United Kingdom: Jeremy Corbyn: Let prisoners have the right to vote | Telegraph

Jeremy Corbyn will consider campaigning to give prisoners the right to vote if he becomes Labour leader. The Labour leadership candidate said he would follow demands by the European Court of Human Rights to allow convicted criminals the right to vote in British elections. The court has ruled four times that Britain should lift its ban on prisoner votes but Parliament has refused to give way over the issue. The 66-year-old left-wing politician supports the principle of overturning the historic ban on jailed convicts voting because he thinks it will help rehabilitate them. MPs voted in 2011 to keep the ban on prisoner voting, despite the tough stance adopted by the European judges since 2005.

Canada: Fair Elections Act will bring big changes on voting day | Toronto Star

The marathon election campaign will be a test of more than voters’ patience and attention span. It will be a test of the Fair Elections Act, the controversial and sweeping legislation that has introduced changes to how Canadians prove they are eligible to vote, the way elections are financed and how voting shenanigans are investigated. It puts more money in the pockets of political parties for a longer campaign, while capping how much third parties can spend on election advertising. To its boosters, the changes are a necessary update, motivated in part by the need to guard against voting fraud. … However, critics of the legislation fear some of the changes will leave people in some particular groups — such as students, the homeless and First Nations — unable to vote. Critics argue that many of the changes were deliberately designed to skew the advantage in favour of the Conservatives on Election Day. “There’s no question it will have an impact in the current election,” said Garry Neil, executive director of the Council of Canadians.

Russia: Can Russia’s only independent election monitor survive Kremlin pressure? | Christian Science Monitor

Golos, Russia’s only grassroots election-monitoring organization, has been fighting an exhausting battle to prove it does not receive foreign funding. Otherwise, it would have to self-describe as a “foreign agent” – a term that connotes “spy” in Russian. But even though the organization has won some significant court victories, including a Constitutional Court order to lift the onerous label they were saddled with, Golos seems no closer to fielding its usual teams of observers when Russia’s next cycle of elections kicks off, with regional polls in October. Now, members of Golos and other nongovernmental organizations in similar conflict with the government are asking: Are there any terms under which the Kremlin will allow such a group to do its appointed job? “The basic problem is that authorities are not happy with what Golos does,” says Andrei Buzin, an analyst with Golos. “It’s this type of activity, making conclusions, publishing results, that they just don’t like.”

National: Mega-donors extend ‘shelf life’ of struggling 2016 hopefuls | AFP

Chris Christie and Rick Perry may have stalled in the US presidential race but they could struggle on to the first primary votes, thanks to the mega-donors keeping their campaigns afloat. But in American politics a few generous donors can keep a sputtering campaign alive, even when the political winds fail to fill a candidate’s sails. “This is the bring-your-own-billionaire election,” Chris Gates, president of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan, pro-transparency group that is tracking 2016 campaign finance, told AFP on Monday. “It does allow them to hang on,” he said of the largesse. “It extends the shelf life of candidates who may not be creating any buzz or fire in the electorate.”

National: ‘Deez Nuts’ puts Federal Election Commission on bozo patrol | Center for Public Integrity

Thanks a lot, “Deez Nuts.” Since a poll propelled the fake U.S. presidential candidate into national headlines Wednesday, 249 copycats, clowns and pranksters have inundated the Federal Election Commission with paperwork launching “official” White House campaigns. Some possess leadership bona fides, if not proper constitutional qualifications: Star Trek Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Queen Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen,” former Cuban President Fidel Castro, Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and Captain Crunch. And imagine a presidential debate that includes Frank Underwood from “House of Cards,” Ronald Reagan’s Ghost, a Bill Clinton imposter and three fraudulent Joe Bidens.

Alabama: Budget Cuts Risk Making It Much Harder To Get Required Voter ID | Huffington Post

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Monday that proposed budget cuts would force it to close all but four driver’s license offices, even though the state requires government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license, to vote in elections. The 45 other locations would be closed in phases, the agency said, if the Republican-controlled state legislature were to pass the kind of “drastic” budget cuts it’s now considering. Lawmakers have proposed $40 million for the agency next year, which would be a $15 million cut from what it received in state funding this year. “We want citizens to know that their state law enforcement services are facing severe cuts which will result in a drastic reduction of public safety in Alabama,” a public information officer for the agency said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post. “We encourage them to contact their state representatives and voice their concerns.”

Arkansas: New gear on hold for all but 4 counties | Arkansas Online

Only four Arkansas counties will have the state’s new voting equipment in time for the primary elections, Rob Hammons, elections division director for the secretary of state’s office, told the Arkansas County Election Commissions Association on Tuesday. Hammons spoke as a part of the association’s meeting at the Holiday Inn in Little Rock near Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field. About 200 election officials from across the state attended. Although the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 151 of 2015, allowing the secretary of state’s office to replace election commission equipment for up to $30 million, no money was set aside to pay for the equipment. “So we had the funding as far as the appropriation, but we never got the check,” Hammons said, adding that unfunded acts are common and occur when lawmakers must prioritize the state budget. “And that’s fine,” he said. “That happens all the time.”

Florida: Legislative friction sends redistricting case back to Supreme Court | Orlando Sentinel

The Florida Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional districts. They didn’t do it. Now, the state’s highest court will decide whether to give them more time or to let the courts draw the districts themselves. With the Republican-led House and Senate at odds over redistricting, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis decided Tuesday to forward the unprecedented disagreement to the Florida Supreme Court. “I’m just going to ask them what they want me to do,” Lewis said. “I just don’t feel that I have any authority to do anything other than to report the situation.” In a two-week special session that ended Friday, the House and Senate couldn’t agree to new congressional districts after the court ruled in July that GOP operatives had stealthily submitted maps through proxies favoring the Republican Party, in violation of a constitutional prohibition against drawing new districts favoring political parties.

Kansas: Lawsuit over voting records could move forward | KSN

“I don’t think we have safety in our elections right now,” says Dr. Beth Clarkson. “As long as we are using these machines that are vulnerable, and have no verification, how can we claim we have secure elections?” Clarkson is suing Secretary of State Kris Kobach. She sued in 2014, but this time, she says it is different. “Last time, I asked for records for my precinct,” says Clarkson. “This time, I’m asking for a completely anonymous sample. Anonymous. I can pull a sample in a way that will preserve anonymity by making sure that we only sample voting stations that have multiple machines.” continues Dr. Clarkson. “Because they don’t track which machine goes where. The machines that we use are considered vulnerable, shall we say, to hacking. There’s nothing done after the election to ensure that the machine results that are reported are accurate.”

Louisiana: In Louisiana parish, a fight for black voting rights | MSNBC

Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish has never elected a black judge, even though one in five parish residents is African-American. In fact, it re-elected a white parish judge who had been suspended for wearing black-face as part of a racist parody Halloween costume. Lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund say the problem is the discriminatory voting system the parish uses, and last year they sued Gov. Bobby Jindal under the Voting Rights Act to force a change. On Friday, they filed papers asking a federal judge for a summary judgment in their favor. The lawsuit demonstrates how the Voting Rights Act, which was badly weakened by the Supreme Court in 2013, remains a key tool for stopping not only high-profile statewide laws like voter ID, but also a range of local election rules that often fly under the radar.

Minnesota: Ballot selfies are debated but still legal | Pioneer Press

It’s a distinctly 21st-century spin on an age-old practice: Excited voters mark up their ballot on Election Day — then pull out a smartphone to take a picture of their exercise in democracy and post it to social media. These so-called “ballot selfies” are also at the nexus of a legal debate as some states try to curtail the practice while a federal judge defends it. “It’s a fascinating debate,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, the state’s election supervisor. “You really better have a good reason before you clamp down on political speech.”

Missouri: College student would be sole voter in Community Improvement District sales tax decision | Columbia Daily Tribune

A mistake by representatives of the Business Loop 70 Community Improvement District means a sales tax increase the district needs to thrive will require approval by a single University of Missouri student. On Feb. 28, Jen Henderson, 23, became the sole registered voter living within the community improvement district, or CID, meaning she is the only person who would vote on a half-cent sales tax increase for the district. The Columbia City Council established the district on a 5-2 vote in April in response to a petition from a group of property owners in the CID boundaries. The “qualified voters” in a CID are capable of levying various taxes or assessments within the boundaries of the district to fund improvement projects. Under state law, decisions to impose sales taxes in a CID are to be made by registered voters living in the district boundaries. If no such registered voters are present, property owners vote. Many homes surrounding the university-owned property where Henderson resides were not included in the district when it was drawn because district organizers wanted a district free of residents.

Pennsylvania: Wolf to announce online voter registration for Pennsylvania | Associated Press

Pennsylvanians will be able to register online to vote. Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration plans to launch the system Thursday, making Pennsylvania the 23rd state to offer Internet-based registration, officials told The Associated Press. The National Conference of State legislatures says five other states have approved online systems but not yet implemented them. Wolf and Secretary of State Pedro Cortes, the state’s top election official, plan to discuss the details at a news conference at the Harrisburg headquarters of the Pennsylvania County Commissioners Association. Doug Hill, the group’s director, said Wednesday that county officials strongly support the new system. nOnline registration was among the voting reforms the Democratic governor promised when he ran for office last year. Supporters say it’s cheaper, more accurate and more convenient than registering on paper.Online registration was among the voting reforms the Democratic governor promised when he ran for office last year. Supporters say it’s cheaper, more accurate and more convenient than registering on paper.

Editorials: Government Accountability Board – Elections, ethics watchdog just trying to do its job | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

As we suspected, a state audit released last week found no major problems with Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board, which handles ethics complaints and supervises state elections. Of course, you wouldn’t know that from the rhetoric coming from Republicans in the Legislature, some of whom want to gut this government watchdog. Citizens of this state need to send them a strong message: No. The Legislative Audit Bureau, also a nonpartisan agency, looked at nearly 1,900 complaints filed with the board from 2010 to 2013. The audit bureau recommended that the GAB consistently resolve such complaints in a timely manner and that staff provide the board with the names of people who can work as special investigators if needed, The Associated Press reported.

Argentina: Riot police suppress protests calling for new elections in Tucumán | El País

Tucumán has become the center of the Argentinean election campaign after thousands of protestors gathered outside government headquarters in the provincial capital of Miguel de Tucumán to call for new elections amid reports of widespread fraud during Sunday’s gubernatorial vote. After several hours, Governor José Alperovich, who has been ruling the region with an iron fist for 12 years, decided to break up the growing crowd in Plaza de la Independencia. People ran, police on foot and on horseback charged against the crowd, tear gas and rubber bullets were fired and several injuries were reported.

Canada: More than 22,000 federal inmates eligible to vote | CBC News

When Canadians vote in the federal election in October, thousands will cast their ballot from behind bars. Inmates in federal prisons and provincial jails are eligible to vote for a candidate in the riding where they lived before they were incarcerated. In the last federal election in 2011, voter turnout was 54 per cent in penitentiaries, not far below the 61 per cent who exercised their democratic right in the general population. “They are part of the polity and they want to be part of the democratic process,” Catherine Latimer, executive director of The John Howard Society of Canada, told CBC News.

Myanmar: Muslim parties fear exclusion from election | Myanmar Times

At least half-a-dozen independent and opposition party candidates have so far been disqualified, mainly after the citizenship of their parents was called into question. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, meanwhile, said as of yesterday evening it had not dropped a single contestant. In the 2010 election, the government was accused by election monitors of skewing the scrutinising process in favour of eliminating opposition candidates in areas anticipated to be hotly contested. Muslim parties in restive Rakhine State are especially worried about this year’s process, after a sitting Muslim MP was cut from the candidate list last week. U Shwe Maung was rejected from the ruling party after serving as a Pyithu Hluttaw representative for Buthidaung for five years.

Nigeria: Voting Right for Nigerians in Diaspora Soon – Osinbajo | allAfrica.com

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says voting right will soon be extended to Nigerians in Diaspora. Osinbajo stated this while declaring open a two-day 2015 Diaspora Day Conference organised by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of Federation yesterday in Abuja. “Our electoral process is evolving and as greater confidence is built in the institutions and processes associated with it, we may then create voting opportunities for our citizens abroad in the not too distant future”, he said.

National: ‘Give Us the Ballot,’ by Ari Berman | The New York Times

Fifty years ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965, he felt, his daughter Luci said, “a great sense of victory on one side and a great sense of fear on the other.” According to Ari Berman, a political correspondent for The Nation, he knew the law would transform American politics and democracy more than any other civil rights bill in the 20th century, but he also feared that it would deliver the South to the Republican Party for years to come. Both predictions proved to be accurate. “The revolution of 1965 spawned an equally committed group of counterrevolutionaries,” Berman writes in “Give Us the Ballot.” “Since the V.R.A.’s passage, they have waged a decades-long campaign to restrict voting rights.” Berman argues that these counterrevolutionaries have “in recent years, controlled a majority on the Supreme Court” and “have set their sights on undoing the accomplishments of the 1960s civil rights movement.”

National: Google influence on 2016 election | Business Insider

Google has an enormous amount of power through its ability to manipulate search rankings. The company can make or break a brand or website by making minor tweaks to its algorithms. There’s an entire science devoted to interpreting every move Google makes because even subtle changes can make a huge difference. Google has always maintained that the goal of its endless tinkering is delivering the best search results possible. That seems to be true and the search giant famously has a “you can make money without doing evil,” policy, but just because it currently has good intentions does not mean it always will. The company’s success and its ability to control where people go on the Internet put it into a place where it could impact the next president of the United States. There’s no reason to believe Google intends to rig the coming election, but it has that power according to a Politico essay written by Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today.

Alabama: Federal court hears arguments on Alabama legislative districts | Associated Press

A panel of skeptical federal judges Tuesday questioned a state lawyer on whether voter race was the predominant consideration when Republican lawmakers drew at least some of Alabama’s new legislative districts. The three-judge panel asked the state to explain why certain districts were drawn the way they were, with at least two judges suggesting that they saw problems with some of the lines. Voter race could be a factor in the decision-making, but couldn’t be the sole concern, judges and lawyers said. “I think there are some districts where you have a problem,” U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor, a former state attorney general, said during questioning. The judges heard oral arguments after the U.S Supreme Court sent the case back for additional review. The Legislative Black Caucus and the Alabama Democratic Conference challenged the districts, saying lawmakers illegal sorted voters by race, packing black voters into designated minority districts and limiting their ability to influence elections elsewhere.

Colorado: Republicans cancel presidential vote at 2016 caucus | The Denver Post

Colorado will not vote for a Republican candidate for president at its 2016 caucus after party leaders approved a little-noticed shift that may diminish the state’s clout in the most open nomination contest in the modern era. The GOP executive committee voted Friday to cancel the traditional presidential preference poll after the national party changed its rules to require a state’s delegates to support the candidate that wins the caucus vote. The move makes Colorado the only state so far to forfeit a role in the early nomination process, according to political experts, but other caucus states are still considering how to adapt to the new rule.

Kansas: State seeks to block release of voting machine paper tapes | Associated Press

The top election official in Kansas has asked a Sedgwick County judge to block the release of voting machine tapes sought by a Wichita mathematician who is researching statistical anomalies favoring Republicans in counts coming from large precincts in the November 2014 general election. Secretary of State Kris Kobach argued that the records sought by Wichita State University mathematician Beth Clarkson are not subject to the Kansas open records act, and that their disclosure is prohibited by Kansas statute. His response, which was faxed Friday to the Sedgwick County District Court, was made public Monday. Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. She wants the hard-copies to check the error rate on electronic voting machines that were used in a voting station in Sedgwick County to establish a statistical model.

North Carolina: Judge to decide whether voter ID case can go forward | WRAL

A Wake County judge will have to decide whether changes enacted this summer to soften North Carolina’s voter ID requirement should end a lawsuit that claims the state’s voting law violates the state constitution. Lawyers for the state and plaintiffs in the case, which include the League of Women Voters, squared off before Judge Michael Morgan Monday morning in Wake County Superior Court. “The statute the plaintiffs are challenging is no longer the statute that is on the books,” said Alec Peters, a special deputy attorney general in the North Carolina Attorney General’s office.

Editorials: Defending indefensible isn’t cheap | San Antonio Express-News

About this time last year, the cost for Texas to defend redistricting maps was around $3.9 million. Add at least $1 million after a federal appeals panel last week awarded that amount to attorneys challenging the maps. According to the opinion, the Texas attorney general’s office’s response to a court order was woefully inadequate. Let’s be clear. We’re talking about the previous administration under now-Gov. Greg Abbott.
Here’s what else is inadequate — the state’s approach to redistricting altogether. But this latest cost adds a different wrinkle. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines of the panel’s decision to conclude the state’s approach on these legal fees involved a degree of incompetence. Texas was appealing a court order last year that it pay legal fees to lawyers who challenged the maps.

Argentina: Finger pointing in Argentina after police break up protests over ballot burning | Associated PRess

In a sign of increasing tension ahead of October elections, the top presidential candidates in Argentina and other government officials exchanged accusations on Tuesday after protests over alleged vote fraud in a northern province were broken up with tear gas and rubber bullets. Cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez suggested that foreign elements from “up north” had organized the late Monday protests, which ended when police fired on people and forcefully removed them from the main square of San Miguel de Tucuman, about 807 miles (1,300 kilometers) north of Buenos Aires. Mauricio Macri, the leading opposition candidate for October’s presidential election, told reporters on Tuesday that it’s impossible to say Sunday’s gubernatorial election in Tucuman was clean when at least 40 ballot boxes had been burned. “We can’t say that this was a normal election,” said Macri, adding that having voting irregularities “in the 21st century is unacceptable.”

China: ‘Tip of the iceberg’: Warning from pan-democratic parties over 400 suspicious Hong Kong voter records | South China Morning Post

Pan-democratic parties flocked to the election watchdog yesterday to lodge more complaints about the records of over 550 voters with suspicious or false residential addresses, warning they could be “the tip of the iceberg”. A flood of cases reported to the Registration and Electoral Office recently included complaints by residents of unknown people registering their home addresses for voting in the district council elections in November. Among new cases yesterday were voters registering addresses that do not exist, and seven or eight voters registering as living together in flats of 200 to 300 sq ft. In one case a voter claimed to be living in a hospital.

Myanmar: Military chief says armed forces will respect vote | Reuters

Myanmar’s powerful commander-in-chief has reiterated that the military will respect the outcome of the country’s Nov 8 election, seen as a crucial test of Myanmar’s reform process. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that the main concern of the armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, is that the vote is carried out fairly and that the result is respected by everyone – even if Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) wins a majority. “We wouldn’t mind even if the NLD won in the next general election, as long as it is free and fair,” he told members of the Myanmar’s Interim Press Council, a media support group, during a meeting on Monday.

Singapore: Snap election to be held on Sept 11 | Borneo Post

Singapore would hold a snap general election on Sept 11, officials said yesterday, as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sought a new mandate from voters worried over immigration and the high cost of living. Despite a slowing economy, the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled for more than 50 years thanks to strict political controls and Singaporeans’ rising affluence, is expected to keep its overwhelming majority in parliament against a fragmented opposition. But the party will be under pressure to improve on its electoral performance in 2011, when it won just 60 percent of votes cast — its lowest-ever share — despite retaining 80 of the 87 seats in a block-voting system. It will be the first election without the prime minister’s hugely influential father, independence leader Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March.

United Kingdom: Labour leadership: Harman vows to weed out all ‘cheats’ | BBC

Harriet Harman has said 3,000 alleged “cheats” have so far been excluded from voting in the Labour leadership contest, with more expected. The acting Labour leader said: “It is not funny or clever for people from other parties to try to cheat their way into our system.” And only people who supported the “aims and values” of the Labour Party would be allowed to take part. She was speaking after a meeting with the four leadership contenders. She said the verification process was “robust” and would go on until the “very last minute”.