AP reports: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Ohio can require absentee voters to provide proof of their identification, overturning a lower court's order suspending the new law.

U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley had granted a temporary restraining order last week to labor and poverty groups who claimed in a lawsuit filed days earlier that county elections boards were enforcing the law inconsistently. That meant some voters would be disenfranchised, the plaintiffs argued.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the restraining order Sunday at the request of Attorney General Jim Petro and ruled Tuesday that Marbley should not have intervened after absentee voting had begun.

"There is a strong public interest in smooth and effective administration of the voting laws that mitigates against changing the rules in the middle of the submission of absentee ballots," Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel. -- Court Keeps Ohio ID Law for Absentees - Tuscaloosa

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From a press release by Advancement Project and Project Vote: Advancement Project and Project Vote reached a settlement agreement with the Maryland State Board of Elections to protect the voting rights of voter registration applicants who have been classified as "pending" because their identification number did not produce an exact match against the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration or Social Security Administration database.

Nationwide statistics have shown that matching results in a high percentage of legitimate applications being denied through no fault of the applicants. If Maryland did not discontinue its practice of placing applicants whose personal ID number cannot be verified on pending status rather than registering such applicants, it would have lead to the inevitable and unlawful disenfranchisement of thousands of eligible voters throughout the state.

"Maryland was relying on computers to accurately identify eligible voters in a way that did not account for human error," said Elizabeth Westfall, senior attorney, Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, "A disenfranchisement by typo rule would have mistakenly rejected too many registration applications, too close to the election. We are pleased that state has agreed to take immediate action to rectify this problem." -- Settlement Reached To Protect Maryland Voters

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AP reports: A judge said he will rule Wednesday on whether a Republican attorney can go forward with a lawsuit that seeks to remove four powerful Democratic state senators from the Nov. 7 ballot.

Autauga County Circuit Judge Ben Fuller heard nearly two hours of arguments on the case Tuesday night and told attorneys he would rule by Wednesday afternoon on whether the case was properly filed in Autauga County or must be moved to the seat of state government in Montgomery, as the Democratic Party contends.

The suit, written by former Republican attorney general candidate Mark Montiel, was filed on Friday, Oct. 13 and the judge heard the arguments on Halloween night. ...

Montiel argues that they should be removed for not filing the proper campaign finance reports in the Democratic primary in June. ...

The four senators did not file campaign finance reports in the primary showing their contributions because they had no opposition and that had been the practice in the state. But Attorney General Troy King recently issued an advisory opinion saying the reports should be filed in the future. -- Judge to rule Wednesday in suit to disqualify state senators - Tuscaloosa

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Verified Voting has a survey on accessibility of polling places. Everyone should participate. Please download the survey form here, print it before you go vote, fill it out, and send it back to the address on the bottom of the form.

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Demos announces a new publication: Across the nation, states are failing to meet a Federal mandate to boost voter registration among low-income Americans by offering registration opportunities in public assistance offices--a requirement established by Congress under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Demos, a national, non-partisan public policy center, published the findings in a new briefing paper this week. ...

The National Voter Registration Act briefing paper, part of Demos' Challenges to Fair Elections series, shows that there is widespread failure in implementing the public assistance provisions of the NVRA, and that states are not adequately addressing the representation gap in American democracy the law was meant to reverse--one that has closely mirrored the income gap that has steadily increased over the last 40 years. According to the 2004 U.S. Census, nine years after the NVRA was required to be implemented by the states, 59 percent of citizens in households making less than $15,000 a year were registered to vote versus 85 percent of those in households making $75,000 or more. Data collected by state and federal agencies, in combination with public assistance office site visits and surveys conducted outside public assistance offices, have found that a large number of states are poorly enforcing, and some actively disregarding, their responsibility to offer voter registration in these agencies. --
Demos - A Network for Ideas & Action - Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action

The briefing papers so far are
> Voter ID/ proof of citizenship requirements
> Provisional Ballots
> Ballot access for disabled and language-minority voters
> The Case Against Felony Disfranchisement
> Poll Worker Training
> National Voter Registration Act

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Salon reports: At least two dozen federal judges appointed by President Bush since 2001 made political contributions to key Republicans or to the president himself while under consideration for their judgeships, government records show. A four-month investigation of Bush-appointed judges by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that six appellate court judges and 18 district court judges contributed a total of more than $44,000 to politicians who were influential in their appointments. Some gave money directly to Bush after he officially nominated them. Other judges contributed to Republican campaign committees while they were under consideration for a judgeship.

Republicans who received money from judges en route to the bench include Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Gov. George Pataki of New York.

There are no laws or regulations prohibiting political contributions by a candidate for a federal judgeship. But political giving by judicial candidates has been a rarely scrutinized activity amid the process that determines who will receive lifelong jobs on the federal bench. Some ethics experts and Bush-appointed judges say that political giving is inappropriate for those seeking judicial office -- it can appear unethical, they say, and could jeopardize the public's confidence in the impartiality of the nation's courts. Those concerns come as ethics and corruption scandals have roiled Washington, and on the eve of midterm elections whose outcome could influence the makeup of the federal judiciary -- including the Supreme Court -- for decades to come.

The CIR investigation analyzed the campaign contribution records of 249 judges appointed by Bush nationwide since 2001. The money trail leading from Bush judges to influential politicians runs particularly deep through the political battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. -- Money trails lead to Bush judges | Salon News

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The Los Angeles Times reports: Why do we vote on Tuesdays?

A bipartisan voter-reform group is paying prospective voters to videotape themselves asking elected officials that question face to face.

The first person to post a clip of a particular official onto YouTube or another video-sharing website cashes in.

The bounty hunting is lucrative: For a current U.S. House member, the payoff is $300, while a sitting U.S. senator or governor is worth $500. A vice president, either sitting or not, brings $2,500; President Bush or a predecessor commands $5,000. -- Ask an official, post the answer, get paid - Los Angeles Times

For the answer, click here.

Tracked down at a biodiesel gas station in Indiana, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he liked the idea of making election day a national holiday, but was unclear about the Tuesday tradition. "I don't know," Lugar said.

It turns out, Soboroff tells Lugar on the video, the practice dates to 1845 when Congress tried to select a convenient time for voters living in the mostly rural society.

By November, harvest was usually over but harsh weather hadn't set in. Saturdays were a workday for farmers, and Sunday was for church. And Wednesday was market day in most towns. Considering it might take a full day to travel by horse to a polling station, Tuesday in early November became the choice.

"Thank you for the piece of education," Lugar said to Soboroff with a grin.

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The Houston Chronicle reports: President Bush, his collar open and his sleeves rolled up, told thousands of cheering Republicans in Sugar Land on Monday to "bring your pencil" to the polls and write in the name of Shelley Sekula-Gibbs to succeed Tom DeLay in the U.S. House. ...

Most voters won't really need a pencil to cast write-in votes because they'll use electronic voting machines. If they write in the councilwoman's name, they'll turn a dial selecting the 18-letter name a character at a time. ...

Sekula-Gibbs is the party-backed write-in candidate to succeed DeLay, R-Sugar Land, who resigned from Congress after winning the Republican nomination for a 12th term. -- Bush tells voters to pencil in candidate

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NPR : Voting Problems Crop Up Ahead of Elections
NPR's Morning Edition reports: Signs of possible voting trouble are popping up ahead of midterm elections. The reports range from hackers getting into an official registration database to ballots being printed incorrectly. Pam Fessler reports.

Note: Audio for this story will be available at approx. 10:00 a.m. ET.

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The Washington Post reports: Time was when soldiers, if they wanted to vote, had to request ballots by snail mail, fill them out and return them the same way.

The process typically took weeks.

This year, thousands of soldiers around the world have the opportunity to vote in the Nov. 7 elections by e-mail. It's part of a Pentagon effort to make it easier for overseas military personnel to cast ballots in federal and state elections, and it reflects how the Internet has changed life in the combat zone.

But computer security experts inside and outside the government warned that the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program ignores the risks associated with unencrypted e-mail: interception, hacking and identity theft. -- E-Mail Voting Comes With Risks - washingtonpost.com

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AP reports (in a story about Chief Justice Nabers' recusal from an oil company case): In a related matter, attorneys for dog track operator Milton McGregor have asked [Chief Justice Drayton] Nabers to step aside from hearing an appeal involving the legality of electronic sweepstakes machines at the Birmingham dog track.

Their request, filed Thursday, cites Nabers' campaign ads where he accuses his opponent of taking money from gambling interests and says he has "fought against the gambling bosses."

A Jefferson County judge ruled that the sweepstakes games were legal, but Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which has not yet ruled. --

Note: The Alablawg discusses the same article and makes some good points.

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Joell Palmer, the plaintiff in Palmer v. Marion County posts his entire complaint on a new blog. It begins: 1. Introduction: This is an action to enjoin a threat to the integrity of the election process. Time is of the essence. Defendants are attempting to engage in voter fraud, by preventing voters without a voting license from voting. The result will be that the winners of the upcoming elections cannot be determined, because an unknown number of eligible voters will be prevented from voting. Without duly elected government officials, the government will lack legitimacy. The open door law claim provides a basis for statutory entitlement to an accelerated docket. A motion for a TRO and preliminary injunction is filed herewith, to prevent irreparable harm. -- palmer v marion county

Thanks to the Arbitrary Aardvark for the tip.

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CREW's blog reports: Earlier this month, Citizens Blogging broke the news that Congressman Jerry Lewis spent a whopping $551,419.43 on legal fees in the third quarter of 2006. That brought his total to $751,419.43 according to FEC reports. Lewis, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, paid those funds from his campaign account.

The latest FEC filing from Lewis, covering the period from October 1 - October 18, 2006, adds another $51,638.98 in legal expenses. That brings spending on his legal fee for 2006 to $802,059.41, so far. -- Citizens Blogging for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington

Comment: Maybe I have a different viewpoint, but I always see politicians actually paying their legal bills in a positive light. You'll get that way when you are stiffed by several pols.

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Kos has polling results for TX-22, showing that a large number of voters don't even know about the write-in campaign. He concludes: There are two differences in the poll methodology and real life --

1) going into the booth, no one will be listing Sekula-Gibbs as a write-in option. Voters will have to remember the name; and

2) the ballot WILL list Sekula-Gibbs -- as an option in a same-ballot special election to fill the remainder of Tom DeLay's term. People might think voting for her in that special election is enough and forget to write in her name in the general election portion of the ballot. -- Daily Kos: State of the Nation

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On Election Eve, 6 November, I will be hosting Blawg Review #82. As usual, the Blawg Review will include posts from law blogs and political blogs by lawyers and law profs and law students.

I would particularly like to hear from blawggers on the theme of "On Election Day, I will be ..." However, your usual champerty, maintenance, and blawggery will be welcome as well. Please see the Submission
Guidelines and submit your posts to the address listed there.

Posted by Ed at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Contrapositive has posted the Election Night Cheat Sheet -- an hour-by-hour guide to election night 2006.

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The Orlando Sentinel reports: Long lines, faulty machines and new voting rules could mar Election Day throughout the country, warn several groups that study and monitor elections.

With control of Congress at stake, even a small blunder Nov. 7 has the potential to escalate into a crisis similar in scope to the 2000 election.

"The ingredients are there," said Dan Seligson, who edited an independent report detailing the potential troubles.

Among them:

* Electronic machines that could fail or be hacked.

* Stricter voting requirements that already have sparked lawsuits.

* A divided electorate that could make many races across the U.S. very close, putting added pressure on an already imperfect system.

"The worst software in an election is often the human brain," said Seligson, whose nonpartisan organization Electionline.org predicted "the possibility -- if not certainty -- of problems at polls nationwide." -- ContraCostaTimes.com | 10/30/2006 | Balloting brouhahas could be brewing

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The Los Angeles Times reports: Unions, corporations and wealthy individuals have pumped nearly $300 million this year into unregulated political groups, funding dozens of aggressive and sometimes shadowy campaigns independent of party machines.

The groups, both liberal and conservative, air TV and radio spots, conduct polls, run phone banks, canvass door-to-door and stage get-out-the-vote rallies, with no oversight by the Federal Election Commission. Set up as tax-exempt "issue advocacy" committees, they cannot explicitly endorse candidates. But they can do everything short of telling voters how to mark their ballots.

Because they can accept unlimited donations from any source, the committees — known as 527s — have emerged as the favored vehicle for millionaires and interest groups seeking to set the political agenda. ...

Named for a section of the IRS code, 527s have been around for years but became a political force in 2004 after the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — also known as the McCain--Feingold Bill — limited donations to political parties. Groups such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the right and America Coming Together on the left contributed $600 million that year, with a heavy focus on the presidential race. -- UNREGULATED GROUPS WIELD MILLIONS TO SWAY VOTERS - Los Angeles Times

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AP reports: A U.S. manufacturer of touch-screen voting machines has asked the government to investigate reports the company is connected to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, company officials said Sunday. They deny any connection to Chavez.

Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., based in Oakland, California, said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was conducting the formal inquiry into it, as well as its parent software company, the Smartmatic Corp., at the firms' request after news articles suggested improper ties.

The inquiry was focusing on last year's acquisition of Sequoia by Smartmatic, a company owned by three Venezuelans based in Boca Raton, Florida. The government also is investigating whether Chavez's leftist government has any influence over the companies' operations. -- Vote machine firm seeks inquiry into reported Chavez ties - CNN.com

Posted by Ed at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times reports: Hoping against the odds to keep a prize Republican Congressional seat from falling to the Democrats next week, President Bush travels to his home state on Monday for a rally in the district long led by his Texas ally Tom DeLay. ...

But discord broke out Friday after Ms. Sekula-Gibbs showed up inside a Sugar Land polling place where voters were casting early ballots, setting off charges by Texas Democrats and the Lampson camp that she had willfully broken the law by campaigning inside a polling place. Ms. Sekula-Gibbs said she had been campaigning outside and briefly went in to use the restroom and inquire about voter turnout.

In one of the many oddities of the race, Ms. Sekula-Gibbs, 53, is running twice, as her campaign jingle, “Vote Twice for Shelley,” to the tune of “Roll Out the Barrel,” reminds voters. She is on the ballot with three other Republicans and a Libertarian in the special election that Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, waited until the last minute to call to fill Mr. DeLay’s unexpired term until January. And she is a write-in candidate against Mr. Lampson as well as a Libertarian and two other write-ins in the general election to the 2007-8 Congress.

Only the Libertarian candidate, Bob Smither, 62, an engineer, appears on the ballot in both elections. -- A Tangle of a Race to Fill DeLay's Old Seat - New York Times

Posted by Ed at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was telling my son about "Catch a Fire" -- a move that opened this weekend about Patrick Chamusso, an apolitical South African worker who became a guerrilla/freedom fighter/terrorist for the African National Congress in 1980 after being arrested and tortured by the South African secret police even though he was completely innocent. Martin is 19, and I was trying to think of something that would relate the time and place of the movie to him. I remembered seeing Nelson Mandela in the movie. I asked Martin if he remembered us watching TV all one day to catch sight of Mandela being released from prison. He remembered Mandela's name, but I am not sure if remembered that day when he was only 3. (I was misremembering the date of his release and thought it was a couple of years later, so that Martin would have been 5.)

On the day of his release, Mandela said:

Our struggle has reached a decisive moment. We call on our people to seize this moment so that the process towards democracy is rapid and uninterrupted. We have waited too long for our freedom. We can no longer wait. Now is the time to intensify the struggle on all fronts. To relax our efforts now would be a mistake which generations to come will not be able to forgive. The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.

It is only through disciplined mass action that our victory can be assured. We call on our white compatriots to join us in the shaping of a new South Africa. The freedom movement is a political home for you too. We call on the international community to continue the campaign to isolate the apartheid regime. To lift sanctions now would be to run the risk of aborting the process towards the complete eradication of apartheid.

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters' role in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.

In conclusion I wish to quote my own words during my trial in 1964. They are true today as they were then:

'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'

The idea that theirs was a struggle against apartheid, not against whites, is also made in the movie. When Chamusso goes to Mozambique to join the ANC military wing. One of the recruits says, "Give me a gun, commander, and I will go kill Boers." The commander responds by saying that is not what they are training to do. "South Africa belongs to all who live in it," he says.

I don't think anyone in "Catch a Fire" ever talks about voting, but to me that is what the movie is ultimately about.

It also has a lot to say about torture, the loss of civil rights, treating others as The Other. It calls all of us to live up to our ideals. Chamusso says to Nik Vos, his police interrogator, "My children will say, 'He stood up for what is right.' What will yours say about you?"

That's the question all of us have to answer.

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The New York Times reports: The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, the same panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this year.

The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami Herald. -- U.S. Investigates Voting Machines' Venezuela Ties - New York Times

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Arstechnica announces: Shortly after we published our newest feature on electronic election fraud, "How to Steal an Election by Hacking the Vote," we received a flood of requests that we release a free copy of the article's PDF, which is typically only available to Premier Subscribers. Quite a few readers also suggested that the PDF should be emailed to elected officials, especially congresspersons and Secretaries of State, as a kind of wake-up call for how insecure our elections are.

So, you asked for it, and here it is: How to Steal an Election by Hacking the Vote, in a portable, easily readable/printable PDF format. -- Send your elected officials our free PDF guide to hacking the vote

Thanks to Jim Blacksher for the tip.

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AP reports: Diebold Election Systems quietly replaced flawed components in several thousand Maryland voting machines in 2005 to fix a "screen-freeze" problem the company had discovered three years earlier, according to published reports Thursday.

State Board of Elections Chairman Gilles W. Burger said Diebold's failure to fully inform board members of the repairs at the time raises questions about whether the company violated its state contracts. ...

The screen freezes prompted Diebold, a division of ATM maker Diebold Inc., to replace motherboards on 4,700 machines in Allegany, Dorchester, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the Washington Post reported. Those counties introduced the machines in 2004 in the first phase of Maryland's transition to a uniform electronic voting system.

The unpredictable freezes don't cause votes to be lost, officials said, but they confuse voters and election judges who sometimes wonder whether votes cast on a frozen machine will be counted. -- Wired News: Diebold Made Fixes, on the QT

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AP reports: At a time when the Democrats and Republicans appear so evenly divided that control of many state legislatures hangs in the balance, this Election Day should be a long night of high anxiety.

But the truth is many candidates can turn in early.

Nationwide, more than 30 percent of the roughly 6,100 legislative seats on the ballot already have been decided because the candidates are running unopposed, according to an Associated Press analysis. ...

Forty-seven states in all have legislative contests this fall. In 11 states, more than half of the races for state House and Senate are uncontested. -- Thirty percent of state candidates running unopposed - CNN.com

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The Baltimore Times reports: As the November elections approach, the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition is launching its national 1-866-OUR VOTE voter assistance hotline and the poll location web site www.MyPollingPlace.com. 1-866-OUR-VOTE is the only national voter assistance hotline staffed by live call center operators trained to provide state specific assistance to all voters. Lawyers, poll monitors and additional volunteers will be mobilized in 16 key states across the nation to assist voters in the days leading up to the election and on Election Day.

Led by People For the American Way Foundation, the NAACP, and the Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, Election Protection (EP) has operated in every election cycle since 2001, and is the nation's most far-reaching nonpartisan effort to provide voter assistance and protect voter rights. The services will include bilingual assistance for areas with a heavy concentration of Spanish-speaking voters.

Trained volunteers will staff the hotline providing immediate, state specific, assistance to callers. Call center operators will inform voters and solve problems on issues such as voter identification requirements, voting machine malfunctions, problems at the polling place, and voter intimidation. National call centers will be located in Washington, New York, Baltimore, and San Francisco. Local call centers will be hosted in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Minnesota. -- Baltimore Times - Article - local news

Comment: I will be participating in this program again this year.

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The Poughkeepsie Journal reports: A new statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls, and as many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis.

The Journal's analysis of New York's 3-month-old database is the first to determine the potential for errors and fraud in voting. It matched names, dates of birth and ZIP codes in the state's database of 11.7 million voter registration records against the same information in the Social Security Administration's "Death Master File." That database has 77 million records of deaths dating back to 1937. ...

Among the Journal's findings:

- There were dead people on the voter rolls in all of New York's 62 counties and people in as many as 45 counties who had votes recorded after they had died.

- One Bronx address was listed as the home for as many as 191 registered voters who had died. The address is 5901 Palisade Ave., in Riverdale, site of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.

- Democrats who cast votes after they died outnumbered Republicans by more than 4 to 1. The reason: Most of them came from Democrat-dominated New York City, where the higher population produced more matches. -- Dead voters continue to cast ballots in New York

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The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Two weeks before Election Day, the city is fighting an attempt by the U.S. Justice Department to appoint federal observers for Philadelphia elections beginning Nov. 7 and lasting past next year's presidential race, until the end of 2009.

The effort to appoint the observers stems from a lawsuit filed by the federal government 14 days ago alleging that the city has violated the rights of its Hispanic voters.

Specifically, it charges that the city hasn't adequately recruited and trained bilingual poll workers, failed to provide sufficient election-related materials in Spanish, and prohibited Hispanic voters with limited English from choosing someone to help them inside the voting booth, which law permits. ...

With the election fast approaching, the city has been struggling to implement new federal rules on handicapped access, as well as a new state law requiring dozens of city polling places to be moved (they can no longer be inside bars or elected officials' homes, for instance). -- Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/27/2006 | Phila. opposes U.S. observers at polls

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The Washington Post reports: While Republican Bob Corker and Democratic Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. slug it out in the Tennessee Senate race, voters there are already going to the polls in record numbers. Early voting began in the state Oct. 18, and turnout is reported to be especially high in Ford's home town of Memphis. ...

Second, to counter the Republicans' potent turnout operation, Democrats have zeroed in on 200,000 voters who party officials believe could push Ford over the top. These "drop-off" voters show up during general-election years but tend to skip nonpresidential contests.

About three-quarters of the Democratic drop-off voters are African Americans, and many live in Shelby County, where Memphis is located and where Ford and his relatives have a history of running well. Corker, in fact, has criticized the Ford family "machine" and its long hold over Memphis politics. -- Tennessee Democrats Seek to Mobilize 'Drop-Off' Voters - washingtonpost.com

Posted by Ed at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post reports: On a recent Saturday afternoon, a team of canvassers armed with handheld digital devices spread out across the city. Their aim was to urge residents to support a ballot initiative requiring an increase in Ohio's minimum wage.

But one beneficiary could be someone hoping for a new job that pays a good bit better than minimum wage: Rep. Sherrod Brown (D), who is running to unseat Sen. Mike DeWine (R), the two-term incumbent, on Nov. 7. ...

n 2004, Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere tended to benefit from ballot initiatives. Measures to ban same-sex marriage, for example, passed easily. In the process, some election analysts said, the measures revved the conservative base to help Republican candidates from President Bush on down.

In 2006, Democrats are hoping to prove that ballot politics can work in the other direction. Measures to increase the minimum wage are before voters in six states. Four of those, Arizona, Ohio, Missouri and Montana, feature close Senate races with a GOP incumbent. In Missouri, moreover, a measure backing stem cell research is ahead in the polls -- which Democrats say could lift their candidate. -- This Time, Ballot Issues Could Rally Liberal Base - washingtonpost.com

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The Center for Citizen Media is soliciting questions from bloggers: Lots of bloggers are planning to cover the 2006 general elections on November 7. But what are the legal issues that you need to understand?

Such as: Can you be in the voting area except to vote? (Not in Delaware) Can you ask people how they voted? (Not within 50 ft of polling place in Rhode Island). Can you take photos? (In CA it is illegal to photograph, videotape or otherwise record a voter entering or leaving a polling place). And so on.

Student Fellows at Stanford University Law School's Center for Internet and Society will be answering those kinds of questions and more in coming days. Do you have one? Ask it here. We'll compile and publish a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and post it before the election.

Please note that some election laws vary from state to state. We ask you to tell us your state so we can answer the questions based on the laws of your state. We will also try to answer the question for other states as time permits. -- Election Day Bloggers' Legal Guide: Your Questions | Center for Citizen Media

Thanks to Media Law for the tip.

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AP reports: In a decision that could shake up the race for speaker in 2007, Wake County Democrats have chosen former Speaker Dan Blue to replace the late Rep. Bernard Allen at the General Assembly.

Democratic leaders in the 33rd House District unanimously chose Blue to succeed Allen, who died two weeks ago. The law requires Gov. Mike Easley to follow the wishes of the local Democrats and appoint Blue to the General Assembly.

The decision means that Blue will complete the remaining two months term and receive votes for Allen on the Nov. 7 ballot. Because Allen was unopposed next month, Blue will have the job through 2008. -- Winston-Salem Journal | Ex-speaker Blue will return to House

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The Denver Post reports: An editing mistake on Denver's absentee ballots has turned a little-discussed referendum on recall protections into an issue that could affect controversial statewide campaigns.

The concern is actually not with the mistake, but the solution: On election night, Denver plans to have election judges hand-copy as many as 30,000 voted absentee ballots onto new ballots.

The same process of "duplication" is a common practice in elections, but not on the scale Denver plans to attempt.

The idea has prompted "very serious concerns" from watchdogs such as Colorado Common Cause. -- DenverPost.com - Up to 30,000 ballots will be hand-recopied

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The Washington Post reports: Democrat Douglas F. Gansler's bid for state attorney general is "constitutionally acceptable," a judge ruled yesterday, rejecting a lawsuit that asserted Gansler did not have the 10 years' experience in Maryland required for the post.

Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth released an opinion declaring that the Montgomery County prosecutor's 17 years as a member of the Maryland State Bar, combined with his legal work in that time, satisfies the standard set in the state constitution. ...

Gansler's Republican opponent, Frederick County State's Attorney Scott L. Rolle, said that he had nothing to do with the suit but that it had been worth pursuing. "It was a constitutional question that needed to be resolved," Rolle said yesterday evening. "If it's been decided in his favor -- no harm, no foul."

The suit was brought by a registered voter, Nikos Liddy of Bowie, who was represented by Rolle's campaign manager, Jason Shoemaker. -- Challenge To Gansler Candidacy Rejected - washingtonpost.com

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Jason Conn emails: I thought that as the election nears and many attorneys sign up to serve as election monitors, there might be some interest in an article I published in the Toledo Law Review ( 37 U. Tol. L. Rev. 1021), entitled "Of Challengers and Challenges." As far as I know, it is the only academic article to look at the role poll watching and poll challenging play in our electoral process. In the article, I examine the ethical and constitutional issues that arise from lawyers' roles on Election Day.

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The Washington Post reports: A state prosecutor has found no criminal violations stemming from a recent fundraising solicitation from Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. that included real dollar bills.

Last month's mailer was referred to the Office of the State Prosecutor by a state election official who determined that there was "probable cause" that Ehrlich's campaign had run afoul of the law.

But a letter received yesterday by the Ehrlich campaign stated that the prosecutor's office had "found no criminal violation of the election laws in connection with this fundraising solicitation" and that it was closing its file on the matter.

In the mailing, Ehrlich (R) wrote that he had "taken the extraordinary step of sending . . . a real dollar bill" and asked potential donors to return it along with a contribution of $25 or more for his reelection campaign. -- Ehrlich's Dollar-Bill Mailer Not Illegal, Official Says - washingtonpost.com

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The Tallahassee Democrat reports: The Florida Elections Commission won't investigate a charge by Leon County Democrats that the Republican Governors Association gave an illegal $1 million contribution to the Florida Republican Party earmarked for its gubernatorial nominee, Attorney General Charlie Crist.

FEC attorneys ruled that the complaints, filed by the Leon County Democratic Executive Committee last month, were ''legally insufficient.'' ...

Democrats filed the complaints when Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney visited Tallahassee last month. At a press conference, Romney pledged $1 million and said he wanted to help Crist keep the governor's mansion in Republican control.

But FEC investigators found the complaints, based only on news accounts of the press conference, baseless. -- Tallahassee Democrat - www.tallahassee.com - Tallahassee, FL.

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The Arizona Republic reports: The executive director of the pro-Proposition 207 campaign has hit 316 Arizona government agencies with massive requests for public records, digging for e-mails from public employees and elected officials opposing the Nov. 7 ballot measure.

Lori Klein insists that public officials are campaigning against her property-rights initiative, and she wants to prove they are doing it on public time.

But the request is so broad, and potentially affects so many documents, that Peoria City Attorney Steve Kemp estimated it could take as much as eight years to sift through all the information. ...

Proposition 207 would forbid municipalities from taking private property through eminent domain for another private development.

The more substantial provision in Proposition 207 would require local governments to compensate property owners if a government action, such as a zoning change or enactment of an environmental or other land-use law, makes the property's value drop. -- Group says towns are undermining Proposition 207

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The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Don't want to show ID? Vote absentee.

A federal judge Thursday evening blocked enforcement of new identification requirements for absentee voters, agreeing that the state's voter ID law is vague, confusing and unevenly applied by Ohio election boards since early voting began this month.

"Absentee voters are suffering irreparable harm right now," said U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley in announcing his decision.

Marbley ordered Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's office to notify the state's 88 county election boards of the ruling by noon today.

The emergency order will be in effect until Nov. 1 when Marbley will hold a full hearing that will also address whether the ID requirements should be suspended at the polls on Nov. 7. -- Judge blocks ID rule for absentee voters Don't need ID for absentee, judge rules in voting suit Judge blocks new state law on absentee voter ID rules

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The Alabama Supreme Court has denied a stay (sought by the Secretary of State) in Gooden v. Worley, in which the plaintiffs prevailed in the trial court and obtained an order requiring boards of registrars to follow the state constitution.

The Constitution of Alabama provides that those convicted of felonies "involving moral turpitude" are not allowed to register to vote. The plaintiffs alleged and proved that registrars were routinely denying all persons convicted of any felony the right to register.

The trial court (Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance, Jr.) had granted relief to the plaintiffs, including a requirement that registrars obey the Constitution. For some reason, the State sought a stay of this common-sense requirement.

Ryan Haygood of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and I represent the plaintiffs in this case.

Update:
The Birmingham News reports: The Alabama Supreme Court has cleared the way for people who have been convicted of felonies such as DUI, attempted burglary and liquor law violations to register to vote.