Elections watchdog Ron Gould revealed he is not comfortable with the view that all 129 MSPs elected last year actually received more votes than their opponents. He blames the farce in which more than 140,000 ballots were spoiled.

Gould s astonishing comments last night threw a cloud of uncertainty over the Scottish Parliament s integrity, and over the SNP s historic victory.

Last May, First Minister Alex Salmond won power on the back of a one seat victory over Labour. One constituency, Cunninghame North, was won with a majority of just 49. It later emerged that 1,015 votes had been spoilt. In other seats the spoiled papers outweighed the winner s majority, suggesting different results could have emerged if they had been counted. -- Wrong MSPs elected in poll fiasco - Scotland on Sunday

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer whose nomination became entangled in allegations that political considerations influenced decisions by the agency s Civil Rights Division, sent President Bush a letter withdrawing his NAME.

Senate Democrats had refused for a year to confirm von Spakovsky, torpedoing the nominations of three other nominees and denying the FEC a quorum. Since Jan. 1, only two of the agency s six commissioner slots have been filled. Bush, supported by GOP Senate leaders, had refused to withdraw von Spakovsky s NAME.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid D-Nev. claimed victory yesterday and predicted that Bush would soon select a replacement who could quickly win confirmation along with four other pending nominees and put the FEC back on its feet. -- Contested Nominee To FEC Drops Out - washingtonpost.com

The bill failed to go to the Senate floor for a vote in part because of pressure by the secretary of state and grass-roots groups, said a Republican lobbyist who worked for the measure.

The lobbyist asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for the backers. Sponsors of the amendment, which would have required voter approval to go into effect, say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say it could lead to disenfranchising tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship. -- Missouri Legislature Ends Session With Voter ID Amendment Still on Agenda - New York Times

A campaign spokeswoman said it was too soon to say how many campaign officials might be removed under the new rules, which were distributed to campaign staff members Thursday night with a questionnaire to ferret out potential conflicts. ...

The midcampaign staff review underscores the difficulties Mr. McCain is having in trying to build his Republican presidential campaign around his crusades for tighter ethics rules and pledges to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest. It is hard for any campaign to find experienced operatives who do not also sell their political connections, expertise or influence to private interests. And Mr. McCain’s emphasis on strict ethics has drawn special attention to the number of potential conflicts within his own staff.

On Friday, the campaign severed its ties to Craig Shirley, a veteran public relations consultant who had helped handle outreach to conservatives. The campaign said it would no longer employ Mr. Shirley because he was also working for StopHerNow.com, an independent political group initially dedicated to attacking Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that is now refocusing on Senator Barack Obama (and changing its name). -- In Effort to Avoid Conflicts, McCain Issues New Rules for Staff - New York Times

You can read his resignation here.

It is with regret that I write to request that you withdraw my nomination, Spakovsky wrote in a letter to the President today. In his letter, Spakovsky explains that Democrats opposition to his nomination has caused a battle that has been extremely hard on my family and quite frankly, we do not have the financial resources to continue to wait until this matter is resolved.

Democrats have opposed Spakovsky s nomination ever since last year, but it was the opposition of Sens. Barack Obama D-IL and Russ Feingold D-WI , who refused to allow any vote on the nominees together, that ultimately led to his withdrawal. Republicans, on the other hand, refused to allow Spakovsky to be voted on separately. -- TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Breaking: Spakovsky Withdraws as FEC Nominee

His many accomplishments—degrees from Yale and Harvard, a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius grant”) and honors from the State Bar of California and the California League of United Latin American Citizens—are even more remarkable considering how far Avila has come.

As a youth growing up in Compton, Calif., a city notorious for its high crime rate and rampant gang activity, Avila had friends with gang ties and was “teetering,” he says, on the edge of that lifestyle. But it was education and a drive to make something of himself that ultimately pulled him away. The turning point was when he hit the ninth grade and decided to take stock of what his life would be like if he didn't make a change. -- Seattle University - News & events - Featured stories

The Phoenix office for Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to grant citizenship to 2,000 legal immigrants this month, more than twice the usual 800 for May.

Charles Harrell, acting district director of the CIS office in Phoenix, said the immigration service is responding to a surge of applications that poured in last year.

Citizenship applications spike every four years preceding a presidential election, but the record surge last year was triggered by various immigration-related factors, including a 70 percent fee increase that prompted thousands of immigrants to apply before the increase took effect Aug. 1. -- Feds coping with backlog for U.S. citizenship before election

Democrats are investigating what they say was White House involvement in the incident while Republicans say Democrats are just fishing for headlines.

NHPR Correspondent Matt Laslo reports from Washington. -- Phone Jamming Scandal Gets Hearing in US House | New Hampshire Public Radio

Many individual ballots resulted in a vote-switch, a two-vote margin difference from the intended result. Switched-votes cast for Kerry and counted for Bush had twice the impact as their actual occurrence, by each subtracting one from Kerry and adding one to Bush. Bush and Kerry votes also went uncounted as non-votes or were miscounted as minor candidate votes. A high percentage of all Cuyahoga County votes were cast at locations with multiple ballot orders. The manner in which precincts and ballot orders were combined increased the probability of a Kerry cross-vote being recorded as a Bush vote. Quantitative analyses of candidate votes and of non-vote percentages evidence the cross-voting and the patterns of cross-voting and vote-switching. -- How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes.

At a meeting in Indianapolis on May 2, members of the Democratic front-runner's finance committee made it clear Obama (Ill.) is worried that overtly negative advertising from outside organizations could undermine his themes of unity and hope. ...

The meeting was only the most overt effort by Obama or Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, to freeze out "527" groups -- named after a provision in the tax code -- which are not allowed to openly support a candidate but have helped define recent elections through negative advertising.

The McCain campaign has been less organized than Obama's in its efforts to counter the groups, but the senator from Arizona has made clear his antipathy toward them -- without much effect. -- Obama, McCain Aim to Curb '527s' - washingtonpost.com

Under cross-examination by Fieger defense lawyer Gerry Spence, SueEllen Sandner said she was so disgusted with the way FBI agent Jeffrey Rees treated her, she refused Monday to meet with a federal prosecutor in advance of today's testimony if Rees would be there.

“He was fairly aggressive with me when I didn’t say the words he wanted me to say,” Sandner said of her first conversation with Rees in December 2005. He called her shortly after agents raided Fieger’s law firm looking for evidence that Fieger and law partner Vernon (Ven) Johnson recruited 64 people to contribute to Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign and reimbursed them with law firm funds.

Defense lawyers have conceded that Fieger and Johnson reimbursed employees for contributing, but that the pair didn’t think they were breaking the law. Their lawyers have focused on federal investigative tactics. -- Paralegal: FBI agent tried to bully me in Fieger case

The Center for Political Accountability, a nonpartisan group that promotes corporate political disclosure, has been gradually persuading companies to disclose more about their political activities. As a result, a few mysteries have been solved.

In 2006, for example, Chevron, the oil company, paid the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Industry PAC BIPAC $250,000 each to educate voters. Such spending has traditionally been kept secret because laws do not require disclosure, even though it is an important element in the assault on Washington. Now, shareholder pressure has changed a few minds in corporate boardrooms.

Aetna, the insurance company, has disclosed that it paid trade associations $3.4 million in 2006, the latest year for which information is available. That included $950,000 to America s Health Insurance Plans, $925,000 to the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare, $226,500 to the Business Roundtable and $100,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In other words, a ton of dough. -- Jeffrey H. Birnbaum - Companies Start to Lift Veil on Political Spending - washingtonpost.com

The payments, known in the political vernacular as “street money,” are a legal but controversial tool that Mrs. Clinton employed at a time when she was desperately seeking a victory after losing 10 consecutive contests to Mr. Obama.

As a practical matter, the payments are now little more than a footnote to a hotly contested race that seems closer to a conclusion after Mrs. Clinton’s poor showing in North Carolina and narrow victory in Indiana last Tuesday. But they underscore how her strategists, caught unprepared for a drawn-out battle, turned to an old-style method of retail politicking to ensure much-needed victories in the suddenly critical Texas and Ohio primaries.

Not equipped with the volunteer-driven grass-roots movement that has propelled Mr. Obama’s get-out-the-vote efforts, the Clinton campaign hired more than three times as many local operatives as he to fill that role in those two states. While mostly forgoing the use of street money in Ohio and other places, the Obama campaign paid about 150 people in Texas, most of them college students, for campaign work. The payments were widely dispersed, with only a handful in South Texas and fewer than 20 in Houston. -- Legal but Controversial, It Helped Get Out the Vote

The League of United Latin American Citizens of Texas and the Mexican American Bar Association of Houston sued in federal court, arguing the party failed to seek clearance required by the U.S. Justice Department for the so-called Texas Two Step. The groups also argue the system effectively discriminates against Latino voters by giving them fewer delegates.

Texas Democrats distribute the state s 193 delegates using both a primary election and a caucus, but the distribution favors state Senate districts that had high voter turnout in the last presidential and gubernatorial elections.

In the March 4 election, that meant predominantly Hispanic districts, where turnout was low in 2004 and 2006, got fewer delegates than others, particularly urban, predominantly black districts. Latino districts favored Hillary Clinton; black districts favored Barack Obama. -- LULAC sued Texas Democratic Party over primary delegates - El Paso Times

Note: If anyone has a copy of the complaint, email it to me. The complaint may be downloaded here. Thanks to Jose Garza for responding to my request.