Yearly Archives: 2016

State legislators say they won’t turn over more information about the new voting districts they drew last year for the Greensboro City Council. The legislators are fighting subpoenas from a group of local residents suing to stop the redistricting because of racial gerrymandering. The new districts are scheduled to take effect for the 2017 election. On Monday, lawyers for the N.C. Attorney General’s Office said the information is protected from public view because of “legislative privilege.” In their filing in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, they said the legislators have given the residents’ attorneys all the information that’s not covered by legislative privilege. The Greensboro residents, who are being represented by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, asked a judge last month to force the legislators to turn over the information.

Wisconsin: Judge denies request to put voter ID on hold | Associated Press

A federal judge will not put a lawsuit over Wisconsin’s voter identification law on hold while another similar challenge is pending in a different court. The U.S. District Court in Milwaukee on Wednesday posted a note in the court file saying the state Department of Justice’s request for a stay in the case was denied. The state requested on Monday that the case be put on hold. The American Civil Liberties Union wants to allow people to vote in the August primary election even if they are having trouble getting the required ID.

Austria: Freedom Party Alleges Violations in Presidential Election | Wall Street Journal

Austria’s right-wing, populist Freedom Party on Wednesday challenged the result of the presidential election it narrowly lost last month, injecting fresh uncertainty into a country already in political turmoil amid Europe’s migrant crisis. The party alleged “catastrophic” violations of election law centering on what it said was the improper processing of mail-in ballots in the May 22 vote. “We have always said that we will not challenge the election for the sake of challenging the election,” party chairman Heinz-Christian Strache said. “But the disaster around how the vote was counted cannot be accepted without comment.” The mail-in ballots are a key point of contention in part because a big margin of victory there helped independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who was supported by the left-of-center Greens, beat out the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer in the runoff.

Kenya: Tensions Rise in Kenya as Opposition Rejects Ban on Protests | Bloomberg

Kenya’s main opposition party rejected a government ban on political protests and said it will intensify rallies calling for changes to the East African nation’s electoral body. Interior Secretary Joseph Nkaissery on Tuesday outlawed demonstrations in the country after a least five people died in weekly rallies by supporters of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy that began in April. He threatened to crack down on protesters until differences between the opposition and the government over the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission are resolved through negotiations. The ban “doesn’t change anything,” Dennis Onyango, a spokesman for CORD, said by phone from the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday. “The courts have cleared us to hold demonstrations.” The protests will be held on Mondays and Thursdays, he said.

Peru: Patience wears thin as Peru vote count drags on | Associated Press

Patience was wearing thin as ballots in Peru’s presidential election continued to trickle in on Wednesday, three days after a contest whose results remained too close to call. Front-runner Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s running mate met Wednesday with electoral authorities to request they speed up the counting. Meanwhile, dozens of supporters of his rival Keiko Fujimori held a demonstration Tuesday night outside the electoral board to denounce what they said is fraud, even though neither the candidate nor her campaign have presented any evidence to back up their supporters’ claims. Electoral officials said they hope to wrap up their work on Thursday when the last ballots cast at embassies abroad arrive in Lima. But most experts said it’s already mathematically impossible for Fujimori to make up the 42,000 vote difference separating her from Kuczynski.

Spain: Catalonia’s pro-independence coalition breaks down | AFP

The pro-independence coalition ruling Spain’s Catalonia broke down Wednesday, June 8, after its most radical component refused to back the government budget, forcing the regional president to call a parliamentary vote of no confidence. The development deals a blow to the coalition’s planned 18-month roadmap for independence from Spain by 2017, which it announced after winning a parliamentary majority in regional elections last September. Catalonia has so far done little to implement the plan, which calls for the regional government to create basic laws, a tax system and state structure for the wealthy, industrialized northeastern region whose capital Barcelona is a major tourist draw. Further complicating the project, the far-left, anti-capitalist CUP party that makes up the coalition turned against it Wednesday, refusing to back the government budget for 2016 and joining other non-independence opposition parties in voting against examining it in parliament.

United Kingdom: David Cameron accused of bias over EU referendum deadline extension | The Guardian

David Cameron has been accused of bias by a senior Brexit campaigner after promising to force through legislation to extend the deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum. It follows the chaotic collapse of a government website on Tuesday night as 250,000 people tried to apply in the final hours before the midnight deadline. The prime minister urged the public to keep on submitting their details, saying he was working urgently to ensure they would be able to take part in the referendum. MPs are to vote on Thursday on a 48-hour extension to the deadline to register, which is expected to allow tens of thousands more people to vote on 23 June. The new deadline would be midnight on Thursday.

California: San Mateo County elections officials switch to paper ballots after electronic voting machine glitch | San Jose Mercury News

A software glitch in 140 electronic voting machines prompted San Mateo County elections officials to dole out paper ballots while technicians scrambled to fix the error Tuesday morning. The problem was coding, said Jim Irizarry, assistant chief elections officer. The agency uses the Hart InterCivic “eSlate” machine, he said. Those machines are connected to a central system, and without the proper coding, the voting machines could not communicate to the central system. The glitch “should not have occurred,” Irizarry said. “When you’re programming the units, you should code them properly,” he said. “I believe we probably did not code those machines as well as we should have.”

Louisiana: New voting laws block little fraud — but many elders, women, and minorities | The Louisiana Weekly

Much of the reporting about the voter-ID laws many states have passed in recent years has centered on how they often block access to the polls by lower-income minority and naturalized citizens. But a subtext has been the barring of many older people from their right to vote. “Voter ID laws disadvantaging older persons place a burden on the voting rights of those most likely to participate in the electoral process,” said Daniel Kohrman, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation office in Washington, D.C. That’s because older citizens vote at greater percentages than younger people. A total of 33 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls this year. (West Virginia’s new law goes into effect in 2018). Of those, 17 states will have restrictive voter-identification laws on the books for the first time in a presidential election, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

Maryland: City Council to investigate irregularities in Baltimore election | Baltimore Sun

Members of the Baltimore City Council formally called Monday for an investigative hearing into the problems that occurred during April’s primary election. In a resolution, council members Mary Pat Clarke and Robert W. Curran said the hearing is a way for the council to “request the City and State to develop a plan of specific steps to ensure a fair and efficient Baltimore City General Election on November 8, 2016.” “We could all recite what went wrong,” Clarke said. “That’s not what I want to hear. I want to hear what they’re going to do to fix it.” A review by the Maryland State Board of Elections found that about 1,700 ballots cast in Baltimore’s primary election were handled improperly. The board concluded that 1,188 provisional ballots were inappropriately scanned into the vote tally on Election Day — without judges verifying that the voters were eligible — and 555 other provisional ballots were not considered. The review did not change the result of any race.

Michigan: Governor signs law restricting citizen petitions | WLNS

106,000: that’s how many more signatures the Michigan Bureau of Elections says a ballot drive needs to put legalizing marijuana up for a state-wide vote. This comes just six days after a pro-legalization group submitted more than 350,000 signatures to the state; but because MI Legalize collected a portion of them more than 180 days before filing the petition, the petition will likely not pass. This hadn’t been formally engrained in law—but today Governor Snyder changed that. That new law says petition signatures older than 180 days cannot be counted. “This clearly was a result of us trying to improve Michigan’s election system,” argues MI Legalize Executive Director Jeffrey Hank.

Montana: More satellite voting offices, more American Indians seeking office this election season | Billings Gazette

If American Indian candidates win all 11 of the seats in the Montana Legislature they are running for this fall, the percentage of Natives in the session would for the first time be representative of the population in the state. American Indians make up 7.4 percent of Montanans but have historically been underrepresented in the Legislature. In the 2015 session, there were eight American Indian legislators, three in the Senate and five in the House, for 5.3 percent of the 150 members. If Indians win all the seats they’re running for this year, that would come to 8 percent, including a state senator whose seat isn’t up for election this year, to make 12 total. … The geography and demographics of their campaigns creates a unique situation, they say. As candidates they talk about advocating for Native issues but also don’t want to be defined strictly by the color of their skin.

New Hampshire: Court to hear Libertarian Party appeal over New Hampshire law | Associated Press

A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments in a lawsuit by the Libertarian Party seeking to strike down a New Hampshire law that it argues could prevent third-party candidates from getting on the ballot. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is challenging a 2014 law that requires a third party seeking to gain access to the ballot through verified signatures to collect those signatures during the same year as the election. Judge Paul Barbadoro upheld the law last year, finding that it creates reasonable restrictions that are justified by the state’s interest in requiring parties to demonstrate a sufficient level of support. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston is set to hear the Libertarian Party’s appeal Monday.

Wisconsin: Groups to ask judge allow some people without IDs to vote | Associated Press

Groups advocating for voting rights said they will soon ask a federal judge to allow people to vote in Wisconsin’s August primary election if they are having trouble getting a required ID. The request comes even as attorneys for the state Department of Justice are trying to put the case on hold. The American Civil Liberties Union will be filing a motion in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee soon to make sure “voters who face a reasonable impediment to getting an ID” can still vote with an affidavit, said the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project attorney Sean Young on Tuesday. A federal appeals court in April ruled that the ACLU and another group challenging the law, the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty, could seek such an order. Under the law, voters must show one of the following in order to vote: a Wisconsin driver’s license or state ID card, a U.S. passport, military ID card, college IDs meeting certain requirements, naturalization certificates or IDs issued by a Wisconsin-based American Indian tribe. Residents can apply for a state ID with the Department of Motor Vehicles but must prove personal details and citizenship.

Austria: Far-right party challenges presidential election reults | The Guardian

Austria’s far-right Freedom party (FPO) has challenged the results of last month’s presidential election, which its candidate narrowly lost, in a move that could tip the country into a constitutional crisis. The FPO is claiming numerous irregularities in the election on 22 May, particularly for the absentee vote count, Christian Neuwirth, a spokesman for the constitutional court, said. The FPO candidate, Norbert Hofer, lost to Alexander Van der Bellen, a retired economics professor backed by the Green party, by just 31,000 votes out of more than 4.6m ballots cast, and only after more than 700,000 postal ballots – about 10% of available votes – were taken into account.

Canada: Elections chief Marc Mayrand stepping down ahead of Liberal reforms | CBC

Canada’s chief electoral officer is stepping down from his post after nearly 10 years on the job — a tenure marked by public spats with the former Conservative government over its controversial Fair Elections Act and its attempt to block veiled Muslim women from voting. Marc Mayrand, who assumed the role in 2007, informed the Speaker of his decision Monday, citing the need for a new chief ahead of the Liberal government’s push for ambitious electoral reform. He will step down on Dec. 28, 2016. “I have concluded that it would be preferable to leave my position at the end of the year to allow my successor the necessary time to assume the responsibility and guide the future direction of Elections Canada,” Mayrand said in a statement. “Given Elections Canada’s ambitious electoral services modernization plans and the government’s consideration of fundamental reforms to our electoral system, I believe the early appointment of a successor to lead Elections Canada well ahead of the next general election is essential and should not be delayed.”

Croatia: Croatia Lurches Toward Early Elections as Government Wobbles | Bloomberg

Croatia’s ruling coalition lurched toward collapse after its biggest party initiated a no-confidence vote against technocrat Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic, threatening a drive to retool the economy and raising the prospect of early elections. Facing dismissal himself in a parliamentary no-confidence vote backed by both the opposition and his ruling partners, Deputy Premier Tomislav Karamarko mounted a counterattack Tuesday, with his Croatian Democratic Union filing for a similar vote against Oreskovic. The measure, which the opposition Social Democrats said they may help push through, can take place on June 15 at the earliest and will bring down the youngest European Union state’s four-month-old government if the premier is defeated. “Considering that the current political groups can’t seem to find a way out of the turmoil, the most efficient and most honest outcome for the country would be snap elections,” Nenad Zakosek, political science professor at the University of Zagreb, said by phone.

Kenya: Government Bans All Protests Against Electoral Body | Associated Press

Kenya’s government has banned all opposition protests against the country’s electoral body, a day after witnesses said police killed two demonstrators, the internal security minister said Tuesday. A 6-year-old boy was also hit in the back by a police bullet Monday during protests in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu, witnesses said. He was among 21 people hospitalized with bullet wounds, according to hospital sources who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals. The security minister, Joseph Nkaissery, said the chaos does not fall within the parameters set by the constitutional court, which had called the demonstrations a constitutionally guaranteed right and ordered the police to protect protesters.

Peru: With Election So Close, Results May Not Be Known for Days | Wall Street Journal

Peruvian presidential candidates Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori settled in for a photo finish as election officials slowly counted the final ballots to determine the outcome of one of the tightest races ever here. When the result will be final, however, is uncertain as an electoral board will need to rule on disputed ballots that could decide the close election, and as votes trickle in from rural areas and expatriates elsewhere. “That’s the million-dollar question,” Fernando Tuesta, a political analyst and former head of Peru’s election agency, said when asked how long it would take. “There isn’t a date for that.” On Tuesday, the election agency said Mr. Kuczynski, an economist, was leading with 50.17% of the votes, compared with 49.83% for Ms. Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori. The agency said it had processed 98.7% of the votes. However, that didn’t include some votes that were disputed by the political parties and sent to the electoral board. The margin between the two candidates stood at about 47,000 votes. About 22 million Peruvians were registered to vote; the agency said 17.8 million had cast ballots.

United Kingdom: Thousands of EU referendum postal votes feared lost in Germany | The Guardian

Thousands of British citizens fear their votes in the EU referendum could have got lost in the post after Germany’s postal service said its workers were confused by the format of pre-paid envelopes sent out to Britons living abroad. A spokesperson for Germany’s postal service, Deutsche Post, said that while the pre-paid envelopes were valid under the Internal Business Reply Service (IBRS) scheme, many of its employees had rejected the envelopes and told voters to pay postage instead. More than 100,000 British citizens are registered as living in Germany. The confusion has arisen partly because the European Union has so far failed to regulate the size of standard letters across the continent.

United Kingdom: EU referendum voter registration site crashes before deadline | The Guardian

Members of the public attempting to register to vote in the EU referendum complained that the government website had crashed hours before the deadline. The development could mean that tens of thousands of potential voters may be disenfranchised and unable to cast a vote in what is expected to be closely fought contest. Voters have been encouraged to register before 11.59pm on Tuesday 7 June to be able to take part in the EU referendum. However, the Cabinet Office website would not allow voters to input their details at 10.40pm on Tuesday. A tweet from the Cabinet Office acknowledged that the site had crashed. “We’re aware of the technical issue on [the site]. We’re working to resolve it. This is due to unprecedented demand. Update soon,” it said.

National: Online voting would be a ‘complete disaster’ according to Stanford Computer Scientist | Examiner

Imagine the convenience of being able to cast a vote from the comfort of a couch, coffee shop, library or a toilet if you’re truly trying to capture the spirit of the 2016 election cycle. Online voting may seem like a no-brainer given myriad of ways one can connect to the internet. However, according to David Dill, a computer scientist from Stanford, it would be a ‘complete disaster.’ It’s not just him that isn’t fond of the idea of putting the future of our country into computer, but security experts as well. “Computers are very complicated things and there’s no way with any reasonable amount of resources that you can guarantee that the software and hardware are bug-free and that they haven’t been maliciously attacked,” Dill said in an interview. “The problems are growing in complexity faster than the methods to keep up with them. From that perspective, looking at a system that relies on the perfectibility of computers is a really bad idea.”

Editorials: Ideas on Reconciling Critics of the Presidential Primary Process | Albert R. Hunt/The New York Times

It’s rare that President Obama and Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, agree. In recent weeks, they both have said that the presidential nominating process is not rigged. They are right. But that hasn’t stopped those displeased with the results — not only establishment Republicans but also Democrats who support Senator Bernie Sanders — from insisting on changing the rules for the next election. Some tweaks are always in order, but both sides are trying to craft procedures that would have benefited them this time. As with generals fighting the last war, experience shows this rarely works and often backfires. “Every time someone tries to game out this system,” said Benjamin Ginsberg, a leading Republican election lawyer, “the great law of unintended consequences rears its head.”

Editorials: The Supreme Court needs to settle American Samoa birthright citizenship | Mark Joseph Stern/Slate

Soon, the Supreme Court will decide whether to take a case of astounding constitutional importance. Its outcome could alter the rules governing citizenship, equal protection, and the power of the federal government. And it centers around a tiny chain of islands that you probably cannot find on a map. The question: Can Congress decide that an entire group of Americans—born in America, raised in America, allegiant to America—does not deserve United States citizenship? American Samoans, the group in question, have been Americans since 1900, when the United States acquired their territory in the midst of an imperialist expansion. Since then, residents of America’s other territories have either achieved independence or gained U.S. citizenship. But in 2016, American Samoans stand alone: Unlike people born in, say, Puerto Rico or Guam, they are not granted citizenship at birth. Instead, they are considered “noncitizen nationals,” a legally dubious term that effectively renders them stateless, a mark of second-class status imprinted on their (American) passports.

Editorials: Awarding presidential delegates by congressional district is unfair | Derek T. Muller/The Sacramento Bee

This year’s presidential primaries have exposed problems in the nomination process, and they’re highlighted by California’s uneven method of awarding its delegates. Most delegates in Tuesday’s primaries will be awarded to the candidates who win the most votes in each of California’s 53 congressional districts. While that system is designed to ensure that a candidate has widespread support and that delegates come from across the state, it produces bizarre results in districts dominated by one party or the other. The Republican Party will award three delegates per district. The Democratic Party gives districts between four and nine delegates, based on total population, plus extra delegates to districts with more Democratic voters. The 13th District in San Francisco has about 260,000 registered Democrats and gets eight delegates, or one delegate per 32,500 voters. But there are just 86,000 registered Democrats in the 42nd and 50th districts, and they each will award five delegates, or one delegate per 17,200 voters. It doesn’t take a math degree to recognize that Democrats in San Francisco will have less power than Democrats elsewhere in the state.

Louisiana: Foreign-born citizens in Louisiana have had to take extra steps to register to vote — until now | PRI

Until this week, naturalized citizens in Louisiana were required to go an extra mile to register to vote: After filing a standard registration form, potential voters born outside the US were required to submit proof of citizenship, in person, at their local registrar’s office. “It felt like we were targeted,” says Tu Hoang, an attorney in Louisiana. Hoang, 28, emigrated from Vietnam with his parents when he was five. He became a US citizen when he was 19 and registered to vote soon after. He was able to navigate the system without any hiccups, providing proof of citizenship with his voter registration form, but noticed an unsettling shift years later when he was organizing voter registration drives in the Vietnamese community of New Orleans. Around 2012 the procedure became more cumbersome — a shift other advocates also noticed. The proof of citizenship requirement became more strictly enforced and applicants were required to make an extra trip, several weeks after filing the registration form, rather than submitting both together.

Mississippi: Analysis: Early voting could make you a liar in Mississippi | Associated Press

Mississippi lawmakers this year rejected a proposal to stop making liars of their fellow citizens, at least when it comes to early voting. Current state law allows any registered voter who is disabled or at least 65 years old to cast an absentee ballot before election day. Anyone else needs an excuse, such as being out of town on election day, to vote early by absentee. A bipartisan study group led by Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann met in 2015 and recommended several election law revisions for legislators to consider this year. The group unanimously backed the concept of allowing voters to cast ballots in circuit clerks’ offices starting 21 days before any election, without having to give a reason. During a news conference at the beginning of the legislative session in January, Hosemann said about 9,000 people cast absentee ballots in Mississippi statewide elections. He said about one-third request mail-in ballots, while two-thirds go to a circuit clerk’s office to vote absentee. Almost half of the people going to clerks’ offices say they’re planning to be out of the county on election day.

New York: Audit: New York City Elections Board Lost Track Of Voting Machines | Associated Press

City Board of Elections officials have lost track of more than 1,450 pieces of equipment, including some voting machines, according to an audit released Monday. “If you can’t count inventory, how can New Yorkers trust you to count their votes?” said Comptroller Scott Stringer, who led an army of auditors carrying out the task. Election officials examined Board of Elections inventories over nearly three years, ending last February. Tracing more than 5,000 items out of about 11,000 inventoried, they scoured five board warehouses and other facilities to match the entries.

Ohio: State remains voting-rights battleground | The Columbus Dispatch

Doug Chapin knows it’s a cliche, but he can’t help himself when asked to explain why our state sees so many bitter battles over voting. “I think Ohio just ends up being the epicenter of the perfect storm,” says the elections-law expert with the University of Minnesota. He cites three reasons: No state is a more reliable barometer of presidential elections; few, if any, states have a more powerful secretary of state; and “the level of mutual partisan distrust in Ohio is as high as anyplace.” In case you’re skeptical of the latter point, you should listen to the litany Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper throws at GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted. Pepper, who teaches election law as an adjunct at the University of Cincinnati, points to how Husted and other state officials have been shot down “over and over and over and over” in various courts for trying to restrict Ohioans’ voting rights in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Puerto Rico: Vote count stalls in Puerto Rico as officials take day off | Associated Press