The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 27 – April 2 2017
Neil Jenkins, from DHS’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, gave the first detailed account of the process leading up to the controversial decision to designate election systems as critical infrastructure shortly after the 2016 presidential election. In the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza concluded that “the evidence is now clear that the White House and Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have worked together to halt what was previously billed as a sweeping investigation of Russian interference in last year’s election.”
Just days after the Arizona Governor signed a new law opponents said will make it harder for citizen initiatives to make the ballot, Republican Arizona lawmakers are reviving stripped parts of that legislation that will make it much easier for opponents to challenge initiatives in court. A measure that would cut off one of the main avenues for challenging legislative redistricting plans was approved by a Florida House committee, alarming groups that fought maps struck down by the courts in recent years for political gerrymandering.
A bill that would have allowed Montana counties to conduct this Spring’s special election to replace at-large Congressman Ryan Zinke entirely by mail ballot has been defeated. Since being introduced, the bill went for a roller-coaster ride. Shortly after it cleared the Senate by a comfortable margin, the chairman of the Montana State Republican Party, state Rep. Jeff Essmann, sent an email to party members warning that its passage would mean higher turnout and a lower chance of winning for Republicans.
A Texas Senate committee cleared legislation that would overhaul the state’s voter identification rules, an effort to comply with court rulings that the current law discriminates against black and Latino voters. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a ruling that overturned the state’s Republican-drawn legislative districts.
After a video demonstrating that paper trail printers on electronic voting machines could be compromised went viral, there have been further calls in India for a return to paper ballot voting systems. Protesters stormed and set fire to Paraguay’s Congress on Friday after the senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election and in a move rejected throughout the region and decried as a “coup” by the opposition, Venezuela’s Supreme Court effectively shut down congress, saying it would assume all legislative functions amid its contention that legislators are operating outside of the law.