Monthly Archives: May 2017

A Democrat-backed bill that would have restored voter rights to some ex-felons was scaled back Wednesday to a measure changing eligibility requirements for criminal record-sealing, but sponsors say that doesn’t mean the controversial effort to restore voting rights for former prisoners is dead. In an unusual procedural move, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford’s bill SB125 — which had passed the Assembly Corrections, Parole and Probation Committee on May 9 — was sent back to the same committee Wednesday and the old vote was revoked. The scaled-back version of the bill was brought up for a new vote, and passed with one Republican, Assemblyman Ira Hansen, opposed.

New York: Albany might delay New York City run-off elections | Politico

A bill that has begun to move through the state Legislature would extend the period between primary and run-off elections in New York City from two to three weeks. Run-off contests are held when no candidate in a citywide primary receives at least 40 percent of the vote. The top two candidates then face each other in a run-off. They’ve caused some difficulty since the state switched to optical scan ballots in 2010, as it takes some time to print a new batch and reprogram the machines. Earlier this year, the city Board of Elections said it might need to rely on the state’s antiquated lever machines in order to deal with the quick turnaround.

Texas: Senate approves ban on straight-ticket voting | The Texas Tribune

The Texas Senate gave initial approval Wednesday to legislation that would eliminate straight-ticket voting in all elections. By a vote of 20-10, senators passed House Bill 25 over objections from Democrats who warned of unintended consequences — including a disproportionate impact on minority voters. “Frankly, I don’t see any purpose for this legislation other than trying to dilute the vote of Democrats and, more specifically, minorities,” said state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.

Washington: How Many Voters Could Automatic Voter Registration Add to the Voter Rolls in Washington State? | Sightline Institute

Oregon’s New Motor Voter law empowered more than a quarter-million voters in its first nine months. Six states plus Washington, DC, are now implementing automatic voter registration, including Alaska, which approved it by a landslide in November. Evergreen State readers may be wondering: What about Washington? Can’t we do that, too? Yes. But it’s complicated. The number of voting-age Washingtonians who are not registered to vote has grown steadily in the past few decades. Although more voters registered in 2016, nearly 1.3 million voting-age adults in Washington remain unregistered. Adding them to voter rolls once they prove their citizenship would ensure they receive mail-in ballots and can vote in future elections. Most registered voters cast ballots only some of the time, which is their choice. When Oregon introduced its automatic registration system this year, about a quarter of the automatically registered newcomers to the rolls cast ballots in November’s US election.

Nepal: Agitating parties demand postponement of second phase election, NC rejects | DNA

With no progress in sight for addressing the demands of agitating parties to ensure commencement of the second phase of local elections in Nepal, the Rastriya Janata Party (RJP) has proposed to postpone it. RJP leaders proposed that the June 14, 2017 second phase of local body elections be postponed during a meeting with Nepali Congress leaders at the Nepali Congress parliamentary office in Singha Durbar. Rajendra Mahato, Leader, Rastriya Janata Party, said, “What we clearly stated to them was the need for creating a conducive environment for the holding of local elections in the Madhesh region. If a favorable environment is not created, then election cannot be held and the second phase election cannot commence under any circumstances in this condition.”

Pakistan: Next general elections under new electoral reforms, says Ishaq Dar | Daily Pakistan

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that the upcoming general elections in 2018 will be held according to the new electoral reforms. Speaking after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms in Islamabad on Tuesday, the federal minister said that contentious points will be further deliberated in the sub-committee on electoral reforms meeting to be held tomorrow (May 17th). He hoped that the sub-committee headed by Law Minister Zahid Hamid on draft Elections Bill, 2017 will submit its report before the next budget.

Zimbabwe: Diaspora in the UK continue their push for a right to vote | The Zimbabwean

Zimbabwean demonstrators, many who had come from other regions of the UK, gathered at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. The demonstration was one of the cross-country series of protests for #Take2Zimbabwe lined up by Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation (ZHRO), Restoration Of Human Rights Zimbabwe (ROHR) and Zimbabwe Citizens Initiative (ZCI). This was the third of those planned for this year, after those held in London on the 18th and Birmingham on the 22nd of April. The main goals of these demonstrations is to fight for the right to vote, to highlight corruption, and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans working together in groups are getting involved and uniting through working in partnerships, hoping that these non-violent protests will turn into voting rights, recognitions of human rights and ultimately, a real democracy.

National: How big of a threat is Trump’s voter fraud commission? | Slate

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to step in and potentially overturn a lower court ruling that North Carolina’s restrictive voter-identification law is unconstitutional, specifically for how it targets black Americans. While this decision counts as a win for voting rights, it comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will lead President Trump’s new Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity. Trump, of course, claims that millions of people voted illegally in the last election; Kobach supports that claim.

National: Hacking US Voting Machines Is Child’s Play | CleanTechnica

Thanks to the embarrassing incompetence of Humpty Trumpty and his virulent assault on America’s political institutions, many people are already looking forward to the 2018 elections as a way of throwing the Trump supporters out of Congress and putting America back on the path of being a true world leader and not a pale imitation of a banana republic. Much of the public anger focuses on deep cuts to programs like the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security, but others are equally motivated by Trump’s obdurate ignorance about climate change. … J. Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, and Ph.D. student Matt Bernhard have assembled a number of reasons that they say render US voting machines susceptible to outside interference that could affect the accuracy of their tallies. In 2002, after the chaotic presidential election two years before, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act. The legislation provided funding for several private electronic voting machine manufacturers, including Diebold.

National: Supreme Court order unlikely to deter voting restrictions | Associated Press

The Supreme Court’s refusal to breathe new life into North Carolina’s sweeping voter identification law might be just a temporary victory for civil rights groups. Republican-led states are continuing to enact new voter ID measures and other voting restrictions, and the Supreme Court’s newly reconstituted conservative majority, with the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch, could make the court less likely to invalidate the laws based on claims under the federal Voting Rights Act or the Constitution. The justices on Monday left in place last summer’s ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the law’s photo ID requirement to vote in person and other provisions, which the lower court said targeted African-Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

California: A letter sent to some L.A. voters sought to shame them for their voting records — and no one knows who sent it | Los Angeles Times

Offended, harassed, violated. Those are some of the words voters used to describe their reactions to a letter they received this week from a group calling itself the California Voter Awareness Project. Several people who spoke to The Times said the letter arrived just hours before polls opened in Tuesday’s citywide election in Los Angeles, and included each recipient’s voting history in the last three elections, along with names and addresses of neighbors and acquaintances and whether or not they’d voted. An updated chart would be mailed out after Tuesday’s election, the letter warned, and “other people you know will all know who voted and who did not vote.”

District of Columbia: D.C. to spend $3 million to get names of dead people, other errors off voter rolls | The Washington Post

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) plans to spend $3 million to overhaul the city’s voter registration database, a file that is riddled with errors, including the names of deceased residents and thousands of voters whose births erroneously date to the 1800s, according to a recent audit. The move comes as President Trump launches a commission on “election integrity” to cut down on voter fraud, but city officials say that is a coincidence. “There is no connection. This decision was made well before President Trump’s election integrity commission,” Bowser spokesman Kevin Harris said Tuesday.

New Hampshire: Voter ID Bill Moves Forward | Concord Monitor

In a partisan vote, the House election law committee endorsed a bill on Tuesday that stiffens the requirements for people who register to vote within 30 days of an election. Senate Bill 3 now will go to the full House for a vote. The bill applies to people who register to vote within 30 days of an election and requires them to provide proof they live in New Hampshire and intend to stay. People who show up to the polls to register and don’t have a utility bill, a lease, a car registration or other documentation could still vote. But they have to sign a paper pledging to come back later with a required form of proof. Should a voter not return within 30 days, the bill gives local election officials authority to investigate suspected fraud.

Pennsylvania: Some Wilkinsburg voters use emergency ballots because election judge was in jail | TribLIVE

A judge of elections at one of Wilkinsburg’s precincts didn’t report for duty Tuesday morning because he was in jail, said Amie Downs, an Allegheny County spokeswoman. Voters in Wilkinsburg’s 1st Ward, 6th District used emergency ballots while sheriff’s deputies went to the man’s house to retrieve the voting materials and supplies and set up the machines. Loren Johnson, 55, was jailed on two counts of assault and two counts of making terroristic threats after he threatened his sister and nephew with a shotgun on Monday, said sheriff’s Commander Charles Rodriguez.

Virginia: Political parties at odds over voter ID laws | The Virginia Gazette

Voter identification laws are a hot issue in Virginia and across the country. Republicans say such laws combat voter fraud, which they insist is widespread. Democrats say the laws discourage voting by minority and elderly citizens who may be less likely to have a photo ID. The debate has played out in Virginia, where Republicans control the General Assembly and a Democrat is governor, with few signs of a compromise. In 2013, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1256, which required Virginia voters to present a driver’s license, passport or other photo ID in order to cast a ballot. The bill — which was signed into law by then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican — also provided free photo IDs to citizens who needed one.

Austria: October election called, far-right FPO could enter government | Reuters

Austria’s main parties agreed to hold an early parliamentary election on October 15, Chancellor Christian Kern said on Tuesday, in a vote that might bring the far-right Freedom Party into government. In the autumn of a year that will have seen Dutch, French, British and German general elections, the Alpine republic will decide its future course on immigration, labor and social policy and its position within the European Union. “We have agreed on Oct. 15 (for parliamentary elections),” Kern said after meeting leaders of all parliamentary parties. The next election was originally due to be held in autumn 2018.

Iran: Are elections in Iran an exercise in futility? | Al Jazeera

Once again a major election is approaching in Iran – a presidential election at yet another crucial turning point in the history of the beleaguered theocracy ruling over a restless and ambitious nation, trying by hook or by crook to curtail a rich and powerful political culture far beyond its limited imagination. Once again, nagging questions are paramount among Iranians in and out of their homeland: Are such elections an exercise in futility? Will they make any difference? Do they have any tangible result in the life of the nation?

Lesotho: King to consult Mugabe on elections | NewsDay

Lesotho has experienced political instability for the past four decades and the country has pinned its hope on this year’s election to end the turmoil. In March this year, the country was plunged into a fresh political crisis after Parliament passed a vote of no-confidence on Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili and later dissolved. Two years ago, the Kingdom of Lesotho was again in crisis following the ouster of former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane’s All Basotho Congress.

Nepal: Slow counting leaves voters disappointed | Republica

The delay in vote counting has disappointed the voters who are desperate to see their new representatives assume their offices. The painstakingly slow counting of ballot papers has signaled that the people might have to wait for days to see their new representatives. The excitement was comparatively very high among the locals this time around for the elections which were conducted after a gap of two decades. Before the elections, the voters were counting days to drop their votes and elect capable candidates to shoulder the responsibility of developing their villages.

National: U.S. Cyber Command: Russia hacking “the new normal” | Defense Systems

Admiral Michael S. Rogers, head of U.S. Cyber Command, called Russia’s cyber operations “destabilizing.” During recent exchanges on Capitol Hill, Rogers appeared to be in agreement with the U.S. intelligence community that Russia’s election interference is likely to be a new normal. Russian President Vladimir Putin “figured that he was no military match for the United States, but he could launch a Manhattan Project for cyber attacks,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., declared last month at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform information technology subcommittee. It is still an open question how the United States will fight back, whether it’s Russia or other foreign hacking onslaught. U.S. officials and experts warn that it is time for fresh thinking on how to combat these threats, both in government agencies and in the cybersecurity industry.

National: Experts say Trump’s voter fraud commission is a solution in need of a problem | Sinclair Broadcast Group

On Thursday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to create a new commission to investigate his claims of widespread voter fraud, reigniting the storm of skepticism that has surrounded his past allegations of election interference and rigging. … Fact-checkers, state election authorities and lawmakers from both political parties have largely dismissed Trump’s claims that of election fraud since November 8. Immediately after the announcement of the new commission, some suggested that the administration will be using taxpayer resources to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. Other critics suspect even more nefarious motives, suggesting that the panel’s leadership and its mission may actually be an effort to justify stricter voting laws that could suppress the vote.

Editorials: Trump’s Fraudulent Voter-Fraud Commission | The New York Times

President Trump’s repeated claim that “millions” of noncitizens voted illegally in the 2016 election has always been transparently self-serving — a desperate attempt to soothe his damaged ego and explain how he could have lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost three million votes. It also lined up nicely with a yearslong crusade by Republican officials to convince Americans that “voter fraud” is an actual problem. As Mr. Trump’s own lawyers have pointed out, it’s not. But that hasn’t stopped the president from trying, as he so often does, to commandeer the machinery of the federal government to justify his own falsehoods. The most recent example was his creation last week of an advisory commission whose ostensible goal is to “enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the voting processes,” with an emphasis on weeding out “improper” or “fraudulent” registration and voting.

Editorials: Despite today’s Supreme Court ruling, the future looks grim for voting rights | Paul Waldman/The Washington Post

Democrats got a victory in a voting rights case at the Supreme Court today — but don’t get used to that headline. There are dark days ahead for voting rights. In today’s decision, the court didn’t actually judge the case on its merits. It declined to hear a case involving North Carolina’s vote suppression law, which had been struck down by a lower court. In the time since then, Democrats have taken over as governor and attorney general in the state and attempted to withdraw the case over the objection of the legislature, which is still in Republican hands. There’s no question that this is a victory for Democrats and anyone who cares about the right of all Americans to vote. But it’s important to understand that the North Carolina law differs from other voter restrictions Republicans have passed in that its discriminatory intent was so blatant.

Editorials: When Does Political Gerrymandering Cross a Constitutional Line? | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

The Supreme Court has never struck down an election map on the ground that it was drawn to make sure one political party would win an outsize number of seats. But it has left open the possibility that some kinds of political gamesmanship in redistricting may be too extreme. The problem, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a 2004 concurrence, is that no one has come up with “a workable standard” to decide when the political gerrymandering has crossed a constitutional line. Finding such a standard has long been, as one judge put it, “the holy grail of election law jurisprudence.” In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will consider an appeal from a decision in Wisconsin that may have found that holy grail. The case, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, arrives at the court in the wake of a wave of Republican victories in state legislatures that allowed lawmakers to draw election maps favoring their party.

Maine: Angus King: Voting equipment could see ‘sophisticated cyberattacks’ from Russia | Bangor Daily News

If the Russians or anyone else want to tamper with the results of an election, they’re not going to get far in Maine. Since the state relies on paper ballots for nearly all of its voting, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said Monday, Mainers should feel confident that nobody can undercut the will of the people at the ballot box. But given the Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election, U.S. Sen. Angus King wants to make sure that all of America’s voting machines are secure, something that may not be true in every state today. The former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told a Senate panel this week that “our election apparatus should be considered critical infrastructure” and ought to have protections built in to ensure foreign powers can’t tamper with the results.

Kansas: Kobach’s office hands over documents from Trump meeting | The Wichita Eagle

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office has shared documents from a November meeting with President Donald Trump to the American Civil Liberties Union, but the legal wrangling over the papers is likely to continue after Kobach’s office marked the papers as confidential. Kobach met with Trump in November and was photographed carrying a strategic plan for the Department of Homeland Security. The photograph revealed that the documents contained a reference to voting rolls, and the ACLU has sought access to them as part of an ongoing voting rights case.

North Carolina: Strict North Carolina Voter ID Law Thwarted After Supreme Court Rejects Case | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would stay out of a fight over a restrictive North Carolina voting law. The move left in place a federal appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of the law as an unconstitutional effort to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” As is the court’s custom, the justices gave no reason for declining to hear the case. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a statement noting that there was a dispute about who represented the state in the case and that nothing should be read into the court’s decision to decline to hear it. The law, enacted by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2013, imposed an array of voting restrictions, including new voter identification requirements. It was part of a wave of voting restrictions enacted after a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that effectively struck down a central part of the federal Voting Rights Act, weakening federal oversight of voting rights.

North Carolina: Supreme Court’s Roberts: ‘Uncertainty’ sinks voter ID appeal | Winston-Salem Journal