Yearly Archives: 2017

A fight over Utah election law could roil the first few weeks of the 2017 Utah Legislature. Speculation is swirling that Rep. Chris Stewart could be named Secretary of the Air Force in the Donald Trump administration. If that comes to pass, Stewart would have to resign his seat in Congress, leaving a vacancy. Here’s where that becomes a problem. Utah has no procedure for filling a vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. State law only says in the case of a vacancy in that body, “When a vacancy occurs for any reason in the office of a representative in Congress, the governor shall issue a proclamation calling an election to fill the vacancy.” That’s it. The law does not specify how soon he has to call the election, and how that election will be conducted. … Here’s how this could become a massive headache.

Virginia: Man admits trying to register fake voters for Virginia progressive group | The Washington Post

While working for the group New Virginia Majority, Vafalay Massaquoi invented voters and filed false applications with election officials. Massaquoi, a 30-year-old former Alexandria resident, pleaded guilty Thursday to forging a public record and election fraud. He was sentenced to 500 hours of community service, along with the 90 days he has spent in jail, and a suspended sentence of five years in prison, pending good behavior. Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter noted in a statement that because Massaquoi simply made up the names of voters, the chance that any fraudulent ballots would actually have been cast was extremely low.

Bulgaria: Biggest Party Tables Draft Electoral Code | Novinite

The party of outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has submitted the draft of a new Electoral Code that provides for a switch of Bulgaria’s voting system. The text has been created by GERB lawmakers Danail Kirilov and Dimitar Lazarov. It constitutes yet another attempt of the main ruling party – the senior partner in the outgoing coalition government – to pass a change of the electoral system, from one of proportional representation to majority voting. On Wednesday, lawmakers postponed the review of a bill that would have introduced first-past-the-post voting. Under the proposals, 240 single-seat constituencies will be created (Bulgaria’s legislature has 240 seats), all of them being in Bulgaria.

Russia: Kremlin Spokesman: U.S. Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking ‘Ridiculous’ | NBC

A Kremlin spokesman is blasting U.S. intelligence reports claiming Russia is behind the election hacking as “ridiculous” and branding an unverified memo connecting Donald Trump with Moscow as “pulp fiction.” In a sit-down interview Thursday with NBC News, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov forcefully denied Russia had tried to influence the presidential election in an effort to help Trump win the White House. The report “is a ridiculous thing, nothing else … it does not contain any proofs, any evidence,” Peskov said.

United Kingdom: Northern Ireland election is ‘very likely’, Minister says | Irish Times

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan has accepted that an Assembly election in Northern Ireland is now “very likely”, following a series of meetings in Stormont on Thursday. The Stormont Assembly effectively collapsed on Monday after Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister in protest at DUP first minister Arlene Foster’s refusal to step aside temporarily while an inquiry took place into the “cash for ash” renewable heat incentive scheme. The joint terms of the office meant that DUP leader Arlene Foster also ceased to act as First Minister following Mr McGuiness’s resignation.

National: New Election Cyberprotections Cause Confusion and Concern | Governing

Amid ongoing investigations into how Russia may have used cyberhacking to influence the 2016 presidential election, the Obama administration added the nation’s elections systems to the list of “critical infrastructure.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision, which was announced last Friday, is meant to ensure that elections systems — which include voting machines, storage facilities and voter registration databases — are a high priority for federal cybersecurity assistance and protections. The need for heightened safeguards became clear last year when the FBI found that hackers infiltrated voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois. In both cases, state officials later verified that voter information had not been altered. But in the case of Illinois, a hacker was able to steal personal information from nearly 90,000 voters. The decision to add elections systems to the list has caused confusion and concern among the state and local officials who handle U.S. elections.

National: Donald Trump Concedes Russia’s Interference in Election | The New York Times

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday conceded for the first time that Russia had carried out cyberattacks against the two major political parties during the presidential election, but he angrily rejected unsubstantiated reports that Moscow had gathered compromising personal and financial information about him that could be used for extortion. In a chaotic news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan nine days before he is to be sworn in as the nation’s 45th president, Mr. Trump compared United States intelligence officials to Nazis, sidestepped repeated questions about whether he or anyone in his presidential campaign had had contact with Russia during the campaign, and lashed out at the news media and political opponents, arguing that they were out to get him. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” Mr. Trump said, his first comments accepting the conclusions of United States intelligence officials that Moscow had interfered in the election to help him win. But the president-elect expressed little outrage about that breach and seemed to cast doubt on Russia’s role moments after acknowledging it, asserting that “it could have been others also.”

National: Eric Holder to Lead Democrats’ Attack on Republican Gerrymandering | The New York Times

As he prepared last week to deliver his farewell address, President Obama convened three Democratic leaders in the White House for a strategy session on the future of their party. The quiet huddle included Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the top Democrats in Congress, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia. One topic of urgent concern, according to people briefed on the meeting: how to break the Republican Party’s iron grip on the congressional map. Thwarted for much of his term by a confrontational Republican Congress, and criticized by his fellow Democrats for not devoting sufficient attention to their down-ballot candidates, Mr. Obama has decided to make the byzantine process of legislative redistricting a central political priority in his first years after the presidency.

National: ‘Soft Money’ Challenge Heads to Supreme Court | Bloomberg

The Supreme Court has been asked formally to review a challenge to restrictions on “soft money” contributions to political parties—the last remaining major element of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law passed in 2002. The filing of a “jurisdictional statement” appealing to the high court had been expected since a lower court ruling last fall, which rejected the soft money challenge launched by the Republican Party of Louisiana. The party committee sued the Federal Election Commission, the agency that enforces restrictions on campaign money to national, state and local parties. The McCain-Feingold law—formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA—requires party committees to use FEC-regulated “hard money” for activities affecting federal elections. Hard money includes only limited contributions and no corporate or union money for these activities.

Editorials: How to Protect U.S. Elections From Russian Cyber Hacks | Phil Keisling/Fortune

From 1991 to 1999, my job as Oregon’s secretary of state gave me responsibility for working with local government officials to protect and ensure the integrity of the state’s election system. It’s of paramount importance in a functioning democracy that votes—as our citizens cast them—are collected and counted fully and accurately. Recent revelations about Russian efforts to affect the 2016 presidential election have unsettled citizens and election officials alike. To date, there’s no credible evidence that actual votes were tampered with or miscounted due to a cyber attack. But there’s growing unease about the potential vulnerability of the nation’s disparate election systems—operated by 50 states and thousands of local governments—to sophisticated hacks that could threaten the integrity of our voting systems. It’s impossible to guarantee with 100% certainty that election fraud won’t be attempted, or actually happen. But the collective goal must be to make such criminal activity—and that’s exactly what it is—exceedingly rare, easily detectable, and of minimal (or no) material consequence. … Mail-based voting systems today are far less risky than many polling place elections, precisely because they distribute ballots (and electoral risk) in such a de-centralized way. To have any semblance of success, an organized fraud effort must involve hundreds—if not thousands—of separate acts. All would be individual felonies, and all must go undetected to have any chance of success.

Illinois: DuPage Looking To Merge Election Commission With County Clerk | CBS Chicago

DuPage County officials said they are fine-tuning a plan to merge their election commission with the county clerk’s office. County clerks manage election operations in Lake and Will counties, and the Cook County suburbs, as well as many other counties in Illinois, but DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin said his merger proposal would preserve bipartisan oversight. “DuPage Election Commission is managed and governed by a bipartisan three-member board, and so I don’t want to simply discard that model. I want to improve that,” she said.

Kansas: Bill seeks to clarify special election to replace Pompeo | The Wichita Eagle

A bill to fix scheduling and ballot-access problems for an upcoming election to replace Rep. Mike Pompeo is set to be considered in the Kansas House on Thursday. House Bill 2017 would revise current state law to comply with federal deadlines for sending military absentee ballots overseas. The bill also would allow the Libertarian Party to field a candidate in the special election and ease the signature requirement for independent candidates to get on the ballot. Rep. Keith Esau, R-Olathe and chairman of the House Elections Committee, said he expects a floor vote on the bill Thursday. The bill is being fast-tracked because Pompeo has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency, and he is expected to be confirmed by the Senate in a matter of days. That will create a vacancy in the Wichita-based 4th Congressional District, which must be filled by a special election.

Maine: Lawmakers may seek court opinion on constitutionality of ranked-choice voting | The Portland Press Herald

The Senate could vote next week on a whether to seek a Maine Supreme Judicial Court opinion on the constitutionality of the state’s new system of ranked-choice voting. Last November, Mainers approved an initiative that would allow voters to rank candidates for governor, Congress and the Legislature in order of preference, thereby enabling an “instant run-off” in the event that no candidate receives a majority of the votes in the initial tally. Maine would be the first state in the nation to adopt ranked-choice voting for statewide elections beginning in 2018. However, opponents have questioned the constitutionality of the system. Next week, the Maine Senate is expected to vote on a procedural order that, if it passes, would ask Maine’s highest court to weigh in on the constitutionality issue. Approval of the order – known as a “solemn occasion” request – would require a majority vote in the closely divided Senate.

Michigan: US Justice Department files voting rights suit against Eastpointe | The Detroit News

No black resident has ever won office for council, school board or legislative district in this Macomb County city, even though one-third of its electorate is black, according to the federal government. The U.S. Justice Department blames Eastpointe’s electoral process, saying electing members by citywide popular vote — instead of by district — is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a federal complaint seeking to end the practice, which city officials say has been in place since 1929.

Minnesota: Lawmakers agree on voting change, differ elsewhere | Woodbury Bulletin

Local lawmakers say they would support efforts to allow voters to physically cast their ballot more than a week ahead of Election Day. State law allows counties to give voters the option of casting an absentee ballot in person within seven days of the election. Legislators said the process was popular in the 2016 election in Washington County and the county saved taxpayer money by not having to process as many absentee ballots the traditional way. They agreed it should be expanded, suggesting a 14-day window. It’s another way to get more people voting, said Sen. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park. “Whatever we can do (to increase participation), I’m for,” Schoen said.

New York: Old lever voting machines could come out of mothballs for New York City runoff elections | Politico

Though the state was required to replace its lever voting machines a decade ago, it’s possible the dust could be blown off those old gray behemoths later this year. “The New York City [Board of Elections] commissioners have mentioned that they are considering using the lever voting machines for the runoff election,” state board co-chair Douglas Kellner said during a meeting on Monday. At issue is whether the city board can program electronic machines in time for a runoff election in this year’s citywide primary elections. Such a race would be held two weeks after the Sept. 12 primary if no candidate receives 40 percent of the vote. The city board notes that while the idea came up during its most recent meeting, it hasn’t actually made a request to use the machines yet or even decided that would be the best way to go.

North Carolina: Supreme Court Blocks Special Elections in North Carolina | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a trial court’s ruling ordering special elections in North Carolina that would have truncated the terms of many lawmakers in the state. The Supreme Court’s brief order included no reasoning, and it said the temporary stay of the lower court’s decision would last only as long as it took the justices to consider an appeal from state officials. In August, the trial court found that the state’s legislative map had been tainted by unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. But it allowed the November election to proceed, saying there was not enough time to draw new legislative maps.

Voting Blogs: Why Was South Carolina’s Voter ID Law Approved in 2012? Will It Remain? | State of Elections

Prior to Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, South Carolina was a covered jurisdiction under Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. In 2011, during Legislative Session 119, the South Carolina legislature passed, and the Governor signed, an act that made voting-related changes. Section Five of Act R54 (A27 H3003) (2011) dealt with voter identification. Because this happened prior to Shelby County v. Holder, pre-clearance was required. The State asked for pre-clearance from the Attorney General of the United States, but it was denied. South Carolina then sought a declaratory judgment in the D.C. District Court. Act R54 was pre-cleared by the court, in an opinion filed on October 10, 2012. However, due to concerns about the ability of South Carolina to effectively implement the law before the elections of November 2012, the court delayed the law’s effect until any elections in 2013.

The Gambia: President Jammeh vows ‘to stay until election ruling’ | BBC

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has said he will not step down before a Supreme Court decision on disputed elections, a ruling now not expected until May. In a nationwide TV broadcast, the longstanding ruler also reiterated his concern at “foreign interference”. Regional mediators, led by Nigeria’s president, are expected in The Gambia on Friday to urge him to accept defeat following December’s election. President-elect Adama Barrow says he will be inaugurated next week. Mr Jammeh, who initially accepted defeat in the 1 December poll, lodged a case before the Supreme Court after the electoral commission changed some results. But the commission insists the outcome was not affected by an initial error and property developer Mr Barrow narrowly won.

Germany: Experts warn of election cyberattacks threat in Germany | Deutsche Welle

“You can crack everything,” says Sandro Gaycken, a security consultant for government institutions and businesses. “Above all, the hardware and software used by German parties is not as well-protected as the high-security CIA computers.” As the director of the Digital Society Institute (DSI) at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), he is considered to be one of the leading specialists for IT high security in Germany. He says that even the federal government is not in good enough shape to withstand cyberattacks. “It is quite easy and little effort is needed. A system of 1,000 bots (automatic robots) that can flood a social network system like Twitter would not even cost me 30 euros,” explains Linus Neumann from the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Berlin. Since the 1980s, the organization has been dealing with the weaknesses of computer systems.

Kenya: Pre-Election Fears Center on Electronic Voting System | VoA News

Kenya’s electoral body says the technology to be used in this year’s elections will not fail. The opposition is warning of unspecified consequences if elections are rigged for the ruling Jubilee party. Kenya is preparing for its sixth general election in August. Political tensions are high, and fear the country will see a repeat of the deadly violence that followed the 2007 election is growing. But the electoral commission says it is up to the task of delivering a credible election reflecting the will of the people. The commission is still haunted by its handling of the 2013 polls, in which most of the electronic equipment collapsed a few hours into election day.

Russia: U.S. election meddling claims strip Trump win of luster for Russia | Reuters

The Kremlin says U.S. intelligence agency allegations it ran an influence campaign to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House are false. But if U.S. spies are right, Moscow may wish it hadn’t bothered to meddle in the first place. The belief, widely held in the West, that the Kremlin helped discredit Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by orchestrating embarrassing media leaks, has relegated U.S.-Russia relations to a post-Cold War low and stoked fears Russia will try to subvert French and German elections this year. And true or not, the bipartisan view that Russia tried to help Trump, supported by a classified U.S. intelligence report, may make it harder, not easier, for Trump to make common cause with President Vladimir Putin, something both men say they want. In the latest wrinkle, U.S. officials said on Tuesday that Trump has been presented with claims that Russia had compromising information about him. The accusations are uncorroborated and denied by the Kremlin.

Editorials: Jeff Sessions Has Spent His Whole Career Opposing Voting Rights | Ari Berman/The Nation

On June 27, 2013, two days after the Supreme Court ruled that states with a long history of voting discrimination no longer needed to approve their voting changes under the Voting Rights Act, the mayor of Pasadena, Texas, proposed changing the structure of City Council elections so that whites could remain in control. With Latinos close to gaining a majority of seats in the racially divided city of 150,000 outside of Houston, Mayor Johnny Isbell proposed switching from eight City Council districts to six districts and two seats elected citywide—which would give white residents, who turn out in higher numbers, a better shot at electing their preferred candidates. The net effect was that one majority-Latino district was eliminated, and Latinos had three fewer seats on the council. Isbell proposed the change “because the Justice Department can no longer tell us what to do.” Voters narrowly approved the referendum in 2013, even though 99.6 percent of Latinos opposed it.

Alaska: Group appeals lawsuit challenging Alaska campaign finance laws | Alaska Dispatch News

A group of Republicans trying to loosen campaign contribution limits in Alaska — following key decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years — is appealing a ruling by a federal judge in November that upheld the state’s strict limits. Kevin Clarkson, attorney for the plaintiffs, said on Monday that the ruling by U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess, an appointee of George W. Bush, came as no surprise. Burgess is bound to follow case law established by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that represents nine Western states, including Alaska, Clarkson said.

New Hampshire: Attorney General seeks high court review of rulings against ‘ballot selfie’ ban | Union Leader

The state Attorney General’s office has officially asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower court rulings striking down a New Hampshire ban on “ballot selfies.” The petition for writ of certiorari, filed two days after Christmas, comes as state legislators are considering a bill to reverse the 2014 law that prohibited a voter from taking a photo of their marked ballot and posting it online. The ban is clearly unconstitutional, as the U.S. District Court found in 2015, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed last September, said Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, R-Manchester, the prime sponsor of the bill to wipe the “ballot selfie” ban off the books.

Texas: With Deadline Looming, Pasadena Considers Whether To Appeal Voting Rights Verdict | Houston Public Media

City officials in Pasadena are pondering their options, now that a federal judge has ruled that the city’s method of electing local officials is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled late last week that the system discriminates against Latino residents. Up to 2013, Pasadena city council members were all chosen by single-member districts, drawn along geographic lines. Latino-backed candidates held four out of eight seats, and looked close to winning a fifth. Then the Supreme Court struck down portions of the Voting Rights Act. Within weeks, Pasadena Mayor Johnny Isbell began promoting a plan to switch to a mix of single-member districts and at-large seats.

Virginia: Lynchburg voters continue to report problems after ballot shortage during special election | News Advance

Lynchburg voters looking to cast their ballots in the special election for the 22nd Senate District today are encountering an unusual snag in the democratic process – voting precincts out of ballots. For voter Leighton Dodd, who said he planned to vote for Democrat Ryant Washington, he told The News & Advance that he tried to vote at 11:30 a.m. at Bedford Hills School precinct, but there were no ballots. When he came back after lunch, around 1 p.m. the precinct had run out again. “To not have enough ballots is ridiculous,” Dodd said as he sat in a line of 30 voters who were waiting for more ballots to be delivered so that they could cast their votes in the special election. Dodd expressed concern that the ballot snafu could affect the election.

Virginia: Governor promises to “lean in” on ethics, voting legislation | Associated Press

Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe says he’ll be actively promoting measures in this year’s legislative session aimed at strengthening the state’s ethics rules and making it easier to vote, priorities that will likely face a difficult path forward in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. McAuliffe said Tuesday he also supports legislation to ban lawmakers from using their campaign accounts for personal use, calling the move a necessary complement to a $100 gift cap that lawmakers approved earlier in his term. “There has been a gigantic, gaping hole in our ethics reform here in the commonwealth of Virginia,” McAuliffe said, promising to “lean in” on the issue even though it faces dim prospects.

Wisconsin: State Recount Costs Come in $2 Million Less Than Expected | Lake Mills Leader

Wisconsin’s presidential election recount costs will come in almost $2 million less than expected with only one county left to settle its bill. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein paid the state $3.9 million to start the recount but will be reimbursed with a final bill expected at $1.8 million, Wisconsin Elections Commission officials said. Brown County – the last of the state’s 72 counties to tally costs – is expected to have its final bill ready next week. Stein, who held a rally at the state Capitol Jan. 3, said she will use the leftover recount money to fund Count My Vote Wisconsin, an election reform and voting rights organization. Supporters donated money for Stein’s recount requests in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Cambodia: Push to allow monks to vote | Khmer Times