Russia: Putin’s ex-pm, facing death threats, warns of vote crackdown | Bloomberg

The Kremlin is putting “unprecedented” pressure on opposition activists as President Vladimir Putin prepares for his toughest electoral test amid Russia’s longest recession in two decades, according to his former prime minister. “The authorities understand that 2016 will be decisive because the economic and political situation is acute,” Mikhail Kasyanov, who was premier from 2000 to 2004 and is now one of Putin’s harshest critics, said in an interview in Moscow. “They are tightening the screws, and if they don’t allow the opposition to engage in politics and compete in elections, all this will soon lead to a revolution.” Kasyanov said pro-Kremlin activists are hounding him and supporters of his opposition Parnas coalition across the country ahead of parliamentary elections in September. He’s also facing death threats, including an Instagram video posted last month by the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, that showed him in the crosshairs of a scope sight. Kadyrov later added a picture of himself with a sniper rifle.

National: The Nation’s Election Watchdog Just Hit a New Level of Dysfunction | Mother Jones

In 2011, former Bain Capital executive Edward Conrad decided to give $1 million to the super-PAC supporting the presidential bid of his pal Mitt Romney. But he didn’t contribute the cash directly. Instead, he put the money in a generically named shell company he had recently created, which then cut a check to the super-PAC, Restore Our Future. Election law prohibits donors from taking steps to hide their identities, and campaign finance activists pressed the Federal Election Commission to investigate. Five years later, the FEC—which since at least 2010 has been existing in a fugue state of partisan paralysis—has finally rendered a decision on whether it will probe the matter, which is something of a post-Citizens United test case. Nah, we’ll pass on this one, the FEC decided on Monday.

Alaska: PFD voter registration initiative approved, will appear on August ballot | KTVA

A ballot initiative that would register Alaskans who qualify for the Permanent Fund dividend to vote has been approved for the primary ballot in April. Alaska Division of Elections Director Josie Bahnke announced Monday the signature petitions were properly filed. During the signing of the certification documents with Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott Monday morning, she noted that the initiative would be the only one on the ballot during the primary election on Aug. 16.

Illinois: Prosecutors look into vote-buying allegations in Chicago | Associated Press

In a city where voter fraud is part of local lore, prosecutors are examining allegations by a Chicago alderman and others that campaign workers are paying people to vote for a Democrat involved in one of Illinois’ most contentious legislative elections. Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, said Monday that the office’s election unit is “looking into” a complaint against state Rep. Ken Dunkin of Chicago. The complaint was first lodged by Alderman Pat Dowell, a supporter of Dunkin’s opponent in the Democratic primary who on Sunday released videos that she says were made by “volunteers” who entered a Dunkin campaign office to secretly record the payments. A spokesman for Dunkin has called the accusations “baseless.”

Kentucky: Secretary of State Calls for No-Excuse Early Voting | WKU Public Radio

Kentucky’s Secretary of State says lawmakers have a way to increase voter participation statewide. Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes spoke in Frankfort Monday in support of early voting legislation. Under a bill proposed by Secretary Grimes, Kentucky voters could cast early in-person ballots without an excuse. Currently, voters must have a qualifying reason to vote early. Grimes points to the success of no-excuse early voting in other states.

Maine: Support builds for switching back to presidential primaries | The Portland Press Herald

A bipartisan group of legislative leaders expressed support Monday for switching back to presidential primary elections in Maine after record voter turnout led to lengthy delays at some caucus locations over the weekend. Senate Minority Leader Justin Alfond, D-Portland, renewed the caucuses-versus-primaries debate one day after unprecedented turnout forced Portland’s Democratic leaders to accept thousands of absentee ballots rather than require participants to attend traditional caucus meetings. Many left without voting, either unable or unwilling to wait up to four hours in a line that stretched a half-mile outside Deering High School. While Alfond acknowledged that town meeting-style caucuses have advantages, he said a primary format is preferable during presidential-election years because voters cast ballots throughout the day rather than congregate for an hours-long meeting.

Maryland: Congressional candidate David Trone: Machines for disabled voters are ‘unfit’ | The Washington Post

Attorneys for congressional candidate David Trone are demanding that Maryland election officials overhaul the use of touch-screen machines that are to be used by disabled voters in the April primary — but are not programmed to display all candidates on a single screen. The State Board of Elections voted last month to abandon these machines for general use in early voting because it is difficult to navigate long lists of candidates and could disadvantage those with last names at the end of the alphabet — including Trone, U.S. Senate candidate Chris Van Hollen (D) and GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Election officials are keeping the touch-screen machines available for voters with disabilities, including blind people, who can’t easily use the alternative paper ballots that are being rolled out during early voting and the April 26 election. Trone’s campaign objected to elections officials continuing to sanction machines for disabled voters that it deemed “unfit” for general use.

Montana: Group calls Indian voting proposals ‘unequal’ | Great Falls Tribune

An Indian advocacy organization has told Secretary of State Linda McCulloch that the counties that have submitted proposals for Indian voting satellite offices have proposed plans that offer unequal access. It’s also noted that none of the counties is providing Election Day voter registration, which denies tribal residents equal access to the ballot box. In October, McCulloch issued a directive stating Montana counties must establish satellite voting offices for in-person absentee voting and later-voter registration for the 2016 general election.

Ohio: 17-year-olds sue over voting rights | Toledo Blade

Nine 17-year-olds, including one from Toledo, sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted Tuesday over his office’s refusal to allow them to vote in the presidential race in next week’s primary election. The lawsuit contends the state’s chief elections officer, a Republican, has misinterpreted state law allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will be 18 by the time of the November general election. Mr. Husted determined that because voters are electing convention delegates rather than nominating candidates in the primary, 17-year-olds cannot vote in the presidential race. They can vote in U.S. Senate, state legislative, judicial, and other races on the same ballot in which candidates are nominated, but not elected at this stage.

Ohio: Republican voters get 2 votes for president, only 1 counts | Associated Press

Every Republican primary voter in Ohio will have two opportunities to vote for president, in a ballot twist that only escalates the potential confusion caused by the party’s large and fractious field of candidates. GOP ballots for the March 15 primary feature two boxes for president: one for designating an at-large presidential delegate and one for designating a district delegate. It’s a carry-over from a time when Ohio’s Republican vote was divided proportionally, rather than in the winner-take-all fashion being used in 2016. The two boxes raise obvious questions: Do voters get two votes? Can conflicted voters split their vote, or do votes for two candidates cancel each other out? If only one of the two boxes is filled in, does the person’s vote still count? Ohio never changed a requirement that both boxes be listed, and the secretary of state’s office says both will also tallied. But the Ohio Republican Party says only one will count.

Utah: GOP caucus will be online, but don’t expect Internet voting to take hold elsewhere | Deseret News

When it comes to innovative ways to increase voter turnout, Utah seems to break all the rules. This is a state that lets you vote by mail, vote early and, at least for a three-year trial period, lets you register on the day you vote. Conventional wisdom says that if Republicans run your state, you aren’t supposed to have all those things. “When I go to national election conventions, people are all scratching their heads,” Mark Thomas, chief deputy to Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, told me. “We’re doing things that only some of the liberal states are doing.” So it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that, if you are a registered Republican in Utah, you will have the chance to vote online in the upcoming presidential preference caucus March 22. That’s just another bold step in a conservative state that’s surprisingly progressive about elections, right? Well, it’s bold all right. As Shakespeare said, “Boldness be my friend.” But as English essayist Charles Lamb said, “’Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”

Benin: Election heads to runoff between PM and cotton king | Associated Press

Benin’s prime minister and a cotton magnate are leading in the presidential election, but neither has the majority of votes to win outright and they are expected to face each other in a second round, according to preliminary results released Tuesday. Lionel Zinsou, a French-born investment banker who was named prime minister last year, earned 28 percent of Sunday’s vote, according to the election commission. Patrice Talon, known locally as “the king of cotton,” came in second with 24 percent. He was followed closely by Sebastien Ajavon, another businessman. If the results are validated by the Constitutional Court, Zinsou and Talon will participate in a runoff, expected later this month. More than 3 million voters chose among 33 candidates in this cotton-producing country.

New Zealand: NZ First calls for Hindi flag votes to be nullified, after translation differs | Stuff.co.nz

A slight change in the Hindi translation of flag referendum instructions is “misleading”, claim NZ First. Therefore, party leader Winston Peters has called for all votes from Hindi-speaking people to be nullified. The pamphlet titled ‘How to vote’ accompanies the ballot papers, and sets out the first step in English: “Tick the flag you want to be the New Zealand flag”. However, the Hindi translation reads: “Tick the flag you want to be the new New Zealand flag” – the word ‘new’ had been inserted.

Niger: Opposition Suspends Participation in Runoff Election | VoA News

Niger’s opposition coalition said Tuesday that its candidate, Hama Amadou, would not contest a runoff election March 20, increasing the chances that President Mahamadou Issoufou will win a second term. Amadou has been in prison since November on charges relating to baby-trafficking. He says he is innocent and a victim of political repression. The government denies wrongdoing and says it follows the law. “The Coalition for an Alternative has decided to suspend its participation in the electoral process and asks its representatives to withdraw from the electoral commission,” it said in a statement.

Philippines: High court orders Comelec to activate voting receipts | Inquirer News

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to issue voting receipts as a verification mechanism for the electorate in the May 9 elections, the first time the poll body was compelled to issue printouts of voters’ choices since automated counting in the country began in 2010. In a unanimous ruling, the high court ordered the Comelec to use the voter verification paper audit trail in voting machines, which will issue a receipt to each voter after casting his or her ballot. The ruling came just two months before Election Day. “The Commission on Elections is ordered to enable the vote verification feature of the vote-counting machines, which prints the voter’s choices,” the high court said in the dispositive portion of its ruling.

Switzerland: E-voting suffers setback in parliament | SWI

The OSA has called for an end to discrimination of the about 147,000 Swiss living abroad who have registered to take part in votes and elections. “It is difficult to understand how the government gives priority to cantonal autonomy as the introduction of e-voting for the Swiss Abroad is a task of the [national] government,” says OSA co-director Ariane Rustichelli. She says last year’s parliamentary elections are a case in point to prove that the current policy of leaving the introduction to the individual 26 cantons has been a failure. “Registered Swiss Abroad citizens of four cantons had the right to use e-voting in 2015. This has already been the case in 2011,” she says.

Uganda: Poll Petition Faces Setback After Lawyers’ Offices Robbed | allAfrica.com

Suspected burglars broke into the offices of two of Amama Mbabazi’s lawyers on Tuesday night and reportedly made off with computers and case files. Though the lawyers did not report the cases to the Uganda Police Force, the police have now gone to the offices of the two lawyers, Fred Muwema and Muhammed Mbabazi, to carry out investigations. “I think the police should come to tell us that they [the police allegedly] broke in because they were here,” said counsel Mbabazi during a televised interview. He ruled out going to the police to report the incident. “The police were seen to have come here. They came, they [allegedly] broke [in and] they took away whatever they took. So I report to whom? They should be the ones to come and tell me ‘we came in, we didn’t find you then we broke in’.”

National: A Tipping Point for Automatic Voter Registration? | The Atlantic

The state-by-state push to enact automatic voter registration laws is nearing a tipping point. Or so its supporters hope. Oregon began proactively adding unregistered citizens to its rolls last month. California will soon follow suit under a state law signed last year. Serious efforts to enact similar proposals through legislative action or citizen ballot initiatives are underway in several other states, including Illinois, Maryland, and Ohio. The drive has won endorsements in the last year from President Obama and both Democrats running to succeed him in the White House. Those are all indisputable signs of momentum for an idea now at the core of advocacy efforts to expand access to the ballot box—that state governments should make it easier to vote by simply registering their eligible citizens, rather than forcing them to do it themselves. Yet while the campaign has gained steam, it has also cleaved along party lines in a way that threatens to turn automatic registration into one more partisan flashpoint in the battle over voting laws. “I have met many Democrats that are convinced that Republican are trying to keep their party from voting, and I’ve met many Republicans that are convinced that Democrats are cheating,” said Kim Wyman, the top elections official in Washington state. “And it’s really hard to convince either side otherwise.”

Editorials: The Right to Vote? Don’t Count on It | Michael Waldman/The Daily Beast

Has there ever been an election like this one? The 2016 race is ferocious, rude, ugly, with parties and coalitions fracturing before our eyes. It’s also the first contest in years where public anger is trained on how government works and not just what it does. The state of democracy is on the ballot. Bernie Sanders denounces the “billionaire class” and demands campaign finance reform. Donald Trump snarls, “Washington is broken” and brags that as a self-funder, he cannot be bought. Hillary Clinton, more muted, rolls out detailed plans for campaign finance changes and automatic voter registration. To add to the intensity, the looming Supreme Court nomination fight will tap public anger over Citizens United, the Court’s most reviled recent decision. All just two years after an election in which voter turnout plunged to its lowest level in seven decades.

North Carolina: Voters’ attorneys say new Congress map should be rejected | Associated Press

North Carolina’s updated congressional districts — redrawn by legislators after federal judges ruled some lines created illegal racial gerrymanders — also are unconstitutional and should be rejected, according to the voters who originally sued to overturn them. Lawyers for David Harris and Christine Bowers — voters who challenged the previous majority black 1st and 12th District boundaries — filed in federal court their objections to boundaries drawn by the Republican-led General Assembly on Feb. 19. They also want the judges to draw new maps themselves. For the map originally drawn in 2011, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued the GOP mapmakers previously packed black voters into the two districts so as to make surrounding areas more white and Republican.

Utah: San Juan County sued for violating Voting Rights Act | The Salt Lake Tribune

During the last election, Peggy Phillips would have had to drive four hours, round-trip, from her home on the Navajo reservation to the predominantly white city of Monticello to cast her vote in person. That’s because San Juan County had closed all of its polling places and switched to a mail-only voting system ahead of the 2014 general election. But Phillips never received her ballot in the mail in time. Even if she had, she isn’t comfortable voting in English and would have needed help from a translator, since there are usually words on the ballot she doesn’t understand, according to a federal lawsuit she has joined against the county for violating the Voting Rights Act. Phillips was unable to vote that year. Now, she’s one of seven people, along with the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, suing San Juan County for violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Their lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Utah, claiming that the new voting system “unreasonably hindered” Navajo citizens’ ability to vote on equal terms with white voters. If left unchanged, “these practices will continue to do so in the 2016 election cycle and beyond,” the lawsuit reads.

Virginia: Trial on voter ID law wraps up | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Social scientists testified for the defense Wednesday in the last day of a trial over the state’s voter identification law, attesting that they could not definitively say that the law was intended to blunt the influence of minority voters. A lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party of Virginia and two voters contends that the law that went into effect in 2013 was enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature to suppress votes from minorities and youth who are more likely than other voters to support Democrats and tend to be less likely to have a valid photo ID. After the last witness in the more than weeklong trial in Richmond finished testifying Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson directed lawyers for the plaintiffs and the defendants — the Virginia State Board of Elections, the Virginia Department of Elections and officials from those offices — to file memorandums in lieu of making closing arguments. The memos are due March 25 and the rebuttals a week after.

Ireland: After Inconclusive Vote Ireland Faces Political Stalemate | Wall Street Journal

Ireland’s newly elected lawmakers were settling in for a protracted period of negotiations over the formation of a new government Tuesday, as the counting of votes cast Friday was wrapping up. The new legislature, which is known as Dáil Éireann, will meet for the first time on March 10, though there are few signs that a government would be in place by then, or in subsequent weeks. While a number of alignments between parties and independent lawmakers are possible, none seems easy to arrange as long as the two large center-right groupings—Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil—remain reluctant to work together. A second election is possible, though most parties will seek to avoid a contest this year to gain time to rebuild their war chests.

Spain: Clock Is Ticking as Spanish Politicians Seek Governing Pact or Face New Election | Bloomberg

Ten weeks after a general election produced an unprecedented deadlock in parliament, efforts to form a government in Spain are entering a critical phase. Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez will start the countdown to a fresh ballot when he asks lawmakers to let him lead the next government in a vote on Wednesday. The legislature will then have another two months to find a prime minister before a new election is triggered. With just 90 lawmakers in the 350-seat chamber, and another 40 from his pro-market ally Ciudadanos, he’s almost certain to be rejected at the first attempt. Still, Sanchez is betting that his attempts to find a way out of the impasse will win him credit with voters and put pressure on Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s People’s Party and anti-austerity group Podemos to drop their opposition. Sanchez aims to make the PP and Podemos look like obstacles to the Socialists’ efforts to take the country forward, according to Kiko Llaneras, a Madrid-based polling analyst at the research group Politikon. “Nobody wants to go to elections but if it has to happen everyone wants to go with the best possible political message,” said Llaneras. “The polls after the confidence votes will be a key test.”

National: Reform Advocates’ Elusive Goal: Fix the FEC | American Prospect

Campaign-finance reform advocates hold out zero hope that the current Congress will overhaul the rules, but they have nevertheless unveiled a plan that sketches out their ideal vision for tightening up federal election law enforcement. On Tuesday, Senator Tom Udall, of New Mexico, introduced a bill that would kill the Federal Election Commission and replace it with a new agency that is “empowered to crack down on campaign finance violations,” according to a statement. A cadre of pro-reform advocacy groups is now calling on other senators to support the legislation, dubbed the Federal Election Administration Act. “The Federal Election Commission is a failed, dysfunctional agency that does not enforce or properly interpret the nation’s campaign finance laws,” the groups wrote in a letter to U.S. senators this week. “As a result, campaigns, political operatives, parties and independent spenders know they can operate with impunity and without consequences for campaign-finance violations. This has created the modern political equivalent of the Wild West without a sheriff.”

National: Voting restrictions could offer warning signs for November | MSNBC

The first presidential election in more than half a century without the protections of the Voting Rights Act kicks into even higher gear over the next 12 days. And voters in several of the states with upcoming contests could face barriers to the polls. North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi and Ohio are all among the states that hold primaries or caucuses between Saturday and March 15, and all have new voting restrictions in place. Nominating contests tend to attract fewer voters, and a more engaged crowd, than the general election, so the immediate impact may be limited. But what happens could offer warning signs about problems that could arise on a much larger scale in November. Already, voting restrictions and administrative snafus in Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Virginia, among other states, appear to have disenfranchised would-be voters.

National: Ted Cruz, facing suits on Canadian birth, lawyers up | McClatchy

Ted Cruz, tagged as “Canadian” by a needling Donald Trump since the GOP race tightened in January, rejects any idea of being ineligible to be U.S. president. While Trump hasn’t followed up on his threat to sue Calgary-born Cruz over what he says is the Texas senator not meeting the constitutional requirement of being a “natural-born citizen,” plenty of other people have. Trump has warned that Democrats will disrupt the electoral process by suing if Cruz is the nominee. And that’s caused Cruz a bit of trouble. He has had to lawyer up to fight the more than half-dozen lawsuits around the country, some in federal court, some in state court. A Cook County, Ill., judge tossed one of the suits Tuesday, not over the citizenship issue but over a technicality of how the papers were served.

Editorials: America should make room for third-party candidates | Peter Ackerman and Larry Diamond/The Washington Post

The prospect of a White House run by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has reignited a critical debate about whether it’s possible for an independent to be elected president of the United States. Consider this paradox: Two of the leading 2016 presidential candidates — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — have no history of loyalty to either major party. Yet both decided to run in the party primaries — Trump as a Republican, Sanders as a Democrat — while pledging to support their the party’s winner should they not win the nomination. That these two very different candidates came to similar conclusions helps illustrate why there is so much dissatisfaction with our nation’s political system. As billionaires, people such as Trump and Bloomberg can self-fund an independent campaign, but without adequate liquid resources, all other qualified candidates have no way to mount a serious bid for the U.S. presidency outside the two major parties. This is the product of collusion between operatives from the Democratic and Republican parties who, through the design of hidden rules, jealously guard their duopoly.

Voting Blogs: Signs of the super things to come? | electionlineWeekly

Although absentee ballots are still arriving from overseas and provisional ballots are still being verified, for voters, depending on where they lived and which party they voted for, Super Tuesday, was indeed super in some places, in others, it was just meh. And for elections officials, who no doubt think every election is super, Tuesday’s contests in the nine states holding primaries (Alaska-GOP, America Samoa-Dems, Colorado and Minnesota all held caucuses), were a mixed bag as well with some jurisdictions registering few if any problems and others being forced to apologize for long lines and delayed results.

Colorado: House panel kills measure requiring photo ID to vote | Grand Junction Sentinel

A House committee rejected a measure Wednesday to require Coloradans to show a picture identification card if they are registering to vote immediately before an election. Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, who introduced HB1111, said it makes sense to require photo IDs to guard against anyone from fraudulently casting a ballot, especially that close to an election. But opponents of the idea, which has been a controversial one nationwide, said such a requirement only serves to turn people away from the polls because not everyone has a photo identification card, and oftentimes it takes some time to get one.