Have you ever stopped and thought about how important the election process is? One of the most important aspects of an election is ballot printing and making sure there are no mistakes in such an essential process. From printing accuracy to facility security, the ballot printing process demands expertise like no other industry.

There should be stringent standards for ballot printers in the United States. Ballots should be printed in a secure facility and monitored with video surveillance 24-7, which deters any tampering or theft. The printed ballots should never leave the facility unless they are being delivered to customers in a secure manner that allows for tracking. Excess ballots should be quickly disposed of through an on-site shredder, chopping the ballots into confetti sized bits, and then moved to a paper recycling facility.

Another important feature in the ballot process is the ability to properly layout ballots to ensure for proper printing and tabulation. This ability allows for a more streamlined process, which makes the election smoother and easier for all parties involved. On-site testing also allows for any mistakes in the coding or programming to be quickly caught and corrected before any ballots make it to the election jurisdictions and ultimately the voter. Scan-ready tests ensure that every ballot can be properly tabulated, thus giving accurate elections results.

But it’s not just ballot layout and ballot printing that go into making an election successful. You need secure voting equipment and ballot scanners to quickly read all the ballots. Additionally, there are other ancillary items that help facilitate a smooth and efficient election. Some of these items include: election signs, wire and plastic security seals, secure election bags, ballot boxes, voting booths, ADA handicap ramps, I Voted Today stickers, and privacy screens. Ballots may be the most important part, but everything else goes together to make the election process successful.

It may not seem like much at first, but a lot goes into the ballot printing and election process. Security must be maintained at all times to prevent any tampering, forging, or theft, and new processes to make elections safer are being thought of every day. Elections are a delicate time for everyone, tensions run high and the risk of tampering makes every security feature needed. With a safe and secure election and ballot printing process, the risk is lessened and voters can feel safe while exercising their democratic right.

Michael Linden is an election specialist. For more information, you may contact him at 252.633.3197 or visit http://www.printelect.com.

Russia and Iran regularly hold elections, but they are not democratic in the sense that Americans understand the word. Their regimes use the law to keep formidable opponents off the ballot, leaving voters little say in who governs them.

Which brings us to the community of San Luis, Ariz., where would-be City Council candidate Alejandrina Cabrera will not be allowed to run in the town’s March 13 primary because, according to the Arizona Supreme Court, she doesn’t speak English well enough to serve.

San Luis is perched on the Mexican-American border; the town’s Main Street, in fact, runs straight into Mexico, with a customs inspection station along the way. According to U.S. census data, 98.7 percent of San Luis residents are of Hispanic origin and 87 percent speak a language other than English in their homes. “It’s strange to speak English here,” Archibaldo Gurrola, who is a former San Luis councilman and a political ally of Cabrera’s, as well as a UPS delivery person in the town, told The New York Times. “Spanish is what you hear everywhere, maybe with some English thrown in,” he said. (1)

Cabrera would not have been alone among city officeholders in speaking English less than perfectly. The town’s mayor, Juan Carlos Escamilla, also admits to struggling with the language sometimes. “I feel I don’t dominate 100 percent, but I can still get by,” he said on local television. (1) Yet Escamilla is the one who initiated the legal challenge opposing Cabrera’s candidacy based on her language skills.

Yuma County Superior Court Judge John Nelson ruled in favor of Escamilla last month, and the decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court on Feb. 7. Nelson’s ruling was apparently largely based on a report by a Brigham Young University linguist, William Eggington, who assessed Cabrera’s English skills. In his report, Eggington wrote, “I admire Ms. Cabrera for her courage and ambition, and wish her well. However, in my studied opinion…she does not yet have sufficient English language proficiency to function adequately as an elected City Council member.” (1) Cabrera has said she had difficulty understanding Eggington during the assessment because of his Australian accent. It is not entirely clear how Eggington would have determined the level of English required to “function adequately” as a Council member in a place like San Luis.

The United States has no official national language, despite the repeated efforts of certain lawmakers to change that. The Associated Press reported several weeks ago that 23 states have laws making English their official language, though only Arizona is believed to require English proficiency as a prerequisite for holding public office. Unfortunately, no one has yet managed to determine exactly how much English proficiency is actually required.

No place in America, apparently, is too small or out of the way to get involved in the defense of the mother tongue. The board of county commissioners in Frederick County, Md., passed an ordinance just this week making English the county’s official language. If you don’t know where Frederick County is, exactly, don’t worry; it’s doubtful you will ever need to find it. But local officials there apparently fear being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants should they not insist that most communications with the government be handled in English.

The worst thing about Arizona’s statute is not the requirement that officeholders be fluent in English. By far the most pernicious element, one which the state courts failed entirely to address, is the vagueness of the standard and the selectivity with which it is enforced. Judges routinely refuse to enforce statutes that are too imprecise to inform the public of exactly what they require. Judges also ought to be extremely wary of allowing themselves to be manipulated for political purposes, which is corrosive not only to government integrity but also to respect for the courts. The Arizona judiciary compromised itself and the public in its handling of the Cabrera case. The only appeal lies to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it is not terribly likely that Cabrera will have the resources to bring such an appeal (which would be moot, in any case, with the end of the election) or that the nation’s highest court would agree to hear it if she did.

The Arizona language requirement also brings to mind the literacy tests that were once widely used to bar African Americans from voting. Such requirements, interestingly, have never been declared unconstitutional, but literacy tests as a prerequisite for voting were effectively eliminated by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The courts should have struck down Arizona’s vague and manipulative requirement and allowed voters to decide for themselves whether a candidate’s language skills are suitable for the job at issue. As Cabrera noted, quite eloquently, following the initial ruling, “When he [Nelson] took my right to be on the ballot, he took away the right of the people who want to vote for me.” (2)

That’s the truth, in plain English.

Sources:

1) The New York Times, “Arizona Candidate Challenged Over English Skills”

2) CNN, “Arizona woman off ballot after high court agrees her English isn’t good enough”

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Electing the President in Russia is pretty straight forward. There are no electors acting as middle-men like there are in the United States. The president is elected directly by the Russian voters. The candidate who receives more than fifty percent of the vote is elected. If no candidate gets more than fifty percent, a runoff election is held approximately two weeks later.

The runoff election is held between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first election. The candidate with the most votes in the runoff election is elected. This is the basic top-two runoff electoral method for single winner elections.

Russian presidential elections have a few unique traits about them:

• Russia has nine times zones, which means that the last polling stations close nine hours after the first polling stations do. If results from the first parts of the country are aired as they come in, it could affect voting behavior in parts of Russia, where the polling stations are still open.
• There are no “vice-presidential” candidates or even a Vice-President at all in Russia. If a Russia President dies, resigns or is forced to leave office, the Russian Prime Minister takes his or her place.
• The fairness of Russian elections has been a topic of controversy especially in the last few elections. The governing party has been accused of manipulating the vote and coercing opposition candidates not to run in the election.

A candidate is eligible to run for president if they are a Russian citizen thirty-five years old or older. They must also have had their main residence in Russia for at least ten consecutive years or more.

The President is elected for a six-year term. They cannot server more than two terms in a row. This length of the Presidents term was increased from four years to six years in December 2008. The first President to have a six-year term is the president elected in the year 2012.

The President of the Russian Federation may be forced to leave their office before the end of their term. This must be done through an impeachment process. The process is started by the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament. If two-thirds of its members decide the president should be impeached, then the upper house, the Federal Council, will be called upon to vote on the impeachment. The President is considered impeached and thus forced to leave office, if two-thirds of the Federal Council vote for the Presidents impeachment. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation must confirm the impeachment.

If you are looking for more information about elections, go to http://www.yourelection.net

There you will find information about elections in various countries, a schedule of past and upcoming elections and an online game, where you can take part in a play election for the president of the United States.