Voting Blogs: Ohio SoS Channels PCEA and EAC, Directs Counties to Prepare Election Administration Plans | Election Academy

The position of Secretary of State in Ohio gets lots of attention because it is the chief election official in one of (if not the most) politically competitive states in the nation. But one aspect of the job that many people outside the state don’t realize is the sweeping authority the Secretary possesses to issue directives to county election offices on matters not explicitly covered by state law. The latest example of that power came recently when Secretary Jon Husted issued Directive 2014-16 which requires counties to produce election administration plans (EAPs) in advance of each election, starting with the 2014 general election. Husted’s directive stems in part from the settlement in LWV v. Brunner, which requires the state to produce EAPs.

South Carolina: State poised to end ban on Election Day liquor sales | USAToday

Win or lose, South Carolina candidates running for office this year may be able to do something that their brethren in most other states are  already able to do: Buy an alcoholic beverage on Election Day. South Carolina is poised to repeal its ban on liquor sales on statewide election days following the state Senate’s approval Wednesday.  The Palmetto State is the last with a statewide Election Day ban on liquor sales, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Wisconsin: Voting rights groups worry that Republican bills will deter youth voting | Cap Times

Shortly after reading an article that discussed young voter turnout in midterm elections, Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Now, pointed to a key method used by Republicans to check the enthusiasm of young voters, who overwhelmingly lean Democratic. “If you want to talk about the GOP agenda for youth it’s simple: suppress their vote,” he wrote. “That’s what a ton of the voting bills have been about.” Ross isn’t the only one to complain about the effects of Republican voting legislation on young people. Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said that a series of laws passed since Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011 have made it much harder for organizations such as her own to register college students to vote.

Egypt: Elections commission rejects Sabahi’s appeal | Ahram Online

Egypt’s  Presidential Election Commission (PEC) rejected an appeal by the presidential campaign of candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, who suffered a crushing loss in the poll according to preliminary results of the vote, against violations claimed by it during the poll. The PEC said, according to Al-Ahram’s Arabic news website, the complaints submitted on Friday were investigated and no evidence was found to support them. The complaints haven’t influenced the results of the poll, the commission added.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Abkhazia’s parliament votes for early presidential elections | Reuters

The parliament of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia has voted to hold early presidential elections in August, a deputy said on Saturday, in a move denounced by the prime minister as “revolutionary” after the opposition seized control. On Tuesday protesters broke into the capital’s presidential headquarters and opposition leaders formed a Provisional National Council in the Russian-backed province, which they say is now under their control since President Alexander Ankvab fled the capital.

Malawi: New President Sworn in After Disputed Elections | Naharnet

Peter Mutharika was sworn in Saturday as Malawi’s new president after his arch-rival and predecessor Joyce Banda congratulated him and urged the country to move on from the disputed vote. Mutharika, the brother of president Bingu wa Mutharika who died in office in 2012, appealed to the 11 other presidential candidates to “join me in rebuilding the country” after some — including Banda — contested the results. Joining Vice President Saulos Chilima in taking the oath of office before a chief justice, Mutharika said he felt “very humbled” to stand as the fifth president of the impoverished southern African nation.

Syria: The choice in Syria’s election: vote for Assad or else … | The Guardian

What an irony. Fear of the Syrian government and its many-tentacled security apparatus is even greater now than it was before the revolution began. Why should that be? The government is generously offering “reconciliation” deals across the country, with gracious amnesties like the one that enabled several hundred rebel fighters to leave the exhausted city of Homs with light weapons in early May. Yet anyone who knows Syria from the inside knows full well that the Assad regime’s generosity and grace is to be feared above all else.

Editorials: Ukraine’s presidential poll: A two-tone election | The Economist

“AS I set off on a spring journey into the world, my mother embroidered my shirt with two colours: red for love and black for sorrow,” goes a popular Ukrainian song. On May 25th, as Ukrainians went to the polls to elect Petro Poroshenko as their new president, many sported the traditional shirts embroidered with red and black threads. Held in the middle of a war stoked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and three months after a revolution in Kiev’s Maidan that led to more than 100 deaths—and cost the country Crimea, which Mr Putin annexed—Ukraine’s presidential election was an act of defiance as much as an expression of political preferences.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 26 – June 1 2014

malawi260Over 30 states and territories allow some form of Internet voting (such as by email or through a direct portal) for some classes of voters, but online voting is fraught with security dangers. A series of problems with new voter election laws is raising fears that large numbers of voters could be disenfranchised in November. Lawmakers are finding common ground on election law changes designed to ease the voting process, such as online voter registration and same-day registration and many States, counties and non-governmental voter advocacy organizations are using technology to make voting and/or registering to vote easier. In a legal battle over Florida’s congressional districts, a Republican consultant is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the release of hundreds of pages of documents related to redistricting. A report found that piece of third-party software that hadn’t been updated might have been the vulnerable point invaded by hackers of the Oregon secretary of state’s website. A bug in an e-voting application halted the release of European, federal and regional election results in Belgium and Malawians awaited a court decision on an election marred by claims of vote rigging and mismanagement.