2012 Election

"A week after Florida's electoral system melted down, there is growing consensus that the state must reform its election laws to avoid similar problems in the future. ... Meanwhile, civic and political activists have promised to pressure lawmakers until they rescind the 2011 changes. Led by the Florida League of Women Voters, the group on Tuesday urged the formation of a task force to identify and eliminate hurdles to voting."

"The League of Women Voters of Watertown [MA] would like to commend the many citizens of Watertown who came out to vote in the election of November 6, 2012. ... We would also like to praise all those who worked very hard on the election: those in the Town Clerk's office, the election commissioners, the poll workers and the police who helped them. All these people made sure the election went smoothly."

"A coalition of voter protection groups gathered on the steps of the Miami-Dade and Orange County courthouses Monday urgently calling for an independent task force be created to investigate what went wrong in Florida on Election Day and the early voting period. 'It is clear that Florida’s 2012 election process was shameful and unacceptable,' said Maribel Balbin, president of the Miami Dade League of Women Voters."

"'El Paso is not alone in low voter turnout, because Texas also lags behind other states,' said Linda Krefting, president of the Texas League of Women Voters... 'The states that have consistently high voter turnout have voter-friendly election procedures, and the Texas Legislature could adopt comparable procedures,' Krefting said. 'Same day voter registration which allows voters to register on election day is common in states with consistently high voter turnout.' ... 'Texas needs to make sure that voter registration at DPS offices is simplified and registrations are processed appropriately.'"

"The Davidson County Election Commission 'utterly failed' as hundreds of voters experienced problems at the polls last week, the leader of a voter advocacy group said Monday. ... Mary Mancini, executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, said a hotline set up at her organization's MetroCenter office received more than 600 calls on Nov. 6. Callers complained about long lines; poll workers running out of provisional ballots, change-of-address forms and other documents; precincts not having adequate staffing; poorly trained poll workers; incomplete voter rolls, and other problems.

"Asked whether the blanket mailing by the secretary of state was necessary, the League of Women Voters of Ohio's Carrie Davis offered, 'Regardless of what rules we have in place going forward... whatever options we have, we need to make clear to voters what their rights are. I think that's been a big source of confusion this election cycle.'"

"Tina Merlitti, who heads up the League of Women Voters of the Akron Area and is a former Akron councilwoman, was an observer on behalf of the state Issue 2 campaign at Callis Tower in Akron, a single-precinct polling location... Merlitti said the biggest problem she saw at the polling place was voters who had moved and weren’t sure where they needed to vote. ... 'Often the people were supposed to vote there,' she said. 'We would look it up for them and then take them back to the judge — the one checking voters in — and say, ‘They’re supposed to vote here.’ They would then give them a provisional ballot. After it happened a couple of times, they would send them to us to have us look it up for them.'”

"A total of 5,686 students from 12 school districts and one home school group participated in the Chautauqua County Board of Elections 2012 Mock Presidential Elections. ... 'The League of Women Voters welcomes the Board of Elections' effort to engage students in the political process through a mock election for president. We were happy to have partnered with the Board to make it happen,' said Minda Rae Amiran, League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County's voter service chair."

As I went about my day on Election Day volunteering to be a polling place evaluator for my local League (a program instituted by the Board of Elections done in

Please Note: This blog post was written by our intern, Vegard Tveito