The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 7-13 2015
Tech firms are courting campaigns ahead of the 2016 presidential election, with as much as 10 percent of political media budgets going towards digital media — a total of $1 billion. Civil Rights icon John Lewis wrote an oped for the Washington Post on the past and future of the Voting Rights Act. A settlement has been reached between the state and Alaska Native plaintiffs who sued in federal court over the translation of voting materials for voters with limited English proficiency. The California Senate approved a bill that would automatically register to vote any eligible Californian who gets a driver’s license unless they opt out. A Circuit Court Judge gave the Florida House and Senate, and the two groups of redistricting challengers, until the end of the day on Monday to submit their proposals for him to choose from when he recommends Florida’s final congressional districts map. The Kansas ACLU has asked a state court to put an end to the two-tiered voter registration system that Secretary of State Kris Kobach has created, a system that critics call the law’s “unintended consequence” or, less kindly, “collateral damage.” Over 1.1 million voters participated in local and regional elections in Morocco, the first after the constitution was amended in 2011 and the city council in Christchurch New Zealand cancelled plans to participate in an online voting trial following a deputation from a group of IT experts who told them the security risks with online voting were too high and could open the election up to fraud.