The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 15-21 2014
After four years and two election cycles, the Election Assistance Commission finally has new commissioners. IEEE is seeking public content on proposed election data reporting standards. The closest race of the 2014 midterm election cycle was decided, with Republican Martha McSally defeating incumbent Rep. Ron Barber after a protracted recount. Legislation pending in Congress that could require the state to allow former felons to vote in federal elections is contributing to efforts at easing the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons in Florida. Maryland has approved a $28 million contract with ES&S to replace the State’s Diebold touch-screen voting system with optical scanners, while Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is proposing $28 million to fund optical scanners fn time for the November 2015 general election. A Senate election is taking place this weekend in Ebola-hit Liberia and Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation was the only bidder that passed the first stage of the bidding for the lease of touchscreen voting machines for the 2016 national elections in the Philippines.