Mississippi: House reverses Democrat’s win in race that went to tiebreak | Associated Press

Republicans gained a three-fifths supermajority in the Mississippi House on Wednesday when members unseated a longtime Democratic lawmaker who had won a tied election by drawing straws. The 67-49 vote was mostly along party lines to unseat Rep. Bo Eaton of Taylorsville and replace him with Republican challenger Mark Tullos of Raleigh. Tullos, an attorney, watched the vote from the public gallery of the House. Eaton, a farmer, was on the House floor and participated in the 3½ hour debate because he had been sworn in to begin his sixth term when the legislative session started two weeks ago.

Missouri: Voter ID bill wins initial approval in Missouri House | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Missouri House on Wednesday gave first-round approval to a resolution that would ask voters to amend the state constitution to require voters show photo identification before casting a ballot. If passed by voters, a bill, which also gained initial approval Wednesday, would dictate how the constitutional amendment would be enforced. The House debated the proposals for a tense two hours, during which Republicans argued that the bill was to protect elections against voter impersonation fraud. Democrats spoke against the proposal, saying that many constituents don’t possess IDs or a birth certificate needed to acquire an ID. They said that students and elderly African Americans born in the South would be especially impacted by the bill’s passage.

New York: Officials split on Cuomo’s early-voting proposal | Times Herald-Record

New Yorkers would get 12 extra days to vote under a proposal Gov. Andrew Cuomo stuck in his State of the State address and it is already dividing local state legislators. As part of Cuomo’s State of the State address last Wednesday, he said he wants to allow New Yorkers to vote early at 139 locations throughout the state. The legislation would require every county to offer residents access to at least one early voting polling place and allow residents to vote 12 days before Election Day. The measure would allow voters to cast ballots for at least eight hours on weekdays and five hours on weekends. Counties would be required to have one early voting polling site for every 50,000 residents and each county’s boards of elections would determine where to site the polling places.

Oklahoma: Lawmaker wants to clarify state law involving a convict’s voting rights | KTUL

An Oklahoma lawmaker wants to clarify the state law regarding a convict’s voting rights. Rep. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa filed House Bill 2277 for the upcoming legislative session. The proposed bill states that anyone convicted of a felony could register to vote after having “fully served” his or her sentence, “including any term of incarceration, parole or supervision,” or after completing a probationary period imposed by a judge.

Utah: New lawsuit adds to confusion about election law | Standard Register

Now engulfed in a second round of litigation from the Utah Republican Party, the 2014 legislative compromise known as Senate Bill 54 could result in mass confusion rather than increased voter participation. During a forum at Weber State University Wednesday, Jan. 13, two experts on Utah’s two paths to the primary election under SB54 — Count My Vote Executive Director Taylor Morgan and Utah Deputy Director of Elections Justin Lee — spoke about how the law has evolved and what that means to candidates and voters. “The only thing that’s more confusing than Utah’s old caucus/convention system is this new SB54 mess,” Morgan told the audience of about three dozen people, many of them candidates or political insiders.

Virginia: Attempts to expand voting rights are thwarted in General Assembly | The Virginian Pilot

Five days into the 2016 session of the General Assembly, a variety of proposals to expand Virginians’ voting rights are dead on arrival. The ax began falling Tuesday at an early-morning meeting of a House of Delegates subcommittee, where the Republican majority dispatched four voting measures sponsored by Democrats in 35 minutes. Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Arlington County, told the panel his bill, HB68, would “bring Virginia into the 21st century” by allowing universal early voting up to 21 days before a general election. Similar laws are on the books in 32 states, he said. Early voting in Virginia is possible now only by applying for an absentee ballot and stating a specific reason, such as illness or out-of-town travel on Election Day.

Bolivia: Electoral Tribunal Announces 6.5 Million Will Vote in Referendum | teleSUR

Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal says 6.5 million people are registered to vote in February’s national referendum. The data shows that there has been a 3 percent increase in the number of new voters since the last referendum in September 2015. It’s compulsory to vote in Bolivian elections. The referendum on Feb. 21 will ask voters whether they want to amend the constitution and abolish the two-term limit for the head of state. If it’s approved, President Evo Morales will be able to seek re-election in the next elections scheduled for 2019.

Canada: Manitoba in full election mode as blackout kicks in before spring provincial election | CBC

Manitobans may notice fewer government announcements over the next three months and it’s all about ensuring a fair election, says Elections Manitoba. On Wednesday restrictions on government announcements go into effect which ban government agencies, Crown corporations, or elected officials from using public funds or a public office to promote political parties. “There are no government ads or notices allowed in this 90-day period with a few exceptions,” said Alison Mitchell, manager of communications with Elections Manitoba. Exceptions include emergency announcements in cases where the public’s safety or health is at risk or if government is required to publicize information at a particular time during the 90-day period for things like requests for tenders or employment, she said.

Haiti: Senate calls for a halt to Sunday presidential runoff | Miami Herald

Haiti’s Senate on Wednesday called on the country’s Provisional Electoral Council to cease all operations for Sunday’s presidential and partial legislative runoffs. The recommendation came after three hours of debate and as concern and uncertainty continue to dog the electoral process four days before the critical vote. A coalition of local observers have announced that they won’t participate, and the private sector has signaled its strong misgivings about the holding of the second round on Sunday. Before the Senate meeting, a group of business leaders from the Haitian-American Chamber met with senators, and soon went to meet with opposition presidential candidate Jude Celestin. Joined by other business leaders, they asked Celestin whether he was willing to sign an agreement negotiated by Roman Catholic Church Cardinal Chibly Langlois that would postpone the vote until next month and a new president’s swearing-in by March 29. President Michel Martely and his hand-picked successor, candidate Jovenel Moïse, have also been presented with the same question, sources familiar with the agreement said.

Iran: Guardian Council rejects plan for electronic voting | Tasnim News Agency

Iran has called off plans to hold the two upcoming elections using electronic voting machines, Spokesman for Iran’s Guardian Council (GC) Nejatollah Ebrahimian announced. Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday, Ebrahimian pointed to a meeting of the GC earlier in the day and said the issue of using electronic ballot boxes in the upcoming elections was raised in the session and the majority of the GC members voiced their opposition to the plan.

Japan: Government to take innovative steps to get out the vote for summer elections | The Asahi Shimbun

The government is going all-out to increase voter turnout for this summer’s Upper House election, and is even considering setting up polling stations at shopping centers or other retail outlets in front of major train stations. Under the Public Offices Election Law, just one polling booth is set up in each neighborhood. Normally, elementary schools serve as polling locations. Given that elections are usually held on Sundays in Japan, setting up polling booths at shopping centers would allow people to cast their votes in-between weekend shopping. According to the internal affairs ministry, which is in charge of elections, the joint polling booths would be set up in addition to the normal polling stations. All polling stations would be connected online to prevent individuals from voting more than once.

Kazakhstan: Snap poll called as President Nursultan Nazarbayev bids to extend his 27-year rule | The Independent

In an attempt to cling on to power amid discontent at falling oil prices in the ex-Soviet state of Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has called a snap election. Mr Nazarbayev, whose rule has been marked by allegations of human rights abuses and corruption, dissolved the lower house of parliament, urging the nation to consolidate at a time of economic hardship caused by the crash in oil prices. The election, originally expected at the end of this year or early 2017, will be held on 20 March. Political analysts say the early poll will allow the veteran leader to reaffirm his grip on power before discontent over a slowing economy reaches a peak.

Vanuatu: After half of government MPs jailed for corruption, Vanuatu votes in snap election | ABC

Voters in Vanuatu go to the polls on Friday for a snap general election called after 14 government MPs were jailed for corruption. A total of 264 candidates, standing in 52 seats, have had little more than seven weeks to campaign. Most are members of 36 political parties, many of which have formed in the lead-up to the election. There are still more than 50 independents in the mix. Observers have said one of the issues with the snap poll was that there were thousands of dead people still eligible to vote — some reports claiming as many as 55,000 registered voters were no longer alive.

National: Partisanship Barges In on John Lewis’s Dream | The New York Times

In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that, to the joy of millions of African-Americans, Barack Obama redeemed by winning the presidency. As the youngest speaker at that March on Washington gathering, John Lewis identified another dream. It, too, has been redeemed by the American political system. But the blessing has been decidedly mixed. On that sweltering August day, Mr. Lewis, the 23-year-old champion of voting rights, lamented the absence of an unequivocal “party of principles” from the political scene. “The party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland,” Mr. Lewis said. “The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater.”

Editorials: Online Voting Is the Future — And It Could Lead to Absolute Disaster | Jack Smith IV/Mic

This year, we’re going to choose a new president. We’ll debate with disgruntled friends on Facebook, monitor every debate on Twitter and use Google to find polling places. And then, those of us who are willing to make the trek will drive, walk, carpool or take trains to small outposts in order to vote. It’s 2016. Why don’t we have an app on our smartphones that allows us to vote remotely and instantly? … What’s holding back online voting? In short, security risks. If we’ve learned anything from the past few years of cybersecurity scandals — like the Office of Personnel Management hack, the Sony Pictures Entertainment fiascoor the Ashley Madison breach — it’s that no digital system can be proven to be totally safe. There’s a common refrain that digital voting experts are tired of hearing: “If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?” If the internet is safe enough to store our money, shop, file our taxes and perform other sensitive tasks, why can’t it be used to vote? The truth is, we don’t bank or shop safely online. Major retailers and banking systems deal with hacking, fraudulent charges and identity theft every day. Companies like Amazon are used to a small percentage of transactions being fraudulent. And when fraud occurs in a financial transaction, those problems can be fixed after the fact.

Editorials: Jolly’s smart shot at campaign finance reform | Tampa Bay Times

U.S. Rep. David Jolly has a big idea in a little four-page bill. The Indian Shores Republican wants to ban federal officeholders from directly seeking campaign contributions. It’s a long shot in an election-year Congress whose members are obsessed with raising money and self-preservation, but it is a serious proposal from a serious lawmaker that deserves careful consideration. Jolly takes a targeted, straightforward approach in the legislation he plans to roll out today. He argues that members of Congress spend far too much time raising money when they should be focused on governing, and there are plenty of statistics and examples that illustrate those skewed priorities. Incumbents from both parties calculate how many hours they have to spend on the phone raising money to keep their jobs, while this Congress has been one of the least productive in modern history.

Alabama: Lawmakers to push for ex-felon voting rights | The Anniston Star

A small group of Alabama officials is pushing for a clearer legal definition of “moral turpitude,” a change that could restore voting rights to some ex-felons. “When they’ve paid their fees and served their time, they ought to be integrated back into society,” said Secretary of State John Merrill. “Voting ought to be part of that.” Merrill on Wednesday will convene the last meeting of a task force he appointed to study voting rights of ex-felons, and the group is expected to vote on its recommendations for restoring the vote to some former prison inmates. Merrill can’t set the voting rules by himself, but he said he expects them to be filed as bills before the Alabama Legislature convenes next month.

District of Columbia: Old machines and missing dollars. Is D.C. ready for an election? | The Washington Post

Elections in the District have been handicapped by faulty voting machines, inadequate polling staff, inaccessible polling stations and delays in vote tallying. And yet it is unclear whether any of those problems will have been remedied by the time the District holds its next major election in six months. These are the concerns held by D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie and a handful of other close observers of the city’s election process who say the D.C. Board of Elections appears to have made no clear progress toward fixing its long-standing problems ahead of the June ­primary contests or addressed how the board has managed millions of dollars in federal funds. As of last week, a full month after board members testified before the D.C. Council that they were unaware of how much new voting machines would cost, the board still had not determined whether it can afford to purchase new ones or whether it will lease them. The potential lengthiness of the city’s procurement process also raises the question of ­whether the board will have enough time to test the machines and train election workers, if it does acquire new ones.

Illinois: Push on for automatic voter registration | Bloomington Pantagraph

A state lawmaker is renewing his push for automatic voter registration for eligible citizens when they obtain or renew a driver’s license or state ID. State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said the measure would remove barriers to the ballot box while saving money for state and local government. “€œThere are many, many reasons to implement this in Illinois,”€ Manar said at a Statehouse news conference this week.

Kansas: Judge rules Kris Kobach can’t operate two-tier election system in Kansas | The Kansas City Star

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach can’t operate a two-tier voting system that allows him to count only votes cast in federal races for voters who registered using a federal form, a state judge ruled Friday. “There’s just no authority for the way the secretary of state has handled federal form registrants,” said Doug Bonney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which represented plaintiffs in the case. Kobach championed a 2013 Kansas law that requires those registering to vote to provide proof-of-citizenship documents, typically a birth certificate or passport. But the federal registration form only requires a sworn statement from the voter as proof of citizenship.

Maine: Municipal clerks’ offices swamped under flood of referendum petitions | The Portland Press Herald

Maine’s town clerks are keeping busy verifying signatures for petitions aimed at getting referendum proposals onto the November ballot. And soon state election officials will kick into high gear, as well, to validate the petitions. The campaigns have until Friday to get signatures delivered to local clerks. Then the petitions must be delivered to state election officials by Feb. 1. Signature-gathering has been taking place for a number of proposals, including for marijuana legalization, background checks for firearm purchases, ranked-choice voting, higher minimum wage, school funding and a GOP income tax cut/welfare reform proposal. Each proposal needs to have 61,123 valid signatures of registered voters to advance.

Maryland: Veto-override battle begins Wednesday in Annapolis | The Washington Post

Maryland’s majority-Democrat House of Delegates will vote Wednesday on whether to overturn at least two of Gov. Larry Hogan’s vetoes, marking the first direct showdown between lawmakers and the Republican governor of the 2016 legislative session. The state Senate has delayed its override votes until Thursday, because two senators will be absent on Wednesday. Each chamber needs a three-fifths majority to override a veto. The House will decide whether to reinstate a bill that would require online hotel booking companies to collect sales tax for the entire cost of a hotel room in Howard County and give that full amount to the state, rather than keeping part of it as a service fee. It will also try to resurrect a measure that would provide $2 million for capital improvements to a performing arts hall in Annapolis.

Mississippi: Hosemann proposes ‘complete revision’ of election laws | Jackson Clarion-Ledger

Mississippians could register to vote online and begin voting 21 days before an election without an absentee excuse under a “complete revision” of election laws Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is proposing to the Legislature. “It is time to address outdated and inefficient election laws which have, in some cases, been on the books for decades,” Hosemann said on Tuesday, releasing his proposals with a Capitol press conference. “These proposals make it easier to cast your ballot, harder for someone to cheat the electorate and provide severe penalties for those who do.” Hosemann recommends tougher, consolidated penalties for election-law crimes, which he noted are almost never prosecuted in part because they are not clearly defined or understood. His proposal would consolidate all election crimes and penalties, making them either misdemeanors with a maximum fine of $1,000 and a year in jail, or felonies with maximum $3,000 fines and up to two years in jail.

Missouri: Voter ID plan could be among most restrictive in the country | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A Senate panel on Tuesday heard testimony on a proposal that would require voters to show a photo ID at the polls. The measure is similar to a proposal passed out of committee in the House. The bill and a separate resolution, if passed, would pose the question to voters this year in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment. In 2006, the state Supreme Court struck down a photo voter ID law, saying it infringed on the rights of voters. Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit, is sponsoring the bill and accompanying resolution in the Senate. Kraus is running for secretary of state.

Ohio: Will your mail-in vote count in the presidential primary? | Cleveland Plain Dealer

With presidential primary elections two months away, the U.S. Postal Service has yet to explain why nearly 9 percent of Summit County mail-in ballots were missing postmarks and had to be thrown out. And no one has come up with a solution for the future. The unusually high number of botched ballots led the Summit Board of Elections to subpoena postmasters to a hearing last month. While postal officials skipped the hearing, Ohio Secretary of State John Husted’s office has since taken up the issue statewide. During the last presidential election in 2012, more than one-third of Ohio voters mailed their ballots.

Bulgaria: Parliament to Debate Online Voting | Novinite

Bulgarian MPs are set to hold a debate on the introduction of online voting after a referendum in October showed strong support for the step. On Tuesday the Legal Affairs Committee with the Parliament backed a draft resolution according to which e-voting should only be enabled if vote secrecy, civic control on the electoral process and security of information systems are guaranteed under the law. Its decision leaves up to Parliament to discuss and decide on the introduction of online voting.

Haiti: Protesters vow to derail presidential vote; election offices burned | Reuters

Stone-throwing protesters took to the streets of Haiti’s capital on Monday to demand the suspension of a Jan. 24 presidential election over alleged irregularities, while in provincial areas unknown attackers burned several electoral offices. Haiti is due to hold a run-off vote backed by international donors on Sunday, but tensions have risen since opposition candidate Jude Celestin said last week he would withdraw, on grounds that electoral authorities favored the ruling party. Swiss-trained engineer Celestin, 53, came second in an October first round in the poor Caribbean nation, beaten by banana exporter Jovenel Moise, 47, the ruling party candidate.

Serbia: Vučić to resign, Serbia heads for early elections | New Europe

The Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, announced on Sunday evening that he would be calling early elections in Serbia, B92 reports. That is only two years since the last legislative elections in March 2014. Following a meeting with his party’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) executive committee, Vučić argued that elections were necessary to resolve the current impasse of reforms. In fighting against a political-criminal power conglomerate, Vučić argued, his administration needs a new mandate that is resisting change for over a decade. He vowed to turn Serbia into an EU member state in which rule of law prevails by 2020. In the current parliament, SNS holds 158 seats in Serbia’s 250-seat parliament. SNS began as a junior coalition partner of the Socialist Party, before withdrawing their support and heading for the polls. Since, they have dominated the Serbian political landscape, which was traditionally fragmented.

Vanuatu: New voters to miss out in snap election | AFP

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu goes to the polls Friday despite thousands of newly eligible voters being unable to cast a ballot in the snap election called after a corruption scandal rocked the government. A lack of time since the vote was called in late November meant the electoral rolls could not be updated, Electoral Commission chairman John Killion Taleo, told AFP Wednesday. Radio New Zealand reported Wednesday more than 3,000 young people were not on the electoral roll. Only the 200,159 people on the electoral roll last July will be allowed to cast a ballot. The 52-member parliament was dissolved in late November by President Baldwin Lonsdale after 14 lawmakers were jailed for bribery in the impoverished Pacific archipelago.

National: Hackers Are Sharing Reams of US Voter Data on the Dark Web | Motherboard

Alleged voting records of millions of American citizens have been uploaded to the dark web on a site affiliated with a well-known cybercrime forum. Although the information is not particularly sensitive in its own right, its presence on the site shows that even easily obtainable personal data can be of interest to hackers. The datasets appear to include voters’ full names, dates of birth, the date they registered to vote, addresses, local school districts, and several other pieces of information. The dumps also include voting records from previous elections and political affiliations. The two largest files are 1.2 GB and 1 GB, respectively, and each contain at least a million entries. The folder containing the files is called “US_Voter_DB,” though Motherboard could not independently verify the contents’ legitimacy. It’s not entirely clear where the data was sourced from. On December 28 last year, news site CSO Online reported that a database configuration issue had left 191 million voter records exposed to the open internet. That data was discovered by security researcher Christopher Vickery, who found his own personal information within the dump.