Voting Blogs: Election Toolkit launches: Free and low-cost tech tools will help promote civic engagement nationwide | electionlineWeekly

This election year, election officials will have a new collection of tools to help them engage their communities in the electoral process and improve how elections are run throughout the U.S. The Election Toolkit, an online library of resources for election officials, includes tools like a free app to measure voter wait times, guidelines on how to create short videos and infographics, and a collection of civic icons and illustrations. All of the tools in the Toolkit are either free or low cost and come paired with step-by-step instructions, making them accessible to any election official, regardless of their budget or tech skills.

California: 1.4 million ballots still to be counted | KPCC

More than 7 million ballots have been counted across the state from last week’s primary election. But in California, counting votes takes a long time: as of Thursday, the Secretary of State’s office reported there are still about 1.4 million ballots remaining to be counted. In Los Angeles County, the latest numbers from the registrar’s office shows about 350,000 ballots still need to be counted. About 1.7 million ballots were cast and counted so far. The Secretary of State has about a month to process all ballots statewide. Counties have to submit their results to the state by July 8, and the state has until July 15 to certify the statewide results. As for how many people voted, the numbers will go up as more votes are counted, but right now statewide voter turnout is tracking at about 41 percent.

Colorado: A Switch From Caucus To Primary Is No Easy Matter | Colorado Public Radio

Voters unhappy with the political system this year and unsure about whether their vote matters have big complaints how the country’s two main political parties choose their candidates. A recent Associated Press-NORC poll found that about 40 percent of adults had hardly any confidence in the fairness of either party’s nominating process. In particular, party-run caucuses and closed primaries where only voters registered with a party are allowed to participate are viewed as unfair, with just 29 percent of respondents believing they’re the right way to pick a candidates for the general election. Those tensions are all on display in Colorado this year, where a series of events have caused voters to deeply question whether they should adopt a presidential primary open to all voters. But Colorado’s case also makes it clear that making big changes to how a state makes its picks for presidential nominees is no easy matter. For Colorado Democrats, the problem was crowding. Record turnout overwhelmed many precinct locations. Some voters waited hours to make their preference known, while others were turned away by fire marshals.

Indiana: State working to refresh voter registration list | Tribune Star

Some Hoosier voters may receive postcards beginning this week from the Secretary of State Election Division asking them to confirm their current address or update their voter registration information. According to a press release from Secretary of State Connie Lawson, voters who receive this postcard must respond to ensure their voter registration information is accurate. “Every year, I get calls from Hoosiers wanting to know why a neighbor or child who moved years ago is still listed on a poll book,” Lawson said in the press release. “People not only find this upsetting, it undermines their faith in our elections. The voter list refresh we are doing this summer, will ensure Indiana’s list is accurate and give voters confidence in the integrity of our elections.”

Editorials: Another victory for voting rights in Kansas | Topeka Capital-Journal

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson ruled that 18,000 Kansans had been wrongfully disenfranchised for failing to produce proof-of-citizenship documents when they registered to vote. Robinson’s temporary injunction was upheld when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block it last week, meaning Kansas must register all 18,000 voters for federal elections this year. This is another defeat for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whose attempts to combat an imagined epidemic of voter fraud have resulted in no more than four misdemeanor convictions for double voting. Kobach hasn’t prosecuted a single non-citizen for voter fraud, and it’s unlikely that he will (only three such cases were recorded in Kansas between 1995 and 2013). But these paltry numbers haven’t prevented him from scaremongering about the logistics of registering voters for upcoming elections.

Maryland: Baltimore election board discusses lessons learned, prep for November election | Baltimore Sun

Baltimore elections chief Armstead B.C. Jones Sr. intends to post signs at the city’s nearly 300 precincts for voters having trouble casting ballots during November’s general election. Jones outlined his plans before the Board of Elections Thursday, as officials continued to dissect problems from the April primary — some 400 election judges failed to show up to work, polling places opened late and unverified provisional ballots were counted. “We’re going to focus on lessons learned for the general election,” said Jones, who added that he looks for opportunities to improve the process after every city election. Jones also said he is working with the State Board of Elections to bring in an expert to organize the city’s election warehouse that one state official said left her “appalled.” His comments came during the city board’s monthly meeting, which lasted about an hour. The board did not accept public testimony at the meeting, citing time constraints.

Missouri: Nixon looks at whether to veto, sign photo voter ID implementation plan | Daily Star-Journal

Missouri photo voter ID legislation will be on the Nov. 8 ballot, but legislation directing how to implement the measure is still on Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk. If voters approve the proposed constitutional amendment, then implementation legislation could come into play. Nixon could sign or veto the measure. In the event of a veto, the Republican-dominated General Assembly could attempt an override.

Australia: Federal election 2016: Number six above the line. Confused? | The Australian

Chaos has descended upon the ­nation’s polling booths, with ­voters struggling to understand changes to above-the-line voting on the Senate voting paper. New Senate voting rules, introduced in March as a way to stymie the smaller parties, mean that ­voters must number at least six boxes above the line on the Senate ballot paper for their vote to count. However, as the Australian Electoral Commission admitted yesterday, voters who vote 1 above the line will also have their vote counted, provided there is nothing else wrong with the ballot paper. Confusion has been heightened by a new online tool, created by the AEC, which allows voters to “practise’’ their Senate vote ahead of polling day.

Haiti: US recognizes interim leader but prods legislators | Associated Press

The U.S. State Department’s special coordinator for Haiti said Thursday that he recognizes Jocelerme Privert as the troubled country’s interim president for now as the divided Parliament is avoiding a vote on potentially extending his expired mandate. In a phone call with reporters, Kenneth Merten was asked by The Associated Press if the U.S. still recognized Privert as Haiti’s provisional leader even though his 120-day mandate ended midnight Tuesday under the terms of a negotiated accord that brought him to power. While emphasizing that Privert’s fate was up to Haiti’s National Assembly to decide, Merten responded: “I would have to say I would recognize him as the interim president of Haiti” at this time. He stressed that Haitian electoral authorities should “act soon to clarify” who the country’s provisional leader is. “We really want the National Assembly to take the action they need to take to clear the subject up,” Merten said.

Italy: In Race for Mayor of Rome, a Prize and a New Face for the Five Star Movement | The New York Times

When it was founded seven years ago, the Five Star Movement was the voice of anti-establishment protest in Italy, and its biggest voice was the movement’s often bombastic founder and president, the comedian Beppe Grillo. Today, it is a measure of the movement’s maturity that its most prominent new face may be Virginia Raggi, a 37-year-old lawyer and municipal councilor who appears poised to become Rome’s mayor in a runoff election on Sunday. In a first round of voting almost two weeks ago, Ms. Raggi, a lawyer whose campaign website describes her as a Catholic and bicycle enthusiast, got more than 35 percent of the vote, but not enough to win outright. She now faces Roberto Giachetti, a longtime lawmaker backed by Italy’s governing party, the Democrats, in a runoff on Sunday.

National: Lone wolf claims responsibility for DNC hack, dumps purported Trump smear file | Ars Technica

In an intriguing follow-up to Tuesday’s report that Russian hackers gained access to Democratic National Committee servers, an anonymous blogger has claimed he alone was responsible for the breach and backed up the claim by publishing what purport to be authentic DNC documents taken during the online heist. In a blog post published Wednesday, someone with the handle Guccifer 2.0 published hundreds of pages of documents that the author claimed were taken during a lone-wolf hack of the DNC servers. One 231-page document purports to be opposition research into Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. Other files purport to be spreadsheets that included the names and dollar amounts of large DNC donors. Yet another document purportedly came from the computer of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. “Worldwide known cyber security company CrowdStrike announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by ‘sophisticated hacker groups,” Wednesday’s blog post stated. “I’m very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) But in fact, it was easy, very easy.”

National: House approves Koch-backed bill to shield donors’ names | USA Today

The House approved a bill Tuesday that would bar the IRS from collecting the names of donors to tax-exempt groups, prompting warnings from campaign-finance watchdogs that it could lead to foreign interests illegally infiltrating American elections. The measure, which has the support of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also pits the Obama administration against one of the most powerful figures in Republican politics, billionaire industrialist Charles Koch. Koch’s donor network channels hundreds of millions of dollars each year into groups that largely use anonymous donations to shape policies on everything from health care to tax subsidies. Its leaders have urged the Republican-controlled Congress to clamp down on the IRS, citing free-speech concerns.

National: Primary Voting Problems Have Advocates Concerned About November Elections | TIME

Problems with mail-in ballots in California. Overcrowded polling places in Arizona. Missing names on the voter rolls in New York. Those are just some of the problems that Democratic and Republican primary voters faced over the last few months, leaving voting rights advocates concerned about the November elections, where turnout will be dramatically higher. “We are at a crossroads in our democracy. This is a moment that really requires that states and elected officials to explore ways to make voting easier,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. There’s no single fix to the problems, since each state runs elections in its own way. But advocates have found issues with malfunctioning voting machines, too few polling places and election workers misunderstanding state laws.

National: Ballot design pro helps prevent election snafus | Washington Times

Campaigns routinely spend millions of dollars on get-out-the-vote drives, but it’s money down the drain if voters can’t figure out the ballot. That’s where Drew Davies comes in. The college art major has parlayed his knack for graphic design into a career as one of the nation’s premier ballot fix-it guys. His job description may come as a surprise to those who assume that the federal government has ironed out the kinks since the 2000 presidential election uproar in Florida. As Mr. Davies can attest, there are still causes for concern. He sees ballots jammed with races, impossibly tiny print and fill-in bubbles that don’t quite align with candidates’ names. “It’s not just about prettying things up,” said Mr. Davies, who founded Oxide Design in 2001 after earning a fine arts degree from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Design is affecting our democracy. It’s affecting your lives. Look at the election in 2000: Bad design affected your life.” His work with the nonprofit Center for Civic Design to create 10 pocket-sized field guides for state and local election officials has been honored by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, which will showcase the pamphlets as part of an exhibit starting Sept. 30.

National: Can redistricting reform close the minority gap in capitols? | Salon

They have nicknames like “the dead lizard,” ”the praying mantis” and “the upside-down elephant.” The odd-shaped legislative districts that dot many states are no coincidence. The jagged lines often have been carefully drawn by state lawmakers to benefit particular incumbents or political parties. The tactic, known as gerrymandering, is nearly as old as the country itself. It’s also a maneuver that can result in an underrepresentation of minorities in some legislatures. Across the U.S, minorities now comprise nearly two-fifths of the population, yet hold less than one-fifth of all legislative seats, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Congress and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Federal guidelines require that legislative districts are similar in population and not drawn to deny minorities a chance to elect the candidate of their choice. But racial gerrymandering can occur in a couple of ways: when minority communities are divided among multiple districts, thus diluting their voting strength; or when minorities are heavily packed into a single district, thus diminishing their likelihood of winning multiple seats.

Arizona: Attorney General rejects ‘election bible’ complaint against Secretary of State | The Arizona Republic

Arizona’s fall elections can proceed without an update manual to guide poll workers, the attorney general decides in response to a complaint against Secretary of State Michele Reagan. Arizona law says the secretary of state must issue a procedures manual for “each election,” but that is a matter of interpretation, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich decided in rejecting a complaint against Secretary Michele Reagan. Reagan made a “plausible” interpretation of the law when she decided earlier this year that a new manual doesn’t have to be produced to guide election workers. She argued there wasn’t time to compile one, and said the 2014 guidance is sufficient for the upcoming primary and general elections.

Colorado: Election study group hears mostly “no” on presidential primary | The Colorado Independent

If the first in a series of forums on Colorado’s caucus and primary system is any indication, voters love caucuses, despite the headaches, and strongly oppose moving back to a presidential primary system. Still in question is whether such forums – organized without legislative authorization by Senate Republicans – can be trusted to reflect the views of the general public. On Saturday, a group of mostly Republican state senators listened as voters, voter groups, and Libertarian and Republican party officials gave their assessment of the primary-overhaul proposals that died in the 2016 legislative session and shared their thoughts on what to do in future election years. The forum was noteworthy for the absence of Democrats. A spokesman for Colorado’s Democratic Party said Chairman Rick Palacio wasn’t invited to the forum until the last minute and declined to participate in what on Twitter he called a “work of fiction.”

Kansas: The problem with fixing something that isn’t broken | The Kansas City Star

This is the consequence of passing bad law. Kansas is set to become the national example for how poorly thought out legislation can undercut the right to vote. Changes the Legislature approved in 2012 are being compared to the days of poll taxes. It’s not a stretch. This go-round, thousands of would-be voters were excluded, not by race. It was over their ready access to documents, birth certificates and passports that they needed to produce to prove their citizenship. By court order, on Tuesday, the state had to begin adding at least 18,000 people to voter rolls — potential voters who’d been kept off by the new law when they tried to register at motor vehicle offices. Problem is, rectifying the people’s voting status can’t be accomplished by the flip of a switch. Secretary of State Kris Kobach argued it. He told a federal appeals court that the confusion his policies have created will be an administrative nightmare for the 105 counties in the state to fix. He submitted that many checks of records will need to be done manually, that not everything is automated. And that it will be costly to counties.

Editorials: Kris Kobach knuckles under to court in major victory for thousands of Kansas voters | Yael T. Abouhalkah/The Kansas City Star

In a great victory for up to 50,000 Kansans, Kris Kobach capitulated late Tuesday after suffering his latest stinging legal defeat on voter ID issues. The Republican secretary of state finally provided instructions to election officials across the state on their duty to register at least 18,000 Kansans whose eligibility for federal elections had been suspended. Most of them are under 30, likely to skew Democratic in the ballot booth. Many more could be registered before the November elections, up to 50,000 total people according to state officials. Kobach had pushed through a law that required people registering at motor vehicle offices to provide citizenship documentation before they could be considered fully eligible to vote. However, a federal judge had ruled this violated federal laws. And the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals last week denied Kobach’s plea that it override the judge’s order that registration of voters needed to start by June 15.

Maine: Virtual tie leaves fate of Maine GOP congressional primary in limbo | Bangor Daily News

The Republican primary election for Maine’s 1st Congressional District is far from over. More than 20 hours after polls closed, neither candidate had claimed victory, and naming a winner — even unofficially — hasn’t happened. The contest between Mark Holbrook and Ande Smith — each of whom is eager to try to unseat fourth-term Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree in November — is certain to head to a recount. With all precincts but Isle au Haut having submitted vote tallies, unofficial results tallied by the Bangor Daily News have Holbrook in the lead, 10,319-10,267. Unofficial results collected by the Portland Press Herald, also with only Isle au Haut missing, have Holbrook in the lead, 10,345-10,287. With a recount certain, the question is who will call for it?

New York: Why Voter Rolls Can Be A Mess | WPPB

Part of running a fair election is knowing who the voters are. That means keeping an accurate list of who is eligible to vote. That has proved to be a difficult task in many states – including New York, where a spectacular meltdown angered thousands of voters and inflamed partisan passions during the state’s April presidential primary. The problems in New York City are part of a much larger issue. A 2012 study by the Pew Center on the States found that 24 million voter registrations were wrong or invalid. That’s one in every eight voters across the country, which translates to a lot of voting roll problems. In the run up to the election, the New York City Board of Elections mistakenly purged more than 120,000 voters from its rolls in Brooklyn, ten percent of the active registered voters.

Ohio: Husted’s office to reach out to eligible voters who aren’t registered | The Columbus Dispatch

Between 1.5 million and 2.3 million Ohioans are eligible to vote but can’t because they are not registered. Secretary of State Jon Husted is going after every one of them, hoping to sign them up in this presidential election year. An estimated 80,000 already on Ohio’s voter registration rolls are also registered in other states, while 360,000 need to update their registration because they’ve moved within Ohio. Husted is going after every one of them, too. Unless they fix their registration they will either be forced to cast a provisional ballot or be purged from the list. Fueled by a $400,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Ohio is joining the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit group that includes 20 states. So in the end, will the effort generate more or fewer registered voters in Ohio? “That’s the $64,000 question,” said David Becker, Pew’s director of election initiatives, who attended a Statehouse news conference Tuesday with Husted. Becker said that when other states signed up with ERIC, the twin efforts to register new voters and purge those ineligible essentially wound up canceling each other out.

Canada: Young voter turnout jumped sharply in 2015 contest, Elections Canada reports | The Canadian Press

Elections Canada says the turnout of young voters in last October’s election was up sharply from 2011. The agency says voter participation among those aged 18 to 24 rose by 18.3 percentage points to 57.1 per cent, up from 38.8 per cent in 2011. That’s the biggest jump for that age group since the agency began tracking demographic data in 2004. Among those eligible to vote for the first time, the percentage was 58.3 per cent. The official turnout rate overall was 68.3 per cent, with voters age 65 to 74 recording a 78.8 per cent participation rate. Voter participation on aboriginal reserves was also up, with 61.5 per cent of registered voters casting ballots, up 14 points from 2011, the agency says.

Haiti: Interim president’s mandate expires in drifting Haiti | Associated Press

Haiti entered into another leaderless drift Wednesday as the provisional president’s 120-day mandate came to a close amid backroom negotiations, posturing and delays by the deeply polarized country’s political class. Lawmakers were expected to decide whether to extend caretaker President Jocelerme Privert’s term until new elections can be held or pave the way for new interim leader. But a National Assembly session failed to take place Tuesday, when Privert’s tenure expired under the deadline of a February accord that helped put him in power. Cholzer Chancy, the acting leader of the National Assembly, on Wednesday demanded that senators and deputies return to Parliament to vote. But a session failed to materialize for a second straight day. “We are 92 deputies and 22 senators. Why can’t we come in and decide how we will continue to govern the country?” Chancy told a local radio station.

Russia: Russia denies DNC hack and says maybe someone ‘forgot the password’ | The Washington Post

When Russia faces uncomfortable accusations from abroad, the Kremlin normally lashes back with official declarations and scornful comments on state television. But when the Democratic National Committee and cybersecurity experts told The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had stolen an entire database of opposition research on presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, officials here met the accusations with little more than a simple denial and a shrug. “Usually these kinds of leaks take place not because hackers broke in, but, as any professional will tell you, because someone simply forgot the password or set the simple password 123456,” German Klimenko, Putin’s top Internet adviser, said in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti state news agency. “Well, it’s always simpler to explain this away as the intrigues of enemies, rather than one’s own incompetence.”

National: Why Is It So Hard For States To Keep Track Of Registered Voters? | MTV

Fifty-nine-year-old veteran Larry Harmon got a surprise when he went to cast a ballot in Ohio last year: He was no longer registered to vote. Harmon hadn’t voted since 2008, a result of being fed up with politics and not liking any of his choices. He didn’t know you could lose your registration just for taking a vacation from the political process. Tens of thousands of other voters in the state were taken off the rolls for the same reason, which they might not figure out until they go to cast a ballot this fall — and Ohio will be an important swing state this year. Voters all over Brooklyn had the same problem in April, when at least 70,000 people were taken off the voter rolls because they hadn’t voted enough in the past. Thousands of voters may have been mistakenly removed for other reasons as well. A baker from Bushwick who had been excited to vote for Bernie Sanders told the New York Daily News, “I’m feeling profoundly snuffed.” And it was hardly the first time this has happened. Ari Berman notes in his book Give Us the Ballot that during the notoriously messy 2000 election in Florida, about 12,000 voters were wrongfully labeled as felons and taken off the rolls. About 44 percent of those were likely African-American.

Editorials: This would be a nice first step on campaign finance reform | The Washington Post

They say time is money, and the adage rings especially true for members of Congress: Many of them — according to Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) — spend almost as much of the workweek fundraising as they do debating laws or helping constituents. Mr. Jolly, with a Democratic colleague, Rep. Rick Nolan (Minn.), has introduced a bill to fix that. Their legislation does not purport to solve all of the country’s fundraising woes, but this is a case in which some change would be better than none. Mr. Jolly estimates that Senate and House lawmakers spend an average of 30 hours a week at networking events and call centers instead of in the Capitol working for the people they were elected to represent. Under his bill, called the Stop Act, these representatives could not personally solicit campaign contributions — whether or not Congress is in session.

Arizona: Attorney General won’t pursue Reagan over outdated election manual | Capitol Media Services

Calling her interpretation of the law “at least plausible,” the state Attorney General’s Office won’t pursue Michele Reagan for her failure to update the state elections manual this year the way her predecessors have done. Michael Bailey, the chief deputy, acknowledged Tuesday that the secretary of state adopted what appears to be a unique interpretation of the law requiring her to prepare the manual. That book, now nearly 400 pages, is a virtual bible for election workers on every facet of what the law requires and how to handle different situations. Put simply, she decided it’s OK to simply keep in place for this the 2014 manual prepared by her predecessor despite that not being how prior secretaries of state read the law. That decision resulted in a complaint by Chandler attorney Tom Ryan to Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

California: One week later, almost 2 million California primary ballots still must be reviewed | Los Angeles Times

Elections officials across California continue to work through a stack of unprocessed ballots, now totaling more than 1.9 million potential votes in last week’s local and statewide races. About 60% of the unprocessed ballots are in just a half dozen counties. By law, local officials have another three weeks to count votes, a process slowed down in part by the large number of ballots cast by mail. This is also the first year for a new state law allowing any ballot received 72 hours after election day to be counted, as long as it was postmarked in time.