Then there is Gertrude Walker, the 32-year-veteran election supervisor of St. Lucie County, who has spent much of the last two weeks explaining why her office completely botched the count. She admitted that her office had acted in “haste” in issuing election results, and that “mistakes were made.” Among her mistakes was failing to count 40 of the 94 precincts under her jurisdiction on Election Night — and then counting the other 54 twice. Indeed. On Friday, her office announced it had “discovered” 304 additional early votes left in a box. None had been counted. But Walker wasn’t available for comment. She has been hospitalized for unknown reasons.
Congressman Allen West (FL-18) fights on amid vote-recount mayhem in St. Lucie County, where the Supervisor of Elections “has a history of abetting or ignoring sloppy election procedures”:
Meanwhile, West’s challenger, Democrat Patrick Murphy, is more than happy to accept the admittedly-inaccurate first count, and has declared victory – twice – while fighting recount efforts.
The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) remains in a deep coma.
So what is the state of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC):
Last year, the Republican-controlled House passed Harper’s bill to
eliminate the EAC, but the Senate took no action. Harper, chairman of
the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, plans to look for
other ways to push the effort in the next Congress.
…the EAC has operated without commissioners for nearly a year and has been run by an acting executive director since May.“The agency is paralyzed,’’ said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Has anything really changed since the EAC imploded? Republicans still believe the Democrats politicized the agency and wonder why they should bring the EAC out of the coma it has been in for over a year. Ironically, all the talk about nationalizing elections and having the federal government run state and local elections is not going to help the EAC (the face of the federal government in elections) get back on its feet with state and local election officials.
…The EAC’s four commission slots — two Democrats and two Republicans —
are vacant. President Barack Obama nominated three commissioners last
year, but one resigned last December and the other nominees haven’t made
it through the initial stages of confirmation by the Senate. Another
commissioner resigned in December. Without enough commissioners, the EAC can’t adopt new policies, hold formal hearings or issue advisory opinions.“When
it got to be a political football even the White House backed off,”
Lewis said. “Nobody did anything … (and) that ultimately became a
hindrance to the agency.’’
Link to story.
Blogging and the Tropics
I’ve been largely out of pocket the last week due to arguments and travel in Davis v. Guam in the United States District Court in Guam. The federal courthouse in Guam might be the most beautiful location for any court, overlooking the tropical waters of the Pacific. The court also captured the oral arguments on audio and posted them here. At issue is standing under the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights statutes. Hopefully I will be back posting at full speed shortly.
“West Seeks Emergency Hearing”
“N.C. straight-ticket voting dates to Civil Rights era”
Separate voting for President and the straight party ticket was a system created by state Democrats in the Anybody But Johnson days. Republicans hope to change that. Link
Drama continues in the Allen West-Patrick Murphy partial recount in Florida
In South Florida, the Allen West campaign gets a partial victory with the St. Lucie County recount that will begin soon to resolve potential tabulation errors during early voting. However, the drama continues as the Supervisor of Elections in St. Lucie County is now hospitalized and state representatives are present. The TC Palm reports:
About 100 people milled around Supervisor of Elections Gertrude
Walker’s office Saturday morning while workers set up batteries of
machines to recount eight days of early voting ballots that could effect
the tight District 18 congressional race between Patrick Murphy and Allen West.As of 9:55 a.m., the recount had not begun.
Five Sheriff’s patrol cars were parked at the entrance to the building on Okeechobee Road, where security was tight.
Saturday morning, Supervisor of Elections Gertrude Walker was nowhere
to be seen. Friday night it was reported she had been taken to a
hospital.
Kansas: “New ID law blocks few voters”
McPherson County Clerk Cathy Schmidt said 16 of 12,407 ballots cast in
McPherson County Nov. 6 were provisional ballots due to the voters not
having IDs. Link to full story.
Digital media campaign investment: Obama $47 million; Romney $4.7 million
As reported by PBS NewsHour. Not sure what to make of the reported disparate amount of expenditures by the two campaigns on this emerging media. Obviously, more could have been done by the Romney campaign. With so much of the public moving from mainstream media and toward new media sources and digital readership of online news, $4.7 million seems like a paltry amount of investment when compared to the hundreds of millions spent by each campaign.
“Ex-W.Va. county official sentenced to 21 months”
One of the biggest deterrents to voter fraud is to actually prosecute the crime and take the crime seriously. That is what happened recently in West Virginia as a federal judge lowers the boom on a defendant for lying to investigators looking into absentee fraud.
A federal judge sentenced a former West Virginia count official to nearly two years in prison on Thursday partly as a warning that election fraud must stop in the state.
…”I hope that this sent a message, a very simple message
that you can’t steal elections in the southern district of West Virginia, and
if you try you’ll go to jail,” Goodwin said.Several in the courtroom gasped when Johnston announced the
prison term, but some others nodded their heads when he spoke of a need to
deter the fraud that has poisoned elections in that region for decades.
Ohio Provisional Ballots Without Proper ID Won’t Be Counted
“The appeals court today granted a stay of a decision earlier this week by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley that ordered Husted to count provisional ballots cast by voters that may have lacked the proper identification on the ballot envelope. The number of affected votes is estimated to be very small – from a few hundred up to 2,000 or so. “Husted said his position has been vindicated. ‘I am pleased that the court has once again ruled to uphold consistent standards and to maintain the integrity of Ohio’s elections process,’ he said in a statement.” More here.
“The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in a legal battle over counting provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 6 election.