Oklahoma: Democratic groups challenge absentee voting laws | Carmen Forman/The Oklahoman

The Oklahoma Democratic Party is suing the state Election Board over several voting procedures they say “severely burden” the right of Oklahomans to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are asking a federal judge to declare several of Oklahoma’s voting provisions unconstitutional. In the lawsuit filed this week, the groups ask a judge to block the state from enforcing the state’s notary requirement so long as absentee voters have signed their ballot affidavit. The lawsuit calls the notary requirement or the alternative requirement that voters must submit a copy of an identification card with their absentee ballot, “onerous and unnecessarily burdensome.” Oklahoma’s GOP-controlled Legislature and Gov. Kevin Stitt recently reinstated the state’s notary requirement for absentee ballots. They also added some provisions to state law that make some exceptions if Oklahoma is in a state of emergency before upcoming elections, which likely will apply to the June 30 primary.

Pennsylvania: Coronavirus measures further complicating primary when some counties will debut voting machines | Rick Dandes/Daily Item

Valley county election officials are taking steps to ensure that on Pennsylvania primary election day voters and poll workers are protected from COVID-19. On Tuesday, a message sent by the counties of Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union assured all voters in their respective counties that polling locations will be open for any registered voter who wishes to cast their vote in person for the June 2nd primary election. Complicating matters further is that poll workers will be watching new machines and voters will be using these new machines for the first time in Northumberland, Snyder and Montour counties. Union County had the machines in September 2019 and held a public demonstration. Precincts will be organized to follow CDC guidelines regarding social distancing and sanitizing procedures to protect everyone involved. “We ask for your patience while at the polling location, in case the procedures should cause the lines to move more slowly than in the past,” said Sheryl Vrabel, executive administrative assistant, Union County commissioner’s office. Polling location procedures, including the sanitizing of voting machines between uses, social distancing and encouragement of masking are in place to ensure that everyone who wishes to vote in-person can do so safely, Vrabel said.

South Carolina: State considers cutting ties with printer after Charleston absentee ballots found in Maryland | Andy Shain/Post and Courier

South Carolina election officials could have counties cut ties to a Minnesota printer after about 20 Charleston County absentee ballots were found in Maryland this week. The ready-to-mail ballots have since made their way to Charleston-area voters, state and county election officials said, but it is just the latest problem with SeaChange Print Innovations, which prints and mails absentee ballots for 13 S.C. counties. Some Greenville County voters received the wrong absentee ballots this year when the Democratic presidential primary and a special election for sheriff were held 10 days apart, S.C. Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said. Some Charleston County voters received ballots that were folded in a way that could make them tougher to read by scanning machines, he said. The latest mishap has left the state election agency with little confidence that SeaChange can handle the surge in absentee voting this year as people practice social distancing to avoid contracting the coronavirus, Whitmire said.

Pennsylvania: Allegheny County election officials describe around-the-clock efforts amid ‘perfect storm’ | Julian Routh/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Convening for one last public board meeting before Pennsylvania’s primary contests in two weeks, Allegheny County officials gave insight Tuesday into the difficulties facing their elections division as it processes a backlog of thousands of mail-in ballot applications and prepares for in-person voting in the midst of a pandemic. Officials insisted that staffers in the elections division are working around the clock — three crews manning three shifts — to send mail-in ballots to voters in a timely manner, but confirmed that about 80,000 ballots are still waiting to be sent. As those sit in the queue, applications continue to stream into the office every day — adding to the more than 225,000 applications it has received so far and the 189,000 it’s processed, officials said. And as mail-in applications continue to flood their mailboxes, elections officials find themselves having to recruit poll workers for in-person voting precincts, make sure those workers are equipped with sanitary equipment and educate voters about where they’re actually supposed to vote when the day comes.

Editorials: Texas Attorney General Paxton’s cynical ploy lost in the mail as Texas voters prevail | Houston Chronicle

Stop us if you’ve heard this one: what’s the difference between the novel coronavirus and the voter fraud rate in Texas? Give up? They’re both microscopic, but if a federal ruling is allowed to stand, only one can get you killed. U.S. District Judge Fred Biery had ruled Tuesday that all Texans will be able to vote by mail during the pandemic. On Wednesday afternoon, however, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton convinced a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to block Biery’s ruling temporarily. Now the plaintiffs in the case have until Thursday to tell the appeals court why it shouldn’t agree to Paxton’s demand that the ruling be stayed until the court can issue a ruling on the appeal his office filed earlier in the day. It’s the latest development in a series of court battles between those who would prioritize voter health over a cynical ruse to limit voter access in the name of “election security.”

Wisconsin: Glitches, mailing problems mar absentee voting in Wisconsin | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Nearly 2,700 absentee ballots in Milwaukee were not sent and about 1,600 in the Fox Valley were not processed because of computer glitches and mailing problems, according to the most comprehensive account yet of what went wrong in the April 7 election. In Milwaukee, 2,693 voters were not sent absentee ballots after technical issues marred their production on March 22 and March 23, according to a report by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. About half of those people eventually voted, either with replacement absentee ballots or at the polls. The others did not vote. The election for a seat on the state Supreme Court, the presidential primary and a host of local offices, put a global spotlight on Wisconsin for holding an election in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The report highlights the kind of difficulties Wisconsin and other states could face in the November presidential election. A separate problem emerged when about 1,600 ballots for the Appleton and Oshkosh areas were found at a mail processing center the day after the election. It was not clear in the report if the ballots were on their way to voters or on their way back to clerks when they were found. Either way, they were discovered too late to be counted.

Wisconsin: Election officials show support for sending voters absentee ballot forms, but split on who should get them | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin election officials inched toward sending absentee ballot request forms to voters Wednesday, but they put off a decision after Republicans and Democrats split on how many people should get the ballot applications. Democrats on the Wisconsin Elections Commission want to send the applications to about 2.7 million people, the vast majority of the state’s registered voters. The Republican chairman agreed ballot applications should be sent out. But he doesn’t want to send them to those who appear likely to have previously voted by mail or who live in communities that are already planning to mail absentee ballot forms to their residents. That would result in ballots going to 1.7 million or fewer people. The commission consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. It was unclear Wednesday if the commissioners could reach a deal on the issue when they meet again in about a week. The commission is not considering the mass mailing of actual ballots. Rather, it is weighing sending applications that voters could fill out and return with a copy of a photo ID. Those voters would then be sent an absentee ballot.

Editorials: Wisconsin is starting to resemble a failed state | Nathan Robinson/The Guardian

A failed state is one that can no longer claim legitimacy or perform a government’s core function of protecting the people’s basic security. Lately, the Wisconsin supreme court seems to be doing its level best to make its state qualify for “failed” status. Multiple decisions have both undermined the government’s legitimacy and endangered the people. First, there was the primary. Because voting in person is clearly risky during a pandemic, several states delayed their primaries to make sure everyone was able to mail in a ballot instead of having to go to a polling place. Not so Wisconsin. The state’s Democratic governor signed an executive order for an all mail-in election but was thwarted by the Republican legislature. Then the governor issued an order postponing the election. Republicans challenged it, and the Wisconsin supreme court sided with them. The primary went forward, but was a disaster: there were “long lines in Milwaukee, where only five polling places in the whole city were open” and more than 50 people appear to have contracted coronavirus as a result. Ensuring that people can vote without risking their lives is a basic duty of government, one at which Wisconsin failed. But the Wisconsin supreme court’s latest decision is even worse. The conservative majority overturned the state’s “stay-at-home” order, immediately leading bars to be flooded with patrons. Even as public health officials stress the danger in suddenly lifting restrictions, justices presented it as a freedom issue, with one writing that the “comprehensive claim to control virtually every aspect of a person’s life is something we normally associate with a prison, not a free society governed by the rule of law”. Public opinion is generally against the anti-lockdown protests, but if a conservative minority has power, the “letting a deadly virus spread unchecked = freedom” perspective will triumph.

Burundi: Burundi holds crucial presidential election amid pandemic | Eloge Willy Kaneza and Ignatius Ssuuna/Associated Press

A crucial election appeared peaceful Wednesday in the East African nation of Burundi, where President Pierre Nkurunziza is stepping aside after a divisive 15-year rule but will remain “paramount leader” in the country that often rejects outside scrutiny. The vote is one of the most important transfers of power in Burundi since independence in 1962. Some observers worry that disputed results could lead to the kind of violence that marked the previous vote in 2015. Few face masks were seen, even on the ruling party’s candidate, in crowded lines of voters though some paused to wash their hands. Burundi has been criticized for not appearing to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously. Nkurunziza himself attended crowded political rallies. The country has 42 confirmed virus cases but testing has been limited. “We are not afraid because the organizers did not require us to distance 1 meter,” voter Ndayishimiye Innocent said. “They saw that God is with us.”