Alabama: New voter ID law may pose some problems for Jefferson County | al.com

Alabama’s new law requiring people to show a government-issued photo identification to vote is raising some concerns for Jefferson County officials. The law — to get around accusations that it’s a modern poll tax to make people buy ID — requires that the state have an option for a free ID. Jefferson County, which has more voters than any other county in the state, may be forced to come up with money to cover personnel and labor costs associated with producing new voter IDs, said Barry Stephenson, chairman of the Board of Registrars. “I want to do everything possible to help the voters and to have fair and honest elections,” Stephenson said. “However, I only have so many resources in my budget and the state has made no mention of reimbursing the counties for any personnel or labor costs associated with producing the new free identification cards.” The state is going to provide the equipment for the ID cards, “but that’s it,” Stephenson said.

Alaska: Did Supreme Court rob Alaska Natives of their voice? | Anchorage Press

Helen McNeil remembers sitting in her grandmother’s living room in Juneau listening to her relatives talk about some people who’d recently moved in from the villages. When these people tried to register to vote in Juneau, they were presented with a literacy test. McNeil’s grandparents were officials in the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Alaska Native Brotherhood, which advocates for Native people’s rights in southeast Alaska. “They ended up going to the ANB hall, and getting an ANB representative to go with them and it was cleared up,” she said. “So they were able to register to vote.” But in the villages, she said, where ANB and ANS presence wasn’t always as strong as it was in Juneau, literacy tests were used to keep Natives from registering to vote. It was a problem that often came up for discussion at ANB meetings, she said.

Arizona: Senator begins campaign to counter election referendum | Havasu News

Calling a referendum drive misleading, a state senator has launched a campaign to keep voters from overturning extensive changes to voting laws made by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, wants to collect funds to counter the petition drive that would force a public vote on the provisions of HB 2305. The provisions range from allowing election officials to stop sending early ballots to some voters, to putting potential new legal hurdles in the path of people who want to propose their own state laws and constitutional amendments. Reagan said each of the sections helps ensure the integrity and fairness of elections.

Colorado: Judge won’t block recalls over gun votes | Associated Press

A Denver judge refused Thursday to stop recall elections for two Colorado Democratic senators who supported gun restrictions, even though the lawmakers are challenging the validity of the petitions. Denver District Court Robert Hyatt ruled against Colorado Springs Senate President John Morse and Pueblo Sen. Angela Giron, who tried to have recall elections blocked because of a technical glitch on petitions to recall them. Morse and Giron argued the petitions were invalid because they didn’t ask for an election for a successor, as detailed in the state constitution. Hyatt ruled that the successor language isn’t required and that the petitions were acceptable. The lawmakers sought a preliminary injunction from the judge, which prompted the ruling.

Kentucky: U.S. appeals court overturns convictions in Kentucky vote fraud case | The Courier-Journal

Eight people from southeastern Kentucky were granted new trials Wednesday after a federal appeals court overturned their convictions in what prosecutors described as a massive vote buying scheme that stretched over three elections. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves allowed jurors to hear some evidence that should not have been admitted and erred in his handling of transcripts of secret tape recordings that an informant made during the FBI investigation. The unanimous ruling means former Clay County Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle, former school superintendent Doug Adams and six other defendants will get a second chance to contest the allegations stemming from the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections.

Massachusetts: Voters’ rights groups calling for updated election laws | WWLP.com

A coalition of voters’ rights groups say long lines and old equipment slow down state elections. Voter rights groups say three hour wait times and malfunctioning voting machines gave some Massachusetts voters a tough time during last year’s presidential election. They’re calling for an update on election laws to modernize the state’s election process.  State lawmakers have filed legislation that requires voting machines to be randomly checked by comparing machine ballot counts with manual ballot counts. Voter rights groups also want online voter registration to cut down on costs and give voters a convenient option to register for elections.

Mississippi: Judge tosses results, orders new election for Canton alderman | Hattiesburg American

The election for Ward 1 alderman in Canton is going back to the voters after a Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday that illegal voting and voter intimidation occurred in the May Democratic primary. After a two-day hearing, Judge Forrest Johnson Jr. of Natchez said the will of the voters could not be determined through the May 7 ballot box. He ordered the election results for Ward 1 alderman be tossed and a new election called while allowing Rodriquez Brown, who won the June 4 election, to remain in office. “Whether one agrees or disagrees, the evidence I heard is disturbing to say the least,” said Johnson, who was appointed to hear the case by the Mississippi Supreme Court. “For poll workers to endure what I’ve heard is not right.”

Nebraska: All-mail balloting prompts higher voter turnout in Nebraska | Chadron Record

Special elections for non-candidate issues in Nebraska conducted exclusively by mail in 2011, 2012 and 2013 continue to reflect higher voter turnout rates than non-candidate special elections at polling places, according to Secretary of State John Gale. So far in 2013, of the 15 special non-candidate elections where county election officials had the option of using all-mail in ballots or polling places, 10 have used the all-mail method or 67 percent. Turnout for the all-mail elections averaged 49 percent, versus 32 percent for elections using polling places. As Gale explained, the all-mail method can only be used to decide special ballot issues. Special elections involving an office vacancy or a recall of an official must by law still use polling places. “All-mail elections for small rural precincts eliminate concerns about finding ADA compliant polling sites or about getting to a polling place in poor weather for farmers or ranchers in those precincts. In addition, election officials can avoid the costs and challenge of finding and training poll workers for those small precincts in a special election,” Gale said.

New Jersey: State will reimburse Mercer County for Senate election expenses | NJ.com

With special elections to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat fast approaching, Mercer County election officials received word yesterday that the state will reimburse their election expenses — but they are still trying to figure out how they will come up with the upfront costs of the balloting. “It looks like it’s going to cover the majority of the costs,” Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello said. “It’s a very good thing and I was pleased to see the letter.” Mercer County’s costs for a primary next month and the special election in October are expected to approach $1.2 million. A letter from the Department of State says the state will cover costs such as ballot printing, board worker salaries, overtime for county or municipal election office staff, polling place rentals and voting machine transportation.

New Jersey: Hunterdon, Warren counties won’t receive special election funding until after votes | lehighvalleylive.com

State reimbursement for the costs of the upcoming special primary and elections will not come until after October’s election is over, Hunterdon County Administrator Cynthia Yard told freeholders Tuesday. That means the county should be prepared to authorize and pay overtime for poll workers during both elections, Yard said. Though the board offered no protest, Freeholder Matthew Holt asked Yard to reassure him that poll workers would be closely monitoring their hours and expenses. “I just want to make sure they’re tracking that,” Holt said. …The state Office of Legislative Services projects both elections to cost about $24 million statewide.

National: Hoyer, Lewis to push Obama to revive Election Assistance Commission | The Hill

Two powerful Democrats are poised to urge President Obama to resuscitate a defunct federal panel created to help Americans vote. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) are preparing a resolution calling on the president to fill the vacancies on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Hoyer said Tuesday. The four-seat board has been empty for more than a year, largely because GOP leaders — wary of Washington’s role in state-run elections — have refused to recommend nominees to fill the spots, as current law dictates. That’s a mistake, Hoyer said, particularly in a political environment where an increasing number of states have made it tougher to vote in the name of fighting fraud. “The Election Assistance Commission was established to provide advice and council on best practices on elections. It has been allowed to atrophy, and the Republicans want to eliminate it,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol. “It’s interesting but disappointing.”

Editorials: North Carolina Republicans Push Harsh New Voter ID Law | Ari Berman/The Nation

As Congress held hearings this week on whether to resurrect the heart of the Voting Rights Act, the North Carolina Senate introduced a harsh new voter ID law that could be passed in a matter of days. (See my new piece on the state’s Moral Monday protest movement for how activists are resisting the GOP’s agenda.) The Senate version of the bill, posted today, is significantly tougher than the House bill passed in April. North Carolina was one of fifteen states subject to Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court recently ruled unconstitutional, so the state no longer needs to clear its voting changes with the federal government. North Carolina Republicans have acted accordingly, making a very bad law even worse.

Ohio: Illegal voter gets 5-year prison term | Cincinnati.com

Calling her a common criminal who abused her authority as a poll worker by violating the principle of “one person, one vote,” a judge sent Melowese Richardson to prison Wednesday for five years following her illegal voting conviction. “This is not a little thing. It’s not a minor thing. This is what our country’s based on – free elections,” Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Ruehlman told Richardson. In a case watched around the country, Richardson was a Hamilton County poll worker from 1998 until her arrest earlier this year when she was charged with eight counts of illegal voting. In May, she accepted a plea deal and was convicted of four counts in exchange for the other four being dismissed. She was convicted of voting twice in the 2012 election and voting three times – in 2008, 2011 and 2012 – for her sister, Montez Richardson, who has been in a coma since 2003.

Pennsylvania: Homeless advocate testifies at voter ID trial | The Reporter

A witness described his efforts to help homeless people in Philadelphia qualify for state photo identification cards, and lawyers clashed over a year-old survey that showed large numbers of voters lacking acceptable IDs as a trial on the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s yet-to-be-enforced voter ID law reached its third day Wednesday. Late in the day, a lawyer for plaintiffs seeking to overturn the law began questioning Jonathan Marks, a high-ranking elections official, about the evolution of a special Pennsylvania Department of State photo ID available to voters who can’t obtain other acceptable identification, but the testimony was continued until Thursday.

Cambodia: Exiled opposition leader returns home to spearhead election campaign against Hun Sen | Telegraph

“I have come home to rescue the country,” Rainsy told the crowd gathered at the Phnom Penh airport, after kneeling to kiss the ground. “I am happy to be here!” Rainsy told the crowd speaking through a microphone as the supporters chanted, “We want change!” The French-educated leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party has been in exile since 2009 to avoid serving 11 years in prison on charges many consider politically motivated. Rainsy, 64, received a royal pardon last week at the request of Hun Sen, his bitter rival whose ruling party is almost certain to maintain its ironclad grip on power in the July 28 general election.

Japan: End of the Manifesto Election? | Wall Street Journal

Attempts over the last decade to emphasize the importance of clear policy platforms in Japanese elections seem to have come full circle. Baffled voters in the current campaign are facing a bewildering array of candidates and a muddle of issues in Sunday’s upper house poll. With newspapers and Internet sites vying to give voters clearer ideas on which candidates to vote for, an independent political think tank has judged the election manifestos of Japan’s main parties to be the worst in years. In a study published on its website Wednesday, Genron NPO dissected the election platforms of the nine national parties contending the election, as it has done for the last seven elections since 2003. In a thorough analysis, it graded each manifesto for elements such as clarity of goals, achievability, relevancy and presentation on 12 main issues, including fiscal, economic, social security, energy, diplomatic and agricultural policy. The results were the equivalent of straight F grades for all the parties. On a scale of 1 to 100, the best manifesto was judged to be the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s with 29 points. Its coalition partner New Komeito scored 21, Your Party came in at 21 points, and the Democratic Party of Japan placed fourth at 16 points.

Russia: Alexei Navalny convicted: The fates of Putin’s enemies | BBC

Russian anti-corruption blogger and opposition politician Alexei Navalny has been jailed for five years for fraud, after a trial he says was politically motivated. Mr Navalny could now be barred from running in the Moscow mayoral election set for September. He also joins a growing list of opponents of President Vladimir Putin who have ended up on the wrong side of the law or in exile, or have met their deaths in suspicious circumstances. When Mr Putin first became president in 2000, he immediately set about curbing the power of the oligarchs – the group of billionaires who exerted huge influence over Russia’s political system and media. His first victim was media magnate, Vladimir Gusinsky, the owner of NTV, a station that at the time was highly critical of Moscow’s war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and was home to the satirical puppet show Kukly, which mercilessly mocked the new president. When Mr Gusinsky refused to allow the Kremlin to influence NTV’s editorial policy he quickly found himself charged with fraud in June 2000, and fled the country shortly afterwards. Within months, he was joined by his fellow media magnate and political fixer Boris Berezovsky.

Editorials: Togo’s election: A tale of two families | The Economist

Few Togolese would seem less likely to offer praise for their country’s political system than Gilchrist Olympio. His father, Sylvanus, Togo’s first post-independence president, was assassinated in 1963 by a hit squad led by Eyadéma Gnassingbé, who seized power in a coup four years later and ruled Togo with an iron fist for 38 years. A severe critic of his father’s murderer, the exiled Mr Olympio was twice sentenced to death in absentia. But much has changed in this country of 6m-plus people, wedged between Ghana to the west and Benin to the east, since the presidency passed to Faure Gnassingbé, the coup-plotter’s son (pictured), in 2005. Slowly but noticeably he has begun to loosen the reins. Three years ago he created a national unity government that includes Mr Olympio, who is repaying the favour by praising Mr Gnassingbé ahead of a general election, delayed from last year, that is due to take place on July 25th. “We are now in a democratic system,” he says, while gearing up to oppose the president’s party in the poll.

Zimbabwe: US concerned by Zim elections | Eye Witness News

The United States said on Tuesday it was “deeply concerned” by a lack of transparency in preparations for Zimbabwe’s 31 July general elections and called on the government to ensure the vote was peaceful, fair and credible. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said elections that were not seen as credible would have implications for US sanctions against Zimbabwe, suggesting Washington could maintain or increase sanctions depending on the election outcome. The run-up to the election has been peaceful, but Western critics and the opposition say the process has been poorly planned, underfunded and plagued with irregularities, increasing fears of a repeat of the violence and bloodshed that marred a 2008 vote.

Verified Voting in the News: California College Vote Hack | David Jefferson/Election Law Blog

I just read Doug Chapin’s article on the vote rigging at Cal State San Marcos, and I would add several observations.  Had this been a public election conducted via Internet voting, it would have been much more difficult to identify any problem or to capture the perpetrator, Mr. Weaver. Mr. Weaver was captured because he was voting from school-owned computers. This was networked voting but not really Internet voting. The IT staff was able to notice “unusual activity” on those computers, and via remote access they were able to “watch the user cast vote after vote”. But in a public online election people would vote from their own private PCs, and through the Internet, not on a network controlled by the IT staff of election officials. There will likely be no “unusual activity” to notice in real time, and no possibility of “remote access” to allow them to monitor activity on a voter’s computer.  Note also that university IT staff were able to monitor him while he was voting, showing that they were able to completely violate voting privacy, something we cannot tolerate in a public election.

Verified Voting Blog: The California College Vote Hack

I just read Doug Chapin’s article on the vote rigging at Cal State San Marcos, and I would add several observations. Had this been a public election conducted via Internet voting, it would have been much more difficult to identify any problem or to capture the perpetrator, Matthew Weaver. Mr. Weaver was captured because he was voting from school-owned computers. This was networked voting but not really Internet voting. The IT staff was able to notice “unusual activity” on those computers, and via remote access they were able to “watch the user cast vote after vote”. But in a public online election people would vote from their own private PCs, and through the Internet, not on a network controlled by the IT staff of election officials. There will likely be no “unusual activity” to notice in real time, and no possibility of “remote access” to allow them to monitor activity on a voter’s computer.  Note also that university IT staff were able to monitor him while he was voting, showing that they were able to completely violate voting privacy, something we cannot tolerate in a public election.

In the Cal State San Marcos election votes apparently had to be cast from computers on the university’s own network, and not from just anywhere on the Internet. I infer this because it makes good security sense, and because I cannot think of any other reason Mr. Weaver would cast his phony votes from a university computer rather than from an anonymous place like a public library. If this is correct, it is a huge security advantage not possible in public elections, where the perpetrator could be anywhere in the world. Even if public officials somehow did notice an unusual voting pattern that made them suspicious after the fact that phony votes were cast, there would be no evidence to indicate who it was, and no police on the spot to pick him up red handed.

National: Former Voting Rights Act provision gets hearing in Senate | Los Angeles Times

The Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 legislation that protects against racially discriminatory voting practices, had long received overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, including for the last renewal of its temporary provisions in 2006. But at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, early discussions on how to respond to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking down Section 4 of the law saw Democrats and Republicans mostly divided over the provision’s utility and future. While several Democrats chided the Supreme Court for undermining the country’s most effective protection against voting discrimination, even as the court acknowledged that the problem still existed, Republicans suggested that policies were outdated and that the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act remained essentially unchanged.

National: Congressional action on Voting Rights may be a dream deferred for some | CNN

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a key portion of the landmark Voting Rights Act, activists and those in states with a history of disenfranchisement at the polls are pinning their hopes on congressional action. But those hopes may be long deferred. A member of Congress who shed blood during the long march to civil rights told a Senate committee on Wednesday that he believes the Voting Rights Act “is needed now more than ever.” “The burden cannot be on those citizens whose rights were, or will be, violated. It is the duty of Congress to restore the life and soul to the Voting Rights Act,” said veteran congressman John Lewis. “The day of the Supreme Court decision broke my heart. It made me want to cry,” the Georgia Democrat told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

National: Sensenbrenner: New voting rights law should be passed before the 2014 Congress elections | The Washington Post

The House Republican sponsor of the Voting Rights Act updates said Wednesday that Congress must pass a new anti-discrimination law before the 2014 elections that restores the federal supervision the Supreme Court struck down in June. “The Supreme Court said it’s an obligation of Congress to do this. That’s a command of a separate but co-equal branch of government to do that,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told reporters Wednesday after urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to get moving on the issue. The law, he said, should be passed before the congressional elections. He added that House GOP leaders are open to the task, but they have to see a draft first, it must address the court’s objections and be “politically acceptable in both houses” of Congress. “The American people expect us to roll up our sleeves and get to work,” Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a veteran of the civil rights movement, said at the same hearing. The 1965 law and its extensions have historically won overwhelming bipartisan support.

National: House to hold hearing on Voting Rights Act | The Hill

House Republicans have scheduled their first hearing on the Voting Rights Act for Thursday, following a June ruling by the Supreme Court overturning a key provision of the civil rights law. The hearing, to be held by the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, comes a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on the law for the first time since the ruling. The 5-4 decision found that Congress had not appropriately considered the nation’s racial progress when signaling out a set of states that required preclearance from the federal government before making any changes to election or voting laws. The states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as parts of seven other states — were selected by a congressionally mandated formula examining past history of voting rights abuses.

National: IRS Employees Showed No Politics, Lawmakers’ Memo Shows | Bloomberg

Interviews with 15 U.S. Internal Revenue Service employees show no political motivation or White House involvement in targeting groups applying for tax-exempt status, House Democrats said in a memo. The 36-page memo released by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee includes excerpts from several employee interviews with congressional investigators that haven’t been distributed publicly until today. The IRS has apologized for the delays and selective scrutiny given to Tea Party groups applying for nonprofit status. Democrats in Congress have resisted Republican arguments that IRS employees used their positions to harm Republican-leaning groups. Instead, they maintain that Tea Party groups were the victims of inadequate rules and inadvertent bungling.

Editorials: Let’s enact a new Voting Rights Act | Norman Ornstein/The Washington Post

Imagine an intersection with a long history of high-speed car crashes, injuries and fatalities. Authorities put up a traffic light and a speed camera — and the accidents and injuries plummet. A few years later, authorities declare “mission accomplished” and remove the light and speed camera. No surprise, the high-speed crashes and fatalities resume almost immediately. This is the logic that animated Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to fillet the Voting Rights Act and that had conservative pundits, including George F. Will, praising the act as they simultaneously exulted in its demise. The predictable result took less than a day: Texas reinstated its racially tilted gerrymandered redistricting plan and moved to implement its highly restrictive voter ID law, under which voters can be required to travel as far as 250 miles to get identification. The real intent, voter suppression, is clear in the legislation’s provision that a concealed-weapon permit can be used to vote but a valid student photo ID cannot.

Voting Blogs: The Chances of a Deal to Fix the VRA After Shelby County? Observations about the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing | Election Law Blog

I had a chance to watch a good part of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today. It makes me more pessimistic about the chances of a deal to improve the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court effectively gutted section 5 in the Shelby County case. Back in February I organized a Reuters Opinion symposium on what Congress could do if the Supreme Court struck down section 5. My thinking was that such a decision would be controversial and Republicans might jump at the chance to fix the Act to improve their position with minority voters. (It’s a point I reaffirmed in this NY Times oped.) Symposium participants offered good ideas for improvements, and after the decision Rick Pildes had an important post on increasing the use of “bail in” as another alternative. I noted in the Reuters piece that I did not expect a new coverage formula to emerge, and one question would be whether a VRA fix would look more like a race-based remedy or more like an election administration (“We’ve got to fix that”) remedy. Today’s hearing showed how far apart Democrats and Republicans are.  The Democrats seemed to be grandstanding (as when Sen. Durbin attacked ALEC) or living in a different universe (as when Sen. Klobuchar asked questions about same day voter registration). Sen. Whitehouse talked about voter fraud as a non-existent problem.  These are not the ways to get at a bipartisan compromise on new VRA legislation.

Arizona: Lawmaker wants to block public vote on ballot changes | AZ Daily Sun

Calling a referendum drive misleading, a state senator has launched a campaign to keep voters from overturning extensive changes made by the Republican-controlled Legislature to voting laws. Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, wants to collect funds to counter the petition drive to force a public vote on the provisions of HB2305. These range from allowing election officials to stop sending early ballots to some voters to putting potential new legal hurdles in the path of people who want to propose their own state laws and constitutional amendments. Reagan said each of the sections helps ensure the integrity and fairness of elections.

Colorado: Recall efforts on hold, both sides head to court tomorrow | KOAA

Voters in both Pueblo and Colorado Springs gathered enough signatures to move forward with recall elections for Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron. Those petitions are already deemed sufficient by the Secretary of State, but both camps are appealing the decision. Wednesday, that court battle will play out, with supporters of both senators and petition organizers. But those aren’t the only sides getting involved. As we first reported last week, the El Paso County Clerk and Recorders office will be there, pressing the Governor to set a date for the Morse recall election.