Wisconsin: U.S. Supreme Court to hear Wisconsin’s redistricting case but blocks redrawing of maps | Milwaukee Journal Sentinal

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case that found Wisconsin Republicans overreached in 2011 by drawing legislative districts that were so favorable to them that they violated the U.S. Constitution. In a related ruling Monday, the high court handed Republicans a victory by blocking a lower court ruling that the state develop new maps by Nov. 1. Democrats and those aligned with them took that order as a sign they could lose the case. The case is being watched nationally because it will likely resolve whether maps of lawmakers’ districts can be so one-sided that they violate the constitutional rights of voters. The question has eluded courts for decades. The court’s ultimate ruling could shift how legislative and congressional lines are drawn —  and thus who controls statehouses and Congress. “This is a blockbuster. This could become the most important election law case in years if not decades,” said Joshua Douglas, a University of Kentucky College of Law professor and co-editor of the book “Election Law Stories.”

Canada: Despite risk of cyber attacks, political parties still handle Canadians’ data with no rules in place | Toronto Star

Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould says it’s not the time to implement basic privacy and security rules for political parties’ collection of Canadians’ personal data, despite warning that those parties are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Speaking with the Star on Friday, Gould said she decided on a voluntary approach for parties to meet and discuss vulnerabilities with the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s electronic spying and cyber defence agency. “I think it’s important that we respect the independence of political parties, and we ensure that they are able to make those decisions (around cyber security),” Gould said in an interview.

Papua New Guinea: PNG set for costly, unpredictable poll | Nikkei Asian Review

Papua New Guinea is about to start its ninth general election, with voting taking place between June 24 and July 8, followed by counting over subsequent weeks. The coalition government led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill enters the election under siege, facing battles on political, legal and economic fronts. From the outside, O’Neill looks to be in a strong position. His government holds a significant majority in parliament, and the opposition is fractured. However, alliances in Papua New Guinea are often unstable, and the result of the election is far from certain. O’Neill, then treasurer, wrested power in 2011 from long-serving Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, widely known as Papua New Guinea’s “Grand Chief.” The country was starting the construction of its largest natural resource project, a $19 billion liquefied natural gas project that was expected to transform the nation’s economy.

National: Can US Elections Be Hacked? Security Experts Call For More Protections Against Election Hacking | International Business Times

More than one hundred security researchers and experts signed on to a letter sent to member of the United States Congress to warn of their belief that not enough has been done to protect against potential threats to state and federal elections. The letter, published Wednesday as a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian interference during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, argues many states are unprepared to respond to cybersecurity risks that may arise during upcoming election.The signatories laid out three primary suggestions for securing the electoral process and prevent against any potential tampering that may occur. First, the experts called on election officials to establish voter-verified paper ballots as the “official record of voter intent.” Doing so would require phasing out paperless voting machines that offer no way to verify if a vote tallied by the system corresponds to the vote intended to be cast by the voter.

National: Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say | Time

The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME. In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents. The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.

National: Keeping Russia Out of the Voting Booth | The American Prospect

Of all the disturbing questions raised by Russia’s interference in last year’s election, the most alarming may be how a foreign power might hack into the nation’s voting infrastructure. So far there’s no evidence that Russian cyberattacks altered U.S. vote totals in any way. But recent disclosures make clear that Russian intelligence intrusions were much broader and deeper than initially known. And the U.S. election system, while it has strengths, remains vulnerable on several fronts. Aging voting machines, the absence of a paper trail in some states, and spotty audits are all weaknesses that could be exploited in 2018 and 2020. … While most states—36 all told—use machines that produce a paper record, that still leaves 14 states that still operate machines with no voter verifiable paper trail. The absence of paper makes it virtually impossible to cross-check and confirm results after the fact.

National: Computer expert: Some voting machines can be directly hacked | Washington Examiner

A computer science professor told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday that voting machines that create an electronic record of the voters’ decisions are open to fraud and computer hacking, vulnerabilities that are big enough to potentially change the outcome of some elections. J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science at Michigan University, said he and his team began studying “direct-recording electronic” (DRE) voting machines 10 years ago and found that “we could reprogram the machine to invisibly cause any candidate to win. We also created malicious software — vote-stealing code — that could spread from machine-to-machine like a computer virus, and silently change the election outcome.” … As a computer science professor, Halderman has not only run academic trials on hacking voting machines, he has also run real-time examples.

National: Intelligence Panel Learns How to Hack Air-Gapped Voting Systems | GovInfo Security

Hackers can breach air-gapped voting machines and vote tallying systems – those not connected to internet – in an attempt to alter ballots to sway the outcome of an election, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has learned. “Our election infrastructure is not as distant from the internet as it may seem,” Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor, testified Wednesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The Senate panel, as well as its House counterpart, held simultaneous hearings focused on the impact of Russian hacking on America’s election process (see Election Systems’ Hacks Far Greater Than First Realized ). At both sessions, lawmakers heard witnesses agree that Russian hackers did not alter votes in the 2016 presidential election.

National: Obama White House Knew of Russian Election Hacking, but Delayed Telling | The New York Times

The Obama administration feared that acknowledging Russian meddling in the 2016 election would reveal too much about intelligence gathering and be interpreted as “taking sides” in the race, the former secretary of homeland security said Wednesday. “One of the candidates, as you recall, was predicting that the election was going to be ‘rigged’ in some way,” said Jeh Johnson, the former secretary, referring to President Trump’s unsubstantiated accusation before Election Day. “We were concerned that by making the statement we might, in and of itself, be challenging the integrity of the election process itself.” Mr. Johnson’s testimony, before the House Intelligence Committee, provided a fresh insight into how the Obama administration tried to balance politically explosive information with the public’s need to know. That question also vexed federal law enforcement officials investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

National: House Democrats Move to Restore Key Provisions of the Voting Rights Act | US News & World Report

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D.-Ga., and Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell Thursday introduced a bill that would restore voting rights protections struck down a year ago by the Supreme Court in an effort to block some states’ efforts to impose tough new voter registration laws. Nearly all of the 193 House Democrats have signed on to the legislation; the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Asian Pacific American Caucus also endorsed the bill. Sewell said no Republicans were willing to support the measure. The Voting Rights Advancement Act is a response to last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder; the court struck down two key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which put 13 states under strict rules not to change their voter laws without federal approval and set a formula for determining which states would be subject to the law.

National: Little movement on White House probe into voter fraud | CNN

On Super Bowl Sunday this year, President Donald Trump told Fox News that Vice President Mike Pence would head a commission into voter fraud allegations — ones that he made, claiming that between three to five million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. The commission was formed three months later, but it has yet to meet and there’s no date set to do so. More than one member of the White House’s Election on Voter Integrity told CNN on Thursday that the group would not be doing its job if it did not examine possible interference by a Russian intelligence agency or a military intelligence agency in voting systems. “If you know that there is an outside force that is trying to jimmy the door on the election process somehow, you would want to know about that,” said Matt Dunlap, Maine’s secretary of state and a member of the commission. “That includes the Russians, the Martians, I don’t care. It has to be part of the discussion.” Dunlap said he has not heard from the White House about the commission since the May press release.

Editorials: Do we really want the Supreme Court to decide how partisan is too partisan? | Charles Lane/The Washington Post

On Dec. 12, 2000, the Supreme Court ended the recount of Florida’s votes in that year’s presidential election, effectively awarding 25 electoral votes to Republican George W. Bush and making him president. The decision was 5 to 4, with the most conservative Republican-appointed justices in favor of Bush. Democrats condemned the ruling as nakedly partisan, saying it was based not on precedent but a cooked-to-order legal rationale: Recount rules didn’t treat all ballots the same way, thus violating the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws. Many critics saw Bush v. Gore as an indelible blot on the court’s legitimacy. Seventeen-odd years later, Democrats are pressing a case whose essential premise is that the Supreme Court can and should be trusted to write a whole new category of rules affecting almost every state legislative and congressional election in the United States.

Arkansas: Legislators closer to adopting voter ID law | Associated Press

Arkansas legislators have approved rules necessary to implement a new voter-identification law that could go into effect as early as September. The state Board of Election Commissioners approved the rules Wednesday for a new law that says voters should show photo identification before casting ballots, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (http://bit.ly/2sunKSh ) reported. Those without photo identification can sign a sworn statement saying they’re registered voters in the state. “We’ve had some complaints on that over the past year,” said Keith Rutledge, director of the Board of Election Commissioners. “This pretty much will clear that up. You either show me your ID or you sign this affidavit — basically.”

Illinois: Automatic voter registration coming soon to Illinois | WRSP

Automatic voter registration has been a topic in Illinois for months, and it’s something that U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is also working on at a national level. Both the Illinois House and Senate unanimously passed legislation for automatic voter registration. That currently sits on the governor’s desk and has signaled that he will sign.

Maine: State Senate Gives Initial Approval to Ranked-choice Legislation | WABI

The Maine Senate on Wednesday gave initial approval to legislation sponsored by Sen. Cathy Breen, D-Falmouth, to amend Maine’s constitution to allow for the implementation of Ranked-Choice Voting in 10 state and federal elections and primaries. Voters approved the implementation of ranked-choice voting, also known as “instant runoff voting,” at the ballot box last year. Ranked-Choice Voting allows voters to cast their vote for multiple candidates, ranked in order of preference. A series of runoffs occur, redistributing ballots according to the voter’s rankings, until one candidate has a majority of votes.

New York: Cuomo: State stepping in to protect electoral system from hacking | Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The federal government is failing to coordinate a response to evidence of Russian hacking of U.S. elections, so New York state is taking action on its own, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Tuesday. Cuomo said in a release that he has directed the state Cyber Security Advisory Board to work with agencies and Boards of Election to assess the threats to the cyber security of New York’s elections and recommend solutions. This directive comes amidst confirmation by the intelligence community of Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election.

North Carolina: Independent redistricting vote thwarted in North Carolina Senate | News & Observer

A long-shot attempt to force a vote on creating an independent redistricting commission in North Carolina became a little bit longer Thursday. A Raleigh state senator tried to start the process of forcing the bill he supports to a vote, but a procedural maneuver by legislative leaders will require Sen. Jay Chaudhuri to wait 10 days – and lawmakers’ regular session may be over by then. Senate rules allow members to file discharge petitions to dislodge bills that have been stuck in committees without action. The petition must be signed by at least two-thirds of the chamber. There are 35 Republicans and 15 Democrats in the Senate. The 10-day pause applies to when Chadhuri can start collecting signatures. Chaudhuri, a Democrat, read most of a prepared statement on the Senate floor giving notice of his intention to file a petition to bring Senate Bill 209 to a vote of the Senate. Chaudhuri and four other Democrats filed the bill nearly four weeks ago; it has not been taken up in a committee since then. It would establish a commission to redraw state legislative and congressional districts without partisan consideration. Common Cause and other groups have been pushing for the independent body for years.

Editorials: Language barrier shouldn’t be a barrier to democracy | Austin American-Statesman

Though voting should be a simple process, it’s undeniable that some people face more obstacles at the polls than others.
When English is not your first language, the voting process can be especially difficult. Though a controversial voter ID law here has grabbed national headlines, fewer Texans know about the state’s more obscure voting rights battle that’s threatening the right to vote for U.S. citizens who don’t speak English. Several years ago, Mallika Das of Williamson County brought her son Saurabh to the polls to help her interpret her ballot. When they arrived, Saurabh was told that he couldn’t help his mom because he was registered to vote in a neighboring district. Mallika Das was a U.S. citizen and eligible voter who wanted to exercise her constitutional right — but that day, she couldn’t properly cast a ballot. They wouldn’t let her son help her.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee County Board urges state Legislature to create nonpartisan redistricting panel | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

The Milwaukee County Board on Thursday urged the Republican-controlled Legislature to create an independent panel responsible for redrawing congressional and legislative districts that do not favor one political party over another. The board’s action comes three days after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on appeal that found Wisconsin Republicans in 2011 drew legislative district maps so favorable to their party that the districts violated the federal constitution. In that case, a panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 last year that Wisconsin GOP lawmakers had drawn Assembly district maps so skewed for Republicans that they violated voting rights of Democrats. The maps allowed Republicans to lock in huge majorities in the Assembly and state Senate without competitive elections, according to complainants.

Albania: Albania Enjoys Calmest Ever Election Campaign | Balkan Insight

If a foreign tourist, businessperson or other foreign visitor travelled through Albania at the moment, he or she would have no way of knowing that crucial parliamentary elections are taking place in the country on Sunday. There are no electoral posters or party flags, which usually cover the facades of every buildings ahead of elections, because this time political paraphernalia is allowed only during parties’ pre-election rallies. Yet even these rallies are unlike those before, as they have been passing off without heated speeches and a lot of noise, so as not to disturb people who are not interested in participating.

Australia: Report Urges Electronic Election Scanning – But Not Online Voting | ZDNet

The third interim report by the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the conduct of the 2016 federal election has recommended that the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) be modernised and have its 25-year-old technology systems updated, as well as conduct a pilot of electronic counting and scanning of House of Representatives ballot papers. With changes to the way preferences were allocated in the Senate before the federal election in 2016, the AEC introduced a semi-automated process to scan Senate ballot papers. Due to Australia’s complex Senate quota system, the counting was already handled electronically. Handing down its report [PDF] on Wednesday, the joint committee endorsed plans by the AEC to extend the scanning and counting to Australia’s lower house. … But the report by a joint parliamentary committee stops short of any suggestion of introducing major-scale electronic voting to Australian elections. At this stage only the scanning and counting of votes should be done electronically – and the report says this needs expensive new technology.

Germany: Bundestag cancels German government funding of non-democratic parties | Deutsche Welle

A majority of 502 of 579 delegates in the German Bundestag voted Thursday in favor of amending the country’s constitution to deprive anti-democratic political parties of federal money. One of the first groups likely to be affected by the new rules is the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which received 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) last year. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas was pleased with the constitutional amendment. “The state is under no obligation to finance enemies of democracy,” Maas said in a statement just ahead of the vote. “Devoting tax money to the NPD is a direct state investment in radical right-wing incitement.” Under the previous rules, any party garnering 1 percent in a local election or 0.5 percent in a national or EU election automatically qualified for state funding up to the amount of money raised by the party itself. The NPD polled 1.5 percent and 1 percent respectively in the 2013 German national election and the 2014 EU election.

Nepal: The baffled voters | Umesh Raj Regmi/The Kathmandu Post

The recently concluded first phase of local elections have pointed to a marked need for voter education. The Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) has recognised that it is urgent to educate voters to ensure free, fair and credible elections. Making potential voters and stakeholders aware of their voting rights, and getting them to cast their votes properly and confidently is a continuous process. Much effort has been made to convince people to go cast their votes, but little has been done to make sure that they mark the ballot paper correctly. Consequently, an unexpectedly large number of invalid votes were found even in metropolitan areas.

Papua New Guinea: Violence Surfaces in Papua New Guinea Elections, But Not Only | IDN

As Papua New Guinea – one of the world’s most ethnically and linguistically diverse nations – prepares for national elections from June 24 to July 8, authorities are calling for peace and calm. Historically, tensions during polling, vote counting and the announcement of winners has erupted into widespread violence, but the phenomenon is not limited to election periods in this south-western Pacific island country. “Increased access to high-powered guns such as military style M16s and homemade shotguns, and the breakdown of traditional rules of warfare, has amplified the effects of violence, resulting in dozens – if not hundreds – of violent deaths and thousands of displacements each year, especially in the Highlands. We are seeing wounds that one would see in war zones,” says International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) chief official in PNG, Mark Kessler.

National: U.S. Elections Systems Vulnerable, Lawmakers Told In Dueling Hearings | NPR

If two nearly simultaneous hearings Wednesday by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees into Russia’s meddling in last year’s presidential election revealed anything, it’s that U.S. officials saw what was going on but were all but powerless to stop it. In his prepared remarks, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the Russian government, “at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, orchestrated cyberattacks on our Nation for the purpose of influencing our election — plain and simple.” But in response to a question from the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Johnson said he was concerned he would be criticized “for perhaps taking sides” in an ongoing election if he publicly spoke out about the Russian meddling that he knew was going on.

National: We just learned the government knows Russia will sabotage the next election. Now what? | The Washington Post

The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing this morning on Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, and on what the government knows about Russian intentions to meddle in future contests. The Committee heard from three federal officials, two from the Department of Homeland Security, and one from the FBI. Together, those officials made clear that not only did Russians peddle in propaganda and fake news in an effort boost the fortunes of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016; they also penetrated election systems via cyber warfare. But they also hinted at another important truth, which a forward looking one. Here it is: The very core of our democracy is at extraordinary risk if we are not prepared to prevent Russian interference in our next election, which is less than 18 months away.

National: Congress urged to increase voting system security | CNN

More than 100 cybersecurity and voting experts are urging the government to make the U.S. voting system more secure. The experts — which come from various industries, from business and academia to technology non-profits — signed a letter addressed to Congress on Wednesday suggesting how three major objectives need to take place to protect the integrity of the system and restore voter confidence. The letter comes as Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS, told the Senate Intelligence Committee hackers targeted election-related systems in 21 states last year. The letter alleges many jurisdictions are unprepared to handle an increase in cybersecurity risks. To start, the experts believe all jurisdictions should create voter-verified paper ballots and phase out electronic voting machines.

National: Security experts warn lawmakers of election hacking risks | ZDNet

More than a hundred security researchers and computer science experts have warned in a letter to lawmakers that not enough is being done to ensure the integrity of state and federal elections. The letter, published Wednesday, argues many US states are “inadequately prepared” to respond to cybersecurity risks with upcoming elections. The hundred-plus co-signatories, including cryptographer Matthew Blaze, security expert Bruce Schneier, and PGP creator Phil Zimmermann, say the US “needs prompt action to ensure prudent elections security standards.” The experts also outlined several recommendations that would “form the basis of robust, enforceable, sensible federal standards that can restore needed confidence in American elections,” including ensuring that any electronic election machines produce a voter-verified paper ballot to establish the “official record of voter intent.”

National: Congress hears sinister tale of Russia meddling in US election | Associated Press

A sinister portrait of Russia’s cyberattacks on the U.S. emerged Wednesday as current and former U.S. officials told Congress Moscow stockpiled stolen information and selectively disseminated it during the 2016 presidential campaign to undermine the American political process. The Russians ‘‘used fake news and propaganda and they also used online amplifiers to spread the information to as many people as possible,’’ Bill Priestap, the FBI’s top counterintelligence official, told the Senate Intelligence committee.