Editorials: Kentucky Should Eliminate Its Recanvass Process for Close Elections | Joshua A. Douglas/Courier-Journal

Last week, Kentucky witnessed its second statewide recanvass of an election in the past two years. Bernie Sanders asked the state to review the totals in the Democratic primary, which Hillary Clinton won by 1,911 votes. Just as in the Republican gubernatorial primary of 2015, the recanvass yielded no change to the vote totals, confirming Clinton won as announced on Election Night. The state and counties spent money conducting a recanvass that had absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election. It is time to do away with this process. Kentucky law contains three possible procedures to contest the results of a close election. The first is a recanvass, in which the counties “recheck and recanvass” the vote totals from the machines, along with any absentee ballots. During a recanvass, counties do not recount individual votes; they instead verify, or retabulate, the count from the machines – in essence, it is like pushing the button again to re-tally the totals. The counties themselves pay for this process, meaning that any candidate who is down by a close margin has virtually nothing to lose by requesting this procedure.

Maryland: Sheila Dixon won’t file lawsuit challenging Baltimore primary election | Baltimore Sun

Former Mayor Sheila Dixon will not file a lawsuit to challenge the April primary election for mayor, her spokeswoman said Wednesday, ending a month of uncertainty following the close contest. Spokeswoman Martha McKenna said the former mayor continued to call on concerned voters to seek information to explain the irregularities that led officials to decertify the election and investigate the results. The deadline to file a lawsuit challenging the mayoral and City Council elections was Wednesday — seven days after the city recertified the election. “We took a tack of working with the [state] Board of Elections and getting as much information as we could about the ballots, the certification, the recertification and the reconciliation process,” McKenna said.

North Carolina: Some Durham County voters will receive new primary ballot | News & Observer

In light of finding Durham County elections workers had counted dozens more votes than had actually been cast, the State Board of Elections has decided to scratch 892 provisional ballots and mail out new ballots to those voters more than two months later. In a meeting to finalize the results of the March 15 primary, the board voted unanimously to approve only 147 provisional ballots that could be checked for eligibility and moved to send out new ballots to voters whose ballots could not be verified. The decision came out of a state investigation into discrepancies in the Durham County election primaries that found the state only had physical copies for 980 provisional ballots, despite having approved or partially approved 1,039 provisional ballots to count toward final election totals.

Ohio: Battle rages over access to voting | MSNBC

With Ohio set to once again be a pivotal swing state this fall, the state’s Republicans are looking to restrict access to the voting booth—extending a sprawling battle over voting in the Buckeye State that has raged for more than a decade. A recent court ruling foiled the GOP’s bid to end same-day voter registration—for now. But a controversial new Republican-backed bill would make it harder to keep polls open late if unforeseen problems arise, as they have in the past. Meanwhile, the state’s top election official is being sued over a controversial purge of the voter rolls. And even a measure to let voters register online that has won GOP support is nonetheless causing controversy. The stakes in Ohio could hardly be higher. The state is shaping up to reprise its status as a crucial battleground in the presidential election this November. It also hosts a tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic former Gov. Ted Strickland that could help determine control of the chamber.

Wisconsin: Sanders’ backers want to end superdelegates | Associated Press

Backers of Bernie Sanders are pushing for a vote at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention this weekend that they hope will pressure the state’s superdelegates to switch their allegiance from Hillary Clinton to the Vermont senator. The vote on the nonbinding resolution, set for Saturday afternoon, will come on the second day of the convention. On Friday, party leaders and those running for office, most notably Senate candidate Russ Feingold, will speak to delegates at the meeting in Green Bay. The party convention is designed as a way to rally Democrats heading into the election season. Feingold’s rematch against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is the biggest race on the ballot, but Democrats are also eyeing the open 8th Congressional District seat in northeast Wisconsin and hoping to make gains in the state Legislature, where Republicans control both the Senate and Assembly. The keynote speaker at the convention on Friday night is U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

Australia: Why do we have pencils and not pens at polling booths? | ABC

You wouldn’t use a pencil to fill in a passport application form. You almost certainly wouldn’t sign a contract with one. So why do we still use pencils for the most important civic duty, voting? That question has inspired one curious Australian, who submitted it to Curious Campaign. Australians have been using pencils to vote since well before Hungarian László Bíró popularised the ballpoint pen in the 1930s. As early as 1902, the Electoral Act required the provision of pencils in voting booths. “Polling booths shall have separate voting compartments, constructed so as to screen the voters from observation while they are marking their ballot papers, and each voting compartment shall be furnished with a pencil for the use of voters.” That precise wording remains in the law to this day. But while the act instructs the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to provide pencils, it doesn’t instruct voters to use them. “People can bring and use a pen if they wish to do so,” Electoral Commission spokesman Evan Ekin-Smith said.

Haiti: Haiti awaits elections-council decision | Miami Herald

The No. 2 finisher in Haiti’s presidential elections, who this year boycotted the runoff until sweeping changes were made to the electoral machinery, said that an audit of the balloting confirmed his declarations that the vote was tainted by “massive fraud.” Now the country’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) needs to “sanction the person who committed the fraud, the people who helped defraud,” Jude Célestin said in an exclusive interview with Radio Kiskeya in Port-au-Prince. Asked who that was, Célestin replied: “Everyone knows, the entire population knows the candidate who was the fraudster, for whom the fraud was done on behalf of.” Célestin qualified for the second round against Jovenel Moïse, the choice of former President Michel Martelly. Moïse has denied the fraud allegations and accused opponents of using them to try to kick him out of the race. His PHTK party has refused to recognize the report. A PHTK operative told the Miami Herald that Célestin has to be referring to another one of the top finishers.

Kenya: Government urges end to protests, opposition defiant | Reuters

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy urged the opposition on Wednesday to end unrest over alleged bias in the electoral commission, but opposition leaders said protests would continue if their demands for dialogue were not met. To help defuse tensions, Kenyatta on Tuesday had talks with his political rival, the leader of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy Raila Odinga, but the rare meeting between the two appeared to have little impact. The president’s office said Tuesday’s meeting yielded no deal between Kenyatta and Odinga on how to revamp the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Peru: Thousands Protest Over Keiko Fujimori’s Presidential Candidacy | International Business Times

Thousands took to the streets of Peru Tuesday to protest the presidential candidacy of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori. The former president is currently in prison for authorizing death squads and corruption during his decade in power between 1990 and 2000. Incumbent President Ollanta Humala is ineligible for elections this year due to constitutional term limitations. This leaves the candidacy to Fujimori, 41, and pro-business conservative and former World Bank economist, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Kuczynski was expected to join the protests but canceled the plan in a last-minute decision. Reuters reported Kuczynski as stating that it would be “undemocratic” for him to join calls to stop Fujimori.

United Kingdom: Thousands of British expats excluded from voting in the EU referendum | The Conversation UK

A decision by judges in the Supreme Court has finally put an end to the legal challenge of two British citizens claiming to have been unfairly excluded from voting in the EU referendum. They were campaigning against the law which disenfranchises people who have lived outside the UK for 15 years or more. Lawyers for Harry Shindler MBE, a war veteran living in Italy, and Jaquelyn MacLennan, a lawyer resident in Belgium, pursued their claim that the EU Referendum Act (Section 2) is incompatible with EU law. They argued that it “restricts their directly effective EU law rights of freedom of movement” and acts as a penalty for exercising this right. Following hearings in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the UK’s final court of appeal, endorsed the lower courts’ rejection of the claim. It ruled that, even if EU law did apply (and there was disagreement between the courts over this point), there had not been any “interference” with the claimants’ right of free movement – which was the basis of the case.

National: The Price of Public Money: The Presidential Election Campaign Fund Has $300 Million and No One Wants It | The Atlantic

Matthew King of suburban Tacoma, Washington, is a Democrat who believes the average American should donate to presidential candidates to thwart big money’s influence. Though he is looking for work, he feels so strongly about the issues that he makes small monthly contributions to Democratic candidates and causes. “It’s democracy in action,” King says, describing his hopes for a president who will combine leftist ideals with strong Christian values. “Right now, money is our voice in politics.” Last fall, King, who is in his late 30s, was working at a local Taco Bell; he charged $20 to his credit card to support a presidential candidate, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. King did not know it at the time, but his donation would help O’Malley’s campaign qualify for more than $1 million in matching funds thanks to a cumbersome bureaucratic process: a relic known as the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. O’Malley was the only one of 23 initial primary contenders in 2016 to seek public funds for his campaign. Only three candidates are still in the race, but more than $300 million remains in the fund—and no one wants to touch it.

National: Native Americans move to frontlines in battle over voting rights | Reuters

Elvis Norquay, a member of the Chippewa Indian tribe, has lived most of his 58 years on North Dakota’s remote Turtle Mountain reservation and says he’s never had a problem voting. That was before 2014, when he hitched a ride with a friend to cast a ballot in local and congressional elections and was turned away. Embarrassed, he asked why he couldn’t vote. He was told he lacked proper ID under new state requirements. He has no phone, no current driver’s license and his tribal ID lacks a street address. “When we left, my friend said, ‘that’s not right’,” said Norquay, who has lived on disability since 2002 in a rural county near the Canadian border.

National: Republicans Fight to Regain Voter Data Parity with Democrats | Bloomberg

One of the records inside a massive and rapidly growing Republican National Committee database contains three predictive numbers about President Barack Obama’s political leanings. There’s a 95 percent likelihood Obama will vote in the 2016 general election, the database predicts, based on computer modeling. It also shows an 83 percent chance Obama will side with his party’s nominee, while suggesting a 10 percent shot he’ll back the Republican candidate. It’s an extreme example—Obama, a two-term Democratic president, has repeatedly said he plans to support his party’s nominee and has been highly critical of Donald Trump—but it illustrates how the RNC has attached a score to each of the 192 million registered voters in America as part of a massive push to regain parity with Democrats in using data to win elections. Democrats have used similar scoring for several election cycles, but this will be the first in which the RNC has used such a system in a presidential election.

California: California Can Show the Rest of of the U.S. How To Do Elections Right | CityLab

California’s June 7 primary election is fast approaching, and the state with the most registered voters in the U.S. is far from ready. For one, the list of candidates currently vying for retiring U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat is so mob-deep that it’s forcing counties to reconfigure their ballots to accommodate all the names. Meanwhile, confusion and resentment is festering among independent voters over a lack of rule uniformity and clarity regarding their right to vote in the primaries. All of this, combined with an expected voter-turnout surge, has led to lawsuits demanding that the state extend its voter registration period up to the primary election date. However, “The infrastructure’s not in place” for such an extension, Orange County voter registrar Neal Kelley told the L.A. Times.

California: Varied election filing practices reveal a system struggling to catch up | Los Angeles Times

More than half of California’s counties — most of them small and rural — don’t provide online access to campaign finance records, and they say they aren’t likely to change any time soon, an assessment of county-level contribution records shows. Only 28 of the state’s 58 counties provide campaign finance information online. And of those, just 17 make the data available in formats that make it easy to search and analyze the money influencing local elections. Some counties say shifting online would be too expensive given tight budgets. Others have implemented electronic filing systems, but have not made them mandatory for candidates and committees. That means it’s more difficult to determine whom local donors are, how much money they raised and for which campaigns. Counties operate independently because there is no state law requiring online filing. California accepted the first electronic filing of a campaign statement in U.S. history in 1998. Little has changed since then.

California: 1,400 ballots incorrectly mailed to San Francisco voters right before election | The San Francisco Examiner

More than 1,400 ballots of the wrong party affiliation were incorrectly mailed to San Francisco voters, the San Francisco Examiner has learned. The ballot snafu comes just a week before San Francisco voters hit the polls for the June primary election, and during the prime vote-by-mail period — critical for local races like the Democratic County Central Committee, the state Senate primary and a number of local ballot measures. The Examiner learned of the mistake from readers who sent in letters they obtained from the San Francisco Department of Elections. “A Nonpartisan ballot was mailed to you in error; this ballot did not accurately reflect your request for a Democratic Party ballot for this primary election,” reads the letter from the department, signed by John Arntz, its director.

Florida: Judge’s ruling nullifies landslide vote for nonpartisan elections | Orlando Sentinel

Orange County candidates for sheriff, tax collector and the four other constitutional offices would be identified on this year’s ballot as Democrat, Republican or another party affiliation if a judge’s ruling holds. A 2014 ballot measure that earned 71 percent of the vote had changed those contests to nonpartisan races in which a candidate’s party affiliation is not provided on the ballot. But Circuit Judge Keith White, in an oral ruling on Thursday, said the county had no authority to determine how its constitutional officers are elected. That power is preempted by state election code. His decision was viewed as a win by Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh, Sheriff Jerry Demings, and Tax Collector Scott Randolph, who had sued to nullify the ballot measure, saying it had misled and confused voters and was motivated by Republican politicians.

Illinois: Automatic voter registration goes to Rauner; he likes idea | Associated Press

Visitors to one of a handful of Illinois state agencies would be automatically registered to vote under legislation lawmakers sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner on Tuesday. The House approved the idea 86-30 on the final day of the General Assembly’s spring session, after days of tweaking to make it palatable to state officials who must carry it out. With the Republican governor’s approval, the Prairie State would join just four other states that have or are planning automatic registration programs. In Illinois, people who do business with one of five state agencies — the Department on Aging and the departments of Human Services, Healthcare and Family Services, Employment Security and the Secretary of State — would have information automatically filed with election authorities to allow them to enter voting booths.

Maryland: Analysis: Improperly scanned ballots too few to affect outcomes of Baltimore City Council primary races | Baltimore Sun

Were the irregularities in Baltimore’s primary election numerous enough to affect the outcome of City Council races? It’s a question on a lot of people’s minds. The State Board of Elections reported last week there were 1,188 provisional ballots improperly scanned into the results of Baltimore’s primary election in April — without verification that the voters were registered. That’s too few votes to affect the outcome of the Democratic primary for mayor, where state Sen. Catherine E. Pugh defeated former Mayor Sheila Dixon by more than 2,400 votes. But was it enough to affect a council race, where only hundreds of votes separate competitors? An analysis of election data by The Baltimore Sun shows that — much like the mayor’s race — the potentially invalid votes were too few to affect the outcomes of even down-ballot contests.

Montana: 10 Republicans call for special session on campaign finance | The Billings Gazette

Ten Republicans filed paperwork on Tuesday seeking a special session to fix flawed campaign finance laws, but Democrats say the move is unnecessary. For a session to convene, at least 76 of the 150 members of the House and Senate must approve. Republicans say the emergency measure — which is also expensive — is necessary to fix what they call “defects” in Montana law governing campaign contributions and close a “loophole” that allows for cash from political action committees to flow to candidates without limit.

North Carolina: With retention idea blocked, Supreme Court primary goes on | Associated Press

There will be one race on every ballot in North Carolina’s previously unscheduled June 7 primary because the state Supreme Court couldn’t agree whether a law that led a colleague to seek re-election through a new method complied with the state constitution. Justices deadlocked 3-3 this month on a lower court ruling that struck down the law giving Associate Justice Robert Edmunds of Greensboro the option to run alone for a new term in November and try to keep his job based on an up-or-down vote of support. That kept February’s decision of three trial judges intact, thus returning the election to a traditional head-to-head race. Edmunds and three challengers — Sabra Jean Faires of Cary, Michael Morgan of Raleigh and Daniel Robertson of Advance — are candidates on the primary ballot that also will include delayed congressional primaries in most parts of the state. The top two vote-getters advance to the general election.

Ohio: State asks federal judge to delay reinstating ‘Golden Week’ allowing registration, voting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ohio has asked a federal judge in Columbus to hold off enforcing an order requiring the state to allow voting during Golden Week, when voters can both register to vote and cast an in-person absentee ballot. U.S. District Judge Michael Watson last week struck down a state law that eliminated Golden Week, ruling that the 2014 law violates both the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That law shortened early voting from 35 days before an election to 28. Husted said then that the state would appeal the ruling.

West Virginia: Fayette County will stick with paper ballots | Fayette Tribune

Fayette County’s General Election results in November should come in more quickly than they did in this month’s primary, but for the county commission, moving away from paper ballots completely is not a viable option. County Clerk Kelvin Holliday said all three early voting locations will offer only electronic voting in November. Earlier this month it took county employees more than three hours just to run early voting and absentee ballots through the paper ballot machine. Final results were not released until after 3 a.m. The county expects to have six iVotronic voting machines in Fayetteville for early voting, which is the busiest of the three early voting locations. By switching to electronic early voting, they hope ballot counting time will be cut down, but making the entire election electronic voting only isn’t possible.

Africa: More African countries are blocking Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp during elections | Quartz

Last week, Ghana, widely acknowledged as one of Africa’s role models for best democratic practice, caught democracy watchdogs off guard when the country’s police chief announced the government intends to shut down social media on voting day in November. The shutdown is to take place from 5 am to 7 pm “to ensure social media are not used to send misleading information that could destabilize the country.” While it is a surprise Ghana is making this move, it has become more common for several other African countries who haven’t been as courteous as to give voters notice before curtailing the use of social media and the right to free speech around elections. Deji Olukotun of Internet freedom advocacy group Access Now, notes Ghana “was clearly looking to what other countries have done.” Citizens in Ethiopia, Congo, Chad, Uganda, and elsewhere have found elections are a particularly popular time to crack down on social media.

France: Civic Tech Platform La Primaire Wants To Help French Voters Bypass Traditional Parties | Forbes

French people, like the citizens of many other countries, have little confidence in their government or in their members of parliament. A recent study by the Center for Political Research of the University of Science-Po (CEVIPOF) in Paris, shows that while residents still trust, in part, their local officials, only 37% of them on average feel the same for those belonging to the National Assembly, the Senate or the executive. Three years before, when asked in another poll about of what sprung to mind first when thinking of politics, their first answer was “disgust”. With this sort of background, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of activists have decided to try and find new ways to boost political participation, using crowdsourcing, smartphone applications and online platforms to look for candidates outside of the usual circles.

Haiti: Council starts deliberating on possible election redo | Associated Press

Haiti’s electoral authorities begin deliberating Tuesday whether they should annul results of the disputed presidential election’s first round, as recommended by a special commission that reported finding significant fraud. Electoral council chief Leopold Berlanger declined to comment on the verification commission’s findings Monday night, saying his panel would need until June 6 to examine the report and announce a new election calendar for this troubled country. The Provisional Electoral Council has the final say on election matters. The leader of the verification commission, Pierre Francois Benoit, told The Associated Press that members of his panel were so troubled by their month-long review that they had no choice but to recommend starting over and scrapping a presidential run-off vote that has been postponed three times. The panel examined 25 per cent of the roughly 13,000 tally sheets from polling stations.

India: PMK to seek audit of voter paper trail | Business Standard

The PMK will seek an audit or cross-checking of May 16 polling as recorded by the electronic voting machines and on the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, said party leader Anbumani Ramadoss. The party will also seek an amendment to the Representation of the People Act giving the Election Commission sufficient powers to conduct the polls in a free and fair manner like the powers to disqualify a party or a candidate for bribing voters and other acts. “We will soon petition the Election Commission to audit the paper trail system (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) that was installed in 17 assembly constituencies during the May 16 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu,” former union minister and PMK leader Ramadoss told IANS. “We demand reverting to paper ballot system. The voting machines can be tampered with in couple of minutes. The system can be programmed in such a way that every fifth vote will be in favour of a particular party,” Ramadoss said.

Malta: Buy a passport, get your vote free | Times of Malta

The government calls it an individual investment programme intended to attract to Malta people with talent and money to invest. The more down to earth deem it a sale of Maltese/European passports and information tabled in Parliament indicates that is just what the IIP actually is: a sale. Over 80 per cent of the 143 successful applicants so far have signed five-year rent contracts rather than opting to buy a property in Malta. The implication is that they have no intention of settling here permanently, if at all. Chris Kalin, president of Henley & Partners, which runs the programme, was more succinct when he said that many of his clients were only interested in getting a Maltese passport rather than living here. In other words, they want a passport to Europe. The IIP scheme, which had not been included in the Labour Party electoral programme, was controversial from the start and amended several times along the way until a settlement was reached with the European Union.

Seychelles: Court rejects presidential election petitions, validates President Michel’s win | Seychelles News Agancy

In an eagerly awaited verdict, the Seychelles Constitutional Court on Tuesday upheld President James Michel’s election win, rejecting an opposition party’s petitions to overturn the results of the December poll. The case against Michel’s election win was filed after a historical run-off contested by President Michel, also leader of the ruling Parti Lepep, and the leader of the Seychelles National Party, Wavel Ramkalawan. A difference of 193 votes separated the two candidates. Michel was declared the winner with 50.15 percent of the vote, while Ramkalawan won 49.85 percent of the vote, according to the Electoral Commission. Ramkalawan had petitioned the court to rule that none of the two candidates had obtained the absolute majority of the votes cast, and to nullify the results on the basis of irregularities committed and non-compliance to the electoral laws. Both petitions were directed at the Electoral Commission, President James Michel and the Attorney General. The Constitutional Court ruling comes two months after the parties in the case had made their final statements to the court.