Latest news with #electionReform
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
State says Miami can't move city election without voter input. Who's right?
Next week, the Miami City Commission is scheduled to take a final vote on a proposal to move the city from odd- to even-year elections, canceling the upcoming November election and pushing it to 2026 without voter approval. Depending on who you ask, the proposal could be viewed as a common-sense reform measure that will boost the city's low voter turnout, or a power grab by Miami's elected officials, who will get an extra year in office if the change is approved — including those who are term-limited. The issue hasn't just made waves in local political circles. It's raised legal questions that have traveled as far as Tallahassee, pitting the city against Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida attorney general. The strained relationship between the governor and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez — who has been lobbying behind the scenes for the election date change — likely doesn't help, either. But beyond the local political drama at play, one question remains: Is it legal for the city to delay its elections without voter input? Last week, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a written opinion saying the city of Miami can't move its election date without voter approval, and DeSantis concurred in a social media post. Uthmeier handed down his opinion in response to a request from City Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela. 'If the City of Miami is to amend its charter, either to move the date of municipal elections or to change the terms of office for elected officials, then the change may only proceed by a vote of the electors,' Uthmeier said. But in a written opinion the next day, City Attorney George Wysong argued that Miami commissioners were on solid legal ground to move the election date themselves. He cited not only a relevant state law but also a judge's decision in a similar dispute saying such a date change was allowable. In his opinion, Wysong relied in part on a recent case against the city of North Miami. Here's the background: In 2023, council members in North Miami voted to move the date of the local election from odd- to even-numbered years with the goal of attracting more voters to the polls when county, state and federal candidates would also be on the ballot. Council members approved a couple of ordinances to change both the city charter and code to move the local election date to November 2024 — triggering a lawsuit by a handful of North Miami residents. They argued that the date change could not be made without a referendum vote on the city charter because it extended the term limits of sitting council members and the mayor. Their legal challenge failed when a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge sided with the North Miami Council members, saying their vote on moving the election date was allowed under Florida law. 'The statutory language is clear and unambiguous: the governing statutes authorize a municipality to change its election date, and extend the terms of its sitting council members as a consequence of the election date change, by ordinance and without approval by popular referendum,' Circuit Judge Reemberto Diaz ruled in May 2023. In his ruling, Diaz also cited Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's legal opinion in 2013 involving a smaller Florida city, Arcadia. 'The Attorney General concluded that the City of Arcadia could amend its charter by ordinance to change the date of its election to coincide with federal, state, and county elections, and to extend the terms of its sitting officers resulting from the date change, without voter approval by referendum,' Diaz wrote. Diaz's decision, the first of its kind in the state of Florida, was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami-Dade County. The ruling, however, was not reviewed by the full appellate court or the Florida Supreme Court. Attorney Edward Guedes, who represented the city of North Miami in the case, said that because the appeals court simply upheld the trial court's ruling without elaborating in a written opinion of their own written, 'Technically that kind of decision is not binding precedent.' Nevertheless, Guedes said Florida law allows municipalities to change the election date via ordinance and without voter input. 'It is very, very clear that the Florida Legislature authorized this kind of election date-changing by cities, and to do so by ordinance notwithstanding a charter,' Guedes told the Miami Herald on Friday said. He emphasized that making the change, however, is 'a one-time shot.' 'This isn't just a mechanism for cities to abuse the process and sitting elected officials to continuously extend their terms in office, because it's a one-shot alignment,' Guedes said. 'Once you align, that's it. You're done.' Miami attorney Juan-Carlos Planas, who filed the lawsuit challenging the city of North Miami, said Diaz's ruling was wrong. Planas said the key state law cited by the North Miami Council members when they changed the local election date only applied to non-chartered towns and cities in Florida. Planas said a chartered city like North Miami required a referendum vote for a couple of fundamental reasons. Council members voted to change the city charter by switching the municipal election from odd- to even-numbered years without first holding a referendum vote on the charter itself. And, in doing so, they also extended the members' term limits, again without the referendum vote. Planas, who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Miami-Dade supervisor of elections last year, said the city commissioners in Miami are making the same mistake. 'I do think the city of Miami has to change their charter first before the commissioners vote on changing the election date,' Planas told the Herald on Friday. 'But they have a problem: they can't change the city charter without a referendum vote of the people.' Guedes said changing the election date via ordinance only and without a change to the charter is legally sound, essentially making it so the provision of the charter specifying elections take place in odd years is 'no longer viable.' However, he noted that that approach 'could get complicated.' 'Not because I think the legal outcome will change,' Guedes said. 'It's just that it may create confusion.' Planas also said the Miami commissioners are compounding their mistake by changing the municipal election date by ordinance only, without addressing that it conflicts with the city charter. 'Why aren't they doing that?' he asked.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Voter ID and vote-by-mail reform bills move to Pa. House
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways A sign directs voters to a ballot drop box outside the Chester County Government Center on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Capital-Star/Peter Hall) Pennsylvania lawmakers will consider a package of election reforms including a voter ID requirement and changes to the commonwealth's vote-by-mail law after a House committee passed the long-debated measures. Most Democrats have staunchly opposed proposals requiring voters to prove their identities every time they vote but leaders have recently expressed a willingness to negotiate in exchange for support on other measures to modernize Pennsylvania's election system. On Tuesday, House Bill 771, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Mehaffie (R-Dauphin) passed with a bipartisan 14-12 vote in the House State Government Committee. Democratic Reps John Inglis of Allegheny County and Nancy Guenst of Montgomery County voted in support. The committee voted along party lines, however, to approve an omnibus bill that would eliminate ambiguity in Act 77, the law that gave Pennsylvanians the option to vote by mail without an excuse for the first time in 2020. The vote-by-mail provision has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, including one now before the U.S. Supreme Court, as candidates and parties have argued over how election officials should handle irregularities, such as errors on completed ballots, that are not explicitly addressed. The bill would make clear that county election officials are required to notify voters if their mail-in ballots have been rejected for the lack of a signature and give the voter an opportunity to 'cure' the error. Among other changes, House Bill 1396 would also give election workers up to a week before Election Day to prepare to count mail-in ballots, a process that has been a bottleneck for election results in parts of the state, providing fodder for election deniers. Rep. Brad Roae (R-Union), who is the ranking Republican member of the committee, said he has procedural objections to the bill and questions about how it might financially burden the counties responsible for implementing many of its requirements. 'This 98-page bill was called up about 20 hours and nine minutes after it was introduced, and that's just not adequate time to read and understand and get feedback from our county election boards,' he said. Republicans have pushed for a voter ID requirement as a response to unfounded claims of voter fraud for well more than a decade. The GOP-controlled General Assembly and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett enacted a voter ID law in 2012 but the Commonwealth Court found the measure unconstitutional, overturning it two years later. House and Senate Republicans have unsuccessfully attempted to advance voter ID as a constitutional amendment but the issue hasn't progressed since Democrats took control of the House in 2023. This year, there are indications Democratic opposition is softening. In March, House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) said she was open to discussions about voter ID as long as it doesn't disenfranchise voters. House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R-Bedford) said he isn't aware of any deal to encourage Democratic support for the voter ID bill, but he has asked for it to be offered as stand-alone legislation. 'Every year it gets caught up in a big omnibus thing. Over 70% of Pennsylvania support it. That's not the case with some of these other measures. Let's give that a chance to stand on its own. That was my request,' Topper said. Under Pennsylvania's existing law, voters must show identification when they vote at a polling place for the first time. Mehaffie said the legislation before the committee Tuesday would expand the list of acceptable documents that voters could show to prove their identities to include school or work IDs, utility bills and tax returns. 'We wanted to make sure that we saw that nobody was disenfranchised,' Mehaffie said, noting that polls nationally and in Pennsylvania have shown strong support for voter ID requirements. A Franklin & Marshall College poll last year found 73% of Pennsylvania voters support it. Voters unable to provide an acceptable form of identification would also be able to have another person vouch for their identity by signing an affidavit, though Mehaffie noted falsely signing would carry criminal penalties. Philip Hensley-Robin, executive director of the democracy watchdog group Common Cause PA, said that while more options for voters to provide ID is better, the bill is flawed because it will only contribute to the complexity of administering elections. 'I don't think the legislators who voted for this have really thought through the implementation challenges,' Hensley-Robin said. He added that voter ID would deter voters regardless of the expanded list of acceptable identification. Hensley-Robin cited a study of the 2016 Wisconsin presidential election found 10 percent of nonvoters reported the state's voter ID requirement was at least part of the reason they chose not to participate. According to the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, scholarly research on the effects of voter ID laws has reached mixed and often contradictory conclusions. A Goldman School review of the research concluded that certain groups such as seniors, students, people of color, people with disabilities, and transgender people are affected more by voter ID laws because they're more likely to have difficulty obtaining acceptable identification. But some studies found voter ID requirements have a negligible effect on voter turnout. Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia) opposed the legislation, saying that although voter fraud is 'deeply insidious … because it cuts at the whole core of our democratic process,' the type of voter impersonation the Mehaffie's bill addresses is exceedingly uncommon. 'We do not have enough instances that would even reliably outline this as one of the voter fraud issues that we should be taking up in this moment,' Kenyatta said, adding that issues that could be addressed by modernizing the state's election administration system are more pressing. The Pennsylvania Department of State inked a $10.6 million contract to replace the state's aging Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors system that officials across the commonwealth use to keep track of voters, their ballots and other election-related services. The omnibus bill voted out of committee Tuesday would provide for bond issues through the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority to pay for new software, computer hardware and other equipment to modernize election administration. The legislation would codify procedures the Department of State has directed or allowed county election officials to use to make voting more accessible and secure, such as the use of ballot dropboxes, logic and accuracy testing for electronic voting machines and risk limiting audits. It would also require counties to provide early voting, with one polling place open for 11 days before Election Day for every 100,000 registered voters. In the most recent election, some counties allowed voters to apply for, complete and return mail-in ballots at the election office in a form of makeshift early voting. And the bill would increase the minimum pay for election workers to $175, which Rep. Heather Boyd (D-Delaware) noted would help alleviate a statewide shortage. 'This is going to make a huge difference in our ability to get people to take a full day off of work, maybe pay for child care all day long out of their own pocket,' Boyd said.
