Somalia: Electoral commission sets presidential election for Feb. 8 | Middle East Online

Somalia will hold its presidential election on February 8, its electoral commission said Wednesday, after months of delays in a tortuous process for the conflict-torn country. Candidates will have until January 29 to register, the commission said in a statement. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a 61-year-old former academic and activist from the Hawiye clan, is seeking re-election. The vote will come six months after it was originally set for August, following delays in the election of lawmakers because of clan disputes, fraud accusations and organisational challenges.

National: Donald Trump’s indefensible claims of rampant voter fraud are now White House policy | The Washington Post

Technically, the proper way to describe claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election is to state that there’s no evidence that it happened. Shortly after the election, we tallied up reports of in-person voter fraud that occurred last year and found a grand total of four examples. There is no evidence that there was fraud at any significant scale at all. Saying this, that there’s no evidence, is a hedge. We say it just in case somehow there emerges evidence that, indeed, hundreds of people registered to vote illegally and went to cast ballots. If we say it didn’t happen and then some evidence emerges, we are stuck. So we say “there’s no evidence” instead of “it didn’t happen.” That’s on the scale of hundreds of votes. On the scale of millions of alleged fraudulent votes, though? It didn’t happen. There’s not only no evidence that it did, it defies logic and it defies statistical analysis to insist that millions of votes were cast illegally in the 2016 election.

National: Sean Spicer just said Trump believes millions voted illegally. Here’s the problem: No one can tell him otherwise. | The Washington Post

As you’ve heard, in a meeting with congressional leaders, President Trump privately repeated the claim that millions voted illegally in the presidential election, and if you discount those votes, Trump actually won the popular vote. In his latest rendition of this tale, which he had previously recited just after the election, Trump claimed that as many as three to five million people voted illegally. Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was grilled on this news, and disconcertingly, Spicer confirmed that Trump really believes this to be the case. That’s bad enough. But this quote from Spicer may be even more worrisome:

“I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens. There’s other studies that have been presented to him. It’s a belief he maintains.”

Post fact checker Michelle Ye Hee Lee posted a piece Tuesday taking apart Spicer’s assertion. There are no studies that show what Spicer claims. But what’s really problematic here is that there are no indications that any of Trump’s advisers have been able to talk him out of this belief, presuming they even tried, which is not clear, either. After all, Spicer himself said that Trump gathered his conclusion from actual data — the “studies that have been presented to him.” Did any of his advisers try to “present him” with the contrary evidence, which is far more conclusive and persuasive? If they did, why did Trump not find this convincing? If they did not, why didn’t they? Whichever of these is the case, neither is particularly reassuring.

National: Senate committee moving forward with Russia hacking probe | The Hill

The Senate Intelligence Committee is moving forward with its probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top members on the committee, made the announcement after the intelligence panel held its weekly closed-door briefing on Tuesday. “The Committee today agreed to move forward, under terms of reference proposed by Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Warner, with its inquiry into Russian efforts directed against the 2016 US elections and related efforts abroad,” read a joint statement from the pair. The committee “hopes to expeditiously conduct its review and report its findings,” the two lawmakers added.

National: Election Assistance Commission seeks clarity on DHS election role | FCW

The federal commission that helps state governments develop voting systems and administer elections plans to sit down with officials from the Department of Homeland Security in the coming days to get a clearer understanding of the implications of that agency’s “critical infrastructure” designation of state voting systems. “We still don’t know what it means,” Thomas Hicks, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission told FCW after his presentation at a biometric technology security conference in Arlington, Va., on Jan 24. The EAC, Hicks said, plans to meet with DHS officials on Feb. 2 to talk specifics about the agency’s early January designation of voting systems as critical infrastructure. The systems were designated as a subsector the of the existing Government Facilities critical infrastructure sector, one of DHS 15 sectors that also cover the energy, communications and chemical sectors. “We’re hoping to have a forum to ask DHS and the Trump administration what the designation means and does it go forward” under the new administration, Hicks said.

Editorials: If 3-5 Million Illegal Votes Were Cast, We Must Have a Precinct by Precinct Recount or a New Election | Richard Greene/The Huffington Post

On January 17 I put forth “The Argument for Donald Trump’s Illegitimacy”. I should have simply waited a few more days. Donald Trump just made an even stronger argument himself and the only thing America can now do to resolve this issue is to either conduct a thorough, precinct by precinct recount or to accept The President at his word, declare the results to be illegitimate and call for a new election. On December 4, 2016, the country of Austria did exactly that. They called for and conducted a whole new election because of relatively minor vote counting issues in some of their precincts, significantly less of an issue that we now have in The United States. But in his press conference Sean Spicer said that these 3 – 5 million illegal votes were irrelevant because “Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes”. But did he? How in the world can we be certain who these “illegal voters” voted for?

Voting Blogs: It’s Time to Investigate ‘Voter Fraud’ | Brennan Center for Justice

The scary part of the still-developing “voter fraud” story isn’t that President Donald Trump evidently buys into a conspiracy theory that supports both his worldview and his ego. The scary part is that a majority of his fellow Republicans, and a significant number of Democrats, also evidently buy into the myth. Those peddling the fiction that 3-5 million people illegally voted in the 2016 election will use the charge to justify additional voter restriction efforts across the country in the coming years. And those who don’t buy into the myth will be faced with the practical dilemma of proving a negative without the sort of sweeping national investigation that would put the allegation to rest at last. So long as the White House is peddling this nonsense, and so long as it can be used for partisan purposes, the story is here to stay, further poisoning what already is a poisoned political atmosphere.

Alabama: Early voting not on Alabama Secretary of State’s agenda | Dothan Eagle

Secretary of State John Merrill said during a Tuesday visit to Dothan that he does not plan to push for an early voting period in Alabama because he does not believe early voting increases voter turnout. “We have early voting. It is called absentee voting,” Merrill said while speaking to the Dothan-Houston County Rotary Club. Merrill also said he would not oppose “excuse free” absentee voting. “I am not aware of a single instance where early voting has increased voter turnout. It just increases costs. You have to pay extra money for people to work the polls and we want to be careful with your money,” Merrill said.

Kansas: ACLU seeks copy of Kobach’s proposed changes to U.S. election law | Lawrence Journal World

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court to force Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to turn over proposed changes to the nation’s voter registration law that the conservative Republican was photographed bringing to a meeting in November with Donald Trump. That draft document — which is partially obscured by Kobach’s left arm and hand in the photograph taken by The Associated Press — is being sought as part of the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging Kansas’ restrictive voter registration law. The ALCU filed its request for the proposed amendments late Monday.

Kansas: Governor sets April 11 election to fill Pompeo’s seat | Associated Press

Gov. Sam Brownback called a special election for April 11 to fill the south-central Kansas congressional seat previously held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, with an already crowded field that includes Pompeo’s predecessor, the state treasurer and a former state treasurer. Brownback signed the necessary document Tuesday — called a writ of election — a day after the U.S. Senate confirmed Pompeo’s appointment by President Donald Trump. It will be the state’s first special congressional election since 1950. Democrats and Republicans in the 17-county district that includes Wichita must have special conventions by Feb. 18 to pick their nominees. For the election, Brownback picked the first Tuesday allowed under a 6-day-old state law aimed at giving military personnel an additional month to receive and return their ballots. “The people of the 4th District needed a representative as soon as possible,” Brownback told reporters. “You’re looking at a very active Congress.”

Michigan: State chief: Nothing ‘fraudulent’ in Detroit election | The Detroit News

An ongoing but largely completed state audit of the Nov. 8 presidential election in Detroit has yet to produce any evidence of fraud, Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Chris Thomas said Tuesday. Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office launched the audit in mid-December after voting irregularities were discovered during a partial recount of the election, including mismatches between ballot boxes and recorded vote totals in nearly 60 percent of the city’s precincts. While state auditors continue to review data in Lansing, they have finished on-the-ground work in Detroit. A report is expected in early February. “We essentially are finding so far — it’s certainly not final — but we’ve not run into anything we’d call fraudulent,” Thomas said. “We’ve seen a lot of performance issues, and that’s primarily what we’ve run into.”

Texas: Did Texas Lawmakers Deliberately Pass a Racist Voter ID Law? | San Antonio Current

This week the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Texas’ appeal to save its embattled voter ID law, which lower courts have said carries an “impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African Americans” and blocked from going into effect last year. That means the battle over voter ID in Texas now heads back to a federal court in Corpus Christi, where lawyers for the state, civil rights groups, and the U.S. Department of Justice will argue whether or not Texas lawmakers knew they were passing a racist law. On that point (lawmakers’ so-called “legislative intent”), U.S. District Judge Nelva Ramos was surprisingly blunt in her October 2014 ruling following a trial over the law, known as SB 14. The bill, which established strict requirements for what ID you must have to vote in Texas, included things like a driver’s license or a passport or a concealed handgun license but it left out things like student IDs.

Utah: Some ‘spoiled’ ballots would be counted under proposal | Deseret News

A Utah lawmaker wants to make sure voters have a chance to recast their mail-in ballots in the event of common mistakes. Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, said mail-in ballots can be “spoiled” by a variety of errors, including mismatched signatures or one spouse signing the other’s ballot. “In Salt Lake County, there were 16,683 ballots that were not counted,” said Eliason, the sponsor of HB12. Statewide, tens of thousands of ballots were rejected in November, he said, possibly changing the outcomes in close races. “This bill seeks to make sure that those voters who had their ballots rejected are given an opportunity to, No. 1, be told, ‘You’re ballot was not counted,’ and two, if there’s still time, to ‘come and fix the problem,'” Eliason said.

Europe: Russia is targeting French, Dutch and German elections with fake news, EU task force warns | The Telegraph

Russia is seeking to influence the outcome of several key elections in European countries this year with fake news, a special task force set up by the European Union has warned. The EU is reportedly allocating more funds to its East StratCom task force to counter the disinformation, amid fears Russia will target elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands. “There is an enormous, far-reaching, at least partly organized, disinformation campaign against the EU, its politicians and its principles,” a source close to the task force told Germany’s Spiegel magazine. It is “highly likely” Russia will try to influence European elections “as it did in the US”, the source said.

Germany: Social democrat leader pulls out of Merkel challenge | Financial Times

Sigmar Gabriel, the German social democrat leader, has turned down the chance to run against Angela Merkel in this year’s parliamentary election, in a shock decision that throws his party into confusion and adds to the uncertainty overshadowing European politics Mr Gabriel, who is also Ms Merkel’s deputy chancellor, is standing aside in favour of former European Parliament chief Martin Schulz, who will also take Mr Gabriel’s post as SPD chairman. Mr Gabriel revealed his surprise decision on Wednesday in an exclusive interview with the weekly magazine Stern, which was widely followed by German media and confirmed to the Financial Times by two senior SPD representatives.

Papua New Guinea: Pressure grows over PNG election preparations | Radio New Zealand

Papua New Guinea’s Electoral Commission is under pressure from opposition MPs over preparation for general elections. PNG is due for its five-yearly general elections in mid-2017, with the two-week polling period expected to take place around mid to late June. But late changes to election rules and PNG’s error-ridden common roll have sparked concern, as Johnny Blades reports. The Electoral Commissioner admits that the roll he inherited, which was used in the 2012 general elections, was inflated. Patilius Gamato says Australia’s Electoral Commission has helped cleanse the roll of about 109-thousand so-called “ghost names” out of a total of more than 4 million. He hopes to print the final roll by the end of March. An intending candidate in Hela province, George Tagobe, says getting the roll right is important in his province, given the potential for unrest.

Nepal: House endorses two bills on voters’ list, Election Commission | The Himalayan

The Parliament on Wednesday endorsed the Voters’ List Bill and the Election Commission Bill unanimously. With the endorsement, the House prepared a legal foundation to hold elections as per the new Constitution. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs had tabled proposals to endorse the bills. The State Affairs Committee of the Parliament had forwarded the draft laws to the full House on Monday.

National: Without evidence, Trump tells lawmakers 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote | The Washington Post

Days after being sworn in, President Trump insisted to congressional leaders invited to a reception at the White House that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes, according to people familiar with the meeting. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, even while he clinched the presidency with an electoral college victory. Two people familiar with the meeting said Trump spent about 10 minutes at the start of the bipartisan gathering rehashing the campaign. He also told them that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote. The discussion about Trump’s election victory and his claim that he would have won the popular vote was confirmed by a third person familiar with the meeting.

National: Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting With Lawmakers | The New York Times

President Trump used his first official meeting with congressional leaders on Monday to falsely claim that millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority, a return to his obsession with the election’s results even as he seeks support for his legislative agenda. The claim, which he has made before on Twitter, has been judged untrue by numerous fact-checkers. The new president’s willingness to bring it up at a White House reception in the State Dining Room is an indication that he continues to dwell on the implications of his popular vote loss even after assuming power. Mr. Trump appears to remain concerned that the public will view his victory — and his entire presidency — as illegitimate if he does not repeatedly challenge the idea that Americans were deeply divided about sending him to the White House to succeed President Barack Obama. Mr. Trump received 304 electoral votes to capture the White House, but he fell almost three million votes short of Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. That reality appears to have bothered him since Election Day, prompting him to repeatedly complain that adversaries were trying to undermine him. Moving into the White House appears not to have tempered that anxiety. Several people familiar with the closed-door meeting Monday night, who asked to remain anonymous in discussing a private conversation, said Mr. Trump used the opportunity to brag about his victory.

National: The new president can stop all executive investigations. Will he halt ones about himself? | The Guardian

President Donald Trump takes office in circumstances unlike any in US history. He assumes executive authority, and his nuclear launch codes are being activated at a time when there is reported to be a broad, multi-agency investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and officials on his campaign. US intelligence agencies have already concluded that Vladimir Putin interfered in the presidential election in Trump’s favour. The night before his inauguration, the New York Times quoted current and former senior US officials as saying that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of their inquiries. On Wednesday, the McClatchy news agency reported that the FBI and five other agencies had been collaborating for months in an investigation into the extent of Russian attempts to skew the election. The report said that investigators were examining how money may have been transferred by the Kremlin in its covert bid to help Trump win. One possibility was that a system used to pay Russian-American pensioners was used to pay email hackers in the US. Once Trump takes the reins of power, however, he has the authority to stop all executive branch investigations.

Voting Blogs: Kansas 0-3 in Voter ID Lawsuits | State of Elections

Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, narrowly avoided contempt charges in September 2016 which would have been the cherry on top for those in opposition to Kansas’s proof-of-citizenship requirement. The requirement, which requires anyone registering to vote in Kansas provide proof of citizenship via one of thirteen documents, was enacted under the Secure and Fair Elections Act of 2011, and was enforced beginning in 2013. The law became the center of a national controversy in January 2016, when Brian Newby, executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, granted Kansas, Georgia, and Alabama the ability to alter the federal registration form to satisfy the state identification requirements (Georgia and Alabama have passed similar proof-of-citizenship requirements but have not yet enforced them).

Mississippi: Bills would ease early voting and online voter registration | Associated Press

Proposals to expand access to early voting and to create online registration for first-time voters are advancing at the Mississippi Capitol. So is a plan that could eventually simplify the process of restoring voting rights for people who served time for nonviolent felonies. All three bills passed the House Elections Committee on Monday and move to the full House for more debate. House Bill 228 would allow no-excuses in-person early voting, starting 14 days before an election. Current law only lets people vote early if they will be out of town Election Day.

Montana: Bill for ‘permanent’ absentee ballot list goes to committee | Billings Gazette

A Yellowstone County-led bill to make permanent the absentee voter roster has been referred to a state House committee. Bret Rutherford, the county’s election administrator, said on Monday that the proposed legislation, House Bill 287, was referred to the House’s State Administration Committee last Friday. A hearing date has not been set. Rutherford, who wrote the proposed legislation, said he intends to testify for the bill. “Enough is enough. Let’s get this thing done,” he said.

New Mexico: Legislature mulls move to open primaries | Associated Press

New Mexico lawmakers will consider electoral reforms to make it easier for independents to vote in primary elections and to run for state office, amid a steady shift away from major party registration in the state. Republican and Democratic lawmakers filed proposed legislation and constitutional changes on Monday that would upend New Mexico’s closed primary system that excludes independent voters from major party primaries. One new bill would allow unaffiliated voters to participate in primary elections for a major party of their choice. The two bill sponsors — Republican Rep. Jim Dines of Albuquerque and Democratic Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard of Los Alamos — said younger voters in particular are being shut out of the electoral process because they do not identify closely with major parties. “For me, the issue is access,” Garcia Richard said. “This is a way, I believe, of taking down barriers to access to the ballot.”

South Dakota: Lawmakers vote to gut ethics and campaign finance law, call on voters to ‘give us a chance’ | Argus Leader

The committee room felt like a courtroom Monday as lawmakers got an opportunity to cross-examine and strike back at supporters of an ethics law that campaigned on a message that South Dakota legislators are corrupt. In a joint meeting of the Senate and House State Affairs Committees lawmakers for more than two hours considered a bill that would repeal the extensive ethics and campaign finance law narrowly approved by South Dakota voters as Initiated Measure 22. Republican lawmakers grilled supporters of the law and asked them to substantiate claims set forth in their campaign. The House committee approved the repeal on a 10-3 vote then asked that South Dakota voters give them a chance to win back their trust.

Texas: Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Texas on Voter ID Case | The New York Times

The Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal from Texas officials seeking to restore the state’s strict voter ID law. As is the court’s custom, its brief order in the case, Abbott v. Veasey, No. 16-393, gave no reasons for turning down the appeal. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued an unusual statement explaining that the Supreme Court remains free to consider the case after further proceedings in the lower courts. The Texas law, enacted in 2011, requires voters seeking to cast their ballots at the polls to present photo identification, like a Texas driver’s or gun license, a military ID or a passport. Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the law is racially discriminatory. The Texas law was at first blocked under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which required some states and localities with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before changing voting procedures. After the Supreme Court effectively struck down Section 5 in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, an Alabama case, Texas officials announced that they would start enforcing the ID law.

Editorials: Time to revamp Virginia redistricting | The Virginian-Pilot

Much like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a mountainside, advocates for redistricting reform will spend today lobbying lawmakers in Richmond to support changes to the way that all-important process is conducted. Perhaps, this time, they’ll have better results than the mythological figure of Greek lore. The nonpartisan One Virginia 2021 group wants the General Assembly to amend the state constitution to clarify the legal obligations for representative districts. They are also seeking serious consideration of bills that would explore alternatives to the rigged process of drawing those lines. Theirs is a straightforward case to make: Fair and equitable representation in the General Assembly and in Congress demands nonpartisan, independent redistricting based on federal guidelines and common-sense parameters.

Europe: Elections Could Undermine The Euro And German Automakers | Forbes

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the European Union is really a vehicle for Germany, but this advantage might run off a cliff if elections this year favor Brexit-style politicians who could destroy the euro and severely damage the German auto industry, at least in the short-term. In an interview with The Times of London before the inauguration, Trump dismissed the E.U. as a “vehicle for Germany.” German industry in general and the automotive industry in particular benefited hugely from the adoption of the euro single currency in 2002. Before the euro, Germany’s auto industry was forced to price its products in ever stronger deutschmarks. But the adoption of the euro gave it a huge competitive boost as the currency is weakened by much less efficient competitors within the eurozone. This would come to an end if the euro currency system collapsed.

Canada: Report suggests big changes for Vancouver’s local elections | The Globe and Mail

Vancouver should move to a proportional-representation system for its civic elections, allow immigrants who aren’t yet citizens to vote and place tighter controls on campaign finance, including asking councillors to excuse themselves from decisions that involve their donors, says an independent report commissioned by the city. The report, which will be considered by council on Tuesday, proposes widespread changes to local elections, which have suffered from poor turnout in recent years as the amount of money spent by campaigns skyrocketed. Politicians in the city have also faced increasing scrutiny over council approvals of projects whose developers are among the largest donors to the city’s political parties. However, the city could not implement any of those changes without the support of the provincial government, which has previously been reluctant to tighten campaign-finance rules, either at the local or provincial levels.

France: With French Socialists in Crisis, Manuel Valls and Benoît Hamon Head to Runoff | The New York Times

A furious Jean-Marc Ducourtioux shouted with his fellow union members as they banged on the plexiglass window of a meeting hall in small-town France. Inside was Manuel Valls, the former Socialist prime minister, who was campaigning for president in this bastion of the French left. A member of France’s oldest trade union, Mr. Ducourtioux, 52, was a stalwart Socialist Party voter who once might have been inside, cheering. But no longer. His hands callused by three decades as a metalworker, Mr. Ducourtioux is angry that the Socialist government has failed to stop French automakers from moving factories outside the country, as manufacturing declines in this decaying region. He said he was at risk of losing his job at an automotive subcontractor. “Mr. Valls knew the situation here,” Mr. Ducourtioux said. “He did nothing.” France’s presidential election this year is being closely watched as a barometer of European public disaffection, and no party is more visibly out of favor than the governing Socialists. President François Hollande, a Socialist, is so deeply unpopular that he is not running for re-election.