Mississippi: Election-Law Reform May Actually Happen in Mississippi | Jackson Free Press

Election-law reform has been a slow process in Mississippi, but with the help of a bi-partisan committee’s report, that could change soon. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann formed a committee of legislators, circuit clerks, election commissioners and other citizens to review the state’s election code. The 2016 Election Law Reform Committee met from June through September 2015 and published a report of their recommendations on Jan. 19. The committee suggests several changes to Mississippi’s election code, including online voter registration, campaign-finance reporting and election official conduct. Hosemann views the changes as “phase two” of election-law reform that he says started with the voter-ID laws that went into effect in 2014. Hosemann told the Stennis Press Forum on Feb. 1 that the committee looked at several other state election laws to help inform their recommendations.

New Hampshire: The effort to save New Hampshire’s midnight vote | The Keene Sentinel

Each election cycle, political journalists make a late-night pilgrimage over icy roads to this Narnia-like region near the Canadian border, where the locals have a tradition of voting at midnight. When the clock strikes 12, a handful of voters traditionally gather at the Balsams Resort to cast ballots, giving them the bragging right of being the one of the first precincts to participate in the first-in-the-nation primary. The event is a celebration filled with food, drinks and live hook-ups for media trucks to broadcast the results around the world. (Not to mention the public relations boost for the resort.) And many presidential candidates historically made it a point to visit before the vote in hopes of securing the early-morning boost of winning the overnight vote. But last year, Dixville’s once-grand tradition appeared to be at risk. In 2011, the Balsams closed down, and employees who lost their jobs left the area. The remaining residents held a much smaller vote at the Balsams in 2012. This election cycle, only one candidate — Ohio Gov. John Kasich — has journeyed to these far northern reaches of the state.

North Carolina: State NAACP to redouble efforts to get out vote in light of photo ID requirement | Winston-Salem Journal

A day after a federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID voting requirement wrapped up, the president of North Carolina chapter of the NAACP announced a massive effort to register voters across the state. The Rev. William Barber said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that it is imperative that he and others do everything they can to make sure every voter is able to cast a ballot in the March primaries. Early voting for the primary starts March 3. “On today, we understand that we must fight to overcome burdens as we fight to undue those burdens,” he said.
Monday marked the end of a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem over the requirement, which took effect this year, that voters show a photo ID at the polls.

North Dakota: Motion to dismiss voter ID lawsuit filed | Bismarck Tribune

The North Dakota Secretary of State’s office filed a motion on Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by seven members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa over what they call illegal state voter identification laws. In the lawsuit filed Jan. 21 in US. District Court for the State of North Dakota against Secretary of State Al Jaeger, tribal members allege that the state’s voter ID laws are unconstitutional as they force a disproportionate burden against Native Americans. Some tribal members can’t afford an ID and those who have paid for one are essentially having to pay to vote, according to the lawsuit.

Utah: Bill to eliminate straight party voting is defeated | The Salt Lake Tribune

Straight-ticket voting will remain an option for Utah voters. A House committee Tuesday rejected Rep. Patrice Arent’s HB119 to eliminate the option when six of the panel’s eight Republicans opposed it. Two GOP lawmakers joined the committee’s two Democrats in favor. Straight-ticket voting allows for a resident to vote for all candidates of one party with a single push of the button. Arent, D-Millcreek, said it has caused confusion in the past, citing as an example the 2006 election when the little-known Personal Choice Party received 14 percent of the vote in Salt Lake County.

Utah: Judge allows Democrats to intervene in GOP, state fight over election law | Deseret News

A federal judge Wednesday allowed the Utah Democratic Party to intervene in the ongoing fight between the Utah Republican Party and the state over the primary election nominating process. The Democratic Party last month said it wants to make sure the Utah GOP is not allowed to rewrite the state’s election laws or circumvent the will of the Legislature and a recent court decision. It also wants to weigh in on the case as it moves to the Utah Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge David Nuffer found there is a common question of fact regarding the election law’s direct and collateral effect on political parties in Utah. The Republican Party objected, calling the Democrats’ motion to intervene a “crass” political statement, according to court documents.

Wisconsin: Bills to allow online voter registration, bar local IDs | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

The state would implement online registration for voters by the spring of 2017 and forbid Milwaukee officials from moving forward with a plan to provide local IDs, under bills approved by a Senate committee Wednesday. Republicans on the Senate Elections Committee approved the registration proposal, SB295, on a party-line 3-2 vote. As rewritten by a late-breaking amendment, the bill would in turn make a number of changes to state elections law. By another 3-2 vote, the panel also approved a separate proposal, SB533, that would prohibit county and town governments from issuing — or spending money on — photo identification cards. That legislation would also make it even more clear that photo ID cards issued by cities or villages could not be used for things like voting or obtaining public benefits, such as food stamps.

Canada: Liberals’ no-referendum stance on electoral reform appears to soften | Ottawa Citizen

Another Liberal MP responsible for electoral reform won’t absolutely rule out a national referendum to change how Canadians vote. “It’s not something that we’re ruling in or ruling out,” Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, told reporters Wednesday. His remark follows a recent, similar comment from Monsef. Compare that with the statement by Government House Leader Dominic Leblanc in late December that seemed to categorically reject the possibility: “Our plan is not to have a national referendum. Our plan is to use Parliament to consult Canadians,” said Leblanc. “That’s always been our plan, and I don’t have any reason to think that’s been changed.”

Haiti: Protesters take to the street to protest country’s election process | PBS

Haiti’s current president is supposed to leave office on Sunday, but there is no one to take his place. Haitians have been protesting all week against the nation’s electoral process after disputed elections in the fall saw current President Michel Martelly’s chosen successor take the lead. The Caribbean island held presidential elections on Oct. 25, 2015. Since no candidate won a majority of the vote, a run-off election was scheduled for Dec. 27. In the first round, Banana exporter Jovenel Moise and mechanical engineer Jude Celestin won most of the votes at 32.8 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively. Moise is Martelly’s chosen successor. More than 50 others ran for the nation’s top post. The runoff was postponed several times due to protests — which sometimes turned violent — against what the opposition called fraud in the first election.

Macedonia: Election Date Still on Table | Balkan Insight

“Early elections can be scheduled for the end of May or the beginning of June at the earliest, mostly because there is no time to check the electoral roll. The option of moving the election date to September is also on the table,” the ambassador of an EU member country told BIRN under condition of anonymity. The same diplomat said spending more time to adopt reforms that guarantee free and fair elections and the participation of the opposition is more important than sticking to the ruling VMRO DPMNE party’s April 24 timetable. The EU-brokered deal reached last summer “is a process that should lead to fair and inclusive elections, not to sticking to predefined [election] dates,” he added. “Many deadlines [in the agreement] were breached. If the ruling party insists that the polls go in their favour, they should agree to a new election date,” the ambassador continued.

Pakistan: Election Commission told to buy electronic voting machines by September | The Express Tribune

After months of wrangling, a parliamentary panel on electoral reforms on Wednesday directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to procure electronic voting machines (EVMs) by September 2016 for experimental use with a view for formal deployment, despite strong reservations from the top electoral body. “ECP will procure EVMs by September this year and use it in any by-polls,” announced Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid, who heads an eight member sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, in Islamabad on Wednesday. “If the experiment is successful, next general elections will be held through electronic voting.”

Press Release: Clear Ballot Expands Senior Leadership Team; Election Technology Company names Jordan Esten as COO and Edwin Smith as Vice President, Products | Clear Ballot

Today Clear Ballot signaled that the company is poised for further growth by naming Jordan Esten as the company’s Chief Operating Officer and Edwin Smith as Vice President, Products.

“I am very pleased to announce Jordan as our COO and Ed as Vice President, Products,” said Larry Moore, CEO of Clear Ballot. “Both of these individuals have contributed significantly to Clear Ballot’s expansion and the creation and launch of our innovative election technology into the marketplace.”

Jordan Esten developed his expertise in guiding technology companies through important stages of growth as an investment banker at Robert W. Baird where he held positions in both Europe and the US. In that role, he advised management and boards of directors of technology companies on corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, and equity offerings. Esten earned a BS, from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. At Clear Ballot, where Esten previously served as Director of Business Development since 2012, he applied his critical operational and project finance experience to expand Clear Ballot’s team of employees and investors.

National: Change At Federal Election Agency Muddles Kansas Voter Registration Laws | NPR

Get ready voters: It’s time to be confused. Even as Americans start heading to the polls for this year’s presidential primaries, laws remain in flux in a number of states — including North Carolina and Texas, where voter ID requirements are being challenged in court. Now the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency charged with helping to improve the running of elections, has added to the confusion. And unlike most voter ID conflicts — which involve showing identification at the polls — this comes earlier in the process, when residents are first registering to vote. The EAC has been in a long legal battle with Kansas regarding the state’s requirement that residents show proof-of-citizenship when they register to vote — even if they use a federal registration form, administered by the EAC. The federal form — which can be used throughout the United States as an alternative to local voter registration forms — requires individuals to swear that they are citizens, not provide a birth certificate or other document as proof.

Editorials: Congress must act to restore voting rights | Los Angeles Times

A federal court could rule soon on challenges to North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voters, which plaintiffs claim undermines the voting rights of racial minorities under the pretext of combating fraud. A federal appeals court held last year that a similar requirement in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act. But even if these and other judicial rulings roll back photo ID laws and other restrictions that disproportionately burden racial minorities, the real solution lies with Congress. Republicans who control the House and Senate need to look beyond partisan self-interest and join with Democrats to reinstitute the requirement that, in jurisdictions with a recent history of discrimination, the federal government must “pre-clear” changes in election laws that could needlessly make it harder for minorities to vote.

Voting Blogs: EAC Adds Proof of Citizenship Instructions to Federal Form | Election Academy

Few recent stories in election policy have taken more twists and turns than the saga of Kansas’ (and other states’) efforts to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements on the federal voter registration form. State officials and the EAC have been back and forth on the question numerous times, including two trips to the Supreme Court and several suits in state court. The current state of play is that proof-of-citizenship is unenforceable against voters who use the federal form, and – at least for now, pending appeal – that such requirements cannot be used in Kansas to deny voters a full ballot in state and local elections. That story got a little stranger yesterday with news that the EAC has updated state instructions on the federal form for Kansas (see p. 8) and a few other states to include proof-of-citizenship requirements. New EAC executive director Brian Newby sent letters dated last Friday to several states, including Kansas, who had recently requested that the agency update the instructions. The letter says the requested changes have been made and notes that the EAC is launching an effort to begin “a systematic process with all states to update State-Specific Instructions regularly.” It also asks states to notify the EAC “if any additional State-Specific Instructions are in need of modernization or further calibration with your procedures.”

Alabama: State: Voter ID law provision expands ballot access | Montgomery Advertiser

A provision of Alabama’s voter identification law under fire expands access to the ballot and does not restrict it, the state argued in a filing last week. The measure in question, known as the “positively identify” provision, allows two election officials to give a person without proper identification the chance to vote, if the officials sign an affidavit swearing to the person’s identity. The provision forms the basis of a request to a federal judge from Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP to suspend the state’s photo ID law for the March 1 primary. In a brief filed Jan. 8, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the measure resembled Jim Crow-era voucher provisions “used for decades to discriminate against voters of color by subjecting their right to vote to ‘the passing whim or impulse’ of individual election officials.”

Arizona: On Sidelines Of New Voter Registration/Proof of Citizenship Battle… Which It Started; Could Jump Back Into Fray | Arizona’s Politics

Arizona started the battle over adding a proof of citizenship requirement to the national motor-voter registration forms, going to the U.S. Supreme Court twice over the matter. Today, word came out that the Commission in charge of the national forms was giving in on the issue, kicking off an intra-commission battle which could spread to the states and courts. Arizona is currently on the sidelines, although Secretary of State Michele Reagan could soon join in. Here is the background: The U.S. Election Assistance Commission was a commissioner-less commission for several years, which led to some of the Arizona/Kansas fights with it over the forms. Arizona had passed Prop 200 back in 2004, which required documentation proving citizenship before being registered to vote. That went to the Supreme Court, and Justice Scalia gave the state a road-map on how to navigate through the EAC.

Arizona: House panel approves bill changing electoral votes | Arizona Daily Star

A state House panel on Monday approved a measure that, had it been in effect in 2000, would have meant Al Gore becoming president. The legislation is designed to do an end run around the Electoral College system, which has been in place since the United States was formed. The system assigns electoral votes to each state based on the number of congressional seats. More to the point, the president is elected only when a candidate gets at least half of the 538 votes, regardless of who got more popular votes nationally. Nothing in Arizona’s HB 2456 would change that. Instead, the proposal by Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, would require the state to enter into deals with other states: Once there is agreement by states totaling 270 electoral votes, each would require its electors to cast their vote for whoever wins the national popular vote.

Iowa: Sometimes, Iowa Democrats award caucus delegates with a coin flip | Des Moines Register

In a handful of Democratic caucus precincts Monday, a delegate was awarded with a coin toss. It happened in precinct 2-4 in Ames, where supporters of candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton disputed the results after 60 caucus participants apparently disappeared from the proceedings. As a result of the coin toss, Clinton was awarded an additional delegate, meaning she took five of the precinct’s eight, while Sanders received three. Similar situations played out at various precincts across the state, but had an extremely small effect on the overall outcome, in which Clinton won 49.9 percent of statewide delegate equivalents, while Sanders won 49.5 percent. The delegates that were decided by coin flips were delegates to the party’s county conventions, of which there are thousands selected across the state from 1,681 separate precincts. They were not the statewide delegate equivalents that are reported in the final results.

Iowa: Microsoft’s vote tallying app worked, web sites didn’t | USA Today

Despite rumors on Twitter to the contrary, by almost all accounts the Microsoft app used to tally unverified caucus votes in Iowa worked exactly as it was supposed to. What broke were the web sites where Republicans and Democrats posted close to real-time information about those votes, which at times crashed under the crush of people eager for news of their candidates. That didn’t surprise Douglas W. Jones, the recording secretary for the Democratic caucus, precinct 4 in Iowa City, Iowa. “In the modern, media-driven world, we’re desperate for results,” he said. His son Nathaniel Douglas, 32, send their caucus results in to the county Democratic party using the app built by Microsoft for the purpose, which he said “worked as advertised.” In precincts where workers didn’t have smart phones, the older updating system of calling in and pressing buttons on a touch-tone phone after inputting a PIN for security was used. “Both systems worked fine,” Douglas said. … At their heart, they are a way for Iowa voters to chose delegates to county, district and state political conventions who will then go on to chose their candidate. That process is heavily scrutinized and has very reliable and very old security baked into it — “it all happens on paper, which we’ve been using for elections going back to Roman times,” said Jones, who is also a professor of computer science at the University of Iowa and an expert on online voting systems.

Kansas: Wichita State statistician casts vote for regular auditing of Kansas election returns | Topeka Capital-Journal

A Wichita statistician skeptical of electronic voting security endorsed Tuesday a recommendation by the Kansas secretary of state to allow post-election audits to determine whether mistakes or fraud occurred on Election Day. Elizabeth Clarkson, chief statistician at the National Institute for Aviation Research affiliated with Wichita State University, told the Topeka-Shawnee County League of Women Voters the conversation might be moving in the right direction with Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s proposal to amend state law to enable auditing of ballots. “I’m very pleased to see Kris Kobach propose legislation,” she said. “We do need post-election audits. Without them we don’t have transparency in our voting system.”

Kentucky: Once Again Lawmakers Consider Restoring Voting Rights | Public News Service

An effort to automatically restore voting rights to nonviolent offenders who have served their time has, once again, sailed out of committee in the Kentucky House to an uncertain fate. The idea has cleared the full House every year since 2007, but has been repeatedly blocked in the Senate. The legislation would put a proposal on the ballot for a constitutional amendment, for Kentuckians to decide. Rep. Derrick Graham, a Democrat from Frankfort, is a cosponsor of House Bill 70. “These people have paid their debt to society,” says Graham. “We ought to provide them with hope; we ought to provide them with opportunity. We should be forgiving them.”

Montana: McCulloch announces satellite voting offices on reservations | Great Falls Tribune

Secretary of State Linda McCulloch on Monday announced the establishment of five satellite election offices with the potential of more on Indian reservations in Montana for the 2016 elections. This follows a directive issued by McCulloch in October, ordering counties to provide satellite offices to ensure compliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act. Satellite offices offer services that are otherwise only available to voters at the county headquarters, namely late registration and in-person absentee voting, which are available in the 29 days preceding the election, officials said.

New York: Voter-Registration Lawsuit Settled in Unusual Accord | Wall Street Journal

The Sullivan County Board of Elections will appoint a monitor to review challenges to voter registrations to settle a lawsuit filed by Hasidic Jewish residents in what legal experts call an unprecedented agreement in New York state. A group of 10 Hasidic registered voters from the Catskills village of Bloomingburg sued the Sullivan County Board of Elections in 2015, claiming the board violated the First Amendment, the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs alleged the Board of Elections engaged in a “discriminatory campaign to deprive Hasidic Jewish residents of Bloomingburg…of the fundamental right to vote.” U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest approved the settlement Monday.

North Carolina: Closing Arguments Given in Key Voter Rights Trial | The New York Times

In the final session of a trial that could yield a crucial decision about a policy that has been disputed for years, a federal judge heard closing arguments on Monday about North Carolina’s voter identification law. The arguments capped a six-day bench trial, before Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court, that included emotional testimony about voting rights and technical analyses of the law’s impact. The outcome will be seen as an important measure of what voting-related laws federal courts might allow states to pursue and enforce. The North Carolina chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. and other plaintiffs argued Monday, as they have for months, that the Republican-controlled General Assembly drafted the voter identification law in 2013 as a surreptitious way to curb the influence of black and Hispanic voters. The N.A.A.C.P. has argued that those voters are less likely to have one of the six accepted forms of identification required and often face more hardship in obtaining them. “They knew that all these provisions, taken individually and together, have racially discriminatory intent,” said Catherine Meza, a lawyer for the United States Justice Department, which joined the N.A.A.C.P. in the litigation.

North Carolina: Legislature ‘intentionally passed’ discriminatory voter ID law, lawyer says | The Guardian

The North Carolina legislature “intentionally passed a law that would discriminate against African Americans and Latinos”, an attorney told a federal judge on Monday in a case that could have broad implications for the 2016 election. The federal court in Winston Salem heard closing arguments in a trial over the state’s newly implemented voter identification law. The rule, which went into effect on 1 January, requires citizens to show state-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. The challenge to the law, led by the state chapters of the NAACP and League of Women Voters as well as the US Department of Justice, argued that the requirements were racially discriminatory to black and Latino citizens who are less likely to have photo ID or the means to acquire it. North Carolina is just one of 15 states where restrictive new voting laws will go into effect for the 2016 election and are forecast to disproportionately disenfranchise black and Latino Americans. The proceedings were the latest in the convoluted legal battle that has been unfolding in North Carolina since the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed HB 589 in July 2013. As well as mandating voter ID, the law significantly shortened the window for early voting, prevented citizens from voting outside their district, ended the preregistration of 17-year-olds, and stopped same-day registration, where voters register on the same day they cast a ballot.

Virginia: House panel defeats redistricting bills; Senate panel advances party registration | The Daily Progress

A House of Delegates subcommittee on Tuesday scrapped a series of bills aimed at nonpartisan redistricting. The five measures were defeated 4-3 in a bloc vote in a subcommittee of the House Privileges and Elections panel. Del. Mark J. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, who called for the vote, has said that action on redistricting is premature and that even independent commissions to draw districts require politicians to make appointments. Brian Cannon, executive director of OneVirginia2021, which is pushing for nonpartisan redistricting after the 2020 census, criticized the vote. “This morning was Groundhog Day all over again in the Virginia General Assembly when the members of the House Elections Subcommittee voted to kill five of the most significant redistricting reform bills in recent Virginia history,” he said in a statement.

Virginia: State spent more than $62,000 on voting oath Republicans now want scrapped | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Virginia Department of Elections spent more than $62,000 to print and mail the controversial loyalty oath requested by the Republican Party of Virginia, according to a state official. At nearly $53,000, the largest expense was printing the nearly 3 million forms containing the so-called statement of affiliation, which could be shelved for the March 1 primary after a Republican party committee voted over the weekend to ask the state not to implement the oath. The State Board of Elections has called a special meeting for Thursday morning to discuss the Republicans’ request to stop the oath.

Australia: South Australia electoral reform a tough task | The Australian

For years, South Australia’s Liberal MPs have complained they would be in government if not for unfair electoral boundaries. But a special panel has been told there’s virtually nothing the state’s electoral commission can do to prevent voters being handed the “wrong” result. The Liberals have languished in opposition since 2002 despite winning a majority of the two-party preferred vote on three occasions. University of Adelaide political scientist Clem Macintyre has pinned the blame on factors beyond the electoral commission’s scope, such as conservative independent MPs siding with Labor.