Editorials: High-tech Internet voting may beckon in Oregon, but pulling the plug wins out | Susan Nielsen/OregonLive.com

Bruce Starr killed his own bill this week. The Washington County state senator visited his peers in the House and asked them, respectfully, to give it the heave-ho. You have to admire the guy. He had thought it would be a good time to study the possibility of ditching Oregon’s vote-by-mail system for a fancier, higher-tech version. He not only realized he was wrong, but he admitted it, too, before pushing the state further in that direction. In the land of Cover Oregon, that’s big. Not quite “Profiles in Courage” big, but it’s a nice change of pace in a state that seems serially unaware of the limits of its technological prowess. It’s also a welcome check on the propensity to assume the smartest choice is always the highest-tech one. Starr came up with the idea while traveling last year in Estonia, which has embraced Internet-based voting. He thought that maybe Oregon, known for pushing the envelope on voter access, might give online voting a closer look. “When I was there, it was like, ‘Wow, that’s interesting.’ They clearly have a system that works, at least for their citizens,” Starr said. ” …. That is the beginning of what brought us to this bill.” So he packed the idea in his suitcase and brought it home. However, the timing for introducing a feasibility study for a new state tech initiative turned out to be less than ideal.

International: Where are the flawed elections? | Washington Post

In many countries, polling day ends with disputes about ballot-box fraud, corruption and flawed registers. In countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and Maylasia, for example, recent elections ended in mass protests, opposition complaints and political stalemate. The consequences undermine regime legitimacy and public trust and confidence in electoral authorities. Where there are disputes, however, which claims are accurate? And which are false complaints from sore losers? The Electoral Integrity Project has just released new evidence, which compares the risks of flawed and failed elections, and how far countries around the world meet international standards. The EIP is an independent research project based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University, funded mainly by the Australian Research Council, under the direction of Prof. Pippa Norris.

National: IRS rules to close campaign loopholes are slammed from multiple sides | The Boston Globe

The Internal Revenue Service, one of the most beleaguered federal agencies, is seeking to assume a new role in regulating election financing. And the reaction, perhaps predictably, has been critical. Many of the nearly 67,000 comments following the IRS’ proposal to rein in politically active nonprofits urge the organization to focus on its day job: tax collection. “It sounds to me like the IRS is making law, not enforcing it. Leave rule-making to the buffoons in Congress,” one comment reads. Another puts it more bluntly: “Stick to taxes.” The public opposition comes from both liberals and conservatives, who are blasting draft regulations released by the Treasury Department in November that would tighten restrictions on political spending by nonprofit “social welfare’’ organizations, formally called 501(c)(4) groups under a section in the tax code.

California: San Diego Assemblywoman Proposes Mail-Only Voting For Special Elections | KPBS

San Diego has seen a litany of special elections recently, from the mayor’s race to City Council District 4 to state senate and assembly races. In each election, many of the votes were cast by mail. Now, state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez is proposing a bill that would allow counties and cities to conduct special elections entirely by mail. Gonzalez said in special elections, the majority of voters cast ballots by mail, so it’s a waste of money to keep polling stations staffed for 13 hours on Election Day. “In the Senate 40 district, we had one polling place where only one person showed up to vote,” she told KPBS Midday Edition. “So the cost per vote at the polling place is over $100, where the cost per vote for the mail in is less than $10.” She said in that election, the cost per voter who went to a polling place was $221.43, while each mail ballot cost $8.73.

Connecticut: Malloy, Williams back national popular vote | The CT Mirror

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, endorsed legislation Monday that would have Connecticut join an interstate compact committing the state’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The governor’s office announced the support of Malloy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman as the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee held a public hearing on the bill. The legislation is a House bill, so a more immediate hurdle to reach the floor after it clears the committee is an endorsement from House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden. He has said he would schedule a vote on the bill if sought by his caucus. “I fully support a national popular vote for President. All Americans deserve to have their votes counted equally for the highest office in the country,” Malloy said. “Connecticut should join the nine other states and the District of Columbia in taking this important step. The candidate who wins the most votes should be president.”

Guam: Election Commission puts out bid for new vote tabulators | Pacific Daily News

The Guam Election Commission wants to have new voting tabulators for this year’s elections and now is one step closer to that goal. The commission released an invitation for bids on Feb. 19 for a central count voting system with software and professional services, according to the bid documents. The bids are due by March 14, said Maria Pangelinan, the commission executive director. That’s a system capable of counting voting results from multiple precincts at a single location. During the 2012 General Election, the GEC had problems with at least three of its four tabulators.

Missouri: House endorses voter photo ID requirement | Associated Press

Missouri House Republicans are trying again to enact legislation that would require voters to show photo identification before casting ballots, and they’re hoping the courts or the Democratic governor don’t stand in the way this time. The House gave first-round approval to measures Tuesday that could lead to a voter photo ID requirement. Previous attempts have stalled in the Senate, been vetoed by Gov. Jay Nixon or blocked by judges. As they have in the past, Republican supporters argued Tuesday that a photo ID requirement would protect the integrity of elections and prevent fraud at the ballot box. “Unfortunately it is a reality in life and in modern America that there is voter fraud,” said one of the measure’s sponsors, Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia.

Nebraska: Bill aimed at opening primaries to independent voters | The Banner-Press

Sen. Al Davis of Hyannis sent an email late Thursday to members of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee to emphasize why he thinks it is time to change Nebraska’s primary election laws. His bill, LB773, which the committee heard on Wednesday, would make it easier for independent voters to participate in primary elections. In executive session Thursday, there was a motion to kill the bill, but that motion failed and the bill will be held in committee indefinitely. The bill would allow nonpartisan voters to choose a party’s ballot on election day without officially changing their party affiliation. This would affect elections for president, governor, secretary of state, attorney general, county commissioner, county clerk and county sheriff, among others. Currently, independent voters are only allowed to participate in nonpartisan elections, including those for state legislature, state board of education, mayor and city council. The bill would turn Nebraska’s primary system from a totally closed system to a hybrid system similar to other states.

North Carolina: Lawyers clash over electronic documents in NC voter ID lawsuit | Digital Journal

Lawyers representing the state of North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory and other defendants were accused of holding back crucial electronic documents in a hearing last Friday as lawsuits seeking to overturn North Carolina’s new voting law move forward.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Bridget O’Connor demanded “real deadlines and consequences for not meeting them,” in a hearing before Magistrate Judge Joi Elizabeth Peake on Friday, February 21. The plaintiffs in three lawsuits are seeking emails and other electronic documents produced by state employees documenting the creation and implementation of the North Carolina’s controversial Voter Identification Verification Law (VIVA). Several parts of the new law, such as a reduction in the number of early voting days and the end of same-day voter registration, are set to go into effect before the November 2014 election.

Ohio: Husted cuts early voting method favored by blacks | MSNBC

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced Tuesday he is cutting early voting on Sundays and weekday evenings, dealing another blow to the voting rights effort in the nation’s most pivotal swing state. Husted’s change would spell doom for a voting method that’s popular among African-Americans in Ohio and elsewhere. Many churches and community groups lead “Souls to the Polls” drives after church on the Sunday before the election. There’s little doubt that cuts to early voting target blacks disproportionately. In 2008, black voters were 56% of all weekend voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s largest, even though they made up just 28% of the county’s population. “By completely eliminating Sundays from the early voting schedule, Secretary Husted has effectively quashed successful Souls to the Polls programs that brought voters directly form church to early voting sites,” said Mike Brickner, a spokesman for the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union, in an email.

Oregon: Secretary of State website back online after hacker attack | KATU

Oregon’s secretary of state’s website was fully back in business Monday after “an unauthorized intrusion” earlier this month, according to the agency. But in a statement, the secretary of state’s office warned that while all systems were working again, some applications may need to be taken down temporarily to fix any bugs. “I appreciate the enormous patience that Oregonians have demonstrated during the website outage,” said Secretary Kate Brown in a statement. “I’d also like to thank everyone in this office who worked incredibly long hours to restore these important services as quickly and securely as possible.”

Oregon: Proposal to study online vote advances | Statesman Journal

With submitted public opinion running heavily against the idea, the Senate last week voted to pass a bill to the House that proposes studying the feasibility of Internet voting in Oregon. Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, carried Senate Bill 1515 and told the chamber that he’d been advised that the Secretary of State’s office had said it could absorb a study under the current budget, “so cost wouldn’t be an issue,” Starr said. But a half-dozen Oregonians commenting in earlier committee hearings voiced strong opposition to online voting for a variety of reasons. Sam Croskell of Portland wrote that the state’s track record with Cover Oregon’s website and the recent security breach at the Secretary of State’s office were sufficient proof that the risks associated with online voting weren’t worth taking.

Utah: Legislature moves to bottle up some Utah voter data

Stung by the release of detailed voter information on 1.5 million Utahns online in January, Utah lawmakers are taking action to protect voter information. A bill making two changes in the voter information process passed the House by a 71-2 vote on Tuesday. The bill, HB 302, would keep voter birth date information classified and would also allow voters to opt into a program to protect all of their information, going forward. The bill now advances to the Senate for further consideration. Sponsored by Rep. Becky Edwards, the bill is one of two voter information related items being considered by the Legislature this session. It comes weeks after a New Hampshire man bought a voter registration list from the state and made that personal information available online for free. The information includes names, birth dates, phone numbers and the voting activity of everyone in specific households during recent elections.

Utah: House panel amends, passes bill to limit access to Utah voter data | Deseret News

State lawmakers are trying to figure out how to prevent Utah voters’ information from being used for personal gain after a New Hampshire man bought it from the state and posted it online. The Senate last week unanimously passed SB36 to limit access to the state’s voter registration rolls and prohibit putting it on the Internet. It includes exceptions for political, scholarly, journalistic and governmental purposes. But a House committee Monday expanded those exceptions to include banks, hospitals and insurance companies. It now goes the full House for consideration.

Wisconsin: State Supreme Court hears arguments on voter identification law; no timeline on ruling | Star Tribune

A member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority said Tuesday she’s troubled by the state’s voter photo ID requirements, saying it’s not fair that people who lack identification may have to pay for supporting documents to obtain it. The League of Women Voters and the NAACP’s Milwaukee branch have filed separate lawsuits challenging the Republican-authored voter ID mandate. Both cases have wound their way to the Supreme Court; the justices spent more than three hours listening to oral arguments in a packed hearing room Tuesday. The lawsuits face an uphill fight given the court’s ideological makeup. Surprisingly, though, Justice Patience Roggensack said the provisions were troubling because people who lack acceptable IDs for voting would have to pay for copies of supporting documents, such as birth certificates, to get them. “It’s still a payment to the state to be able to vote,” Roggensack said. “That bothers me.”

Wisconsin: Justices hear voter ID arguments | WLUK

A Wisconsin law requiring voters to show identification at the polls went before the state’s highest court Tuesday. The Wisconsin Supreme Court listened to arguments for more than three hours in front of a packed courtroom. Attorneys on both sides of the law faced questions from the court’s justices. Justice Pat Roggensack told the state’s attorney she’s concerned some people have to pay $20 for a birth certificate, which they need to get an ID. “It’s still a payment to the state to be able to vote. That bothers me, can you address that?” asked Roggensack. “Since the voter ID law was in place, or was going to be in place, there were some places in Wisconsin that offered free birth certificates,” responded Clayton Kawski, an assistant Attorney General for Wisconsin. The law was enacted in 2011. It was in effect for a primary election in February 2012, but it was blocked soon after by a court order. It hasn’t been in place since.

Australia: Senate election re-run to cost $20 million | Sydney Morning Herald

The re-run of the West Australian senate election will cost taxpayers as much as $20 million, nearly double initial estimates of $10-13 million. And the Griffith by-election that saw Labor’s Terri Butler edge out the LNP’s Bill Glasson to take former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s former seat of Griffith cost taxpayers another $1.194 million. Acting electoral commissioner Tom Rogers told Senate estimates late on Tuesday night that the lower estimates for the statewide by-election had been merely been an early estimate of the cost of heading back to the polls. Mr Rogers said the Australian Electoral Commission was still finalising estimates but the bill could run to about $20 million for taxpayers.

Australia: Federal Police investigating multiple voting | SBS News

Australian Federal Police are investigating numerous instances of voters casting more than one ballot in last September’s election. The Australian Electoral Commission has revealed that almost 2000 people have admitted voting more than once, and some have been referred to the AFP for investigation. And the AEC says almost 19,000 letters have been sent to other electors who had multiple marks recorded beside their names. So far, Federal Police are investigating 128 cases where Australians voted more than once at the 2013 federal election. One person is believed to have voted 15 times. Australian Electoral Commission spokesman Phil Diak says the AEC routinely scrutinises the vote count and works with the Australian Federal Police to investigate cases of multiple vost casting.

Canada: Independent panel’s study suggests idea for online voting be pulled offline | Nanaimo News Bulletin

A year-long study by the Independent Panel on Internet Voting has concluded the province of British Columbia and its municipalities are ready for online voting. The panel was formed in August 2012 by the chief electoral officer at the behest of the B.C. attorney general and met 13 times between September 2012 and October 2013 to examine pros and cons of Internet-based voting. The panel’s findings, released in a report earlier this month, said potential benefits of online voting include providing greater accessibility and convenience for B.C. voters, especially for people with disabilities, and the possibility of improving voter turnout, but the report also mentioned inherent security risks in spite of the fact that Internet transactions for banking, shopping, and government services are widespread and growing.

Germany: Raising The Bar For Participation? The German SPD Membership Ballot | Social Europe Journal

It was an interesting and promising experiment: In December 2013 the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) asked its members to vote on the question of a possible grand coalition with the German Christian Democrats of Angela Merkel. And within as well as outside of the party many observers had been questioning if this procedure was such a good idea. A broad and fundamental discussion arose about the planned party ballot and whether the mere 475.000 members of one political party should, in the end, be able to decide if a planned national government could materialize. And don’t forget about the question of wether the usual procedures of a parliamentary democracy can easily be extended with more direct and participatory forms of decision-making. A big part of the guessing game on a possible outcome of the membership vote was due to the fact that any survey could only focus on people sympathizing with the SPD but not directly on the members themselves. Only the party leadership holds the address list of party members and running a poll over the whole population just to filter the voting SPD members out would have been far too costly. The result was that until the party ballot was held nobody really had an idea what the outcome would be and therefore about the consequences for the SPD, any new government run by Angela Merkel, and for German democracy in general.

Ukraine: Leadership Vote Called For European Election Day | Eurasia Review

Ukraine’s interim leadership pledged to put the country back on course for EU integration now that Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich has been ousted and new elections are called for 25 May, the same day as EU citizens will vote in the European elections. Meanwhile the United States warned Russia against sending in military forces. As rival neighbours east and west of the former Soviet republic said a power vacuum in Kyiv must not lead to the country breaking apart, acting President Oleksandr Turchinov said late on Sunday (23 February) that Ukraine’s new leaders wanted relations with Russia on a “new, equal and good-neighbourly footing that recognises and takes into account Ukraine’s European choice”. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel to Ukraine today (24 February), where she is expected to discuss measures to shore up the ailing economy. Russia said late on Sunday that it had recalled its ambassador to Ukraine for consultations on the “deteriorating situation” in Kyiv.

Ukraine: Elections delayed; former Yanukovych aide wounded | Associated Press

Ukraine’s new authorities navigated tricky political waters Tuesday, launching a new presidential campaign, working on a new government and trying to seek immediate financial help from the West. Yet protests in the country’s pro-Russian region of Crimea and the shooting of a top aide to fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych — a man despised by protesters — have raised fears of divisions and retaliation. Andriy Klyuyev, the chief of staff for Yanukovych until this weekend, was wounded by gunfire Monday and hospitalized, spokesman Artem Petrenko told The Associated Press on Tuesday. It wasn’t clear where in Ukraine the shooting took place. At the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv, lawmakers delayed the formation of a new government until Thursday, reflecting the political tensions and economic challenges the country faces after Yanukovych fled the capital and went into hiding.

United Kingdom: Call for compulsory voting and votes for 16-year-olds from prominent Labour AM | Wales Online

A rising star of Welsh Labour has given his backing to extending the vote in all British elections to 16-year-olds and making voting compulsory. Cardiff South and Penarth AM Vaughan Gething, who was made a Deputy Minister in the Welsh Government in June last year, told a conference of sixth-form students at the National Assembly that he backed extending the vote and making voting mandatory. His call for 16-year-olds to vote was backed by the Welsh Government, but it rejected the suggestion of a move to compulsory voting. The right to vote has been granted to 16-year-olds in the Scottish independence referendum, which will take place in September. Asked if he was in favour of votes for 16, Mr Gething, who was representing Welsh Labour , said: “Yes, is my view. I’m in favour for votes for 16 for all elections – for local government, for the Assembly and the general election. I think it would be a positive experience to get people voting early.”

Editorials: Strength and weakness of the Vot­ing Rights Amend­ment Act of 2014 | Anna Massoglia/TheHill

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which includes a provision mandating that specified states “preclear” any changes in election regulations with the federal government. The court upheld other provisions of the Vot­ing Rights Act intact, including Section 2, a permanent provision that prohibits racially discriminatory voting laws nationwide, but determined that Section 4(b) is unconstitutional. Section 4(b) constitutes the “coverage formula” used to apply Section 5. As enacted, Section 4 requires certain states and jurisdictions that were determined by the formula to have a history of racially unbalanced voting to preclear any changes in election regulation with the federal government, even changes as minor as moving a polling station from one building to another. The Court in Shelby found that the provision was unconstitutional because it was based on outmoded data from voter turnout in 1964, 1968, or 1972 elections. Further, many states and vicinities subject to preclearance no longer correspond to the same incidence of racial discrimination in voting. In fact, the Census Bureau has reported that black voters voted at substantially higher rates than whites in seven of the states covered by Section 5, a rate higher than many other states that remain unaffected by Section 5.

Editorials: Restore voting rights to ex-felons | Al Jazeera

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been taking stands for justice lately, for which he is to be applauded. On Feb. 11, in a speech at Georgetown University, he issued a plea for states to lift bans on voting by ex-felons, also called returning citizens. On the heels of his earlier suggestion that prosecutors and legislators re-examine mandatory sentencing for nonviolent drug offenders and disparities in crack cocaine sentences, this latest call suggests a new pattern of priorities coming out of the office of the attorney general. The New York Times predicted Holder’s suggestions would “elevate issues of criminal justice and race in the president’s second term and create a lasting civil rights legacy.” Holder is reportedly the first attorney general to take up this cause. It has been a long time coming. Laws that deny ex-offenders the vote have a long and dark history. Although felons were prevented from voting in most states from the very beginning of the republic, after the Civil War, these laws were greatly expanded in the South — and virtually all felons in those states were black. The South’s loss of the Civil War in 1865 presented former slave owners with dual dilemmas. Their captive labor supply had been liberated, and those formerly involuntary workers were going to be allowed to vote. In the words of one former slave, “bottom rail on the top.” Soon after the withdrawal of federal troops in 1877, however, white entrepreneurs of the South solved both problems with two linked concepts: convict leasing and felon disenfranchisement. First, massive numbers of African-Americans were arrested for little or no reason and sent to work in mines, mills and fields, creating an almost limitless supply of effectively free labor. Under newly enhanced (and in some cases newly created) laws, these ex-felons were then forever after denied the right to vote. This process also planted in the American psyche a viciously tenacious stereotype of African-American criminality. Douglas Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book “Slavery by Another Name” describes these circumstances in excruciating detail: The depraved system has made enduring marks on today’s criminal justice landscape, in the form of felon disenfranchisement laws and racially disparate arrest, conviction and sentencing practices. Michelle Alexander, in her book “The New Jim Crow,” compares these laws and today’s mass incarceration of inmates of color to historical injustices.

California: Senate’s Republican, Democratic leaders agree district boundary law is ambiguous, needs review

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the state Senate on Monday said a law that ensnared a legislator on perjury and voter-fraud charges is ambiguous and might need to be changed. Sen. Roderick Wright is awaiting sentencing in May after he was convicted last month of lying about his true residence, which a Los Angeles County jury determined was outside his Senate district. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, said in separate comments to reporters that current state law is so ambiguous that other lawmakers also could be in violation of a requirement that they live in the district they represent while running for office.

Colorado: Tracking Voters in Real Time in Colorado | National Journal

Hoping to make voting accessible without opening the door to fraud, Colorado is turning to technology. In 2013, the state Legislature created Colorado’s own “electronic pollbook,” a new real-time voter-tracking system that allows the state to combine an all-mail election with traditional in-person voting, maximizing the opportunities for residents to cast ballots. Colorado already had a robust vote-by-mail system—about three-quarters of the state’s voters mailed their ballots in 2012—but now, every registered voter in the state, including previously “inactive” voters, will receive a mail ballot in upcoming elections. Yet unlike in Washington state or Oregon, which run all-mail elections, Coloradans can still vote in person if they choose. Instead of being tethered to a local precinct, voters can cast ballots or return their mail ballots at any “voting center” in their county, where poll workers can check them in using the real-time connection in the new e-pollbook to ensure they haven’t already voted using a mail ballot. The process is spread over a couple of weeks of early voting and Election Day itself to reduce crowding and wait times at polling places.

District of Columbia: Could the U.N. Help D.C. Win a Vote in Congress? | Roll Call

Raising the profile of the District’s struggle to win voting rights in Congress to the international level could create some interesting geopolitical dynamics. Imagine Chinese President Xi Jinping denouncing D.C.’s disenfranchisement in Congress as a human rights violation. Picture Russian President Vladimir Putin lecturing the White House for denying voting representation to citizens in the nation’s capital. “I don’t want to encourage anybody to poke a stick in our eye in the United States, but the reality is, I think we have some vulnerability on that and there are groups that are eager to find some chink in the United States’ armor,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., during a recent symposium on congressional representation for D.C. residents hosted by the William & Mary Election Law Program. Davis believes that launching an international dialogue on the issue could be helpful in pressing it forward politically. As one of the staunchest allies the District has ever had in Congress, Davis repeatedly defended the city during his 14 years in Congress and pushed legislation to give the District a vote in the House.

Iowa: Voter fraud investigation concludes; 80 additional cases referred to prosecutors | The Des Moines Register

A controversial investigation into alleged voter fraud has concluded, the investigator leading the effort said Monday. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Adam DeCamp said Monday that the probe aimed at identifying and prosecuting fraudulent Iowa voters ended Feb. 13, roughly 20 months after it began. Since September, when DeCamp took over as the lead investigator, the effort has scrutinized 245 individual voters. Of those, more than 80 have been referred to county attorneys for possible prosecution. It will be up to prosecutors on whether to bring charges based on the evidence provided by the DCI.

North Carolina: Voter ID laws challenge out-of-state voters | The Pendulum

Junior political science major Niki Molinaro has voted in every election since she came to Elon University. But new North Carolina voter identification laws may keep her out of the voting booth. Although she considers Elon her home, Molinaro, an official New York resident, must present a North Carolina identification card at the polls if she wants to continue voting in North Carolina. The bill, passed August 2013, does more than require voters to show a government-issued ID at the polls. It also shortens the voting period by one week and ends same-day voter registration. This is particularly a problem for university students who use their college ID cards as a form of identification at the polls. Beginning in 2016, they will no longer be considered acceptable. “I think the new law is meant to keep certain groups of people out of the elections,” Molinaro said.