

Link to story.

“To better understand the contrast between an activist, liberal judge who refuses to follow the law and a judge who understands that his job is to follow precedent and the Constitution, consider two recent federal cases on voter-ID laws.

On Tuesday, federal-district-court judge Lynn Adelman — a Clinton appointee, former Democratic state senator, and former Legal Aid Society lawyer — held that Wisconsin’s voter-ID requirement violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, because it places “an unjustified burden on the right to vote.”

This decision has gotten a great deal of attention in the mainstream press (or the drive-by media, as Rush Limbaugh likes to calls them).What got almost no attention was a decision by another federal district court in Tennessee on February 20 over that state’s voter-ID law. In that case, Judge Ronnie Greer upheld voter ID as constitutional.”

Link here..

Unlike the use of racial appeals to motivate some demographics for the midterm election, no easy trick can motivate the disenchanted young.

Rick Hasen must not know the difference between being fired and resigning.  His election law blog incorrectly makes the FEC look as if it took stronger action against ex-FEC lawyer April Sands for partisan political activity than it really did.  His headline blasts:

Office of Special Counsel Release on Fired FEC Employee Engaged in Partisan Political Activity

Fired?  It would have been nice if the FEC took such strong action.  It would have demonstrated a welcome intolerance for any partisan behavior by FEC employees on the job.  But contrary to what Hasen says, it didn’t happen.  From the OSC doc.

FEC Attorney Resigns… Under a settlement agreement with the OSC, an attorney with the FEC has agreed to resign….


Sands resigned. She wasn’t fired. There is a big difference – especially when possible future employers ask, “have you ever been fired?”  And given that the “settlement” apparently kept her identity secret, Sands could have gotten away with it.  The resignation, as compared with a firing, makes a difference.

I suppose it’s far worse not knowing the difference between a list serve and a blog. After all, that doesn’t involve how tolerant FEC and other government officials are toward illegal partisan conduct at the nation’s campaign regulator.