Monthly Archives: June 2016

The far-right Freedom Party of Austria filed a legal challenge on Wednesday over the results of the country’s presidential election, disputing the outcome of the May 22 runoff, in which the party’s candidate, Norbert Hofer, was narrowly defeated. Officials said there was no precedent for a challenge to the outcome of a presidential election in the history of modern Austria, a federal republic that was reconstituted in 1945 from the ashes of Nazi Germany, which annexed the country in 1938. The challenge, submitted by the party’s chairman to the Constitutional Court, injected an element of uncertainty into a debate that has already stirred questions over the strength of the far right in a nation with a fraught wartime past. Mr. Hofer led the first round of voting, on April 24, in which the country’s two mainstream parties were handed a humbling defeat.

Kenya: President Moves to Resolve Electoral Body Stalemate With Joint House Committee | allAfrica.com

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has set up a joint committee of both the National Assembly and the Senate to resolve the stalemate over the electoral body. Speaking at State House Wednesday shortly before the reading of the budget, President Kenyatta agreed to the formation of the committee outside parliament that will hear and collate views of various stakeholders on the issue of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). The move could be a breakthrough for the country which has been facing a standoff between the government and the opposition over IEBC. Five people have been killed and properties destroyed in the weekly demonstrations called by the opposition.

Peru: The fortunate president | The Economist

It could hardly have been closer. As the final votes were counted in the run-off ballot for Peru’s presidency, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a liberal economist, seemed to have defeated Keiko Fujimori by just 39,000 out of almost 18m votes, a margin of 0.2%. After months in which Ms Fujimori had led opinion polls, this was a surprising reversal. It shows how deeply divided Peru is about the legacy of Ms Fujimori’s father, Alberto, who ruled it as an autocrat from 1990 to 2000; he is serving long prison terms for corruption and complicity in human-rights abuses. With such a narrow mandate, Mr Kuczynski’s first task when he takes office on July 28th will be to show that he can govern a country facing an economic slowdown and characterised by frequent social conflicts. It helps that he has few real policy differences with Ms Fujimori.

Spain: It’s Not All Brexit as Spain Tries to Break Political Deadlock | Bloomberg

Spain is heading for its second election in six months on June 26 after party leaders failed to piece together a governing majority from the deadlocked parliament. While polls suggest that the result will be broadly similar to December’s ballot, small variations in the voting could lead to significant changes in the outcome. Here are some of the issues that could trigger such a shift. The anti-establishment party signed an alliance with the former communists of the United Left last month. By pooling their votes, the two groups minimize the number of ballots wasted in an electoral system which is skewed against smaller parties.
In the zero-sum game of parliamentary math, the result is a double whammy: Podemos gets more seats for its vote, while also pushing up the threshold its rivals will have to cross to elect each lawmaker. Podemos could add as many as 21 lawmakers to its 71-strong delegation in parliament while boosting its vote by just 1.3 percentage points, the state pollster CIS said Thursday. Spain’s political system allocates state funding to parties based on their representation in parliament — a rule that tilts the playing field in favor of established parties.

United Kingdom: Brexit Vote: U.K. Extends Voter Registration Deadline for EU Referendum | Wall Street Journal

U.K. lawmakers approved emergency legislation allowing more people to register to vote in the referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union, prompting anger among some “leave” campaigners who said it would favor those lobbying to remain. A last-minute rush by those wishing to register to vote ahead of the initial deadline of midnight Tuesday caused the government’s website to crash, leaving some unable to access the system. Prime Minister David Cameron, who is leading the push to persuade voters to stay in the EU, said he wanted those people to have the opportunity to take part in the June 23 plebiscite. The government subsequently introduced legislation to extend the deadline to midnight on Thursday, which was passed by lawmakers in parliament earlier in the day.

Editorials: America’s voting system is broken. It’s time to overhaul it | Trevor Timm/The Guardian

There’s no debate at this point that Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote and the delegate count to win the Democratic primary. But even Clinton supporters should agree that our supposedly “democratic” system for picking nominees for president is terribly broken and should be dramatically overhauled. It’s not just Bernie Sanders’ campaign that should (and has) argued that the voting system in this country is “rigged”. Virtually every major campaign in both parties griped about how the other was winning at some point during this campaign, and along the way almost all of them were right. First, there are the delegates themselves – the “representatives” that voters “choose” to express their interests at the party conventions (but sometimes don’t have to comply). Each state has its own rules for how delegates are allocated, and they are almost always ridiculously complicated. In both parties, delegate counts regularly do not match up to the percentage of votes candidates received in the primaries. For example, as Fusion’s Felix Salmon demonstrated in March, Trump had dramatically more delegates than his percentage of the Republican vote at that point, and Sanders had dramatically fewer delegates than his percentage on the Democratic side.

Editorials: Are American Samoans American? | Christina Duffy Ponsa/The New York Times

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear an appeal in Tuaua v. United States, which poses the question of whether the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment applies to American Samoa. That this is a question at all is puzzling, and not just because it’s called American Samoa. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The United States annexed the eastern half of a group of Pacific islands known as the Samoas at the end of the 19th century. As a result, those islands became American Samoa. Surely, people born in American Samoa are legally speaking born in the United States and therefore citizens by birth. Easy, right? Not so easy. The answer is that no one knows for sure. How is it possible that a question as basic as who is a citizen at birth under our Constitution remains unresolved in a place subject to the sovereignty of the United States? To understand, you have to dive into the muck that is the law of the United States territories.

California: Voters to have a say, sort of, over Citizens United | San Francisco Chronicle

Gov. Jerry Brown cleared the way Wednesday for Californians to vote in November on whether to urge their congressional representatives to approve a constitutional amendment repealing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns. The state Supreme Court blocked a similar ballot measure in 2014, saying it wasn’t clear whether state law allowed advisory measures on the ballot, but ruled this January that voters could consider the proposal if the Legislature approved it again. Lawmakers, voting mostly along party lines, then passed SB254 by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, and Brown, who could have signed or vetoed the measure, said Wednesday he had allowed it to proceed toward the ballot without his signature. Opponents said the nonbinding measure was intended mainly to boost turnout among Democratic voters.

California: Two Democrats will face off for California’s U.S. Senate seat, marking first time a Republican will not be in contention | Los Angeles Times

California voters made history on Tuesday in the race for the U.S. Senate, sending two Democrats to a November runoff and denying a Republican a spot on the fall ballot for the first time since the state’s first direct election of senators in 1914. State Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris won the largest share of the vote and the title of winner in the primary. By the end of the night, Harris led Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez by more than 800,000 votes, a margin of 23 percentage points. Under California’s relatively new top-two primary rules, the two Democratic women will square off on Nov. 8 – a contest that pits Harris’ strength as the party favorite against Sanchez’s potential appeal to Republicans, unaffiliated voters and Latinos. “Our unity is our strength. Our diversity is our power,” Harris told a boisterous crowd at the Delancey Street Foundation clubhouse in San Francisco on election night. “We understand that we have so many challenges as a country and we are prepared to lead.”

Kansas: Kris Kobach predicts massive voter confusion in November in seeking stay of voter ID injunction | Topeka Capital-Journal

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach contends massive voter confusion will occur if an appeals court doesn’t block a lower court’s order to register thousands of state residents for November’s presidential election. Kobach made the prediction in a document he filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The dispute centers on residents who submit voter registration forms at Division of Motor Vehicles offices and don’t provide proof of citizenship. A 2011 state law requires newly registering voters to provide proof of citizenship. A preliminary injunction issued May 17 by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson prohibits election officials from enforcing the proof of citizenship requirement for residents who register at DMV offices.

Massachusetts: State prepares for first experiment with early voting | Gloucester Times

Twenty weeks from now, the first Massachusetts voters will be casting their ballots days before the Nov. 8 election, in the state’s inaugural early voting period. In the meantime, election overseers at the local and state level must figure out and develop a new set of practices to grapple with a new range of issues: Where and when should early voting be made available? How do you make sure people only vote once? How do you keep the process fair? What will it all cost? “We’re building the system right now as we go, but we know these are issues that are likely to emerge,” said Secretary of State William Galvin, the state’s top elections official. In late May, Galvin’s office posted online a set of regulations governing the early voting process, with a public hearing on the guidelines planned for July 27.

New York: Cuomo Seeks Fixes to ‘Rampant’ Problems in New York’s Campaign Contribution System | The New York Times

With little movement on state ethics laws, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a late push in the legislative session on Wednesday to tighten restrictions on election laws governing money given to candidates through so-called independent expenditure committees. In particular, the governor will suggest clarifying criteria — via a legal opinion and legislation to be introduced — for determining if a candidate is improperly coordinating with a committee, including whether the candidate and committee have overlapping donor bases, past staff members in common or the same consultants. Shared office space or information would also be considered evidence of improper coordination under the governor’s plan, outlined in a speech given on Wednesday at Fordham Law School, as would similarities in campaign material produced by a candidate and a committee.

North Carolina: Legislators say redistricting emails, other info protected from public scrutiny | Greensboro News & Record

State legislators say they won’t turn over more information about the new voting districts they drew last year for the Greensboro City Council. The legislators are fighting subpoenas from a group of local residents suing to stop the redistricting because of racial gerrymandering. The new districts are scheduled to take effect for the 2017 election. On Monday, lawyers for the N.C. Attorney General’s Office said the information is protected from public view because of “legislative privilege.” In their filing in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, they said the legislators have given the residents’ attorneys all the information that’s not covered by legislative privilege. The Greensboro residents, who are being represented by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, asked a judge last month to force the legislators to turn over the information.

Wisconsin: Judge denies request to put voter ID on hold | Associated Press

A federal judge will not put a lawsuit over Wisconsin’s voter identification law on hold while another similar challenge is pending in a different court. The U.S. District Court in Milwaukee on Wednesday posted a note in the court file saying the state Department of Justice’s request for a stay in the case was denied. The state requested on Monday that the case be put on hold. The American Civil Liberties Union wants to allow people to vote in the August primary election even if they are having trouble getting the required ID.

Austria: Freedom Party Alleges Violations in Presidential Election | Wall Street Journal

Austria’s right-wing, populist Freedom Party on Wednesday challenged the result of the presidential election it narrowly lost last month, injecting fresh uncertainty into a country already in political turmoil amid Europe’s migrant crisis. The party alleged “catastrophic” violations of election law centering on what it said was the improper processing of mail-in ballots in the May 22 vote. “We have always said that we will not challenge the election for the sake of challenging the election,” party chairman Heinz-Christian Strache said. “But the disaster around how the vote was counted cannot be accepted without comment.” The mail-in ballots are a key point of contention in part because a big margin of victory there helped independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who was supported by the left-of-center Greens, beat out the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer in the runoff.

Kenya: Tensions Rise in Kenya as Opposition Rejects Ban on Protests | Bloomberg

Kenya’s main opposition party rejected a government ban on political protests and said it will intensify rallies calling for changes to the East African nation’s electoral body. Interior Secretary Joseph Nkaissery on Tuesday outlawed demonstrations in the country after a least five people died in weekly rallies by supporters of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy that began in April. He threatened to crack down on protesters until differences between the opposition and the government over the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission are resolved through negotiations. The ban “doesn’t change anything,” Dennis Onyango, a spokesman for CORD, said by phone from the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday. “The courts have cleared us to hold demonstrations.” The protests will be held on Mondays and Thursdays, he said.

Peru: Patience wears thin as Peru vote count drags on | Associated Press

Patience was wearing thin as ballots in Peru’s presidential election continued to trickle in on Wednesday, three days after a contest whose results remained too close to call. Front-runner Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s running mate met Wednesday with electoral authorities to request they speed up the counting. Meanwhile, dozens of supporters of his rival Keiko Fujimori held a demonstration Tuesday night outside the electoral board to denounce what they said is fraud, even though neither the candidate nor her campaign have presented any evidence to back up their supporters’ claims. Electoral officials said they hope to wrap up their work on Thursday when the last ballots cast at embassies abroad arrive in Lima. But most experts said it’s already mathematically impossible for Fujimori to make up the 42,000 vote difference separating her from Kuczynski.

Spain: Catalonia’s pro-independence coalition breaks down | AFP

The pro-independence coalition ruling Spain’s Catalonia broke down Wednesday, June 8, after its most radical component refused to back the government budget, forcing the regional president to call a parliamentary vote of no confidence. The development deals a blow to the coalition’s planned 18-month roadmap for independence from Spain by 2017, which it announced after winning a parliamentary majority in regional elections last September. Catalonia has so far done little to implement the plan, which calls for the regional government to create basic laws, a tax system and state structure for the wealthy, industrialized northeastern region whose capital Barcelona is a major tourist draw. Further complicating the project, the far-left, anti-capitalist CUP party that makes up the coalition turned against it Wednesday, refusing to back the government budget for 2016 and joining other non-independence opposition parties in voting against examining it in parliament.

United Kingdom: David Cameron accused of bias over EU referendum deadline extension | The Guardian

David Cameron has been accused of bias by a senior Brexit campaigner after promising to force through legislation to extend the deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum. It follows the chaotic collapse of a government website on Tuesday night as 250,000 people tried to apply in the final hours before the midnight deadline. The prime minister urged the public to keep on submitting their details, saying he was working urgently to ensure they would be able to take part in the referendum. MPs are to vote on Thursday on a 48-hour extension to the deadline to register, which is expected to allow tens of thousands more people to vote on 23 June. The new deadline would be midnight on Thursday.

California: San Mateo County elections officials switch to paper ballots after electronic voting machine glitch | San Jose Mercury News

A software glitch in 140 electronic voting machines prompted San Mateo County elections officials to dole out paper ballots while technicians scrambled to fix the error Tuesday morning. The problem was coding, said Jim Irizarry, assistant chief elections officer. The agency uses the Hart InterCivic “eSlate” machine, he said. Those machines are connected to a central system, and without the proper coding, the voting machines could not communicate to the central system. The glitch “should not have occurred,” Irizarry said. “When you’re programming the units, you should code them properly,” he said. “I believe we probably did not code those machines as well as we should have.”

Louisiana: New voting laws block little fraud — but many elders, women, and minorities | The Louisiana Weekly

Much of the reporting about the voter-ID laws many states have passed in recent years has centered on how they often block access to the polls by lower-income minority and naturalized citizens. But a subtext has been the barring of many older people from their right to vote. “Voter ID laws disadvantaging older persons place a burden on the voting rights of those most likely to participate in the electoral process,” said Daniel Kohrman, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation office in Washington, D.C. That’s because older citizens vote at greater percentages than younger people. A total of 33 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls this year. (West Virginia’s new law goes into effect in 2018). Of those, 17 states will have restrictive voter-identification laws on the books for the first time in a presidential election, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

Maryland: City Council to investigate irregularities in Baltimore election | Baltimore Sun

Members of the Baltimore City Council formally called Monday for an investigative hearing into the problems that occurred during April’s primary election. In a resolution, council members Mary Pat Clarke and Robert W. Curran said the hearing is a way for the council to “request the City and State to develop a plan of specific steps to ensure a fair and efficient Baltimore City General Election on November 8, 2016.” “We could all recite what went wrong,” Clarke said. “That’s not what I want to hear. I want to hear what they’re going to do to fix it.” A review by the Maryland State Board of Elections found that about 1,700 ballots cast in Baltimore’s primary election were handled improperly. The board concluded that 1,188 provisional ballots were inappropriately scanned into the vote tally on Election Day — without judges verifying that the voters were eligible — and 555 other provisional ballots were not considered. The review did not change the result of any race.

Michigan: Governor signs law restricting citizen petitions | WLNS

106,000: that’s how many more signatures the Michigan Bureau of Elections says a ballot drive needs to put legalizing marijuana up for a state-wide vote. This comes just six days after a pro-legalization group submitted more than 350,000 signatures to the state; but because MI Legalize collected a portion of them more than 180 days before filing the petition, the petition will likely not pass. This hadn’t been formally engrained in law—but today Governor Snyder changed that. That new law says petition signatures older than 180 days cannot be counted. “This clearly was a result of us trying to improve Michigan’s election system,” argues MI Legalize Executive Director Jeffrey Hank.

Montana: More satellite voting offices, more American Indians seeking office this election season | Billings Gazette

If American Indian candidates win all 11 of the seats in the Montana Legislature they are running for this fall, the percentage of Natives in the session would for the first time be representative of the population in the state. American Indians make up 7.4 percent of Montanans but have historically been underrepresented in the Legislature. In the 2015 session, there were eight American Indian legislators, three in the Senate and five in the House, for 5.3 percent of the 150 members. If Indians win all the seats they’re running for this year, that would come to 8 percent, including a state senator whose seat isn’t up for election this year, to make 12 total. … The geography and demographics of their campaigns creates a unique situation, they say. As candidates they talk about advocating for Native issues but also don’t want to be defined strictly by the color of their skin.

New Hampshire: Court to hear Libertarian Party appeal over New Hampshire law | Associated Press

A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments in a lawsuit by the Libertarian Party seeking to strike down a New Hampshire law that it argues could prevent third-party candidates from getting on the ballot. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is challenging a 2014 law that requires a third party seeking to gain access to the ballot through verified signatures to collect those signatures during the same year as the election. Judge Paul Barbadoro upheld the law last year, finding that it creates reasonable restrictions that are justified by the state’s interest in requiring parties to demonstrate a sufficient level of support. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston is set to hear the Libertarian Party’s appeal Monday.

Wisconsin: Groups to ask judge allow some people without IDs to vote | Associated Press

Groups advocating for voting rights said they will soon ask a federal judge to allow people to vote in Wisconsin’s August primary election if they are having trouble getting a required ID. The request comes even as attorneys for the state Department of Justice are trying to put the case on hold. The American Civil Liberties Union will be filing a motion in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee soon to make sure “voters who face a reasonable impediment to getting an ID” can still vote with an affidavit, said the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project attorney Sean Young on Tuesday. A federal appeals court in April ruled that the ACLU and another group challenging the law, the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty, could seek such an order. Under the law, voters must show one of the following in order to vote: a Wisconsin driver’s license or state ID card, a U.S. passport, military ID card, college IDs meeting certain requirements, naturalization certificates or IDs issued by a Wisconsin-based American Indian tribe. Residents can apply for a state ID with the Department of Motor Vehicles but must prove personal details and citizenship.

Austria: Far-right party challenges presidential election reults | The Guardian

Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPO) has challenged the results of last month’s presidential election, which its candidate narrowly lost, in a move that could tip the country into a constitutional crisis. The FPO is claiming numerous irregularities in the election on 22 May, particularly for the absentee vote count, Christian Neuwirth, a spokesman for the constitutional court, said. The FPO candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost to Alexander Van der Bellen, a retired economics professor backed by the Green party, by just 31,000 votes out of more than 4.6m ballots cast, and only after more than 700,000 postal ballots – about 10% of available votes – were taken into account.

Canada: Elections chief Marc Mayrand stepping down ahead of Liberal reforms | CBC

Canada’s chief electoral officer is stepping down from his post after nearly 10 years on the job — a tenure marked by public spats with the former Conservative government over its controversial Fair Elections Act and its attempt to block veiled Muslim women from voting. Marc Mayrand, who assumed the role in 2007, informed the Speaker of his decision Monday, citing the need for a new chief ahead of the Liberal government’s push for ambitious electoral reform. He will step down on Dec. 28, 2016. “I have concluded that it would be preferable to leave my position at the end of the year to allow my successor the necessary time to assume the responsibility and guide the future direction of Elections Canada,” Mayrand said in a statement. “Given Elections Canada’s ambitious electoral services modernization plans and the government’s consideration of fundamental reforms to our electoral system, I believe the early appointment of a successor to lead Elections Canada well ahead of the next general election is essential and should not be delayed.”

Croatia: Croatia Lurches Toward Early Elections as Government Wobbles | Bloomberg

Croatia’s ruling coalition lurched toward collapse after its biggest party initiated a no-confidence vote against technocrat Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic, threatening a drive to retool the economy and raising the prospect of early elections. Facing dismissal himself in a parliamentary no-confidence vote backed by both the opposition and his ruling partners, Deputy Premier Tomislav Karamarko mounted a counterattack Tuesday, with his Croatian Democratic Union filing for a similar vote against Oreskovic. The measure, which the opposition Social Democrats said they may help push through, can take place on June 15 at the earliest and will bring down the youngest European Union state’s four-month-old government if the premier is defeated. “Considering that the current political groups can’t seem to find a way out of the turmoil, the most efficient and most honest outcome for the country would be snap elections,” Nenad Zakosek, political science professor at the University of Zagreb, said by phone.

Kenya: Government Bans All Protests Against Electoral Body | Associated Press