Burundi: Unrest grips Burundi in election run-up | Al Jazeera

At least three protesters have been killed and 45 wounded in Burundi, according to the Red Cross, as demonstrations against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term in office entered a second week. Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, a veteran member of the civil society groups which called for the rallies on Monday, had earlier said two protesters were shot dead in the capital, Bujumbura. The police had no immediate comment but said they would issue a statement later, the Reuters news agency reported. Leading opposition figure, Agathon Rwasa, who threatened to boycott the coming presidential election unless Nkurunziza withdrew his candidacy, condemned the country’s police over the violence. “It’s a shame President Nkurunziza goes on killing innocent and unarmed people…our police are more partisan than professional and discredit our nation,” Rwasa told Al Jazeera.

Guinea: Opposition supporters clash with security forces over election timing | Reuters

Youths, defying a government ban on demonstrations, clashed with security forces in Guinea’s coastal capital Conakry on Monday as opposition leaders called for nationwide protests against the timing of elections. A government statement said 14 people including 12 security officers were wounded. Opposition leader Mouctar Diallo said 30 people were wounded including seven shot, one of whom is in critical condition. Some youths erected barricades of logs and burning tyres, others threw stones and fired catapults at security forces who were trying to clear them out with tear gas.

Italy: Parliament approves electoral reform bill | Xinhua

The Italian Lower House on Monday definitively approved a new electoral law, which was seen as a keystone of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s reform agenda. The new legislation will grant 55 percent of seats in parliament to the winning party in future elections, thus making it easier to produce a stable political majority. “We have kept our commitment, the promise has been fulfilled,” Renzi wrote on his twitter account, soon after the vote. The final approval from the Lower House came through a secret ballot after a daylong tense debate, and the bill was passed with 334 votes in favor, and 61 votes against.

Uganda: Electoral Commission extends voters registration again | New Vision

After the initial extension of the deadline for updating the national voters register, the Electoral Commission (EC) has re-extended the exercise by seven days, ending on May 11. The update process which started on 7th April 2015 up to 30th April was extended to the end of Monday but before the close of business, EC considered re-extending with the aim of generating a fresh voter’s register, ahead of the 2016 polls. EC deputy spokesperson Paul Bukenya while confirming to New Vision said that the move is meant to capture more legible voters to update their details ahead of the elections.

National: How Google Could Give 2016 Hopefuls an Edge | Wall Street Journal

Iowans can expect to see a lot more of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker popping up in their Google browsers, if he decides to run for president later this year. That’s because the Walker team advertised aggressively on the popular search engine during his 2014 re-election and will likely do so again, should he pursue a White House bid. They spent heavily on Google ads to raise money and target voters. The Walker campaign was so aggressive in 2014 that Google highlighted its efforts in a just-released case study about the midterm campaigns. Among the findings: Mr. Walker’s re-election team raised more money from ads pegged to Google searches than it spent to buy space above those search results, an unusually high return-on-investment for political campaigns; his team also worked with the company to reach more than 5 million targeted voters in key ZIP codes through YouTube ads in the weeks leading up to Election Day.

Alabama: Divisive absentee voter legislation set to come before Alabama House | AL.com

The Alabama Secretary of State’s Office is attempting to take its contentious voter ID law – enacted in 2011 – one step further by requiring a photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot. Why? Republicans, by and large, say it’s an extra measure to prevent voter fraud – something that is hard to track and very hard to prove. Democrats, however, aren’t convinced. Rep. Darrio Melton, D-Selma, said continuing to file bills to combat voter fraud is “playing to the politics of fear.” He filed a bill to let any registered voter cast an absentee ballot for any reason.

Arizona: Cochise County plans overhaul for elections system | The Sierra Vista Herald

Recounts, inefficient or outdated voting equipment, and efforts to keep up with the changing times have put Cochise County in the market for all-new electoral infrastructure. Staff from the county’s procurement, geographic information system, elections and special districts, and the county attorney’s office, met with the board of supervisors at a work session on Tuesday. … Elections staff saw a demonstration of Yavapai County’s Unisyn Voting Systems Inc. equipment, an ES&S demo in Graham County, and demonstrations of Pinal County’s central count approach. Unisyn also provided a local demo, as did ES&S. In February, the Arizona Secretary of State conducted a joint training session for county elections and recorder’s office staff.

Arkansas: Secretary of state extends deadline, changes terms on voting machine bid | Arkansas Times

Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office has extended the deadline for companies to submit proposals to sell the state new voting machines and has also changed a part of the specifications. The state Board of Election Commissoners Wednesday approved some voting machines sold by Election Systems and Software and by Unisyn voting Solutions, with a deadline of Monday for other companies hoping to qualify to sell machines for 75 counties. It could be a $30 million deal. Vendors had complained that the specifications favored ES&S, which supplied the machines the state currently uses. This became more of an issue because Doug Matayo, a former Republican legislator who’d been Mark Martin’s chief of staff, runs a consulting firm recently hired by ES and S, though he’s said not to be working on this specific deal.

North Carolina: Proposed voter ID rules released | Associated Press

The public can now comment on proposed rules governing how precinct officials will determine if someone has the required photo identification to vote in person starting in 2016. Draft regulations from the State Board of Elections were released Friday. There will be nine public comment hearings across the state, the first on June 3 in Raleigh. Written comments are due by June 30.

Editorials: Photo ID is unnecessary | The Columbus Dispatch

Apparently it was too much to hope that Ohio House Republicans would stop grandstanding on “ voter fraud” long enough to allow Ohioans to enjoy at least one election without needless noise from the Statehouse and partisan interest groups. Less than a week after a settlement between Secretary of State Jon Husted and groups that sued over the state’s early-voting schedule, state Rep. Andrew Brenner, R-Powell, promises yet another bill to require anyone who wants to vote in Ohio to produce an identification card with a photo. Such measures in the past would have limited the acceptable ID types to state ID cards, driver’s licenses, U.S. military cards and U.S. passports. They have failed, for good reason: They aren’t necessary, and likely would do more harm than good.

Burundi: Protests against president’s election plan paused | Reuters

Burundi protest organizers on Saturday called a two-day pause in demonstrations against the president’s move to seek a third term, which they says violates the constitution and endangers the peace deal that ended civil war in 2005. After six straight days of protests in the capital Bujumbura, which the President Pierre Nkurunziza’s office called “insurrection”, the rallies have lost some momentum, with fewer people taking to the streets and clashes with police easing. The United Nations has voiced concerns that live rounds were fired against protesters. Civil rights groups say at least six people have been killed and dozens injured.

Togo: Court declares president re-elected from final results | Associated Press

Togo’s constitutional court declared Faure Gnassingbe president for a third five-year term after tallying final votes on Sunday. Aboudou Assouma, head of the Constitutional Court, said on state television that the final results show that Gnassingbe received a majority of the votes with about 59 percent. His main opposition challenger Jean-Pierre Fabre received about 35 percent of the votes.

Uganda: Opposition Groups Demand Electoral Reforms | VoA News

Opposition and civil society groups in Uganda have launched a “citizens for reforms now” campaign to pressure parliament to institute electoral reforms ahead of next year’s general election. Parliamentarian Mathias Mpuga, a leading opposition member, says opponents of President Yoweri Museveni have dismissed electoral reform proposals presented to parliament by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM). Among the proposals is a call to change the name of the electoral commission.

United Kingdom: With campaign spending limited, UK politicians vie to be ‘liked’ and ‘retweeted’ | New York Times

There is no political advertising on television or radio in Britain. Fund-raising and spending are strictly limited. Tight elections can turn on a relative handful of votes in a small number of competitive parliamentary constituencies. So as Britain’s political parties head into a tight, unpredictable election on Thursday, they are even more reliant than their American counterparts on social media as a way to mobilize supporters for a last push and disseminate their messages directly to voters. Social media makes up for “that small difference of being that tiny bit marginally better than the other party,” said Anthony Wells, director of political and social opinion polling at YouGov, a prominent polling company here. Digital technology also helps parties winnow undecided voters from the rest of the electorate, he said.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 27 – May 3 2015

texas_id_260A divided Supreme Court ruled that states can prohibit judicial candidates from soliciting campaign donations, rejecting arguments such bans violate the free-speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. Strategists for the campaign of Jeb Bush are reportedly considering turning over some of the campaign’s central functions to their “independent” Right to Rise super PAC, to take advantage of its unlimited fund-raising ability. Legislators approved a proposal to automatically register Californians to vote when they get a driver’s license. After adding a provision for a “comprehensive risk assessment” every two years, the Florida House overwhelmingly passed legislation that would establish online voter registration in the state. The Minneapolis Post reviewed the unexpected demise of a bill to restore voting rights to ex-felons on probation. Republican lawmakers in Ohio have re-introduced legislation to require photo identification for voting as a similar law in Texas headed back to court. Togo’s opposition party has challenged the re-election of incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe and, as the United Kingdom prepared for a general election next week,  the Daily Mail considered the security challenges of internet voting.

National: Supreme Court upholds ban on judicial candidates soliciting campaign contributions — even via mass mailings – The Washington Post

In 39 states, judges are popularly elected (or at least voters must decide whether to retain them). This means that judicial candidates — especially ones who aren’t incumbents — have to campaign for office, and those campaigns cost money. Campaigns thus have to raise that money, in contributions from the public. This raises an obvious danger: Judges may well be influenced to rule in favor of those lawyers or litigants who contributed to their campaigns. Even if the judges are trying hard to be honest, and to ignore who helped them and who didn’t, thinking better of your political friends is human nature, and hard to avoid. Such favoritism is even more harmful for judges, who are supposed to be impartial, than for elected officials. And the possibility of such favoritism undermines “public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the nation’s elected judges” (to quote today’s Court decision). Nor does capping the size of contributions (as states may do for all candidates, legislative, executive, or judicial) solve the problem.

Editorials: How Super PACs Can Run Campaigns | New York Times

The 2016 presidential campaign has barely begun, but it is already clear this will be the super contest of the “super PACs” — the fast evolving political money machines that are irresistible to candidates because they can legally raise unlimited money from donors seeking favor and influence. The idea of a super PAC created to support an individual candidate was little more than an experiment four years ago when strategists for Mitt Romney tested its potential after misguided court decisions shattered federal limits on spending on elections. President Obama, after initially denouncing unlimited contributions, used a super PAC in his re-election.

California: Automatic voter registration bill advances | Los Angeles Times

A proposal to automatically register Californians to vote when they get a driver’s license was approved Monday by a state Assembly panel after Secretary of State Alex Padilla noted there are about 6.7 million state residents who are eligible but not registered. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) modeled her bill on a new law in Oregon and said it is needed after the 42% record-low turnout in the November statewide election.

Florida: House approves online voter registration — with a twist | Tampa Bay Times

The Florida House on Tuesday overwhelmingly endorsed a new system of online voter registration, but added a new wrinkle. Over the opposition of county election supervisors, Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa, added a provision that bounced the bill back to the Senate for another floor vote. Although the House abruptly ended its regular session Tuesday, the Senate will still be considering measures Wednesday. The House vote of 109-9 came a day after the Senate had passed the bill on a 34-3 vote. Grant’s amendment seeks to ensure “data integrity” and requires the state to make a “comprehensive risk assessment” of the online registration system every two years.

National: Democrats introduce bill to end gerrymandering | USAToday

A group of Democrats introduced legislation Thursday to overhaul and streamline the way the nation’s 435 U.S. House districts are redrawn every decade to reflect population shifts determined by the U.S. Census. “What we see now is too often a troubling reality in which politicians choose their voters instead of voters picking their elected officials,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a lead sponsor of legislation she says would create “a more transparent electoral process.”

Editorials: Big Dangers for the Next Election | Elizabeth Drew/The New York Review of Books

While people are wasting their time speculating about who will win the presidency more than a year from now—Can Hillary beat Jeb? Can anybody beat Hillary? Is the GOP nominee going to be Jeb or Walker?—growing dangers to a democratic election, ones that could decide the outcome, are being essentially overlooked. The three dangers are voting restrictions, redistricting, and loose rules on large amounts of money being spent to influence voters. In recent years, we’ve been moving further and further away from a truly democratic election system. The considerable outrage in 2012 over the systematic effort in Republican-dominated states to prevent blacks, Hispanics, students, and the elderly from being able to vote—mainly aimed at limiting the votes of blacks and Hispanics—might have been expected to lead to a serious effort to fix the voting system. But quite the reverse occurred. In fact, in some of the major races in 2014, according to the highly respected Brennan Center for Justice, the difference in the number of votes between the victor and the loser closely mirrored the estimated number of people who had been deprived of the right to vote. And in the North Carolina Senate race, the number of people prevented from voting exceeded the margin between the loser and the winner.

Editorials: From Supreme Court, a mixed blessing on campaign finance limits | Richard Hasen/Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court offered a pleasant surprise this week to those of us worried about the role of money in elections. In a 5-4 opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court on Wednesday upheld a rule limiting certain fundraising activities for judicial candidates. But don’t expect Williams-Yulee vs. State Bar to lead to a more widespread return to campaign-finance sanity; the ruling applies only to judicial elections and Roberts isn’t about to concede that free-flowing donations are tainting the political system. First, the good news: Roberts finally found a campaign finance limitation, aside from disclosure, that he was willing to uphold — a true rarity. At issue was a Florida State Bar rule that prevents judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions. Lanell Williams-Yulee, who broke the rule by sending out a mailing asking for money, argued that it violated her 1st Amendment right to speak.

Arkansas: Voting equipment OK’d for state bid | Arkansas Online

The state Board of Election Commissioners on Wednesday approved three pieces of voting equipment apiece for Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software and California-based Unisyn Voting Solutions to make them eligible to be purchased by Secretary of State Mark Martin for the state’s 75 counties. With Board Chairman A.J. Kelly abstaining, the seven-member board decided that the voting equipment meets the requirements of state law. The equipment consists of two ballot scanners and an electronic marking device used in combination with the scanners “as a combo voting machine,” for each company, according to board records. These pieces of equipment would allow voters to cast paper ballots or mark their votes on electronic screens.

California: State’s independent redistricting panel is at risk | The Orange County Register

Last November, California elected many new legislators due in large part to California’s independent redistricting commission and its creation of competitive districts, resulting in legislators who will be more accountable to their constituents. As a result of Proposition 11 in 2008 and Prop. 20 in 2010, California politicians can no longer draw their own legislative or congressional districts, which in the past has virtually guaranteed re-election. This new accountability has created a powerful incentive for legislators to work together to deliver for their district and not just for themselves. But the tremendous success of California’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission is under threat. Like California, Arizona voters used their initiative process to authorize state and congressional redistricting by an independent commission. And now, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission awaits a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on a lawsuit that contends the Constitution permits only legislative bodies, not independent commissions, to draw congressional districts.

Colorado: To Primary or to Caucus? | Pacific Standard

Colorado legislators are considering holding a presidential primary in 2016, even though the state has been holding caucuses for the past few presidential cycles. This is actually a pretty big deal—very different people show up for these different events, and very different candidates tend to win them. Primaries are how most state parties seek to nominate presidents, and indeed it’s how party nominations for most offices are made in this country. That’s how most Americans think of the presidential party nomination process: The candidates campaign, and party voters all show up on one day to cast a secret ballot, just as they would in a general election.

Editorials: A welcome move toward presidential primaries in Colorado | The Denver Post

As most Colorado voters know, their state has become one of the most highly sought prizes in presidential politics, attracting far more attention (and spending) than its population would seem to warrant. And what was true in the last few election cycles isn’t about to change in 2016. So long as Colorado remains decidedly purple in its outlook, it will stay a key swing state. Unfortunately, the attention occurs only after the parties’ respective candidates are selected. In the run-up to the nominations, Colorado is almost an afterthought both in terms of campaign and national media attention, thanks in large part to this state’s antiquated caucus system.

Minnesota: How a bill does not become law: behind the mysterious death of a bipartisan measure to restore felon voting rights | MinnPost

If political insiders ever want to know why so much of the public cares so little for the machinations of our current system, you could do worse than point to the tortured path of the “restore the vote” bill currently before the Minnesota Legislature. On one side of the issue, you have Rep. Tony Cornish, a lawman and gun rights advocate who represents Vernon Center in the Minnesota House and co-author of the bill, which would restore voting rights to felons who have completed their time behind bars but are still on probationary status. On the other side of the issue? Also Rep. Tony Cornish — the one who’s the chairman of the House Public Safety Committee and who refuses to let his committee hear the bill he helped write. Ah, politics.

New Hampshire: Potential roadblock for Bernie Sanders rises in New Hampshire | CNN

Sen. Bernie Sanders is a political independent, who proudly calls himself a socialist. As he declared his presidential candidacy Thursday, he pledged to run on the Democratic ticket. He could hit an early roadblock in New Hampshire — not with Hillary Clinton, but William Gardner, who has guarded the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary for four decades as Secretary of State. He said he isn’t sure whether Sanders meets the state’s requirement to be on the presidential ballot. “If they’re going to run in the primary, they have to be a registered member of the party,” Gardner told CNN. “Our declaration of candidacy form that they have to fill out says ‘I am a registered member of the party.'”

North Carolina: Lawmakers tell state Supreme Court no need to hurry in redistricting case | NC Policy Watch

In papers filed with the state Supreme Court yesterday, lawmakers told the justices there was no reason to expedite proceedings in the North Carolina redistricting case, Dickson v. Rucho, sent back here last week by the U.S. Supreme Court — at least not within the time frame that challengers to the state’s redistricting plan want. That order by the nation’s highest court came on the heels of its earlier decision in a similar case out of Alabama, in which the justices held that the Voting Rights Act required lawmakers to assess whether minorities had the ability to elect a preferred candidate of choice and to draw voting lines in order to facilitate that goal — not, as Alabama had done, to achieve specific numerical minority percentages. North Carolina lawmakers operated under the same mistaken premise when designing the state’s 2011 plan, according to challengers.