Sri Lanka: Monitor accuses ruling party of violating election rules | Reuters

Supporters of Sri Lanka’s ruling party has repeatedly violated election laws in the run-up to Thursday’s presidential vote and has largely got away with it because police have turned a blind eye, a local polling monitor said on Tuesday. The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said there had been “unparalleled misuse of state resources and media” by the party of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose bid for a third term could be upset by an unexpected challenger from within his own ranks, Mithripala Sirisena. “There was impunity. No action was taken against the perpetrators or actions were mild,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, a convener of the CMEV, told reporters. He said police inaction had allowed election-related violence to mount, adding that most of those responsible were local councillors from Rajapaksa’s party.

National: How Facebook Influences Voter Participation | Digital Journal

2015 will be an interesting year for politics. Whether you love it or hate it, social media is completely changing the landscape of voter participation, one Facebook post at a time. The social media company is no stranger to watching voting and post activity analytics, keeping track of trends with some intriguing and perhaps unsettling blog updates regarding national voter turnout on Election Day. However, one of the bigger controversies is the question of how our newsfeeds might influence our decisions. According to The Verge, “Facebook had been running another newsfeed experiment, giving news stories an algorithmic boost for certain users to see if it heightened civic engagement, as measured by a questionnaire.” Do these algorithms guarantee that Facebook viewers gain exposure to unbiased items in their news feeds? If not, then it’s certainly possible that our newsfeeds could subtly influence a user’s affinity for specific candidates or party alliances.

National: New IRS Rules on Dark Money Likely Won’t Be Ready Before 2016 Election | ProPublica

The Internal Revenue Service says it won’t come out with new proposed rules for so-called dark money groups until late spring at the earliest, increasing the likelihood that no changes will take effect before the 2016 elections. These groups — social welfare nonprofits that can engage in politics, but do not have to disclose their donors — have become a major force in elections, pouring at least $257 million into the 2012 elections. The Wesleyan Media Project estimates that dark money paid for almost half the TV ads aired in the 2014 Senate races. The IRS originally issued a draft version of the rules for dark money groups more than a year ago, but withdrew them for revisions after receiving intense criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. Some advocates of campaign finance reform have touted tighter IRS controls as the best shot of reining in the influence of such groups ahead of the 2016 presidential race.

National: Double Dip: How Rand Paul Can Legally Tap His Biggest Donors Twice | National Journal

Sen. Rand Paul could have a financial edge over many of his prospective presidential rivals in 2016 due to a quirk in timing and election law that lets him to tap his biggest donors for campaign cash twice. Paul has said he plans to seek Senate reelection and, if he runs, the Republican presidential nomination simultaneously. And because he would be campaigning for two federal offices, he would be eligible to have two open federal campaign committees at the same time. Thus, his largest donors could give $2,600 to his presidential primary campaign and another $2,600 to his Senate account for the primary. While federal rules do limit how he could spend the money, veteran election lawyers say diligent accounting could allow for legal cost-sharing between the two committees, saving Paul’s presidential bid precious dollars and letting him collect bigger checks from his biggest contributors. “The two big advantages you can think of are the ability to double-dip from donors and the ability to allocate your costs between two different entities,” said Neil Reiff, a Democratic campaign lawyer.

California: Youths seek to lower voting age to 16 in San Francisco | San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco teenager Joshua Cardenas really wanted to vote in the Nov. 4 election. It was packed with local measures, such as raising The City’s minimum wage and extending funding for youth services, which the lifelong resident would have voted for. But the Riordan High School senior was barred from hitting the polls because he did not turn 18 until two weeks after the election. Instead, Cardenas has opted to try to lower The City’s legal voting age to 16 — a change that has gained the support of at least two supervisors. On Monday, the effort cleared its first hurdle to potentially go before San Francisco voters as early as November. Cardenas, a member of the San Francisco Youth Commission since August 2013, has authored a resolution that urges Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors to explore lowering the voting age to 16 for municipal and school district elections. The Youth Commission, currently comprised of 15 commissioners ages 12 to 23, supported the resolution in a 14-1 vote Monday night.

Editorials: For 2016, bring back Colorado’s presidential primary | The Denver Post

Two political scientists at Colorado College made the case in The Sunday Denver Post that lawmakers should open up the next presidential primary in this state to wider voter participation. But Thomas E. Cronin and Robert D. Loevy aren’t just lonely voices in the wilderness in this belief. Others have raised similar questions over the years about the wisdom of relying on a low-turnout caucus system to select the parties’ presidential favorites. Indeed, a group known as Colorado Open Voting is hoping to reform the caucus system this year through legislation, according to spokesman Curtis Hubbard — if sponsors can be found at the Capitol. Let’s hope lawmakers step up and a resulting bill reflects some of the principles espoused by Cronin and Loevy. The present system in which a relatively small slice of activists attend local caucuses to determine the presidential candidate that each party supports has the effect of limiting both public interest and participation — as well as the influence of Colorado in the presidential selection process.

District of Columbia: D.C. appeals to Republicans for expanded voting rights | WTOP

The corridors of Capitol Hill are lined with paintbrushes, ladders and hammers as the 114th Congress moves in to its new digs. Before the dust settles and while good will runs high, D.C. leaders will appeal to the new faces in the Republican majority for greater voting rights. On Tuesday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton plans to take to the House floor in an effort to win back the District’s vote in the Committee of the Whole, which she had during three Congresses. “I will make the point that in a democracy, the vote can never be tied to the party in power,” she says. “The vote is tied to the people.”

Indiana: Lawmakers To Push For Independent Redistricting Commission | Indiana Public Media

Last session House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, coauthored legislation creating a redistricting commission, with members appointed by legislative leaders of both parties. While that bill passed the House, it never received a hearing in the Senate. Bosma says he will offer the bill again, but notes both chambers need to buy in this time. “We’ll check out the likelihood of passage in the Senate before we spend a lot of time on it in the House,” Bosma said. “But as you know we passed it last year or the year before and it’s worthy of discussion – and I still think it’s the right direction for the state to go.”

Editorials: Fairer approach: Take redistricting job off legislators’ hands | Journal Gazette

Partisan redistricting makes a mockery of the basic principles of democracy. In the session that begins today, the Indiana legislature has the opportunity – actually, the obligation – to take its thumb off the scales of voter equality. Changing demographics rapidly make congressional and legislative districts obsolete. Redistricting, which occurs at the beginning of each decade just after the national census is completed, is a necessity for democracy to function. But in Indiana, the legislature draws up its own legislative voting districts, as well as congressional districts. There are provisions for a redistricting commission, but they never come into play as long as both the House and Senate can agree on new maps within a set time. This has never been a good procedure, but it can be made to work when one party controls each of the two legislative chambers. Both parties, though, have used the system to create unfair advantages over the years. In the redistricting at the beginning of this decade, the GOP did a masterful job of controlling the process. Republicans held both houses, and they took the opportunity to move more Democrats into heavily Democratic districts and more Republicans into districts that had been fairly even.

Kentucky: Supporters hope for voting rights reform | Bowling Green Daily News

Five prefiled bills in the Kentucky General Assembly propose restoring voting rights for many of the state’s convicted felons, and advocates say they hope reform can be enacted in a state with a high rate of disenfranchisement. The different acts of legislation are sponsored by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. State Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, prefiled the first bill in the 2015 legislative session to call for an amendment to the state constitution to allow convicted felons to vote. Subsequent bills were filed by Rep. Darryl Owens, D- Louisville, Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, and Rep. Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown.

Missouri: St. Charles County refunds $221,367 in election charges to local governments | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The county has refunded $221,367 in what an audit says were election cost overcharges to cities and other local governments. The action was taken over the objections of County Elections Director Rich Chrismer, who disputes the findings and had refused for months to issue the refunds himself. County Finance Director Bob Schnur said Friday that the checks were mailed Tuesday. Chrismer was notified Wednesday. “This is the right thing to do,” said Schnur. Chrismer said he planned to take legal action to fight the county administration’s move, which was first requested by the County Council last summer. He says state law gives him control of the fund in question. “He took money out of the account,” Chrismer said of Schnur. “By law, he has no right to take it out.” Schnur disputed that, saying the money in question was collected in error and never should have been in the account.

Montana: Gallatin County officials scratching heads after forgetting election | Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Three of the Gallatin Conservation District’s supervisors forgot to file for re-election when their terms expired in November, then tried to fix the situation by having their two colleagues appoint them to their old positions. At a meeting Dec. 18, supervisors Bill Wright, Sherwin Leep, and Jason Camp, whose terms had expired, were appointed to another four-year term by board chairman John Schutter and vice chairman John Venhuizen. “Most of us have been on that board for quite a number of years,” Leep told the Chronicle. “Our administrator there usually takes care of that for us and she inadvertently overlooked it … kind of a weird little circumstance.” Leep said it was as an honest mistake made by a small group of people, and pointed out that no other candidates had filed for the seats. “It’s not like there’s a large line of people trying to get on this board,” said Leep, who has been with the conservation district since 1985. “It’s not like we’re trying to exclude anyone.”

North Carolina: Forsyth County elections office wants to replace equipment; proposal could cost about $1.4M | Winston-Salem Journal

The Forsyth County elections office wants to buy new elections equipment this year, but the county commissioners will have to decide whether to fund the request. Steve Hines, director of elections for Forsyth County, said his office is asking to replace all of its voting equipment – including the optical scanners that record paper ballots at precincts and the larger tabulator used at the elections office. Hines said his office is still in talks with the vendor for Election Systems & Software equipment, but has a rough cost estimate of about $1.4 million. Hines said he hates to ask for that much. “But I’d hate to go through what we went through this past year on a presidential scale,” Hines said. The elections office dealt with a number of hiccups in the general election last November, including breakdowns of vote-counting machines at precincts and the elections office. The equipment is about a decade old. … The county uses paper ballots on Election Day, but it uses iVotronic touch-screen machines for early voting and Election Day handicap-accessible voting. The county will no longer be able to use those machines as of 2018 because they don’t print a ballot.

Cuba: Local Elections to be Held in April | Havana Times

The Cuban government called today for regularly schedule elections on April 19th for local delegates, the part of the process of electing municipal authorities where the population is allowed to participate, reported dpa news. In any voting district where no candidate receives 50% of the valid votes cast a runoff among the top two vote getters will take place a week later on April 26. The island has approximately eight million voters in a population of a little over 11 million people. The local delegates are elected for a period of two and a half years.

Sri Lanka: Election chief agrees new measures for vote counting | Lanka Business Online

Sri Lanka’s election commissioner has agreed to a set of proposals aimed at holding a transparent vote counting process, the bar association of Sri Lanka said. The proposals for the upcoming presidential election include, polls monitors to be informed of the results of the counting centers before making it officially announced. “All the proposals forwarded by us on vote counting have already been accepted”, the association president Attorney-at-Law Upul Jayasuriya told LBO. The proposals had been made in consultation with the election watchdogs including PAFFREL and CaFFE.

Verified Voting Blog: New Standards for Election Data

Examining election results to confirm winners and losers for very close elections can be problematic for contests that span multiple jurisdictions using different equipment and diverse data formats for reporting those results. Such differences have been a significant barrier to conducting post-election risk-limiting audits in time to change preliminary election results if necessary. To address problems caused by incompatible election reporting formats, the IEEE has developed a new standard for election results reporting (1622-2). This standard marks the culmination of over ten years of efforts by many individuals and organizations (including Verified Voting), with crucial technical staff support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the recently completed 2014 elections, the Ohio Secretary of State’s office successfully used a draft version of the standard to report and export election results and the Associated Press Election Services used the same draft standard to import Ohio’s election results and incorporate it into their national election reporting for television, radio, and newspaper clients across the country. You are invited to weigh in: to see the proposed reporting standard and submit your comments and suggestions for improvement here.

Verified Voting has been actively working for a number of years to develop and promote adoption of national data standards for to support inter-operability, transparent reporting, and post-election audits comparing hand-eye manual counts of voter-verified records with electronic tabulation results.  In 2008 and 2009, we submitted formal comments on the draft 2007 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) proposed by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC). While the draft 2007 VVSG “encourages” adoption of a standard data exchange format to facilitate interoperability between different hardware components, Verified Voting and other groups and experts urged that voting systems be required to input and output data using a common standard format for election data import, export and exchange. As we pointed out, requiring standard data exchange formats can also help facilitate another important VVSG goal — interoperability of election hardware and software components from different vendors. 

National: Fighting red maps in purple states | Politico

Based on the big elections in Virginia in recent years, the Old Dominion is turning reliably blue: victories by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, two Senate wins by Democrats in two years, and Terry McAuliffe’s triumph in between. So how is it that Republicans have a stranglehold on the state’s congressional delegation, holding eight seats to Democrats’ three? That question is at the heart of a legal battle over whether Republicans have improperly leveraged their power over the redistricting process. The outcome could have far-reaching implications because the contours of congressional districts drawn by Republican-controlled legislatures are seen as a driving reason why Democrats may be locked in the House minority until at least after the next census in 2020. In Virginia, Democrats are hoping to redraw the lines to make some GOP districts more competitive after a panel of federal judges ruled recently that the Republican-led Legislature’s decision to pack African-American voters into the 3rd Congressional District, which is represented by Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, was motivated purely by race — a violation of the 14th Amendment. Other battleground states such as North Carolina and Florida also have redistricting battles pending.

Kansas: Dumping judges at the polls emerges as a high-stakes political drama | The Kansas City Star

Kansas voters this year came close to doing something they never have before: booting a state Supreme Court justice off the bench. Justices Eric Rosen and Lee Johnson ultimately kept their jobs in an unusually high-profile retention election, the kind that ordinarily tends to draw scant attention at the bottom of the ballot. Yet judges usually win elections deciding whether they should remain on the bench — and by margins often ranging upward of 70 percent. This year, Rosen and Johnson only received 53 percent of the vote, the least support for a Kansas Supreme Court justice in a retention election. The election marked a new era in Kansas where judicial retention elections could become high-stakes political battles, similar to what’s already happening across the country — and where millions are poured into judicial races.

Missouri: Race and Voting Rights in Ferguson | New York Times

For most people, Ferguson, Mo., will be remembered for one awful August afternoon, when a white police officer there shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown. But that incident was only a snapshot in the town’s long and complicated racial history — a history characterized by entrenched segregation and economic inequality, as well as by familiar and systemic obstacles that have kept black residents from holding positions of political power. Ferguson’s population is two-thirds African-American, and yet its mayor, city manager and five of its six City Council members are white. So are its police chief and all but three officers on its 53-member police force. The school board for the Ferguson-Florissant School District is much the same: More than three-quarters of the district’s 12,000 students are black, but the seven-member board includes only one African-American.

North Dakota: GOP rep’s bill would prevent governor from filling congressional seats | The Dickinson Press

A Republican state lawmaker says a rumored possible run for governor by U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in 2016 “was on my mind” when he drafted a bill that would require a special election to fill a vacant congressional seat instead of allowing the governor to appoint a replacement. State Rep. Roscoe Streyle of Minot said he plans to introduce a bill when the Legislature reconvenes next week that would require the governor to call a special election within 60 days to fill a sudden opening in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. “The people should decide who their representative is, not the governor,” he said. Streyle said he has “absolutely no idea” if Heitkamp is mulling a run for governor, but added that “everybody’s talking about it” because nobody knows if Gov. Jack Dalrymple will seek a second term in office. “It was on my mind when I put it together just because it’s a possibility, but I think it’s more of a total holistic policy as opposed to a single piece of legislation against her,” he said.

South Dakota: DOJ asks judge to not dismiss voting rights suit | Associated Press

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge in South Dakota to not dismiss a lawsuit that tribal members filed against Jackson County in which they claim the county doesn’t give equal voting access to Native American voters. After the November election, the county’s attorneys filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier in Sioux Falls to toss the case arguing that the lawsuit does not contain proof that the county disenfranchised Native Americans — a protected class under the Voting Rights Act. But the federal agency believes the complaint shows otherwise.

Wisconsin: Republicans eye rewrite of campaign finance laws, other election changes | Wisconsin State Journal

Republicans, in firm control of state government when they take office Monday, are poised to make the most sweeping revisions to state campaign finance law in decades. Many of those changes are already in effect after a series of federal court decisions made many current laws unenforceable. But a more comprehensive rewrite is in the works, and the overhaul is getting a thumbs up from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board — a frequent target of GOP ire that is itself in line for a possible makeover. Among other things, lawmakers are considering increasing campaign contribution limits and clarifying the coordination restrictions at the heart of a recent John Doe investigation into Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign. Also on tap: changes to election procedures, including banning all cameras from polling places and testing poll workers on their knowledge of election law. Those changes would come on the heels of a slew of changes adopted last session, including a controversial voter ID law that the U.S. Supreme Court could take up this year.

Greece: Samaras Warns of Euro Exit Risk as Greek Campaign Starts | Bloomberg

Greece’s political parties embarked on a flash campaign for elections in less than three weeks that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said will determine the fate of the country’s membership in the euro currency area. Samaras used a Jan. 2 speech to warn that victory for the main opposition Syriza party would cause default and Greece’s exit from the 19-member euro region, while Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said his party would end German-led austerity. Der Spiegel magazine reported Chancellor Angela Merkel is ready to accept a Greek exit, a development Berlin sees as inevitable and manageable if Syriza wins, as polls suggest. The high-stakes run-up to the Jan. 25 vote returns Greece to the center of European policy makers’ attention as they strive to fend off a return of the debt crisis that wracked the region from late 2009, forcing international financial support for five EU countries.

Israel: Allegations of errors in results of Likud primaries | i24news

Prominent Likud lawmaker launches appeal even as Netanyahu is due to present his list of Knesset contenders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to present his Likud party’s list of contenders for the March elections on Monday, amid allegations that the final tallies of last week’s party primaries were erroneous. A recount of the votes from 15 polling stations, the results of which were published Sunday, did, indeed, find mistakes, but party officials said they were marginal and did not affect the overall outcome. However, Knesset Member Tzipi Hotovely, one of only three women contending for Likud seats in the next Knesset, discounted the recount results and warned that she may go to court to demand a wider recount.

Philippines: Smartmatic bags P1.2-B contract with Comelec | ABS-CBN News

Voting 5-2, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has decided to tap Smartmatic Total Information Management Corp. to refurbish the 80,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in the May 2016 presidential polls. With this development, the poll body will no longer bid out a contract for the repair of the voting machines. “The Comelec en banc has opted to give the project to Smartmatic, with 5-2 votes before the Christmas break. So there will no longer be a public bidding on this,” a Comelec source said over the weekend. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes along with Commissioners Lucenito Tagle, Elias Yusoph, Christian Robert Lim and Al Parreño voted to extend the warranty of the PCOS machines with Smartmatic. Those who opposed the proposal were Commissioners Luie Guia and Arthur Lim.

Sri Lanka: International observers fear voter intimidation before election | Daily Mail

International observers said Sunday they had received complaints of voter intimidation before this week’s Sri Lankan presidential election, in which the incumbent faces a tough battle to win an unprecedented third term. The 55-member panel of monitors told reporters they had already received complaints that the military had set up 400 roadblocks to discourage minority Tamils from voting freely in former war zones. “According to the opposition these roadblocks are to keep away the voters… (but) we are told (by the authorities) that the military has no role to play in these election,” said the monitoring team leader S. Y. Quraishi. “We are yet to see that.” He said international observers would Monday begin fanning out to the 22 electoral districts across the island to check out the final rallies.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 29 2014 – January 4 2015

sri_lanka_260A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision allowing residents of Kansas and Arizona to register to vote using a federal form without providing proof of their U.S. citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide who has the authority to divide Arizona into its nine congressional districts. After more than a century in California’s political spotlight, the state’s initiative process will be getting a major bipartisan revision in 2015. In a case entering its fourth year, former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White remains a convicted felon, despite the Indiana Court of Appeals Monday vacating three of the six guilty verdicts against him. A case involving the city council of the small town of Pasadena Texas could become a test of the Supreme Court ruling last year that struck down most of the federal Voting Rights Act, giving cities in many Southern states new latitude to change election laws affecting minorities without first getting federal approval. Voters in a dozen Virginia House of Delegates districts have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a legislative map that they say illegally concentrates African Americans voters and therefore dilutes their influence. Governments and investors across Europe braced for renewed economic upheaval on Monday after the Parliament in Greece failed to avert an early general election and an election watchdog organization in Sri Lanka has charged that the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is using violence to deter opposition political activities.

National: Court won’t reconsider Arizona, Kansas citizenship lawsuit | Associated Press

A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision allowing residents of Kansas and Arizona to register to vote using a federal form without providing proof of their U.S. citizenship. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver issued a one-sentence ruling denying a request from the two states. The appeals court ruled in November that Kansas and Arizona cannot demand help from federal officials in enforcing state laws requiring new voters to submit a birth certificate or other papers documenting U.S. citizenship.

Editorials: ‘Selma’ and Real-World Voter Intimidation | Brent Staples/New York Times

Northerners who went south at the start of the civil rights movement were stunned to find localities where African-Americans represented an overwhelming majority of the population – but not a single black person could be found on the county voting rolls or in the jury pool. The new movie “Selma,” which focuses on the civil rights campaign in Selma, Alabama that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, vividly illustrates the system of intimidation and misdirection that made this possible.

California: Padilla has long to-do list as California’s election boss | The Sacramento Bee

When he is sworn in Monday as California secretary of state, Alex Padilla, a former two-term state senator and possible candidate for higher office, will assume one of the most-maligned posts in state government. The secretary of state’s campaign-finance disclosure system is old and confusing, businesses complain about filing delays and a federally required computerized voter registration list is years behind schedule, contributing to a national survey recently ranking California second-to-last in election administration. Padilla, a Democrat from Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, said fixing all three will be early priorities after he takes office. “Coming in, I know there’s a lot that I want to help get accomplished and pushed forward. That’s the approach, the urgency I will bring,” said Padilla, who recently completed two terms in the state Senate and is regularly mentioned as a possible future contender for governor or U.S. Senate.