Ohio: Early voting lawsuit could cause problems in other states, state attorney warns | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A federal court decision finding Ohio’s plentiful early voting days too restrictive could have ramifications for dozens of other states, attorneys defending Ohio law in a voting rights lawsuit warned in a brief filed Monday. The attorneys for the state noted in their brief to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that Ohio offers more voting opportunities than 41 states, including neighboring states Michigan and Kentucky and others where ballots can only be cast in-person on Election Day. “If Ohio’s rules are illegal, the 41 States’ less-generous options are also in trouble,” State Solicitor Eric E. Murphy wrote for the state.

Texas: Fate of Texas’ tough voter ID law in judge’s hands | Associated Press

The fate of Texas’ tough voter ID law moved into the hands of a federal judge Monday, following a trial that the U.S. Justice Department said exposed another chapter in the state’s troubling history of discrimination in elections. State attorneys defending the law signed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2011 urged the judge to follow other courts by upholding photo identification requirements. The most recent such case came this month when a federal appeals panel reinstated Wisconsin’s law in time for Election Day. Whether Texas will also get a ruling before then is unclear. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos ended the two-week trial in Corpus Christi without signaling when she’ll make a decision, meaning that as of now, an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters will need a photo ID to cast a ballot in November.

Texas: Justice Department, state clash over Texas voter ID law | San Antonio Express-News

Lawyers for the U.S Department of Justice and minority groups once again made the case that Texas’ controversial Voter ID law improperly discriminates against Latino and African American voters during closing arguments in federal court Monday. Attorneys for the Texas attorney general will present closing arguments later Monday. The closing arguments are scheduled to last three hours and are expected to end later Monday. The state has argued the law is constitutional, popular and essential to combat voter fraud. However, cases of in-person voter fraud, which a law like this would help prevent, are rare. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have argued that the voter fraud concerns are simply a rouse to impose new requirements that make it harder for minority voters to cast their ballots. The Voter ID law is a “serious problem in search of a solution,” said Richard Dellheim, an attorney with the Justice Department. “That problem is that it violates the Voting Rights Act.”

Wisconsin: Three Democratic county clerks won’t use GAB sample ballot | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Clerks around Wisconsin from both parties have modified the state’s model ballots for the Nov. 4 elections, raising questions about both the state officials who designed the ballots and about a GOP lawsuit aimed at forcing a costly reprinting of ballots. Clerks from both parties, including at least three Democrats, have found the model ballots confusing, showing that the concerns over them aren’t limited to the Republicans who have sued over the issue. Checks by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday found that most of the state’s urban areas will be using ballots that are more clearly marked for voters than the Government Accountability Board’s model ballot. The biggest exception is in Wausau. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said Friday he had refused to use the ballot that state elections officials had recommended for this fall out of concerns that it was too confusing. Rock County Clerk Lori Stottler said she had similar concerns that the ballot put forward by the accountability board didn’t clearly distinguish for voters between the candidates on the ballot and the offices they were seeking. And La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said she added shading to the ballots to make them clearer. “We try to make the ballot as accessible and easy to read, and that’s why I put the shading in,” she said.

Wisconsin: Brief filed in Voter ID case points out limited DMV access | Capital Times

An amicus brief filed in the effort to stop Wisconsin’s Voter ID law from being implemented before Election Day focuses on a lack of access for many to Department of Motor Vehicles service centers throughout the state between now and Nov. 4. The brief, filed by One Wisconsin Institute (the research arm of One Wisconsin Now), demonstrates the differences between Wisconsin and Indiana with regard to implementing Voter ID laws. One Wisconsin Institute’s research shows that Wisconsin residents have much less access to DMV centers to obtain necessary identification than Indiana residents do. A three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 12 that the state could implement its Voter ID law before the midterm election, while it considers the merits of a case brought by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen. Van Hollen is asking the court to overturn U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman’s decision to strike down the law, which was passed in 2011.

Afghanistan: Divide and rule: Afghanistan’s disputed election | The Economist

Afghanistan has been held hostage by political stalemate for months. On September 21st it was finally broken, when the country’s two feuding presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, signed a power-sharing agreement. Though the ceremony, at the Arg, the presidential palace in the capital Kabul, was brief and low-key, the deal will radically—and perhaps wisely—change the country’s political framework. Neither man spoke and neither looked quite at ease. But the agreement will at least allow the new government to get on with the massive task of winning the confidence of a country that has been waiting for the deadlock to end. The four-page document, signed in the presence of outgoing President Hamid Karzai, and later by witnesses James Cunningham, the American ambassador, and Jan Kubis, the United Nations’ senior Afghanistan representative (both of whom were banned from the palace ceremony by Mr Karzai), divests the president of his vast powers.

Canada: Brian Gallant’s Liberals elected amid vote-counting ‘fiasco’ | CBC

Liberal Leader Brian Gallant appears to have won the New Brunswick election amid a vote-counting “fiasco.” With vote numbers still to be found and counted, it appears Gallant’s Liberals have won a majority government. Gallant told a small group of supporters who stuck it out until the early morning hours in Grande-Digue that “it is with a great deal of humility that I accept being the premier of our great, beautiful province.” At 12:30 a.m. AT, the Liberals had 42.7 per cent of the popular vote compared with 34.7 per cent for the Tories. The NDP had 13 per cent followed by 6.6 per cent for the Greens and 2.1 per cent for the People’s Alliance. The Liberals and Tories exchanged the lead in seats all night. The Liberals are now elected in 27 ridings, the PCs in 21 ridings and the Green Party in one riding. The vote-counting process ground to a halt mid-way through Monday night because of problems with the vote tabulation machines. There have been calls by some party leaders for the ballots to be manually counted.

New Zealand: New Zealand to Vote on Flag Change Next Year | Wall Street Journal

New Zealanders will soon get to vote on whether to replace a flag that harks back to the country’s colonial past with one that some, including the prime minister, suggest would better suit its modern-day image. Fresh from a resounding election victory for his ruling National Party, John Key said Monday that a referendum on changing the flag was likely sometime next year—significantly reducing an earlier time frame of up to three years. Mr. Key reignited debate over the divisive issue this year, when he proposed holding a referendum on whether to ditch the flag, which for more than a century has shown four red stars on a blue background and Great Britain’s Union Jack in the corner. The idea initially was to hold the vote at the same time as the general election, which Mr. Key’s center-right National Party won on Saturday. The prime minister, however, later decided it was better to wait for up to three years, to prevent the issue clouding more important political and economic considerations ahead of the election.

United Kingdom: Scottish referendum vote-rigging claims spark calls for recount | The Guardian

By mid-afternoon on Monday the number of names on change.org had topped 87,000. “We the undersigned demand a re-vote of the Scottish referendum, counted by impartial international parties,” reads the petition, which goes on to cite “countless evidences of fraud” documented during Thursday’s poll on independence. At 38degrees.org.uk, a second petition had more than 62,000 signatories. “Investigate the vote counting procedures,” it demands. “Allow an independent re-count of all votes.” “I have [seen] videos that look like cheating and also [too] many yes voters for the result to be no,” wrote one signatory, Zoe M. “Why [were] there Yes votes photographed on a No table?” asked Maxine B. “Why [are] there videos of votes being tampered with or moved around while the counter is seen looking around making sure no one was watching?” “I’m a NO voter and even I think this is rigged,” said Zeus M.

United Kingdom: Teenagers Take Part in Scottish Vote | Wall Street Journal

Scotland’s referendum on whether to break away from Britain is making history in more than one way: It has been the first time 16- and 17-year-olds in the U.K. have been able to cast a ballot. Scotland lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 for the referendum. Though the new teenage voters are a relatively small part of the voting population, the move has given them rare political power. When the change in voting age was announced, it was seen as a likely boost for independence, given the conventional view that younger voters tend to have less affinity for the status quo. But polls suggested that might not be the case. Election officials say that more than 100,000 16- and 17-year-olds are registered to vote, out of 4.29 million total voters.

National: Access to polls is in the hands of the courts | MSNBC

Wisconsin’s voter ID law was on, then off, and now back on again—for now. A similar Texas law was blocked by a federal court before going into force last year, and could now be nixed once more. North Carolina’s sweeping and restrictive voting law looks likely to be in effect this November, but there’s no guarantee. Ohio’s cuts to early voting were put on hold recently, but that decision too could be reversed. And no one seems to know what’s going to happen with Arkansas’ ID law. In a slew of states with crucial races this fall, access to the polls is in the hands of the courts. That reality underlines how last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act has transformed the legal landscape on the issue — but also how the conservative push to restrict voting is now a national, not a regional, campaign. It’s a situation that is likely to cause confusion for voters no matter the legal outcomes. And looming at the end of the road is the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts, no friend of voting rights, which could upend everything if it decides to clear things up by weighing in. “That is the big question right now,” said Myrna Perez, a top voting rights lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, who has been arguing the Texas case. “Is this going to get before the court before the 2014 election? It’s certainly something that folks are pondering.”

Georgia: On one side voter registration probe a big deal, on the other not so much | Online Athens

Beyond the headlines and campaign rhetoric, the state’s investigation into possible irregularities by a Democratic-leaning group’s efforts to register blacks, Asians and Hispanics to vote has many facets, and not all are yet known. The investigation into the New Georgia Project began in early May, when local registrars started reporting to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division that voters had complained of intimidation and that documents turned in by the group appeared suspicious. In all, officials in 13 counties so far — from Effingham and Toombs in the southeast to Coweta and Gwinnett in the northwest — have submitted suspicious documents to state investigators. Since Secretary of State Brian Kemp is a Republican, Democrats and officials of the New Georgia Project have alleged in the media that the investigation is a GOP attempt at minority voter suppression. But many of the complaints that triggered the probe originated in Democrat-controlled counties like Muscogee, DeKalb and Fulton.

Minnesota: Ritchie makes way for new Secretary of State | The Minnesota Daily

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is stepping down in January after two terms in office, leaving behind a more modernized office and a tenure marked by conflict with the Legislature. He wants to let a “new generation of leadership” onto the scene, he said, but he’s not leaving due to a lack of energy. “He gets up really early in the morning and goes, goes, goes, goes,” said Dale Wiehoff, Ritchie’s former colleague and vice president for communications at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “He’s very engaged in whatever conversation he’s in.” Ritchie’s tenure has spanned a period of change and political contention for the secretary of state’s office, which is tasked with overseeing elections and business registration. Because of his initiatives over the past eight years, both voters and businesses can register with the state online.

Montana: National voting rights expert warns of barriers jn Referendum 126 | The Missoulian

Inconvenience or expense are not excuses for denying people their right to vote, according to an attorney who’s been challenging voting restrictions since 1972. “If you can’t vote and participate in government, you become the victim of government,” said Laughlin McDonald, director emeritus of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. “We have had experience with that in the South, where we had all-white primaries, literacy tests, character tests and poll taxes. The courts have ruled those block the 14th and 15th amendments (of the U.S. Constitution).”

North Carolina: Republicans see positives with voter ID credit | Associated Press

With all the legal wrangling and vocal protests about North Carolina’s new election changes, you’d think legislators who helped pass the wide-reaching 2013 law might keep quiet about that support as General Assembly elections approach. Actually, they’re actively taking credit for the law — or at least it’s most publicized provision. In mailers and on a television ad early in the fall campaign, a handful of North Carolina Senate Republicans seeking re-election are highlighting their votes for a bill that will soon require people to show a valid photo identification to vote in person. That’s because the idea of voter ID remains popular and reinforces a promise many lawmakers made to pass it when they first got elected.

Wisconsin: State has no budget for voter ID, agencies say | Journal Times

Three state agencies charged with implementing voter ID for the Nov. 4 election say they have no additional money set aside to help voters and state workers comply with the newly reinstated requirement. But municipal clerks in Wisconsin’s two largest cities say they will spend thousands of dollars and hire hundreds of poll workers in the next few weeks to ensure that voters have the proper government-issued photo identification when casting their ballots. Spokesmen for the three state agencies — the Government Accountability Board, the Division of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Health Services — all say they are using existing staff and resources to handle the demand. In addition, the accountability board says it has no money for a public information or outreach campaign to ensure voters are aware of the requirement. GAB spokesman Reid Magney said the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has asked the agency to develop a budget request by Sept. 30, which it will consider at its quarterly meeting sometime after that.

Wisconsin: Tens of Thousands of Students Face New Voting Hurdles | PR Watch

The last-minute reinstatement of Wisconsin’s voter ID restrictions could create voting problems for over 32,000 students attending state universities. University-issued ID cards from most public universities will not be accepted as proof of identification at the polls, and tens of thousands of students will have to go through additional hurdles before election day if they want to exercise their right to vote. University students tend to vote for Democrats, and the voter ID law was pushed by Republican legislators. The impact on students is one other ripple in the shockwave that the 7th Circuit sent across Wisconsin last week, when a panel of appellate judges — all appointed by Republican presidents — reinstated Wisconsin’s voter ID law just seven weeks before election day. Federal district Judge Lynn Adelman had blocked the law in April as unconstitutional and violative of the Voting Rights Act. More than 32,000 students from out of state attend public universities in Wisconsin, and are eligible to vote in the state, yet cannot use a driver’s license from their home state to vote in November. Until the 7th Circuit’s decision last week, out-of-state students had little reason to spend the time and money to obtain a Wisconsin ID card.

Wisconsin: Groups ask state Supreme Court to block voter ID for Nov. 4 | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Two groups representing minorities asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday to block the state’s voter ID law for the Nov. 4 election, seeking a new way to stop the measure. The Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera asked the court to keep the law from taking effect this fall to prevent “confusion and disenfranchisement.” The groups are not asking that the law be blocked for future elections. In July, the state Supreme Court ruled against the two groups and upheld the voter ID law. But the requirement to show ID at the polls remained block because of an order by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in two other cases.

Afghanistan: Power-sharing deal ends months of political gridlock | The Guardian

Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist, has been officially declared the new president of Afghanistan, after three months of political deadlock was resolved through a new, untested power-sharing arrangement with his arch rival. Ghani signed the agreement with Abdullah Abdullah, his adversary in presidential elections in June that left the country suspended in acrimony, fraud allegations and political paralysis. Under the deal, Ghani will run the cabinet and be in charge of strategic functions, while Abdullah will be able to appoint a “chief executive” who will be in charge of daily duties. Neither man appeared overjoyed as they signed the deal. When the election results were finally declared, the ranking official did not use the words “winner” or “loser”, nor did he announce the final voting figures.

New Zealand: Clean sweep: New Zealand’s election | The Economist

Winning a third term is a remarkable achievement for any political party. New Zealand’s centre-right National Party did so on September 20th, carried to victory, as expected, by its popular leader and the country’s current prime minister, John Key (pictured). But securing an increased majority over its first and second terms, as National did on Saturday, is astounding: it raked in 48.1% of the vote.  Based on figures from election night, the party will also have enough members to form a government without the need for supporting parties—the first time this has happened since the introduction of the mixed-member proportional voting system in 1996. And even if special votes (yet to be counted) mean that National will not have an absolute majority of 61 in the 121-seat unicameral house, Mr Key is unconcerned: support from the United Future Party, the ACT Party and the Maori Party, which have all supported National Party-led governments in the last two terms, would give the National Party a comfortable majority.

New Zealand: Key wins third term with outright majority in New Zealand’s ‘dirty tricks’ election | Telegraph

New Zealand’s ruling National party secured a third term in government in the election on Saturday, winning an outright majority on a platform to continue strong economic growth. Prime Minister John Key’s centre-right party received 48.1 per cent of the vote, giving it 62 of 121 parliamentary seats and improving its performance on the previous vote in 2011. The 53-year-old former foreign exchange dealer triumphed despite allegations of dirty political tactics involving government ministers, and claims that a government spy agency had planned mass secret domestic surveillance. Investigative journalist and liberal activist Nicky Hager had previously published a book called “Dirty Politics,” which exposed the extent of the National Party’s links with a conservative blogger.

United Kingdom: Scotland Seeks to Restore Harmony After Independence Vote Divides Nation | Wall Street Journal

Though Scotland has settled its independence referendum by choosing to stay in the U.K., rifts created in the fiercely contested vote remain. “The Scottish people got it wrong,” said Susie McIntyre, a 40-year-old stay-at-home mother in central Edinburgh over the weekend, who was one of the 45% of voters who had cast a ballot for independence. “The people who voted for the union—they should’ve taken the bull by the horns and stood up for what they truly believed.” Senior politicians and other public figures are now waging a campaign to mend such divisions and soothe resentment toward the British government.

United Kingdom: Scotland’s Other Winners: Teenage Voters | Bloomberg

The 16- and 17-year-olds who voted in Scotland’s referendum didn’t determine the outcome. The margin of victory for the “yes” vote was larger than their total number of votes. But they did make a strong case to the rest of the world for a lower voting age. The U.K.’s voting age is 18, but Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond struck a deal to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in the referendum, believing it would benefit the “yes” vote. It was a logical calculation: Support for independence was highest among those under 30. Pre-election polls and surveys, however, suggested that voters under 18 were narrowly divided and leaning the other way. Kids today. So conservative. If Salmond had gotten his wish, and the vast majority of 16- and 17-year olds had voted for independence, conservatives at home and abroad would have tut-tutted that they were too young to know what they were doing. By not voting as a bloc, and by largely mirroring societal attitudes, the young Scots knocked down the image of young voters as radicals. In doing so, they gave a big boost to the argument that 16-year-olds can responsibly participate in the democratic process — and to a nascent international movement to lower voting ages.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 15 – 21 2014

scotland_260Al Jazeera reports that existing voting machines in the US are reaching the end of their operational life spans, jurisdictions often lack the funds to replace them, and those with funds find market offerings limited because several constraints have made manufacturing new machines difficult. Facing South observes that while there has been a flurry of state election legislation, little has been done to alleviate the long lines that plagued some parts of the country in 2012.  Investigators in Georgia backed away from allegations a Democratic-backed group may have organized voter registration fraud, saying they can confirm irregularities in only 25 applications of more than 85,000 submitted to the Secretary of State’s office. The Kansas Supreme Court ordered Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach Thursday to strike Democratic candidate Chad Taylor’s name from the Nov. 4 ballot. rejecting Kobach’s contention that Taylor’s Sept. 3 withdrawal letter failed to meet the standard set in state law. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted Secretary of State Jon Husted issued an order to county elections boards to prepare for voting a week earlier than he’d planned and during the two weekends before Election Day while at the same time pushing for a higher court to overturn the lower-court ruling that added the extra days of early voting. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel criticized last week’s federal appeals court ruling reinstating the state’s voter ID requirement for this November’s election. As the Afghanistan Electoral Commission prepared to announce the results of a comprehensive audit of June’s presidential election, the two rival candidates agreed to a power-sharing arrangement and voters rejected a referendum that would have dissolved Scotland’s 307-year-old union with England.

National: Voting’s ‘impending crisis’ | Al Jazeera

A recent presidential commission report on election administration characterizes the state of U.S. voting machines as an “impending crisis.” According to the report, created in response to a presidential order, existing voting machines are reaching the end of their operational life spans, jurisdictions often lack the funds to replace them, and those with funds find market offerings limited because several constraints have made manufacturing new machines difficult. On Election Day, these problems could translate into hours-long waits, lost votes and errors in election results. In the long term, such problems breed a lack of trust in the democratic process, reducing the public’s faith in government, experts say. According to Barbara Simons, a member of the board of advisers to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the problem can’t be avoided any longer. “People died for the right to vote as recently as the civil rights movement,” she said. “The American Revolution was all about being able to control our own democracy, and that means voting … We know that a lot of machines were breaking in the 2012 election. It’s not that it’s an impending crisis. This crisis is already here.” Also, outdated voting machines can present security risks both in hardware deficiencies (some machines use generic keys to protect sensitive panels) and in software flaws that are difficult if not impossible to detect when compromised, according to security audits. Assessing the security of many of these systems is difficult, however, since companies insist proprietary software and hardware may not be disclosed to third parties. Government audits are often not fully public. The current problem is rooted in the short-term fixes that were implemented to solve the last major voting crisis, in 2000, when unreliable punchcard machines led to ambiguous ballots in Florida, putting the presidential election into question. After further issues in the 2002 midterm elections, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that fall. HAVA gave states millions of dollars to replace punchcard machines and created the EAC, charged with establishing standards for voting systems.

National: Waiting at the polls: Long lines and voting rights | Facing South

Every big election year, horror stories surface around the South and the rest of the country of voters having to wait for hours to cast their ballots. In 2008, reports came out of Georgia of voters having to stand in line for up to 12 hours to vote. In 2012, the battleground state of Florida garnered national headlines with accounts of voters waiting six hours at the polls. In 2013, President Obama assembled a 10-member bipartisan commission to look into the experiences of voters in the previous year’s elections and to propose solutions to help streamline the voting process. The commission found that the Florida and Georgia experiences weren’t isolated: More than 10 million people had to wait more than half an hour to vote in 2012. Arguing that “no citizen should have to wait in line for more than 30 minutes to vote,” the group outlined a series of ways election officials could make voting easier, saying that “jurisdictions can solve the problem of long lines through a combination of planning … and the efficient allocation of resources.” Yet despite a flurry of election law bills at the state level, many states have failed to act on the commission’s proposals and make improvements to ensure long wait times don’t taint the 2014 mid-term elections.

Georgia: State says 25 voter applications of 85,000 “confirmed” forgeries | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Investigators backed away Wednesday from allegations a Democratic-backed group may have organized voter registration fraud, saying they can confirm 25 applications of more than 85,000 submitted to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. Chief investigator Chris Harvey, however, said the office needed more information from the New Georgia Project to confirm no more fraudulent forms existed — already, it has identified another 26 applications as suspicious. The state has extended a deadline for the group to get investigations such information through Sept. 26. Harvey spoke after the group’s leaders said Secretary of State Brian Kemp may be ignoring more than 51,000 unprocessed voter registration applications to instead pursue what they called “a witch hunt.” With the state’s Oct. 6 registration deadline quickly approaching, state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta,and more than a dozen civil rights and religious leaders who support the New Georgia Project called on Kemp —the state’s top elections official — to focus on ensuring ballot access to thousands of new voters they and others have signed up this election year.

National: 5 States Put Voting Reform to the Voters | Governing

American election reform, where states look to either impede or assist people’s ability to influence government with their vote. Ballots in at least five states — Connecticut, Montana, Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas — focus on some kind of election reform. Most states have made voting harder in the past decade by enacting voter ID laws, ostensibly to guard against voter impersonation, a problem that the public believes to be more widespread than the evidence suggests. For example, a five-year crackdown by the Justice Department under President George W. Bush resulted in only 86 people being found guilty of voter fraud across all 50 states, according to a 2007 investigation by The New York Times. In part because many of these voter ID laws have already passed, the majority of the legislative activity in 2014 actually focused on making voting more convenient. … Based on interviews with state and local election officials in states with early voting, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School argues that early voting brings a host of benefits, including shorter lines and less administrative burden on election day. Nonetheless, eight states have cut back on early voting since 2010. One recent example is North Carolina, where the legislature decided to cut a week of early voting, eliminate same-day registration during early voting and reduce the hours of early voting on the final Saturday before election day.

District of Columbia: Elections officials ‘cannot guarantee’ a smooth Nov. 4 general election | The Washington Post

Top D.C. election officials said Thursday they have fixed problems with computer switches and servers that caused a four-hour delay in reporting results of the city’s April 1 primary. But in sometimes contentious testimony before a D.C. Council committee , the city’s elections chief said he cannot ensure a smooth night on Nov. 4. “While we have resolved the technical issues . . . I cannot guarantee” there won’t be “more glitches,” said Clifford D. Tatum, executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections. Tatum also refused to make any promises about what time the vote tallying would be finished after the close of polls in the city’s general election. “We will plan for every reasonable contingency,” Tatum said, “but we cannot make any guarantees to when the election night process will be complete.” Tatum said that on Nov. 4 the board would have 45 “roving technicians” to deal with any issues that arise at polling places.

Hawaii: Election officials prep for lava | West Hawaii Today

Hawaii County and state election workers are preparing for the possibility that voting could again be disrupted in lower Puna as a lava flow continues to advance toward populated areas. Election officials say they identified 7,542 voters in three precincts from Ainaloa to Kalapana who could have difficulty voting during the Nov. 4 General Election should the June 27 lava flow continue its long march to the sea. They are essentially the same voters, minus the precinct covering Hawaiian Paradise Park, who had voting disrupted during the Aug. 9 primary because of damage from Tropical Storm Iselle.