Yearly Archives: 2018

Alabama thrust itself into an intense partisan confrontation last month when it filed a lawsuit opposing the counting of undocumented immigrants for congressional reapportionment purposes in the 2020 U.S. Census. Critics believe Alabama, much like the federal government through its decision to back a citizenship question on the 2020 forms, is aiming to “weaponize” the program for political gain. But backers of the lawsuit filed by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, argue that the state is testing legal waters in an attempt to salvage one of the state’s seven congressional seats and one of its nine electoral votes.

Florida: Rick Scott fires back in election-year early voting lawsuit | Tampa Bay Times

Gov. Rick Scott’s administration fired back in federal court Friday, seeking to undercut a League of Women Voters lawsuit over early voting on college campuses. The League last month sued Scott’s chief elections official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, whose office in 2014 interpreted state law to exclude state university buildings from a list of sites available for early voting. Florida allows early voting at elections offices, city halls, libraries, fairgrounds, civic centers, courthouses, county commission buildings, stadiums, convention centers, government-owned senior centers and government-owned community centers. But buildings on state college and university campuses? No. Democrats tried to include them as early voting sites, but Republicans blocked the proposal.

Maine: Elections chief compares ranked-choice vote count to ‘trying to get through a burning barn in a gasoline suit’ | Bangor Daily News

State election workers forged new ground Friday when the process of counting ranked-choice voting kicked off with political observers hovering to ensure they do it right. In Augusta, workers loaded information from memory sticks to computers while others fed paper ballots through a tabulator capable of counting 300 ballots a minute. That process will continue until early next week, when all the ballot information is finally loaded into the system. Then, a keystroke or two on a single laptop computer will compute the first-round totals in a matter of moments.

Nevada: Election officials to consider changes after court’s voter purge ruling | Associated Press

Nevada’s elections officials say they will consider this summer whether the state will start taking a more aggressive, approach to maintaining its voter rolls as upheld this week by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court in a 5-4 ruling Monday affirmed Ohio’s practice of identifying voters for potential removal if they don’t vote in a federal election. That state removes voters from the rolls if they don’t return an address confirmation card or vote for the following four years.

North Carolina: Republicans Are Back With a New Plan for Strict Voter Laws | The New York Times

The last time Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature enacted a law making it harder for some of the state’s residents to vote, a federal court said the statute targeted African-American voters “with almost surgical precision,” and threw it out. That was last year. Now the legislators are back with a new set of election proposals, and an unconventional plan to make them stick. Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Republican senators unveiled legislation that would eliminate the final Saturday of early voting in state elections, a day that typically draws a large share of black voters to the polls. That followed a Republican proposal last week to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would require all voters to display a photo ID before casting votes.

North Carolina: Gov. Cooper vetoes judicial district, election bills | Associated Press

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes of two bills adds more uncertainty to already unusual state elections this fall for judges and in races where new political parties want to field candidates. Cooper announced late Friday – less than three hours before a 10-day state constitutional deadline – his decision to block a pair of measures.n One adjusts many judicial election districts in Wake, Mecklenburg, Pender, and New Hanover counties. The other in part prevents the Green and Constitution parties this year from nominating for the November ballot any losing candidate primaries for the same office. The new parties didn’t participate in last month’s primaries and are holding nominating conventions. The Constitution Party of North Carolina was holding its convention Saturday.

Pennsylvania: Changes primary election process being considered | Meadville Tribune

In 1842, James Shellito of Sadsbury Township was upset with the procedure used by the Crawford County Democratic Party for choosing its nominees. He proposed a change that instead of a designated few choosing the party’s nominees for the general election in a behind-closed-doors session, all the registered Democrats should be allowed to choose the nominee. The matter was put to a vote and others agreed with Shellito. Thus, the “primary election” as it is known today was born. The primary election is defined as the election held by the two major political parties (Republican and Democrat) to choose their respective nominees for the fall election. Although states have primary elections, the types of primary elections differ from state to state.

Colombia: President-Elect Seeks Unity After Polarizing Vote | The New York Times

President-elect Ivan Duque appealed for unity after winning a runoff election over a leftist firebrand whose ascent shook Colombia’s political establishment and laid bare deep divisions over the nation’s peace process. The conservative Duque, the protege of a powerful former president, was elected Sunday with 54 percent of the vote. He finished more than 12 points ahead of former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, though the runner-up’s performance at the ballot box was the best ever for the left in one of Latin America’s most conservative nations.

Comoros: Vice-president denounces ‘illegal’ referendum | AFP

The Comoran vice-president has denounced as “illegal” a planned July referendum on constitutional reform that could allow President Azali Assoumani to seek re-election. Assoumani only took office in 2016 but wants to hold a fresh vote next year, two years early, so that he can remain in power beyond 2021 when his currently non-renewable term would otherwise end. The referendum, scheduled for July 29, could change the current system — which sees power rotate every five years between the archipelago’s three main islands — and enable the president to run for two fresh five year-terms.

Greece: Government survives no-confidence vote over Macedonia name deal | Deutsche Welle

Greek lawmakers have voted down a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The vote was called over a deal to end a long-running name dispute with the neighboring Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The left-led coalition government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday survived a no-confidence vote brought by the conservative opposition New Democracy party after the government reached a landmark agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) over its name.The parliament voted 153-127 against the motion. The deal, struck on Tuesday, would allow Macedonia to rename itself North Macedonia. It has angered Greek nationalists, who insist that any retention of the name “Macedonia” by the neighboring country implies claims to Greece’s province of the same name and usurps ancient Greek heritage and history.

Turkey: Leaked Erdogan Video Stokes Turkish Vote-Rigging Fears | VoA News

A leaked video of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vote sparked fears of possible vote rigging ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June 24. The video shows Erdogan telling party officials to secure majorities on ballot box monitoring committees to “finish the job in Istanbul before it has even started.” In the video, Erdogan also comments on the pro-Kurdish HDP: “I can’t speak these words outside [publicly]. I am speaking them with you here. Why? Because if the HDP falls below the election threshold, it would mean that we would be in a much better place.”

Zimbabwe: Parliamentary watchdog takes Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to court | The Zimbabwe Mail

Veritas Zimbabwe, has taken the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to court and its two cases will be heard tomorrow. In the first case Veritas is seeking to open up voter education which is currently restricted to the commission. It argues that this restriction is inconsistent with the freedom of expression which is guaranteed under the country’s constitution. In the second case Veritas is seeking the court to decide on the definition of transparency because it is not defined in the country’s constitution.

Editorials: The Science of Elections | Michael Latner/Scientific American

Science has always been political. The Enlightenment brought forth a series of revolutions that transformed both our understanding of the universe and our role in it. New scientific discoveries often threaten the justification for power of those in authority, placing scientists at the center of politics. Galileo’s confrontation with the Catholic Church comes immediately to mind, but tensions between scientists and political authorities erupt with relative frequency. One of the early figures of the English Enlightenment, Thomas Hobbes, fled to Paris over concern about how his political works would be taken by Parliament (Hobbes was a royalist, and hostile to the Catholic Church).

Pennsylvania: Complying with governor’s edict could be expensive, leaders say | Sharon Herald

In Mercer County’s efforts to purchase a new voting system, the incumbent got first crack at displaying its wares. Omaha-based ES&S promoted its next-generation election machines for county commissioners and elections officials Thursday at the courthouse. Mercer County has used the ES&S-manufactured iVotronic machines for more than 10 years. Mercer, and Pennsylvania’s other 66 counties, are under an order from Gov. Tom Wolf to adopt voting systems that provide paper records of individual votes cast to alleviate concerns of election tampering in time for the 2020 elections. The iVotronic device does not meet that standard. All of the election options presented Thursday issue paper records of individual votes or read paper ballots, or both. Kevin Kerrigan, a senior sales engineer for ES&S, said the devices are designed to function for the long-term. “You’re going to buy this stuff and expect it to work for at least 10 years,” he said.

National: Sessions will keep Rosenstein in charge of Russia investigation | CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is taking responsibility for authorizing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to remain in charge of the Russia investigation, and detailed the process by which former FBI Director James Comey was fired. The comments come amid criticism from Republicans for the Justice Department’s decision to keep Rosenstein in charge of the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling in 2016, and any possible collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign. Sessions said in an interview released Thursday that he was the one who made the decision to recommend to Trump that he fire Comey, not Rosenstein — and that therefore Rosenstein isn’t disqualified from his role in the Russia investigation. “That decision … really fell to me, ultimately, on the Comey matter,” Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation, told Hill.TV’s “Rising.” “And that’s not a disqualifying thing.”

Voting Blogs: States are applying for 2018 HAVA funds, how are they spending them? | electionlineWeekly

Earlier this year, the president signed Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 into law, the law includes $380 million in grants for states to improve their cybersecurity. To-date 32 states, America Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands have applied for their HAVA funds. Although states are allowed to draw down on their available funds in phases, most states seem to be applying for—and receiving—all their funds at one time. Once states have applied for their funds they have 90-days to provide a narrative on what they will be spending the money on. Part of the requirement for receiving the federal funds is a 5 percent match from states. How elections officials are getting those matches varies. Some states are relying on their Legislatures to allocate the funding and others are using existing funds allocated in state budgets.

Alabama: Secretary of State’s office: No estimate of Alabama voter ID need | Montgomery Advertiser

Secretary of State John Merrill said Thursday his office is doing all it can to respond to voter ID requests. But they don’t know the scope of the need in the state. The Secretary of State’s Office does not have estimates of the needs for voter ID cards among the more than 3 million registered voters in Alabama, and Merrill said Thursday they do not plan to. “We don’t want to expend our energies and resources in trying to identify that need when we’re trying to meet it each and every day,” he said.

Editorials: California took a radical step to fix gerrymandering. Did it work? | Washington Post

This redistricting process is as old as the republic, enshrined in the Constitution. It has been controversial from the start and vulnerable to distortion. Politicians with the power to draw the lines have done so to gain advantage — whether that meant ensuring that incumbents were reelected or that the political party in power produced districts that gave them a disproportionate share of the seats.This term, the Supreme Court is considering the role of partisanship. But is there a fair and equitable way to draw these district lines? Some states, California being the biggest, have decided the only way to produce fairer lines is to try to take politicians out of the process. Every redistricting cycle has produced oddly shaped districts, with lines snaking here and there across counties and neighborhoods. To the naked eye, there is no logic to the lines. To those who have drawn them, they are designed to give somebody, some group or some party an advantage, or to assure that racial minorities receive adequate representation.

Georgia: Panel Looks To Phase Out State’s 16-Year-Old Voting Machines | WABE

Georgia needs new voting technology. That was the basis, at least in part, for a meeting at a Cobb County library Wednesday of state lawmakers, local election officials, a cybersecurity expert and political party representatives. They’re part of the Secure, Accessible and Fair Elections (SAFE) Commission appointed by Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp. It’s tasked with looking at how best to phase out Georgia’s current voting machines first introduced in 2002. “I think the time is late,” said Democratic state Sen. Lester Jackson, who sits on the commission. “But I think this is absolutely necessary, that we have a valid voting process for 2020. One of the most important elections of all time.”

Michigan: Lawmakers introduce bill to lower voting age to 16 | Michigan Radio

Michigan’s voting age could be lowered to 16 if lawmakers pass a bill that was introduced this week. This bill, sponsored by Senator David Knezek and Representative Yousef Rabhi, follows an outpouring of teen advocacy after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida in February. The legislators hope to give teenagers a voice in the political process– after all, they say, the political process impacts 16 year olds. “We allow 16-year-olds to go off and get jobs and pay taxes, but we fail to allow them to exercise their voice come election time,” Knezek told the Detroit Free Press. “Young people are setting aside their differences and identifying issues they think need to change. And they can do everything to get that change except vote.”

Minnesota: Supreme Court strikes down Minnesota law on voter clothing | Star Tribune

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Minnesota law that prohibits people from wearing political clothing or buttons at polling places, calling the ban overly broad but leaving room for the state to impose narrower restrictions. The 7-2 ruling invalidating the particulars of Minnesota’s law left state and county officials who administer elections unsure what’s proper attire and what isn’t for the upcoming August primary and the November general election. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that Minnesota’s law needed clearer parameters for both voters and election officials to avoid confusion and prevent potential violations of First Amendment free-speech rights.

North Carolina: This early voting plan would take away a popular day. It’s speeding through the North Carolina House | News & Observer

popular day for early voting would be eliminated under a proposal that supporters say is meant to bring uniformity to the 100 North Carolina counties’ one-stop voting schedules. The proposal to change early voting has bipartisan support and is speeding through the legislature. It was made public late Wednesday night and received a preliminary vote of approval in the state House on Thursday afternoon. House Speaker Tim Moore moved on to a vote before lawmakers were able to signal that they wanted to talk about the proposal. “Aren’t we going to debate the bill?” Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat, could be heard asking while House members were voting.

Macedonia: Greek government faces no-confidence vote on Macedonia name deal | Associated Press

The prime ministers of Greece and Macedonia faced political storms at home Thursday, two days after reaching a historic deal to settle a decades-old dispute over Macedonia’s name. Greece’s Alexis Tsipras faces a vote of no-confidence in his government by Saturday afternoon, while Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev is contending with the refusal of the country’s president to sign off on the deal if it’s approved by parliament. Zaev and Tsipras have agreed that the former Yugoslav republic should be renamed North Macedonia, ending a disagreement that had prevented it from joining international institutions such as NATO and had poisoned bilateral relations since the early 1990s.

Mexico: Mexicans can now vote using presidential candidates’ nicknames | The Guardian

When Mexican voters go to the polls on 1 July to pick a new president, they will able to choose between candidates including Richie Rich, Alligatorfish, and the Untamed One thanks to a ruling by the country’s electoral institute. Voters will now be allowed to scribble a candidate’s nickname, initials or campaign slogan anywhere on the ballot – rather than mark an X over their names – and have it count as valid. The National Electoral Institute (INE) – which organises the election and referees all partisan political activities in Mexico – changed the rules barely three weeks ahead of the vote that will also renew congress, elect nine governors and hundreds of mayors.

Turkey: Will spike in fake news have an impact on elections in Turkey? | Al Jazeera

A soft-spoken parliamentarian, it’s easy to overlook Fatma Benli in a busy cafe until she starts recalling the disinformation campaign that nearly derailed her election bid two years ago. The small room we’re in begins to shudder as the sitting MP for the ruling AK Party passionately explains that she could have lost because of fake news and online narratives. “There was fake news circulating on every major social media platform,” the 44-year-old told Al Jazeera, reeling off a litany of examples where she and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were repeatedly attacked in spurious social media posts. “Facebook, Twitter, it came from all sides.”

Zimbabwe: ‘We have a new chance’: Zimbabwe gears up for elections after Mugabe | The Guardian

The president and his wife drive slowly across the dusty sports ground, preceded by a pickup full of local reporters, flanked by a crowd of excited teenagers, and followed by a large cloud of dust. Banners are held aloft, flags waved. Zimbabwe’s election campaign has reached Chegutu, a small agricultural town on the high, flat uplands 70 miles west of Harare. The rally is one of the first since the official declaration of the campaign last month. The coming election – on 30 July – is the latest turning point in the most tumultuous few months in almost four decades of Zimbabwe’s political history.

National: Voter confidence is the biggest election security challenge, DHS cybersecurity official says | The Washington Post

A top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security says the biggest election security challenge going into the midterms isn’t a technical one. It’s convincing voters that their ballots are secure. “To me the No. 1 threat is around public confidence in the process,” said Matt Masterson, who coordinates a range of DHS election security efforts as senior cybersecurity adviser within the department’s National Protection and Programs Directorate. “How are we talking about this? How are we educating the public so they have confidence in the process and will show up and vote? Because the best response to any attempts to undermine confidence in the process is to vote.” Now that voters know that nation-states such as Russia want to disrupt U.S. elections, it’s going to take a continuous effort from DHS and other government agencies at all levels to make sure they keep turning out at the polls, Masterson told me in a recent interview in his office in Arlington, Va. And that won’t go away come November.

National: National labs will probe election tech for vulnerabilities under planned DHS program | CyberScoop

The government is currently planning a cybersecurity program that would allow federally funded national scientific laboratories to privately probe and then document security flaws existing in U.S. election technology, most of which is developed and sold by private companies, according to a senior U.S. official. Rob Karas, director of the National Cybersecurity Assessments and Technical Service team at the Homeland Security Department, said that multiple election technology vendors had already shown an interest in engaging on the effort. Karas declined to name the firms, but said the initiative will begin later this summer. The outreach process is still ongoing.

Editorials: The Battle for Voting Rights Lives On | Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg

The first thing to know about the Supreme Court decision that allows Ohio to purge its voter rolls is that it was a case of statutory construction, not constitutional interpretation. The justices were only trying to figure out what ordinary laws say, not what the Constitution means. … The second thing to know is that the Constitution doesn’t matter here in large part because there is no established constitutional right to vote for Ohio or anyone else to violate. Should there be? Yes. While Scott Lemieux points out the limits of advocating for and even passing a constitutional amendment making a right to vote explicit, there’s an excellent case to be made that such a right is already right there in the Constitution — indeed, that it is fundamental to the entire project the Framers were undertaking, even if, for them, that right was severely restricted, something that the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments corrected. The Constitution certainly does not require direct election for all offices, but it does require that all offices, directly or indirectly, get their authority from popular elections, which to me at least strongly implies that voting is fundamental to their notion of a republic. (I should remind everyone at this point that “republic” and “democracy” are best treated as synonyms, regardless of the vocabulary folks used in the 18th century, when they had a lot less experience with these things.)

California: Los Angeles County Invests $300 Million in New Voting System | MyNewsLA