New York: Win for Election Transparency as Court Rules Ballot Images Are Public Records | WhoWhatWhy

Election-integrity advocates hailed the recent decision of a state court that could have a sweeping effect on election transparency throughout the country. At issue was whether electronic ballot images — the kind captured by optical and digital ballot scanners — are public records and therefore subject to freedom of information laws. That is particularly important because most Americans cast their ballots through some kind of electronic voting machine — despite their proven vulnerability — and ballot images provide the public with at least some measure that their votes are counted accurately. Therefore, easy access to these images is crucial. Knowing that the public has some measure of verification is an important deterrent against tampering with elections. That is precisely why this case from upstate New York is a major victory for transparency advocates.

Editorials: Ahead of the 2020 election, let’s address Pennsylvania’s election security so your vote can count | David Hickton & Paul McNulty/Philadelphia Inquirer

Exercising our right to vote is the purest expression of our faith in democracy. Without a shared sense of trust in the integrity of that vote, we risk becoming a nation dangerously divided against itself. Great vigilance would be in order, then, even if Pennsylvanians could rely on secure, resilient election systems and architecture. The reality, however, is otherwise. Today our state is among the most vulnerable in the country to hacking and cyber attack – a democratic four-alarm blaze just waiting to happen. Pennsylvania’s role as a perennial swing-state brings with it high stakes, close presidential elections, and even closer scrutiny. In 2016, Donald Trump’s margin of victory here – fewer than 70,000 votes – was barely one percent of the nearly six million votes cast statewide. We know that faith in the validity of our elections is a quality much harder to earn than to lose. That’s why, as proud Pennsylvanians who have dedicated our careers to justice, law, and education, we feel strongly that the time is now to address this vulnerability. We must come together as a commonwealth, as communities, and as citizens to make an honest assessment of Pennsylvania’s election security architecture, to diagnose and discuss its strengths and weaknesses, and to plan for a better, more secure future.

Tennessee: Hackers May Be Behind Election Night Website Crash in Tennessee | Bloomberg

The shutdown of a county website in Tennessee — which briefly disrupted the display of election-night results in primary races — is under investigation, and occurred as officials around the country fear cyber attacks in this fall’s midterm elections. A server crashed, shutting down the Knox County website just as polls closed Monday night for local government offices, according to a statement from Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett. The website was down for about an hour before officials restored it. “Although the crash didn’t affect the vote tallies or the integrity of the election, this is not something that should happen,” Burchett said. “I want to know what happened, and I think an independent review will help to determine that so we can move forward and work to prevent similar issues in the future.”

Iraq: New election devices easier to tamper with votes, Kurdish official warns | Kurdistan24

The new electronic ballot-counting device for the upcoming Iraqi elections is easy to be programmed and could be used to tamper votes from one party to another, an official from the Kurdistan Region’s electoral commission warned on Wednesday. Iraqi parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held on May 12 across the country. It is the first time Iraq will use an electronic vote counter. Voters are still required to place their votes on paper ballots, but machines will do the counting. “An electronic system for elections is good, but it should be used in a country that has the rule of law—in a country that does not have militias or some political parties which have full control over the system,” Ismael Khurmali, the Kurdistan Region’s Election Commission Council’s decision-maker, told Kurdistan 24.

United Kingdom: Anger and confusion as voters turned away during ID trial | The Guardian

A trial of voter ID has seen people in England turned away from polling booths for the first time for not carrying the necessary documents, with other issues reported including abuse of voting staff and some confusion over what evidence needed to be shown. The local elections saw the scheme tested out in five boroughs in an attempt to crack down on voter impersonation, with the possibility it could be extended nationwide in future elections. The main issues appeared to be in Bromley and Woking where, along with Gosport, people had to show one piece of photo ID or two from a list of other documents. In the other two test areas, Swindon and Watford, only a polling card was required. In Bromley, south-east London, tallies by the opposition Labour group found at least 13 people turned away from just one ward, Crystal Palace. There were also reports of some voters being angry and abusive to polling station workers when asked to show ID.

Tunisia: Tunisia to hold 1st local election since 2011 Arab Spring | Associated Press

Tunisia is hoping to break through barriers with its first local election since its 2011 Arab Spring revolution — a vote that could produce the first female mayor of the capital, the first Jewish official with an Islamist party and new flock of mayors with greater powers. The North African country is trying to consolidate its young democracy with Sunday’s election, in which Tunisia’s 5.3 million voters will choose local leadership from 2,000 lists of candidates. The top vote-getters are expected to come from the Islamist Ennahdha party and the president’s moderate secular Nida Tunis party, which govern together in a coalition. But nearly half the candidate lists are from independent groups that are pledging to address local issues.

National: Giuliani said the Stormy Daniels payment was legal. Here’s what campaign finance experts said. | The Washington Post

In interviews Wednesday and Thursday, President Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani repeatedly asserted that a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the presidential campaign was legal. “It’s not campaign money,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “No campaign finance violation.” The settlement with Daniels, made by Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen in the fall of 2016, was a “personal thing,” Giuliani later told The Washington Post. “Was the president really wise to take it out of personal funds rather than from campaign funds?” he added. “Thank God he did, [or else] he’d get a campaign finance violation they’d try to drum up into a felony or something. The president is personally protected.” But under federal campaign finance rules, a contribution is “anything of value given, loaned or advanced to influence a federal election.” A “knowing and willful” violation of those rules can lead to criminal charges.

Editorials: How voters lost the freedom to access the campaign website of their choice | Jon M. Peha/The Hill

The Senate may soon be voting on net neutrality. The net neutrality debate is driven in part by the fact that Internet service providers (ISPs) have the technical ability and financial incentive to act as gatekeepers, picking winners and losers in the Internet marketplace. Perhaps an ISP will favor a particular airline reservation website or an online newspaper by blocking access to its competitors, or simply by making access to competitors’ content painfully slow. These delays matter; Google found that a majority of viewers typically abandon a website if they have to wait just three seconds.

Arizona: House passes GOP plan to overhaul redistricting commission | The Arizona Republic

Republicans in the Arizona House on Wednesday pushed through a proposal to revamp the commission that draws the state’s political boundaries. The House voted 32-25 to approve the measure to overhaul Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission, which sets political district lines that determine who represents voters in Congress and the state Legislature. The vote, with Republicans in favor and Democrats in opposition, came as lawmakers were working to put together and pass a final budget. Any changes to the commission require a vote of the people in the form of an amendment to the Arizona Constitution.

Florida: Governor orders hiring of election security consultants | Associated Press

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday that the state would hire special election security consultants in advance of this year’s critical elections despite state legislators rejecting a similar request earlier this year. Scott and state officials had asked the Florida Legislature to create a cybersecurity unit in the state’s elections office to combat a “growing threat.” The move came after an effort to infiltrate the state’s election systems during the 2016 elections. Legislators did not agree to the request so the Republican governor said the state would hire five employees under contract to assist Florida election officials. State officials said they would use a federal grant to pay for the security consultants.

Tennessee: Officials Are Trying To Get To The Bottom Of An Election Night Cyberattack | HuffPost

Officials in Knox County, Tennessee, are trying to gather more information about a cyberattack that crashed a government website that displayed election results to the public during its primary election for local offices on Tuesday. Dick Moran, the county’s top IT official, believes Knox County was the target of a denial-of-service attack in which actors with both domestic and foreign IP addresses deliberately flooded the county’s servers with traffic to try and crash them. The county website displaying election results went down for about an hour as polls closed on Tuesday. The crash meant that people who went to check election results between 8 and 9 p.m. on election night received an error message, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. While the website was down, election officials printed out hard copies of the election results and gave them to reporters, WBIR, a local NBC affiliate, reported. Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett (R) said on Wednesday that the crash didn’t impact “vote tallies or the integrity of the election,” but that the county had hired a security firm to investigate the cause of the crash.

Tennessee: Cyberattack crashes Tennessee county’s website on election night | CNET

A local election in Tennessee is dealing with the aftermath of a cyberattack, and the county’s mayor is calling for an investigation. On Tuesday night, as polls were closing for Knox County’s primary races for the mayoral election, the county’s website displaying the results crashed. The page was down for about an hour starting around 8 p.m. before officials were able to restore it, according to the county’s Election Commission. … The primary election continued, with the county announcing that Glenn Jacobs, also known as WWE wrestler Kane, had won the GOP nomination by 17 votes. The attack did not affect votes because the county’s voting machines are not connected online, an election official told WBIR.

Virginia: Virginia works to improve voting process before midterm elections | WRIC

As Virginia prepares for the November midterm elections, the State Board of Elections approved a number of policy changes aimed at clarifying the voting process and making ballots easier to understand. On March 23, the board met for the first time since the Northam administration was sworn in. The panel unanimously voted to roll out new ballot standards for the Nov. 6 general election. The goal of the standards is clarification – including allowing candidates to use nicknames, more readable fonts and user-friendly instructions on the ballots. Each ballot will include instructions on how to vote. It will also state, “If you want to change a vote or if you have made a mistake, ask an election worker for another ballot. If you make marks on the ballot besides filling in the oval, your votes may not be counted.”

Washington: Secretary of State Kim Wyman asks Gov. Inslee for $2 million to fund prepaid postage for mail-in ballots | The Seattle Times

Gov. Jay Inslee is considering a request from the state’s top election official to spend $2 million to cover prepaid postage on mail-in ballots for this year’s elections. Secretary of State Kim Wyman made the emergency request in response to a similar measure before the Metropolitan King County Council. On Monday the county council decided to delay a vote by a week on a request sponsored by Councilmember Dave Upthegrove to spend $381,000 for prepaid postage for the Aug. 7 primary and the November general election. The request originated with King County Elections Director Julie Wise.

Iraq: In Mosul’s ruins, Iraq election candidates vow bright future | AFP

Election posters plastered on the bullet-riddled wall of a girls’ school in the Old City of Iraq’s Mosul pledge a better future for those casting their ballot at a nationwide vote. But the scenes of devastation that surround them almost 10 months after the Islamic State group (IS) was forced from the country’s second city belie the hopeful claims. “Iraq is moving forward,” reads an advert for candidate Laith Ahmad Hassan, standing for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Victory Alliance at the May 12 parliamentary poll. “We will continue the process of reconstruction and offer the benefits to the people,” says a poster for contender Fares Sheikh Sadik from a Kurdish party.

Lebanon: Perplexing alliances in Lebanon as parliament elections near | Ahram

Lebanon is gearing up for parliamentary elections slated for 6 May, with members of the country’s large expatriate community having already cast their votes in elections that have been seeing complex and intertwining alliances. The last time Lebanese politicians competed for seats in parliament was in June 2009. Nine years and a new electoral law later, three main factors have come into play. First, the elections are being held after the ratification of a law granting Lebanese nationality to the offspring of expatriates, pushed for by the Alawite Free Patriotic Movement headed by Foreign Minister Jibran Bassel. The law may attract more Christian voters, since most Lebanese abroad are Christians.

Libya: Militants attack Libyan election commission, 14 Killed | Associated Press

Islamic State suicide bombers attacked Libya’s election commission in the capital on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people in the worst such attack in years that aimed to disrupt a nation-wide vote planned for later this year. The two bombers infiltrated the building in central Tripoli and fired on people inside, then detonated their explosives when their ammunition ran out, IS said in a statement circulated by its affiliated Amaq news agency. The Health Ministry earlier said the attack also set fire to the building, which could be seen in online videos showing thick black smoke billowing upward and security forces engaging in a gun battle. IS and other Islamic extremists in Libya oppose democratic elections, which the United Nations and Libya’s foreign backers are urging to take place this year despite security problems in the oil-rich North African country. Militants have often targeted elections in other countries, and IS has called for attacks on voting infrastructure in Libya.

Malaysia: Watchdogs believe flaws in voter list ‘tip of iceberg’ | Reuters

Electoral watchdog groups in Malaysia said the voter list for next week’s general election had major flaws, including the existence of a 121-year-old voter, raising the spectre of possible fraud. About 15 million Malaysians are registered to vote in next Wednesday’s (May 9) election pitting Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional coalition, which has ruled for six decades, against a resurgent opposition led by former leader Mahathir Mohamad. A joint study of the voters’ rolls by electoral reform groups Bersih and Engage found more than 500,000 cases of voters registered with the same address, while more than two million were found to have no address. The groups highlighted 10 major irregularities they said affected hundreds of thousands of voters nationwide.

Mexico: Ahead of Mexico’s election, a push for voters – outside Mexico | CSMonitor

For generations Mexicans have been moving abroad, mostly to the United States, where they’ve often tried to leave behind the troubled politics of home. “I never considered voting iMexico” after moving to the US, says Sergio Guerrero, a shuttle driver in Houston, who left the central state of Puebla more than two decades ago in search of work. “Why would I vote for the corrupt politicians that created the conditions that [pushed me] to leave in the first place?” Mr. Guerrero asks. But Mexicans abroad play an important role back home, largely in the form of remittances, and, observers say, they are starting to wake up to the influence they can have politically, too.

Venezuela: Opposition calls for boycott of May 20 election | AFP

Venezuela’s opposition on Thursday called for a boycott of the May 20 presidential election, urging those running against President Nicolas Maduro to withdraw their candidacy. “Don’t take part and leave the streets empty,” said a statement issued by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), the main opposition coalition, which said it would be a clear sign “rejecting Maduro’s regime and electoral fraud.” There are only two challengers running against Maduro, both former supporters of the late Hugo Chavez supporters who have distanced themselves from the current government.

National: Trump Adds Clinton Impeachment Lawyer, Bracing for a Fight on Multiple Fronts | The New York Times

President Trump hired on Wednesday a Washington lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment, a sign that the White House sees no immediate end to its legal problems and is girding for a combative relationship with a new Congress after the midterm elections. The new lawyer, Emmet T. Flood, will replace Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who persuaded Mr. Trump to cooperate with the special counsel for the first year of its investigation. Mr. Cobb assured the president that doing so would bring the investigation to a swift end.

National: Giuliani: Trump fired Comey because he wouldn’t tell Trump he wasn’t target in Russia probe | The Hill

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Wednesday that President Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey because Comey wouldn’t tell Trump that he wasn’t a target of the FBI investigation into Russia’s election interference. “He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that and he couldn’t get that,” Giuliani said. “So he fired him and he said, ‘I’m free of this guy.’ ” Giuliani’s statement contradicts Trump’s recent claim that he didn’t fire Comey over the Russia probe.

National: Cambridge Analytica and British parent shut down after Facebook scandal | Reuters

Cambridge Analytica, the firm embroiled in a controversy over its handling of Facebook Inc user data, and its British parent SCL Elections Ltd, are shutting down immediately after suffering a sharp drop in business, the company said on Wednesday. The company will begin bankruptcy proceedings, it said, after losing clients and facing mounting legal fees resulting from the scandal over reports the company harvested personal data about millions of Facebook users beginning in 2014. “The siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers,” the statement said. “As a result, it has been determined that it is no longer viable to continue operating the business, which left Cambridge Analytica with no realistic alternative to placing the company into administration.”

Editorials: Rudy Giuliani may have just implicated President Trump in serious campaign finance violations. | Richard Hasen/Slate

Donald Trump’s new lawyer Rudy Giuliani took to Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Wednesday night to defend the president from the ongoing Mueller investigation and to calm the waters for the Trump faithful. But it looks like he’s gotten the president into potentially greater legal jeopardy by admitting that Trump repaid his fixer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet, seemingly contradicting the president and potentially implicating Trump and his campaign in some serious campaign finance violations. Just to review where we are so far. It is undisputed that Trump’s sometimes-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen negotiated an agreement with Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to get her not to discuss an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in exchange for $130,000. Cohen eventually said that he paid that money out of his own pocket, and he secured a loan to do so. He said that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign reimbursed him (he did not say that he was not reimbursed at all, leaving open the possibility of a Trump reimbursement). The president told reporters he had known nothing about the payment.

Arkansas: State Supreme Court says state can enforce voter ID law | Associated Press

Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday said the state can enforce a voter ID law in the May 22 primary election despite a judge declaring the measure unconstitutional. By a vote of 6-1 the Supreme Court put on hold a Pulaski County judge’s decision blocking the law’s enforcement. Early voting for the primary begins Monday. The state Supreme Court did not elaborate on its reasons for the decision in its one-page order. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray last week ruled the law was an unconstitutional effort to reinstate a 2013 voter ID law. That 2013 measure was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2014. “We now have clear direction from the Court that the law we have been operating under since last August remains in effect for the Primary Election, until further orders from the Supreme Court,” said Chris Powell, a spokesman for Secretary of State Mark Martin, who had requested the ruling.

California: Voter fraud conviction inspires bill loosening oversight of lawmaker residency | The Sacramento Bee

Four years ago, Rod Wright resigned from the California Senate and served 71 minutes in jail after being convicted of eight felonies, including perjury and voter fraud, for living outside the district where he ran for office. Wright argued that he had done everything necessary to establish as his legal “domicile” an Inglewood home that he owned and where he registered to vote. But using photos of another house in the upscale neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, with his Maserati parked in front and closets full of his clothes, Los Angeles County prosecutors convinced a jury that Wright actually lived several miles away. The conviction upset many of Wright’s colleagues, who point out that the definition of a “domicile,” which establishes the eligibility of someone to run for a particular legislative seat, does not include the word “live” anywhere in it: “that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning.”

Delaware: Bill introduced to allow for Same Day Registration | WMDT

A new house bill introduced Wednesday in Dover would make it possible to register to vote on Election Day, making The First State the 19th in the union to adopt Same Day Registration. Under HB 400, a person could register to vote at his or her polling place on the day of a presidential, state primary, general or special election. All they would have to do is show a valid government issued photo ID, a current utility bill, a bank statement or other government document that displays name and current address.

Guam: Automatic voter registration discussed | The Guam Daily

Additional costs and other factors such as the implementation of the Real ID requirement in June could affect the implementation of the automatic voter registration process proposed in Bill 234-34. The concerns were expressed by Guam Election Commission Executive Director Maria Pangelinan, who testified during Wednesday’s public hearing on the legislation. Bill 234 proposes to implement automatic voter registration for eligible U.S. citizen residents of Guam.

Indiana: Federal Judge Hears Case On Voter List Maintenance Law | NPR

Voter advocacy groups say an Indiana law will illegally throw Hoosiers off the voting rolls. And they’re suing to stop the state from using that law. A federal court hearing Wednesday centered on Indiana’s use of what’s known as the Interstate Crosscheck system. The Crosscheck system, which is run by the Kansas Secretary of State, looks for voters who seem to be registered in two different states. If it finds apparent matches, those matches get sent to participating states, including Indiana. The state then does its own check, and if enough voter info lines up, it’s forwarded to individual counties.

Pennsylvania: New University of Pittsburgh commission to focus on 2020 election security | Pittsburgh Tribune

A newly formed commission convened to study Pennsylvania’s election cyber­security aims to reduce vulnerability of the state’s polls in time for the next presidential contest. David Hickton, a former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the head of University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, and Grove City College President Paul McNulty will lead the Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania’s Election Security. “Every part of our government and every part of what we stand for is premised upon free and fair elections and the public’s belief and confidence in our electoral system,” Hickton said. “Our systems are vulnerable.” Hickton said there is a sense of urgency in the commission’s work. He said he hopes the commission will wrap up later this year and present its recommendations to policymakers in time to have changes in place for 2020.