Ohio: Jon Husted makes pitch for overhaul of Ohio’s redistricting process with emphasis on compact, competitive districts | cleveland.com

Secretary of State Jon Husted said Thursday that the process for drawing legislative district boundaries encourages excess partisanship and shuts out voices from those in the political minority. Husted, addressing the state’s Constitutional Modernization Commission, told the panel he thinks the process needs to be changed, and changed quickly. The goal, he said, should be to have an issue on the ballot in 2014. “I believe that redistricting reform, if done correctly, can be the most important reform to the Constitution in generations, because it has the potential to fix a broken democracy,” Husted said. Overhauling the process is something Husted has sought dating back to his days in the General Assembly, including his tenure as House speaker. Presently the Republicans, Husted’s own party, have a stronghold on key state offices and large majorities in both chambers in the Legislature. What he’s proposing could reduce that dominance.

Virginia: Attorney General race could end up in General Assembly | Washington Times

A razor-thin margin in the Virginia attorney general’s race could ultimately put the decision about a winner before the General Assembly — but the rarely used strategy of contesting an election comes with its own political consequences, analysts say. With Democrat Mark R. Herring leading Republican Mark D. Obenshain by 0.007 percent of the total statewide votes, whichever candidate is trailing when the state certifies the election results Nov. 25 is all but certain to call for a recount. And depending on the results, the candidates could conceivably contest the election. Virginia law gives the General Assembly wide latitude to act after hearing a candidate’s case. Lawmakers have the authority to reject the appeal, to order a new election or even to declare a winner — whether it is the candidate who held the lead or the candidate who contested the election. But the bar for success is extremely high. The law states that a candidate must detail “objections to the conduct or results of the election accompanied by specific allegations which, if proven true, would have a probable impact on the outcome of the election.”

Wisconsin: Assembly approves changes to voting hours, ID law | Journal Sentinel

In a late-night session Thursday, Republicans in the state Assembly approved measures to reinstate Wisconsin’s voter ID law, tighten early voting hours, limit the ability to recall elected officials and restrict access to the site of a proposed iron mine in the North Woods. They also took a first step toward amending the state constitution to require members of the state Supreme Court to choose the chief justice, rather than having that post automatically go to the most senior justice. Legislators from the two parties had been working together to move through a jam-packed agenda by midnight, but bitter disputes developed late Thursday that threatened to send the session into the early morning hours. Tensions flared after Democrats attempted to take up a bill honoring the children killed last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Republicans rejected taking that up and then advanced a bill creating an anti-abortion license plate.

Wisconsin: Assembly Republicans push through recall, photo ID, absentee voting measures | Associated Press

Assembly Republicans used the final regular session day of the year Thursday to push their proposals that would make it more difficult to remove public officials from office, require photo identification at the polls and limit hours of in-person absentee voting. Democrats, who opposed all the measures but didn’t have the votes to stop them, argued against the changes as an infringement on voter rights and attempt to quash Democratic supporters. Republican leaders defended the proposals, saying they would protect the integrity of the election process by allowing recalls only when those targeted have committed a serious crime, combat fraud by requiring photo identification and install a more uniform system for in-person absentee voting hours statewide. The Assembly isn’t the last stop for any of the hot-button elections issues. All would also have to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, and the change to the recall law for statewide officials would be put to a statewide vote. The soonest that could happen is 2015. The recall measure passed 53-39 with all Democrats opposed.

Editorials: Chilean elections show a new political dynamism | Simon Escoffier/Al Jazeera

Chile’s presidential elections are due to be held on November 17 in a  special political setting. Since the return to democracy in 1988, Chile’s institutional politics have always been divided into two powerful party coalitions: the Concertacion (centre and left-wing parties), and the Chilean Alliance (right-wing parties). Since 2006, and especially during the last few years (during Sebastian Pinera’s current presidency), new arrangements of citizenship brought into question this entrenched political order. By citizenship, I mean a group’s access to expressing their political rights through institutional political representation. Therefore, citizenship expresses how much people feel represented by political institutions. How Chileans relate to the state and other institutions has changed in the past years, and this election expresses those shifts. This election is historically unique because it brought to the fore new parties and novel independent candidates. Topics never before discussed by presidential candidates have been addressed. These new socio-political developments are particularly visible on the left.

Nepal: Elections in Nepal overshadowed by protests | Deutsche Welle

In an attempt to disrupt the upcoming national poll, an alliance of 33 opposition parties in Nepal recently called for a transport blockade, demanding that the current interim administration be disbanded and a new multi-party government be formed to oversee elections at a later date. The group believes the November 19 vote will not be fair if it is overseen by the Chief Justice heading the current caretaker government. But the blockade – set to last until election day – hasn’t gone quite as planned. After thousands of drivers across the country defied the strike, opposition activists resorted to violence, torching cars, forcing businesses to close and bringing much of the South Asian nation to a standstill. The incident is just the latest in a string of political upheavals, exposing the increased level of polarization in one of the world’s youngest democracies. “The bandhs, or strikes, are a typical tool used in Nepal to compel other political parties into granting concessions by paralyzing economic activity,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program of the US-based Brookings Institution. “Every time the moment of taking big decisions arrives, Nepalese politicians pull out the bandh ploy,” she told DW, adding that this pattern had been repeated over the past years, but especially in the run-up to May 2012, when the fourth deadline to pass a new constitution was to expire.

Voting Blogs: Tech, Training, and Tricks: Why We Should Expect a Good Deal More than “Nothing” from the President’s Commission | Heather Gerken/Election Law Blog

Jonathan Bernstein has insisted that we should “expect nothing” from the president’s electoral administration commission, headed by Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg.  It’s not a bad prediction for any pundit, because “nothing” is pretty much what we’ve been getting out of Washington for a good long while.  Moreover, I wasn’t sure that anyone was more cynical than I am about the possibility of election reform, so it’s nice to have company.  As I’ve written elsewhere, getting “from here to there” with election reform is incredibly difficult in the current political climate.  Nonetheless, I think that Bernstein is wrong and that it’s worth saying why.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I have occasionally been asked by the commission to provide technical expertise and, like most of the people in my field, know and respect both Bauer and Ginsberg). Your view of the commission will depend on what you think it’s realistic to expect on the reform front.  Bernstein, much to his credit, candidly admits that he wasn’t sure what President Obama should have done in the wake of the 2012 election.  He suggests that Obama should have pushed for legislation in the hope of slipping it into an omnibus bill, although he ruefully admits it “probably would have died.”  (On that prediction, I’d just omit the “probably.”) Or perhaps, says Bernstein, Obama should have pushed to draft “model legislation” for the states.  (This doesn’t strike me as any more likely to succeed; it’s hard to see why state legislators will pass meaningful reform given that they are no less self-interested than members of Congress.)  Bernstein nonetheless thinks that a dead bill that squeaked through the Senate or model legislation for the states will do more to reform our system than the president’s commission will.

National: Gerrymanders and state [s]elections | The Hill

Ol’ Elbridge Gerry is back in the dock, his namesake “gerrymander” blamed for all that ails our “gridlocked” Congress.   Some claim that the House districts drawn by state legislatures in 2011 have reached new heights (or lows) of partisanship.  Critics deride the shape of the districts and object to their effect on control of the House.  These claims are important, but they ignore the fact that state legislatures have since 1788 sought to influence the selection of members of Congress. The current, computer-aided gerrymandering is only the most recent battle in that perennial fight.  When viewed as the “selection” of sympathetic House members by state legislatures, gerrymandering reflects deeper constitutional roots than its critics admit. The Framers of our Constitution granted state legislatures key roles in the election of the members of the Senate and House.  Article I of the 1787 Constitution provided for the election of senators by vote of the state legislatures.  Members of the House were to be chosen by the vote of the people of each state, but state legislatures would choose the “time, place, and manner” of such direct elections,” though Congress retained power to “alter” such state regulations.

Voting Blogs: The McCutcheon Case: Hard money, soft money and now something in between? | More Soft Money Hard Law

Campaign finance regulation in the United States is complex, and judges have begun to complain about it. Most famously, Justice Kennedy spoke about the proliferating and abstruse rules in his opinion for the Court in Citizens United. At oral argument in a recent case, Justice Scalia suggested that no one really understood the law. The complexity of campaign finance rules is not just the handiwork of the regulators: the Court’s own doctrine can be hard to fathom. Once there was supposedly a clear distinction between “contributions” and “expenditures,” but this is no longer quite the case. And the line that once separated legal, clean “hard money” from illegal “soft money” may soon be harder to discern, after the Court has decided the pending case of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. The hard money/soft money distinction became the central focus of the campaign finance discussion in the 1990s. Hard money was understood to mean funds raised and spent within election law requirements—funds “subject to the [Federal Election Campaign] Act’s disclosure requirements and source and amount limitations.” McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93, 122 (2003). Soft money was the unregulated funding, “beyond [federal law’s] reach” that parties and groups used to influence federal election campaigns. McConnell at 128. According to critics, soft money was imported into federal races through ingeniously devised loopholes, or simply disregard of the law. Hard money limits offered protections against corruption; soft money was effectively unlimited and overwhelmed those protections.

California: Ballot measure money not political under IRS loophole | news10

It’s considered the equalizer for the most-talked about organizations in politics: an IRS requirement that 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ groups spent less than half their cash on politics. But experts say the IRS left a big loophole that could play out big time in California: ballot measure spending isn’t considered political. “You could have a nonprofit doing virtually no traditional charitable work at all and really just being a funnel for campaign funds,” says Gary Winuk, the chief enforcement officer of the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission. The existence of the loophole is understandable; few states have an initiative system that allows voters to write their own laws.  And even fewer have a system that’s used as often, and costs as much, as the one in California. Even so, it’s a loophole not widely publicized and likely to gain more attention as 501(c)(4) groups turn more of their attention — and money — to the Golden State.

Iowa: Controversial voter rules will remain suspended during lawsuit | Iowa City Press Citizen

Controversial rules governing voter fraud investigations will remain suspended until the conclusion of a lawsuit challenging their legality. A Polk County judge on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction against implementation of the rules. The move is a positive development for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, which brought the suit against Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz. At issue are rules written by Schultz’s office guiding the process by which the state may verify a voter’s eligibility and strip the voting rights of those found to be ineligible. The ACLU and LULAC argue Schultz exceeded his authority in issuing the rules, and say the rules themselves could violate eligible voters’ right to vote. They’re asking that the rules be struck down entirely. Schultz’s office, by contrast, argues the rules are appropriate and has asked the court to dismiss the case.

Voting Blogs: Kentucky Felon Voting And The Fate Of HCS HB 70 | State of Elections

The restoration of felon voting rights has slowly come to the Blue Grass state.  Section 145 of the Kentucky Constitution excludes those who have been convicted of a felony, bribery in an election, or treason from voting.  Felons, regardless of the variety of crime committed, are prevented from voting for life and the only way they can reestablish their voting rights is by applying to the governor.  Kentucky’s felons are “socially dead” having basic rights permanently withheld, most notably the right to vote.  However, there is a movement in Kentucky to change these somewhat draconian laws.  Bills amending the constitution’s section 145, while unsuccessful to date, have been introduced and have gained popularity.  Additionally, popular politicians have thrown their weight behind the movement.  It is entirely conceivable, if not probable, that Section 145 will be amended in the near future.

Minnesota: Law cited to justify online voter registration passed with no controversy | Minnesota Public Radio News

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s contention that a 13-year-old law gave him the green light to launch a new online voter registration system is receiving support from two former legislators who sponsored the measure. Former state Rep. Matt Entenza and former state Sen. Deanna Wiener, both Democrats say an online voter registration system Ritchie started does fall under the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act passed in 2000. When Ritchie, a Democrat, announced the start of the system in September, he said the law required his office to provide online options for all paper transactions. “We’ve been able to get quite a bit, but not all of our business services online, as mandated by that 2000 law,” Ritchie said then. “We’ve been able to get some, but not all of our election services online as mandated by that law. But we’re slowly but surely getting there.”

Texas: Comal County voting concerns affect Schertz council races | San Antonio Express-News

A voting machine malfunction in Comal County has forced a recount of the Nov. 5 election results, which include three Schertz City Council races. Comal County officials are trying to determine how 2,415 ballots that were not included in the initial election results were discovered in an audit of the county’s electronic voting machines The revised election results so far have not affected the outcomes of the three Schertz council races – Places 3, 4 and 5. Schertz’s city limits extend into three counties — Bexar, Guadalupe and Comal. Today, Comal County election officials will canvass the results of the Nov. 5 election. After the canvassing , county elections administrator Julie Kassab said the county will request a court order for a recount. “We will canvas the original results from (Nov. 5) even though we know they are inaccurate,” Kassab said. “As soon as we’ve canvassed (the ballots), we will go to the district court judge to request the recount be done as soon as possible.” Kassab said the recount, which will be done by hand, should take three to five days to tabulate.

Texas: Low Turnout or Bad Law?: Voter ID Effects Uncertain: Turnout boost heaviest in counties with local referendums | The Austin Chronicle

The turnout numbers from the Nov. 5 election recall the gnomic phrases of former Defense Department Sec. Donald Rumsfeld trying to explain what went wrong in Iraq. There are the “known knowns” – how many people turned up to vote, and how they voted. There are the “known unknowns” – how many people had trouble voting because of the state’s stringent new voter ID law. And then there are the “unknown unknowns”: What kept 91.5% of Texans away from the polls, and what role did that law play? The answers to the latter could become exhibit A in the ongoing federal legal challenges to the Texas rules. This was the first election under the new photo ID law passed in 2011. Republicans and statewide officials pointed out that, with 1,144,844 ballots cast statewide, turnout was actually higher than in the last two constitutional elections: 2009 (1,058,986 votes cast) and 2011 (690,052). On Oct. 25, Secretary of State John Steen issued a press release noting that, in the first four days of early voting, almost 95,000 Texans had cast a ballot in the state’s 15 largest counties. “That is more than double the 45,379 voters who voted at the same point in 2011, the most recent constitutional amendment election.”

Virginia: Twitter postings alert Virginia vote-counters to errors in race | Bloomberg

A day after he took to Twitter last week to question the vote-count in the Virginia attorney general race, an email from a top state official popped into David Wasserman’s inbox. Wasserman, a political analyst with encyclopedic knowledge of Virginia’s voting patterns, figured he was in for a tirade. In the aftermath of the Nov. 5 election, he had been combing through the state’s ballot count and posting Twitter messages about problems and discrepancies. “I was expecting them to say, ‘Stop denigrating our electoral process.’ Instead they said, ‘I want to thank you for the public service you’re doing’,” Wasserman, the House Editor at the Washington-based nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said in an interview. Virginia’s cliffhanger of an attorney general’s race is the first in which Twitter, the micro-blogging social media platform, has played a prominent part in the vote certification, and it may offer a model for how close elections play out in the age of social networking.

Virginia: With 164 Vote Attorney General Victory, Virginia Democrats Sweep State | Time

The difference between a vote cast and a vote counted was nowhere clearer than in the Virginia race for attorney general. A week after Election Day, Democrat state Senator Mark Herring proved victorious over Republican state Senator Mark Obenshain by a margin of 164 votes out of over 2.2 million cast, according to the Virginia State Board of Elections unofficial online tally. Localities had until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to report numbers to the state. … Episodes occurred in Fairfax and Richmond counties, two of the most populous in the state. Among other election observers, Michael McDonald, an Associate Professor of government and politics at George Mason University, found that absentee turnout from Fairfax didn’t match his prediction. While Brian W. Schoeneman, a Republican member of the Fairfax Electoral Board, protested through Twitter that all had been counted, upon further review, state election officials found that a tabulation machine had broken and the votes on a replacement machine weren’t counted. Around 3,000 votes were then reviewed, and a large majority went to Herring, who at that point was losing in the unofficial tally. … In Richmond, state officials failed to enter more than 200 votes, throwing the aforementioned 17-vote lead for Obenshain to the razor-slim 117-vote margin for Herring. In this case, officials realized their mistake well before it hit social media.

Virginia: Arlington bar codes examined for vote problems in Virginia | Washington Times

“That’s what a recount is all about,” Mr. McDonald said. “Make sure all the i’s are dotted, all the t’s are absolutely crossed, and there’s no possibility there’s anything else out there we don’t know about. It’s going to be close from this point right here.” When a recount is called, the State Board of Elections first sets the standards for the handling, security and accuracy of the tally. A three-member “recount court” is formed in Richmond and is headed by the chief judge of the Richmond Circuit Court. Two additional circuit court judges are appointed to the board by the chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. The recount court sets the standards for determining the accuracy of the votes and certifies the election results. Its ruling is final and cannot be appealed, according to Virginia law.

Wisconsin: Assembly to vote on recall election requirement | Associated Press

Recalling the governor and others from office in Wisconsin would be more difficult, in-person absentee voting hours would be restricted and photo identification would be required to cast a ballot under a flurry of divisive measures the state Assembly plans to pass Thursday. The elections bills aren’t the only hot-button issues the Republican-controlled chamber plans to approve on its final session day of the year. Also slated for passage are proposals limiting the public’s access to a proposed iron ore site in northern Wisconsin and undoing the 124-year-old practice of having the most senior member of the state Supreme Court serve as chief justice. Democrats oppose the proposals and plan to push debate into the early morning hours Friday, but they don’t have the votes to stop the bills. Instead, Democrats plan to use the opportunity to argue that Republicans’ priorities are misplaced. Democrats say Republicans should respond to the call from government watchdog groups, newspaper editorial boards and others to hold public hearings on ways to improve the process of redistricting, the process by which political boundaries are drawn.

Maldives: President Waheed to leave Maldives indefinitely two days before elections | Minivan News

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan is to depart the Maldives indefinitely on Thursday night. Speaking to Haveeru, Waheed said he will be accompanying First Lady Ilham Hussein on a medical visit to Singapore. Although he said he would come back to the Maldives, he did not specify a return date. On Sunday, an hour before his presidency expired, Waheed declared he would remain as head of state until run off polls take place on November 16. “I do not think there is much I can do from here, things that I cannot do over the phone,” Waheed told Haveeru. President’s Office Spokesperson Masood Imad said he “wasn’t aware of any upcoming trips”.

Nepal: Eight injured in pre-election protests in Nepal | GlobalPost

Demonstrators protesting next week’s election in Nepal torched vehicles and hurled an explosive at a bus in Kathmandu late Wednesday, injuring eight people, police said. A 33-party alliance, headed by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), has urged a vote boycott and imposed a ban on motorised transport until November 20. “The attackers threw a petrol bomb at the bus. Eight passengers who were injured have been rushed to the nearby hospital,” Ganesh K.C., a police spokesman told AFP. “Protesters also set eight vehicles on fire and vandalised five other vehicles around the country,” he said.

Virginia: Herring, Obenshain dig in for a fight in tight attorney general race as the lawyers move in | The Washington Post

A week after Election Day, there may be as many lawyers involved in the race for Virginia attorney general as there are votes separating the two candidates. As of Wednesday, state Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun) led state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) by 164 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast, according to the State Board of Elections, a margin that would make it the closest statewide contest in modern Virginia history. The two candidates are digging in for a battle, and if the post-hanging-chads era has taught us anything, it’s that a race this tight can’t be over yet. The lawyers will make sure of that. Obenshain’s strategy is to concede nothing. Statewide vote totals won’t be certified until Nov. 25, and then the trailing candidate will probably ask for a recount. So on Wednesday, both Obenshain and Herring announced transition teams, and Obenshain said it was premature to discuss legal action or a recount. “I don’t know who is going to move into the attorney general’s office in January, and despite what Mark Herring says, he doesn’t know either,” Obenshain said at a Richmond news conference. “It is important for us to allow the State Board of Elections and our statutory process to work, to make sure every legitimate vote is fairly counted. And I’m committed to seeing that process through.”

Wisconsin: Trial of two challenges to Wisconsin’s voter ID law concludes | Journal Sentinel

An attorney challenging Wisconsin’s voter ID law, the strictest in the nation, called it a voter suppression law, a “troubling blend of race and politics.” John Ulin noted that the law passed in 2011 over the objection of every African-American and Latino legislator, and he argued it has had a disproportionate negative impact on voters from those ethnic groups, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. Ulin spoke Friday during closing arguments in the non-jury trial of two lawsuits challenging the law, called Act 23. Eight days of testimony featured social scientists, bureaucrats and frustrated plaintiffs. Assistant Attorney General Clayton Kawski said the state had a legitimate interest in protecting the integrity of the electoral process and stopping fraud, and that the plaintiffs had not met their burden of proof to overturn the law. Kawski called the many plaintiffs’ stories about their troubles and costs of trying to obtain qualifying photo ID unique, uncommon, bizarre and one-of-a-kind exceptions to the 90% of the population who have an ID to vote. Kawski also noted that most of the plaintiffs did ultimately get identification and even the three who don’t have an ID might still get it.

Australia: New Senate election looms after AEC seeks an order that poll be declared void | The Australian

Electoral officials have applied to the High Court for a re-run of the West Australian Senate election, following the loss of 1370 ballot papers. Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn today lodged a petition with the High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, to declare all six Senate places void following the loss of the ballot papers during a controversial recount. The petition comes before the conclusion of the investigation into the missing ballot papers by former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty. “Given the closeness of the margins that favoured the final two declared candidates, the petition is based on the premise that the inability to include 1370 missing ballot papers in the recount of the WA Senate election means that the election was likely to be affected for the purposes of s 362(3) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918,” the Australian Electoral Commission said in a statement.

National: Using Hurricane Sandy as a Lesson for Future Elections | New York Times

Hurricane Sandy prompted elected officials to consider many ideas to prepare for storms, as varied as building protective dunes and fortifying subway stops. Now politicians representing areas vulnerable to storms are also considering steps to protect something less obviously threatened by the weather: Election Day. The officials say they are responding to lessons learned during the 2012 presidential election, one week after Hurricane Sandy, when they were forced to scramble to relocate polling places and devise ways for displaced residents to vote. Many of their adjustments were conceived on the fly, and voting in New York and New Jersey was chaotic. “Voting is a fundamental American right, and all states should have a plan to ensure that even a serious man-made or natural disaster doesn’t interfere with that right,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who plans to introduce legislation to require states to develop disaster contingency plans for elections for federal offices.

National: Soon You’ll Be Able To Buy Politicians With Digital Cash | Huffington Post

The digital currency Bitcoin is perhaps best known for its use in buying illegal drugs from online stores like the now-defunct Silk Road. An upcoming Federal Election Commission ruling will expand what you can buy with bitcoins into a strictly legal realm: purchasing politicians. The FEC is set to approve an advisory opinion this week allowing federal political campaigns to accept contributions in bitcoins. The agency will treat bitcoins the same way it treats donations of stock, as an in-kind gift worth the amount at which it was valued at the time of contribution. Bitcoins were valued at about $376 each (as of this writing), and the maximum contribution an individual may make to one campaign is $2,600 per election. The advisory opinion comes in response to the Conservative Action Fund, whose request was filed by conservative election lawyer Dan Backer. He is the force behind a number of recent deregulatory advisory opinion requests and court challenges, including the initial FEC filing that led to the pending Supreme Court case McCutcheon v. FEC. Backer asked the FEC whether the Conservative Action Fund could accept bitcoins as contributions as well as use bitcoins to pay expenses and to make contributions to other candidates.

Illinois: Lake County officials win lawsuit over election laws | Chicago Tribune

A judge recently ruled in favor of Lake County officials who filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that created an elections commission and took authority over local elections out of the hands of the county clerk. Kane County Judge David Akemann struck down the law Friday, saying it wrongfully targeted the county. Officials filed the lawsuit in July against the state, saying the measure was unconstitutional. A provision included in the state’s online voter registration bill signed into law in July required that counties having a population of more than 700,000 and bordering another state and no more than two other Illinois counties form an election commission to oversee elections. Based on that definition, no Illinois county other than Lake County would be subject to the rules in that portion of the law. The measure essentially removed control over elections from the hands of the county clerk.

Indiana: Lawsuit challenging how judges are elected advances | Indianapolis Star

A lawsuit challenging how Marion County judges are elected will move forward in federal court in Indianapolis. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Richard L. Young last week denied the state’s request for an immediate appeal of an order refusing to dismiss the lawsuit. It is unclear, however, if the case will be resolved before next year’s judicial elections in Marion County. The lawsuit, filed in November 2012, challenges a state law that essentially allows political parties, rather than voters in a general election, to determine who is selected as a Superior Court judge in Marion County.

Minnesota: Lawmakers differ on law interpretation for online voter registration | St. Cloud Times

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s contention that a 13-year-old law gave him the green light to launch a new online voter registration system is receiving support from two former legislators who sponsored the measure. Former state Rep. Matt Entenza and former state Sen. Deanna Wiener, both Democrats, say an online voter registration system Ritchie started does fall under the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act passed in 2000. When Ritchie, a Democrat, announced the start of the system in September, he said the law required his office to provide online options for all paper transactions. “We’ve been able to get quite a bit, but not all of our business services online, as mandated by that 2000 law,” Ritchie said then. “We’ve been able to get some, but not all of our election services online as mandated by that law. But we’re slowly but surely getting there.”

Texas: White guy wins after leading voters to believe he’s black | KHOU

Dave Wilson chuckles as he talks about his unorthodox political campaign. “I’d always said it was a long shot,” Wilson says. “No, I didn’t expect to win.” Still, he figured he’d have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called “all the shenanigans” at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him. Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found “disgusting.” If a white guy didn’t have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he’s black. And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson — an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor — emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory, only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged campaign. “Every time a politician talks, he’s out there deceiving voters,” he says.