Congratulations to former Troy Eccentric reporter Megan Pennefather.  She won two awards in the national SNA contest for stories she did as a reporter for the Troy Eccentric.

See the complete story at... 

http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/NEWS22/801310421/1039

According to a posting on www.oaklandpolitics.com, John Witt
(a former campaign worker for Keith Butler and intern at the Joe
Knollenberg office) has declared his candidacy for 19th County
Commission district to take the seat held by Democrat Tim Burns. 

The rumored front-runner for the GOP nomination is Clawson
School Board Member Mike Bosnic.  However, I don't believe
that Mike has formally announced his candidacy.  I'm not sure
if Martin Howrylak or Matt Pryor are looking at another run for
this seat.

See the complete story at...
http://www.oaklandpolitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=145

Last night, the Troy City Council postponed a resolution calling on the Michigan Legislature to adopt "No Reason" absentee voting.  Council will consider action on the resolution at a future meeting.

You can read the proposed resolution and background information at...  http://www.ci.troy.mi.us/council/AgendaPackets/PublicAgenda%2020080128/08.01.28%20Agenda%20-%20J-12%20Proposed%20City%20of%20Troy%20No%20Reason%20Absent%20Voter%20Registration.pdf

There is no doubt that absentee voting is crucial for some voters such as those serving overseas in the military, those with physical disabilities, and those who are traveling.  However, before rushing into a major liberalization of absentee voting, Michigan's state legislators should carefully examine other alternatives that may achieve the same ends.

According to John C. Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute...

...As a general matter, early voting with the protections of the polling place is preferable to absentee voting. If we limit absentee voting to those who truly need it, but allow a short and intense one-week period to vote at polling places, we might preserve secrecy of the ballot and the civic importance of the old system, while providing voters the convenience they desire...

According to Fortier...

...Casting an absentee ballot, while necessary for some, is inferior to casting a vote at a polling place for two major reasons. First, at a polling place, a voter casts a private ballot. By contrast, there is no privacy curtain around an absentee ballot; it has left the protections of the polling place behind.  Without privacy protections, absentee voters are susceptible to coercion of their votes.  If a voter at a polling place has been pressured by his employer, union, church, community or spouse, he can draw the curtain, vote privately, and thumb his nose at the pressure. With an absentee ballot, voters might not have a choice but to show the filled out ballot to their tormentors or to receive fifty dollars for a ballot "well filled out." Second, absentee ballots provide greater opportunities for election fraud. Election fraud is very hard to measure, and there are numerous points in the voting process where fraud could occur. But absentee voting opens up additional opportunities for election fraud. Absentee ballots have been fraudulently requested or intercepted in the mail, for example. The most famous instance of absentee voter fraud occurred in the Miami mayoral race in 1998. A court found such irregularities in the absentee ballots, that all absentee ballots were thrown out, which changed the outcome of the election. There are two additional reasons to be cautious about the expansion of absentee ballot beyond those who need it. First, absentee ballots are not subject to the same error checking as most ballots cast at polling places. There is no solid body of academic research on error rates of absentee ballots compared to ballots cast at a polling place. But there is the simple fact that voters who vote on Optiscan or DRE voting machines will be warned if they have not cast a ballot for a particular race, or they will be warned or prevented from voting for two candidates and thereby invalidating their ballot. Absentee voters have no such check against ballot errors. If an absentee voter, for example, inadvertently votes for two candidates, then that vote cannot be counted. A Cal Tech/MIT study after the 2000 election found that several million ballots for president were invalidated because they had been cast improperly, and subsequently added error checking mechanisms have reduced that number substantially. Second, absentee balloting extends the voting period from one day to over a month. Not only does this dilute the civic spirit of a single election day, it also opens up the possibility that the voter will cast a ballot before important information becomes available. A vote cast in advance for a candidate who makes a last minute gaffe cannot be retrieved. In many instances, absentee ballots are available to be cast before candidate debates are complete...

Fortier goes on to say...

...If I were testifying before a state legislature, I would urge caution in expanding absentee and vote by mail programs for many of the reasons stated above. Absentee and mail voting is convenient and liked by many voters, but it comes with a cost, especially the loss of the privacy of the ballot and additional opportunities for voter fraud. I would also note that states have many options to improve the convenience of elections that do not involve expanding mail or absentee ballots. First, I would recommend that states significantly improve the convenience of voting on Election Day. I would recommend longer voting hours, better poll worker training, better siting of more accessible polling places. States might also consider adopting Election Day vote centers or super centers as several counties in Colorado have tried. These vote centers allow voters to cast ballots at any location in their county, not just their home polling places. Early academic research has shown that these vote centers do increase turnout and attract new voters to the process. Second, I would recommend to states that have not already done so to explore a period of early voting at polling place locations. This would contribute to the convenience of the voting process, while retaining the protections of the polling place. Many states that have adopted early voting at polling places allow such voting two to three week in advance of the election. Even a week of such voting would provide significant convenience to voters, but would not substantially lengthen the period of voting. Absentee voting, on the other hand, allows for voters to cast their ballots many weeks before Election Day. With these forms of convenience voting available to voters, there would only be a small percentage of voters who would need absentee ballots...

Read more about this at... http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27004,filter.all/pub_detail.asp