Colorado: In Saguache County On Election Day, Mail-In Ballots Were Sitting In A Crime Scene | CPR

Sagauche County had an unusual problem with its election on Tuesday. The Post Office in the town of Saguache was burglarized Monday night, turning it into a crime scene and making it difficult to retrieve mail-in ballots. The county’s clerk and recorder, Carla Gomez says there were only six ballots at the Post Office that day. She says most of the county’s voters drop their ballots off in-person. “We were obviously concerned because we wanted to pick up any ballots that we needed to collect to get through the day and there was no mail available because the post office was closed,” Gomez said. “So what I did then was just notify the Secretary of State’s office immediately.”

Idaho: Secretary of State gives private voter data to group with lax security | Idaho Statesman

Much ado was made earlier this year when the Trump administration asked all 50 states for their voter-registration rolls. Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney told Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, that the commission could have only the voter registration information available under Idaho law — name, address, party affiliation and election-participation history. Denney assured the public that other personal information collected on Idaho’s voter registration forms — a voter’s date of birth, driver’s-license number and the last four digits of the Social Security number — is not releasable under Idaho’s public records law. Kobach, he said, could not have it. In fact, Denney had already given it to Kobach. In February, Denney gave Kobach information on all registered Idaho voters, including two pieces of voters’ non-public personal information — their birth dates and abbreviated Social Security numbers. And that was not the first time. Kobach received the same information about Idaho voters in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Why did this happen?

Maine: Secretary of State, a member of Trump fraud commission, sues panel for information about its work | Portland Press Herald

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap has filed a federal lawsuit against President Trump’s voter fraud commission in an effort to obtain information and correspondence about the commission’s work. Dunlap, one of four Democrats on the 11-member Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, more than three weeks after requesting the information. Despite the fact that he is a member of the commission, Dunlap says he has been kept in the dark about what it is doing. The lawsuit alleges that the commission’s chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, and vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, are in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which prohibits the body from excluding commissioners from deliberations and information. The Executive Office of the President is also a named defendant, as the office is staffing the commission and maintaining its records. “Since the Sept. 12 meeting, I have received no correspondence from the commission other than to acknowledge receipt of my information request” of October 17, Dunlap said in a prepared statement. “Clearly, there is information about this commission being created and discussed, but I have no access to that information and it has not been provided upon request.”

New Mexico: Judge: State workers can take paid leave to vote in most elections | Santa Fe New Mexican

State employees have a right to be paid when they take time off work to vote in an election, a state judge in Santa Fe ruled Wednesday in a case that could have consequences for workers in private businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. The decision resolves for now a lawsuit challenging a policy allowing New Mexico government workers to claim paid administrative leave while voting in most elections — but not local races. It was filed last month by two state employees just days before the first round of polling in Albuquerque’s mayoral race. The lawsuit argues that the workers effectively would be penalized for taking time from work to vote in the city election because they would lose either pay or vacation time. First Judicial District Court Judge David Thomson said the state government’s voting leave policy must extend to municipal elections.

New York: Online Voter Registration on Verge of Passage in New York City | Gotham Gazette

As New York State’s archaic election and voting laws continue to dampen voter turnout, the New York City Council is about to take a step to encourage participation. The City Council’s governmental operations committee will vote on Tuesday, November 14 to approve a bill allowing online voter registration for city residents, Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the committee, told Gotham Gazette on Thursday. The bill is then expected to pass the full City Council on Thursday. “With the historic low in turnout on Tuesday, online voter registration will be an essential tool to help more residents become voters,” Kallos said in a phone interview, referring to the 22 percent of registered voters who showed up to the polls to vote for mayor. Following the committee vote, the bill will head to the Council floor for a vote at its next stated meeting, he said.

Pennsylvania: York County still scrambling to resolve races impacted by voting machine error | York Dispatch

Sandra Thompson said she’s still in “wait-and-see” mode when in comes to any potential next steps for her candidacy for York County Court of Common Pleas judge. The local attorney and York NAACP chapter president unofficially finished on the outside looking in at three judge vacancies after the municipal election Tuesday, Nov. 7, but a technical oversight with the county voting machines has left her and other candidates unsure of the results. The oversight, discovered Monday afternoon, allowed a single voter to cast multiple votes for a single candidate in races where more than one candidate is elected.

Virginia: Vote count in close Stafford races fuels criticism, concern | Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

Questions are swirling around two close elections in the Fredericksburg region that appear destined for recounts. In a conference call Friday, House Democratic Caucus Executive Director Trent Armitage said that 55 military ballots delivered to the Stafford County registrar’s post office box on Tuesday—Election Day—went uncounted because they were not picked up until Wednesday. Democrats said they had no way of knowing which candidates the 55 votes went for, but the ballots arrived on time and came from active-duty military personnel. “We find that to be absolutely ridiculous,” Armitage said. Stafford Supervisor Laura Sellers, a Democrat, lost her Garrisonville District seat to Republican Mark Dudenhefer by just 15 votes. And Republican Bob Thomas holds an 83-vote lead over Democrat Joshua Cole in the race for the 28th District House of Delegates seat representing parts of Fredericksburg and Stafford.

Kenya: Opposition Leader: Election Could Tear Nation Apart | VoA News

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga told an audience in Washington Thursday that Kenyans are so upset over the presidential election that they are considering secession. Odinga, whose speech was broadcast on Kenyan television, told his audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that exclusion is the biggest problem in Kenyan politics today. He said unless that problem is addressed, it could tear the country apart. Odinga said all four of Kenya’s presidents since independence in 1963 have been from the Kikuyu or Kalenjin communities, despite the fact that the country is home to 44 recognized ethnic groups. President Uhuru Kenyatta is Kikuyu, and his deputy, who is expected to run in the next election, is Kalenjin. Odinga refused to compete in the recent presidential election, calling it a sham. Kenyatta won with 98 percent of the vote.

Liberia: Weah’s party raises tone after Liberia election delayed | AFP

Liberian presidential candidate George Weah’s party said on Wednesday that it will respect the decision to delay the country’s planned run-off vote, but called for the electoral process to be put back on course in a “timely” manner. The former international football star was supposed to face Vice President Joseph Boakai in the second round of presidential elections in the English-speaking West African country on Tuesday. But the runoff vote, which was meant to represent Liberia’s only democratic transfer of power in seven decades, was halted on Monday by the Supreme Court over an opposition party complaint of electoral fraud.

Russia: Putin says Olympic disqualifications are sign of U.S. meddling in Russia’s elections  | The Washington Post

Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on Thursday accused the United States of trying to interfere with Russia’s presidential campaign in retaliation for what the Kremlin dismisses as unfounded U.S. allegations that Moscow interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote. On the eve of a possible meeting with President Trump at an economic forum in Vietnam, Putin suggested that the United States is pressing for the disqualification of Russian athletes at the 2018 Winter Olympics as a way of creating discontent with his tenure as president. The International Olympic Committee recently banned six Russian cross-country skiers, including two 2014 Olympic medalists, from future competition in an ongoing doping investigation based on a damning 2016 report. With fewer than 100 days before the beginning of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, the IOC has still not made a decision about whether to let the country that hosted the 2014 Games participate.

United Kingdom: Elections watchdog pushes for action to help disabled voters | The Guardian

Some disabled people were denied their vote at June’s general election because they were turned away at the polling station or were unable to get inside, a report says. The Electoral Commission revealed that 72% of voters with disabilities believed the 8 June poll was well run, considerably fewer than the 80% recorded among those without disabilities. In a survey of more than 3,500 voters, the commission heard complaints from disabled people that voting literature was difficult to read or understand and that polling stations were hard to access. Some were unaware they could take someone with them to help them cast their ballot or could ask polling station staff to assist. The report recorded complaints that polling booths were too narrow for wheelchairs; noise and flickering lights caused anxiety for some disabled voters; staff did not offer tactile voting devices or did not know how to use them; and disabled people were unable to vote in secret.

Venezuela: US sanctions Venezuelan officials, alleging election fraud | Bloomberg

The Trump administration slapped sanctions on 10 Venezuelan officials Thursday on allegations of corruption and rights violations after President Nicolas Maduro’s candidates swept nationwide state governor elections last month. The individuals are associated with undermining electoral processes, media censorship, or corruption in Maduro’s administered food programs in Venezuela, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a statement. As a result of the Treasury’s action, all of the sanctioned individuals’ assets under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and all U.S. citizens are prohibited from dealing with them. Maduro’s allies claimed a landslide victory in October’s gubernatorial elections, while opposition candidates accused the government of election tampering and fraud. Since then, Venezuela’s legislative super body has moved to silence some of Maduro’s most strident critics — stripping the parliamentary immunity of Freddy Guevara, vice president of the opposition-led National Assembly — and approving legislation to clamp down on the media.

National: Election officials race to combat cyberattacks | The Hill

A year before the midterm elections, state election administrators are racing to plug vulnerabilities and update software ahead of an expected wave of cyberattacks from foreign actors. In interviews, state officials and elections experts said they are working to bolster internal security at both the state and local levels. At the same time, many said they hope Congress will act to update federal election law, in part to provide them with the resources they need to secure the democratic process. “No matter what steps we take today, cybersecurity and the cyber risk evolves and changes daily, and we just have to be vigilant and diligent going forward,” said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos (D). “Anybody that thinks, ‘today I’ve got it covered,’ and washes their hands of it is fooling themselves.”

National: Democratic member of Trump’s fraud commission sues panel | Maine Public

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap has filed a lawsuit against the Republican-led presidential voter fraud commission, claiming that he and other members of the panel are being shut out of the process. Dunlap, who is a Democrat, says GOP leaders on the commission are excluding him from discussions aimed at shaping the group’s agenda. Dunlap says he has heard nothing about the activities of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity for nearly two months. After his repeated attempts to contact the commission’s leadership, Dunlap says he decided to file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Dunlap says the Republican-led freeze-out is a clear violation of federal transparency laws. “I guess the real question for me is: Why I didn’t do it sooner,” he says.

National: CIA director ‘stands by’ belief Russia hacked DNC after meeting skeptic at Trump’s urging | Washington Examiner

CIA Director Mike Pompeo still believes Russia was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee, the agency said Tuesday amid reports that Pompeo met a skeptic at President Trump’s urging. William Binney, who worked more than three decades at the National Security Agency before stepping down as technical director in 2001, met with Pompeo on Oct. 24 to discuss a July report he co-authored suggesting DNC emails were leaked, rather than hacked. “I thought it was a pretty good hourlong meeting,” Binney told the Washington Examiner. “He said that the president said I should talk to you for facts.” Binney believes U.S. spy agencies “took a wild ass guess” in January when they blamed Russia for hacking the DNC and that “if they had any evidence, they would show it.” The report he co-authored says download speeds make it likely someone leaked DNC files after downloading them locally, rather than hacked them over the internet.

National: Where hackers haven’t directly influenced polls, they’ve undermined our faith in democracy | The Register

What a difference a year makes. This time last year, Twitter pooh-poohed any suggestion that Russian agents ran accounts on its platform for purposes of subverting the US election. A month ago, it was forced to eat its words, owning up to maybe just a few paltry 201. Last week, in the course of a Congressional grilling, that estimate ticked upward a magnitude to more than 2,700. Facebook, too, upped the ante, admitting that Russian-backed content may have reached not 10 million users, as previously claimed, but 126 million. Some of this, as analysis of the @TEN_GOP Twitter account suggests, was influential. But did it influence the election? That is the $64,000 question. Or, given how much Donald Trump appears to be profiting from his election as US president, perhaps the $64m question. Not to be outdone, the UK may, finally, be asking some of the same questions. A petition politely asking the UK government to “investigate covert foreign interference in the EU referendum” was cancelled earlier this year when the general election was called. Now it is back and has hit 10,000 signatures, an official (written) response is required. 100,000 signatures means the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.

National: Researchers devise an algorithm to combat gerrymandering | Phys.org

As the Supreme Court considers Gill v. Whitford, a challenge to the practice of partisan gerrymandering that may rewrite the rules used to draw congressional districts, a team of computer scientists has come up with a new algorithmic approach to redistricting that’s less political and more mathematical. In a paper posted on arXiv.org, the researchers describe a computerized method for dividing state populations evenly into compact polygonal districts that average six or fewer sides. The neatly arrayed districts are a stark contrast to gerrymandered districts, which are stretched and contorted to provide an overall congressional advantage for one political party or another. “What we’re trying to do is come up with a system that makes it hard to engineer districts for political gain,” said Philip Klein, a computer scientist at Brown University and a coauthor of the paper. “It doesn’t give the user much freedom in deciding how the lines are drawn, which we view as a good thing because that freedom can be abused.”

Editorials: How Democrats may use election wins to re-draw voter districts | Joshua A. Douglas/Reuters

Most political observers say that Tuesday’s elections were a referendum on Donald Trump or a signal of what will happen in 2020. “The results across the country represent nothing less than a stinging repudiation of Trump on the first anniversary of his election,” wrote The Washington Post, in a typical statement of the conventional wisdom. True, the Democrats did well, picking up state legislative seats from Georgia to New Hampshire, including a massive swing of at least 15 seats in Virginia, as well as the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. But politics can change quickly: Democrats lost the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia in 2009 and took heavy losses in the 2010 congressional midterms, yet Barack Obama won reelection in 2012. Yesterday’s wins may portend Democratic gains in Congress in 2018. But maybe they won’t. The true implication of the 2017 elections is what they mean for redistricting and electoral reforms in the years to come.

Editorials: US campaign finance laws resemble legalized bribery. We must reform them | Russ Feingold/The Guardian

When powerful lobbyists work hard over the coming weeks to convince Republican lawmakers to change their tax package to please them, it would probably be of interest to know exactly how much campaign cash these so-called stakeholders and their industries have given or spent in recent years for the members of Congress who are writing tax laws. But because federal disclosure laws need to be updated, it’s probably too difficult to ever really know the complete answer. An opaque system of legalized bribery and legalized extortion is not an outrageous way to characterize the state of our nation’s federal campaign finance laws. Over the past few years, real campaign finance reform has gone the way of voting rights and gun control. There is no longer a bipartisan starting point where discussion and negotiation could begin. The Republican party has caved in to its right flank and put party interests ahead of the country’s.

Editorials: Voting Rights Could Be the Biggest Winner in Tuesday’s Democratic Victories | Ari Berman/Mother Jones

Brianna Ross of Richmond, Virginia, lost her right to vote at 19 when she received a felony conviction for stealing diapers for her newborn son. Now 53, she voted for the first time in her life in Virginia’s statewide elections yesterday. “I remember way back in 1993, when the judge told me, ‘You can’t ever vote,’” she told Sam Levine of the Huffington Post. “I didn’t know what that meant, but it made me feel empty, it made me feel unimportant. But I voted today.” …  Virginia was one of four states that blocked ex-felons from voting—disenfranchising 1 in 5 black Virginians—until Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to 168,000 ex-felons over the past year and a half. Ross was among them. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie sharply criticized McAuliffe and his lieutenant governor, Ralph Northam, for this policy. But Northam’s victory in the governor’s race on Tuesday means that Virginia will continue to restore voting rights to ex-offenders. It’s just one way that Democratic victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington yesterday could lead to an expansion of access to the ballot.

Arizona: Did Maricopa County elections boss Adrian Fontes flub voting rule? | Arizona Republic

Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a week after apologizing for insulting a voter, flubbed an election place rule Tuesday as he was trying to promote Election Day. Fontes, a lawyer and Democrat who took office this year following voting-day problems with his predecessor, recorded a Facebook Live video promoting Election Day within 75 feet of the Surprise City Hall ballot center. Arizona law restricts photography and video recording within that area at voting locations. Fontes downplayed the apparent violation, and a Republican election law expert said no harm was done. Voting otherwise appeared to be going smoothly at ballot centers across the Valley for school-district and city bond and override measures, a year after former Recorder Helen Purcell came under fire for long lines at too few polling locations. And this year’s voter participation seemed on track to exceed previous low-profile elections. 

Georgia: Paper Ballot Pilot Going Smoothly in Rockdale County | APN

After years of the State of Georgia operating with an unverifiable and fundamentally flawed E-voting system, a pilot program to test a new E-voting system with a voter-verifiable paper trail, is going smoothly and to rave reviews by voters in Rockdale County. Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s Office invited Rockdale County to participate in the pilot, as Kemp’s office is considering recommendations for implementing a new statewide system. The pilot is taking place in two precincts in Olde Towne in Rockdale County, and within the City limits of Conyers, for the General and Special Election on today, November 07, 2017.  The pilot lasted for all of early voting and continues today, Election Day. Computer scientists have advocated for this type of system in Georgia since 2002, when then-Secretary of State Cathy Cox and the Georgia Legislature first installed the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines, which are without a paper trail to independently verify the voters’ intents.

Maryland: AG’s office argues against Supreme Court review of 6th District gerrymandering claim | Frederick News-Post

Maryland’s attorney general is asking the Supreme Court to reject the appeal of 6th District Republicans challenging the state’s congressional district map. In a filing last week, Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) asked the Supreme Court to affirm a U.S. District Court decision not to impose a preliminary injunction that would have required a new statewide map before the 2018 election. A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court in Baltimore ruled in August that the need for the “extraordinary remedy” of a preliminary injunction had not yet been proved by the plaintiffs. The judges also issued a “stay” in the case, postponing further filings until the Supreme Court’s decision on a different gerrymandering case from Wisconsin.

Nevada: Democrats ask court to halt recall efforts of Nevada senators | Las Vegas Review-Journal

As Republican-backed recalls targeting a trio of Nevada state senators near the end of the signature-gathering period, Democrats are asking a federal court to halt the efforts before any special elections can be held. And while Democrats take the recall challenge to court, Republicans have accused anti-recall petitioners of using dirty tactics. Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic Party attorney who served as general counsel to former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and Bradley Schrager, former counsel for the Nevada Democratic Party, filed a request for a preliminary injunction in federal court in Las Vegas on Monday night asking the judge to stop the efforts to to oust state Sens. Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson, Patricia Farley, I-Las Vegas, and Nicole Cannizzarro, D-Las Vegas. The motion asked the court to hold an expedited hearing before Nov. 30.

New York: As New York Votes, a Push to Allow 17-Year-Olds the Ballot Next | Gotham Gazette

On the eve of Election Day 2017, a state Assembly member from Brooklyn held a press conference focused on voter engagement and turnout, but it wasn’t in support of his own candidacy — he’s not up for reelection until next year — or anyone else’s. Instead, Assemblymember Robert Carroll was talking about his push to allow 17-year-olds to vote. In the state capital of Albany, Carroll recently introduced a bill, the Young Voter Act, that would allow 17-year-olds to cast ballots in state and local elections. The voting age is currently 18 for national elections and within New York. The legislation would also require that all students in public high schools receive at least eight hours of formal civics education, and that schools provide voter registration forms to students when they turn 17.

North Carolina: Senate gears up on judicial redistricting | WRAL

Experts raised questions Wednesday about the constitutionality not only of proposed new judicial districts in North Carolina, but the state’s current ones as well. Years of inattention, preceded by decades of political tinkering, left the districts North Carolina uses to elect judges with unbalanced populations in faster-growing urban areas. That opens them to constitutional attack, a pair of attorneys with a long history in state government told state senators gathered to discuss controversial judicial reforms. The state addressed this issue years ago in Wake County, but similar issues linger in Mecklenburg County and, potentially, in other areas, according to Michael Crowell, the former executive director of North Carolina’s Commission for the Future of Justice and the Courts, and Gerry Cohen, an attorney who worked with the legislature for more than 30 years.

Pennsylvania: Voting machine problems: What are York County’s options? | York Daily Record

The York County voting machine programming error that allowed voters to vote twice in some races for the same candidate on Tuesday — once on the Republican ballot and once on the Democratic ballot — has left some office seekers in limbo. The county election board is to meet next week on that matter, and at this time it’s not clear what options the county may have to resolve the issue. The problem was limited to certain races where candidates cross-filed and appeared on both ballots, including the four-candidate judicial race for the York County Court of Common Pleas. The error did not affect the race for York mayor. Although the county is looking to the Pennsylvania Department of State for legal guidance, county spokesman Mark Walters said Wednesday that the problem is the county’s, and the county’s alone. The Department of State, which oversees state level elections, “doesn’t have a lot of authority over county elections,” a state department spokesman said. It is each county’s responsibility to purchase, program and test voting machines.

Virginia: Potential chaos ahead as control of Virginia House of Delegates hangs in balance | The Washington Post

Whether Virginia’s deep-red House of Delegates turns blue, or an awkward purple, comes down to a few dozen votes and potential handshake deals. Republicans, who held 66 of 100 seats in the lower house of the state legislature, saw their majority melt away Tuesday in a Democratic wave that felled at least 12 GOP incumbents and flipped three open seats to the Democrats — an unprecedented shift. With four races still too close to call, both parties are bracing for the messiest of all outcomes: a dead-even 50-50 split that requires power-sharing and a potentially ugly fight for the speakership. That would be triggered if Democrats pick up one of the four races that are close enough for a state-funded recount. Republicans have leads difficult to overcome in three of them, including Del. Timothy D. Hugo (R-Fairfax), who narrowly pulled ahead of his challenger after unofficial results were tallied. Del. David Yancey (R-Newport News) is just 12 votes ahead of Democratic challenger Shelly Simonds, with provisional ballots still being counted through Monday.

Virginia: DHS pick worried about voting machine security during Virginia election | The Hill

President Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Wednesday that she pressed her polling place on voting machine security when she voted in Virginia this week. Kirstjen Nielsen, the nominee for Homeland Security secretary, made the comments during her confirmation hearing Wednesday morning when asked about the department’s role in protecting election infrastructure from cyberattacks. “When I went to vote this week in the Virginia election, I was quite concerned with the scanning machine and started asking a variety of questions on what the security was on the scanning machine for the ballot. I think we all have to be very aware and work with the state and locals,” Nielsen said.