Monthly Archives: April 2017

As the French prepare to vote Sunday in a presidential election marked by acrimonious debate about Russian influence in Europe, there’s little doubt about which candidate Moscow backs. Last month, the combative populist Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front flew to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin. It was a display of longtime mutual admiration. The frontrunner in a field of 11 candidates, Le Pen shrugs off allegations of corruption and human rights abuses against Putin, calling him a tough and effective leader. Her hard-line views on immigration, Islam and the European Union win praise from Putin and enthusiastic coverage from Russian media outlets. Her campaign has been propelled by a loan of more than $9 million from a Russian bank in 2014, according to Western officials and media reports.

Afghanistan: E-voting System Not Practical in Afghanistan: Task Team | TOLOnews

The e-voting system assessment committee on Thursday said that the complete implementation of e-voting system in Afghanistan is not practical. According to the commission, it would be difficult to conduct the country’s parliamentary and district council elections in the current year. According to the committee, currently, the e-voting system is applicable only in a few areas of the election process which include the voter registration process, the certification of voters’ identity during voting and the transfer of results of voting. But, the CEO’s office has said that investigations and assessments of the process are underway.

Ecuador: Unasur Ratifies Transparency of Ecuador’s Vote Recount | Prensa Latina

International observers from the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) have ratified the transparency of the vote recount following the second round of the recently held presidential elections in Ecuador. The mission of observers from Unasur confirmed in a press release Thursday that it is still supervising the process with four highly technical teams; both the first round of elections on February 19 and the run-off on April 2. They also observed the first vote recount on April 8, and the second on April 18 when electoral workers recounted 11,2 percent of the ballots. ‘The recount was all normal, under the presence of national and international observers, communication media and delegates from the political organizations in the nation,’ the release stresses.

Kenya: Spat over electronic vote tender goes to court | AFP

Six Kenyans urged a court on Wednesday to suspend a controversial decision by election officials to scrap a tender process and directly procure an electronic voting system for the August polls. The petition is the umpteenth disruption to already chaotic election preparations, a sensitive process in a country where accusations of rigging accompany almost every vote. The tender was awarded to French defence and biometrics company Safran last month, pushing aside another French company Gemalto, which was lined up to win the contract in a bidding process launched in December. In court documents seen by AFP, the six petitioners argue that the entire process was “manipulated and rigged… to culminate in an artificial crisis that would then be used to justify the single sourcing”.

Turkey: Activists post videos of alleged poll fraud in referendum | Middle East Eye

Videos have emerged in Turkey of alleged ballot stuffing and polling station violations during the Sunday referendum that approved sweeping powers to the country’s president. Social media users circulated several videos, apparently showing violations on election day, including people voting more than once. In one video, a man who was identified by France 24 as Mehmet Koçlardan, the leader of a village in east Turkey from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), is seen casting five votes into a ballot box. Another video shows an unidentified person stamping “yes” on five voting slips and piling them on a table.

National: The Continuing Fallout from Trump and Nunes’s Fake Scandal | The New Yorker

Recently, several members and staffers on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia’s role in the Presidential election, visited the National Security Agency, in Fort Meade, Maryland. Inside the enormous black glass headquarters of America’s largest spy agency, the congressmen and their aides were shown a binder of two to three dozen pages of highly classified intercepts, mostly transcripts of conversations between foreign government officials that took place during the Presidential transition. These intercepts were not related to the heart of the committee’s Russia investigation. In fact, only one of the documents had anything to do with Russia, according to an official who reviewed them. What the intercepts all had in common is that the people being spied on made references to Donald Trump or to Trump officials. That wasn’t even clear, though, from reading the transcripts. The names of any Americans were concealed, or “masked,” the intelligence community’s term for redacting references to Americans who are not the legal targets of surveillance when such intelligence reports are distributed to policy makers.

Delaware: Legislation seeks to prevent political meddling in drawing districts for the General Assembly | Sun Times

A plan to change how the state sets the borders for legislative districts has attracted bipartisan support in the upper chamber of the General Assembly. Senate Bill 27 seeks to overhaul General Assembly redistricting by taking it out of the hands of the legislature, sponsor Sen. Bryan Townsend said. Instead, an independent commission would redraw voting maps without reference to politics. The Democrat of Newark said the idea is to create an unbiased and transparent method of setting boundaries. The legislation proposes a nine-member nonpartisan commission.

Georgia: Stolen voting equipment is safe in landfill, officials say | Marietta Daily Journal

Cobb County detectives have arrested a suspect in connection with the theft of four ExpressPoll polling machines out of a poll manager’s truck days before Tuesday’s elections, according to a county press release. The machines contained names, addresses and driver’s license numbers for every voter in Georgia. They are the devices poll workers use to scan IDs when voters enter the polling place. The detectives served a warrant on a Clayton County residence at 1 a.m. Wednesday. According to Cobb County spokeswoman Sheri Kell, the suspect and several accomplices told detectives the polling equipment was deemed useless and thrown in a dumpster. That dumpster has since been emptied and its contents taken to a landfill.

Kansas: Kobach seeks stay of order to hand over Donald Trump immigration meeting documents | The Kansas City Star

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach won’t hand over the documents from his November meeting with President Donald Trump just yet. Kobach filed a motion in federal court Wednesday to stay an order from a federal magistrate judge requiring him to share the documents with the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a lawsuit about voting rights in Kansas. Kobach met with Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., weeks after the Republican won the presidency. Kobach was photographed carrying a stack of papers that was labeled as a strategic plan for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and that contained a reference to voter rolls. The ACLU has sought access to the documents and to a draft amendment to the National Voter Registration Act, which Kobach has crafted and shared with his staff, as part of a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn a Kansas law. That law requires voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as birth certificate, when they register to vote.

Montana: Green Party appeals ballot access decision to the US Supreme Court | MTN News

The Montana Green Party is appealing a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to deny an emergency motion requesting that Thomas Breck’s name be added to Montana’s special congressional election ballot. Breck of Missoula, along with Independent candidates Steve Kelly and Doug Campbell, said they now plan to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging that they were turned down “on the basis of an unconstitutional state law.”

Pennsylvania: Anti-gerrymandering bill gaining traction | WFMZ

In just a few years, voting districts will be redrawn across the country, and there’s a bipartisan push trickling down to the Lehigh Valley to do away with “gerrymandering.” Every 10 years, voting lines are redrawn with the census. Gerrymandering refers to manipulating voting district lines to benefit a party. It’s named after Eldridge Gerry, a former vice president and Massachusetts governor in the early 1800’s. In Pennsylvania, the political party in charge draws the lines. With the lines set to be drawn again in 2020, there is a growing movement to change how the districts are divided.

Washington: Ballot Box Bill Near Becoming Law, But Not Popular with Elections Officials | Spokane Public Radio

Every piece of legislation considered by a body of elected officials has some kind of back story. Sometimes a bill is sparked by an idea from a constituent. That was the case with one bill (Senate Bill 5472) now waiting for Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s signature. It started with an innocuous question about election drop boxes. “A high school teacher in the town of Granite Falls asked me, ‘Why doesn’t my community have a drop box?’ His community, Granite Falls, has about 35-hundred people,” said Sen. Kirk Pearson (R-Monroe). The drop box to which he’s referring is a place where voters can take their completed ballots. The other option in Washington is to mail ballots. But Pearson doesn’t like that option, as he told his colleagues on the Senate floor in February.

West Virginia: Secretary of State Mac Warner, clerks purge voters rolls | WV MetroNews

Secretary of State Mac Warner released some stunning figures this week during an appearance on MetroNews Talkline; the names of 47,490 outdated and ineligible voters have been removed from the voter rolls just since he took office. Warner’s office and county clerks used the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to clean up the rolls. ERIC allows participating states to compare voter eligibility records using voter registration and motor vehicle registrations, U.S. Postal Service addresses, and Social Security death records. Those 47,490 names were struck for a variety of reasons. In the most common instance, a woman changed her name when married, reregistered and was on the rolls twice. Others moved away and registered in another county or state, but remained on the books in their original location. In other cases voters were never taken off the rolls after they died.

Albania: Polarised Albania votes for president without casting ballots | Reuters

Albania’s parliament voted for a new president without casting a single ballot on Wednesday, convening and then closing the first of five election rounds in less than 10 minutes because no candidate came forward to run. The bizarre non-election went ahead despite a boycott by the opposition Democratic Party, which quit parliament two months ago and has since insisted Tirana first needs to name a technocratic government. To ensure that the ceremonial figure of president is a compromise figure, the constitution requires a candidate to get three-fifths of the vote to win in the first three rounds. If no candidate wins, the rules then say a simple majority will do to pick the new head of state.

India: Congress questions Government’s ability to provide VVPATs by 2019 elections | Deccan Chronicle

With the Election Commission’s decision to monitor production of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) by the 2019 assembly elections, the Congress Party on Thursday questioned the government’s ability of providing these machines. “We need at least 16 lakh Paper Trail machines before the 2019 elections. Whether the government will be able to fulfill the target or not is a crucial question. It’s a much wider issue and for the purity of election process it is essential. If the EVMs are not functionally accurate then they cannot be used,” Congress leader K.C. Mittal said. He further said the issue needs to be investigated by expert committees. “In the 2014 parliamentary elections I had raised objections. There is something wrong with the EVMs. The Uttar Pradesh Election Commissioner says he cannot hold municipal elections with the earlier EVMs. Then why were the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh held on the same EVMs? These questions need to be answered,” he added.

Indonesia: Jakarta election: 64,000 police, soldiers deployed to prevent intimidation as voters head to polls | ABC

Jakarta police say they are prepared for unrest as residents head to one of the most bitterly fought elections the city has ever seen. In a sign of the potential threat, a mass of more than 64,000 police, soldiers and security offices will be deployed across the capital. Indonesia’s police chief has warned against the intimidation of voters with the poll being heavily fought on religious grounds. At the capital’s national monument, known as Monas, officers rehearse drills ahead of the poll. “The brief to us is to control the crowd,” commander Muhammad Alwafi told the ABC.

Russia: State Duma Committee to Investigate U.S. Media Over ‘Election Meddling’ | Moscow Times

U.S. media outlets in Russia will face investigations into whether they illegally influenced the country’s parliamentary elections in 2016. Outlets such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe (RL/RFE) and CNN will all fall under the spotlight, said Leonid Levin, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information and Communication. He said that journalists’ work could have affected Russian elections. “The structures we are discussing are part of a larger American system of pressure on our country,” Levin said at a committee meeting on Tuesday. “They are using a variety of instruments in respect to both the Russian electoral process and on our country as a whole.” Levin also pointed to similar investigations on Russian state media in the United States.

Turkey: Election board rejects referendum annulment appeals | Deutsche Welle

Turkey’s top election authority has voted against annulling the referendum to further empower President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Main opposition parties had challenged the results following complaints of vote-rigging. Turkey’s high electoral board (YSK) rejected appeals from the country’s main opposition parties to annul the referendum results, the board said in a statement on Wednesday. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish HDP had called on the electoral board to annul Sunday’s referendum because unstamped ballot papers were included in the count. They argued that this contravened Turkish electoral law. The board overwhelmingly voted to reject the parties’ appeals.

United Kingdom: Could Russian ‘troll factory’ influence UK election result? | news.com.au

It’s vast, secretive and completely nondescript. Now there are fears Russia’s mysterious “Internet Research Agency” could unleash a major disinformation campaign ahead of critical elections in the UK and France. The huge building at 55 Savushkina Street, St Petersburg has been described as a “troll factory” for hundreds of workers charged with pumping out Russian propaganda in comment threads and articles online. The Atlantic Council’s Information Defense fellow Ben Nimmo said Russia has already been accused of being behind “ham-fisted” attempts to influence the French election, but it’s unclear how it will respond to news of the snap election in the UK. “Russian operations are extremely pragmatic. My assessment is that they will be looking at the situation in the UK and thinking what’s going to be useful. It’s much more about ‘Is there a particular angle, constituency, party for us to support?’” he told news.com.au. “It’s entirely possible the Kremlin will think it’s not worth us backing any of these because there’s not anything in it. It’s possible there will be no disinformation at all.”

Ecuador: Presidential recount confirms Lenin Moreno victory | Associated Press

A recount of nearly 1.3 million votes cast in Ecuador’s presidential election Tuesday showed no significant differences over previous results handing a narrow victory to Rafael Correa’s handpicked successor. Lenin Moreno defeated former banker Guillermo Lasso by a slightly larger margin than previously revealed but still less than 3 percentage points, according to the recount of about 10 percent of the votes. “The recount is over and it has ratified the results,” National Electoral Council president Juan Pablo Pozo announced.

National: Former Obama homeland security adviser: Election-style hacks ‘bound’ to happen again | The Hill

A former adviser to President Obama predicts that nation-states and others will try to use cyber intrusions to disrupt future election processes and “weaponize” data as Russia did during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The hacks targeting high-level Democratic Party officials marked a “new threshold” in cyber activity, Lisa Monaco, who advised Obama on homeland security and counterterrorism, told CNN commentator David Axelrod on his podcast “The Axe Files.” “We in the United States have entered a new threshold and crossed into a new threshold where we have state actors and others trying to use these cyber tools in new ways to intrude in our election process, to weaponize information,” Monaco said.

Editorials: Voter ID bills across the nation undermine faith in our democracy | Danielle Lang/The Hill

The Iowa legislature sent a strict voter ID bill to the governor’s desk last week. If the governor signs the bill, which he is widely expected to do, Iowa will be the first state in 2017 to pass a new law that burdens the right to vote. But it likely won’t be the last. Thus far, 29 states have introduced 87 bills that would restrict access to the ballot. These bills align with a troubling trend toward state laws that make it harder rather than easier to vote. But while the restrictions are familiar, the rationale employed is new and startlingly cynical. Lawmakers for years have tried and failed to prove in court that these laws can be justified by the need to prevent nearly non-existent in-person impersonation voter fraud. Now, they argue that this strict voter ID law is necessary to address the “perception” of fraud. Iowa state representative Ken Rizer told the New York Times, “It is true that there isn’t widespread voter fraud … but there is a perception that the system can be cheated. That’s one of the reasons for doing this.”

Florida: Bipartisan Effort To Help Restore Ex-Felons’ Rights Faster Could Be In The Works For 2018 | WFSU

Sen. Perry Thurston (D-Fort Lauderdale) and Sen. Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg) are both carrying bills making it easier for ex-felons to have their civil rights restored to allow holding certain state licenses or voting. Thurston says the current process is flawed. Today, ex-offenders have to go before Governor Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet—as the Executive Clemency Board—and ask that their rights be restored. “Under the previous administration’s attempt to reform restitution of rights, we had some 155,315 individuals who actually got their rights re-instated,” said Thurston. “Under the current administration, since 2011, we’ve only had 2,340. Basically what we’re saying is that it really shouldn’t be subjective to who’s in power in the Governor’s office.”

Georgia: Poll theft discussed in private by Cobb commissioners and secretary of state’s office officials | Marietta Daily Journal

In the wake of Saturday’s theft of polling equipment out of a poll manager’s parked truck, the Cobb Board of Commissioners met with officials from the secretary of state’s office Monday to discuss how to handle the matter in what may have been a violation of Georgia’s open meetings laws. The unannounced meeting occurred at about noon Monday in a conference room in the basement of Cobb County State Court on East Park Square in downtown Marietta. Commissioners typically hold meetings in the Cobb Government Building on Cherokee Street, either in the second-floor commission chamber that can hold members of the public, or the third-floor commissioners’ boardroom, which is much smaller.

Hawaii: Lawmakers considering bill that would make it the norm | Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Already, nearly half of people who vote in the state do so by mail. “This bill would change the way we vote in Hawaii in an attempt to increase voter participation and reduce costs,” Rep. Chris Todd, D-Hilo, wrote in a Facebook post. “HB 1401 would mean every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail and mails it back in — this process is already available by request, but this bill would make it the norm.” The bill passed third reading and House conferees were appointed to iron out wrinkles. Voters could still cast ballots in person if they prefer. But long lines at polling stations would presumably become a thing of the past. Each eligible voter would be mailed a ballot prior to an election and asked to mail it back.

Indiana: Nearly half a million voter registrations cancelled | NWI Times

Nearly half a million individuals have been deleted from Indiana’s list of registered voters since the Nov. 8, 2016, general election. Republican Secretary of State Connie Lawson said Tuesday that the removals are part of an ongoing effort to clean up the state’s voter records after she determined her predecessors largely ignored the time-consuming task. “I discovered voter list maintenance was not being done statewide and many outdated voter registrations were still on the rolls,” Lawson said. “I made it a priority to ensure our state’s list was accurate and that we followed the federal law.” Across Indiana, 481,235 registered voters were purged, or about 10 percent of the state’s total.

Iowa: Minutemen’s support for Voter ID bill reinforces voter-suppression concerns | Des Moines Register

Of the 54 groups that registered a lobbyist’s opinion on a bill tightening voting requirements in Iowa, only one expressed support: the Iowa Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. The national Minutemen corps has a storied history for its anti-immigrant, and in the view of civil right groups, white-supremacist positions. In earlier times, it took a vigilante approach to patrolling the border and nabbing undocumented immigrants. Lately it has focused on rhetoric and advocacy, and tipping off law enforcement on where to look for the undocumented. Though individual chapters remain, the national corps seems to have disbanded after its president in 2010 called on members to “return to the border locked, loaded and ready to stop each and every individual we encounter along the frontier,” and then she thought better of it.

Montana: House speaker kills mail-ballot bill with parliamentary power | KXLH

Republican House Speaker Austin Knudsen is using his parliamentary power to kill a measure allowing counties to hold an all-mail ballot in Montana’s May 25 special congressional election. Knudsen has refused to schedule a floor vote on House Bill 83, which Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock sent back to the House on April 7, with amendments giving counties the option to conduct an all-mail ballot. Without a floor vote, the bill is dead – unless at least 60 House members vote to overrule Knudsen’s decision, which is unlikely. In a statement Tuesday, Bullock said Knudsen is “playing procedural games to prevent this (bill) from reaching the House floor.”

Montana: Green Party, independents won’t be on Montana’s special election ballot, appeals court rules | Associated Press