The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 14-20 2016

voting_booths_260Amid the ruins of the ugliest presidential campaign in modern history, Democrats are bemoaning an election apparatus so balky and politically malleable that throngs of would-be voters either gave up trying to cast ballots or cast ones that were never counted.the first presidential election in a half century that was held without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, so few Americans cast ballots that a new president was elected by barely a quarter of Americans eligible to vote. Civil rights groups say that Republican-backed “voter suppression” laws enacted since 2010 probably helped tip the scale for Republican nominee Donald Trump in some closely contested states on election night. In a USA Today Ron Rivest and Philip Stark advocated “risk-limiting” audits of election results, an audit that manually examines a random sample of the ballots in a way that has a large chance of detecting and correcting incorrect results. The Illinois Senate has voted to override Governor Rauner’s veto of automatic voter registration legislation. Opponents of ballot initiatives in Maine that would legalize recreational marijuana and tax the state’s highest earners to help fund public schools have submitted requests for recounts. A statewide recount is also possible in the North Carolina gubernatorial contest. The ultimate of Texas’ voter id requirement remains up in the air. Voters went the polls in China, while hurricane-ravaged Haiti holds elections today.