Yearly Archives: 2019

The Republican-controlled state Assembly has requested a court halt proceedings in Wisconsin’s redistricting case pending U.S. Supreme Court action on similar cases from other states. Lawyers for the Assembly, which intervened in the case last fall, wrote to the court Monday saying two cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear on appeal present the same issues as Wisconsin’s Gill vs. Whitford case and that holding a trial would be unnecessary until the Supreme Court cases are resolved. “Proceeding before the Supreme Court issues its decisions would be an unnecessary waste of the Court’s and the parties’ time and resources,” the Assembly lawyers wrote.

Europe: The EU doesn’t really have a plan to stop its elections being hacked | WIRED

It was a treasure trove of information: nearly 20,000 emails and 8,000 attachments, sent by and to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the body which runs the United States’ Democratic party, found its way into the hands of WikiLeaks and were unleashed on the world in late July 2016. The emails were siphoned off DNC servers over the course of a two-month period, but dated back to January 2015, and included private conversations that torpedoed the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and eventually helped elevate Donald Trump to the White House. It wasn’t just in the United States that the ramifications of this unprecedented leak of internal correspondence – which in July 2018 US special counsel Robert Mueller attributed to 12 members of the Russian military – were felt. Something seismic shifted underfoot. While nefarious nation states had been propping up or supporting campaigns aimed at promoting their goals in third countries for decades, this was the most overt attempt at changing the course of history in favour of a third party. And it worked.

Congo: Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi declared surprise winner | The Guardian

Felix Tshisekedi, the leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s main opposition party, has been declared the surprise winner of the 30 December presidential election in the vast central African country. The result, announced early on Thursday, means the first electoral transfer of power in 59 years of independence in the DRC. It will come as a shock to many observers who believed authorities would ensure that the government candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, would be the victor in the polls, the third since the end of a bloody civil war in 2002.

Germany: Government races to boost cyber defences after breach | Computer Weekly

The German government is seeking to improve its cyber defences in the wake of the country’s largest data breach of its kind, which exposed the personal data of hundreds of politicians. The move comes after it was revealed that an unnamed teenager was responsible for the breach, which affected German chancellor Angela Merkel, federal president Frank Walterand and Greens party leader Robert Habeck. The hacked data, comprising about 1,000 records belonging to celebrities and journalists as well as politicians, included contacts’ email addresses, private chats, mobile numbers, photographs and credit card details. However, the German information security agency (BSI) said no government networks were affected and a government spokesperson said no sensitive data from the chancellor’s office had been leaked.

Israel: Admitting flaws, election committee ‘devising plan’ to thwart foreign meddling | The Times of Israel

Israel’s Central Elections Committee said Wednesday that it is devising a detailed plan of action to thwart attempts by foreign countries to meddle in the April 9 Knesset elections, following a reported alert from the head of the Shin Bet security agency that such attempts are being made by a country that cannot be named by orders from the military censor. “Together with security bodies, we learned what happened in other countries and we are devising a plan of action,” the body in charge of organizing the national ballot said in a statement. The statement came a day after reports that Shin Bet chief Nadav Argamon had warned a foreign state “intends to intervene” through cyberattacks in Israel’s elections. The name of the state was gagged by the military censor.

Madagascar: Court declares Rajoelina as election winner | Al Jazeera

Madagascar's High Constitutional Court has declared former leader Andry Rajoelina as the winner of the country's bitterly contested presidential election. Rejecting all complaints filed over the results, the court on Tuesday said Rajoelina won with more than 55 percent of the vote in the Indian Ocean island nation's runoff election last month. Rajoelina's main challenger, former President Marc Ravalomanana, received more than 44 percent, the court said. Just over 48 percent of the country's 10 million registered voters cast their ballots in the vote.

United Kingdom: Corbyn to again call for general election to break Brexit deadlock | The Guardian

Jeremy Corbyn is to reiterate his call for the Brexit impasse to be put to the people in a general election, as Labour edged closer to pledging to call a no-confidence vote in Theresa May’s government if her departure plan is voted down in the Commons. At a speech in Wakefield on Thursday, the Labour leader is to argue that if May is unable to get her flagship piece of legislation past MPs next week then her government will have lost all authority, meaning an election is urgently needed. “So I say to Theresa May: if you are so confident in your deal, call that election, and let the people decide,” he will say, according to extracts from the speech released in advance. “To break the deadlock an election is not only the most practical option, it is also the most democratic option. It would give the winning party a renewed mandate to negotiate a better deal for Britain and secure support for it in parliament and across the country.”

National: American Statistical Association endorses post-election audits principles | EurekAlert

The American Statistical Association Board of Directors announces its endorsement of Principles and Best Practices for Post-Election Tabulation Audits. The December 2018 document--which updates a 2008 document with the latest statistical research and best practices--"is meant to provide guidance to relevant legislative bodies, state and local election administrators and vendors..." because a "healthy democracy requires widespread trust in elections... [and] people need to be sure that the official election outcomes match the will of the voters." Imagine someone counted hundreds of blue, red and white marbles in a bag and concluded there are many more red marbles than blue marbles. How can you trust that conclusion? You could dump out the marbles and count each one. Or you could use statistics to do the job faster.

Florida: Rick Scott violated Broward County election supervisor’s rights with suspension | Associated Press

Former Gov. and current U.S. Sen. Rick Scott violated a former state election official's constitutional rights when he suspended and "vilified" her without first allowing her to make her own case, a Florida federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said newly inaugurated Gov. Ron DeSantis must grant former Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes a "meaningful opportunity to be heard" regarding her suspension by March 31. Snipes came under fire during the contentious recount that followed the 2018 elections and a legally required recount in close races for governor and U.S. Senate. In the aftermath of the November election, Snipes said she would resign on Jan. 4, but Scott immediately suspended her. Snipes then attempted to rescind her resignation and challenged the governor's suspension as "malicious" and politically motivated.

National: Mueller Suspects Manafort Gave Trump Election Data to Russian | Bloomberg

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team suspects that Paul Manafort, the onetime Trump campaign chairman, shared polling data on the 2016 election with an associate tied to Russian intelligence and lied about it, according to a court filing by Manafort’s lawyers. The filing was badly redacted, allowing an unintended glimpse at previously undisclosed areas of Mueller’s investigation into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign worked with Russia to influence the election. Those areas included the polling data as well as a meeting in Madrid and discussions of a Ukrainian peace plan. Mueller has claimed that Manafort, a political consultant, lied about his communications with Konstantin Kilimnik, who served as a translator and fixer on campaigns in Ukraine for a decade. Kilimnik has denied any ties to Russian intelligence.

Editorials: Donald Trump handed a chance to supercharge voter suppression in 2020 | Richard Hasen/Slate

In a short unpublished opinion so far garnering only slight media attention, the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit decided on Monday what may be one of the most consequential cases poised to affect the 2020 elections. The circuit upheld a district court decision ending a court order in effect since 1982 barring the Republican National Committee from engaging in “ballot security” measures designed to intimidate minority voters from voting at the polls. With Trump having taken over the RNC for the 2020 elections and with this consent decree no longer standing in his way, we should be concerned about a new wave of voter suppression coming from the Republican Party during the upcoming election.

Editorials: Protecting voices of all voters is critical to free and fair elections | Paul Smith/The Hill

Popular sentiment for election reform continues to grow, and lawmakers in Washington are finally listening. On the first day of the new Congress, the House introduced its first bill. Its purpose is to protect the voices of all voters in the political process and restore trust in government. Given the troubling injuries to our democracy inflicted by several recent Supreme Court decisions, such legislative solutions have become sorely needed. These Supreme Court decisions over the years have chipped away at key safeguards, including the Voting Rights Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, both put in place to protect the integrity of our elections. This regressive trend has led to increased voter suppression all across the country and unprecedented dark money in campaigns. Together, they contribute to a sense that American democracy no longer functions.

Florida: ‘I became somebody’: Former felons register to vote in Florida through Amendment 4 | Miami Herald

For the past 25 years, Anthony Bushell has served as his community’s unofficial Election Day chauffeur, transporting the elderly and homeless to and from polling places for local, statewide and federal races. And every election, while the voters Bushell ferried cast their ballots, his criminal record has kept him on the political sidelines. His last vote came in the 1992 presidential election for Bill Clinton, who was then the governor of Arkansas. On Tuesday, Bushell walked out of the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office a newly registered voter, one of several formerly incarcerated Floridians to register to vote after the passage of constitutional Amendment 4, which restored voting rights for an estimated 1.2 million felons — as many as 400,000 of those in South Florida, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis.

Georgia: SAFE Commission recommends new voting machines, meeting to wrap up Thursday | Rome News Tribune

A state committee charged with recommending changes to Georgia's voting machines is slated to hold its final meeting Thursday in Atlanta. The Secure, Accessible & Fair Elections Commission plans to take a final round of public comment before discussing recommendations that have come out of three meetings with voting rights advocates, cybersecurity experts, elections officials and vendors. Rep. Eddie Lumsden, R-Rome, said he expects action during the 2019 Georgia General Assembly session that starts Monday. Lumsden said he's looked at the voting machine options being proposed, but he's waiting for committee hearings in the Legislature to decide where he stands.

Louisiana: What The Heck Is Going On With Felon Voting Rights In Louisiana? | TPM

In Louisiana, criminal offenders released from prison often linger in the purgatory of parole for years, or even decades, stripped of key civil rights. Because the Bayou State only restores voting rights to felons who complete probation or parole, some who get caught up in the system die before regaining the franchise. Those are the people whom state Rep. Patricia Smith wanted to help last year. Smith introduced a bill to restore voting rights to felons who’ve been on parole without problems for five years after their release from prison, as well as those who are on probation for five years. After three rounds of revisions, the bill passed the House in a squeaker of a vote, sailed through the Senate, and was signed into law as Act 636 by Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) last May. But in December, stories started appearing in the local press suggesting that the law may apply to many more people than the 2,000-3,000 it was expected to affect. The actual number, according to advocacy groups and state prison officials, may be more like 36,000.

New Jersey: Governor Wants to Give You Fewer Reasons Not to Vote | The New York Times

Ballots disqualified for dubious reasons. Hourslong wait times. Onerous identification requirements. Broken polling stations. The frustrations millions of people experienced during November’s midterm election have made voting rights a polarizing issue, thrusting it to the top of statehouse agendas across the country. While some states are wrestling with expanding voter access, others are seeking to further restrict access to the ballot under the guise of combating voter fraud, which is extremely rare. Now, in New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, is pursuing a series of bills that would significantly expand access to the ballot for hundreds of thousands of voters. “The package of reforms in New Jersey would place the state at the forefront of the country in terms of voter access,” said Wendy R. Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. The bills call for changes across the electoral spectrum: allowing online voter registration and early voting up to 30 days before an election; same-day voter registration; permitting those on parole and probation to vote; and making 17-year-olds who turn 18 by the general election eligible to vote in party primaries.

North Carolina: Election board investigated GOP operative at center of fraud probe as far back as 2010: report | The Hill

The man at the center of election fraud allegations in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District was once investigated over allegations that he paid voters to fill out ballots, a former election board investigator says. Marshall Tutor, a former investigator for North Carolina's Board of Elections, told The Associated Press that the board investigated Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. in 2010. The probe was opened following accusations that Dowless was part of a group paying people to vote in the manner the group directed. Tutor told the AP that the 2010 investigation didn't result in criminal charges against Dowless because there wasn't a strong enough case against him. “Dowless was throwing a lot of money around,” Tutor said. “There was no paper trail. Witnesses refused to give sworn statements or testify in court. No one was going to admit they were paid $5 to vote. But where there’s that much smoke, there was fire.”

North Dakota: Attorney General asks judge to dismiss tribe’s voter ID lawsuit | Associated Press

North Dakota has asked a federal judge to dismiss a Native American tribe's lawsuit challenging the state's voter identification requirements, saying in part that tribal members named in the complaint weren't impeded from voting on Election Day. The attorney general's office in a Monday filing also argued that the state is immune from such lawsuits in U.S. District Court and that the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe doesn't have standing to sue for several reasons, including that it's unclear how the tribe might be affected by the inability of any members to vote. Even if that were clear, attorneys said, the tribe "is not representing the interests of all of its members, merely a select few."

Virginia: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Republican bid to delay redistricting in Virginia | The Washington Post

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to delay the process of drawing new districts for at least 11 Virginia House of Delegates seats, rejecting a request for a stay from state Republicans who are contesting the overall effort. A panel of judges from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled last June that the districts had been racially gerrymandered to concentrate black voters and ordered a new map. Most of the affected districts are in the Hampton Roads and Richmond areas. After the General Assembly failed to agree on a redistricting plan last fall, the judges appointed an outside expert to handle it. California professor Bernard Grofman submitted a 131-page report last month outlining options for new boundaries.

Congo: Congo braces for election results after commission meets overnight | Reuters

Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission met all night and into Wednesday morning ahead of an announcement of results from the presidential election that could come later in the day. Riot police were deployed in front of the commission headquarters in the capital Kinshasa and along the city’s main boulevard, as Congo braced for possible violence amid accusations of vote fraud and suspicions that the government was negotiating a power-sharing deal with one opposition candidate. The Dec. 30 poll was meant to lead to the vast Central African country’s first democratic transfer of power in its 59 years of independence, but a disputed result could trigger the kind of violence that erupted after the 2006 and 2011 elections and destabilize Congo’s volatile eastern borderlands. The electoral commission (CENI) announced on Tuesday evening that it had initiated “a series of evaluation meetings and deliberations, at the end of which it will proceed to the publication of provisional results from the presidential election”.

Germany: Shaken by massive leak, Germany warns of hacking risk in European election | Politico

Lawmakers need to brace for hacking attempts ahead of a European election and get better at protecting their information online, Germany’s interior minister warned in the aftermath of a breach that exposed the private data of almost 1,000 German politicians. “We’re facing European elections in May of this year,” Horst Seehofer told journalists Tuesday. “I don’t want to conjure up or predict anything, but we have to brace ourselves for preventing attempts to influence those elections.” Seehofer announced efforts to increase cybersecurity awareness among public figures and Germany's general population, in addition to plans for a yet-to-be-developed “early warning system” that could alert authorities and individuals about their private information being shared online.

Israel: Shin Bet says it can foil foreign election meddling amid scare | Associated Press

Israel's Shin Bet security service assured the public Wednesday it was well prepared to thwart any foreign intervention in the country's upcoming elections, after its director warned a world power was making such efforts. The statement followed reports that Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman recently told a closed audience that a foreign country was trying to intervene in the April elections and that operatives were trying to meddle via hackers and cyber technology. "The Shin Bet would like to make clear that the state of Israel and the intelligence community have the tools and capabilities to identify, monitor and thwart foreign influence efforts, should there be any," it said. "The Israeli defense apparatus is able to guarantee democratic and free elections are held in Israel." Argaman did not say for whose benefit the alleged meddling was being done. Initial reports about his comments were placed under a military gag order that was later lifted, though the naming of the country is question is still prohibited.

Thailand: Risk of Delay in Thai Election Sparks Downtown Bangkok Protest | Bloomberg

Demonstrators gathered for the second time in three days in downtown Bangkok to protest against the possibility of another delay in Thailand’s general election schedule. Postings on Twitter on Tuesday showed dozens of people hoisting placards and calling on the junta to stick to a plan for a poll on Feb. 24, after more than four years of military rule. Such protests were banned until the government in December lifted restrictions on political gatherings ahead of the expected vote. Since then, officials have signaled the poll date may have to be moved to avoid a clash with preparations for the coronation of King Maha Vajiralongkorn in May. On New Year’s Day, the Bureau of the Royal Household said that the coronation ceremony will be held on May 4-6.

Verified Voting Blog: Verified Voting Recommends Hand-Marked Paper Ballots for Georgia to SAFE Commission

Verified Voting sent a letter to the Secure, Accessible, Fair Elections (SAFE) Commission on Friday, January 4 with their recommendations for a new voting system in Georgia. Read the letter below or download it here

Verified Voting submits the following statement endorsing hand-marked paper ballots that are scanned as the primary voting method for voters. Verified Voting respectfully requests that this statement be shared with the entire SAFE commission in advance of the next meeting scheduled for January 10, 2019.

Recommendation. In light of the pervasive security vulnerabilities of all electronic voting systems, including Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs), as well as the considerable cost of BMDs, Verified Voting Foundation endorses the use of hand-marked paper ballots as the best primary method for recording votes in public elections. BMDs do play an important role for some voters, including voters with disabilities, that prevent them from hand-marking paper ballots. However, the primary voting method for most voters should be hand-marked paper ballots.

Rationale. Hand-marked paper ballots offer better voter verification than can be achieved with a computerized interface. A paper ballot that is indelibly marked by hand and physically secured from the moment of casting is the most reliable record of voter intent. A hand-marked paper ballot is the only kind of record not vulnerable to software errors, configuration errors, or hacking. With hand-marked paper ballots, voters are responsible only for their own errors, while with a BMD, voters are responsible for catching and correcting errors or alterations made by the BMD. Consequently, well-designed hand-marked paper ballots combined with a risk-limiting post-election tabulation audit provide the gold standard for ensuring that reported election results accurately reflect the will of the people.

National: House Democrats’ first bill aims big on election security | The Washington Post

House Democrats came out swinging on election security in their first bill of the new Congress on Friday, promising at least $120 million for new voting machines — so long as they use paper ballots rather than digital ones. The move suggests the new House majority plans to push for the strongest election security measures they can get rather than seek compromise with the GOP-controlled Senate or the Trump administration. The paper ballot mandate puts the new House majority at odds with the Department of Homeland Security, which has left the door open for machines that record votes digitally but print out a physical paper trail so votes can be audited if there’s any suspicion of hacking. It also tees up a fight with the Republican-controlled Senate, which has been wary of imposing strict requirements on states.

National: DNC loses appeal on Republican election tactics | Politico

A consent decree that limited Republican Party’s use of controversial poll-watching and ballot security efforts for more than three decades appears consigned to the scrap heap of history after a federal appeals court rebuffed a move by Democrats that could have led to restoration of the long-running court order. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to reopen discovery aimed at proving that the Republican National Committee violated the order in 2016 as then-candidate Donald Trump pressed publicly for a crackdown on what he contended was likely election fraud. After the election, Trump famously claimed — without evidence — that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots in the presidential contest. Despite Trump’s public calls for his supporters to keep a close eye on certain neighborhoods, the three-judge panel unanimously ruled Monday that Democrats had not made a sufficient showing that the depositions they wanted to take were likely to show that the RNC actually responded to Trump’s entreaties.

Editorials: The Supreme Court Could Make Gerrymandering Worse | Richard Hasen/The Atlantic

The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to take up partisan-gerrymandering cases from North Carolina and Maryland brought to mind a saying attributed to Judy Garland: Behind every cloud is another cloud. The now firmly conservative Court likely took the cases not to announce that such activities violate the Constitution, but to reverse the lower courts that said they do. Down the road, the Court might do much more damage, including by preventing states from using independent commissions to draw congressional districts. For years, the Supreme Court has ducked the question of partisan redistricting, failing to provide clear guidance on its constitutionality. Until he left the Court this summer, Justice Anthony Kennedy was the key swing vote on this issue. In 2004, he disagreed with conservatives that such cases present “political questions,” which courts cannot hear given the lack of “judicially manageable standards.” And he disagreed with liberals that any as-yet-proposed standards adequately separated permissible from impermissible consideration of partisan information in drawing district lines. But he suggested that the First Amendment’s right of association could serve as the foundation of a ruling against gerrymandering.

Editorials: How to Fix America’s Broken Political System | Norman L. Eisen & Fred Wertheimer/Politico

Much attention has focused on H.R. 1, the comprehensive package of democracy reforms introduced on Thursday by Representative John Sarbanes (D-Md.) on behalf of the new Democratic House majority. The unprecedented legislation is perhaps the most important domestic initiative of the new Congress. But it also has the capacity to begin fixing what has been broken in our foreign relations, reassuring our allies that America is on the way back to restoring our democracy, and with it our global leadership. Since 2016, the United States’ friends around the world have been faced with a dual shock: Russia’s multipronged attack on our elections that year and the ascension of President Donald Trump, who has criticized our longtime partners while embracing authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin—despite his assault on our democracy.

Florida: State Set to Restore Voting Rights to Felons Amid Threats of Lawsuits | Wall Street Journal

Some Florida officials are balking at the state’s new amendment restoring voting rights to about 1.4 million people with felony records that is set to take effect Tuesday. Amendment 4, which Florida voters passed in November with nearly 65% support, re-enfranchises felons who have completed all terms of their sentences, including probation or parole, but doesn’t apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses. Opponents, including Republican Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis, say before the amendment can be implemented, the legislature needs to pass a bill to clarify its terms and fulfill its intent. Supporters say it should be implemented immediately. The disagreement is generating confusion and the threat of lawsuits. The measure produced the largest expansion of voting rights in the U.S. since the 26th Amendment reduced the voting age to 18 in 1971. It could have significant implications in a state where elections often are decided by paper-thin margins.

Georgia: Lawmakers prepare for fight over switch to paper ballots | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution