National: 15 States Wielding New or Stricter Voter ID Laws in Run-Up to Presidential Election | AllGov

In a state where everything is big, the 23rd Congressional District that hugs the border with Mexico is a monster: 8 1/2 hours by car across a stretch of land bigger than any state east of the Mississippi. In 2014, Rep. Pete Gallego logged more than 70,000 miles there in his white Chevy Tahoe, campaigning for re-election to the House — and lost by a bare 2,422 votes. So in his bid this year to retake the seat, Gallego, a Democrat, has made a crucial adjustment to his strategy. “We’re asking people if they have a driver’s license,” he said. “We’re having those basic conversations about IDs at the front end, right at our first meeting with voters.” Since their inception a decade ago, voter identification laws have been the focus of fierce political and social debate. Proponents, largely Republican, argue that the regulations are essential tools to combat election fraud, while critics contend that they are mainly intended to suppress turnout of Democratic-leaning constituencies like minorities and students.

National: Should Selfies Be Allowed in US Voting Booths? | VoA News

The state of New Hampshire is appealing a decision that allows voters to take pictures inside voting booths. It would like to join other U.S. states that have banned any voting booth documentation in the form of digital images or photography being shared on social media or otherwise. In other words: No selfies with your ballot. “It’s natural that people — particularly young people who are participating in the democratic process —want to make a record of their specific act of casting a ballot,” John Hardin Young, Chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law, told VOA. “That can include taking a photograph with their phone of the actual ballot face as it’s marked. In a way, we are really at loggerheads. On the one hand, we want everyone to participate. On the other, we do want to make sure that the ballot box remains secret.”

Voting Blogs: President Obama Nominates Nevada’s Kate Marshall to EAC | Election Academy

Last week, President Obama sent the Senate a new nominee for the vacant fourth seat on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, replacing Matthew Butler, his choice in November 2014. His choice, Kate Marshall, is a Democrat and former Nevada State Treasurer who was the party’s unsuccessful candidate for Secretary of State in 2014. … The Republican National Lawyers’ Association called the nomination President Obama’s “third strike,” noting Marshall’s lack of elections background and criticizing Democrats for “view[ing] the EAC [as] a place to reward partisans for their service to the liberal movement” and saying “[i]t is sad that the left has so little regard for election administration.” If and when Marshall’s nomination progresses in the Senate, don’t be surprised to hear similar views in committee or on the floor.

Illinois: House backs Democratic redistricting amendment | Reuters

A Democratic bid to transfer the highly coveted political power of drawing legislative boundaries from state lawmakers to the Democratically controlled Illinois Supreme Court overwhelmingly passed the state House of Representatives on Tuesday. The proposed amendment to Illinois’ constitution sailed through the House on a 105-7 vote and now must be approved by a three-fifths majority in the state Senate by Friday in order to be placed on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Since Democrats controlled the state legislature and the governor’s office after the 2010 census, they won the once-a-decade right to draw new legislative district boundaries. The process enabled the party to build super-majorities in both the Senate and House.

Indiana: Software woes mean long waits for some Indiana | Associated Press

An election official in Hancock County said software problems that created long waits at some polling places led some people to leave without ever voting in Tuesday’s primary. Hancock County’s Clerk of the Courts, Marcia Moore, said the software vendor for the county just east of Indianapolis “really let us down” Tuesday morning with computer glitches. Moore said as long lines formed at some of the largely rural county’s 12 voting centers some people left “because they were frustrated that the line was slow.” No voters were turned away from polling places, but Moore said some left because they worried about being late for work. She said one of the software problems affected computer servers, while another caused some election ballots to exclude county commissioner’s races.

Missouri: Voter ID law wins Missouri Senate approval | The Kansas City Star

Missouri Republicans have been trying to enact a voter ID law for more than a decade. Tuesday they overcame a major hurdle, striking a deal with Senate Democrats that ended a filibuster and paved the way for voters to decide whether to amend Missouri’s constitution to allow the state to require a photo ID before casting a ballot. The Missouri Senate voted 24-8 to approve voter ID legislation. A second voter ID bill amending the state’s constitution is expected to be approved later this week. “For 10 years we’ve gotten nothing,” said Sen. Will Kraus, a Lee’s Summit Republican who has sponsored the voter ID bills for several years. “This is an historic step forward.” The voter ID issue has threatened to derail the legislative session for months. Democrats had vowed to block the measure, which they argued could disenfranchise thousands of Missouri voters. Until this week, they had made good on that promise.

Missouri: Despite deal, lawmakers predict voter ID fight to keep going | Associated Press

Missouri lawmakers from both parties see the voter ID issue as far from settled, even as the Republican-controlled Legislature is poised to tighten the state’s requirements after Democrats managed to stall a pair of proposals for about a month. Senate Republicans passed a bill on a 24-8 party-line vote Tuesday that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. A constitutional amendment that would allow that measure to be enacted is still awaiting a vote. Both proposals would go into effect only with voter approval. Missouri Republicans have sought to establish a photo ID requirement to vote for a decade. The state Supreme Court struck down one measure in 2006, saying the cost to obtain the identification was an unconstitutional burden on voters. So this year, Republicans proposed that the state would pay for voters’ IDs. They also proposed changing the state constitution to allow lawmakers to set photo ID requirements for voting.

Montana: Judge tosses closed primary lawsuit, but fight is not over | Associated Press

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that sought to allow only Republican-registered voters to participate in its primary elections. But the legal fight to throw out Montana’s century-old open primary system isn’t over yet. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris dismissed the lawsuit by the Montana Republican Party and 10 GOP county central committees that claimed open primaries allow Democrats and independent voters to influence the outcome of their elections. The system violates Republicans’ freedom of association and forces candidates to change their message to appeal to “crossover voters,” the lawsuit said. The dismissal comes at the Republicans’ request after after a series of rulings by Morris, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court that ensured the June 7 primary elections will remain open to all registered voters.

Montana: State attorneys defend campaign finance law ahead of elections | Associated Press

Montana attorneys on Tuesday defended the state’s new campaign finance disclosure law against a gun-rights organization that wants parts of it struck down before next month’s primary elections. The Virginia-based National Association for Gun Rights claims the law passed by state legislators last year would force it to register as a political committee for making issue-advocacy statements that are protected by the First Amendment. The law imposes burdens — filing reports, disclosing contributors and opening a bank account among them — on groups that “simply desire to talk about matters of public concern,” the association’s attorney, Matthew Monforton, said in court filings. State attorneys argued the law does not prevent so-called social welfare groups such as the National Association for Gun Rights from speaking freely, but it requires disclosure from those who do.

New York: Judge rejects challenge to New York’s ‘closed primary’ system | New York Daily News

New York State’s presidential primary results can be certified by the city and state Boards of Elections without any interference from the courts, a Manhattan judge ruled Monday. State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron rejected a plea by a Manhattan attorney to rule that the state’s “closed primary” system violates the state constitution because independents can’t vote at all and those who do participate must be enrolled in their respective political parties six months before the election. Mark Warren Moody asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order to block the certification of the April 19 primary results, but Engoron refused, saying it’s not likely that Moody would win on the merits of his argument.

Ohio: Final arguments being made in dispute over ballots in Ohio | Akron Beacon Journal

Ohio’s elections chief and advocates for the homeless are making their final arguments in a federal lawsuit that could affect how thousands of ballots are cast and counted in the swing state. The advocates, along with the Ohio Democratic Party, are suing Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted over changes made in 2014 to requirements for absentee or provisional ballots. The two sides reiterated their arguments and findings in court briefs last week and are expected to submit their final filings with the court on Thursday. The case would then be left to the judge to decide. … At issue are the laws and procedures for absentee and provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are those cast when a voter’s identity or registration is in question, among other reasons. The voter’s eligibility is verified later.

West Virginia: High court rejects suit over online voter registration | The Herald Dispatch

A lawsuit filed Tuesday against clerks in Cabell and Kanawha counties questioning whether or not they had the right to deny online voter registration was rejected by the West Virginia Supreme Court later Tuesday afternoon. Cabell County Clerk Karen Cole said she received an official statement Tuesday afternoon from the West Virginia Supreme Court saying the petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia had been rejected. … The online registration was rolled out at the end of September after the Legislature passed a bill in 2013 allowing it. To register online, including changing an address or party affiliation, residents must have a driver’s license and the last four digits of their Social Security number. A person’s signature is then pulled from the Division of Motor Vehicles website to authorize the changes. Majestro said these steps provide more than enough security measures to ensure voter fraud does not take place.

Australia: High Court hears Bob Day’s constitutional challenge to senate voting reforms | Sydney Morning Herald

Senator Bob Day says he remains confident in his high-stakes challenge to new Senate voting laws, as the High Court begins deliberations on a case that could disrupt the Turnbull government’s plans for a July election. The Family First senator is arguing the new laws, passed after a marathon sitting of parliament in March, are unconstitutional, and will effectively disenfranchise millions of voters who don’t want to support major parties. The new voting system threatens to wipe out micro-parties, like Senator Day’s, which have traditionally relied on preferences to get them into the upper house, despite attracting only a fraction of the primary vote. The High Court challenge wrapped up just before midday on Tuesday, and the judges are expected to hand down a decision in coming weeks. The case comes at a critical time. If Senator Day manages to successfully argue new system is unconstitutional, it could jeopardise Malcolm Turnbull’s plans for a July 2 election.

Indonesia: West Papua: UN must supervise vote on independence, says coalition | The Guardian

The United Nations must pass a resolution for an internationally supervised vote for independence in West Papua, global parliamentarians and independence advocates have said. In a meeting in London on Tuesday, the West Papuan independence leader, Benny Wenda, will join parliamentarians, lawyers and humanitarians from the UK and the Pacific region to demand the United Nations pass a resolution for an independence referendum, in order to make up for its “mistake” in allowing Indonesia to take control almost 50 years ago. Indonesia warns other countries to respect its sovereignty over Papua. West Papuans are the indigenous people of a region on the Western half of an island shared with Papua New Guinea. Formerly under Dutch colonisation, Indonesia took temporary control of West Papua under a UN–backed treaty in 1963. It later gained complete rule through a UN-sanctioned but discredited ballot in 1969, in which just a little over 1000 Indonesian-picked West Papuan leaders representatives cast votes under threat of violence.

Philippines: National Bureau of Investigation says it’s nearly Impossible for hackers to alter poll results–NBI | Inquirer

NEARLY impossible. This was how the head of the National Bureau of Investigation cybercrime division replied to the question of whether or not it was possible for hackers to alter the results of the May 9 national elections. “It’s really difficult and nearly impossible to influence the results of the elections through hacking,” NBI head agent Ronald Aguto told the Inquirer in an interview on Tuesday. Several sectors have expressed concerns about the integrity of the election results after hackers successfully broke into the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) voters database. The hackers then uploaded at least 55 million voter’s personal details on the Internet. Personal details such as voters’ full names, birth dates, addresses, registration details such as precinct numbers and voter identification numbers were made public on the net. Also, individual information such as height, weight and passport number, fingerprint and topography were also included.

Serbia: Partial repeat polls held after irregularities in April vote | Europe Online

Some Serbians are voting Wednesday in repeat elections after irregularities in the April 24 parliamentary polls. Only 20,000 of the 6.7 million registered voters may take part in the repeat vote being held in 15 polling stations because of problems reported by both the opposition and the government. However, the handful of voters will decide on 10 per cent of the 250 seats in parliament. The April elections were called by conservative Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic two years ahead of schedule. The victory of the coalition grouped around Vucic‘s Progressive Party (SNS), which won 48.2 per cent of the votes, is not in question – but the number of the seats it will control is. Vucic and the SNS go into Wednesday‘s vote with 138 of the 250 seats.

Spain: King disolves parliament calls for repeat election on June 26 | Reuters

Spain’s King Felipe dissolved parliament on Tuesday and called a new national election for June 26 after a vote in December left such a fractured political landscape that no government could be formed. The new vote follows four months of fruitless coalition talks between Spain’s four main parties after the inconclusive ballot stripped the conservative People’s Party (PP) of acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy of its majority. The re-run is not expected to herald a major shift in voting patterns, opinion polls show, likely forcing bickering leaders to once again try to forge a coalition.

National: What’s the Goal of Voter-ID Laws? | The Atlantic

As states around the country enact or consider voter-ID laws, the battle formations are well-rehearsed. Conservatives who back the laws say that there’s a danger of fraudulent votes, which pollute the democratic process at best and swing elections at worst. Liberals who oppose them counter that there’s next to no evidence of actual voting fraud; that voter-ID laws wouldn’t stop that fraud anyway; and that the laws are actually intended to depress voter-turnout among the populations that are least likely to hold state-issued photo ID—students, the poor, minorities, and the elderly who are most likely to vote Democratic—and improve conservative prospects in elections, despite demographic changes that favor liberal candidates. The pro-voter-ID side has two big problems. First, they’ve been unable to produce proof of the widespread voter fraud they believe exists. Second, people who agree with them—and in some cases the proponents themselves—keep slipping up and saying the point is to help conservative candidates. Last week, Jim DeMint, the president of the Heritage Foundation and former senator from South Carolina, spoke on St. Louis-area talk radio. Legislators in Missouri are trying to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would mandate that voters show voter ID. (I explained why they’re using that path last week.) Host Jamie Allman asked DeMint about Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s move to re-enfranchise former felons.

National: Judiciary Democrats seek hearing on voting rights | The Hill

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are pressing GOP leaders for a hearing to address their growing concerns over the erosion of voting rights. Behind Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking member of the panel, the lawmakers are warning top Republicans that the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision dismantling part of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) threatens a wave of discrimination at the polls in November. In a letter sent Friday to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), head of the committee’s Constitution subpanel, the Democrats called for a hearing “without further delay” to study the potential roadblocks facing voters this year, particularly in states that have enacted tougher voting laws since the Supreme Court ruling. Some of those new laws, the Democrats contend, “disproportionately prevent or discourage minorities from voting.”

Alabama: Merrill can’t come up with proof of fraud in documentary on voter ID law | AL.com

In a newly released short documentary on Alabama’s controversial voter ID law, Secretary of State John Merrill could not provide documented proof of voter fraud while explaining the rationale for the provision. “In Alabama, we want to make it real easy to vote and real hard to cheat,” Merrill says in the 11-minute documentary produced by First Look Media, titled “The Black Belt.” “People who have come into our state and said that Alabama’s a backward state and this is a racial issue on closing the DMVs — that’s certainly not the case at all.” Gov. Robert Bentley’s decision to close 31 driver’s licenses offices last year, which opponents said disproportionately affected minorities, the disabled and the poor, was made as the state faced a budget crunch. Driver’s licenses are the most commonly used form of identification used at polling places, and only an accepted photo ID can be used to cast a ballot in Alabama. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton weighed in on the controversy during a visit to Hoover in October, calling the closures “a blast from the Jim Crow past.”

California: Jerry Brown gives counties $16.3 million more for election costs | The Sacramento Bee

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that directs $16.29 million to counties to help pay for expected high turnout in the June 7 presidential primary and to process a coming deluge of petitions from groups seeking to qualify November ballot measures, including one championed by the Democratic governor. Assembly Bill 120’s signing comes a few weeks after Secretary of State Alex Padilla alerted Brown to a “surge” of voter interest in the June election because of the high-profile Republican presidential primary. As they plan for that, county election officials face the prospect of trying to verifying as many as 9.4 million petition signatures, Padilla wrote the governor. Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley called the money “a huge help.” “It absolutely goes a long way to assisting us in juggling this kind of perfect storm: the initiatives colliding at the same time we’re producing ballots and tallying ballots,” said Kelley, the president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.

Missouri: Agreement reached in Missouri Senate over contentious voter ID proposal | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Missouri Senate Democrats and Republicans have reached an agreement over a proposal that would require voters to show ID at the ballot box. Under a version of the legislation adopted Monday, if voters don’t present a photo ID, they would sign a statement under penalty of perjury attesting that they are who they say they are. The voter would then have to present some form of ID, such as a university-issued ID or a utility bill. “The bill is requirement of photo ID, and the statement is a way for them to be able to cast a normal ballot,” said state Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit. “But we want to make sure that they know it’s the law of the land that they have to get an ID.”

New Hampshire: Republican party halts controversial vote meant to limit Trump’s delegate support | The Guardian

An attempt by the New Hampshire Republican party to limit Donald Trump’s influence in a potential contested convention was halted Monday, when the state chair canceled a controversial online vote for positions on crucial committees just minutes after the voting deadline. In an email obtained by the Guardian, party chair Jennifer Horn said that although all 23 of the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention participated in the vote, she was canceling it “in the interest of full transparency”. Instead, she summoned a delegates-only meeting in Concord on Friday, in which those unable to attend could participate via conference call. Initially, in an email sent out Saturday night, the state party’s executive director proposed a slate for the eight slots on convention committees reserved for New Hampshire delegates at the Republican gathering in Cleveland in July. The proposed slate included two supporters apiece of John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and one supporter of Marco Rubio. The eighth slot was left vacant.

Ohio: Online voter registration could be delayed until 2017 | The Columbus Dispatch

House Republicans may give Ohioans the convenience of registering to vote online – but perhaps not until after this swing state votes for president. A bill to have Ohio join at least 26 other states with online voter registration has been sitting in the House for nearly a year, after passing the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill is scheduled to be heard again Wednesday, along with potential amendments. Multiple sources said one of those amendments is likely to delay online registration until 2017, so it cannot be used by those who want to vote this November. Secretary of State Jon Husted, a key supporter of the bill, would operate the online registration system and has said repeatedly that his office is ready now, as soon as lawmakers pass the bill.

Oregon: Double ballots? It’s OK. Just fill out the second one, officials say | The Oregonian

Be warned if you changed your political party — like thousands of Oregon voters — right before the state’s April 26 deadline. Elections officials say the ballot that hit your mailbox this week is almost certainly the wrong one — full of races from the party you switched from, and not the one you switched to. That’s likely true for anyone who submitted a change after April 13. But don’t fret about losing your chance to vote. Updated ballots, correctly assembled, are already on the way, officials promise. If you haven’t sent back the first one (most Oregonians tend to wait), then all you have to do is sit tight, wait for the replacement and vote before May 17 like you normally would. Even you voted promptly, officials say, fill out the new ballot and send that one in, too. That’s the one they’ll count.

Texas: Analysis: A Texas Judge Takes Voter ID to Court | The Texas Tribune

The only Democrat in elected statewide office in Texas is suing to upend the state’s photo voter ID law, saying it’s an unconstitutional obstacle to a legal activity: voting. The rogue in question is Larry Meyers, who was elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as a Republican in 1992 and re-elected in 1998, 2004 and 2010. At the end of 2013, he changed parties, irritated with the direction of his party and wanting to make a statement on his way out of office — if that’s where the switch takes him. Meyers says he left the Republican Party “after the Tea Party takeover” and says the infighting within the GOP has only confirmed his decision. He refers to his former political home as “the Donner Party,” after an infamous case of cannibalism among settlers in the 1840s. “They’re eating each other up,” he says.

Virginia: Republicans Weigh Court Challenge to Voting Rights for Felons | The New York Times

Republican lawmakers in Virginia said on Monday that they were considering a court challenge to Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s decision to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, opening the door to a legal battle that could create uncertainties about their ability to vote in November. “Governor McAuliffe’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of law must not go unchecked,” Thomas K. Norment Jr., a Republican and the majority leader of Virginia’s State Senate, said. On Monday, Mr. Norment and another Republican, William J. Howell, the speaker of the state’s House of Delegates, said they had retained Charles J. Cooper, a prominent conservative lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in support of California’s onetime ban on same-sex marriage, “to examine the legal options to remedy this Washington-style overreach by the executive branch.” Mr. McAuliffe issued an order on April 22 that effectively did away with his state’s Civil War-era limitations on voting rights for convicted felons, many of whom are African-Americans, by allowing those who have completed their prison and parole or probation time to vote.

Wisconsin: Democrats urge Justice Department to challenge voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin’s Democratic members of Congress are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to review the state’s voter ID requirements and consider bringing a legal challenge to the law. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Reps Ron Kind, Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch Monday urging her to consider suing over the law or intervening in an existing case. “The barriers these requirements have set up and the harmful impact they have had for many Wisconsin voters demonstrate that now is the time for a full and thorough review of the constitutionality of the voter ID law,” they wrote. The state’s first major test of its voter ID law came last month with the April 5 spring election and presidential primary. The election brought historic turnout as well as some long lines, prompting Republicans to dismiss claims it suppresses the vote and Democrats to argue it played a role in some delays. Lines of an hour or more were reported in a few locations statewide, especially near college campuses such as Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Australia: Senate voting reforms unconstitutional, Bob Day’s lawyers tell High Court | ABC

Lawyers for South Australian senator Bob Day have told the High Court new Senate voting reforms are “unconstitutional”. The new laws were set up to prevent elaborate preference deals, which have helped micro party and independent senators get elected. The controversial laws were passed with the help of senator Nick Xenophon and the Greens after a 28-hour session of Parliament in March. Senator Day is challenging the laws in the High Court.

Bulgaria: The Zero-Sum Game of Bulgaria’s Election Rules | Novinite

Bulgarian lawmakers passed so many changes to its election laws in the last couple of weeks that protesters sounded a bit unsure which new rule to slam first. In a rush to go on holiday, they gave the thumbs up on compulsory voting, introduced restrictions to voting abroad (but dropped some of them later), rejected the creation of a “foreign” constituency representing hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian nationals living outside the country, delayed the introduction of online voting, and set a higher preference threshold for the election of mayors and “local parliament” members. They also tried to shorten the election campaign to 21, down from 30 days and to ban the announcement of any opinion poll results within the time, two moves where they backtracked. As these lines are being typed, it is not yet clear whether the version adopted after long political bargaining is final in any way, with the President possibly vetoing some texts or the Constitutional court overturning others, or both.