Voter Registration

WASHINGTON - Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant. The controversy in Florida -- which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County --  has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million -- routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations.

Fueled by celebrities and a host of organizations, volunteers across the nation took to the streets -- and, more important, to the Web -- on Tuesday to urge people to register to vote. The avowedly nonpartisan campaign goes to the heart of one of the key factors in any election: Who gets to decide? The campaign, dubbed National Voter Registration Day, is backed by trade unions, human rights groups, good government organizations and some companies. The idea was  to pick one day, Sept.

Re "Making it easier to vote," Editorial, Sept. 18 In 2002, California voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 52, which would have allowed same-day voter registration. Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, has indicated that the risk of fraud in a state as large as California is too great to consider same-day registration. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that a survey of eligible non-registered individuals found that 46% were not interested in politics or voting.

SACRAMENTO - Californians can register to vote with the click of a mouse in a new online system launched Wednesday. Secretary of State Debra Bowen said she hopes making the process easier will mean more participation in the Nov. 6 election. Some 6.5 million Californians who are eligible to vote are not registered, she said. "Today, the Internet replaces the mailbox for thousands of Californians wishing to register to vote," Bowen said at a Sacramento news conference. The new system could shave a week or more from the paper process, according to Dean Logan, the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder.

More than 132 million Americans voted in the 2008 elections, but how many of them registered to vote during an airline flight? Likely none, but that might change this election year. San Francisco-based Virgin America invites passengers on its flights to use smartphones to download an app to register to vote. The airline partnered with Rock the Vote for the novel voter registration drive that runs through November. Fliers can scan a QR code on the seat back facing them and receive an election registration app on their mobile device.

DES MOINES -- The soapbox at the Iowa State Fair has long been a tough place for politicians to talk to voters - it's where Mitt Romney famously told a protester that corporations are people as he was heckled by the crowd - but it's probably an even tougher place for a young congressman to speak on his first day solo as a vice presidential candidate. But that was the situation that Paul D. Ryan walked into Monday, as the newly minted candidate got his first taste of the ins and outs of participating in a national presidential campaign.

As Wisconsin voting places were closing, exit polls showed the recall race in a dead heat between Gov. Scott Walker and challenger Tom Barrett. Turnout in the state had been extremely heavy all day, appearing to match the predictions of state officials that 60%-65% of voting-age adults would turn out. The state allows same-day voter registration - a practice that encourages high turnout.  Although polls officially close at 8 p.m. local time (6 p.m. Pacific), Wisconsin allows voters in line by poll-closing time to vote.

The balance of power in Congress will hinge partly on the outcome of California's demolition-derby elections this year, with new voting districts and Tuesday's "top-two" state primary attracting Washington's attention and money. An array of congressional races here is critical to the Democratic Party's effort to regain control of the House. Party leaders hope the state will give them six of the 25 additional seats they need to wrest away the majority won by Republicans in 2010.

Three weeks away from the state's hotly contested recall election, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has taken a lead over his Democratic challenger among likely voters, a new poll shows. Looking ahead to November, President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have moved into a dead heat, 46%-46% among likely voters in a state that is crucial to Democratic hopes, the poll by Marquette University Law School showed. Obama led Romney 49%-45% in the university's previous poll, taken at the end of April.