electionline Weekly

In Focus This Week

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald remembered as ‘voice of reason’
Colleagues, election officials recall trailblazing lawmaker

By Kat Zambon
electionline.org

Election officials and members of Congress this week remembered Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., as a passionate advocate for election reform particularly in her role as chair of the Committee on House Administration.

Millender-McDonald died Sunday in her Carson, Calif. home, less than two weeks after requesting a leave of absence to seek treatment for colon cancer.

“It was indeed devastating to learn of Juanita’s death. We were on a first-name basis and spoke frequently — most recently on March 22 prior to the next day’s House Elections Subcommittee hearing where she read into the record my letter to her opposing H.R. 811,” said Conny McCormack, Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk. “She was a voice of reason in this highly-emotionally charged debate [about] election “reform” making her loss all the more incalculable. I have several photos in my office of us together over the past few years and will always hold her memory in the utmost respect.”

Millender-McDonald was recently re-elected to represent California’s 37th district. As control of Congress changed from Republican to Democrat, Millender-McDonald was promoted from ranking member to committee chair in the Committee on House Administration, which is charged with the oversight of federal elections.

Soon after becoming committee chair, The Hill reported that Millender-McDonald wrote a letter to Congress requesting the remaining $800 million that had been authorized but not yet appropriated for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

She held a number of hearings on election reform issues, mostly focusing on the specifics of H.R. 811, the updated version of a bill authored by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., requiring, among other things, electronic voting machines to produce voter-verified paper audit trails. Earlier this year, she hosted an expo for voting machine vendors in the House Administration Committee’s hearing room, to help members of Congress better understand the voting machines in question in legislation considered by the panel.

“America has lost a passionate advocate of free and fair elections,” a statement on the committee’s Web site said.

“Congresswoman Millender-McDonald and I have been good friends who have worked well together since she was elected. I have always admired her passion both as Chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, and in representing California’s 37th District,” Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., Committee on House Administration ranking member said in a statement.

Millender-McDonald was the first black to serve on the Carson City Council, the first Democratic chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and the first black woman to chair a Congressional committee, the Baltimore Times reported.

“Juanita Millender-McDonald was a trailblazer, always advocating for the full participation of all Americans in the success and prosperity of our country,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Pelosi assigned Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa., to serve as committee chair after Millender-McDonald requested to take a leave of absence.

However, Brady is seeking the nomination for mayor of Philadelphia in a five-way primary scheduled for May, Northeastern Pennsylvania News reported. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is next in line for committee chair should Brady be unable to serve.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is expected to call a Special Vacancy Election next week which will trigger an election to fill Millender-McDonald’s seat in late June.

The rules of the special election call for all candidates to run on a single ballot. If a candidate does not receive at least 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote getters will face off in another special general election in late August.

The funeral is scheduled for April 30 in Los Angeles. Aides to Democratic leaders said that it was likely that no votes would be scheduled for that day to allow members to attend the funeral where Pelosi will offer a eulogy according to Congressional Quarterly. Millender-McDonald is survived by her husband, five children and several grandchildren.

In Focus This Week

International elections present different challenges
Nigerians face fraud, French try electronic voting, and Bhutanese prepare for first vote

By Kat Zambon
electionline.org

Observers in Nigeria hope that 2007 will mark the first time one democratically elected president transfers power to another as President Olusegun Obasanjo prepares to leave office at the end of his second term.

However, getting to that day in May when Obasanio takes his leave and a new president is sworn in has been anything but a peaceful process including the actual presidential election on April 21.

Election observers from the E.U., Human Rights Watch, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute state that they saw widespread fraud, intimidation and violence during the election.

Dave Peterson, senior director of the Africa program for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) observed the April 21 presidential elections in Bauchi State in northern Nigeria.

Peterson pointed out that the lack of serial numbers on the ballots was one reason why many polling places did not receive as many ballots as they needed. Elections officials eventually determined that each stack contained 100 ballots but “it was very difficult to distribute them,” Peterson said.

Because the ballots didn’t arrive in Nigeria until the night before the election, officials delivered ballots the day of the election and polls didn’t open on time. When polls finally did open, poll workers found that voter registration lists weren’t alphabetized, making it hard to check in voters. As long lines formed, poll workers began giving ballots to voters who showed their registration cards, though some voters were turned away because poll workers couldn’t find their names in the book.

“The shame is that the national INEC [Independent National Electoral Commission] officials, and really the government itself failed the Nigerian people,” Peterson said. “Nigeria can do a lot better than this, that’s what’s so frustrating … it’s got the resources, it’s got the educated people, there’s no reason it couldn’t put together really good elections. It’s the great shame of West Africa.”

A post-election report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed incidents that included late opening polls, supply shortages, vote buying, and the seizure of ballot boxes by gangs of thugs.

Among the problems noted on Election Day:

Some ballot boxes never made it to the polls and wound up at the home of the local government chair, who said polls closed early because of “the massive enthusiasm of the voters.” Tally sheets returned showed high turnout with as many as 100 percent of votes going to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Voters were not afforded privacy when voting was allowed and PDP members watched over voters’ shoulders as they filled out ballots.

In Daura, home to presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of All Nigeria’s People Party (ANPP), riots began when polling places only received half the supplies needed. Businesses and homes owned by PDP members were burned, two people were killed and six were injured.

In Yamaltu Deba, INEC and PDP officials provided supplies for the polling places but kept the results sheets, which are the only official record of the results.

There was no voting in the Gombe state until 3 p.m. because materials arrived late. Six polling places were open for no more than an hour. In one polling place, residents said that no more than 130 people had voted while the results sheet showed that 900 votes were cast, 876 of which went to PDP.

While an electoral officer who was supposed to be monitoring the collation of final results slept in his office, PDP and INEC staff filled in results sheets.

Opposition party supporters and officials were arrested without being charged before and during Election Day.

In a Katsina polling place, a police officer who tried to stop the theft of a ballot box was beaten with his own club.

In a statement, the National Democratic Institute said, “In many places, and in a number of ways, the electoral process failed the Nigerian people … As a result at this stage it is unclear whether the April 21 elections reflect the will of the Nigerian people.”

Researchers are concerned that Nigerians are growing increasingly frustrated with democracy’s failure to solve the country’s problems due to corruption among politicians. According to Afrobaromter, a polling service that measures African attitudes, satisfaction with democracy fell to 25 percent in 2005 from 84 percent following Obasanjo’s first election in 1999.

In some ways though, signs are improving for democracy in Nigeria. Last year, Obasanjo was prevented from rewriting the constitution to allow him to run for another term. Also, a court decision allowed Atiku Abubakar, the current vice president and Action Congress Party’s candidate for president to be placed on the ballot after INEC had initially blocked his bid.

However, the late addition of Abubakar to the ballot led to ballots being printed with only party symbols, not the candidates’ names or the ballots’ serial numbers, which help prevent fraud. In a post-election television address April 23, Obasanjo understated the situation.

“Our elections could not have been said to have been perfect,” he said, suggesting that those who believe the elections were mishandled “should avail themselves of the laid-down constitutional procedure for seeking redress in electoral matters.” Ken Nnamani, senate president, also encouraged the aggrieved to go through the legal system.

On April 24, the Coalition of Opposition Presidential Candidates and Political Parties (COPP) asked Nnamani to serve as executive after Obasanjo leaves office May 29 and disband the INEC in preparation for a re-vote. Umaru Yar’Adua, a member of PDP and the president-elect has reached out to Buhari and Abubakar.

“The contest has come and gone. So should our differences … With the elections now behind us, I urge you to join hands with us as we seek to build our country,” he said.

French voters bid adieu to Chirac, bonjour to electronic voting
A day after voters went to the polls in Nigeria, round one of the presidential election was held in France.

Although much of the news after the April 22 election focused on the differences between the two winning candidates, the recent elections also marked the first time French voters used paperless electronic voting machines to cast ballots for president

As many as 1.5 million of 43 million eligible voters used the machines, which were legalized in 2004 and have since been installed in 82 of 36,000 voting districts according to the International Herald-Tribune.

French voters reported waiting in line for up to two hours to cast ballots electronically and many voters walked away in disgust, though some said that lines were long because of the high turnout. After the elections, the Socialists, Communists and Green Party members called the deployment of the new voting machines “a catastrophe,” according to The Register.

A Web site by French citizens concerned about electronic voting, ordinateurs-de-vote.org explained that certified electronic voting machines in France come from three different vendors – Nebraska-based ES&S, Nedap, a Dutch company, and Indra, a Spanish manufacturer.

In a March 30 statement calling for a moratorium on e-voting, the Socialist Party pointed out that machines made by Nedap and ES&S have had problems in other countries where they have been used, The New York Times reported.

Pierre Bascoulergue said that he went to vote in Issy-les-Molineaux near Paris twice and left both times because it took too long. “I just don’t trust these machines,” he said.

Paul Verlaine University researchers found that four out of seven voters aged 65 and older could not cast ballots on two of the three types of machines used in the election according to Agence France-Presse.

“It’s total chaos, we don’t understand anything,” Suzanne Antoine, a 70 year-old voter in Reims said. “I managed to finish but I prefer the way it was before.”

The interior ministry said that there haven’t been any problems with the voting machines since they were first used in 2003.

Before French citizens started using electronic voting machines, they simply filled out ballots and dropped them into a transparent ballot box, Richard Soudriette, International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) president and CEO said.

“The French way of doing that [using a transparent ballot box] has really caught on in terms of elections all over the world,” he said, particularly in emerging democracies where they “really embrace the idea … to ensure that boxes didn’t arrive at the polling place already full.”

Soudriette felt confident that French voters would easily adapt to electronic voting machines and pointed out that France was one of the first countries to experiment with internet voting and one of the first places where people used computers in their homes.

Winning candidates Segolene Royal, the Socialist Party candidate on the left (who would be the first female president if elected) and Nicolas Sarkozy, former interior minister and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate on the right will face off in a general election May 6.

Democracy coming to Bhutan
After Bhutan’s king Jigme Singye Wangchuck announced plans to abdicate his throne and ordered parliamentary elections to be held next year, more than 125,000 citizens went to the polls April 21 in a mock election. Voters chose between fake political parties druk yellow, druk blue, druk green and druk red (the druk is a thunder dragon, Bhutan’s national symbol).

In a country where citizens only recently received Internet access and where improvement is marked by an increase in gross national happiness, Voice of America reported that voters were unsure of what democracy means and asked if they have to pay to vote or if they will be punished for not voting.

The king is very popular and few see the need for change. But other voters are excited about what democracy has to offer though some haven’t been impressed by the efforts at democracy seen in other South Asian countries.

“We’ve lived a very happy life under the king,” Kensho, a farmer near Zhanglaka told The Christian Science Monitor. “I’ll go to vote – I have a card. But I don’t want one tiny thing to change.”

Dasho Kunzang Wangdi, election commission chief, said that the purpose of the mock election was to prepare people for the upcoming vote and ensure that voters know what to expect. “On the whole, [the] response is very good, people are very excited,” Wangdi said.

India’s election commission met with Bhutan’s in December and provided $2.3 million to help Bhutan with the mock vote according to the Daily Bulletin.

The election commission has sought volunteers to start political parties. Tshering Tobgay is a former civil servant starting the People’s Democratic Party. “We are not starting a party because we have an ideology. We are not starting a party because we have a vision for a better Bhutan. We are starting a party because the king has ordered us,” Tobgay said.

Kuensel Online, Bhutan’s news Web site reported that voters walked to the polls in their best clothes and carrying their lunch. After asking a poll worker what to do in the voting booth, a voter asked, “But what color should I press?”

“Pick the color you like best,” the poll worker answered. The voter soon left with a sheepish grin on his face

Each druk came with a platform in the mock election – druk blue was anti-corruption and supported extending free health care and education, druk green for environmentally friendly development, druk red for industrialization and druk yellow for preserving and promoting Bhutan’s culture and heritage.

Druk yellow won with more than 44 percent of the vote. Next month, druk yellow and druk red, which received 20 percent of the vote, will compete in a mock run-off on May 28.

Election Reform News This Week

The rights of convicted felons to vote met with differing fates in statehouses this week. In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) signed legislation that will allow felons in the Old Line to register to vote as soon as their sentences are complete. Advocates told The Baltimore Sun that as many as 50,000 Marylanders could be eligible to vote once the law takes effect on July 1. State Republicans had called on the governor to veto the bill. In Colorado, a House Committee struck down a proposal that would have allowed felons still on parole to vote. The state’s Attorney General and Secretary of State had argued that the proposal was unconstitutional. According to a local television station, the proposal had been added as an amendment to an annual technical clean-up bill.

Texas this week took a major step toward becoming the next state to require voter ID at the polls when the state House approved a measure that would mandate either a photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID be presented before casting ballots. Voters without the required documentation would be allowed to cast provisional ballots. According to the El Paso Times, the bill is expected to receive final approval in the House and then move to the Senate for approval. The paper said the bill could be altered slightly to clarify that voters would not have to bring both their identify documents and a voter registration card to the polls.

A state appeals court overturned a misdemeanor election fraud conviction in Racine County, Wis. concluding that the defendant’s “poor supervision” of voter registrars in 2004 didn’t amount to a crime. While separate statutes make it a crime to falsify voter registration information and aid someone in doing so, the state provided no evidence that the defendant helped others submit false registrations, only that he didn’t monitor those who did, wrote Judge Daniel Anderson in the seven-page opinion. Racine County District Attorney Michael Nieskes told the Rhinelander Daily News that the ruling invalidates an earlier plea agreement and reinstates seven felony charges. Nieskes said he would seek a trial on those charges
Although opinions differ over what caused more than 18,000 under votes in the race for the 13th Congressional District in Florida, one state lawmaker wants to clear up potential problems by giving voters a “choose not to vote” option in future elections. At the urging of Sen. Mike Brown, R-Bradenton, the Senate Ethics and Elections committee this week approved a measure that would offer voters that option in future elections. “It got so dirty and so ugly that I think some people just walked to the polls and said, ‘You know what? I don’t want to vote for any of these people. I’m just not happy. I don’t like my choices,'” Bennett told The [Lakeland] Ledger. The House version of the bill (H.B. 387) has not yet been heard in committee, but Bennett said he is confident it will be heard on both floors before the legislative session ends May 4. Nevada is the only state where ballots carry a no-choice option.