National: Designing a Better Ballot | The Atlantic

Voter turnout in the United States is abysmal, far worse than it is in most other developed countries. In 2014, U.S. voter participation was the lowest it had been in more than 70 years—with less than half the population voting in 43 states. In general elections, for which voter turnout is typically highest, there are still some 88 million adults in the United States who are eligible to vote, but don’t. Even among those who do vote, an alarming number of ballots don’t end up getting counted. In each of the presidential elections that took place between 1992 and 2004, according to a 2005 analysis in the University of Chicago’s Journal of Politics, more than 2 million votes were cast but never tallied—totaling nearly 9 million votes that went uncounted because they were blank, marked incorrectly, or otherwise spoiled. “It’s a wicked problem,” says Whitney Quesenbery, a co-director at the Center for Civic Design. “We’ve always been in this battle between good, fast, and easy—but still accurate, reliable, accessible and all those other good things voting needs to be.”

National: In a year of Trump and new voting laws, U.S. government will ‘severely’ limit election observers | The Washington Post

The Justice Department is significantly reducing the number of federal observers stationed inside polling places in next month’s election at the same time that voters will face strict new election laws in more than a dozen states. These laws, including requirements to present certain kinds of photo identification, are expected to lead to disputes at the polls. Adding to the potential for confusion, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for his supporters to police the polls themselves for fraud. For the past five decades, the Justice Department has sent hundreds of observers and poll monitors across the country to ensure that voters are not intimidated or discriminated against when they cast their ballots. But U.S. officials say that a 2013 Supreme Court decision now limits the federal government’s role inside polling places on Election Day. “In the past, we have . . . relied heavily on election observers, specially trained individuals who are authorized to enter polling locations and monitor the process to ensure that it lives up to its legal obligations,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch told a Latino civil rights group over the summer. “Our ability to deploy them has been severely curtailed.”

Editorials: Hurricane Matthew could have devastating consequences for the election | Richard Hasen/Slate

If Hurricane Matthew is as devastating to Florida as forecasters have predicted, it could be a human tragedy costing people their lives, health, homes, and personal property. Beyond that initial tragedy, though, the storm also may have dire electoral implications, potentially affecting the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and landing emergency election litigation from Florida once again before the (now-deadlocked) United States Supreme Court. Florida is seen as a state key to Donald Trump’s chances of victory over Hillary Clinton for the presidency, and this storm could have major impacts on voter registration and voting. Voter registration in Florida closes in just five days. According to Professor Dan Smith of the University of Florida, in the last five days of registration in 2012, 50,000 Florida voters signed up to vote. Many who might normally sign up to vote at the last minute are now following Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s order to flee the affected areas of the state, and they are not likely to register to vote on their way out or drop ballots in closed post offices or soon-to-be-flooded post office boxes. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has already called for voter registration deadlines to be extended, but the Republican governor has already turned down that request.

Voting Blogs: The 2016 Election and the Coming Reform Debate | More Soft Money Hard Law

A partial picture of campaign finance in 2016, with much still to learn, suggests that the fully rounded-out version may feature surprises and interesting twists. It will certainly influence, perhaps even redirect, the debate over reform. For example: The aggressively “outsider” Republican nominee is relying on the party apparatus to fund the basics of his campaign. Trump is succeeding with on-line fundraising, as one might expect from outsiders, but it is not enough without the party doing, or attempting to do, what is needed. How well will the party do? Meanwhile, the Super PACs have been slow to extend their support to this candidate of self-declared if disputed wealth: while this may change in the weeks ahead, the wealthy have so far declined to shower their funds on this candidacy, instead putting much of their resources into congressional races. On the Democratic side, the Super PACs are active: the Washington Post’s Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy find that “once-reluctant Democrats have fully embraced” these entities as key requirements for being competitive. In the primaries, however, these PACs were a point of controversy and small donors financed an insurgent, outsider candidacy that was fully competitive with what the front-running candidate from within the party could muster. Meanwhile, while the rallying cry for reform remains Citizens United, the most prominent money behind the Super PACs money is individual and not corporate.

Editorials: Alabama’s grossly unconstitutional felony disenfranchisement scheme | Mark Joseph Stern/The Atlantic

In 1901, Alabama passed a constitution that stripped voting rights from any person who committed a “crime involving moral turpitude.” The purpose of this disenfranchisement, the president of the convention explained, was to “establish white supremacy in this state”; Alabama labelled those offenses more frequently committed by blacks as crimes “involving moral turpitude” in order to purge minorities from the voter rolls. In 1985, the Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the “moral turpitude” provision as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. But 11 years later, the state quietly reinserted the same words into its felony disenfranchisement law. Today, the statute has helped to disenfranchise 250,000 Alabamans, most of them black. Indeed, a stunning 15 percent of otherwise qualified black voters in Alabama can’t cast a ballot because of the state’s felony disenfranchisement law. A new lawsuit spearheaded by the Campaign Legal Center argues that the statute is a gross violation of Alabamans’ rights under both the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution.

Alaska: Judge reverses House District 40 primary, gives Nageak a two-vote edge | Alaska Public Media

Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi ordered the Division of Elections to certify that incumbent Benjamin Nageak of Barrow won the primary over Dean Westlake of Kotzebue by a two-vote margin. The outcome of the primary could determine who organizes a House majority. While both are Democrats, Nageak caucuses with the Republican-led House majority, and Westlake said he’ll caucus with the Democrats. The decision reverses the outcome of a recount, which had Westlake winning by eight votes. Nageak, who is the co-chairman of the House Resources Committee, expressed relief. “I’m pleased by the court’s result and hopeful it will be sustained during the appeal to the Supreme Court,” Nageak said. “I’m sure that’s where it’s going to go. And I hope this decision will result in improvement of training.”

Editorials: Upgrading California’s voting systems is long overdue | Gregory Miller/San Jose Mercury News

Can you imagine using the same mobile phone that you used in 2005? Neither can I. Yet, the technology that runs our elections hasn’t changed in more than a decade. Anyone who has voted in California knows well that our voting machines are in dire need of an upgrade. Some counties, including Santa Clara, use paper ballots. Election officials desperate to shore up antiquated voting technology have resorted to buying spare parts at online auctions just to keep their machines working. It’s estimated that 70 percent of all voting machines nationwide need to be replaced before the 2020 election, a third of that before 2018. The state and, for that matter, our country can no longer rely on vulnerable technology that depends on spare parts and is susceptible to bad actors.

Florida: Scott won’t extend voter registration deadline as Hurricane Matthew threatens state | Politico

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the chairman of the super PAC backing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has refused to extend the Tuesday deadline for voter registration as requested by Hillary Clinton’s campaign due to Hurricane Matthew. “Everybody has had a lot of time to register,” Scott said during a storm update Thursday night in the state’s Emergency Operations Center. “On top of that, we’ve got lots of opportunities to vote: Early voting, absentee voting and Election Day. So, I don’t intend to make any changes.” The decision from the political leader of the nation’s most-important swing state – one Trump needs to win to keep his White House hopes alive — comes at a crucial time in the presidential race in Florida, where polls show Clinton is starting to nudge ahead of her GOP rival.

South Carolina: Judge hears arguments in Furman student voter registration lawsuit | WSPA

Students from Furman University will soon learn whether or not they can register to vote in Greenville County. Thursday, a judge heard arguments on a lawsuit claiming they were blocked from registering using their university address. “I hope that we will get a verdict quickly so we will be able to register as many people as possible in the next 36 hours,” said plaintiff, Katherine West. The clock ticks down on voter registration deadline, but for the Furman sophomore, she tried mailing in her Greenville County application more than a month ago. She says she was sent a questionnaire instead of her registration card. The list of questions is sent to inquiring college students is part of a long standing Greenville County election commission policy to determine if the student is a serious resident of the area. Now, it is at the center of a lawsuit filed against the state and the county election commissions.

South Carolina: Voter registration deadline not extended, still mail-in registrations discrepancies exist | WJBF

We are just a little over a month from Election Day and time is winding down to register to vote. Many voters may not be aware that when you send in that voter registration card could be the deciding factor, when it comes to whether a vote is counted. Federal law requires all mailed-in voter registration forms to be in 30 days before Election Day and that falls on a Sunday this year. That following Monday is Columbus Day, so many states have extended the voter registration deadline, but that’s not the case in South Carolina. South Carolina has made it simple for people to register to vote. More than 100,000 Aiken County residents have signed-up in person, online, or by mail.

South Dakota: Amendment V groups clash over campaign finance accusation | Argus Leader

Two organizations that urged supporters to donate money to a ballot committee that is promoting a constitutional amendment in South Dakota denied Thursday that they broke state campaign finance laws. The Vote Yes on V campaign took contributions from two outside groups, Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org, that raised and collected money explicitly to back the ballot measure. While outside groups are free to donate money to ballot committees like Yes on V, state law forbids those organizations from contributing money that was “raised or collected by the organization for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.” In at least two instances, Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org solicited donations citing their efforts to fund the South Dakota amendment, said Will Mortenson, the chairman of Vote No on V. In an email last month, Open Primaries urged its supporters to donate money to Vote Yes on V, which the group promised to match two-to-one to help fund Vote Yes on V television ads. TakeItBack.org also released an email to supporters this week endorsing Amendment V.

Editorials: Texas’s Voter-Registration Laws Are Straight Out of the Jim Crow Playbook | Ari Berman/The Nation

At 10 am on a Tuesday morning in September, Babatunde Adeleye, a 33-year-old naturalized US citizen from Nigeria, arrived at the Bexar County Elections Department in San Antonio. It’s a brand-new building in an otherwise unappealing industrial park along the interstate, 10 minutes south of downtown. There were inspirational posters on the wall featuring American flags and sunsets, highlighting words like “success” and “momentum.” Tunde, as everyone calls him, stood up, raised his right hand, and took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State.” He was being deputized not as a cop, but instead to register voters. The parallels, however, were impossible to ignore: Texas treats voter registration like a criminal offense and makes it as difficult as possible to do. Tunde grew up in Lagos and studied petroleum engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He got a job in the oil fields of Oklahoma but was laid off when the industry went bust. He became a citizen last year, so 2016 marks the first presidential election he can vote in. After moving to San Antonio three months ago, he began working with MOVE San Antonio, a progressive nonprofit that registers young voters. “I come from a background where poverty was the order of the day,” Tunde says. “The first step to empowering people to have a say in their community is to register them to vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a say.” Before he could register anyone, however, Tunde had to navigate Texas’s draconian voter-registration laws, beginning with this course. The state has no online registration, and anyone who registers voters must be deputized by the county at a training session that typically occurs once a month, sometimes less. The volunteer deputy registrars (VDRs), as they’re known, must be deputized on a county-by-county basis, and they can only be deputized in counties adjacent to their own, which makes statewide drives practically impossible in a massive state like Texas, with its 254 counties.

Wisconsin: Democratic lawmakers request federal investigation of voter ID implementation | The Cap Times

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate reports that Division of Motor Vehicles employees gave inaccurate information to would-be voters seeking identification cards. “With less than 35 days until the election, we are requesting that your department immediately investigate these claims and, if merited, take appropriate legal action to ensure Wisconsin electors hoping to vote in the upcoming election are able to do so,” reads a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed by 28 Assembly Democrats. The letter comes one day before the due date for a DMV investigation into the reports, first detailed last week in The Nation and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Because eligible voters may have been turned away, we feel that federal oversight may be warranted,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.

Canada: U.S. stays with with controversial e-voting, but Canada still shy | IT World Canada News

At the best of times U.S. elections are heated, and these aren’t necessarily the best of times. We’ve already seen the discovery of data breaches at the Democratic party and candidate Hillary Clinton. This week one technology writer warned that the November U.S. presidential election “can be rigged and sabotaged, and we might never even know it happened.” He was referring to the use in 10 U.S. states of touch screen voting machines that don’t have paper backups, which some experts worry are vulnerable to malware.Even if cyber attackers do nothing more than play with electronic voter registration systems it could cause backups at voting stations, causing voters to leave and potentially affecting outcomes. For these and other reasons Canadian electoral officials are still cautious about adopting electronic voting here. Some municipalities are using machine-readable paper voting systems, but touch screen or online voting in federal and provincial elections is still taboo. “I have no plans to introduce online voting for 2019,” Marc Mayrand, Canada’s chief electoral officer told Parliament’s special committee on electoral reform in July. “I think there’s still a lot of research to be done, and there are many considerations. That’s what I would like to see the committee doing in its work, addressing some of the key considerations and giving us some direction on where we should go and how should we proceed to explore and test online voting at some point.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Election in Ex-Soviet Georgia Seen as Test of Stability After Violence | VoA News

A close parliamentary election in Georgia on Saturday is being seen as a test of stability in the ex-Soviet state after a car bombing and a shooting marred the runup to the vote. Crisscrossed by strategically important oil and gas pipelines and traditionally buffeted between Russia and the West, a fifth of Georgian territory remains under the control of pro-Russian separatists and the economy is emerging from a deep slowdown, which has crimped living standards. Opinion polls suggest the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is funded and controlled by the country’s richest man, is likely to win. But they also show strong support for the opposition United National Movement (UNM) and suggest many voters are undecided. “No one can be sure who the winner will be, but the vote is expected to be free and fair,” said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Haiti: Hurricane damage forces Haiti to delay voting yet again | AFP

Haitian authorities have postponed presidential and legislative elections originally set for Sunday because of the havoc caused by Hurricane Matthew, election officials said Wednesday. The impoverished Caribbean nation’s last elections, in 2015, were canceled amid violence and massive fraud, leaving the country stranded in political limbo ever since. The president of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, Leopold Berlanger, said a new date for elections would be announced by next Wednesday at the latest, after talks between the various interested parties. The authorities must first assess the damage caused by Matthew, which struck Haiti on Tuesday as a Category Four hurricane with 230-kilometer (145-mile) an hour winds, he said.

Kenya: Controversial election commission quits | AFP

The election commission that oversaw Kenya’s flawed 2013 polls and was tarnished by a corruption scandal will receive a $2 million pay-off in return for agreeing to leave office early, local media reported Thursday. The nine commissioners will share the pot of cash, according to local newspaper reports. Statements issued by both the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the government said they had “agreed on the terms for a dignified vacation from office for current IEBC commissioners”. The government said it had sought to “strike a balance between public interest, legal and constitutional demands, the contract of appointment to office of each Commissioner and the guidelines of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission,” but did not state publicly what the exit package was worth.

Lithuania: Lithuanians to vote amid scandals, economic concerns | Associated Press

Lithuania is just emerging from one of Europe’s worst recessions, has a shrinking population and one of the world’s highest suicide rates. Politicians, however, appear to be ignoring many of those issues as the Baltic nation prepares to vote Sunday in the first round of choosing a new Parliament. Political scandals and vows to raise living standards are dominating the election campaign. “This time it’s not about programs or ideas, but promises and scandals,” said analyst Lauras Bielinis from the Vilnius International Relations Institute. “People are concerned about rising prices, low wages and everyday living, so parties are competing who will promise more and who will dig up more dirt on each other.”

Malaysia: How to run elections: Rights group points EC to India, New Zealand | Malay Mail

The Election Commission (EC) could be remodelled after its counterparts in India and New Zealand for greater checks and balances in the way it runs elections, the Society of the Promotion of Human Rights Malaysia (Proham) suggests. Proham chairman Datuk Kuthubul Zaman highlighted the public’s perception that the EC lacked independence, noting among other things that the voting regulator is parked under the Prime Minister’s Department and have its members appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the prime minister’s advice. “So I think we need to learn lessons from different democracies,” he said at a roundtable discussion last night. Kuthubul gave the example of New Zealand’s division of election-related responsibilities, listing various features such as its chief electoral officer is a staff under the minister of justice instead of the prime minister, while electoral enrolment centres tasked with handling voter registration and voter list maintenance.

Montenegro: An election tug-of-war between Russia and the West | Reuters

Alexander Khrgian quit Moscow for Montenegro in 2008 and immediately felt at home, setting up a law firm that helps the tiny country’s outsized Russian diaspora do business, profiting from close ties between the two countries. “We liked the climate, the people and conditions for doing business,” said the lawyer. “So we stayed.” But a parliamentary election due on October 16 could test those ties. The vote, its outcome very much in the balance, could be Montenegro’s last before joining the Western NATO alliance, an expansion dubbed “irresponsible” by Russia. Attracted by the mountainous country’s majestic coastline, some 15,000 Russians flooded into the country after its 2006 split from Serbia, bringing money and Russian influence to the former Yugoslav republic of just 650,000 people. Ushering Montenegro into NATO is a priority for the West, wary of Russian influence in a strategic region that is on the frontlines of the migration crisis facing Europe.

Morocco: Neither main party will really win as Moroccans vote | The Washington Post

On Friday, Morocco will hold its second parliamentary elections since the constitutional changes that followed the Arab Spring protests led by the Feb. 20 movement in 2011. The Party of Justice and Development (PJD), a moderate Islamist-oriented party which has led a coalition government since then, seeks to defend its lead against its chief rival, the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), founded by Fouad Ali El Himma, a close friend and adviser to King Mohammed VI. What’s at stake in this battle? The short answer: not much. There are good reasons to be skeptical that the outcome of the election will alter the political landscape in a meaningful way. Political science wisdom on democratic institutions sheds light on the limitations that confront all political parties in Morocco, whether they gain or lose seats in this week’s elections. Approximately 30 parties compete for the parliament’s 395 seats, 90 of which are reserved for women and candidates under 40. The number of parties complicates alliance formation: To create a coalition, the leading party must bring together parties with differing priorities and constituencies, which is no easy task. Competition weakens parties’ ability to present unified policies.

Palestine: Local polls delayed for up to four months | Al Jazeera

The Palestinian government has delayed municipal elections for up to four months with Fatah and Hamas so far unable to overcome divisions to organise their first competitive polls in a decade. The postponement came on Tuesday, a day after the Palestinian high court ruled that the elections, initially scheduled for October 8, should be held only in the West Bank and not in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A new date for the vote was not set by the government based in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory run by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party. The Palestinian Central Elections Commission and the United Nations special representative welcomed the postponement, saying they were hopeful that Gaza would now be included in the eventual vote. The Palestinians have not held an election in which both Hamas and Fatah took part since 2006. They have also not held a vote in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the same time since then.

National: If the election is hacked, we may never know | Computerworld

The upcoming U.S. presidential election can be rigged and sabotaged, and we might never even know it happened. This Election Day voters in 10 states, or parts of them, will use touch-screen voting machines with no paper backup of an individual’s vote; some will have rewritable flash memory. If malware is inserted into these machines that’s smart enough to rewrite itself, votes can be erased or assigned to another candidate with little possibility of figuring out the actual vote. In precincts where vote tallies raise suspicions, computer scientists will be called in the day after the election to conduct forensics. But even if a hack is suspected, or proven, it would likely be impossible to do anything about it. If the voting machine firmware doesn’t match what the vendor supplied, “it’s like you burned all the ballots,” said Daniel Lopresti, a professor and chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “We have no way to confirm that we can really trust the output from the machine,” he said.

National: 3 nightmare election hack scenarios | CSO Online

The question on the mind of many voting security experts is not whether hackers could disrupt a U.S. election. Instead, they wonder how likely an election hack might be and how it might happen. The good news is a hack that changes the outcome of a U.S. presidential election would be difficult, although not impossible. First of all, there are technology challenges — more than 20 voting technologies are used across the country, including a half dozen electronic voting machine models and several optical scanners, in addition to hand-counted paper ballots. But the major difficulty of hacking an election is less a technological challenge than an organizational one, with hackers needing to marshal and manage the resources needed to pull it off, election security experts say. And a handful of conditions would need to fall into place for an election hack to work. Many U.S. voting systems still have vulnerabilities, and many states use statistically unsound election auditing practices, said Joe Kiniry, a long-time election security researcher. “With enough money and resources, I don’t think [hacking the election] is actually a technical challenge,” said Kiniry, now CEO and chief scientist at Free and Fair, an election technology developer. “It’s a social, a political, and an infrastructural challenge because you’d have a medium-sized conspiracy to achieve such a goal. Technically, it’s not rocket science.”

National: The threat to our voting system that’s more likely than hacking | PBS

Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee was hacked, and some of its private emails were released to the public. Last week, the FBI confirmed that hackers targeted voter registration systems in 20 states. But most voting systems are not connected to the internet, which means they’re less prone to hacking. In fact, a 2014 report by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, says the biggest threat on Election Day is not hackers — it’s outdated equipment. This November, 42 states will use machines that are more than a decade old, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Machines in 14 states, including Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Texas and Virginia are in some cases more than 15 years old. States are increasingly reporting vulnerabilities, such as worn-out modems used to transmit election results, failing central processing units and unsupported memory cards, the National Institute of Standards and Technology reported.

National: Hacking an election is about influence and disruption, not voting machines | PCWorld

Every time there’s an election, the topic of hacking one comes to the surface. During a presidential election, that conversation gets louder. Yet, even the elections held every two years see some sort of vote hacking coverage. But can you really hack an election? Maybe, but that depends on your goals. The topic of election hacking is different this year, and that’s because someone is actually hacking political targets. Adding fuel to the fire, on Aug. 12, 2016, during an event in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump warned the crowd that if he loses the battleground state, it’s because the vote was rigged. “The only way we can lose, in my opinion—and I really mean this, Pennsylvania—is if cheating goes on,” Trump said. This was no random remark either, Pennsylvania voting has been called in to question before. Such was the case when Republican supporters claimed Mitt Romney lost the state in 2008 due to fraud. When it comes to hacking elections, most people imagine voting machines compromised in such a way that a vote for candidate ‘A’ actually counts as a vote for candidate ‘B’ – or the votes just disappear.

Editorials: Changing votes isn’t the only way hackers could undermine an election | Zoe Lofgren/Slate Magazine

When the House Committee on Science recently held a hearing on cyber vulnerabilities and our elections systems, the committee focused only on threats facing the actual systems of voting—tabulations, electronic machines, and the possibility of a “rigged election.” Experts who testified at the hearing agreed that a threat to widespread vote manipulation across many different precincts and jurisdictions is very small and unlikely. But dismissing the likelihood of cybertampering with the election tally misses an important point: Cyberattacks could shake public confidence in political institutions, sow dissent and distrust among the population, and tilt the electoral playing field. In an attack this spring, hackers—who I have been advised are from Russia —stole data from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They also stole voting data in Arizona and Illinois. Most recently, FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials have confirmed attempted attacks on voter registration systems in more than 20 states. These attacks align with a particular pattern that Russian-sponsored hackers have followed previously in well-documented attempts to influence foreign democratic elections in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and Philippines. They don’t just release stolen sensitive material; they also create false and counterfeit material designed to impact the outcome of elections.

Editorials: Why Proof of Citizenship Won’t Improve Election Integrity | Michael Gilbert/JURIST

For years, states have been sounding the alarm about voter fraud and pushing laws to prevent it. One such law would require voters to prove their citizenship, with a birth certificate, passport, or the like, before casting a ballot. This month a federal court slapped down proof-of-citizenship laws, but not for good. The opinion leaves wiggle room, and state lawmakers are not giving up. They are, however, wasting their effort. Anti-fraud measures can make elections safer in some circumstances, but usually they either have no effect (other than creating red tape) or make matters worse. My research proves it. Let’s get up to speed. In 2004, Arizonans approved an initiative requiring voters to prove their citizenship before they could vote. In 2013, the Supreme Court held [PDF] that federal law—specifically, the National Voter Registration Act—preempted the initiative. That Act requires states to use a form, developed by the federal Election Assistance Commission, to register voters for federal elections. The form requires would-be voters to swear, under penalty of law, that they are US citizens. States can ask the EAC to add state-specific instructions to the federal form, including additional requirements on citizenship, but they cannot demand it. Other states—Alabama, Georgia, Kansas—adopted laws like Arizona’s, and they worked many channels to get them enforced. But their efforts failed. States courts, federal courts [PDF], and the EAC [PDF] put proof of citizenship on ice.

Voting Blogs: Does Increased Internet Usage Decrease Voter Turnout? | Democracy Chronicles

As the United States moves into the final month of the 2016 Presidential election, both candidates have been trying to gain advantage over the other by using various outreach methods such as using the internet to get the upper hand. However, in a recently released study on internet usage and voter turnout, the candidates may be doing a disservice to their campaign as the study has shown that an increase in internet usage has decreased the voter participation rate in the last couple of Presidential election cycles. The study done by Dr. Heblich of the University of Bristol’s Economics department, has shown that an increase in information on the internet and the increase in consumption has created a “crowding out effect” for voters. “To the extent that online consumption replaces the consumption of other media (newspaper, radio, or television), with a high information content, there may be no information gains for the average voter, and in the worst case, even a crowding out of information”, Dr. Heblich said in regarding his study.

Editorials: Top-two reform tilts California toward one-party rule | Larry N. Gerston/Los Angeles Times

Since California’s Proposition 14 passed in 2010, all partisan candidates — except those running for president — appear on the same primary ballot, regardless of party. Then the two leading contenders face off in the general election. Like so many other electoral reforms in the state, this top-two primary system isn’t shaking out quite as intended. Reformers promised more moderate candidates and more competitive races. Instead we’ve got something that looks like one-party rule. The race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer is exhibit A. State Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez were the survivors of a free-for-all nominating contest with 34 candidates, including Democrats, Republicans and a litany of minor party and independent candidates. But in deep blue California, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by better than a 3 to 2 margin, it should be no surprise that Democrats Harris and Sanchez prevailed.