The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 21-27 2014
With new legislation moving through the Senate, a spotlight is being placed on the plight of prisoners who not only face electoral disenfranchisement behind bars but also have no way to participate once they return home. Clarence Page considers the impact of strict voter ID requirements on non-whites, low-income and the elderly. Facing a looming electoral deadline, a judge said Thursday he was “extremely skeptical” he could delay elections this fall using Central Florida’s illegally drawn congressional maps. The Mississippi Supreme Court will not reconsider its ruling that voters’ birthdates must be redacted before poll books are opened for public inspection. A judge has struck down a 2012 law as unconstitutional that effectively blocked out-of-state students and others from voting in New Hampshire unless they established residency in the state that extended to other activities beyond voting, such as getting a driver’s license. Utah Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox has established a committee to investigate the possibility of online voting as Toronto abandoned plans for limited online voting in municipal elections this Fall “to protect the integrity of the election.” Afghanistan’s election audit was again suspended as Afghan and Western officials and representatives of the rival campaigns argued over the rules under which the auditing is supposed to be conducted and war-torn Ukraine faces a new election after the following the exit of two parties from the ruling coalition.