National: Senate Intelligence report on election vulnerabilities expected in March | The Hill

The Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to issue a report on vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system — the first such product of the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the intelligence committee is working on the report and hopes to complete it by March.  Even after it’s completed, however, the report will still need to be vetted to ensure that it does not put classified information at risk. Still, the committee hopes to release the document ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.  Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Journal that the report will “hopefully” be released before the primaries begin.

National: Tracking Shows Russian Meddling Efforts Evolving Ahead Of 2018 Midterms | NPR

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sounded an alarm this week: The Russians are already meddling in the 2018 midterm elections. “The point is that if their intention is to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that,” Tillerson told Fox News. “I think it’s important we just continue to say to Russia, look, you think we don’t see what you’re doing. We do see it, and you need to stop.”  A new poll shows that a clear majority of Americans believe Russia will try to meddle in the next U.S. election. But Tillerson also noted that Russia’s tactics for interfering in U.S. politics are constantly changing. A bipartisan effort is shedding new light on how Russian methods evolve.

Illinois: Old Voting Machines Could Pose New Election Problems | NPR Illinois

The polls have opened for Illinois’ primary election, as voters were allowed to start casting early ballots Thursday. But the state’s election technology needs to be overhauled, according to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Sarah Brune is the group’s executive director. She says voting machines in some of the state’s election jurisdictions are as much as 15 years old. “Think about the computer you use every day; it’s not 15 years old, because it wouldn’t work if it was,” she said. 

Illinois: Early voting starts, but not for all | Associated Press

Early voting for the primary election is supposed to start Thursday across Illinois, but millions of voters won’t have the option because of pending candidate challenges. The state’s four most-populous counties have delayed the start of in-person early voting, with Cook and DuPage waiting until as late as Feb. 21 in order to get final decisions on several candidate challenges. Lake County plans to start Feb. 16 and Will County election officials say they’ll keep voters updated on their website and hope to be ready within days of a decision. But elsewhere, particularly in smaller counties downstate, clerks proceeded Thursday, offering caveats to voters who want to cast ballots. The result could be confusion for voters.

Nebraska: Voter ID opponents say measure would do more harm than good | Lincoln Journal Star

Sen. John Murante told the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday that a plan requiring Nebraskans to show identification before they vote would not exclude any legally entitled voters from casting a ballot. As part of Murante’s latest proposal (LB1066) to secure the state’s elections, as he put it, Nebraskans would also be entitled to receive a free government ID they could show to poll workers. LB1066 would work toward two goals Murante, of Gretna, said he wants to see accomplished in the state: preventing illegal votes from being cast while not turning anyone away from the polls who is eligible to vote.

Nevada: State Senate recall battle makes first stop in court; initial decision could come mid-February | The Nevada Independent

Arguments over the high stakes effort to recall two Democratic state Senators — and possibly flip control of Carson City’s upper house — came to court for the first time on Wednesday, but a decision is unlikely to emerge until later this month. The four-hour hearing ended with no clear indication on how District Court Judge Jerry Wiese — who asked only a handful of questions during the hearing — would rule on the case. But it provided a preview from attorney Marc Elias (a prominent national Democratic attorney) and Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, arguing the case through his private law practice, of the first of many legal arguments set to play out before any special recall election can be called.

Pennsylvania: As deadline looms, Republicans consider new strategy for congressional maps | Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s official: The state legislature will not pass a new congressional map before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Friday deadline. But the Republican leaders who control both chambers weren’t ready Thursday to cede the redrawing of districts to the state’s highest court, which has a Democratic majority. Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) were considering submitting a draft map to the governor Friday, staffers said. Then they could call lawmakers back in the coming days to vote on that map, or a different one. “We’re blazing new ground here, and we’re trying to meet as many markers as we possibly can,” said Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Scarnati and the Senate’s top lawyer. “I don’t sit here and say this is the perfect solution, but we’re trying to do the best we can.”

Utah: Two bills to significantly affect voting in Utah | Deseret News

The House Government Operations Committee approved two bills Wednesday that may drastically affect voting in Utah. HB35, sponsored by Rep. Marc Roberts, R-Salem, would create a pilot program that will make it an option to implement rank-choice and approval forms of voting in certain nonpartisan municipal elections. In rank-choice voting, the voter ranks multiple candidates for one seat from most favorable to least favorable with a numbering system. Approval voting differs from rank-choice voting in that voters mark the candidates they approve and leave the others blank.

Virginia: Voters quietly drop lawsuit requesting new 28th District election | Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

The legal fight over an error-tainted House of Delegates election in Fredericksburg came to an official end this week. Nearly a month after the General Assembly convened, a Democratic-aligned law firm dropped its federal appeal challenging the outcome of the 28th District race between Republican Del. Bob Thomas and Democrat Joshua Cole. At least 147 voters in Fredericksburg and Stafford County had been assigned to the wrong House district in a contest Thomas won by just 73 votes, according to state elections officials. Katie Baker, a spokeswoman for House Democrats, said in an email that they look forward to winning the 28th District seat in 2019, when Cole plans to challenge Thomas again. 

China: Why Joshua, Nathan, Alex and the Umbrella Movement would be an excellent choice for the Nobel Peace Prize | Hong Kong Free Press

It is very heartening that twelve United States lawmakers nominated Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, Alex Chow and the Umbrella Movement for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination comes at a time when the pro-democracy movement is under sustained attack by the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong government. Their primary means of attack are criminal prosecutions of pro-democracy leaders and activists and disqualifications from candidacy and elected office. Through these means, they have barred all groups which grew out of the Umbrella Movement from participating in the formal political system and are attempting to destroy the groups they find the most threatening.  They intend especially to intimidate young people against getting involved in politics, in the classic Communist ploy of “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”

Nepal: Communist parties poised to take power | Dhaka Tribune

Nepal’s Communist parties have secured a majority of seats in the upper house of parliament, the election commission said Thursday, paving the way for the leftist alliance to form the next government two months after historic general elections. The alliance of the main Communist party and former Maoist rebels won a strong majority in the indirectly elected upper house, according to results announced Thursday. The results of the national vote held late last year have not yet been confirmed, but an incomplete tally suggests the alliance also secured a majority in the directly elected lower house.

South Africa: Democracy and violence – the threat to South Africa’s elections | Martin Plaut/Daily Maverick

The ruptures of the apartheid era have been carried over into post-apartheid society, leaving the country with a tragic reputation for beatings, murder and the abuse of women and children. Police record some 650,000 victims of violence a year. As a recent headline put it: “South Africa is one of the most violent and unsafe countries in the world.” There is little trust in the police and more than 500,000 private security guards are employed by firms and individuals at a cost of $3.7-billion a year – more than twice the number of police officers. This climate of violence is carried over into political life, yet outside of South Africa this is little understood. Most international observers assume the miracle of the reconciliation ushered in by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with the Rainbow Nation still prevails. Yet the evidence is that political murders and intimidation now disfigure South African politics. Violence and intimidation threaten the legitimacy of the 2019 general election. Unless these issues are recognised and confronted there is a risk that the democracy for which so much was sacrificed will be undermined.

Venezuela: Few Challengers in Sight, Venezuela Sets April 22 for Presidential Vote | The New York Times

The Venezuelan government said Wednesday that it would hold a snap presidential election on April 22, putting the unpopular administration of President Nicolás Maduro in the hands of voters at a time when most top challengers have been barred from running. The announcement was made by Tibisay Lucena, the president of the country’s electoral commission, who said the date had been chosen after negotiations with opposition politicians had failed to reach an agreement about how to conduct the election fairly. The election will allow Venezuelans to “freely decide their fate,” she said. “We are committed, as always, to our constitutional task, to guarantee the right conditions so that democratic differences are settled through an efficient, transparent and balanced vote.”

National: DHS cyber chief: Russia ‘successfully penetrated’ some state voter rolls | The Hill

A U.S. cybersecurity official said Wednesday that Russia “successfully penetrated” the voter rolls in a small number of states in 2016. Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told NBC News that Russia targeted 21 states and “an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.” DHS previously notified the 21 states that Russia had attempted to hack their elections systems before the 2016 election. It was Manfra who first revealed to the Senate Intelligence Committee last June that the states had their systems targeted by Russian hackers ahead of the election.

National: FEC commissioner’s departure leaves panel with bare-minimum quorum | The Washington Post

Lee Goodman, a Republican appointee to the Federal Election Commission, announced his resignation Wednesday, leaving the deeply divided panel with a bare quorum to conduct business. Goodman, who has pushed for less regulation of money in politics during his four years on the panel, will rejoin the Washington-based law firm Wiley Rein, which specializes in election law and government ethics. His last day at the FEC will be Feb. 16. With Goodman’s departure, the FEC has a bare-minimum quorum of four members — two Republicans, one Democrat and one independent — whose unanimous votes are now required to take official action.

Editorials: U.S. Supreme Court casts wary view on gerrymandering | WRAL

If there was any doubt that state Senate leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore, redistricting czars Rep. David Lewis and Sen. Ralph Hise and others in the North Carolina legislature’s Republican leadership are marching to the beat of a drummer only they can hear, the U.S. Supreme Court offered loud and clear evidence Monday. We can only hope the message made it through to Berger and his gang. Justice Samuel Alito turned down a request from the state’s Republicans to delay redrawing congressional district lines. He said GOP legislative leaders in Pennsylvania violated the state constitution by unfairly favoring Republicans.

Alaska: Group picks Alaska to challenge unlimited campaign donations | Associated Press

A national group is focusing on Alaska in a bid to get the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit a 2010 decision that upended how campaigns are run in this country. The court decision paved the way for corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures, and in Alaska, was viewed by state officials as likely rendering several provisions of law prohibiting or limiting certain contributions unconstitutional. Washington, D.C.-based Equal Citizens wants to put that interpretation to the test but it could face an uphill battle. Equal Citizens is supporting complaints that have been filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission over contributions made in the 2016 election to independent groups that backed candidates to the Alaska Legislature. One group supported a Republican and the other leaned toward Democrats during the general election.

Arkansas: State’s ’17 voter-ID law fatally flawed, suit says | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

A lawsuit filed Wednesday claims the state’s new voter-identification law is just as flawed as the one the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional almost four years ago. The 23-page petition asks Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray to similarly rule that Act 633 of 2017 is illegal. The law requires voters, in order to guarantee that their ballots are counted, prove to election officials by use of government-issued photo identification that they are registered to vote. The statute the high court struck down in 2014 required people to use photo IDs to prove their identity before voting.

Missouri: To limit initiative petitions in Missouri, some want to charge fees | The Kansas City Star

Ten years ago, 15 initiative petitions were filed with the secretary of state’s office in the hopes of making it on the statewide ballot. This year, that number has skyrocketed to 330 and counting. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a first-term Republican and the state’s top election official, says the initiative petition process is getting out of hand. The time and resources spent on ballot summaries, signature verification, fiscal analysis and publication in the media go up every year along with the number of petitions. So he’s asking lawmakers to overhaul a process he says is being dominated by special interests, most notably by charging fees for filing initiative petitions and verifying signatures once they are collected. “Right now, we have individuals who are spending millions of dollars because they can’t get the laws that they want and they want to bypass the legislature,” Ashcroft said. “I think that’s inappropriate. We shouldn’t be subsidizing that with taxpayer dollars.”

North Carolina: After Supreme Court ruling, gerrymander challengers turn to state court for relief | News & Observer

Democrats and voters who filed the first lawsuit this decade challenging North Carolina lawmakers’ redistricting plans went back to state court on Wednesday, seven years after challenging the 2011 election maps, seeking relief from districts they contend still weaken the overall influence of black voters. The request comes the day after the U.S. Supreme Court partially granted a request from Republican lawmakers to block election lines drawn by a Stanford University law professor for four state House districts in Wake County and one House district in Mecklenburg County while they appealed a three-judge panel’s ruling. Republicans contended in the federal case that some of the legal questions should have been settled in state court because they involved questions about violations to the state constitution, but now they are speaking out against further proceedings there.

Ohio: Will Ohio’s New Redistricting Plan End Gerrymandering? | The Atlantic

On Monday night, the Ohio state Senate did something truly unprecedented: With near-unanimous support from both Republicans and Democrats, the chamber approved Senate Resolution 5, a measure that would for the first time require bipartisan input and approval for federal congressional maps. The measure is expected to pass the state House today, and it will appear on the ballot in the May primary elections to get final approval from voters. As it stands, there are few state guidelines on federal redistricting in Ohio. As in most states, the power to create maps rests with the state legislature, which usually means that the party in power—right now, it’s the GOP—ends up calling the shots. There are also few requirements for community disclosure or involvement. The only real constraints that exist are those under federal court rulings and the Voting Rights Act, which prohibit racial gerrymandering and ensure districts have roughly the same populations. So far, the result of those limited rules has been a congressional map that, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, has consistently led to Republican partisan bias.

Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court releases gerrymandering opinion: 2011 map violates ‘free and equal’ elections | Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania’s congressional map, as adopted in 2011, violates the state constitution’s guarantee that “elections shall be free and equal,” the state Supreme Court said Wednesday in an opinion explaining its gerrymandering order overturning the map more than two weeks ago. “An election corrupted by extensive, sophisticated gerrymandering and partisan dilution of votes is not ‘free and equal,’ ” Justice Debra McCloskey Todd wrote for the majority. In such circumstances, a “power, civil or military,” to wit, the General Assembly, has in fact “interfere[d] to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The opinion came just two days before the deadline for lawmakers to pass a new congressional district map and send it to Gov. Wolf for approval, after the high court declared Pennsylvania’s congressional map an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, drawn to benefit Republicans at Democrats’ expense.

South Dakota: House passes election reform bill opponents call ‘onslaught’ against initiative process | Argus Leader

South Dakota lawmakers advanced a set of proposals Wednesday aimed at blocking out-of-state influence over the process voters use to bring policy questions to the ballot. On the House floor and in committee, legislators approved bills that would restrict funding to ballot measure committees from outside the state, and require circulators to give up more information on petition forms and on the ballot. The bill’s sponsors said the proposals could block foreign groups that would aim to test policy in South Dakota, while opponents said the measures went too far and could inhibit South Dakotans’ abilities to bring issues to the ballot.

Washington: House Committee Considers Same-Day Voter Registration | Spokane Public Radio

A Washington House committee is considering a bill that would allow people to register to vote and then cast ballots on the same day. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Patty Kuderer (D-Bellevue). “If you look at the five other states that have same-day voter registration, you’ll see that they have increased their voter participation, in some cases, as much as 10%, which is significant by any measure.”

South America: E-voting firm Smartmatic could miss out on Brazilian and Venezuelan election | BNamericas

The printers developed by Venezuelan-owned e-voting firm Smartmatic have been rejected this week in a vote-casting compliance test carried out by Brazil’s top electoral court TSE. The test concluded that Smartmatic’s “engineering model” did not comply with the bidding requirements. While the QR codes printed by the Smartmatic model were read correctly by electronic devices, the proportions of the codes did not meet the requirements, TSE said. Smartmatic had won with a 67.3mn real-bid (US$20.7mn) a public tender held in January by TSE to provide 30,000 printers for Brazil’s general elections in October. Those printers are expected to be integrated to the same number of voting machines to give voters a paper copy of their vote. … Meanwhile, Smartmatic is also most certainly out of the April elections in the country where it began its operations: Venezuela.

Australia: Vision-impaired voters to have access to electronic voting at state election | In Daily

The State Government has approved the use of VoteAssist, a computer-based application developed by the Western Australian Electoral Commission for its 2013 state election. The software uses specially designed computer terminals, headphones and a numeric keypad to provide audio prompts to guide the elector through the voting process. The Government passed legislation last year to…

Germany: Merkel passes major hurdle after party leaders agree on new coalition | The Washington Post

After a grueling all-night negotiating session, Germany’s two leading parties reached agreement Wednesday to once again form a governing coalition, after inconclusive elections in September left the country mired in political gridlock. The four months of wrangling and repeated failures to come up with a coalition have weakened Germany, and particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a time when Europe is seeking a strong leader. The talks between Merkel’s bloc — an alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union — and the Social Democrats (SPD) extended past a self-imposed Sunday deadline and a two-day grace period into Wednesday morning, when party leaders finally overcame differences on key issues such as health care and labor policy. 

Malaysia: New electoral maps set to favour ruling coalition | The Straits Times

Malaysia’s electoral authorities are rushing through new maps that critics say will further tilt the bias in favour of the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) at a general election expected within the next few months. Despite 16 months of protests and a record number of objections and court cases to declare the Election Commission’s (EC) proposals illegal, Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to table new maps in Parliament next month, the last session scheduled before polls must be held. The EC’s redelineation exercise came under fire when a first proposal was unveiled in September 2016 for worsening malapportionment – the difference in the number of voters between wards – and shifting voters to ensure more victories for BN, which surveys say is at its most unpopular since Datuk Seri Najib took over nine years ago.

Mexico: Tillerson and Democrats agree that Russia will try to influence Mexico’s elections with fake news | Miami Herald

Trump administration officials and Democrats in Congress cannot agree on almost anything, but they are increasingly voicing the same concern when it comes to Latin America: Russia will try to influence the upcoming elections in Mexico, Colombia and other countries in the region. After returning from a five-country Latin American tour, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday: “We see some of Russia’s fingerprints around elections that have occurred in Europe. … We are seeing similar activity in this hemisphere.” He added, “There are a number of important elections in this hemisphere this year.” Tillerson did not cite any specific Latin American country, but Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland — a leading member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — told me in an interview Wednesday that he has no doubt Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to interfere in this year’s elections in Mexico and Colombia.

Nigeria: UK-based Nigerian group makes case for Diaspora voting | Vanguard

The Diaspora Voting Right Movement, a Nigerian Group based in the United Kingdom, on Wednesday called on the Federal Government to legalise Diaspora voting. Dr Philip Idaewor, the Convener of the group, said on the telephone from London that the clamour for Diaspora voting had been on for more than a decade. “ As women celebrate 100 years of voting rights in the United Kingdom, Nigerians in the Diaspora renew call for the right to vote in elections in Nigeria,” he said.