Yearly Archives: 2016

Utah Supreme Court justices poked at the Utah Republican Party’s interpretation of a controversial new state election law in a hearing Monday as hundreds of candidates work to get on the primary ballot. Though lawyers for the GOP, Utah Democratic Party or the state didn’t want to read the tea leaves afterward, questions from Justices Deno Himonas and Christine Durham might signal where the court is headed. Republican Party attorney Marcus Mumford argued that the state can’t tell political parties how to select their nominees for public office. “This statute doesn’t do that,” Durham said. Under the law, organizations that register with the state as a “qualified political party” — which the Utah Republican Party did — must allow candidates to gather petition signatures, go through the party’s convention or both to secure a place on the primary election ballot.

Washington: Yakima City Council abandons appeal of ACLU voting rights suit | Yakima Herald

The Yakima City Council unanimously ended a four-year fight Tuesday over how the city elects its representatives by ending its appeal of a voting rights lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union. In a 6-0 vote, with Councilwoman Maureen Adkison absent, the council withdrew its appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ending a case it had spent more than $1.1 million defending and will now pay the ACLU $1.8 million as part of a federal court order. “This is a $3 million reminder” that all residents should have a say in who represents them,” Mayor Avina Gutierrez said.

Comoros: Key presidential poll runoff set for Sunday | Africa News

Presidential candidates are forming alliances ahead of the presidential runoff in the Comoros Island scheduled for April 10. A camp of the Juwa main opposition party has announced that it will support Azali Assoumani – a colonel who came third during the first round. The Juwa party did not make it to the second round and the controversial agreement is creating divisions within the opposition party. What we have just done today, is just the beginning, it shows that a single party cannot govern this country, We must unite to bring our country out of the abyss.

Netherlands: Dutch Vote on EU-Ukraine Deal Could Send Ripples Through Europe | Wall Street Journal

Weeks before the U.K. decides whether to leave the European Union, the Netherlands will hold a referendum that could deliver a blow to the bloc. On Wednesday, the Netherlands will vote to support or reject the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine, a pact that deepens economic and political ties with the former Soviet republic and is already ratified by the EU’s 27 other member states. Although the referendum is nonbinding, EU officials fear that a rejection by Dutch voters could send ripples through the continent and represent a victory for Russia, which has long tried to scuttle the agreement.

Peru: Anti-Fujimori protest erupt days ahead of elections | Reuters

Tens of thousands of Peruvians marched against presidential front-runner Keiko Fujimori Tuesday on the anniversary of her authoritarian father’s most infamous power grab – forcing her to suspend campaign events ahead of Sunday’s elections. Protesters chanted “Never again!” and said a vote for center-right Fujimori would be a vote for ex-president Alberto Fujimori, who is now serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption committed during his 1990-2000 government. At least 30,000 took part in the protest in Lima – a sign of the stiff opposition to Fujimori that could make her vulnerable to defeat in a run-off. Fujimori is expected to win the biggest share of votes on April 10 but not the simple majority needed to win outright.

Singapore: Voting at polling stations still ‘most transparent’ method: Chan Chun Sing | Channel NewsAsia

Voting using paper ballots at polling stations is still the “simplest and most transparent method”, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing in Parliament on Wednesday (Apr 6). He said this in response to queries on whether online voting for overseas Singaporeans using SingPass was feasible amid security and secrecy concerns of postal voting. “The Elections Department has studied the feasibility of Internet voting for overseas Singaporeans,” he said. “While Internet voting may appeal to some, it has various challenges, like difficulties in authenticating voters, preventing impersonation and ensuring voter secrecy. In addition, there are system reliability issues and security risks such as vulnerability to hacking and cyberattacks.”

National: Supreme Court Rejects Challenge on ‘One Person One Vote’ | The New York Times

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that states may count all residents, whether or not they are eligible to vote, in drawing election districts. The decision was a major statement on the meaning of a fundamental principle of the American political system, that of “one person one vote.” “We hold, based on constitutional history, this court’s decisions and longstanding practice, that a state may draw its legislative districts based on total population,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. As a practical matter, the ruling mostly helped Democrats and upheld the status quo. But until this decision, the court had never resolved whether voting districts should contain roughly the same number of people or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places that have large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally — including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants and children. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic.

National: Conservative challenge to voting rights unanimously rejected by supreme court | The Guardian

The US supreme court on Monday unanimously rejected a conservative challenge to voting rights – ruling that states could count the total population, not just eligible voters, in drawing legislative districts. The case was brought before the court after conservative activists challenged the legal principle of “one person, one vote”, which has long established that election districts should be drawn to be equal in population. The two plaintiffs, both residents of Texas, argued the principle diluted the influence of those living in districts where a larger number of individuals were ineligible to vote. But shifting the method would most certainly lend greater power to states with wealthier populations with mostly white voters, and away from urban and more racially diverse areas. The lawsuit was opposed by the Obama administration, the state of Texas and civil rights groups across America.

National: How the Challenge to Legislative Redistricting in Evenwel v. Abbot Backfired | The Atlantic

If the Supreme Court were a stock market, the last few years have been as a bull market in conservative constitutional theories. With a tenuous but real 5-4 conservative majority in place, advocacy groups raced to get their pet theories before the Court. In some cases—campaign finance and gun rights, for example—the race paid off, producing 5-4 wins for radical shifts of doctrine. In others (think about public-employee unions) it has not. Bull markets tempt investors into unwise wagers. History, I suspect, will so regard the appellants in Evenwel v. Abbot, the “one-person-one-vote” (OPOV) case decided Monday. In Evenwel, the Court unanimously rejected an advocacy group’s invitation to throw American politics into turmoil, and in the process to shift power from immigrants to natives, from non-whites to whites, from young people to the aging, and, by coincidence, from the Democratic to the Republican Party. The needed votes, it now appears, were never there. The Court’s decision was unanimous; equally important, the majority opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg attracted six of the Court’s eight justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Even more importantly, the six-justice majority not only decided against the conservative theory, it made it much harder for advocates to pursue the conservative theory in future cases.

Editorials: Republicans and Voter Suppression | The New York Times

It’s become an accepted truth of modern politics that Republican electoral prospects go up as the number of voters goes down. Conservatives have known this for a long time, which helps explain their intensifying efforts to make it harder to vote, or to eliminate large numbers of people from political representation entirely. On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected one of the more extreme attempts — a lawsuit from Texas that aimed to reverse longstanding practice and require that only eligible voters be counted in the drawing of state legislative districts.

Arizona: Voting Rights Act rulings’ negative effects manifested in Arizona | Washington Times

Ever since the Supreme Court poked a hole in the Voting Rights Act, activists have been warning of devastating effects on average voters showing up at the polls. Last month they got their case in Arizona, where some voters said they waited in lines longer than five hours to vote in the primary elections after Maricopa County, one of the most sprawling in the country, cut its number of polling places from more than 400 in 2008 down to 60 this year. Other voters said they had their registration secretly changed without their knowledge, locking them out of the “closed” primary, in which voters had to have declared their affiliation in advance to be able to vote in either party’s contest. Supporters of Sen. Bernard Sanders alleged dirty tricks, saying the vast majority of secret switches were those who were changed from Democrat to independent. “We made some horrendous mistakes, and I apologize for that. I can’t go back and undo it. I wish that I could, but I cannot,” Helen Purcell, the Maricopa County recorder, told a state legislative investigation last week. “I can only say we felt we were using the best information that we had available to us.”

California: Supreme Court rejects voting-district challenge that would have weakened Los Angeles’ clout | Los Angeles Times

For the second time in two weeks, a conservative bid to shift the law to the right fizzled at the Supreme Court, when the justices on Monday upheld the current, widely-used method of counting every person—not just voters—when drawing election districts. The unanimous ruling rejected a constitutional claim that states and municipalities may count only eligible voters when dividing up districts. Had the court accepted such an interpretation, it would have shifted power away from cities with fast-growing communities of immigrants, including Los Angeles, Houston and Phoenix, and given more clout to suburban and rural areas. Doing so would have generally strengthened Republicans and undercut Democrats.

Utah: State Supreme Court hears arguments over disputed state election law | KSL

Editorials: West Virginia becomes a pioneer in voter registration | Observer-Reporter

West Virginia doesn’t have a whole lot in common with Oregon or California. The Mountain State is nestled in Appalachia, while the Beaver and the Golden states are on the Pacific coast, and would take about 35 hours to reach if you drove nonstop from Charleston, W.Va. They have different industries, vastly different heritages and wildly different demographic makeups – California is one of the most diverse states in the country, while West Virginia is one of the least. They also diverge politically: President Obama only took 35 percent of the vote in West Virginia during his successful 2012 re-election bid, while comfortably winning California and Oregon by 60 percent and 54 percent, respectively. West Virginia will almost certainly remain red in this year’s presidential contest, while it would take a seismic shift of epic proportions for either Oregon or California to take on a reddish hue.

Wisconsin: Could Scott Walker’s Voter ID Law Help Hillary Win Wisconsin? | The Daily Beast

Bernie Sanders’ backers worry Scott Walker’s new voter ID law could give Hillary Clinton a boost in Wisconsin by keeping enthusiastic college students away from the polls. The law, which Walker signed in 2011 and is just now being fully implemented after the conclusion of a court battle, requires that voters show a state-issued photo ID at the polls—a hurdle that can be especially tough for college students who don’t have drivers’ licenses. Progressives have long held that the Republican legislature made these changes as part of an effort to depress the votes of African-Americans, college students, and other core Democratic constituencies. But progressives say that on Tuesday, one of the law’s top benefactors may be Hillary Clinton. That’s because of the unique challenges it makes for college kids, who vote overwhelmingly for Sanders. U.S. citizens who have lived in Wisconsin for at least 28 days are eligible to vote there—but the I.D. rules are especially tricky for college students who moved there from other states.

Australia: Queensland referendum: Vote on four-year parliamentary terms passes | ABC

A referendum on whether to have four-year fixed parliamentary terms in Queensland has officially passed, with the state’s Electoral Commission (ECQ) declaring the vote. Of the 80 per cent of ballots counted, 51 per cent of voters favoured the change compared to 46 per cent who opposed it. The informal vote for the March 19 poll was 3 per cent. Legislation will be introduced to Queensland Parliament that will change the current three-year variable terms to a fixed date, the last Saturday of October, every four years.

Iceland: Prime Minister faces calls for snap election after offshore revelations | The Guardian

Iceland’s prime minister is this week expected to face calls in parliament for a snap election after the Panama Papers revealed he is among several leading politicians around the world with links to secretive companies in offshore tax havens. The financial affairs of Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and his wife have come under scrutiny because of details revealed in documents from a Panamanian law firm that helps clients protect their wealth in secretive offshore tax regimes. The files from Mossack Fonseca form the biggest ever data leak to journalists. Opposition leaders have this weekend been discussing a motion calling for a general election – in effect a confidence vote in the prime minister. On Monday, Gunnlaugsson is expected to face allegations from opponents that he has hidden a major financial conflict of interest from voters ever since he was elected an MP seven years ago.

Netherlands: Dutch gear up for the other EU vote giving Brussels a headache | The Guardian

The dividing lines of the referendum are clearly drawn. Supporters say a yes vote will deliver security and trade; opponents see a chance to wrest back control from the so-called undemocratic forces of Brussels. Accusations of lies and spin are batted around on both sides. Many voters are confused or indifferent. This is not Britain, but the Netherlands. On Wednesday the Dutch will take part in the other referendum that is sending shivers through the EU establishment, a vote that has exposed bitter rifts in attitudes towards Brussels – and Moscow. It is the country’s first referendum since 2005, when voters rejected the EU constitution. This time, unlike their British counterparts, the Dutch will not be voting on whether to leave or remain in the EU, but on the more obscure issue of an association agreement with Ukraine that aims to deepen trade and cooperation.

South Africa: IEC postpones all by-elections | Business Tech

The Electoral Commission of South Africa has postponed all by-elections in the light of continued uncertainty regarding the validity of the voters’ roll where voters’ addresses are not in the possession of the Electoral Commission. The Commission on Monday said this also includes by-elections scheduled for 6 April 2016. “The Electoral Commission made the decision in the interest of free and fair elections following the recent order by the Electoral Court to postpone by-elections in Tlokwe scheduled for 24 February 2016,” the Commission said. The Electoral Commission on 23 February 2016 postponed all 12 by-elections scheduled for the following day in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, North West and the Western Cape.

United Kingdom: Cameron’s purge of young voters from the electoral register could cost him the referendum | openDemocracy

David Cameron has spoken of his “fear” that Britain will vote to break with Brussels because of a low turnout. The Prime Minister’s sleep patterns will not have been helped then by Sunday’s Observer poll that put the Leave campaign ahead by 4 points. The poll also found that the group most supportive of remaining part of the EU are people in the 18-34 age group. Remain campaigns will say they have the future on their side. But as Freddie Sayers, YouGov’s editor-in-chief, says “the single most important driver of turnout is age.” And over 65s are more both more likely to be eurosceptic and more likely to vote. The Observer poll found 52 per cent of younger people were certain to vote, compared to 81 per cent of older voters. So Cameron now depends on the people least likely to have voted for his Conservative government to keep him in Downing Street. But crudely partisan attempts to make it more difficult for Labour and other left-wing parties to mobilise their supporters against the Conservatives may now come back to haunt him.

National: Could the Election Be Hacked? | Government Technology

With the surge in data breaches over the past several years, the prevailing wisdom is that no online data is completely safe from hackers. Banks, governments, insurance companies and small businesses globally have lost billions of dollars to cybercrime. Last year, the top security breaches affected something more precious than personally identifiable information. Data breaches included the most intimate details and actions in life — with the loss of millions of records containing biometrics like fingerprints, career backgrounds, family relationships, secret liaisons, hospital records and much more. Which leads to the big question that’s being asked with renewed fervor: Could the 2016 presidential election be disrupted, or somehow manipulated, via unauthorized computer hacking or denial of service attacks?

National: I (Wish I) Voted: Voting Restrictions Are Impacting Elections | US News & World Report

The battle lines are already being drawn for the general election in November, and Democrats are eager to line up African-Americans, Latinos, women, senior citizens and young voters, all of whom the party believes could form a formidable team to thwart a potential Donald Trump presidency and wrest the Senate majority from the GOP. That is only, however, if all those people will be able to vote. And given the sweeping new regulations and restrictions a number of states have placed on voting, that’s not a given. In this year alone, ten states are implementing laws that usher in new restrictions or hurdles, ranging from cutting early voting to imposing cumbersome voter identification rules, according to tracking by the ACLU, which is battling many of the laws in the courts. Those ten states are home to over 80 million people and account for 129 of the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency, the civil liberties group reports.

National: New ID laws, long lines raise allegations of U.S. voting discrimination | Toronto Star

Steve Pacewicz of Madison, Wis., is such a political junkie that he can speak intelligently about Canadian pipeline proposals. His Facebook page is plastered with images of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Until recently, though, he didn’t think he was going be voting in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. He didn’t think he could afford it. Pacewicz, 56, is a homeless man who sleeps in his truck. Wisconsin has a new “voter ID” law that requires every voter to show specific kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot. If a voter wants to obtain that identification while keeping his driver’s licence, it costs money. Pacewicz, who works odd jobs, doesn’t have any. He only managed to get the card he needed — a duplicate of the licence he said he never received in the mail — when a non-profit group called VoteRiders paid the $14 fee for him. If it hadn’t, his only other option was surrendering his driving privileges in exchange for a free non-driver ID. He is still indignant. “I don’t have much in this world, but I know I’ve got rights,” he said. “I have to trade my driving privileges for my right to vote? That doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t that kind of like Jim Crow laws? The new version?”

Alabama: Republicans Want to Limit Spending, Fundraising, Free Speech | Alabama Political Reporter

Twin bills in the Alabama House and Senate would severely limit the First Amendment and the spirit of Citizens United, by limiting funds raised or spent on campaigns and issues. SB356 and HB404 Sponsored respectively by Sen. Arthur Orr and Rep. Mike Jones would, “regulate the disclosure, raising, and spending of money to influence elections and governmental actions.” Alabama’s own Shaun McCutcheon, a hero to many in the State and nation, fought the FEC over campaign giving and won in the 2014 US Supreme Court ruling “McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission,” believes full disclosure is right, but to limit how much money can be raised or spent is unacceptable.

Florida: Dead cat at heart of Florida election controversy | Politico

Gracey Duncan seemed to be the type of Floridian a nonprofit voter-registration group wanted to get on the rolls to start participating in elections. But two problems stood in the way: Gracey is a cat. And she’s dead. “Why is my (dead)cat getting #voterregistration apps? This is #2,” Gracey’s confused former owner, Julie Duncan, asked her local election supervisor via Twitter. The easy answer to Duncan’s question is that a database mix-up or mismatch led the nonprofit Voter Participation Center to think “Gracey Duncan” was the type of person — a minority or single woman — the liberal-leaning group wants to register ahead of the presidential election.

Kansas: Outraged by Kansas Justices’ Rulings, Republicans Seek to Reshape Court | The New York Times

Washington is locked in partisan warfare over control of the Supreme Court. But it is hardly the only place. Look at the states, where political attacks on judicial decisions are common and well-financed attack ads are starting to jar the once-sleepy elections for State Supreme Court seats. Nowhere is the battle more fiery than here in Kansas. Gov. Sam Brownback and other conservative Republicans have expressed outrage over State Supreme Court decisions that overturned death penalty verdicts, blocked anti-abortion laws and hampered Mr. Brownback’s efforts to slash taxes and spending, and they are seeking to reshape a body they call unaccountable to the right-tilting public. At one point, the L egislature threatened to suspend all funding for the courts. The Supreme Court, in turn, ruled in February that the state’s public schools must shut down altogether if poorer districts do not get more money by June 30.

Editorials: Bromance between Kris Kobach and Brian Newby leads to attack on voting rights | The Kansas City Star

The essential voting rights of Americans are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and multiple laws across the land. But all of this means little to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and other Republicans who want to trample on those rights and keep legal immigrants, poor people and others out of the voting booth. Because laws can be changed. The Constitution can be skirted. New rules can be imposed from on high when like-minded people are in the right place. Which brings us to Brian Newby, the recently departed leader of the Johnson County Election Office. Late last year he accepted the job as the executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a nonpartisan office that’s supposed to help make voting more accessible and promote good election practices throughout the country. Shortly after taking that work, Newby abruptly decided that people in Kansas, Alabama and Georgia could not register to vote by using a national form — one that doesn’t require providing proof of U.S. citizenship.

Kentucky: Judge tosses ban on corporate campaign donations | Associated Press

A federal judge has ruled that Kentucky cannot bar a corporation from contributing to political campaigns while no such restrictions apply to other organizations such as labor unions. The ruling stems from the heated battle over “right-to-work” legislation in the state: the labor unions that oppose those measures are allowed to make political donations, while a non-profit corporation that promotes them is not. U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove ruled on Thursday that Kentucky Registry of Election Finance officials cannot enforce the state’s constitutional prohibition on corporate contributions, finding the disparate treatment of corporations and unincorporated organizations violates the Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

Missouri: St. Louis, St. Louis County voters can’t use touch-screen machines at Tuesday’s election | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

St. Louis and St. Louis County residents who like to cast their votes on a touch-screen machine won’t find one when they go to polling places for Tuesday’s election. Election authorities say the unusually short three-week period since the March 15 presidential primary didn’t provide enough time to reprogram and test each of the touch-screen devices without major difficulty. So all voters in the city and county will have to use paper ballots and feed them into optical-scan machines. Normally both optical-scan and touch-screen methods are available across the city and county. “In theory it would have been possible to do a complete turnaround, but my staff would have been run so ragged,” said Eric Fey, Democratic director at the county Election Board. “The possibility of mistakes and the cost just begins to increase exponentially.”

Missouri: Senate votes to expand Secretary of State’s powers | Associated Press