Virginia: Judges impose new congressional map, redrawing 3rd, 4th Districts | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A three-judge panel in Richmond on Thursday imposed a new Virginia congressional map that could give blacks a chance to elect candidates of their choice in two districts, not just one. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court halts implementation, the reconfiguration will lower the black voting age population in the 3rd District, represented by Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Democrat, from 56.3 percent to 45.3 percent. It will raise the black voting age population in the 4th District, represented by Rep. J. Randy Forbes, a Republican, from 31.3 percent to 40.9 percent. Scott’s district, which meandered from the Richmond area to Newport News, will now be centered in Hampton Roads.

Haiti: It’s official: Haiti presidential runoff in 17 days | Miami Herald

Haiti President Michel Martelly issued a presidential order Wednesday officially scheduling the country’s postponed presidential and partial legislative runoffs for Jan. 24. Martelly’s late night order came a day after the head of the Provisional Electoral Council reversed himself on the impossibility of staging the vote in time for Martelly’s Feb. 7 departure from office, and on the day that two top U.S. envoys arrived in Port-au-Prince to address an unraveling political crisis triggered by the Oct. 25 presidential and legislative elections. This [order] makes sense only if Célestin has agreed to participate in the second round. Robert Fatton, Haiti analyst Ambassador Thomas Shannon, counselor of the Department of State, and Haiti Special Coordinator Kenneth Merten, spent the first of two days meeting with key political actors including opposition candidate Jude Célestin. They had hope to convince Célestin to participate in the runoff. “This [order] makes sense only if Célestin has agreed to participate in the second round,” said Robert Fatton, a Haiti analyst and political science professor at the University of Virginia.

Spain: Failed Catalan government makes another Spanish election more likely | Reuters

Catalan far-left party CUP said on Sunday it would not support acting regional head Artur Mas in his bid for another term, forcing new local elections and increasing the likelihood all Spaniards may have to return to the ballot box this year. The drawn-out process of forming a government in Catalonia echoes the political stalemate gripping Spain at a national level following an inconclusive general election two weeks ago. The prospect of new elections in Catalonia, most likely in March, increases the likelihood of a second general election this year as the receding threat of a strong Catalan government seeking a split from Spain will reduce pressure on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s centre-right People’s Party (PP) and the opposition Socialists to form a grand coalition to stand up to a separatist Catalan administration.

Voting Blogs: EAC hosts 2016 swing state roundtable | electionlineWeekly

You’ve planned for it, you’ve dreaded it, and now it’s finally here. 2016. There’s no going back and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission kicked things off this week with a roundtable discussion of elections officials from nine of the battleground states. “Even though from the public perspective, it may seem like election season is just beginning, for the election officials, we’ve been preparing for a number of months, even a number of years,” said Moderator Merle King of Kennesaw State University. “The election cycle is the apex. The finish line.” The roundtable was held in the Washington, D.C.-area and streamed live on the Internet. The wide-ranging conversation covered everything from social media to emergency contingency planning to technology to media relations to setting standards.

Alabama: Shelby County seeks legal fees in voting rights victory | Montgomery Advertiser

The Supreme Court decision that nullified a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is more than two years old, but the battle rages on over whether federal officials should pick up the legal tab. Shelby County won the case that freed Alabama and several other states from having to prove in advance that every proposed change to their election procedures wouldn’t discriminate against minority voters. Conservatives hailed the historic decision as a victory for states’ rights, but civil rights groups assailed it, saying it weakens protections for black and Latino voters. After the court’s 2013 ruling, the county’s Washington lawyers filed a $2 million bill and said the losing party in the case — the U.S. Department of Justice – should pay it.

Editorials: Michigan: Where voters pay for their disenfranchisement | Curtis Hertel Jr./Detroit Free Press

Our system of government is set up to advocate for the will of the majority, while also protecting the fundamental rights of the minority. That isn’t happening in Michigan. On the last day of session, Republicans rammed Senate Bill 571, a 53-page bill, through the Legislature with zero committee review and zero public input. This bill, SB 571, not only increases corporate influence and money over elections, but also silences school districts, local governments and even librarians from educating the public about local millages and bond proposals. Regardless of the fact that some Republicans have admitted that they never read the bill and probably do not support it, Gov. Rick Snyder signed it into law anyway.

Montana: State to use corruption ruling to defend contribution caps | Associated Press

A second Montana judge has ruled there was corruption in the state’s 2010 Republican primary elections, with candidates pledging loyalty to a national anti-union group’s cause in exchange for thousands of dollars in illegal and unreported corporate campaign contributions. State officials plan to use the two judicial rulings as evidence in their defense of Montana’s limits on how much political donors may contribute to a candidate’s campaign. A federal lawsuit seeking to strike down those limits is pending after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that states must prove “quid pro quo corruption” — or the appearance of it — to justify capping contributions.

Nebraska: Lawmaker: Engage youth voters by legalizing ‘ballot selfies’ | Omaha World Herald

Nikola Jordan for years has snapped a “ballot selfie” at the polling place and posted it on social media. Even before advanced smartphones and Facebook’s popularity, she’d take a handheld camera into the polling place and pose with her ballot. “I think voting is really exciting and being part of the democratic process is really exciting,” the 32-year-old Omaha woman said. Current state law, however, prohibits sharing a picture of a completed ballot with other people, which could include posting such a photo on Facebook or Instagram. A measure introduced Thursday in the State Legislature would protect ballot selfies by allowing a voter to photograph and share his or her ballot.

New Jersey: Democrats’ redistricting plan draws flak | Philadelphia Inquirer

Independent experts and Republicans on Thursday assailed a proposed constitutional amendment that they said would make New Jersey’s legislative elections less competitive and help cement a Democratic majority for years to come. Democrats are fast-tracking the amendment, which would require voter approval, through the Legislature for a likely vote next week, in hope of getting the question on November’s ballot. Democrats control the Senate, 24-16, and, based on November’s elections, will expand their majority next week in the Assembly to 52-28.

Rhode Island: Deadline nears on whether elections chief gets to keep job | Providence Journal

The fate of embattled Board of Elections Executive Director Robert Kando hung in the balance Wednesday evening as the board met in closed session just 48 hours away from Kando’s potential dismissal. Last September, the board took an unusual step. It voted to fire Kando in 120 days — a timeline that concludes Friday — unless the longtime director drastically improved all areas of his job performance, including the broad requirement that he “understand the role of the executive director.” The board could, as it did once before, vote to undo the pending termination or put it off until a later date.

Utah: Bill would eliminate voting for only one political party in Utah | fox13now

The Utah State Legislature will be deciding whether to eliminate “straight-ticket” voting, where you can choose to only vote for candidates from one political party on an entire ballot. Rep. Patrice Arent, D-Millcreek, is sponsoring a bill that would end that, calling it “outdated.” “They can still go through the ballot and vote for every Republican, every Green Party and every Democrat,” she told FOX 13. “But they’re going to have to look at every single name to do that.” Rep. Arent claims straight-ticket voting causes confusion for voters and some key issues get skipped because they’re not tied to a party affiliation.

Virginia: Judges pick new congressional map for Virginia | Associated Press

A federal court has picked a new congressional map for Virginia that significantly changes the racial makeup of two districts, but could be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. A three-judge panel on Thursday ordered the state to implement a new redistricting map for the 2016 election. The move comes after the panel concluded for a second time last year that legislators in 2012 illegally packed black voters into the 3rd Congressional District, represented by Democrat Bobby Scott. The judges initially ordered the General Assembly to redraw the lines, but when lawmakers balked, the judges hired an expert to help them do it themselves.

Canada: Dartmouth phone/Internet voting firm fights ACOA claim | The Chronicle Herald

The judicial stage is set for a dispute between Dean Smith’s Intelivote Systems Inc. and a $1.3-million claim filed by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Smith’s Dartmouth company claims the amount sought by ACOA represents portions of “non-repayable amounts” it received from the federal agency in four instalments in recent years, according to documents reviewed Thursday at Nova Scotia Supreme Court. A defence filed by Intelivote on Dec. 21 denies an assertion by ACOA the company has ceased operations and, as a result, owes the agency the $1.3 million. “The defendant has become insolvent, resulting in an event of default as defined in the terms and conditions of the agreements,” according to a statement of claim filed by ACOA.

Central African Republic: Candidates now mostly support vote count: U.N. | Reuters

Almost all of the 30 candidates running for president of Central African Republic now support the election despite calls this week by 20 of them for the vote count to be stopped, the U.N. peacekeeping mission said on Wednesday. About 77 percent of votes have been counted in the Dec. 30 election that is hoped will mark the end of three years of conflict in which thousands have died. Two former prime ministers are in the lead, according to election authorities, and will likely contest a run-off election on Jan. 31.

Haiti: Elections Date Finally Set  | Latin One

The postponed presidential and legislative runoffs and elections in Haiti have finally been given a new date. According to Miami Herald, it is now set to take place on January 24, 2016. Head of the Provisional Electoral Council Pierre-Louis Opont shared the date in a letter to President Michel Martelly after the nine-member council meeting was finally dismissed. Just the day before, Opont told Martelly that it was impossible to organize the elections for January 17, and so the final date could be staged to guarantee the handover of power from one president to another in time to meet the imposed deadline for February 7.

Editorials: It’s time in 2016 to grant Irish abroad the right to vote | The Irish Times

So it has begun. The Centennial Year: 40 State-sponsored events, hundreds of local commemorations, events in New York and Washington DC and countless other places where the Irish diaspora has gathered. After a shaky start, the Government has righted itself and come forward with a thoughtful and comprehensive programme that culminates in a series of Easter anniversary events and a major national conference on the future of the Republic 100 years on. Countless books will be published, and historians will be in demand on talk shows as Irish people take a long look back of what they have made of the Republic. Everything thing seems well in hand to celebrate how far we have come, except for the reality that one million Irish emigrants are effectively non-citizens of this Republic. They can’t vote.

Niger: Electoral register tidied ahead of February vote | Reuters

Niger has completed changes to its electoral register recommended by the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF), the body said on Thursday, removing a major source of tension ahead of elections next month. President Mahamadou Issoufou is seeking another mandate as head of the historically turbulent, uranium-producing West African country on Feb. 21. He is the favorite to win but critics say he has become increasingly authoritarian and repressive ahead of the polls. The OIF, an organization representing French-speaking nations tasked with overseeing the voter list, had previously recommended the removal of around 300 ‘ghost’ polling stations and 25,000 voters counted twice.

Taiwan: A Tsai is just a Tsai | The Economist

Undeterred by the rain, the crowd leaps to its feet shouting “We’re going to win” in Taiwanese as their presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, begins her stump speech. Some rattle piggy banks to show that their party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), relies on, and serves, the little guy—as opposed to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), backed by businesses and fat cats and one of the world’s richest political institutions. Taiwan’s voters go to the polls on January 16th in what is likely to prove a momentous election both for the domestic politics on the island and for its relations with the Communist government in China that claims sovereignty over it. Eight years of uneasy truce across the Taiwan Strait are coming to an end. Since taking office in 2008, the outgoing president, Ma Ying-jeou, has engineered the deepest rapprochement between Taiwan and China ever seen, signing an unprecedented 23 pacts with the mainland, including a partial free-trade agreement. It culminated in an unprecedented meeting in November between Mr Ma and Xi Jinping, China’s president, in Singapore. But if the rapprochement under Mr Ma was a test of whether closer ties would help China’s long-term goal of peaceful unification, it failed.

National: Voting Laws Are Still Up In The Air In These States | Huffington Post

With just about 10 months until Election Day, ongoing courtroom battles over voting restriction have made it so that we still don’t know exactly when, and how, Americans in a number of states will be able to vote. Many of those battles originated with the Supreme Court gutting Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Section 5 had barred states and jurisdictions with a history of racially motivated voting discrimination from enacting changes to their election laws without approval from the federal government or without going to federal court. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court eliminated the most effective part of the landmark 1965 civil rights act. States rushed to pass onerous measures, including requiring government-issued photo identification to vote, eliminating same-day registration and cutting early voting.

National: Is there a federal factor in the voter records leak? | FCW

Lawmakers and the administration have for years been seeking common ground on a federal data breach law to replace the patchwork of state and local rules. But even with such a law in place, Uncle Sam may still have been shut out of any role in policing the recent exposure of a database of 191 million voter records. The trove of personal information, complete with home addresses and telephone numbers, was briefly available on the public-facing web, due to a database configuration error. Privacy advocates and the media scrambled to investigate, but federal agencies were quiet. While voter registration information is public, it is rarely offered up for public consumption in bulk without some strings attached. Some states bar public-facing online voter record databases, while Florida and Ohio, for instance, both run public-facing voter record look-up sites. Ohio’s site returns addresses for name and county searches, while Florida’s requires birthdates and contains a notice that the site is intended for use only by voters attempting to verify their own registration status. Florida’s state government is considering legislation that would exempt voter information from public records rules because of the possible threat of identity theft.

National: How Democratic Are Ballot Initiatives? | The Atlantic

Paul Spencer, a teacher and part-time pecan farmer in Arkansas, drafted a ballot measure for 2016 to reform the state’s campaign-finance laws so his fellow voters could know who paid for election ads on TV. But he and fellow activists there knew they couldn’t do it alone. They sought the help of national election-reform groups because in Arkansas, as in many other states, initiatives can cost millions of dollars to pass. Liberal groups working at the national level are using state ballot initiatives as their weapon of choice for 2016, but given the costs, they’re carefully planning exactly where to push these measures. And Spencer’s Arkansas proposal didn’t make the cut for 2016.

National: Measuring the integrity of elections | The Boston Globe

How do we measure and ensure the integrity of elections? It’s certainly a relevant question as we enter a presidential election year here in the United States, but it’s also important from a global perspective. “Despite the fact that elections have spread worldwide . . . the quality of elections is really bad in many, many places,” according to Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer Pippa Norris, who is director of the Electoral Integrity Project. “And that has consequences.” Norris came on the Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast just over a year ago to explain why she was drawn to the subject for both theoretical and practical reasons.

Florida: Group challenges inclusion of prisoners in voting districts | Associated Press

A federal judge heard arguments Wednesday in a case that could affect whether prisoners are counted in drawing voting districts in Florida, an issue that affects voting power particularly in rural areas of the state. The American Civil Liberties Union and several Jefferson County residents charge the county used “prison-based gerrymandering” in drawing its five county commission and school board districts, each with about 2,950 residents. The county, with a non-prison population of 13,604 in the 2010 census, counted 1,157 Jefferson Correctional Institute inmates in one district, where they’re more than a third of the population. That gave the eligible voters in the district almost twice the voting power of others in the county, the ACLU says. County residents involved in the lawsuit say it also cut minority voting power.

Georgia: Democrats call for redistricting reform | Atlanta Journal Constitution

Three Democratic lawmakers are pushing to create an independent commission to redraw political lines in the future. Sen. Elena Parent (D – Atlanta), Rep. Pat Gardner (D – Atlanta) and Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D – Decatur) said the legislation would be a fairer way to redraw current legislative and congressional district lines in coming years. “It is time to give the citizens the ability to choose their representatives instead of the representatives choosing their voters,” said Gardner, who is sponsoring both resolutions.

Louisiana: Federal court lets stand lawsuit challenging judicial elections | Houma Today

A challenge to at-large voting in Terrebonne Parish’s state district courts continues after a federal judge struck down the state’s request to dismiss the suit brought by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The state sought to have the suit dismissed under the Eleventh Amendment, which generally prohibits private citizens from bringing suits against states, and by extension state officials in their official capacity. However, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out an exception to the Amendment’s immunity in certain circumstances provided the complaint alleges a violation of federal law. In this case, the Louisiana district court found that because the suit alleges that federal law, the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, has been violated, the state is precluded from immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.

Maryland: Democrats push to use Obamacare as voter registration drive | Washington Times

Maryland Democrats hope to break new ground in the push for universal voter registration, planning to wage a fight in the General Assembly this year to automatically sign up everyone who visits certain state social services agency or buys coverage through the state’s Obamacare exchange. State Sen. Victor Ramirez, Prince George’s County Democrat, and state Sen. Roger Manno, Montgomery County Democrat, have already pre-filed automatic registration bills ahead of the legislative session, saying they are trying to cut down on barriers that keep poor people from showing up at the polls on Election Da

North Carolina: Voter ID trial set for Jan. 25 | News & Observer

The federal judge who will preside over the trial about North Carolina’s voter ID law told attorneys in an order this week to be ready to make their arguments on Jan. 25. In a status report filed two days before the end of the year, the NAACP and others challenging the law continue to argue that much confusion remains about what voters will need in order to cast ballots in the March 15 primaries. The arguments come nearly six months after a two-week trial in July at which U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder listened to evidence in support of and in opposition to other elections law changes contained in a 2013 overhaul by the Republican-led General Assembly.

Texas: Group of Hispanic voters seeks docs in Pasadena voting rights suit | Houston Chronicle

A group of Hispanic voters that accuses the city of Pasadena of diluting its voting rights is asking that a political action committee with ties to the mayor turn over records of communications with voters. The PAC — Committee to Keep Pasadena Strong — has received funding from Mayor Johnny Isbell’s campaign coffers. It has been subpoenaed for records of communications with voters about local elections and Hispanic voters between 2013 and 2015, among other records, court documents show.

Utah: What you need to know about Utah’s new election process | KSL

Don’t be surprised if a petitioner knocks on your door in the coming weeks and months — almost 60 candidates have begun the new process to gather signatures to be on the 2016 primary election ballot. Here’s what you need to know about the new election law. SB54, passed in 2014, modified Utah’s primary process and changed how candidates are nominated and political parties are classified. Political parties have to choose which primary election process to follow by either gathering signatures, participating in a party convention or both. Mark Thomas, director of elections with Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox’s office, said this process is designed to get more Utahns involved in the voting process. “Time will tell whether this will be something that will hopefully get voters to be more civic-minded, to participate more in elections,” Thomas said.

Virginia: Trump supporters sue Virginia over GOP loyalty pledge | The Washington Post

Three African American pastors who support Donald Trump filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday over a requirement that GOP primary voters sign a statement affirming that they are Republicans — a plan the presidential front-runner has condemned. The plaintiffs say the loyalty pledge will discourage minority voters and those who are poor from casting ballots in Virginia, where voters do not register by party. Signing the vow will create long lines at the polls, imposes “the burden of fear and backlash” and amounts to a literacy test, according to the lawsuit. The Virginia Republican Party recently decided voters who want to help choose the Republican presidential nominee must first sign a statement that says: “My signature below indicates I am a Republican.”