Hotspots: Key Post-Election Disputes in the States
November 26, 2010
Keep checking back here for links to the latest state midterm election results and recount coverage
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois (Gubernatorial, House), Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri,New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington
SENATE
Joe Miller, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alaska, will probably require a hand recount of the write-in votes before he will concede the race.
Wednesday night, Democrat Scott McAdams conceded the race after only getting 23% of the vote.
Murkowski and Miller are preparing for the next round of ballot counting that will begin next week. Murkowski has set up a separate campaign account to support campaign efforts in the counting process.
Joe Miller is questioning the fairness of the process and has filed a lawsuit in federal court to prevent misspelled ballots being counted for Senator Lisa Murkowski.
The Associated Press reports that a federal court judge has denied Republican Joe Miller’s request for an injunction to stop the counting of incorrectly spelled write-in ballots.
Live coverage of the counting is being streamed online.
The Court has rejected Miller’s request to stop the recount. The count now shows Murkowski with 98% of the initial write-in vote.
Joe Miller’s prospects for victory are getting slimmer, and the lawyers are starting to leave Alaska.
Alaska election officials have completed the fifth day of counting write-in ballots. Senator Lisa Murkowski has retained 89% of write-in votes
With almost all votes counted, Senator Lisa Murkowski currently has an edge of over 2,000 votes over Republican Joe Miller. Murkowski’s total does not include the over 10,000 challenged ballots.
As counting ends, Murkowski is heading back home and is expected to declare victory soon. 8,135 ballots have been challenged, but even if all of those ballots were thrown out by the Court, Murkowski would still be ahead by more than 2,000 votes.
With all but 700 write-in votes counted, Senator Lisa Murkowski has declared victory over Republican candidate Joe Miller. The AP called the race for Murkowski Wednesday evening.
Joe Miller is asking a federal judge to stop election officials from certifying results declaring Murkowski the winner. Murkowski leads by about 10,400 votes; Miller has challenged 8,153 of the ballots counted for Murkowski.
A federal judge has granted Joe Miller (R) a temporary injunction preventing election officials from naming Senator Lisa Murkowski the winner. Miller filed his complaint on the grounds that the counting of misspelled ballots for Murkowski violates state law. Miller will now bring the issue to state court.
Attorneys for the state of Alaska have asked a judge to decide the case over contested absentee ballots by next week. The case will be heard Wednesday in state court in Juneau. Senator Lisa Murkowski is seeking to intervene in the suit. Her attorneys have said her seniority will be in jeopardy if she is not sworn in when the new Congress meets in January. (more…)
“MOVE” Act Created Urgency for NH Election Officials
November 24, 2010
As New Hampshire voters were casting ballots in their state’s September 14 primary, local and state election officers were anxiously preparing to tabulate and certify the results with greater urgency than usual. The pressure to confirm town and city results with all possible speed was a reaction to certain provisions of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act) signed into law by President Obama in 2009. In particular, the Act requires states to be able to provide U.S. soldiers and citizens abroad with their respective absentee ballots “not later than 45 days” before an election. With this year’s general election set for November 2, New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner was left with a mere four day interval to affirm the primary results and furnish general election ballots in accord with the 45-day requirement. (more…)
In the Silver State, Sometimes the Silver Medalist Walks Away the Winner
November 22, 2010
The 2008 Democratic primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was a long and unpredictable run of events. Never was this truer than in the Nevada Caucuses, where exactly the opposite of the state ethos occurred: it was not winner take all. Shortly after the major news networks declared that Hillary Clinton had won a majority of the precinct caucus delegates (by a 7% margin) they surprisingly declared that Barack Obama had won the majority of the state’s delegates to the national convention.
This odd outcome was the result of a delegate allocation which sought to ensure that northern and rural Nevada, not just Las Vegas, had a voice in the decision making process. (more…)
What Do You Mean, “One Person?”
November 17, 2010
For nearly half a century, American courts have looked to the “one person, one vote” standard as the guiding principle in reapportionment and redistricting cases. This doctrine, first laid forth in Reynolds v. Sims (1963), holds that “the constitutional test for the validity of districting schemes shall be one of population equality among the various districts.” Since that time the principle has become a central tenet in redistricting, and indeed as the country heads into the post-2010 round of redistricting, the courts’ understanding of one person, one vote remains largely unchanged. That is, unless one Dallas suburb can upset it. (more…)
Montana Eyes Voting By Mail
November 15, 2010
Montanans are currently embroiled in a debate over whether to transition to a vote-by-mail system, a move that could make Montana the third state, after Oregon and Washington (which has a “county option”) to adopt the mail ballot system. The State Association of Clerks and Recorders have come out in support of the proposal, calling the proposal their “top legislative priority” in the face of increased use by voters, higher costs, administrative difficulties, and the potential for higher turnout. The group previously supported legislation calling for a “county option” in the 2009 Legislature, and proposed a similar draft bill to the State Administration and Veterans Affairs (SAVA) interim committee in June 2010. (more…)
Weekly Wrap Up
November 12, 2010
“I want to be your second (or third) choice!”: Jean Quan, Oakland’s mayor-elect, won under the city’s new ranked-choice system by concentrating on being voters’ second and third choice, if they were voting for someone else. The campaign manager for Don Pereta, the heavy favorite in the race, said Quan was “gaming the system” by asking people who supported other candidates to rank her second or third.
Too poor to vote: The ACLU is challenging a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 2-1 decision that Tennessee could bar three released felons who were behind on child support or restitution from regaining their voting rights. The ACLU is asking for the court to rehear the case en banc, arguing that the decision creates an unconstitutional poll tax.
Sound it out: In the Alaska Senate race, the Division of Elections has only accepted a few of Joe Miller’s challenges to the spelling of his opponent, Lisa Murkowski’s, name on the write-in ballots. The Director of the Division of Elections said that she was accepting minor spelling mistakes as long as she could “pronounce the name by the way it’s spelled.”
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain: The spending from outside groups in this campaign season has reached record highs, climbing almost to the $300 million mark. Now, a new study has shown that nearly half of that money comes from groups which won’t reveal the money’s source. A few notable candidates who used a huge amount of their personal fortunes are Meg Whitman in California and Linda McMahon in Connecticut. They spent $140 million and $46 million respectively.
Fox News Wants You to Know They Didn’t Support a Democrat
November 12, 2010
The intersection of copyright law and elections is growing to be an important new area of study and litigation. The Center for Democracy and Technology has documented and analyzed at least a dozen recent instances where video hosting sites like YouTube have removed political campaign videos pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s requirement that such sites comply with take-down requests submitted by copyright owners. Indeed, in the run-up to the 2008 presidential vote, the John McCain campaign asked YouTube to more carefully scrutinize political videos for fair use or non-infringement before removing them pursuant to take-down requests. (YouTube’s response noted that such special treatment was not only logistically impractical, but also might push the site out of the safe harbor protection afforded it by the DMCA for compliance with the “blind” take-down regime).
A related copyright/campaign controversy grabbed particular attention during the recent election cycle. In September, Fox News filed a copyright infringement suit against the campaign of Robin Carnahan, the Democratic then-candidate for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat. (Carahan was eventually defeated at the polls by Republican Roy Blunt.) The complaint alleged that Carnahan’s campaign “usurped proprietary footage from the Fox News Network to made it appear – falsely – that [Fox News] and Christopher Wallace, one of the nation’s most respected political journalists, are endorsing Robin Carnahan’s campaign.” The ad (which you can watch here) consists almost entirely of footage taken from Wallace’s interview of Blunt on Fox News earlier this year. In addition to copyright infringement, the complaint alleges invasions of Wallace’s privacy and publicity rights. (more…)
Committees and Campaigns: South Carolina Federal Court Tightens Definition and Loosens Regulations
November 10, 2010
In the wake of last year’s Citizen’s United ruling, there’s been much deliberation, speculation, and anticipation about how the world of federal campaign finance will be changed – and now the states are getting into the mix. Decisions in Colorado, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Utah paved the way for Judge Terry Wooten of the United States District Court for South Carolina to rule that the state’s definition of “committee” is unconstitutional in South Carolina Citizens for Life v. Krawcheck. Granting partial summary judgment in favor of South Carolina Citizens for Life (SCCL) on their constitutional claim that the South Carolina Ethics Commission was overbroad in defining “committee,” Judge Wooten may have opened the door to influential campaign contributions from organizations whose primary purpose is not to influence elections. (more…)
Can a Tempest, a Tea Party Make?
November 8, 2010
The teapot is still boiling briskly in the City of Falls Church, a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., over recent changes in the regulations governing municipal elections. By a 4-3 vote in January 2010, the then Mayor and City Council was successful in changing city elections from even-numbered years in May to odd-numbered years in November. Appropriately, the City submitted the change to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, for review and clearance as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Department subsequently reviewed and approved the change. The result is that, during the transition years, Council-Member terms will be shortened by six months. Then, in the May 2010 election, a major shakeup in the government occurred. The new Mayor, Nader Baroukh, a former City Council member who opposed the change, along with re-elected City-Council-members who were also opponents, is making efforts to “undo” the changes and to submit the matter to the citizens of the City in a referendum. Predictably, many residents of the City are hopping mad. (more…)
Some will Win, Some will Lose, Some States are Born to Sing the Blues: The Coming Battle Over Reapportionment
November 3, 2010
The stakes are incredibly high, reapportionment is looming, and recent data from Election Data Services shows that neither Democrats nor Republicans will be too pleased come next year. States which have been recently labeled as ‘safe Republican’ in Presidential elections will gain seats, but in more Democratically inclined areas. States recently labeled as ‘safe Democrat’ in Presidential elections will lose some seats. The biggest gain will be in Texas. Texas can expect to gain four House seats, at least some of which will be placed in locations more favorable to Democratic candidates. Meanwhile, New York, a state typically labeled as ‘safe Democrat’ in Presidential elections, will likely lose two House seats. In terms of multi-district moves, Florida will likely gain two seats and Ohio will likely lose two seats. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will all likely gain a seat while Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will all likely lose a seat.
Reapportionment is becoming a problem not only for certain Presidential candidates but also state and federal candidates, especially candidates in the Midwest where rapid population flight is decimating the electoral landscape. The close electoral math is mapping onto reapportionment strategy. Democrats and Republicans are locked in a mortal struggle to gain control of state houses and governor’s mansions across the nation, in anticipation of being able to influence the composition of both state legislatures and Congress over the next decade. (more…)