Editorials: Supreme Court ruling: As if we don’t have enough money in politics already | Jessica A. Levinson/Los Angeles Times

Thank you, Supreme Court. Before your decision Wednesday in McCutcheon vs. FEC, Americans were confined to giving a measly total of $48,600 in campaign contributions to federal candidates (enough for about nine candidates) and a total of $74,600 to political action committees. That means individuals were subject to aggregate contributions limits totaling a mere $123,200. Of course, individuals could, and still can, give unlimited sums to independent groups, such as so-called super PACs and other nonprofit corporations. Much of this giving remains undisclosed. For instance, super PACs such as Restore Our Future, American Crossroads, Priorities USA Action and others spent almost $830 million in the 2012 election. Talk about constraints on one’s ability to participate in our electoral processes. And how many people were handcuffed by these limits? Well, fewer than 600 donors, or 0.0000019% of Americans, gave the maximum amount under those oh-so-restrictive limits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And 0.1% of 310 million Americans give $2,500 or more in political campaigns. Well, good news for you big donors: no more pesky aggregate contribution limits. Sure, you are still limited to giving only $5,200 per federal candidate ($2,600 for the primary and $2,600 for the general) and $5,000 annually per PAC. But now you can directly support as many candidates as you want.

Editorials: Justice Roberts Hearts Billionaires: Justice Roberts doesn’t believe in money’s power to corrupt, so there’s that | Dahlia Lithwick/Slate

Five years ago, when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, polls showed that the American public—or at least a mere 80 percent of them—disapproved. Now of course public approval hardly matters when it comes to interpreting the First Amendment, but given that one of the important issues in the case was the empirical question of whether corporate free speech rights increased the chance of corruption or the appearance of corruption in electoral politics, the court might care at least a bit about what the public thinks constitutes corruption. Or why the public believed Citizens United opened the floodgates to future corruption. Or why it is that campaign finance reform once seemed to be a good idea with respect to fighting corruption in the first instance. Now, in a kind of ever-worsening judicial Groundhog Day of election reform, the Supreme Court has, with its decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, swept away concerns over “aggregate” campaign finance limits to candidates and party committees in federal elections, finding in the words of Chief Justice John Roberts—who wrote the plurality opinion for the court’s five conservatives—that the “aggregate limits do not further the permissible governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance.” In other words, since bajillionaires should be able to give capped amounts to several candidates, they should be allowed to give capped amounts to many, many, many candidates, without raising the specter of corruption.

Editorials: Another blow to campaign finance law | BBC

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday took another big bite out of current campaign finance law, striking down a nearly 40-year-old measure capping the total amount of money individuals could donate to political campaigns and parties. Hanging over today’s court ruling in McCutcheon v FEC is the spectre of the 2010 Citizens United v FEC decision, which allowed corporations and labour unions to make unlimited donations to independent political action committees (super PACs) and fund issue advocacy advertising. This contributed to a general mood on the left and among campaign finance advocates of resigned outrage. “The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Wednesday striking down aggregate limits on political campaign contributions is no less destructive for being so widely predicted,” writes Jesse Wegman in the New York Times. “This latest outburst of judicial activism in the struggle to render campaign finance laws completely toothless is merely accelerating a historical process that is coming to seem almost inevitable,” he writes.

California: State Experiments with Open-Source Voting | PublicCEO

After spending tens of millions of dollars in recent years on ineffective voting systems, California election officials are planning to experiment with an “open source” system that may prove to be the cure-all for secure, accessible balloting – or just another expensive failure. Most computer programs, such as the Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X operating systems, are “closed source” programs. That means the original computer code only can be examined by the program’s owners, in these cases Microsoft and Apple. “Open source” means the original computer code is made public so it can be used and examined by anyone, in particular to find security holes. According to Damicon, “True-open-source development requires that a community of software engineers band together to work on the software. The idea is that more minds create better software.”

Connecticut: Merrill, state’s top voting official, wants early voting | New Haven Register

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill wants as many people to vote as possible; among those ways are early voting or no-fault absentee balloting. Both of those methods, she believes, will draw in those under 35, who are least likely to vote. “Most other states, you don’t need an excuse to get an absentee ballot,” she told the New Haven Register’s editorial board Wednesday. However, both single-day voting and requirements for absentee balloting are enshrined in the state Constitution. The General Assembly has approved the changes twice, as is required, and now the constitutional question will be on the 2014 state ballot. Then the issue goes back to the legislature to figure out how to set it up.

Florida: Online Voter Registration Likely Years Away After Florida Senate Bill Dies | WFSU

At the same time Florida election supervisors are looking at how to bring online voter registration to the state, the chance of legislative action on the issue went from tiny to nonexistent this week. The senator pushing online registration withdrew his bill amidst doubts it could pass the full Legislature. Ask the question “Should Florida voters be able to register online?” and you’ll get different answers from different people. Sen. Jeff Clemens (D-Lake Worth) says yes. “With 19 other states already doing this, we’re already behind the ball,” he told the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee Monday. But incoming Senate President and Orlando Republican Andy Gardiner, says not yet. “It may be a bill that’s just not ready for prime time,” he said, referring to Clemens’ bill.

Editorials: Afghanistan votes on its future | Reuters

The coverage on the impending Afghan presidential elections has been filled with death and chaos — the tragic shooting at the Serena hotel where an international election monitor was killed, the shocking attack on the Afghan Election Commission’s headquarters, the killing of a provincial council candidate and the news that several international monitoring groups are pulling out. These tragedies, however, shift the focus from the major news in Afghanistan this week: Election fever has gripped the nation. I hear from Afghans as well as many foreigners now working in Afghanistan that the excitement about the coming April 5 presidential election is palpable and encouraging. If this election goes relatively smoothly, it will mark the first democratic handover of power in Afghan history. Potential large-scale fraud and violence will be substantial obstacles to overcome, but there are also some positive signs. Voters, observers and security personnel are gearing up with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. Why be optimistic?

Florida: Court rules Florida voter purge illegal, but will it stop GOP voting tweaks? | Christian Science Monitor

A panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Tuesday deemed illegal a 2012 attempt by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to purge the state’s voter rolls of noncitizens and other ineligible voters. The ruling, which the justices said was intended to thwart future questionable roll purges, comes amid a new wave of pitched battles between Republicans who say they want to make voting fairer by curbing voting-booth shenanigans and Democrats who say adding restrictions to voting is a blatant attempt to keep poor people and blacks – many of whom are Democrats – from casting ballots. Since the US Supreme Court unshackled most Southern states from the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act last year, Republican-led legislatures have launched efforts to create what they say are more uniform election systems to ensure that each vote is equal. Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin have curbed weekend voting, which critics say would most affect blacks who often carpooled to polling places from church on Sunday. In North Carolina, Republicans have stiffened early-voting and registration rules.

North Carolina: State Board of Elections proposes ways to improve N.C. voter rolls | The Voter Update

Staff from the N.C. State Board of Elections discussed ways to improve the maintenance of voter rolls before a legislative committee on Wednesday and said they were investigating possible cases of voting irregularities. Kim Strach, director of the elections board, presented the findings of a recent crosscheck of voter registration information among 28 states, including North Carolina, comparing some 101 million records. The result of that analysis found 765 exact matches of name, date of birth and the last four digits of Social Security numbers for voters who may have cast a ballot in North Carolina and another state in the 2012 general election. The report found an additional 35,750 potential matches of name and date of birth – but not Social Security number – of people who possibly voted in North Carolina and one other state in 2012.

Utah: Will Internet voting ever be a reality? | Deseret News

Sure, someone in the Philippines is probably working on a virus that will make Imelda Marcos our president. But Internet voting will be here some day, and probably sooner than we expect.Are we finally ready to begin choosing our political leaders on the Internet? Is it time to do our civic duty in our pajamas? Will we at last be able to message our friends, watch a Youtube video and cast a ballot at the same time, trying hard not to accidentally “like” a presidential candidate and “vote” for “Charlie bit my finger,” instead of the other way around? It’s been nearly 14 years since I first wrote about this. That was in the context of the 2000 presidential election, in which rooms full of Florida election judges tried to decide the fate of the presidency by examining punch cards that hadn’t been punched very well. At the time, I interviewed Scott Howell, a Democratic state senator who worked for IBM. He predicted Internet voting would be a reality within two years.

Afghanistan: Youth Hold Key to Election in Afghanistan | Wall Street Journal

For Afghanistan’s “Generation America,” Saturday’s presidential election marks a vital rite of passage. Almost two thirds of Afghans are younger than 25, and millions have come of age during the 12 years since U.S. troops and development dollars arrived. Despite a violent Taliban insurgency and rampant corruption, young Afghans have enjoyed unprecedented freedoms and opportunities, and many of them will be voting for the first time to preserve them. A smooth election is hardly assured. On Wednesday, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest at the entrance to the ministry of interior, killing six officers in one of central Kabul’s most heavily guarded spots. An election critically disrupted by the Taliban—or stolen through fraud—could push Afghanistan into renewed civil war, reopening old ethnic fissures and imperiling many gains of the past decade. As Afghanistan prepares for the first transfer of power since the U.S. installed President Hamid Karzai in 2001, the vote will determine whether the gains of the American era will be sustained after most U.S. troops go home in December.

Australia: Dozens to recast vote due to ballot box problem in Western Australia Senate election | ABC

Dozens of people at an aged care facility in Perth will have to vote again in the WA Senate election re-run because of a problem with a ballot box. The latest voting bungle comes despite the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) promising improved security and counting procedures. The election re-run is being held because 1,370 votes were lost in the September poll and the High Court declared the election void. The AEC has now investigated the handling of about 75 ballot papers cast earlier this week at the Merriwa Estate RAAF retirement village in Perth’s northern suburbs.

India: Voting while in the Army | The Hindu

Vote bank politics is a commonly bandied about expression in the election season, which is no surprise. But a new vote bank of Armed Forces personnel is now looking a step closer to reality with the Supreme Court directing the Election Commission (EC) to allow defence personnel to vote as general voters in peace stations. This is somewhat unusual. The Supreme Court merely reiterated the law it laid down in an earlier judgment in 1971, though the circumstances of that case were somewhat different. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 defines the term ‘ordinarily resident’ in Section 20, a qualification required to get registered as a voter. Armed forces personnel are among the few categories of people defined as persons with ‘service qualification’ in Section 20(8) and are given a special dispensation in Section 20(3) and Section 20(5). This category can declare while living at a place ‘ordinarily resident’ status at another place where they would have normally lived, if it were not for the exigencies of service. Implicit faith was to be placed on their declaration and they would be registered at the place they indicated as their place of ordinary residence, most likely their native place, and as a corollary the place of their posting could not be their ordinary place of residence.

Indonesia: Indonesia wrestles with election logistics | Financial Times

Fears about vote buying and poll manipulation are widespread as Indonesia prepares to hold one of the world’s most complicated elections at a crucial juncture for the third-biggest democracy after India and the US. But Ronny Irawan, a local election official, is more concerned about the weather forecast. More than 40 per cent of the 1,130 polling stations in his district of Ketapang, on the island of Kalimantan, are in remote areas that can only be reached by jungle rivers and crumbling roads. “The weather will determine the smoothness of the logistics process because heavy rain might prevent our boats from navigating the rivers but low tide could strand our craft if it is too dry,” he says. Mr Irawan’s travails are a snapshot of the immense logistical challenge that infrastructure-poor Indonesia faces to organise parliamentary and presidential elections in the world’s biggest archipelago nation, with 186m voters spread across thousands of islands that stretch for 3,000 miles from east to west.

California: Ballot irregularities discovered ahead of Long Beach city election | Los Angeles Times

With just over a week left before election day, the Long Beach city clerk has discovered ballot irregularities that could affect more than half of the city’s voting precincts in one of the most closely watched local elections in years. Ballot tabulators failed to count votes marked on the second page of some ballots, said City Clerk Larry Herrera. The mistake affects precincts that have two-page ballots — about 169 of the city’s 295 polling places. Herrera said his office discovered the problem Friday afternoon while running a routine “logic and accuracy” test on the ballots ahead of next Tuesday’s election. The city has not printed two-page ballots since 2007, according to Herrera, and since then some of the tabulation processes have changed but were not readjusted for the two-page ballots. The primary election, scheduled for April 8, is expected to narrow large fields of candidates vying for wide-open races for mayor and five of the nine City Council seats.

Georgia: State initiates online voter registration | The Daily Tribune News

With a new system going live Monday, Georgia residents will now be able to go online and register to vote. “In 2012, I worked with legislative leaders to craft a law that would allow for online voter registration,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in a press release. “We did this because Georgians deserve to be able to register to vote or change their information with as much ease as possible. This will not only provide benefits to the voter, but also for all 159 Georgia counties.” Locally, Bartow County Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk believed the online registration system will help his office keep the number of voters up, but he did not predict a large increase in registered voters.

Illinois: Madigan’s voting rights amendment advances | Associated Press

A proposal by Illinois’ powerful House Speaker to thwart future voter suppression efforts advanced in the Legislature on Tuesday, a move that contrasts starkly with recent electoral restrictions put in place by surrounding swing states where Republicans have legislative control. The proposed amendment to the state constitution, which would appear on the November ballot if it receives a supermajority in both the House and Senate, would bar the Legislature from enacting new laws that would add new requirements in order to vote. Rep. Michael Madigan, who doubles as Illinois’ Democratic Party Chairman, told committee members Tuesday that the amendment would ensure that no one is denied the right to vote based on their race, color, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation or income, and that it “sends a strong message that in Illinois we believe every eligible voter should be treated equally.”

Kentucky: Felon Voting Rights Restoration “Unlikely” To Pass in Kentucky This Year | WFPL

A bill that would restore voting rights for thousands of Kentucky felons isn’t likely to pass this year. Lawmakers say they could not reach an agreement over different versions of the proposed legislation. GOP Senate Floor Leader Damon Thayer previously amended the bill to include a five year waiting period and not cover felons with multiple offenses. Supporters of the proposed legislation have criticized Thayer’s changes, which would not affect about half of the 180,000 Kentuckians the original bill was meant to help.

Maine: Senate gives early nod to bill to dump Electoral College in favor of directly electing president | Bangor Daily News

By a 1-vote margin the Maine Senate Tuesday supported a bill that would move the Pine Tree State away from the Electoral College system when it comes to selecting a winning presidential candidate here. In an initial 17-16 vote the Senate approved LD 511, a bill that would allow Maine to join a compact of states in allowing the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states to be elected president. The current system depends on a complicated process, that can vary from state to state and which allows a candidate who may not have received the largest number of votes to be elected president. Lawmakers favoring the bill said it was long overdue and is an attempt at restoring value to the votes of individuals. “This bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes,” said Sen. John Tuttle, D-Sanford. Tuttle said the measure is meant to bolster the the principle of “one man, one vote.”

Wisconsin: Kevin Kennedy approaches 35th anniversary managing state elections | WisPolitics

Kevin Kennedy’s predecessor was removed as Wisconsin’s top elections official after a few “management issues.” Kennedy recalled that included mistakes in tallying results from the September 1982 primary and a mix-up with the wording for a ballot referendum that was supposed to gauge support on a nuclear weapons freeze. But the language sent to local clerks left the word “weapons” out of the question. So Kennedy has taken the approach that he’s auditioning each day to keep his post as Government Accountability Board director and general counsel. “I don’t stand for election every four years. I get reviewed every day by a citizen board,” Kennedy said in a WisPolitics.com interview. “As I tell people it takes four votes, not a million votes, to get rid of me.” Kennedy will celebrate 35 years with Wisconsin’s elections agency this week, first as legal counsel and then executive director of the old Elections Board before heading up the GAB, which was created in 2007 and began its work in place of the old Elections and Ethics boards in 2008.

Afghanistan: Rigging the Afghan Vote | The New Yorker

On April 5th, the scheduled date of Afghanistan’s upcoming Presidential election, there will be around a dozen polling centers in Chak, a narrow valley of mud homes and alfalfa farms that lies some forty miles from Kabul. A few of the centers, which are essentially rooms with a section curtained off for voting, will be in schools; others will be in mosques. At least two will be in tents pitched on mountain slopes, near the grazing ranges of nomadic herders. Freshly painted campaign billboards loom over the road into the valley. Tens of thousands of ballots are ready for delivery, and officials are considering a helicopter drop for some of the valley’s most remote reaches. None of this will matter, though, because on Election Day there will not be a single voter or election worker in any of Chak’s polling centers. When I asked a U.S.-backed militia commander in the area, whom I will call Raqib, to explain why, he drew a finger across his throat, and said, “Taliban.”

Afghanistan: Afghan Women See Hope in the Ballot Box | New York Times

Mariam Wardak is one of those young Afghans with her feet in two worlds: At 28, she has spent much of her adult life in Afghanistan, but she grew up in the United States after her family fled there. She vividly remembers the culture shock of visits back to her family’s village in rural Wardak Province a decade ago. “A woman wouldn’t even show her face to her brother-in-law living in the same house for 25 years,” she said. “People would joke that if someone kidnapped our ladies, we would have to find them from their voices. Now women in Wardak show their faces — they see everybody else’s faces.” Ms. Wardak’s mother, Zakia, is a prime example. She used to wear a burqa in public, but now has had her face printed on thousands of ballot pamphlets for the provincial council in Wardak. She campaigns in person in a district, Saydabad, that is thick with Taliban.

Canada: Blind voters could also be disenfranchised under feds’ elections law overhaul | The Hill Times

Advocates for the blind and marginalized Canadians with a range of disabilities warned MPs Tuesday the government’s plan to legislate an end to vouching in federal elections would prevent many of the people they represent from being able to vote. Leaders from the Canadian Institute of the Blind, which lends support and volunteer services to tens of thousands of blind or partially sighted citizens, and an advocate with People First called on the Conservative government to amend key sections of controversial election legislation they said would heighten ballot box hurdles that their members and clients already face. The testimony came as a House of Commons committee hearing witnesses on Bill C-23 began a rush to jam in as many witnesses as possible in the two weeks remaining before a government-imposed May 1 deadline for the committee to complete its business and send the bill back to the House for final passage.

Editorials: Canada’s attack on democracy sets tone for Australia | Sydney Morning Herald

Australians who value democracy should turn their eyes to Canada to catch a glimpse of what might be heading our way. Two weeks ago, international academics added their names to a call by 160 Canadian experts to stop a piece of legislation being rushed through parliament that aims to radically change electoral processes in Canada. Introduced by the Conservative Party government in Canada, and with a name that would do George Orwell proud, the ‘’Fair Elections Act’’ seeks to insert partisanship and inequality into Canadian electoral procedures in a manner reminiscent of 19th century processes. The proposed act will reduce voting rights, foster partisan bias in election administration and weaken campaign finance laws. Along with Australia, Canada has a reputation for being a world leader in electoral processes, which makes the proposals all the more shocking and internationally significant. Elections Canada – the equivalent of our Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) – is considered a strong and fiercely independent electoral administrator. But, if passed, the proposed act will move the enforcement arm of the agency into the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, a government department. This will diminish the independence of the agency but also, crucially, it means the activities of the commissioner would no longer be reported to parliament.

India: Poll officers offer fake voter IDs for Rs 1,000 | India Today

As the country prepares itself for the biggest dance of democracy, there are people who have made all the arrangements to derail the democratic process. In a startling revelation, it has emerged that polling officials in Delhi and NCR are ready to facilitate bogus voting in exchange for money. Even though NCP chief Sharad Pawar termed his comments-urging supporters to vote twice-as a joke, a sting operation by Aaj Tak revealed that such an arrangement is possible and politicians can use this to buy votes in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Booth Level officers (BLOs), who are responsible to ensure that no fake votes are cast on the polling day, have accepted on hidden camera that they can provide fake voter ID for as low as Rs.1,000-1,500 per person.

Nigeria: Electronic voting divides Senate | The Sun News

Senate has commenced amendment of the Electoral Act (2010) with members divided over electronic voting in the 2015 polls and whether all the elections should be conducted same day. In an unprecedented move in the Seventh Senate, the chamber yesterday passed for second reading, three separate bills seeking various amendments to the electoral law. The bills, which were sponsored by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy Minority Whip, Abu Ibrahim and Alkali Jajere, seek to determine the tenure of the office of the Secretary of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and removal of the commission’s chairman’s powers to appoint the secretary. Besides, the amendments equally seek the conduct of general elections, six months before the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent while bye-elections should be held twice a year.

Ukraine: Still Reeling From Crisis, Ukraine Prepares For Presidential Vote | NPR

After a winter of lightning-fast changes – a president ousted and a peninsula apparently lost to Russia — Ukrainians are beginning to look ahead to elections on May 25 to replace Viktor Yanukovych. The opposition leader who seemed to have the inside track a few weeks ago, ex-world champion heavyweight Vitali Klitschko, has taken himself out of the running. Klitschko will stand for mayor of Kiev and throw his support behind billionaire Petro Poroshenko, who made his fortune in the candy business. Although not widely known in the West, Poroshenko has relatively broad appeal in this deeply divided country. He was a prominent backer of both the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the recent pro-European demonstrations in Kiev’s Independence Square.

National: Will other states delay use of SAVE for voter checks? | Miami Herald

Florida is one of a handful of states that signed agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to use SAVE to search for non-citizens on voter rolls. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Thursday that he was delaying his plan to start a new round of looking for non-citizen voters due to DHS revamping the SAVE website. DHS started changes to the website in February but may not finish the project until after the 2014 election however SAVE remains operational by agencies nationwide. So we wondered if any other agencies that use SAVE for voter registration purposes have also halted efforts as a result of the website changes.

California: Leland Yee quits secretary of state race | San Francisco Chronicle

State Sen. Leland Yee withdrew from the California secretary of state race Thursday, one day after his arrest on public corruption charges, his attorney said. “This was a very personal decision on the part of the senator,” said Paul DeMeester, his attorney, at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco. “This is what he wanted to do.” Yee, a Democrat who represents half of San Francisco and most of San Mateo County, was one of 26 people ensnared in a five-year federal investigation that targeted Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a notorious Chinatown gangster who had claimed to have gone straight, officials said. An outspoken advocate of gun control and open government, Yee is charged with conspiring to traffic in firearms as well as six counts of scheming to defraud citizens of honest services. He has not commented on the allegations. Investigators say Yee took bribes in exchange for political favors in order to pay off a $70,000 debt from an unsuccessful run for San Francisco mayor in 2011 and to fund his run for secretary of state. The bribes were paid by undercover agents, the FBI said.

Florida: Online voter registration appears dead in Florida this session | Naples Daily News

Legislation that would create a process for registering to vote online got its “day in court” Monday, but isn’t going anywhere this legislative session. A bill sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, would require the Department of State to set up a website that would allow for online registration, which is in 13 states, by July 2015. Because the Florida House has decided it won’t pass any voting-related legislation this session, it means the Senate bill doesn’t have a companion in that chamber or a chance of passing. “This bill is not moving in the House, which is no big surprise to anyone,” said state Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, chairman of the Ethics and Elections Committee.