Florida: Elections supervisors to court: Decide Senate redistricting by March 15, please | Florida Politics

Florida’s election supervisors are asking the courts to resolve the state Senate redistricting saga by March 15 to protect the “quality and integrity of the (voting) process.” The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections filed its notice Wednesday with Circuit Judge George Reynolds, who is in the process of deciding how to redraw the state’s 40 senatorial districts. Reynolds, who sits in Tallahassee, held a trial on the matter last week. His recommendation goes to the Florida Supreme Court, which has the final say on a new map. With Florida’s primary election on Aug. 30, the supervisors need lead time “to remap and re-precinct their counties following approval of new Florida Senate districts by this Court.” Absentee ballots must go out 45 days before the primary, and new polling locations will have to determined.

Iowa: Advocates: Iowa’s online voter registration could violate Americans with Disabilities Act | Des Moines Register

Iowa will launch a statewide online voter registration system on Jan. 1, but advocates for the disabled, minorities and others are worried the plans will ignore the civil rights of thousands of Iowans, making it more difficult for them to vote. The America Civil Liberties Union of Iowa says it is commending Secretary of State Paul Pate for modernizing Iowa’s voter registration system. But the organization says administrative rules aimed at implementing the system will exclude 7 percent of Iowans who lack Iowa driver’s licenses or state-issued ID cards. “We believe there is a strong likelihood that the rules as proposed would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act,” which prohibits discrimination against disabled people in governmental activities, said Pete McRoberts, legislative counsel for ACLU-Iowa “To mitigate this danger, we need online voter registration, open to all people, on an ADA-compliant web site.”

Editorials: Michigan should do away with the straight-ticket option | Peter Lucido/Detroit Free Press

Of all the things that make our country great, nothing is more universally cherished than our right to vote. Americans choose their own destiny, and they exercise that choice through the democratic process. We are born and raised into thinking of our system as generally idyllic, or close to it. Considering how far we’ve come, it’s no surprise that many people are resistant to change or hesitant to move in any direction out of fear that we are undermining a fundamental element of our American rights. However, who can vote and how are factors that have undergone both societal and constitutional change over the course of our nation’s history. A brief look at our past will confirm that the willingness to revisit or redefine our voting process is generally for the better, when the goal is a more representative democracy. Michigan is one of only 10 states that still uses straight-ticket voting. Why should we settle for less?

North Carolina: Local agencies say they’re complying with federal law in advocating voter registration | Gaston Gazette

A new lawsuit alleges North Carolina leaders are breaking a federal mandate in failing to get people registered to vote. But local officials who work under the oversight of those state agencies say they aren’t contributing to any problems. The litigation is aimed mainly at the state’s Board of Elections, Division of Motor Vehicles and Department of Health and Human Services. By law, anyone visiting a DMV office or applying for public assistance is supposed to be guided through a specific process for registering to vote, if they wish to. The federal “motor voter” law, enacted in 1993, aims to cast a wider net and keep potential voters from falling through the cracks. Critics say that Medicaid and food stamp applicants are often not even asked if they’re registered to vote, and that there is evidence of similar breaches at DMV offices across the state.

Editorials: Trudeau must turf first-past-the-post system once and for all | Kelly Carmichael/National Observer

In the 2015 election, the Liberal Party committed to a platform they called “Make Every Vote Count.” Now, they are poised to embark on a process that could make Canada fairer and more inclusive for all voters. The stakes couldn’t be higher for democracy. So what’s the problem we’re trying to fix? On October 19, over 9,000,000 voters (51.8 per cent) were unable to make their vote count and elect a representative to bring their voices to Ottawa. The country elected a majority Liberal government, but as usual did so with less than a majority of the vote (39.5 per cent). Most Liberals in Alberta and Saskatchewan, New Democrats and Conservatives in Toronto and Atlantic Canada— and Greens nearly everywhere— elected no representation to Parliament. That’s a big problem. When your vote means nothing, it disempowers citizens and breeds disdain for democracy— and widespread apathy.

Central African Republic: As transitional authority steps aside, Central African Republic goes to the polls | Deutsche Welle

Residents of the Central African Republic (CAR)have witnessed more coups than elections since their country gained independence from France in 1960. Sylvestre, a civil servant from the capital Bangui, hopes that change for the better is just around the corner. “It’s always the same here, the situation in the country has deteriorated badly. Right now we really do need progress, to elect somebody who can do some good for our country,” he said. But with 30 candidates running for the presidency in Sunday’s (27.12.2015) elections, it is difficult to see who that somebody could be. The contents of their manifestoes are virtually unknown and this dearth of information is similar to that which beset the referendum earlier in the month. The electorate had to vote on a new constitution about which they knew very little. They voted for it nonetheless. In spite of all the uncertainty surrounding the identity of the next president, there is one political figure who will not be taking the helm: ex-President Francois Bozize, who was ousted in a coup in 2013. The Constitutional Court has banned him from participating. Bozize, who grabbed power himself in a coup in 2003, believes the ruling was unfair. “It was a shabby thing to do to somebody of my caliber,” Bozize told DW. He was president of the country for ten years. “These days nobody wants to have anything to do with me. I was simply dropped,” he said.

Philippines: Grace Poe may be barred from Philippine presidential race | The Straits Times

Senator Grace Poe has crawled back to the top of the heap in the race to become the Philippines’ next president, but she may not even be on the ballot come election time next May. In a decision that risks creating “electoral mayhem”, the seven- man election commission yesterday ruled that Ms Poe is not qualified to run for president. It affirmed earlier decisions by two of its divisions that Ms Poe, as a foundling, is not a natural-born Filipino. The 47-year-old senator, long rumoured to be an illegitimate child of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has been unsuccessful in trying to locate her biological parents. She was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a church in Iloilo city 620km south of the capital Manila. She was later raised by Philippine movie icons Fernando Poe Jr and Susan Roces.

Taiwan: Chinese Hackers Caught Spying on Taiwan Prior To Upcoming Elections | HackRead

A group of Chinese hackers have targeted a Taiwanese news organizations and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party in order to get the information on upcoming presidential and legislative election like the policies and speeches from the leaders participating in the elections. This report is the second part of the one revealed by FireEye last week which exposed China spying on the Japanese government using Dropbox. China was also blamed for spying on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong with an Android spyware disguised as an ‪‎OccupyCentral‬ app to keep an eye on the protesters. FireEye in August 2015 caught Chinese hackers spying on Tibetan activists and as well as dozens of organizations in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The hackers attacked their targets through phishing emails; one of the emails had this subject line: “DPP’s Contact Information Update,” which indicated this to be a state-sponsored attack from a group known as “APT16” according to the security research team “FireEye”.

National: Legacy voting machines ripe for tampering, breakdowns | GCN

As America preps for the next presidential election, its voting machines are in need of a serious update. Almost every state is using electronic touchscreen and optical-scan voting machines that are at least 10 years old, according a recent Wired article, with Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Texas and Virginia are all using voting machines that are at least 15 years old. When these machines were introduced, dial-up Internet was used by most of the country, and the voting technology was equally primitive. These outdated machines have a litany of problems including degrading touchscreens, worn-out modems and failing memory cards. And this is before one considers the cybersecurity issues.

Voting Blogs: Working Group Offers Meaningful Ways to Make Military Voting Easier | Democracy Fund

One of the many strengths of our military is that our service members come from all across the country, from rural counties to densely packed cities and everything in between. However, the geographic diversity of our military can also present unique challenges to service members’ ability to understand and quickly navigate voting rules. Most people are unaware of the confusing system our service members and overseas voters face when trying to request and cast their absentee ballot. A patchwork of state rules means that there isn’t one standardized process for this group. Yet many of these voters compare voting information with one another, often close to election deadlines when they have very little room for error. Unfortunately, well-meaning fellow voters from different parts of the country might assume requirements are the same for all and pass along bad information.

Colorado: Redistricting reform effort splits Democrats | The Durango Herald

A proposed ballot question that would change congressional redistricting in Colorado is being rewritten to address concerns raised by black and Latino voters. The bipartisan proposal has caused a bit of a rift within the Colorado Democratic Party, with black and Latino Democrats at odds with certain white Democrats over the effort. “There were, I’m sorry, a bunch of white guys sitting around the table deciding our politics on redistricting moving forward,” said state Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver, chairwoman of the Colorado Black Caucus.

New Mexico: State Struggles With Campaign Finance Enforcement | Associated Press

Former New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran was able to funnel thousands of dollars in campaign donations to her private bank accounts during a gambling binge without any regulatory agency noticing that she was breaking the law. Duran’s own agency was in charge of regulating campaign finance, but it was a confidential tip about numerous cash deposits that led to her getting caught. In the wake of the violations by Duran, more lawmakers were accused of sidestepping campaign finance laws by spending political donations on satellite TV service, clothing from outlet stores and other personal expenses.

North Carolina: Elections officials notifying voters who have no valid IDs | Greensboro News & Record

State election leaders sent letters last week to 825 registered voters in North Carolina, warning that they “may not possess an acceptable form of photo ID” for voting next year. State law will require all North Carolina voters to show a picture ID to vote. Ted Fitzgerald, the state’s lead voter outreach specialist, said Monday the letter went to a narrow slice of voters: those who signed a form at the polls this year saying they don’t have the acceptable ID required to vote in 2016. The letter asks people to fill out a form about whether they plan to get an acceptable ID, or if they need help getting one. The ID requirement is part of legislation state Republican legislators passed in 2013. The Voter Information Verification Act also reduced the early voting period from 17 to 10 days, eliminated same-day voter registration and abandoned out-of-precinct provisional voting.

Tennessee: Judge dismisses students’ voting rights case | The Tennessean

A federal judge in Nashville has upheld Tennessee’s voter ID law prohibiting the use of student identification cards at the polls. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger on Monday granted the state’s request to dismiss the case and upheld the law as constitutional. The students who brought the case in March wanted to use their school identification cards to vote and said the state denying them the ability to do that was age discrimination. Her ruling comes after four years of debate over Tennessee’s law but does not necessarily end discussion because the ruling could be appealed.

Central African Republic: Referendum clears way for elections | AFP

Electoral officials said Monday that 93 percent voted in favour of the reforms limiting the president’s tenure to two terms, fighting institutional corruption and reining in armed militias. The referendum was seen as a test run for the much-delayed elections set for Sunday aimed at ending more than two years of sectarian conflict. The new basic law will usher in the sixth republic since independence from France in 1960 and mark the 13th political regime in a country notorious for its chronic instability. The poor former French colony is trying to get back on its feet since being plunged into conflict after a mainly Muslim rebellion overthrew longtime Christian leader Francois Bozize in 2013.

Congo: Presidential election advanced to early 2016 | Reuters

Congo Republic’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso said on Tuesday that he would call an election sometime in the first quarter of next year, several months ahead of schedule. Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled Congo for 31 of the last 36 years, is widely expected to seek a third consecutive mandate in 2016 after winning an October referendum on changes to the constitution that legalise his candidacy. He did not mention his intentions in the Tuesday speech before parliament. “The council of ministers will call on the electoral body earlier than expected so that the presidential election can take place during the first quarter of 2016,” President Sassou Nguesso told lawmakers.

Spain: Socialists Will Block Rajoy’s First Bid for New Term | Bloomberg

Spain’s Socialists said they’ll vote against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy if he seeks parliamentary approval for a second term, signaling drawn out negotiations over the shape of the next government. With anti-austerity party Podemos making clear they’ll vote against Rajoy’s People’s Party in all circumstances, the Socialists’ opposition means it’s almost impossible for the prime minister to renew his mandate at the first attempt. The Socialists’ deputy leader, Cesar Luena, declined to comment on what his party might do in a second round of voting, when an abstention from the group’s 90 lawmakers could be enough for Rajoy to get through. The Socialists and Podemos set out their positions in Madrid Monday after meetings of their respective party leaderships to chart a way forward following an inconclusive election that saw Rajoy’s PP lose its majority. With Sunday’s vote resulting in four main parties in parliament without any clear government constellation, jockeying has begun as the parties seek to adapt to the new political landscape.

Sri Lanka: Government Set To Abolish Executive Presidential System | NDTV

The Sri Lankan Government is set to move a resolution in Parliament next month to convert the House into a Constitutional Assembly which will initiate the process of drafting a new Constitution and abolishing the executive presidential system. The government has noticed the Parliament of the motion to convert the House into a Constitutional Assembly and it has been placed in the parliamentary order book as upcoming business in the New Year, officials said. The officials said that the Parliament will be transformed into the Constitutional Assembly on January 9 when President Maithripala Sirisena is due to address the House to mark the beginning of his second year in office.

National: Voting only by mail can decrease turnout. Or increase it. Wait, what? | Washington Post

Voting by mail — and only by mail — has become an option in the United States. Will it spread? According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all states will mail an absentee ballot to voters who request one. While 20 states require a reason, 27 states permit “no-excuse” absentee voting. And three states now use mail-only voting. Oregon’s Ballot Measure 60 kicked off in 1998, making Oregon the first state to conduct its elections exclusively by mail. In 2011, Washington’s legislature moved the state to an entirely vote-by-mail system. Colorado joined in during the 2014 general election. In 2015, California launched a limited all-mail pilot as a test run. Lawmakers will use that pilot to learn how such an election would work in California. Supporters hope that voting by mail means more citizens will vote. Is it so? Generally, the answer is both “no” and “yes,” but with important qualification

National: Beefed-up DoD voter education campaign to launch soon | Military Times

Service members will get their first reminder about registering to vote on Jan. 15, when a Defense Department message will go out to everyone with a dot.mil email address. The 2016 general election is almost a year away, but the primaries start in February, and the Federal Voting Assistance Program has been gearing up for months to fulfill its mission of helping voters vote. “I want to make it loud and clear: the Defense Department is ready for election season,” said Matt Boehmer, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. “We want to make sure everyone who wants to participate, can.”

Editorials: Supporting Universal Voter Registration Should Be a Bipartisan Effort | Colin Curtis/Huffington Post

Regardless of where on the political spectrum you fall, we, as Americans who love and believe in democracy, can all agree that voting should be as easy as possible to do, right? Obviously I’m being sarcastic here because it doesn’t take more than a moment of searching on the Internet for anyone to find an article about an elected official in a state like Kansas *cough* Kris Kobach *cough* doing everything they possibly can to make it harder for people to take part in the voting process. It also won’t take anyone very long to find a few articles about the idea of automatic universal voter registration. As a native Kansan the idea of just automatically registering people to vote without making them submit a form and then jump through additional burdensome hoops seems as imaginary as a Hippogriff. However, Oregon and California have both done exactly that, and other states such as Maryland are looking to follow suit. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, implementing national automatic universal voter registration would add up to 50 million eligible voters to current voting rolls, save money, increase the accuracy of elections, and curb the potential for fraud and protect the integrity of our elections. While that sentence is likely to make Kris Kobach’s head explode, it provides four good reasons as to why we should have a national universal automatic voter registration system but since Congress is… well, Congress, this is unlikely to ever happen and it provides four good reasons as to why states should do it themselves.

Editorials: How to Block Minority Representation, Yesterday and Today | David A. Graham/The Atlantic

The ongoing battle over voter rights—or, depending on your partisan persuasion, voter fraud—is on one level a struggle over whether it’s more important to ensure that the most people possible can vote, and that voting laws don’t have a disparate racial impact; or whether it’s more important to ensure the sanctity of the ballot box against errors, regardless of how that might inconvenience minorities, young people, or other groups. (One salient point here is that most restrictions—reducing early voting, closing polling locations, requiring specific photo ID—hurt minority turnout, while evidence of fraud is practically nonexistent.) On another level, though, it’s a battle about history: whether the restrictions being enacted in red states are part of a new struggle over civil rights, or whether the struggle for racial equality is completed and these news laws are totally different. Proponents of voter-ID laws understandably wish to distance themselves from their segregation-era predecessors, for both moral and political reasons. Officials in Shelby County v. Holder didn’t argue that racist voter suppression never happened; they argued that strenuous protections were no longer necessary. The Court agreed and struck down a requirement that certain jurisdictions submit any changes in voting laws to the Department of Justice to assess whether they were discriminatory.

Voting Blogs: EAC Wants YOU to Help Develop New Voting System Guidelines! | Matthew Masterson/EAC Blog

Recently, the EAC and NIST rolled out a new approach to developing the next set of Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). Since the creation of the public working groups, EAC and NIST have been working to recruit as many election officials, information technologists, accessibility professionals and virtually anyone else ready, willing and able to help to join the working groups. Earlier this month, we introduced the next phase of the project with a kick-off conference call and the creation of the public working group Twiki site. We were overwhelmed with the response as over two hundred people participated in the call.

Illinois: Proposal to use independent redistricting commission brings cheers, jeers | Rockford Register Star

To proponents taking their third shot in five years at getting a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would change the way Illinois legislative districts are drawn, their proposal can be the fix that makes all the other fixes to state government possible.
An independent commission crafting legislative districts would create more competitive races, making legislators in Springfield truly responsive to voters and more likely to tackle the state’s long-unmet needs, reformers with the Independent Map Amendment coalition argue. Opponents, however, see this attempt as one that would remove accountability from the process, disadvantage minorities and tamper with a system that isn’t necessarily broken. The idea of an independent body redrawing the boundaries of districts isn’t new. But only a few examples across the country show voters what might occur if a constitutional amendment makes it onto the ballot and is passed by Illinois voters.

New Jersey: With Trepidation on All Sides, Redistricting Bill Passes Committee | PolitickerNJ

Over the objections of Republican members and with the reservations of several Senate Democrats, a bill to change New Jersey’s redistricting process passed the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday. The bill would introduce a constitutional amendment to make redistricting occur based on averaged polling data from statewide elections, rather than by population changes recorded during the national census. Though the bill would mandate that 10 of New Jersey’s districts be competitive at all times, critics say it would favor Democrats and permanently tip the scales in their favor. Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean (R-21) reiterated objections first raised by Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi (R-39) during the Assembly’s hearing on the bill last week, saying that the Democratic sponsors had rushed the bill into committee without adequate notice and with a view to force it through with two two-thirds votes rather than one three-fifths vote before the end of lame duck.

North Carolina: Court affirms district lines | Associated Press

North Carolina’s highest court on Friday again upheld maps drawn by Republicans for General Assembly and congressional districts, months after the U.S. Supreme Court told state judges to review boundaries through the lens of its Alabama redistricting decision. A majority on the state Supreme Court reaffirmed its December 2014 decision upholding the boundaries, finding that they still withstood the scrutiny of federal and state constitutional and redistricting guidelines. This latest legal inspection also included the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority opinion in March that Alabama lawmakers had relied too much on “mechanical” numerical percentages while drawing legislative districts in which blacks comprised a majority of the population. The federal justices threw out the first North Carolina Supreme Court ruling and told the state court to try again.

Editorials: Poll workers needed | Cincinnati Enquirer

Hamilton County elections need your help. That’s the obvious takeaway from the county Board of Elections’ recent post-mortem of the snafu-filled Nov. 3 election. The board found that 84 percent of its polling stations had problems on Election Day. Among other issues, many poll workers struggled with the setup for electronic poll site equipment. Some local high school seniors assisting at the polls played hero by adroitly dealing with electronic issues. Clearly, Hamilton County needs more poll workers comfortable with troubleshooting a wi-fi router connection. It takes about 2,600 workers to operate the county’s polls on Election Day, and while the Board of Election has done well making sure polling locations are staffed, it needs workers who are fluent in using technology.

Oregon: State on track to register drivers to vote next year | Associated Press

Oregonians who get their first driver’s license or renew an existing one next year will automatically be registered to vote. Officials from the secretary of state’s office said Monday that they’re ready to begin implementing a law approved by the Legislature earlier this year. Beginning Jan. 1, people who are issued a driver’s license, are U.S. citizens and are old enough to vote will receive a postcard in the mail that lets them choose to join a political party or opt out of registration. If they don’t opt out within three weeks, they’ll automatically join the voter rolls and will receive a ballot in the next election.