Florida: Congressional redistricting heads to state’s high court just as lawmakers return to Capitol | Palm Beach Post

The Florida Supreme Court set the day after the opening of the 2015 Legislature for a pivotal hearing into whether the state’s redrawn congressional districts are valid. The court set March 4 for a hearing in the appeal by a coalition of voters’ groups calling for overturning a judge’s ruling that upheld the congressional plan recast by the Republican-led Legislature. The move is the latest in a high-stakes political drama steeped in partisan politics. Following a 12-day trial that ended in June, Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis threw out district boundaries approved in 2012 by the Legislature, specifically finding that the districts held by U.S. Reps. Daniel Webster, R-Orlando and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville were drawn to help Republicans maintain overwhelming control of the state’s 27-member congressional delegation.

Wisconsin: On-again, off-again voter ID law is off | Pioneer Press

Wisconsin’s on-again, off-again voter ID law has been put on hold for the fall election, leaving local election officials to make adjustments less than a month before voters go to the polls. Election workers were being trained for the ID requirement, forms were being changed and plans were in place tell voters to bring an ID following a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in September that validated the law. But another order, this time by the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, blocked the voter ID law from being implemented for the Nov. 4 election. “It’s a roller coaster, I’ll say that,” said St. Croix County Clerk Cindy Campbell. Plans were in place in the city of River Falls to send letters to residents telling them to bring an ID to the polls, but “luckily (they) didn’t go out before the reversal,” said City Clerk Lu Ann Hecht. Her office also had made signs informing people about the law, as had the clerk’s office in Polk County. “I printed them the day before the (Supreme Court) ruling came down,” said Polk County Clerk Carole Wondra. “So, I’m just sitting on them now.” Local clerks are now working to get out the opposite message: IDs won’t be required at the polls.

Brazil: ‘Ghosts of past’ vs. ‘monsters of present’ | Globalnews.ca

Brazilian voters electing a new president this weekend are being asked to decide what scares them least: the incumbent’s warnings about the “ghosts of the past,” or her challenger’s charges about the “monsters of the present.” The latest polls give left-leaning incumbent Dilma Rousseff a slight edge in Sunday’s runoff vote to lead the world’s fifth-largest nation. But few people are counting out centre-right challenger Aecio Neves after a topsy-turvy campaign that has been the most competitive, divisive and dramatic since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985. “The country is divided in two, with half feeling that social inclusion and protections are what matter most, and the other half believing that macroeconomic stability is more important,” said Carlos Pereira, a political analyst at the Gertulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil’s leading think-tank . “The candidate who convinces voters he or she is best prepared to combine these two beliefs and make them complementary will win Sunday’s election.” The race turned dramatic after Eduardo Campos, a main opposition candidate, was killed when his campaign plane crashed in August. His running mate, renowned environmentalist Marina Silva, was thrust into his spot, and she immediately jumped to a double-digit lead over Rousseff and Neves. Silva initially tapped into the discontent over poor public services that millions of Brazilians expressed in anti-government protests last year, but her campaign never found its feet and voters drifted away from her within weeks. That opened the gap for Neves to stage his surprisingly strong showing in the Oct. 5 first-round vote, coming in second and forcing Rousseff into a runoff when her first-place finish didn’t get an absolute majority.

Ukraine: Hackers target Ukraine’s election website | AFP

Hackers attacked Ukraine’s election commission website on Saturday on the eve of parliamentary polls, officials said, but they denied Russian reports that the vote counting system itself had been put out of action. The www.cvk.gov.ua site, run by the commission in charge of organising Sunday’s election, briefly shut down. Ukrainian security officials blamed a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, a method that can slow down or disable a network by flooding it with communications requests. “There is a DDoS attack on the commission’s site,” the government information security service said on its Facebook page. The security service said the attack was “predictable” and that measures had been prepared in advance to ensure that the election site could not be completely taken down. “If a site runs slowly, that doesn’t mean it has been destroyed by hackers,” the statement said. A report on Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted a statement on the personal website of the Ukrainian prosecutor general saying that the electronic vote counting system was out of order and that Sunday’s ballots would have to be counted by hand. The commission spokesperson, Kostyantyn Khivrenko, called the RIA Novosti report a “fake”.

National: GOP Group Readies 1,000-Lawyer Army for Election Day | Bloomberg

Unlike most Election Days, this one has a decent chance of ending without a clear winner. Blame the excruciatingly tight races around the country that could lead to recounts, the two potential runoffs that may dictate control of the U.S. Senate, and the Supreme Court for taking action on state voting laws just weeks before Election Day. But one thing is clear: an army of lawyers is readying for kind of battle not witnessed since Florida in 2000. The weeks and months leading up to this year’s midterms have meant a mix of heavy preparation, equally heavy anxiety and a lot of waiting for a subset of the legal community. In an ideal world, their services will never be needed. In a worst case scenario, their skills may determine the trajectory of the U.S. government for years to come.

National: Republicans in tight midterm races use election rules changes to increase odds | The Guardian

In 2007 Charlie Crist, the then Republican governor of Florida, astonished political friend and foe alike by putting a stop to what he saw as the state’s iniquitous practice of withholding the vote from released prisoners. He announced that non-violent former felons who had done their time would automatically have their right to vote restored to them. It was no small affair. In Florida, 1.3 million people have prior felony convictions, making this a very sizeable chunk of a total eligible electorate of 11 million. Former felons are disproportionately drawn from poor and minority communities, and as such, if they vote at all, they tend to lean Democratic, making the decision by a Republican governor all the more remarkable. But it didn’t last long. Four years later, Crist’s successor as governor, the Tea Party favourite Rick Scott, made a point of reversing the decision. That could prove crucial on 4 November for Florida’s GOP candidates, not least for Scott himself, who is in a bitter fight for re-election, with polls putting him neck-and-neck with his challenger – none other than Charlie Crist, now standing as a Democrat.

National: Chris Christie Wants GOP Governors in Charge of “Voting Mechanism” for 2016 | The Nation

As the chairman of the Republican Governors Association and the self-appointed surrogate-in-chief for the Grand Old Party’s candidates for the top jobs in states across the country this fall, Chris Christie has plenty of reasons to want embattled governors like Florida’s Rick Scott and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker to be reelected. Yes, yes, Christie says he wants to stop talking about raising the minimum wage. Yes, he wants to “start offending people” — like school teachers and their unions. But that’s not all; the governor of New Jersey has another goal. Among the reasons he mentions for electing Republican governors, says Christie, is a desire to put the GOP in charge of the “voting mechanism” of likely 2016 presidential battleground states such as Florida and Wisconsin and Ohio. In a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform this week, Christie acknowledged a fact that politicians often avoid: the governor of a state, particularly a governor with allies in the legislature and key statewide posts, can play a big role in deciding how easy or how hard it is for working people, minorities, seniors and students to vote. The governor, who despite his many scandals still seems to imagine himself as a 2016 Republican presidential prospect, described the gubernatorial — and presidential — stakes to the friendly crowd.

California: Public database of county by county elections costs in the works for California | California Forward

Dwindling turnout at the polls demonstrates a clear need for additional electoral reforms aimed at increasing California’s chronically low voter participation rate. Identifying which policies deliver the biggest bang for the buck is the hard part. But it’s about to get a lot easier. The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO) is building a public online database of elections costs to better inform policies and procedures and to identify and share best practices with a grant awarded from the James Irvine Foundation. This is a big deal! Here’s why. A slew of election reforms are proposed each year. When reviewing a measure, one of the first things legislators want to know is: What’s the cost? “We’ve never been able to answer that question statewide,” said Neal Kelley, Orange County Registrar of Voters and CACEO President. “Now we’re going to be at that point where we can, and I think it’s really important to be able to be part of the discussion when it comes to new legislation.” For years, Doug Chapin, Director of the Future of California Elections, has referred to election costs as the “big white whale” of election administration. California’s diversity and sheer size has hindered any quest to capture the elusive and valuable data.

Editorials: A 21st century voting system for Los Angeles | Los Angeles Times

It sounded like a good idea at the time: modernizing elections with touch-screen voting and instant tabulation. Enough with the punch cards and the ink dots, and enough with the endless waits for election results when helicopters carrying paper ballots from far-flung precincts are grounded due to fog. Why should people who do their shopping and banking online be stuck in the dark ages when they vote? But early electronic voting systems proved vulnerable to error. And worries about fraud persisted. Even absent verifiable evidence that election results were changed by hackers or by politically motivated voting-machine makers, the mere belief that such meddling was possible was enough to undermine confidence in elections. So there is some comfort in the fact that the consulting contract adopted this week by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors calls for a modernized system based on some very old-school elements. The proposal emerged after careful vetting from an advisory panel that included election experts and voting rights advocates.

Editorials: Democracy gets a facelift | Zev Yaroslavsky

Envisioning a future that would make the founding fathers proud, Los Angeles County is investing $13.6 million to revolutionize its voting system and possibly set the standard for the rest of the country, too. After decades of putting up with the clunky InkaVote and its even clunkier predecessors — Votomatic punch cards, anyone? — the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to develop a prototype with a touch screen and other high-tech innovations designed to serve the different needs of the county’s nearly 5 million registered voters. Barring any serious glitches, the new “ballot marking machine” will be field tested in 2017 and mass produced in 2018, in time for the gubernatorial election. “If this works well in L.A. County, it could be a game changer for the nation,” said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan organization that advocates election accuracy, transparency and verifiability. Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said the machine’s engineering specifications, intellectual property and functional prototypes would be nonproprietary and remain in the public domain. “From the beginning, we’ve adopted the principle of doing this in a very transparent manner so other jurisdictions can take advantage of the data,” he said. The project’s first priority is to upgrade the county’s voting system but Logan added, “If we can do that in a way that is transferrable to other jurisdictions, that can advance voting systems across the country, it would be icing on the cake.”

Colorado: In First All-Mail Election, Voters Are Being Hassled Like Never Before | Huffington Post

“The sooner you get it in, the sooner they stop calling you.” That’s what Kristyne Brenner, a resident of the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village, described as the only way to cease the incessant calling from the campaigns of Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and his Republican challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner. The already high-stakes Senate contest between Udall and Gardner has gained an added element of uncertainty because this year, every registered Colorado voter has received a ballot by mail. And to the chagrin of voters like Brenner, both campaigns are going all-out to make sure no one forgets to send in their ballot. Colorado’s nearly three million registered voters began receiving ballots on Oct. 14. Campaigns can track which voters have not yet returned their ballots, as well as who hasn’t registered at all. As a result, residents have experienced a significant amount of harassment from campaigns. This will likely continue through Nov. 4, since people can also register on Election Day and vote in person. (Voters can also register online and receive a ballot in the mail until Oct. 27.) The seemingly nonstop calls from campaigns have aggravated Brenner’s frustration with a race that she already considered too polarized and negative. “I’m pretty much over it,” she grumbled as she tossed back popcorn kernels while taking a break from shopping at Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek mall. Based on a number of interviews conducted by The Huffington Post, Brenner’s annoyance seems to be a universal emotion in the highly-targeted Denver suburbs.

Illinois: Officials rethink vote-counting after Attorney General decree | Associated PRess

With less than two weeks until Illinois’ high-stakes elections, an attorney general opinion has some officials rethinking vote-counting procedures in ways that they say could cause big delays in announcing results. Elections officials across the state Thursday were weighing a recent ruling from Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who wrote that state law prohibits vote-counting before the 7 p.m. close of polls Nov. 4, including simple tabulating to facilitate prompt reporting of results later. Depending on how strictly the ruling is interpreted, it could be the wee hours of Nov. 5 before results are reported, including in the up-for-grabs race between Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner. Separately Thursday, in Rock Island County, Republicans filed a lawsuit against the Democratic county clerk alleging that mail-in votes are being opened early and that poll-watchers are prohibited from observing early voting.

New Jersey: Emergency voting measures during Hurricane Sandy violated State law, inviting fraud, study finds | NJ.com

Emergency measures intended to allow people to vote in the days immediately following Hurricane Sandy violated state law, concludes a highly-critical report released today by the Rutgers School of Law in Newark. The study said those measures—which included allowing people to request mail-in ballots by fax and email—led to mass confusion, overwhelming many county clerks on election day. According to Penny Venetis, the co-director of the Constitutional Rights Clinic at Rutgers School of Law-Newark who authored the report, the internet and fax voting hastily put in play by the state in the wake of the storm was not only was illegal, but also left votes vulnerable to online hacking. “Internet voting should never be permitted, especially in emergencies when governmental infrastructure is already compromised,” she said in her report. A spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, however, said the law school’s findings ignored everything the state did in making sure as many people as possible had an opportunity to vote under what were extreme circumstances. “The truth is that as a state, we were dealing with a disaster and catastrophic damage,” said the spokesman, Michael Drewniak. “We should be lauded for what we were able to do.”

New Mexico: Two ballot machines malfunction at Doña Ana County Government Center | Las Cruces Sun-News

Two ballot-tabulating machines malfunctioned Tuesday during early voting at the Doña Ana County Government Center, ruffling feathers among voters and election officials. However, county election officials assured the problem — which is still under review — won’t harm the integrity of the election. That’s because paper ballots counted by the affected machines can be fed into different, functional machines, they said. Doña Ana County elections supervisor Scott Krahling said election workers at the site noticed Tuesday morning that ballots weren’t being accepted by the machines as readily as in past days of early voting. Voters often would insert a valid ballot, only for the machines to reject it.

Ohio: Husted says Husted poster must go up in polling places | Cincinnati Inquirer

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted cast a vote for himself Wednesday. The state’s chief elections officer broke a tie vote at the Hamilton County Board of Elections over whether to hang a poster bearing his name in all of the county’s polling places. Husted and fellow Republicans say the poster, which features a drawing by a fifth grader from Jackson, Ohio, is harmless and informational because it encourages people to “exercise your right to vote.” It also, however, prominently features Husted’s name in white letters against a blue backdrop stripped across the top. And that, Democrats say, is unfair in an election year when Husted is running for office against Democrat Nina Turner. They say the poster essentially is a campaign ad for Husted, and no one else is allowed to bring buttons, posters, bumper stickers or other campaign material into polling places.

South Carolina: Despite guilty plea and pending resignation, Bobby Harrell’s name will be on November ballot | Charleston City Paper

Bobby Harrell’s guilty plea this morning on state ethics charges may have brought an end to his political and legal troubles, with less than two weeks before Election Day, the complicated process of determining how he will be replaced is just getting started. One thing is for sure, though, ex-Speaker Harrell’s name will remain on the November general election ballot, say Charleston County election officials. Under the terms of a plea agreement with state prosecutors submitted this morning in which Harrell admitted guilt on six violations of state ethics laws, the former House speaker promised that he would resign his office. Some time today, Harrell, along with state attorneys, will likely draw up the requisite documents handling his resignation from office and withdrawal from the November election. Harrell faces Democrat Mary Tinkler and Green Party candidate Sue Edward, but with more than 8,100 absentee ballots already requested from the Charleston County Board of Elections, it may be too late for the board to print new ballots.

Botswana: Election Commission Says Botswana to Administer Credible Vote | VoA News

The Executive Secretary of Botswana’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says the electoral body is fully prepared to administer credible parliamentary and local government elections on Friday. “I can confirm that all the materials have reached 2,606 polling stations….Yesterday all the materials had left the constituency headquarters,” said electoral chief Gabriel Seeletso. Seeletso said the IEC has addressed concerns opposition party concerns over the recently compiled voters list that would be used for the elections.

Editorials: Does Botswana deserve its reputation as a stable democracy? | Amy Poteete/The Washington Post

Botswana has a reputation for political stability, democracy, sound economic management and good governance. This opinion is widely shared — by foreign governments, international financial institutions, organizations such as Freedom House and Transparency International, and even academics. Developments in the run-up to the Oct. 24 elections have revealed a significant gap between Botswana’s reputation and reality. The campaign took a tasty turn at the end of July, when charismatic opposition politician Gomolemo Motswaledi died in a suspicious automobile accident. In September, another opposition politician was abandoned for dead in a ditch but survived; he claims to have been kidnapped and tortured by agents of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services. Other opposition politicians and activists complain about threatening phone calls and being followed. Some have been attacked but got away while others have moved to protect themselves.

Editorials: Bello: Brazil and its backyard | The Economist

LIKE voters in most democracies, Brazilians pay little heed to foreign policy when choosing leaders. Yet the presidential election on October 26th matters not just to Brazil but to the region. Over the past two decades Latin America’s giant has overcome its introversion and wielded growing influence in its backyard. And on foreign policy, as on economics, there is a clear gap between President Dilma Rousseff of the centre-left Workers’ Party (PT), who wants a second term, and her rival, Aécio Neves, of the centre-right Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). Brazil’s greater assertiveness began under Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the PSDB in the 1990s and continued under the PT’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president in 2003-10. Both gave importance to the Mercosur trade block (founded by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), to South America and to ties with Africa and Asia. Both had reservations about a 34-country Free-Trade Area of the Americas, a plan that Lula helped to kill. But there were differences, too, partly because of Brazil’s changing circumstances. Lula put far more stress on “south-south” ties and on the BRICs grouping (linking Brazil to Russia, India, China and later South Africa). In Latin America he emphasised “political co-operation”. Relations with the United States were cordial but distant, especially after Lula tried brokering a nuclear deal with Iran which the White House opposed.

Ukraine: Can an election calm the crisis in Ukraine? | The Guardian

October in Kiev has brought a gorgeous Indian summer. The reprieve from autumn’s slow creep towards winter gives the city a feeling of hope as it prepares for parliamentary elections on 26 October. Ubiquitous political advertisements for the 29 parties running appear to indicate that change is coming. However, a deeper look at the socio-political environment in Kiev suggests that this picture of progress may be a façade. For most Ukrainians, the optimistic political advertisements (which were almost completely absent during the presidential election in May) contrast sharply with their own experiences. The war in Donbass and the worsening economic and social situation are likely to bring more people to parliament with no appetite for dialogue. Rather, many will want to fight — literally — for what they believe is right. Petro Poroshenko’s bloc “party of peace” is the darling of pre-election polls. Ukraine’s president has designed the bloc, which has been campaigning in the name of unity, to include civil activists, soldiers fighting in Donbass, oligarchs’ proxies, traditional regional power brokers and former Party of Regions lawmakers.

Uruguay: Uruguay Headed for Runoff Election | teleSUR

Ahead of this Sunday’s General Election, the latest public opinion polls in Uruguay indicate that the election race is likely to go to a runoff at the end of November. As millions of Uruguayan prepare to hit the polls, Broad Front leader and former president Tabare Vasquez has a strong lead, but not enough to reach the 50 percent mark to win in the first round. According to pollster Factum, the Broad Front coalition will garner 44 percent of ballots this October 26, with the National Party candidate Luis Lacalle taking 32 percent. The right-wing Colorado party is currently polling at 15 percent.

National: Republicans Set to Gain From Laws Requiring Voter IDs | Bloomberg

Republicans are poised to gain next month from new election laws in almost half the 50 U.S. states, where the additional requirements defy a half-century trend of easing access to the polls. In North Carolina, where Democratic U.S. Senator Kay Hagan’s re-election fight may determine the nation’s balance of power, the state ended same-day registration used more heavily by blacks. A Texas law will affect more than 500,000 voters who lack identification and are disproportionately black and Hispanic, according to a federal judge. In Ohio, lawmakers discontinued a week during which residents could register and vote on the same day, which another judge said burdens lower income and homeless voters. While Republicans say the laws were meant to stop fraud or ease administrative burdens, Democrats and civil-rights groups maintain they’re aimed at damping turnout by blacks, Hispanics and the young, who are their mainstays in an increasingly diverse America. Texas found two instances of in-person voter fraud among more than 62 million votes cast in elections during the preceding 14 years, according to testimony in the federal case. “You’re seeing the use of the election process as a means of clinging to power,” said Justin Levitt, who follows election regulation at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “You have more states passing laws that create hurdles and inconveniences to voting than we have seen go into effect in the last 50 years.”

Editorials: How racism underlies voter ID laws: the academics weigh in | Michael Hiltzik/Los Angeles Times

The voting laws requiring photo IDs inherently racially discriminatory, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg maintained in her blistering dissent Saturday morning?  A team of politician scientists from Appalachian State, Texas Tech and the University of Florida took on that question for an article just published in Political Research Quarterly (h/t: Justin Levitt). Their conclusion is that the claims of proponents that they’re just upholding the principle of ballot integrity can be discounted; the photo ID laws aim to disenfranchise Democratic voters; they cite findings that the raised cost of voting imposed by photo ID requires “falls overwhelmingly on minorities.” In other words, the answer is yes. The researchers are William D. Hicks of Appalachian, Seth C. McKee of Texas Tech, and Mitchell D. Sellers and Daniel A. Smith of Florida. They observe that voter ID laws in general and photo ID laws specifically surged in 2006 and later, when the electorate became highly polarized. In 2000, four states–Arkansas, Georgia, Michigan and North Dakota–had enacted ID laws, none of them photo-based; they aimed to clarify voting rules, part of a trend that led to the Help America Vote Act, which was passed by a bipartisan vote in Congress in 2002. At the time, the idea of straightening out confusing differences in voting rules was noncontroversial: “why would any member of Congress oppose helping Americans vote?” the authors ask. The atmosphere soon changed. In 2001, only 14 states required identification to vote, of which only four specified photo IDs; by 2014, 34 states had ID laws, including 17 photo ID laws. In 2011 alone, six states added a photo ID requirement.

Arizona: $15,000 cost for one ballot | Tucson News Now

The recent primary election chalked up a first: An unheard of cost. Every ballot cast because of the new bifurcated voting system cost taxpayers $14,867. State law says a voter can’t vote in state elections until or unless they can prove they are a United States citizen. The federal registration form does not require proof of citizenship. It asks only that the person swear upon penalty of perjury that they are indeed a US citizen. For the feds, that’s enough. For the state, it’s not. However, the federal courts have ruled that the voters who use the federal form will be allowed to vote for federal offices even if they are barred from voting for state and local officials.  So during the primary election, Pima County elections officials had to print separate ballots for those who used the federal form to register. That turned out to be for five different parties, even if there were no candidates for a federal office.

Arkansas: State Representative Wants Answers On Washington County Ballot Glitch | KXNW

A local state representative says he wants answers to how candidates’ party affiliations were left off of Washington County digital ballots Monday, the first day of early voting for the November general elections. Rep. Justin Harris (R – West Fork) is afraid some voters’ voices may not be properly heard because of the electronic ballot glitch. Harris said he may file an official complaint if election officials do not remedy the issue. County election commissioners met Tuesday morning to address concerns over the ballot problem, after voters and officials noticed Monday morning electronic voting machines did not include party affiliations. The problem was noticed within the first few voters, and officials temporarily fixed the situation by placing paper ballots, which included parties, next to electronic voting machines for reference, said Jennifer Price, Washington County election coordinator. She said the problem was fixed in time for the second day of early voting Tuesday.

Colorado: Boulder County’s mail-in ballots include 1-cent postage error | Boulder Daily Camera

Boulder County voters electing to mail in ballots this election might come up 1 cent short on postage. Voter instructions for returning ballots say the cost of postage for county residents who received two-sheet ballots in the secrecy sleeve will cost 69 cents — the 49 cents for a stamp plus the cost of an additional ounce. However, in January the U.S. Postal Service raised the cost of an additional ounce to 21 cents, meaning postage for a two-sheet ballot and secrecy sleeve would actually cost 70 cents. Voters should rest assured their ballots will be delivered with no problem however, Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office spokeswoman Mircalla Wozniak said in an email Monday.

Georgia: Records cast more doubt on Georgia fraud probe claims | MSNBC

A bitter feud between a voter registration group and Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State has seen a lawsuit, claims of voter suppression, a politically motivated effort to hype voter fraud, and fears that large numbers of minority voters could be disenfranchised. But in the final analysis, it perhaps says just as much about less sensational but more intractable problems in the way we run elections. How the fracas gets resolved may play a key role in Georgia’s tight U.S. Senate race, which could hang on minority turnout, and might end up determining control of the chamber next year. The latest twist in the saga came Monday evening, when a local news report cast doubt on claims made by Secretary of State Brian Kemp to justify a controversial investigation he launched last month into the New Georgia Project (NGP), a voter registration group working in minority areas.

Mississippi: Senate race remains its own parallel universe | Clarion-Ledger

The Republican is still angling for the black Democratic vote. The Democrat is trying to win over conservative tea party Republicans. Welcome back to the bizarre parallel universe that is the 2014 Mississippi U.S. Senate race. It has been and continues to be a dog-my-cats affair of epic proportions. In a rare public appearance in the Metro area, six-term incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran will thank supporters Thursday at an event sponsored by the All Citizens for Mississippi PAC. This group, created by black religious and political leader Bishop Ronnie Crudup, ran ads and campaigned to help Cochran pull off a hail Mary primary runoff win against tea party challenger Chris McDaniel. McDaniel, still challenging the June 24 loss in court, called the ads race baiting and cried foul over thousands of Democrats crossing over to help Cochran win a Republican primary.

New York: Bill would let New Yorkers register to vote online | NY Daily News

New Yorkers would finally be able to register to vote with a click of a mouse under a bill to be introduced in the City Council. Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) will introduce legislation to allow would-be voters to register online. Currently, the Board of Elections requires paper registration forms to be mailed in the old fashioned way. “We hope to have a city where everyone who is eligible can vote easily,” Kallos said. “We make it really hard to register, really hard to vote, and we can make it a lot easier.”

North Carolina: Elections polling site at ASU likely as appeals court lifts stay | Winston-Salem Journal

The campus of Appalachian State University may host a polling place for the early voting period. The N.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday sided with a grassroots group of Watauga County Democrats that has fought for a long time to have a polling site on campus. The appellate court lifted its temporary block on a lower court’s decision that would have allowed the polling site earlier. There is still a possibility that the N.C. Supreme Court could upend the ruling, as the State Board of Elections, which is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats, had already filed an appeal last week with the high court. But what is certain is that the early-voting period begins Thursday.