Texas: Federal Judge Approves Plan to Weaken Texas Voter ID Law | The Texas Tribune

A federal judge on Wednesday approved a plan that says it won’t be mandatory for Texans to present an ID in order to vote in the November general election. The sweeping changes OK’d by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos come a month after a federal appeals court found the state’s voter ID law — which was passed by the Legislature in 2011 and went into effect in 2013 — to be racially discriminatory. Under the agreement reached by Texas officials and groups suing the state, anyone without an ID can sign a declaration stating they are a U.S. citizen and present proof of residence, such as a utility bill, bank statement or paycheck. “Certainly what happened today in court was a victory,” said Jennifer Clark, an attorney at the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, who represented plaintiffs in the case. “This is the first time in three years voters will cast a regular ballot in November. It’s a huge victory.”

Wisconsin: Appeals court blocks voter ID changes | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

With the presidential election only three months away, a federal appeals panel Wednesday blocked a lower court ruling that would have allowed Wisconsin voters without photo IDs to sign an affidavit and cast a ballot. But part of the voter ID law remains blocked because of a separate ruling in another federal trial court in recent weeks. Voters should keep following the news — the rules could change again between now and the Nov. 8 presidential election. Last month, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee ruled that Wisconsin voters without photo identification can cast ballots by swearing at the polling place that they could not easily acquire an ID. The decision created a pathway for voters with difficulties getting IDs who have been unable to cast ballots under the state’s 2011 voter ID law.

Australia: Census hacked: Australian online voting ‘dead in the water’ | news.com.au

Moves to introduce online voting in Australian elections has been dealt a “massive blow by the disastrous stuff-up” on Census night, with some commentators saying it is dead in the water. Software experts and e-voting supporters have lashed out at the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ “incompetence” and say it will cruel future government mass internet projects like online voting.
“In a single fell swoop the appalling incompetence of ABS statisticians has dealt an absolute blow … to the future of online voting,” David Glance told news.com.au. Dr Glance, who is director of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Software Practice, said the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), had “not only damaged their own reputation and their ability to convince anyone to take seriously any of their technical claims. “They have brought into question the ability of any government agency to be able to run technology projects of this scale. “This has tipped back running elections online into the risks outweighing the benefits.” David Crowe, political correspondent for The Australian, went further, “Online voting, always a risky prospect, is certainly dead after this affair”.

Zambia: Incumbent President ahead in early vote count, opposition cries foul | Reuters

President Edgar Lungu was ahead of his main rival on Saturday in early counting from Zambia’s presidential election, but the main opposition said its count showed their candidate ahead and the vote may have been rigged. Lungu faces a stiff challenge from United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema, who accuses him of failing to steer the economy out of its slump after Africa’s second-largest copper producer was hit by weak commodity prices. He led with 262,149 votes against Hichilema’s 243,794 after 29 of the country’s 156 constituencies in Thursday’s voting had been collated, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) told a news conference also attended by political parties. Early results announced on Saturday from only eight constituencies had put Hichilema ahead. In a statement, the UPND said data from its own parallel counting system showed Hichilema beating Lungu “with a clear margin”, based on about 80 percent of votes counted.

National: Could the U.S. election be hacked? It’s not so unlikely | CBC

Recent attempts at campaign-directed cyber-attacks have raised red flags about just how vulnerable the upcoming U.S. election is to hackers. With the FBI currently investigating alleged Russian efforts to undermine the Democratic Party through hacking attempts, how concerned should elections officials – and voters — be about the security of electronic voting procedures? One of the most obvious ways for a hacker to tamper with the election is to interfere with the way people actually cast their votes. The most vulnerable aspect of the voting process is the individual ballot, and the collection and tallying of those votes. But in a digital world, far more is susceptible to tampering than the ballot itself. With digital tools integrated throughout the electoral process, from online voter registration, to information about when, where, and how to vote, to services for inquiries and complaints, potential weak spots show up long before anyone casts the first vote.

National: How Hackers Could Cause a Presidential Election ‘Virtual Hanging Chad’ – But maybe not. | Fortune

The hanging chad from the 2000 Presidential election could be making a comeback—in virtual form. At the Black Hat USA 2016 hacking conference in Las Vegas that ended on Aug. 4, security firm Tripwire surveyed more than 220 information security professionals to determine whether they believed hackers could influence the outcome of the Presidential election. Nearly two-thirds of those respondents—63%, to be exact—answered with a simple “yes.” Nearly 20% of respondents, however, believe any state-sponsored attacks that could affect this year’s elections shouldn’t be considered acts of cyber war.

National: As voter rights cases churn through courts, rights are uncertain. But confusion is guaranteed. | Rick Hasen/The Washington Post

After a notable string of voting rights decisions in the past few weeks — throwing out or weakening voter identification and other restrictive voting laws in Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and elsewhere — you might think that the rules are settled for November. But the rules are far from settled. Things are very much in flux, and the possibility of disenfranchisement through confusion or reversals of recent gains remains. Indeed, just Wednesday an appeals court put on hold a softening of Wisconsin’s voter ID law imposed a few weeks ago by a trial court. To recap, since the disputed 2000 presidential election, which convinced the Democratic and Republican parties that the rules of the game really matter, there’s been an uptick in the amount of legislation governing voting rules, such as the length of the early voting period, and the amount of litigation around those rules. Litigation rates have more than doubled in the post-2000 period. Mostly Republican legislatures passed laws making it harder to register and vote, citing the need to prevent voter fraud and instill voter confidence, even though there is little evidence of fraud or that the laws help instill voter confidence in the fairness of elections.

National: Russian Hackers of DNC Said to Nab Secrets From NATO, Soros | Bloomberg

Weeks before the Democratic convention was upended by 20,000 leaked e-mails released through WikiLeaks, another little-known website began posting the secrets of a top NATO general, billionaire George Soros’ philanthropy and a Chicago-based Clinton campaign volunteer. Security experts now say that site, DCLeaks.com, with its spiffy capitol-dome logo, shows the marks of the same Russian intelligence outfit that targeted the Democratic political organizations.
The e-mails and documents posted to the DCLeaks site in early June suggest that the hackers may have a broader agenda than influencing the U.S. presidential election, one that ranges from the Obama administration’s policy toward Russia to disclosures about the hidden levers of political power in Washington. It also means the hackers may have much left in their grab bag to distribute at will. The subjects of the DCLeaks site include a former ranking intelligence official who now works for a major defense contractor and a retired Army officer whose wife serves on the USS Nimitz, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Some of the e-mails go back years. Open Society Foundations, the Soros group, reported the breach to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in June, said spokeswoman Laura Silber, who added that an investigation by a security firm found the intrusion was limited to an intranet system used by board members, staff and foundation partners.

Editorials: The Fight Against Strict Voting Laws Pushes On | Zachary Roth/NBC News

Voting rights advocates celebrated last month after a string of court rulings against a group of restrictive voting laws seemed to knock out some major hurdles to the ballot this fall. But now they’re having to fight tooth and nail to keep those wins on the board. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court reinstated a strict version of Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which in July had been significantly softened by a lower court. Also on Wednesday, an agreement was announced to soften Texas’s ID law, but lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case say they’ll need to closely monitor the state’s compliance. And in North Carolina, voting rights advocates worry that Republican-controlled local election boards could still restrict access to early voting. Courts are still weighing other states’ voting rules that could have a big impact this fall. Among them are both cuts to early voting and a controversial purge of voter rolls in Ohio, as well as Kansas’scontroversial proof of citizenship requirement for those registering to vote.

Voting Blogs: Assessing Elections with a Clear Eye: What the EPI Tells Us about Election Performance | electionlineWeekly

On Tuesday, The Pew Charitable Trusts released the latest version of the Elections Performance Index (EPI), its effort to take ideas proposed by Heather Gerken in The Democracy Index and turn them into flesh and blood (or at least electrons). The website captures what happened during the 2014 midterm election, adding to existing measures from 2008, 2010, and 2012, as well. Having data from a series of elections makes it possible to examine the process of change across time. Most importantly, now that the EPI has two midterm elections under its belt, it is possible to do an apples-to-apples comparison of each state with how it performed in successive midterm elections. The headline for this release — that the administration of elections in the U.S. continues to improve, slowly but surely — will certainly strike a discordant tone with many in the public, who have been fed a steady diet of stories claiming that American elections are rigged or vulnerable to hacking. Yet, the EPI points to a set of deeper truths about American elections that, one hopes, will gain the attention of the public, lawmakers, and election administrators once this election season is over. The EPI is constructed by combining 17 measures of election administration, most of which are performance outputs, such as the percentage of absentee ballots rejected and the percentage of UOCAVA ballots unreturned. As explained in the methodology document that accompanies the EPI website, these 17 measures were chosen because they provide a comprehensive view of election administration at the state level, conceived along two dimensions. Along the first dimension are the functional requirements for potential voters to have their ballots successfully counted: they must be registered, successfully cast a ballot, and the ballot must be accurately counted. Along the second dimension are the two normative goals we wish to achieve through our electoral process: it should be convenient to vote and the electoral process should be secure.

Arizona: Maricopa County poll workers won’t enforce new ballot-harvesting law | The Arizona Republic

Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell will not enforce a new election law in the Aug. 30 primary, disappointing Republicans who say it’s necessary to prevent voter fraud. The law prohibits anyone in Arizona — except family members, household members and caregivers — from delivering another person’s ballot to a polling place or election site. Community groups, largely Democratic but some GOP, have collected ballots from voters in the past and delivered them in bulk, often after it’s too late for voters to mail their ballots before Election Day or when voters cannot make it to the polls themselves. Opponents of the practice say it provides an opportunity for voter fraud, although there is no evidence it has occurred.

Editorials: Despite court ruling, North Carolina GOP lawmakers will benefit again from illegal voting maps | News & Observer

A panel of three federal judges delivered a welcome but frustrating ruling Thursday. The judges unanimously found that 28 of North Carolina’s 170 legislative districts were illegally drawn to concentrate black voters in a way that minimized their statewide political influence. U.S. Circuit Judge James Wynn wrote in the panel’s ruling that “… plaintiffs, and thousands of other North Carolina citizens, have suffered severe constitutional harms” from districts that were improperly drawn to bolster Republican control of the General Assembly. But the court also said the Nov. 8 election is too close to change the maps and that changes would have to be made afterward.

Australia: Australia Stops Online Collection of Census Data After Cyberattacks | The New York Times

Australia has halted online collection of national census data after a website where citizens could upload information was subjected to repeated cyberattacks. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said its website had experienced four denial-of-service attacks, in which a torrent of automated requests is sent to overwhelm a site. The last attack, just after 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, contributed to the overloading of a router, which led to the decision that night to close down online data gathering. The census, which occurs every five years, has been the subject of intense criticism and questions this year over whether the introduction of online data collection could leave Australians’ personal information at risk. Australian officials said on Wednesday that the census system had not been infiltrated and that no data had been compromised.

Editorials: A blow to Hong Kong’s clean and fair electoral process – dealt by its own election officials | Cliff Buddle/South China Morning Post

Democratic reform remains a highly contentious issue in Hong Kong. But, for all the controversy over the city’s lack of universal and equal suffrage, we can take some pride in the Legislative Council elections. The polls have become much more democratic over the years, despite the continued presence of small-circle functional constituencies. Most important of all, they are generally regarded as being clean and lawful, returning candidates from across the political spectrum. But the integrity of next month’s election could now be undermined by the government’s clumsy intervention in the nominating process, in an apparent bid to exclude pro-independence candidates. Prospective candidates were, for the first time, asked to sign an additional form when tendering their nomination.

Zambia: Zambians Await Presidential Vote Results After Frenzied Campaign | Bloomberg

Ballot counting in Zambia was under way Friday after voting ended in a hotly contested election that pitted President Edgar Lungu against his main challenger, Hakainde Hichilema, for the second times in 19 months. Less than 28,000 votes separated the two men when they contested a snap poll in January last year, after President Michael Sata died in office. While Lungu’s administration has improved the country’s road system and built new clinics and schools, a growth slump, soaring food prices and job losses on the nation’s copper mines have dented his chances of winning a full five-year term. The run-up to Thursday’s largely peaceful vote for the president as well as lawmakers, mayors and local councilors was marred by violence that claimed as many as six lives, threatening the country’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies. The ruling Patriotic Front and Hichilema’s United Party for National Development have blamed each other for the clashes.

Zambia: Polls close in Zambia after tight presidential race | The Washington Post

Zambians formed long lines at polling stations on Thursday in a tight election race for president and parliament that has been marred by violence between rival factions. There were no immediate reports of unrest during voting in a country whose peaceful transitions of power in the past have been held up as a democratic model in Africa. However, officials were anticipating tension after polls closed Thursday evening and after the final announcement of results, expected within 24 hours. A winner must get more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff election. The leader of the African Union observer mission and former Nigerian President Goodkuck Jonathan said he was happy with the process so far. “Zambians are known to be peaceful. We encourage to continue maintaining that standard,” he said.

National: Hack of Democrats’ Accounts Was Wider Than Believed, Officials Say | The New York Times

A Russian cyberattack that targeted Democratic politicians was bigger than it first appeared and breached the private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups, officials with knowledge of the case said Wednesday. The widening scope of the attack has prompted the F.B.I. to broaden its investigation, and agents have begun notifying a long list of Democratic officials that the Russians may have breached their personal accounts. The main targets appear to have been the personal email accounts of Hillary Clinton’s campaign officials and party operatives, along with a number of party organizations. Officials have acknowledged that the Russian hackers gained access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is the fund-raising arm for House Democrats, and to the Democratic National Committee, including a D.N.C. voter analytics program used by Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. But the hack now appears to have extended well beyond those groups, and organizations like the Democratic Governors’ Association may also have been affected, according to Democrats involved in the investigation.

National: Americans have become much less confident that we count votes accurately | The Washington Post

Donald Trump’s warning that the 2016 election is likely to be “rigged” has rightfully alarmed many observers, both here and abroad. Although the GOP nominee has provided no evidence of potential fraud, our research suggests that many voters may be receptive to his far-fetched claim, which could erode faith in the electoral system. Disputes over election results aren’t new, of course. In the wake of the 2000 presidential contest, ballot irregularities and the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore — which ended a recount in Florida and effectively handed the election to George W. Bush — led some Democrats to question the legitimacy of the outcome. Following Bush’s reelection in 2004, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote a 2006 article in Rolling Stone claiming that Bush’s campaign had stolen the election. The culprit for many Democrats was electronic voting machines that could be hacked to flip Democratic votes to the Republican column. Trailing in the polls to Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign, John McCain warned in a debate that the advocacy organization ACORN was engaging in voter registration fraud and was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” When Obama defeated McCain and Mitt Romney in 2012, Republicans became more likely to express doubts about the legitimacy of those elections.

Editorials: Facebook may soon have more power over elections than the FEC. Are we ready? | Nathaniel Persily /The Washington Post

For political advertising, like so much else, the digital revolution inspires both utopian and apocalyptic predictions. And as in many other arenas where Internet-based “disruption” looms, the optimists and pessimists both have a point. For those of us who study campaign and election regulation, however, new technology poses a serious challenge to the existing ways of thinking about and addressing the campaign finance problem. Government regulation becomes increasingly difficult once communication moves online, thus, large Internet platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter will become the primary regulators of political campaigns. They need to recognize their new role and use their power responsibly. One error that observers often make in thinking about the evolution of campaign communication is to view the technological shift as one from television to the Internet. To be sure, what we are seeing is a shift in the “devices” used to connect with audiences — adding computers, tablets, gaming consoles and (in particular) smartphones to televisions as the pathways for communication. But television itself is changing and becoming less distinct from those other devices, as younger viewers in particular move from linear watching to on-demand programming of various types. (That said, Americans continue to watch, on average, more than four hours of live TV per day!)

Connecticut: ‘Motor voter’ off to fast start at Connecticut DMV | The CT Mirror

Connecticut registered nearly 700 new voters Monday and Tuesday, the first two days of a “motor voter” system established at the Department of Motor Vehicles under last week’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. And the DMV wasn’t even open Monday, just AAA. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said any customer doing business at the DMV or at AAA offices that serve as DMV branches is now automatically prompted to register to vote or update their voting address, a long-overdue step complying with a U.S. civil rights law.

Georgia: District mapping is diluting minority votes in this Georgia county, civil rights groups allege in lawsuit | Los Angeles Times

More than half a century after the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act, the most racially diverse county in the southeastern United States is depriving minority voters of the ability to elect local candidates of their choice, a coalition of civil rights groups has alleged in a federal lawsuit. Although minorities make up more than half the residents of Gwinnett County, Ga., northeast of Atlanta, no black, Latino or Asian American candidate has ever won a seat on the Board of Commissioners or Board of Education or in any other county office, the lawsuit says. The voting strength of minorities has been diluted by county district maps that have been drawn in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee, which represents the plaintiffs, including the Georgia National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Georgia Assn. of Latino Elected Officials.

North Carolina: Uncertainty still clouds North Carolina elections | The Charlotte Observer

Uncertainty continues to cloud this fall’s elections, with the state planning to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate North Carolina’s voter ID law, and counties deciding whether to extend or shorten early voting. One group warned Wednesday that the state could be headed for a “train wreck” if counties don’t extend the hours to vote early. Mecklenburg County’s elections board Chair Mary Potter Summa said it’s unclear whether the board will reduce the number of planned early voting hours. The board is scheduled to vote on a plan Monday. Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday that he’ll ask the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that threw out the ID law and with it provisions that barred same-day registration and shortened the early voting period from 17 to 10 days. (The number of actual hours remained the same as during previous elections.)

Pennsylvania: Lawmakers examine election codes, voting machine legislation | WITF

State lawmakers Tuesday held a rare summer meeting to discuss updating guidelines on voting machine technology. Meanwhile, some elections officials took the opportunity to try and convince the legislators to make broader changes to the commonwealth’s election codes. Wes Perry, assistant director of Elections in Washington County, spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. He said most of the state’s voting machines were bought with a federal grant about a decade ago, and are due to be replaced soon.

Texas: State must accept wide range of voter ID, judge orders | Austin American-Statesman

Softening a strict Texas voter ID law that had been found to be discriminatory, a federal judge Wednesday ordered the state to accept a wide range of identification for the November general election. Texans without a photo ID will be able to cast ballots by showing bank statements, utility bills and other forms of identification, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos said, accepting without change an agreement over how to handle the Nov. 8 election that had been reached last week by state officials, the U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups. The change in rules was required after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the Republican-favored voter ID law, enacted in 2011, discriminated against minority voters.

Wisconsin: In Wisconsin, a controversial voter-ID law could help choose the president | The Washington Post

An appeals court on Wednesday put on hold an earlier ruling that residents without a photo ID could still vote if they attested to their identity in an affidavit, striking a blow to activists concerned that many in Wisconsin will be blocked from voting. Advocates for voting rights have had recent legal ­victories with rulings against ­voting-restriction legislation in North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. A federal ruling last month said Wisconsin residents who had trouble obtaining the necessary identification would still be able to vote with an affidavit. But the appeals court on Wednesday said that state lawyers challenging that ruling were likely to be successful. Wisconsin has battled for years over its voter-ID law, and the latest bout of legal wrangling has left the situation decidedly unclear for voters in November. In a separate case, a district court judge declared unconstitutional several of Wisconsin’s voting rules and ordered reforms to the process by which voters can obtain IDs from the Division of Motor Vehicles. That decision also is being appealed.

Sao Tome and Principe: Ex-prime minister elected president in one-man race | Reuters

Former prime minister Evaristo Carvalho has been elected president of Sao Tome and Principe, the election commission said on Monday, after incumbent Manuel Pinto da Costa dropped out of the race citing voting irregularities in the first round. Carvalho won 42,058 votes in Sunday’s poll, the National Electoral Commission (CEN) said, announcing provisional results. Only 46 percent of voters voted and of those 18 percent turned in blank or invalid ballots, said CEN chairman Alberto Pereira.

Thailand: Junta chief says elections to be held in 2017 | Al Jazeera

Thailand will hold a general election in 2017, the country’s junta chief said on Tuesday, his first comments since voters backed a new military-crafted constitution in a referendum. Sunday’s vote in support of the charter was the first test of public opinion since the 2014 coup. Campaigning and open debate were curbed in the run-up to the poll, however. Thailand’s last general election was in 2011. “The election will be held late 2017 as planned,” Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who as army chief seized power two years ago, told reporters. Since the vote, the European Union and the United States – both key allies – have called on Prayut to hold elections swiftly and lift restrictions on civil liberties imposed since his takeover. Previous election dates promised by Prayut have slipped.

United Kingdom: Labour leadership voting rights dispute goes to appeal court | The Guardian

Labour’s ruling body is challenging a high court decision allowing new party members to vote in the forthcoming leadership election. The decision was an apparent boost to Jeremy Corbyn in his battle to remain as Labour leader, because most new members are expected to support him in the contest against his rival, Owen Smith. Party officials are going to the court of appeal on Thursday in an attempt to reinstate a block imposed by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) on 130,000 recruits getting the vote. The NEC decided that full members would not be able to vote if they had not had at least six months’ continuous membership up to 12 July.

Zambia: Campaign unrest tests stability as Zambia votes | AFP

At least three people have been killed during the campaign, with regular clashes erupting between supporters of Lungu’s Patriotic Front (PF) and Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND). Ahead of the vote, the election commission issued an emergency statement describing the unrest as “unprecedented” and warning it had “marred Zambia’s historic record of peaceful elections”. Last month, campaigning was halted in Lusaka for 10 days to reduce the violence. But skirmishes continued until polling day, including fighting in the streets and vehicles overturned close to Hichilema’s final rally on Wednesday in Lusaka.

National: Just how secure are electronic voting machines? | CNN

It’s no secret, given the hacks that have plagued the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. But security researchers warn that it’s just the beginning. “There’s not even a doubt in my mind that there are other actors out there that have yet to be found,” Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz told CNNMoney. “I’m sure there will be other hacks that come out over the course of this election and certainly beyond that.” Kurtz, whose firm was brought in by the DNC to investigate the hack, called the hack a watershed moment. He said Crowdstrike has been fielding calls from Washington as political parties wrap their heads around a new type of threat: Hackers trying to manipulate the U.S. election. Far from Washington, hackers descended on Las Vegas to show off their party tricks at Black Hat, the annual conference that puts security on the frontlines. They hacked cars, ATMs and mobile devices. This year, there was a new addition: a simulated version of a hackable electronic voting machine, assembled by security firm Symantec. Brian Varner, a security researcher at Symantec, said the electronic voting machine is another frontier for hackers.