Unlike election monitors seeking voter tampering or intimidation, or local experts who critique faulty ballot design or study pre-election polling data, these statistical analysts don't need to know anything about the dynamics of an individual race. Their toolkit is primarily statistical and can be applied to any numbers, voting or otherwise.

Sarah Janecek of Politics in Minnesota discusses the state supreme court's decision in favor of seating Al Franken in the U.S. Senate and not opponent Norm Coleman. Janecek will offer her thoughts on the contentious election, the expectations for Franken, what's next for Coleman and more.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race. The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

No New Jersey voter will ever again actually have to go to town hall, the firehouse or neighborhood school and stand in line to vote under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Jon Corzine.

It's not every day that civil rights watchdogs hold up Florida as a shining model of best election practices. But this month, the Brennan Center for Justice is urging other states to follow Florida's lead, by allowing voters to update their addresses at the polls on Election Day.

Justices of the United States Supreme Court examined the constitutionality of laws requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID in order to cast a ballot, in January 2009. As of right now, 24 states have enacted laws requiring a government-issued ID in recent years. Indiana is strictest, requiring anyone voting in person to present a current government photo ID. Since the 2000 election this has become a partisan topic, with Republicans for voters to have a government-issued ID and Democrats against having any regulations when it comes to voting.

The Minnesota Supreme Court is still deliberating on Norm Coleman's latest appeal in the drawn out Senate Election of 2008; but at this point their ruling merely appears to be a legal formality.

Oregon will be the second state to have expanded fusion in the last two years.

Republicans say party politics were the motive behind a voter fraud investigation that targeted a Los Angeles man hired to register Republican voters in San Bernardino County, even as Democrats remain certain that fraud was committed.

OPINION: Who told House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Michigan Democrat, to lay off the radical activist group ACORN?

The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped to end American apartheid and bring the entire nation into the 20th century. But now that we're well into the 21st century, it's legitimate to ask whether the legislation is needed, at least in its current form, to protect minority voting rights.

OPINION: The 1965 Voting Rights Act was the death knell for state laws, primarily in the South, that prevented blacks from voting. Since that time, many have proclaimed that in the “New South” discrimination against blacks no longer exists and that the Voting Rights Act should be repealed.

It may take a few years, but eventually people will realize the benefits of online voting, said the Washington secretary of state, who last year established a program for online voter registration that about 160,000 people used.

The Missouri Department of Social Services has agreed to numerous reforms after it was sued for allegedly failing to help its clients register to vote, according to a court settlement filed Thursday.

Democratic state lawmakers have abandoned a plan to change what a "yes" or "no" vote means when actions of the Legislature are referred to voters for approval.

The Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections, has been working on a five-year plan for streamlining elections and staying in compliance with federal requirements. The plan calls for exploring online voting, early voting, moving the deadline for absentee voting to the week before an election instead of five days before and online voter registration.

Although no one is giving any guarantees just yet, there appears to be a strong possibility that three Alameda County cities will have the opportunity to implement a ranked-choice voting system for the municipal 2010 elections.

Felony charges have been filed and an arrest warrant issued for a well-known Orange County political activist suspected of committing election and voter registration fraud, the California secretary of State's office announced Wednesday.

Seven months after Election Day, there is still no official winner in the Minnesota Senate race. Minnesota's highest court is hearing the case of Coleman v. Franken and has yet to render a decision.

The Federal Election Commission gave former Sen. Norm Coleman wide berth to spend money raised for his campaign on costs associated with civil lawsuits in which he’s not even a party.

The state of Missouri agreed Thursday to pay $450,000 to a community organizing group to help settle a voter registration lawsuit filed last year.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch’s office said Wednesday it will not appeal a federal judge’s ruling that struck down part of the state election law as it pertains to new political parties.

On June 25, the Rhode Island Senate passed SB 203. It had passed Senate Judiciary Committee earlier on the same day. As amended, it lowers the number of signatures for a new fully-qualified party from 5% of the last vote cast (currently 23,589 signatures), to exactly 10,000 signatures.

OPINION: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is a serious infringement on local power and prerogatives but rightfully so given the country's history of racial discrimination. The question of whether it remains constitutional is a serious one.

A type of ballot scanner used in 13 counties, including Pasco and Pinellas, accounts for a disproportionate number of invalid votes cast in 2008, a report from an elections watchdog group reveals.

The Forsyth County commission wants the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the county's elections department in response to issues raised in a countywide audit.

OPINION: In essence, the Supreme Court's Monday ruling held that jurisdictions covered under Section 5 can "bail out" of the legal strictures if they can show in federal court that their electoral procedures have not been tainted by discrimination during the past decade. Importantly, though, the ruling left Section 5 in place.

OPINION: That law has done much to make it possible for one-time marginalized groups to be represented in local, state and national government. It continues to work as intended.

State officials are contemplating their next move in election law, after the U.S Supreme court ruling this week left section 5 of the voting rights act in place. That’s the section requiring Georgia and 15 other states to get pre-clearance for any voting law changes.

A pro-dog racing group is seeking a court inquest into last year’s election, saying voters were duped into supporting a question banning dog racing in Massachusetts.

As MinnPost colleague David Brauer reports in Daily Glean, KSTP-TV has submitted Data Practices Act requests to counties statewide in hopes of examining, it seems, unopened ballots from the U.S. Senate race.

A national GOP committee spent more than $900,000 in May to help Norm Coleman pay his legal bills; a rival Democratic group raised more than $282,000 for Al Franken.

Joe Copija, Roderice Cortez Lacy and Deborah Ramirez, who all live in California, are thought to have circulated illegal petitions in support of the Ohio Casino Initiative before the November 2008 general election.

The recall election of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic went down in flames among absentee voters. Out of about 8,000 voters, 84 percent voted against the recall.

The measure, House Bill 2386, was approved Monday by the Senate and has already been approved by the House. But it must now return to the House for approval of several small amendments.

Great news for fans of democracy: Yesterday, the Oregon Senate passed HB 2386 - approving online voter registration.

The lawsuits against county election commissions and the election administrators they appointed after Republicans gained majority membership continue to pile up in this region.

According to the poll, 70 percent of Texans support the recently killed Voter ID legislation.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a central portion of the Voting Rights Act on Monday but made it easier for small jurisdictions to end federal oversight of local elections law.

Imagine voting over the Internet, having ballots mailed to your home each election or going to the primary polls in August instead of September. Those are some of the ideas the state elections agency is considering — with encouragement from federal officials — as part of a five-year, $17.3 million plan to modernize voting in Wisconsin.

The historic Voting Rights Act -- the 1965 law that ended a century of racial discrimination at the ballot box and gave blacks a political voice across the South -- survived a strong challenge at the Supreme Court on Monday as justices pulled back from a widely anticipated decision to strike down a key part of the law as outdated and unfair to today's South.

OPINION: Anity uility district from Texas prevailed yesterday in its case before the Supreme Court. But there were bigger winners: Congress, whose decision to reauthorize a critical section of the Voting Rights Act was left intact by appropriately respectful justices; and civil rights, which continue to depend on strong enforcement of this law.

Today, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, along with members of the House Administration Committee approved the Military Voting Protection (MVP) Act of 2009 (H.R. 2393). The MVP Act helps ensure timely delivery of overseas military absentee ballots so they are counted, and is now ready to be considered by the full House of Representatives.

OPINION: The voting rights case widely expected to produce the Supreme Court's most explosive decision this summer turned out to be a dud Monday, but not without a hint of troubling pyrotechnics to come.

OPINION: This summer is turning into a seminar on race and the law. The debates on these issues are highlighting a deep inconsistency in the way my fellow conservatives approach race and the law.

On June 22, the Arizona Senate passed two election law bills.

WDIO-TV is part of an effort asking that all rejected absentee ballots be made public.

Elections officials in St. Lawrence and Jefferson counties are gearing up to teach poll workers and voters how to use electronic voting machines before fall political contests.

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, declaring that there was no need at the moment to decide whether that provision was still constitutional in light of the fundamental changes that have swept across the South in recent decades.

The Supreme Court decided Monday that a small utility district in Texas may be exempt from provisions of the Voting Rights Act, sidestepping a decision on the constitutionality of the 1965 law that protects the voting rights of minorities.

The Supreme Court today voted on narrow grounds to uphold the

The court did not strike down the law Monday, as some experts had expected, but it opened the door for jurisdictions to free themselves from one of the act's key provisions.

ACORN's global entity, ACORN International, announced June 17 that it has changed its name to "Community Organizations International."

The board members of the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 say they will probably apply for the right to move their voting booths to or from garages without having to prove that doing so will not disenfranchise minority voters.

A Supreme Court ruling that narrows the landmark Voting Rights Act has sparked bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill.

The Disputed Senate Race Highlights Problems With The Way States Count Absentee Ballots

New Jersey congressman's bill would require voter-verified paper ballot and random audits.

A federal judge has ruled against independent candidate Faye Coffield, who in 2008 lost in her struggle to gain ballot access in Georgia's 4th US Congressional District race against US Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA).

Darnell Nash was arraigned Friday morning on charges of illegal voting, false registration and tampering with records.