Yearly Archives: 2015

Gov. Terry McAuliffe says his administration has restored the voting and civil rights of more than 10,000 Virginians with criminal records. The Democratic governor said Monday that more Virginians have had their rights restored under his watch than under any other governor in a four-year term. That process allows an ex-offender to vote, run for public office and serve on juries. McAuliffe has made several changes to the process, including allowing residents to submit their application before they’ve paid their court fees.

West Virginia: Changes to come during the 2016 election process | WV Metro News

here will be several changes during the 2016 election process in West Virginia. For the first time, West Virginia voters will choose their judges during next May’s primary election without any indications of political party affiliations on the ballots. The state law allowing for nonpartisan judicial elections officially took effect in June. The change will apply to elections, by division, for the state Supreme Court along with circuit court, family court and magistrate court. “That’ll be a big change for the voters. Now they’re not in the bulk of the ballot on the front where it’s partisan races. They actually shift to the back as non-partisan races, such as school board and different items like that,” said Putnam County Clerk Brian Ward, who spoke to MetroNews during a statewide election planning conference Monday in Charleston.

Wisconsin: Elections head: Staff has opinions but don’t make decisions | Associated Press

The state elections board’s employees have personal political views but they don’t make any decisions, the board’s director said Tuesday as he tries to stave off Republican lawmakers’ plans to restructure the agency. Conservatives’ calls to overhaul the Government Accountability Board have grown louder following a newspaper story Thursday detailing a former staff attorney’s emails. The messages offered encouragement to an investigator looking into whether Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign illegally coordinated with outside conservative groups. The GAB consists of six retired judges appointed by the governor and their employees.

Argentina: Opposition Candidates Unite in Call for Electronic Voting | PanAm Post

In response to allegations of electoral fraud in the northwestern province of Tucumán on Sunday, August 24, the presidential candidates representing Argentina’s opposition have proposed the country resume using electronic ballots in future elections. Argentineans have successfully used electronic ballots twice this year during the mayoral election in Buenos Aires in July. Opposition leaders made the call for changes in the voting system on Thursday, August 27, following accusations of fraud in the election for governor in Tucumán, which was marred by violent clashes between protesters and police and the burning of ballot boxes. “In light of the recent irregularities registered in local and national elections, this change is urgent, and aims to provide real transparency and efficiency to the most important act of all modern democracies: the elections,” said the Radical Civic Union (UCR) in a press release.

Greece: Supreme Court head appointed caretaker PM up to polls | Ledger Gazette

Vassiliki Thanou, Greece’s top supreme court judge, was sworn in Thursday as a caretaker head of the government, becoming the country’s first female prime minister. Yesterday, the country’s far-left leader also formally gave up a bid to form a coalition government, thereby allowing the President to finally set a date for early elections, after a week of political wrangling. Greece’s prime minister on Wednesday raised the political stakes forward of subsequent month’s early nationwide election, saying he won’t enter a coalition with the primary center-right and centrist opposition events even when he wants their backing to control. She will hold the position until a new government emerges from the vote expected on September 20.

Myanmar: Election Body Rejects Muslim Parliamentary Candidates | Radio Free Asia

Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) on Tuesday rejected all but one candidate from an Islamic party based on citizenship requirements before general elections in November in a move that could lead to the party’s disbandment, the organization’s political leader said. The commission rejected the applications of 17 of 18 candidates who had filed to run for parliamentary seats as members of the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP), Kyaw Min (a) Mahmood Shomshul Anwarul Haque, the party’s chairman, told RFA’s Myanmar Service. Eleven of the rejected candidates are from Rakhine state, and the six others are from the Yangon division, he said, leaving only one party candidate to stand in the elections. “The rejection notice did not mention detailed reasons behind the decision, but just said the candidates were rejected for violations based on laws and regulations,” he said.

Singapore: Elections Department to conduct sample counts on Polling Day | Channel News Asia

To prevent speculation and misinformation before election results are announced on Sep 11, the Elections Department (ELD) said it will be conducting sample counts after voting ends and releasing the results to the public. This will be done at the start of the counting process at each of the 163 counting centres islandwide, once voting ends at 8pm. A total of 100 ballot papers from each polling station will be randomly picked by a counting assistant in the presence of candidates and their counting agents. The votes will be added up, and weightage given, to account for the difference in the number of votes cast at each polling station. The Assistant Returning Officer will then record the votes. The sample count for each constituency will be broadcast and published on the ELD website, while counting continues.

United Kingdom: EU referendum: Cameron accepts advice to change wording of question | The Guardian

David Cameron has accepted a recommendation by the Electoral Commission to change the wording of the EU referendum question to avoid favouring the pro-EU side. Downing Street has announced that the government will table an amendment to the EU referendum bill to reflect the new wording. The move by No 10 means that voters will be asked whether Britain should remain a member of the EU or whether the UK should leave the EU. The government had intended to ask voters simply whether the UK should remain a member of the EU, prompting the Electoral Commission to warn that this could favour the status quo in the referendum. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said: “We will follow the recommendation of the Electoral Commission by tabling an amendment to the bill. The government’s approach has been to follow the Electoral Commission’s advice.” The move means that, unlike the Scottish referendum, there will not be a yes and a no campaign. Instead, there will be a campaign to remain in the EU and a campaign to leave.

Editorials: Foreigners Could Hack US Elections, Experts Say | Jimmy Chin/WhoWhatWhy

What if a foreign head of state had the power to handpick our next President? It sounds like the plot of a movie, but it actually might be in the realm of possibility.Most people take our elections for granted. The few who don’t often suspect that one party might be trying to steal votes from the other. But they don’t envision that the theft could be coming from outside US borders.What experts are telling us, though, is that our voting machines are so insecure that all elections, whether at the national, state, or local level, are vulnerable to being attacked by hackers in other countries. … Given that the security at some of our most protected institutions can be breached, and given that US elections pose an enticing target for our adversaries, what would prevent a foreign agent from hacking our ballot boxes? The answer: Not much. Experts indicate that the election systems in place today do not provide the adequate protection that would be able to stop a foreign hacker — a hacker anywhere, in fact — from rigging our races. Even worse, these attacks could go undetected.

Alaska: PFD voter registration initiative signature gathering approved | Alaska Dispatch News

The state’s Elections Division has issued petition booklets for an initiative that aims to make applications for Permanent Fund dividends double as voter registration forms, clearing the way for signature gathering to begin. It has set an Aug. 22 deadline for the petition booklets to be submitted. The petition sponsors have received training from state elections officials on how to comply with state signature gathering rules since the July certification of the measure by Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. The initiative sponsors will now have about a year to collect 28,545 valid signatures, according to elections officials, a task made more complicated by a requirement that minimum numbers of signatures must come from 30 of the state’s 40 House of Representatives districts.

Verified Voting Blog: Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams obscured key facts in online-voting commentary

Last week’s guest commentary by Secretary of State Wayne Williams in The Colorado Statesman obscured some important facts. He was responding to criticism of his new rule establishing criteria for the casting of election ballots by email.

In it, Secretary Williams implies that the federal government expanded voting by email. He writes, “The federal government, along with the Colorado General Assembly, expanded the electronic ballot transmission for military and overseas voters.” In fact the federal government has neither endorsed nor expanded the return of marked ballots over email. The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment, or MOVE Act of 2009 (a bill we proudly supported) only directs states to send blank ballots to military and overseas voters electronically, not return of voted ballots That’s because voted ballots could be manipulated or deleted in transit — undetectably. Due to such unsolved security issues, last year Congress eliminated a Defense Department online voting project. The federal agency tasked with helping enfranchise military voters has stated that ballot return by postal mail is the “most responsible” method. In no instance does the federal government encourage states to offer electronic ballot return for military and overseas voters.

In 2006 the Colorado General Assembly passed legislation to permit online ballot return for military voters, but only under the most restricted circumstances. And it did so before most of the public was aware of today’s cybersecurity risks and of attacks in which data and sensitive information of millions of Americans had been compromised.

Florida: Redistricting war expands in federal courts | Orlando Sentinel

The legal arguments about Florida’s political maps continue to mushroom. While the Florida Supreme Court and the Legislature grapple with how congressional districts will be drawn, more legal fights are building in federal courts. Voting-rights groups Friday formally sought to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed this month by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, who is among the most-outspoken opponents of a redistricting process spurred by the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts requirements. The groups, which helped spearhead voter approval of the requirements in 2010, argued in a court document that Brown’s position in the case would “eviscerate the Fair Districts amendments.” Also late last week, a coalition that includes state Rep. Mike Hill, R-Pensacola Beach, filed a separate lawsuit in federal court alleging that the Fair Districts amendments — and the way they have been carried out — violate constitutional free-speech and due-process rights.

Hawaii: Preliminary Injunction Filed to Halt Biased Hawai‘i Election | Maui Now

The plaintiffs in the suit against the State of Hawai‘i and its agencies to stop the racially exclusive election and constitutional convention to establish a Native Hawaiians-only nation have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, according to a press release from the Grassroot Institute of Hawai‘i. The motion asks the court to put the election on hold until after a decision is reached in Keli‘i Akina, et al vs. The State of Hawai‘i, et al. The group of four Native Hawaiians and two non-Native Hawaiians who filed the suit against the election are asking that all the groups involved—Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Na‘i Aupuni and the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission—be prevented from engaging in voter registration or calling and holding elections while the case is ongoing.

Montana: Deputy attorney general withdraws from closed primary case | The Missoulian

A deputy attorney general will no longer be defending the state in a Republican challenge to the state’s open primary elections after the party accused him of misconduct. Deputy Attorney General Jon Bennion, a Republican, filed a motion Friday to withdraw as counsel from the case. “I submit this notice of withdrawal in order to prevent future misunderstandings with the Montana Republican Party and to facilitate future communications,” Bennion said in court documents. Two other attorneys from Attorney General Tim Fox’s office will continue to defend the state in the case calling for primaries in which voters can only cast ballots for candidates in their own party.

New Mexico: Charges against Duran followed by shock, caution, quiet | NMPolitics

Democrats and Republicans locked in highly charged battles over problems at the Albuquerque Public Schools and the work of the state auditor, among other issues, put their guns down over the weekend, at least temporarily, after Secretary of State Dianna Duran was charged with abusing the New Mexico’s campaign finance system. The allegations come from the office of Attorney General Hector Balderas, a Democrat who accuses Duran, a Republican, of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering and other charges. Duran allegedly used funds intended for her campaign instead for personal use — apparently including gambling. Instead of responding to the charges by accusing Balderas of partisan motives, the state’s top Republicans issued statements that some interpreted as placing distance between themselves and Duran — or at least not wanting to be viewed as defending her.

Ohio: Electronic poll books will be at voting locations across the state by November 2016 | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Electronic poll books will soon replace the paper books precinct workers use to check in registered voters during elections. Pat McDonald, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said he and other directors are elated to jettison the paper books, which is possible because the state will pay 85 percent of the cost. Elections boards are meeting with vendors and expect to have the technology in place by the presidential election in 2016, officials said. The new state budget included a $12.7 million appropriation for e-books, which will be distributed to the 88 counties based on percentage of registered voters.

Texas: New Law Aims to Reduce “Rolling Voting” | The Texas Tribune

A soon-to-be law takes aim at the practice of “rolling voting,” which critics say can be used to tip the scales in favor of one side in some elections by moving polling places too often. The law’s backers say it adds uniformity and predictability to the process by requiring, among other things, that mobile polling locations be open for two consecutive days, eight hours a day, in some cases. That contrasts with some elections, often those held by school districts, in which officials move around the locations for briefer periods, according to the rolling voting opponents.

Utah: Residents in Utah County vote-by-mail cities won’t need to cast ballots twice | Deseret News

Residents in the five Utah County cities holding vote-by-mail elections this year won’t have to cast two ballots to weigh in on both city and county issues. Elections officials have reached a compromise after five cities — Alpine, Cedar Hills, Lehi, Orem and Vineyard — protested the Utah County clerk’s refusal to allow a proposed sales tax increase to be printed on mail-in ballots. The compromise came in a private meeting Monday afternoon between Utah County Clerk Bryan Thompson and representatives from the five cities and the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

Virginia: Court to move on redistricting as deadline passes | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The day before today’s court-imposed deadline to redraw Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, there were no signs of reconciliation between Democrats and Republicans in the legislature. That will almost certainly put the map in the hands of a federal court. “There haven’t been any conversations, no,” said Matt Moran, spokesman for House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, on Monday afternoon — two weeks after the state Senate adjourned a special legislative session hours after it began. “The House of Delegates acted in good faith to begin the redistricting process. Senate Democrats unilaterally ended that process in the middle of a public hearing, defying a federal court ruling and unilaterally shutting down the possibility of a legislative remedy. The ball is squarely in their court,” Moran said.

Greece: Greeks fight ballot box fatigue with Internet jokes | AFP

Called to the ballot box for the third time in eight months, some Greeks are responding to election fatigue with a bailout-sized dose of Internet humour. In one hit post on the news site Protagon, comedienne Lila Stabouloglou suggested “electoral tourism” could prove a handy money-spinner for Greece’s cash-strapped authorities in the run-up to the vote in three weeks’ time. “The Greek Tourism Organisation is enthusiastically preparing to promote the idea of electoral tourism ahead of the vote on September 20,” she wrote in the mock news report. Her post was topped with a fake campaign poster, showing a ballot box floating alongside two boats in beautiful turquoise waters. “Live Your Elections in Greece”, it said — a riff on a well-known old tourism campaign, “Live Your Myth in Greece”.

Ivory Coast: Opposition coalition threatens to obstruct elections | Reuters

A coalition of opposition groups in Ivory Coast threatened on Monday to try to block presidential elections in October unless the government opens talks on issues such as insecurity and the electoral commission. The National Coalition for Change (CNC), formed in May and led by former prime minister Charles Konan Banny, groups 13 political leaders, several of whom have declared themselves candidates in the Oct. 25 election. With the economy booming in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa exporter, President Alassane Ouattara is widely regarded as favourite. If no candidate wins a majority in the vote, a run-off will be held roughly two weeks later.

Myanmar: Parties banned from criticising army in election campaign | South China Morning Post

Myanmar has banned political parties from criticising the army or the military-dominated constitution in state media during campaigning for elections seen as a test of the country’s transition from military rule. The parties standing in the November 8 elections will be allowed to broadcast 15-minute speeches on state television and radio, according to a statement by the Union Election Commission, and publish them in state-owned newspapers. But the addresses will be vetted by the commission and the Ministry of Information and could be rejected if officials find that they violate the rules.

Ukraine: France and Germany Warn Vladimir Putin About Ukraine Separatist Elections | Wall Street Journal

The leaders of France and Germany told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that rebel-run elections conducted in the separatist-controlled regions of Ukraine would endanger the so-called Minsk peace process for the country, a German government spokesman said. Ukraine is obliged to hold local elections by the end of this year in the east under the cease-fire deal agreed between Kiev, Moscow, Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb. 12. The country will hold local elections on Oct. 25 but has said it won’t run elections in rebel-held areas in the east because of continued violence there. The separatists have said they will hold their own ballots in mid October and early November.

Editorials: How Jimmy Carter Pioneered Electoral Reform | Rick Perlstein/Washington Spectator

James Earl Carter is nearing the end. In an extraordinary press conference last week, the 39th president discussed his impending death from metastasizing liver cancer, with a grace, humor, and wisdom the rest of us can only hope to emulate when our own time comes. Soon will come the eulogies: then, the assessments. Forgive me if I jump the gun with a gust of affection. I’ve been grappling with his 1976 candidacy and presidency for most of my workdays for at least a year now for my next book on Ronald Reagan’s rise to the presidency. I want to loose some thoughts while they are fresh in my mind. … President Carter, concerned that America ranked 21st in voter participation among the world’s democracies, transmitted a package of proposed electoral reforms to Congress. He had studied the problem. Now he was ready to administer a solution. Everyone loved to talk about voter apathy, but the real problem, Carter said, was that “millions of Americans are prevented or discouraged from voting in every election by antiquated and overly restricted voter registration laws”—a fact proven, he pointed out, by record rates of participation in 1976 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, where voters were allowed to register on election day. So he proposed that election-day registration be adopted universally, tempering concerns that such measures might increase opportunities for fraud by also proposing five years in prison and a $10,000 fine as penalties for electoral fraud.

National: Deep in minority, Dems look to redistricting for hope | The Hill

Facing long odds at retaking the House, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats are pushing hard for redistricting reform as a potential route back into control of the lower chamber. The legislation is not new –– many Democrats, including Pelosi, have been advocating for independent redistricting panels for at least a decade –– nor is it going anywhere in a Congress led by Republicans who are benefitting handsomely under the current process. But Pelosi’s co-sponsorship of this year’s reform proposal marks a rare move for a party leader who seldom lends an official signature to individual bills. Her formal endorsement is both an escalation of support for non-partisan redistricting and an indication that Democratic leaders want to rein in gerrymandering and lay the groundwork for reform heading into the 2016 elections.

National: Bloated U.S. voter rolls could lead to lawsuits | Washington Times

America’s voter rolls are so bloated that dozens of counties have more people registered than there are adults living there, according to two new studies released Thursday that the authors said could lead to lawsuits forcing states to clean things up. True the Vote, a Texas group that works for clean elections, counted 136 counties with voter registration rates of more than 100 percent of their adult population. Meanwhile the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm based in Alexandria, used a slightly different methodology and counted 141 counties. And an increasing number are mid- and large-sized ones — the kind that should have enough resources to police their voter rolls, but just aren’t getting to it, said Logan Churchwell, research director for True the Vote.

Florida: Coalition files suit to invalidate redistricting law in Florida | Tampa Bay Times

A bipartisan group of voters added to the list of redistricting lawsuits this week, filing a case in federal court challenging the Fair Districts amendments of the Florida Constitution as unconstitutional. The group, which includes some Alachua-based Republicans who call themselves the “Conservative Coalition for Free Speech and Association,” is suing Secretary of State Ken Detzner in an attempt to invalidate the anti-gerrymandering amendments approved by voters in 2010. Several members of the Alachua coalition fought the release of their private emails in pending redistricting lawsuits, claiming it violates their First Amendment rights. The court ordered the release of a limited number of those documents, which showed that many of them were political operatives engaged in what the court called a “shadow redistricting” process that aimed to influence the Legislature’s drawing of its maps in a way that favored Republicans.

Florida: Democrats push independent commission amid redistricting mess | Orlando Sentinel

With the Legislature having trouble redrawing new political districts, the job should be given to an independent commission as other states have done, Democrats argue. But Republicans, in charge of the Legislature and whose redistricting efforts have resulted in a legal quagmire, aren’t ready to give up the job. Although such commissions have been used in other states for years, only within the past two redistricting cycles have states pushed for more independence for them. But impartiality can be hard to achieve. “The catch is how you define independent,” said Tim Storey, state legislative elections expert for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Some of these commissions are just as partisan as the Legislature.”

Kansas: Kris Kobach says voter registrations without ‘proof of citizenship’ need to go | The Kansas City Star

More than 30,000 incomplete voter registrations have piled up in Kansas — most waiting for applicants to submit the now-required “proof of citizenship” documents. Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he knows how to fix the problem. He wants a new rule that allows election officials to toss out uncompleted applications after 90 days. The proposal will be the topic of a hearing this week. Simple housekeeping, he says. The wholesale dumping of potential voters, critics say, and for no good reason. Even Hillary Clinton weighed in last week. A tweet from her presidential campaign account called Kobach’s proposal a “purging” and a “targeted attack on voting rights.” Kansas’ rules on voter ID and proof of citizenship championed by the Republican secretary of state have stirred up controversy nationally and close to home. Voting rights groups say the regulations muck up a system that wasn’t broken and, in the process, reduce voter participation.

New Mexico: Secretary of state accused of fraud, money laundering | Albuquerque Journal