Editorials: Does Brett Kavanaugh Spell the End of Voting Rights? | Ari Berman/The New York Times

In late 2011, the Obama administration blocked a South Carolina law that required voters to show a photo ID before casting their ballots, finding that it could disenfranchise tens of thousands of minority voters, who were more likely than whites to lack such IDs. But when South Carolina asked a federal court in Washington to approve the law, Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion upholding it. He ruled that the measure was not discriminatory, even though the Obama administration claimed that it violated the Voting Rights Act. Judge Kavanaugh, whom President Trump nominated for the Supreme Court recently, pointed to a 2008 Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law, which he interpreted as giving states broad leeway to restrict their voting procedures. “Many states, particularly in the wake of the voting system problems exposed during the 2000 elections, have enacted stronger voter ID laws, among various other recent changes to voting laws,” he noted in approval.

Maryland: Officials: Russian firm used in Maryland election systems | The Washington Post

A vendor that provides key services for Maryland elections has been acquired by a parent company with links to a Russian oligarch, state officials said Friday after a briefing a day earlier from the FBI. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch made the announcement at a news conference in the Maryland State House, a gathering that included staff members of Gov. Larry Hogan. “The FBI conveyed to us that there is no criminal activity that they’ve seen,” Busch said. “They believe that the system that we have has not been breached.” In a letter Friday, Hogan, Busch and Miller asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for technical assistance to evaluate the network used by the elections board.

Mississippi: State Updating Voter Registration Deadline for Runoffs | Associated Press

Mississippi is updating a voter registration deadline to meet a requirement of a 1993 federal law, giving people a bit more time to register so they can vote in runoff elections for federal offices. The state has required people to be registered at least 30 days before the first round of voting in an election. Runoffs happen three weeks later. The Mississippi NAACP, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Mississippi Center for Justice sent a letter to the state’s top election official in June. It said that under the National Voter Registration Act, people should be able to vote in runoffs if they’re registered at least 30 days before the runoff, not 30 days before the initial election.

New Hampshire: Reversing course, Sununu signs voter residency bill into law | Concord Monitor

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu reversed course Friday and signed a bill imposing residency requirements on out-of-state college students who vote in New Hampshire. Current law allows students and others who consider the state their domicile to vote without being subject to residency requirements, such as getting a New Hampshire driver’s license or registering their cars. Lawmakers passed a bill this year to end the distinction between domicile and residency, but Sununu delayed action on it and asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in. The court issued a 3-2 advisory opinion Thursday saying the bill was constitutional. “House Bill 1264 restores equality and fairness to our elections,” Sununu said. “Finally, every person who votes in New Hampshire will be treated the same. This is the essence of an equal right to vote.”

New Jersey: How secure are New Jersey’s voting machines from hacking? This report may worry you. | NJ.com

New Jersey has some of the weakest election security in the country, according to a congressional report that placed the blame on former Gov. Chris Christie. New Jersey was named one of the five most vulnerable states to hacking in the report by the Democratic members of the House Administration Committee. The report said New Jersey’s voting machines do not have a paper record, making it “nearly impossible” to tell if they had been hacked and vote tallied changed. It said the state has requested funds from the federal Election Assistance Commission to improve security, and is considering legislation to require a paper trail for all voting machines. The other states with the worst security were Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina. In all, 18 states were vulnerable to hacking, the report said.

Pennsylvania: Counties await state plan for buying voting machines | Meadville Tribune

The Pennsylvania budget for 2018-19 includes a little more than $14 million to cover the cost of replacing the state’s voting machines. That’s a fraction of the projected $125 million it will cost to buy the more secure machines that meet the standards proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf and the Department of State in April. So far, almost all of that funding has come from the federal government. The state has chipped in just 5 percent. Wolf wants the state to have more secure voting machines, all which provide paper ballots, in time for the 2020 presidential election. If the state and federal government don’t pick up more of the cost, the counties will be forced to pay. That possibility has county leaders worried, even as many acknowledge the state needs to replace the equipment, said Doug Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania: Commission might not get to choose new voting system | Sharon Herald

With Pennsylvania’s 67 counties under a mandate to replace their voting systems in time for the 2020 elections, election officials will be facing difficult decisions. But county commissioners — the people voters elect for that purpose — might be frozen out of selecting the voting machines residents will use for more than a decade. Under Pennsylvania’s election code, the county election board is empowered to make decisions on election-related equipment. In most years, county commissioners also serve on the elections board in their counties. However, the commissioners are barred from serving on the board in years they are running for re-election. Next year — 2019 — is an election year for county commissioners. In Mercer County, commissioners Matt McConnell, Scott Boyd and Tim McGonigle could all be running for re-election. If they do, they could be prohibited from choosing Mercer County’s new voting system, which could carry up-front costs of about $1 million. McGonigle said the commissioners would seek guidance on the matter from solicitor William Madden.

Utah: Navajo Nation files election complaint against San Juan County over primary races | KSTU

The Navajo Nation’s Human Rights Commission has filed an election complaint against San Juan County over incidents during the June 26 primary. County officials, in turn, have accused the Navajo Nation of “harassment.” It’s the latest salvo between the two sides in a contentious legal battle over elections in the Four Corners area. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby has ordered a special election for county commission and school board seats after he found racial gerrymandering took place. The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission said it had two poll watchers in Montezuma Creek and Monument Valley, monitoring interactions between voters and poll workers.

Cambodia: Threats and corruption: Behind the scenes of Cambodia’s election crackdown | Al Jazeera

Cambodia ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries – but after an extensive forensic investigation, Al Jazeera found that corruption stretches far beyond the country’s borders, all the way to Australia. In 2016, the anti-corruption NGO, Global Witness, released a ground-breaking report exposing the widespread business interests of long-standing Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, his family and their cronies. Hun Sen’s family was shown to have links to more than 100 companies across all sectors of the economy including tourism, agriculture, mining, electricity and the media as well as affiliations with top international brands. The family’s combined wealth is estimated to be anywhere from $500m to $1bn.

Ireland: Presidential election confirmed as Sinn Fein decide to field candidate | Independent.ie

A Presidential election is now a certainty after Sinn Fein this afternoon decided to field a candidate. The decision was made following a meeting of the party’s Ard Comhairle today. A candidate will be selected at a later date. The party has set up a committee, chaired by Waterford TD David Cullinane, to establish a process for selecting a candidate. This process is expected to be outlined in the next 10 days. A candidate will then be nominated in the coming months. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said there has already been considerable interest from a number of potential candidates.

Pakistan: Fears of more violence in Pakistan election after bomber kills 130 | Reuters

A week of bombings on political rallies has shattered the relative peace of Pakistan’s general election campaign, culminating in a devastating suicide attack that killed at least 130 people at a rally in the southwestern Baluchistan province. As campaigning intensifies, attacks in different areas of the country have stoked fear of more violence in the Muslim country of 208 million where political rallies can draw tens of thousands of people. The July 25 election features dozens of parties, with two main contenders: ex-cricket hero Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehree-i-Insaf and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which vows to win a second term despite the jailing of founder, ex-Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif, on a corruption conviction.

United Kingdom: Russian agency suspected in US election hack may be behind UK poisoning | New York Times

The same Russian military intelligence service now accused of disrupting the 2016 presidential election in the United States may also be responsible for the nerve agent attack in Britain against a former Russian spy — an audacious poisoning that led to a geopolitical confrontation this spring between Moscow and the West. British investigators believe the March 4 attack on the former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, was most probably carried out by current or former agents of the service, known as the GRU, who were sent to his home in southern England, according to one British official, one US official and one former US official familiar with the inquiry, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Zimbabwe: Mugabe is gone. But his tactics persist in Zimbabwe’s first election without him. | The Washington Post

Most Zimbabweans have only ever known one president: Robert Mugabe. But on July 30, a new man will represent Zimbabwe’s ruling party on the ballot for the first time in 38 years. Emmerson Mnangagwa, who went from being Mugabe’s right-hand man to his unseater, has taken the reins. Although he’s a party stalwart, Mnangagwa, 75, has cast himself as a beacon of change. And after decades of authoritarian rule that isolated Zimbabwe, he is promising to end the political violence and intimidation that characterized Mugabe-era elections. International observers are in Zimbabwe for the first time in decades. But accounts from opposition supporters in this rural constituency, 50 miles from the capital city of Harare, show how the ruling party’s intimidation and patronage apparatus is still very much intact.

National: Would Asking People To Hack America’s Election Systems Make Them More Safe? | FiveThirtyEight

There are four months until the midterm elections, and the security of state election systems remains a concern. The clock is ticking to ferret out problems and fix them before Nov. 6. Websites associated with voting continue to have poor cybersecurity hygiene, even after the revelation that hackers probed the systems of 21 states in the lead-up to the 2016 election. And while Congress has increased the funds available to states to improve their election systems, many are still jumping through bureaucratic hoops to actually access the money. One way to supplement much-needed security checks of election systems would be to replicate the security practices of tech-savvy companies. Many private tech companies treat cybersecurity differently than the government does, adapting security practices to deal with inevitable mistakes quickly and through the wisdom of the crowd. They rely partly on outside feedback to suss out vulnerabilities, something that many in the elections community seem allergic to. This could mean that fixable security flaws are left on the table for bad actors to exploit.

National: Election security legislation may be gaining steam in Congress | The Washington Post

Momentum may finally be building in Congress to take new action to secure the elections from cyberthreats as the midterms approach. Lawmakers have struggled to advance election security legislation in the months since they approved a $380 million funding package for states to upgrade their election systems. But a flurry of election-related hearings on Capitol Hill in recent weeks — including a pair of hearings Wednesday that featured testimony from some of the government’s top cybersecurity and election officials — shows they’re sharpening their focus on the issue. And the latest attention could help move bipartisan legislation to combat election cyberthreats closer to the goal line as November nears and intelligence officials warn of ongoing attempts by the Russian government to disrupt the U.S. political system. “The tone has changed so it’s much more forward-looking in terms of, ‘Let’s figure out what we can get done,’ ” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), co-sponsor of Secure Elections Act, which would streamline the way state and federal officials exchange threat information and has garnered broad support in the Senate. “Congress, I think, has realized our role has to focus on what’s in front of us, and that’s protecting the 2018 and 2020 elections from foreign interference.”

National: Elections Seen Safer From Hacking, but Meddling Threat Lingers | Bloomberg

U.S. elections are safer from hacking than they were two years ago, but the threat of foreign meddling hasn’t been stamped out, lawmakers said. “People are much more aware of the problem and taking steps to protect themselves” from hacking before the November elections, Sen. Amy Klobuchar(D-Minn.) said in a phone interview. “We’ve reached a new era” with lawmakers of both parties concerned about Russia’s interference in 2016 and are “trying to solve the problem going forward,” she said. Klobuchar spoke after the Senate Rules and Administration Committee took testimony from experts on how to safeguard U.S. elections. Congress provided $380 million for grants in response to Department of Homeland Security revelations that Russia targeted election systems in at least 21 states for possible interference in 2016. The DHS found no evidence of actual ballot tampering, but said steps are needed to secure future elections.

National: Voting machine vendors under pressure | Politico

The top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee wants more answers from voting machine vendors after two of the three largest companies skipped Wednesday’s election security hearing. Hart InterCivic sent a representative, but Election Systems & Software and Dominion did not. “I think we should try again, and I personally plan on sending them a number of written questions, since they wouldn’t come to the hearing,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told Eric. “They have a responsibility, when there’s only three of them, to answer our questions.” Klobuchar is the lead Democratic sponsor of the bipartisan Secure Elections Act (S. 2593), Congress’ most significant attempt yet to protect U.S. election infrastructure from hackers. Klobuchar may get her wish to bring in Dominion and ES&S — a spokeswoman for Rules Chairman Roy Blunt told MC that the panel was planning additional hearings.

California: Fresno ballot vendor has trouble in Colorado, warned by state of California | The Fresno Bee

The company that has a multimillion-dollar contract to provide voting services to Fresno County and others across at least two states is in hot water for printing outdated ballots in Colorado, triggering a manual recount. The company, Integrated Voting Systems, also shares a working name, address and other details with a corporation that owes more than $270,000 in back taxes and is barred from doing business in California. These companies are linked to still more printing companies which have had millions of dollars worth of liens and civil judgments levied against them. For nearly two years, Integrated Voting Systems has done business as Integrated Voting Solutions, both based in Fresno and Dinuba. Although leadership for the former vehemently denies any association with the latter, it’s clear the two companies are related – if not the same business.

New Hampshire: State Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of voter residency bill | Concord Monitor

A fiercely contested bill to make residency a condition of voting in New Hampshire was determined by the state Supreme Court to be constitutional Thursday, in a major ruling that clears its approval by Gov. Chris Sununu. In a 3-2 ruling, the court found that the bill, House Bill 1264, is not a burden on the right to vote, but rather a means to better organize state laws “in order to place voters and residents on equal footing as New Hampshire citizens.” The court’s decision, which came without warning, now sets up a high-stakes choice for Sununu. On Thursday afternoon, hours after the court weighed in, the bill passed from Senate President Chuck Morse’s desk over to the governor’s office. That set in motion a constitutionally mandated five-day countdown; Sununu must decide by Tuesday whether to veto, sign or let pass without signature a law he has taken varying positions on in the last seven months. In a terse statement Thursday, Sununu declined to show his cards.

New Mexico: Shredded ballots cause election kerfuffle in Rio Arriba County | Santa Fe New Mexican

Rio Arriba County is sort of a miniature Chicago when it comes to elections. The year began with the indictments of two of its residents for voter fraud. One of them is the wife of an Española city councilor. Then, in last month’s primary election, 55 paper ballots that had been cast by Democratic voters were slashed to indecipherable ribbons by poll workers. This was no small blunder. The case of the butchered ballots cast doubt on the outcome of a close race for a seat on the Rio Arriba County Board of Commissioners.

South Carolina: Voters sue state over paperless voting machines | CyberScoop

South Carolina voters are suing their state over its use of paperless voting machines amid worries that they are susceptible to hacking without detection. The complaint filed Tuesday seeks a declaration from the court that South Carolina has violated the plaintiffs’ fundamental right to have their votes counted and prevent the state from continuing to use the machines it currently has in place. The lawsuit largely resembles one that is ongoing in Georgia. With the midterm elections coming up in November, the lawsuit does not outline any short-term alternatives to using the state’s current machines. The plaintiffs in the Georgia lawsuit propose using provisional paper ballots that can be scanned with the machines the state uses for absentee ballots.

US Virgin Islands: Elections officials push early voting later … again | Virgin Islands Daily News.com

Early voting has been delayed — again. According to Elections Board Chairman Arturo Watlington Jr., early voting for the Aug. 4 Democratic primary will now begin Monday and end July 25. The announcement, made Thursday at a Board of Elections meeting, marks the third delay in early voting for the primary, with dates previously scheduled for July 10 and July 14. The date changes are largely because of a delay in paying a Nebraska-based contractor — Elections System and Software — an estimated $18,000 for developing and shipping the ballots to the territory, according to Watlington.

Wisconsin: Collaborative effort to help homeless population register to vote | Wisconsin State Journal

Madison’s homeless resource day center had its first voter registration outreach event Wednesday to increase voter turnout by people who are homeless. The Beacon, which opened in October 2017 at 615 E. Washington Ave., collaborated with the Dane County Board and the League of Women Voters in Dane County to help homeless people learn how to get a voter ID and register in time for the upcoming election. The drive was an opportunity for people to get familiar with the voting process and voter laws they might not be aware of. Wisconsin law requires voters to have a valid Wisconsin state ID or driver’s license. Gail Bliss, who works with the league, said voter ID laws can make it difficult for homeless people to vote.

Bosnia: Bosnia Heads Towards Polls Tipped to Worsen Uncertainty | Balkan Insight

Preparations for general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, scheduled for October 7, have entered their final phase after all the political parties finalized the process of submitting their full candidates’ lists to the Central Election Commission, CIK. Although the eighth post-war general election comes in the middle of the country’s worst crisis since the 1992-5 war – and may not even lead to the establishment of new governments on all levels due to the broken election law [link to past reports] – the competition among local political rivals is fierce as ever. The CIK has meanwhile confirmed that 67 parties and 34 independent candidates have been certified to participate in the elections, in which 3.3 million verified voters in the country and abroad will be voting for new institutions at state, entity, cantonal and district levels.

Greece: Voting rights for Greeks abroad take centrestage on political debate | Neos Kosmos

One of the longest-standing unresolved political issues, the right of Greeks abroad to participate in elections, has gained new relevance recently, during a parliamentary debate in Greece, regarding legislation to change electoral divisions – and particularly to break the country’s largest electorate, that of the outer suburbs of Athens, into three divisions. The opposition proposed an amendment to the legislation (which also regulates municipal elections, linking them to the ones about the European Parliament), suggesting that every Greek citizen, registered in the electorate catalogues, should be able to vote at Greek embassy or consulate offices of their place of residency (the same right should be reserved for sailors, at the place where their ship is docked on election day).

Maldives: Electoral body delays presidential candidate applications | Maldives Independent

The start date for presidential candidates to submit their applications has been delayed by more than a week, the head of the Elections Commission said Thursday. The announcement was made by Ahmed Shareef in a press conference. “The commission first announced that applications would be open on 15 (July). We had some differences of opinion in the commission but we have now decided that the date for applications is 23 July,” he told reporters. Shareef said the wait was because the term for President Abdulla Yameen expires on 17 November due to the delays in the 2013 election.

Pakistan: Closing Pakistan’s electoral gender gap | The New Times

One hundred years ago, women in the United Kingdom gained the right to vote, and today, most women in the developed world are enfranchised. But in many developing countries, the resistance that British suffragettes faced a century ago, rooted in misogyny, persists. This is certainly true in Pakistan, where the general election set for July 25, provides an ideal opportunity to advocate for change. At first glance, Pakistan seems progressive. The law has permitted women to vote since 1956, almost a decade after independence from Britain. Since then, the number of women in parliament has steadily increased, aided by a 33 per cent quota and rules dictating how many women must be included on party lists.

Zimbabwe: First-ever election without Robert Mugabe has turned into a data privacy minefield | Quartz

When Zanu PF, the party of Zimbabwean president, Emmerson Mnangagwa sent out a text message campaign to thousands of people last week it was probably not expecting to set off an uproar about invasion of citizens’ data privacy. But that is just what is has managed to do and also been accused of manipulating the voter roll. Mnangagwa and the main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa are caught up in an intense battle ahead of presidential, parliamentary and local government polls on July 30 this year. It is the first election in Zimbabwe’s 38-year history without former president Robert Mugabe on the ballot and a lot of the debates are being played out on social media.

National: Nation’s top voting equipment vendors grilled by Senate on election security | Washington Times

The Senate’s leading election security advocates blasted the country’s top voting equipment vendors on Wednesday for potentially failing to shore up ballot boxes despite November’s midterm elections already being underway with primaries. Mark Warner, also the top Democrat in the Senate’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, scolded Texas-based Hart InterCivic for failing to cooperate with a security review in his home state of Virginia after that contest. “I am very concerned that there is a lot of chest thumping about how well we did in 2016,” Mr. Warner said during a Senate Rules and Administration Committee’s hearing on election safety — the second on the subject in less than a month. Peter Lichtenheld, vice president of operations for Hart InterCivic, had earlier told lawmakers of the firm’s “strong working relationships” with federal, state and local election officials.

National: Elections officials have a lot of security work to do before November, state and federal officials tell Congress | StateScoop

Russian hackers might not be as active in interfering with U.S. voting systems this year as they were in 2016, but that doesn’t mean states don’t have plenty of work to do to secure future elections, state and federal officials told members of the House of Representatives Wednesday. “Many elections across our country are being run on equipment that is either obsolete or near the end of its useful life,” Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea told the House Homeland Security Committee. But Gorbea, who said her state started buying new paper-ballot optical scanning machines to count votes in 2015, said replacing hardware is only one part of making the elections she oversees less vulnerable. In her experience, she said, the state-, county- and city-level officials who actually manage elections are “ill-prepared” to deal with cyberthreats.