Michigan: Governor signs bill to fix Flint election, opening up ballot for mayoral candidates | MLive.com

Candidates for mayor of Flint can start focusing on the campaign and forget about whether they’ll be on the primary election ballot. Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation today, June 5, to authorize extension of the filing deadline for the August primary election, a move that will allow for a standard showdown for the city’s top job. Incumbent Dayne Walling, businesswoman Karen Weaver, and two city councilmen — Wantwaz Davis and Eric Mays — are in line for spots on the ballot, city officials have said.

Tennessee: Nashville early voting sites axed unless more funding added; mayor’s office blasts decision | Associated Press

Davidson County Election Commission has outraged officials at the Nashville mayor’s office after the panel voted that it is prepared to cut the number of early voting sites in metro Nashville’s general election from 11 to one, unless more funding is acquired. Media outlets report that the election commission voted 3-2 on Wednesday to operate only one early voting site — the state’s legal minimum — if the Metro Council approves Mayor Karl Dean’s proposed budget without changes. Dean’s proposed operating budget is $868,000 lower than what the commission sought.

Virginia: District Court Strikes Down Virginia Congressional Maps | National Journal

A federal court ruled Friday that Virginia legislators will have to redraw the state’s congressional lines after misinterpreting Voting Rights Act requirements, but an attorney for the defendants said it’s likely that they’ll appeal to the Supreme Court. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled for the second time that legislators unnecessarily “packed” African-American voters into certain congressional districts, ostensibly to follow a requirement that minority voters maintain their control of certain districts—but also limiting their ability to affect other districts’ elections. The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that the Republican-controlled legislature had packed an excessive number of minorities into a single district, represented by Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, when it drew the congressional map in 2012.

Washington: State AG’s opinion on ACLU case could have wide reach | Yakima Herald

Reverberations from Yakima’s voting rights lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union are being felt across the state and in Olympia, where the state Attorney General’s Office is expected to release an opinion related to the issue. The opinion won’t have much, if any, impact in Yakima’s case. But it’s likely to be studied carefully in many other cities, especially Pasco. When Pasco officials saw how poorly Yakima fared in the ACLU lawsuit, they began drafting plans earlier this year to revamp their city’s election process in order to avoid a similar fate. Yakima has been ordered to change its election process by a federal judge who said its old election system violated federal election law by routinely suppressing Latino interests. Under the judge’s order, which is under appeal, Yakima City Council members would be elected by voters in their districts and would no longer be subject to citywide voting.

Burundi: Opposition leader says elections must be held by August | Reuters

Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa said a presidential election must be held by August at the latest, but a fair vote was unlikely without security and a free media. A planned June 26 poll looks increasingly untenable after more than a month of protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term. Parliamentary and local elections have already been postponed due to the unrest in which more than 30 people have been killed, according to activists. Burundi emerged from an ethnically fuelled civil war in 2005, and the crisis has stirred fears of a new bout of violent instability in Africa’s Great Lakes region. The country has a similar ethnic make-up to neighbouring Rwanda, where 800,000 people died in a 1994 genocide.

Canada: Changes to Ontario elections include new ridings, spring fixed date | CBC

The Ontario Liberal government is tabling legislation this afternoon to create 15 new ridings that would be up for grabs in the provincial election in 2018. The government is also planning to switch the fixed date of the provincial election from the fall to the spring and to “strengthen the rules” surrounding election campaign advertising by third-party special-interest groups such as unions. The proposed new ridings would match constituency boundary changes recently made at the federal level. Most of the new seats are in the Greater Toronto Area. The bill, if passed, would bring the number of seats at the Ontario Legislature to 122. It currently stands at 107.

Luxembourg: Luxembourg votes not to give foreigners national voting rights | Reuters

Luxemburgers have resoundingly rejected a proposal to let foreign residents vote in national elections, a move that would have been a first in Europe and could have expanded the electorate of the tiny but cosmopolitan Grand Duchy by as much as 50 percent. In Sunday’s consultative referendum, only about 22 percent supported the proposal, part of a modernizing agenda backed by liberal Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. There were also clear majorities against lowering the voting age to 16 from 18 and introducing 10-year term limits for ministers, following the 19-year rule of Bettel’s conservative predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, now the EU’s chief executive.

Mexico: Independent Wins Mexican Governorship | Wall Street Journal

A maverick former mayor became Mexico’s first independent candidate to win a governor’s seat, riding a wave of voter anger against the country’s traditional political parties. The news from Sunday’s midterm elections wasn’t all bad for President Enrique Peña Nieto, however: His ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and its allies appeared likely to keep a slim majority in the lower house of Congress, according to early official results. The runaway victory of Jaime “El Bronco” Rodriguez in Nuevo León state, an industrial powerhouse and home to some of Mexico’s biggest corporations, could spark a wave of independent candidacies nationwide for the 2018 presidential vote, a development analysts said might threaten traditional political parties’ grip on power.

Turkey: Ruling Party Loses Parliamentary Majority | New York Times

Turkish voters delivered a rebuke on Sunday to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his party lost its majority in Parliament in a historic election that thwarted his ambition to rewrite Turkey’s Constitution and further bolster his clout. The results represented a significant setback for Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist who has steadily increased his power since being elected last year as president, a partly but not solely ceremonial post. The prime minister for more than a decade before that, Mr. Erdogan has pushed for more control of the judiciary and cracked down on any form of criticism, including prosecuting those who insult him on social media, but his efforts appeared to have run aground on Sunday. The vote was also a significant victory to the cadre of Kurds, liberals and secular Turks who found their voice of opposition to Mr. Erdogan during sweeping anti-government protests two years ago. For the first time, the Kurdish slate crossed a 10 percent threshold required to enter Parliament.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 1-7 2015

Members of a teachers union holding banners with images of some of 43 missing rural teachers college students are reflected in the sunglasses of a policeman wearing riot gear, outside the offices of the National Electoral Institute, in Chilpancingo, Guerrero State, Mexico, Friday, June 5, 2015. The confrontation between the teachers and scores of police surrounding the electoral offices ended peacefully. Radical groups and unionized teachers have vowed to block Sunday's voting for the lower house of congress, nine governorships and hundreds of mayorships. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) In an address in Texas, Hillary Clinton called for sweeping changes to elections and voting laws, arguing that measures including universal voter registration and national early voting are necessary to counteract a tide of laws aimed at making it more difficult for some people to vote. Nathaniel Persilly notes that as they consider a major redistricting case, the justices of the US Supreme Court, like most of us, might be surprised to learn that the most basic information as to who is an American citizen cannot actually be found in any publicly available government data set — anywhere. Nevada is keeping its caucuses for selecting presidential nominees, disappointing supporters of several Republican presidential contenders who had hoped to shift the early-voting state to a system of primaries. Vermont became the 14th state to allow same-day voter registration. A federal court concluded for the second time that Virginia’s congressional boundaries are unconstitutional because state lawmakers packed black voters into one district in order to make adjacent districts safer for Republican incumbents. One Wisconsin Institute, Inc., and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund along with a half-dozen voters have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a host of changes Republicans have made to Wisconsin’s election laws, alleging the provisions burden black people, Latinos and Democratic-leaning voters. Burundi’s opposition parties and civil society groups welcomed a decision to postpone Friday’s parliamentary election, while Mexico has experience experienced severe violence and demonstrations ahead of this weekend’s parliamentary elections.

National: U.S. authorities unlikely to stop 2016 election fundraising free-for-all | Reuters

White House hopefuls raking in record amounts of money in the 2016 U.S. presidential race are already being accused by watchdog groups of breaking campaign fundraising laws. But the U.S. Department of Justice is unlikely to prosecute possible violations and halt the funding free-for-all, say current and former department officials. With deadlock in the campaign finance regulator, the Federal Election Commission, watchdog groups are calling on the Justice Department to investigate contenders such as Republican Jeb Bush, who they say has conducted a charade of “non candidacy” to skirt federal election fundraising laws. Bush’s campaign said on Thursday he would announce his White House bid on June 15. Interviews with 11 current and former Justice Department officials indicate the department is unlikely to enforce rules before the November 2016 election, or even after. That means the election could unfold with record money – predictions are for overall campaign chests of more than $5 billion, double the cost of the 2012 election – but little regulation, they said.

National: Hillary Clinton Says G.O.P. Rivals Try to Stop Young and Minority Voters | New York Times

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday accused Republicans including her potential rivals Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rick Perry of “deliberately trying to stop” young people and minorities — both vital Democratic constituencies — from exercising their right to vote, as she presented an ambitious agenda to make it easier for those groups and other Americans to participate in elections. Speaking at Texas Southern University here in front of her largest crowd yet as a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton accused Republicans generally of enacting state voting laws based on what she called “a phantom epidemic of election fraud” because they are “scared of letting citizens have their say.”

National: Hillary Clinton Pushes for Voter Registration Overhaul | Bloomberg

Hillary Clinton called Thursday for sweeping changes to elections and voting laws, arguing that measures including universal voter registration and national early voting are necessary to counteract a tide of laws aimed at making it more difficult for some people to vote. Speaking at Houston’s Texas State University, at a ceremony honoring the late civil rights leader and Democratic Representative Barbara Jordan, Clinton set her sights squarely on some of her potential Republican opponents, who she said are “systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting.” In one of her most powerful and passionate appearances of her campaign thus far, the former secretary of state singled out four current and former governors, whose actions “have undercut [the] fundamental American principle” of the right to vote in their “crusade against voting rights.” Instead of continuing along the same path, she said, “they should stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud” and work to make it easier for Americans who want to vote to go to the polls.

National: How Jeb Bush’s Presidential Announcement Will Change His Money Game | National Journal

The former Florida governor and scion of the modern Republican Party’s most prominent political family revealed on Thursday that he will formally announce his long-expected presidential candidacy on June 15 in Miami. The event comes almost six months to the day after Bush said last December that he was “actively exploring” a campaign and months after it has become clear Bush would, in fact, run. His dodging of that reality had begun to wear thin in recent weeks. On Sunday, pressured about his candidacy by CBS’s Bob Schieffer on his final day hosting Face the Nation, Bush offered up a tepid: “I hope so. I hope, I hope I’m a candidate in the near future.”

Editorials: Hillary Clinton, Voting Rights and the 2016 Election | New York Times

A basic fact often gets lost in the propaganda that swirls around voting laws in this country: between one-quarter and one-third of all eligible voters — more than 50 million Americans — are not registered. That alarming statistic is the backdrop to efforts by Republicans in recent years to pass state laws that restrict ballot access, a recent Democratic campaign to push back against those laws, and a bold set of proposals that Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out Thursday afternoon in a speech at Texas Southern University, a historically black college in Houston. In addition to pushing needed and long-overdue reforms, the speech highlighted the yawning gulf on voting rights between Mrs. Clinton and the Republican candidates for the White House, many of whom have been cynically committed to making voting harder for the most vulnerable citizens. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” Mrs. Clinton asked.

Florida: New election equipment upgrade not compatible with purchased iPads | NBC-2

More than $700,000 of taxpayer money was spent on iPads the Lee County Election Supervisor can’t even use. It turns out they’re not compatible with computers in the elections office. Supervisor Sharon Harrington is asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars more to replace them. The snafu has a lot of taxpayers upset. The big question now is what to do with them. “What are they simply going to do with more than $700,000 in iPads that have already been purchased? I’m not sure if there is a return-to-sender package on that,” said Patrick Nadel of Fort Myers. Nadel is also a financial advisor and calls the purchase of 2,000 non-compatible iPads a poor business decision. “That type of situation can be alleviated with a simple call to an IT department with the question of ‘will this work with what we have,'” said Nadel.

Illinois: New unfunded mandate adds $1.9M to Kane County Clerk’s budget | Chicago Tribune

Kane County Clerk John A. Cunningham is rallying colleagues and county officials to amend a newly enacted bill requiring clerks extend the grace period for voter registration to early registration and Election Day at all precincts, which would cost taxpayers $1.9 million. “It puts us in a bind,” Cunningham said Wednesday. “We have been working quite diligently and doing everything in our power to reduce the cost. We are trying to come in the back door and get an amendment,” the clerk said.

Illinois: Expansion of same-day voter registration hits snag? | DailyHerald.com

A change in Illinois law forcing large counties to provide same-day voter registration at polling places is drawing opposition from those charged with implementing it. The law requires same-day registration at all polling places in counties and municipalities with populations of more than 100,000. Illinois had tried same-day voter registration at a few polling places in each county during the November 2014 election. A month later, state legislators passed the law, which became effective June 1. With the exception of the special election to replace congressman Aaron Schock, county clerks are eyeing the change for 2016 elections. But early cost estimates of seven figures have several suburban officials — Democrats and Republicans alike — balking. Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham estimates the cost of same-day registration at $1.8 million. That’s for $16,000 worth of equipment per polling place, plus training two people to register the voter. Kane County had same-day registration at five sites in November 2014; the new law requires same-day registration at 96 more sites in the county. “It’s a real burden,” Cunningham said.

Kansas: Brownback May Empower Kris Kobach To Prosecute ‘Voter Fraud’ Cases Himself | TPM

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has five days before he must decide whether to sign a bill expanding the power of Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) to prosecute voter fraud cases. If Brownback does sign the legislation, which has already passed both chambers of the state legislature, Kobach would be given the power to prosecute voter fraud cases even when, according to critics, local prosecutors had opted against moving forward with those cases. Kobach is a prominent figure in conservative “voter fraud” circles, loudly declaring that voter fraud is rampant and pushing new laws that have the effect of restricting access to voting, especially among voters who tend to favor Democrats. Voting experts, on the other hand, point to studies that show voter fraud is relatively rare with negligible impact on election outcomes.

Michigan: Flint election-fix bill clears state Legislature, heads to Gov. Snyder | MLive.com

A bill to fix Flint’s tangled 2015 election has cleared the state Legislature and is headed to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk. Both the state House of Representatives and Senate on Wednesday, June 3, approved the legislation, which would allow the city to include the names of mayoral candidates on the August primary ballot even though they missed the April 21 deadline for filing nominating petitions. City Clerk Inez Brown’s office mistakenly told those candidates and candidates for two City Council seats the wrong filing deadline — April 28. Without a change in the law, Flint voters face a write-in-only campaign for mayor in November and no primary election.

New Hampshire: House passes bill creating 30-day residency requirement to vote | Associated Press

The New Hampshire House passed a bill Wednesday that requires people to live in the state for 30 days before they are eligible to vote. It passed largely with support from Republicans. Senators passed the bill along party lines earlier this year, but the House bill further defines the factors that contribute to a person’s domicile, including whether someone pays taxes in New Hampshire, owns a hunting license or has a New Hampshire driver’s license. Currently, a person who is “domiciled” in the state can register and vote on the day of an election. Supporters of the House bill said they want to crack down on “drive by” voting and ensure people voting in New Hampshire elections actually live in the state. “This bill will ensure the people of New Hampshire decide our own elections, not out-of-state voters,” said Republican Rep. William Gannon of Sandown.

North Carolina: As voter ID changes approach, state to hold hearings in Boone, Sylva next week | Carolina Public Press

Voters across the state are getting a crash course in what it will take to cast a ballot in next year’s polls, at a series of hearings hosted this month by the State Board of Elections. The meetings, which kicked off Wednesday in Raleigh and will continue at eight additional locales, are geared at educating poll-goers on how to best anticipate changes that will be implemented in 2016 as a result of the 2013 voter ID legislation approved by the N.C. General Assembly. In particular, the hearings will focus on portions of the law which will require voters to present a government-issued ID bearing a “reasonable resemblance” to the voter, along with the criteria officials will use to determine if an ID is valid.

Oregon: Credit Oregon with Hillary Clinton’s Plan to Expand Voting Rights | Bloomberg

Hillary Clinton wants to make Oregon the model for her proposal to expand access to the ballot box. On March 16, Oregon became the first state in the nation to make voter registration automatic. The legislation, known as the “Motor Voter” law, will use information collected at the state Department of Motor Vehicles data to automatically register eligible voters. Speaking in Houston Thursday, Clinton cited Oregon’s example and said automatic registration should go national. Signing her state’s registration law, Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said, “I challenge every other state in this nation to examine their policies and find ways to ensure that there are as few barriers as possible in the way of a citizen’s right to vote.” Brown introduced in the bill January while Oregon secretary of state, and became Oregon governor the following month.

South Dakota: State elections panel OKs new technology | Rapid City Journal

The state Board of Elections approved use of four additional devices for voting and counting ballots in South Dakota and adopted an assortment of small rule changes Thursday for the 2016 elections. The four types of machines are products from Elections Systems and Software, a company based in Omaha, Neb. They include a basic counting device, a high-speed tabulating device, the company’s version of an AutoMARK machine for persons with disabilities, and the company’s ExpressVote Universal Voting machine that also can be used by persons with disabilities. Election officials from the South Dakota Secretary of State office tested the four machines as required under state law and state regulations. “That was an all-day process and it was very thorough,” Secretary of State Shantel Krebs said.

Virginia: Challenger to House speaker suffers setback over absentee ballots | The Washington Post

The Republican challenger to Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell on Thursday suffered a setback in her effort to reverse what she says is a change in absentee-ballot rules that gives the incumbent an unfair advantage in next week’s primary. A judge in Stafford County denied Susan Stimpson’s petition for an emergency injunction that would have made it more difficult for Howell and other candidates to collect absentee ballot requests electronically. Stimpson, 43, is taking on Howell, 72, in a race to represent a district including Stafford and Fredericksburg. Howell has been in office for 28 years and at one time helped Stimpson win a seat on the county board of supervisors.

Washington: Yakima’s request to halt elections brings uncertainty | Yakima Herald

The first batch of Yakima election ballots already could be in the mail by the time the city’s request to halt new elections reaches the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Yakima City Council voted 5-2 Tuesday night to seek a stay of elections under a court-ordered system that put all seven seats on the ballot in new districts. A federal judge ordered the new system in February, but there was no push for a stay until just last week, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Texas voting rights case that could undo the judge’s ruling in Yakima. The timing caused some council members to ask why the decision wasn’t made earlier, with one councilman saying it was the city’s own defense attorney who originally discouraged it. Another wondered openly whether the stay was merely an attempt by some to stay in office longer.

Bulgaria: President eyes referendum on voting rules to build trust | Reuters

Bulgaria’s president on Wednesday proposed a referendum on voting rules to try to restore public trust in the Balkan country’s politicians after years of instability and scandals. The referendum, which if approved would be held alongside local elections in late October, would ask voters to choose whether they want to elect some lawmakers directly rather than from party lists, whether to make voting compulsory and whether to allow electronic voting. Voter frustration, especially with rampant corruption and organised crime, erupted in months of street protests in 2013. The country has had five governments in two years, and the last election, held in October, drew the lowest turnout in 25 years and a particularly fractured parliament. A recent poll by Gallup International showed a small improvement in trust in public institutions since the centre-right GERB government took office. Nevertheless, more than two-thirds of respondents said they do not trust parliament.

Editorials: Tory bill raises too many barriers for expat Canadian voters | The Globe and Mail

Last year, an Ontario Superior Court judge struck down a rule that barred citizens living abroad for more than five years from voting in federal elections. The government has rightly appealed that decision, while also introducing legislation that will enshrine expats’ voting rights, but with a twist. Expats will get to vote – it will just be really, really hard. So hard, in fact, that many of the 2.8 million expats around the globe may well not bother. Others will try but won’t be able to meet the onerous new requirements in Bill C-50. Under the bill, currently in committee after second reading, Elections Canada will eliminate the international register of electors, the long-established list of expat Canadians eligible to vote federally. In future, expats will have to re-register for each election, and can only do so after the writ is dropped.

Ireland: Emigrants could get voting rights for three years, Deenihan says | The Irish Times

The Government is considering extending voting rights to Irish emigrants for three years after they leave the country without holding a referendum on the issue, the Minister for Diaspora Affairs has said. Under existing electoral legislation, Irish citizens are entitled to vote for 18 months after they leave the country, if they intend to return to live in Ireland within that timeframe. Speaking at the first Global Irish Civic Forum at Dublin Castle today, Jimmy Deenihan said there’s a possibility this could be extended to 36 months “without going to the people”.

Japan: Some Japanese teens welcome move to reduce voting age, others apathetic | The Japan Times

For high school student Aine Suzuki, the Lower House’s move on Thursday to pass legislation that would reduce the voting age to 18 from the current 20 was akin to a dream come true. The 16-year-old says she has always yearned for the right to vote — so much so that whenever an election is approaching she scours newspapers and TV shows to decide which candidate she would vote for, were she eligible to do so. In only two years — Suzuki said with excitement — her opinion will count at the ballot box. “I hope the lowered voting age will encourage more young people to pay attention to politics and make efforts to get their messages across. Only then can Japan turn into a real democracy,” said Suzuki, who is the youngest member of a pro-democracy youth group called Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs).