Alabama: Judge orders Alabama not to destroy voting records in Tuesday’s Senate election | AL.com

A judge directed Alabama election officials Monday afternoon to preserve all digital ballot images in Tuesday’s hotly contested U.S. Senate special election. An order granting a preliminary injunction was filed at 1:36 p.m. Monday – less than 24 hours before voting is to begin. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of four Alabama voters who argued that the state is required to maintain the images under state and federal law. “All counties employing digital ballot scanners in the Dec. 12, 2017 election are hereby ordered to set their voting machines to save all processed images in order to preserve all digital ballot images,” Montgomery County Circuit Judge Roman Ashley Shaul wrote in the order.

Florida: Was the Heated 2016 Democratic Primary Rigged for Debbie Wasserman Schultz? | Alternet

In August 2016, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz faced off against progressive maverick and Bernie Sanders supporter Tim Canova—her first-ever primary challenger—after six terms in Congress. Just weeks earlier she had been forced to resign as head of the Democratic National Committee after stolen emails showed her talking smack about Senator Sanders and leaning on the scales in favor of her ally Hillary Clinton. Canova focused the national outrage against her, raising over $3 million, and turning the congressional election into a referendum on her policies and ethics. But with a 13.5% victory she overcame questions about her political viability and returned triumphantly to her job in Washington. Now new evidence of original ballots being destroyed and cast ballots not matching voter lists calls into question the results of that election. 

National: US Officials, Lawmakers Warn More Cyberattacks Coming | VoA News

The United States is bracing for another wave of cyberattacks focused on disrupting or undermining the 2018 midterm elections, with some officials warning this is just the beginning of a much deeper and broader threat. Intelligence and security officials, as well as policymakers and other experts talking both on the record and on background say what began with a Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election has evolved. They expect the next round of Russian efforts to be more sophisticated and more widespread, likely to include a combination of disinformation campaigns on social media along with the potential hacking of vulnerable targets.

National: Russian hacker claims he hacked the DNC during the 2016 election ‘under the orders’ of the FSB | IBT

A Russian hacker has reportedly confessed that Russia’s state intelligence agency ordered him to hack the Democratic National Committee’s servers during the 2016 US presidential election. The hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, reportedly testified in court to carrying out the attacks at the request of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), considered to be the successor of the Soviet security agency the KGB. During the election campaign, hackers stole thousands of private DNC emails that were later steadily leaked by WikiLeaks in the months leading up to the November election, drawing heavy scrutiny and media attention. US intelligence agencies concluded earlier this year that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a complex influence campaign to help sway the election in Donald Trump’s favour using leaks, cyberattacks, a disinformation campaign and more. Putin has vehemently denied any involvement in the DNC hack or influencing the electoral process of another nation.

Editorials: Is the Supreme Court finally ready to tackle partisan gerrymandering? Signs suggest yes | Richard Hasen/Los Angeles Times

Is the Supreme Court about to cause great political upheaval by getting into the business of policing the worst partisan gerrymanders? Signs from last week suggest that it well might. At the very beginning of its term back in October, the court heard oral arguments in Gill vs. Whitford, a case challenging Wisconsin’s plan for drawing districts for its state Assembly. Republican legislators drew the lines to give them a great advantage in these elections. Even when Democrats won more than majority of votes cast in the Assembly elections, Republicans controlled about 60% of the seats. The court has for many years refused to police such gerrymandering. Conservative justices suggested that the question was “nonjusticiable” (meaning the cases could not be heard by the courts) because there were no permissible standards for determining when partisanship in drawing district lines went too far. Liberals came forward with a variety of tests. And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stood in the middle, as he often does. He argued that all the tests liberals proposed didn’t work, while trying to keep the courthouse door open for new tests.

Editorials: The Alabama Senate Race May Have Already Been Decided | Scott Douglas/The New York Times

The Senate election in Alabama on Tuesday is not just about the choice between Doug Jones and Roy Moore. It’s also about a voter suppression campaign that may well sway the result of a close race. In 2011, Alabama lawmakers passed a photo ID law, ostensibly to combat voter fraud. But “voter impersonation” at polling places virtually never happens. The truth is that the lawmakers wanted to keep black and Latino voters from the ballot box. We know this because they’ve always been clear about their intentions. A state senator who had tried for over a decade to get the bill into law, told The Huntsville Times that a photo ID law would undermine Alabama’s “black power structure.” In The Montgomery Advertiser, he said that the absence of an ID law “benefits black elected leaders.”

Arizona: Franks’ immediate resignation puts monkey wrench into special election | Arizona Capitol Times

A quirk in state law could force top contenders to replace Trent Franks to choose between a run for Congress and keeping their current jobs in the Legislature. Gov. Doug Ducey is expected to announce Monday the date for the primary election for those who want to vie for the now-open post in Congressional District 8. That can be between Feb. 26 and March 8. But by law, the deadline to submit nominating petitions will be Jan. 10. And that’s what creates the dilemma for sitting lawmakers.

Georgia: FBI mum on Georgia’s wiped election server | GCN

Georgia is currently facing a lawsuit in federal court by voters and advocacy groups that claim a June 2017 special election may have been compromised because of insufficient security practices by Georgia officials and the organization that oversaw election infrastructure, Kennesaw State University (KSU). The special election was to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price, who resigned from the House of Representatives to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services before resigning from that post. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that Georgia’s voter registration data was hosted on the same server as the vote tabulation databases, the software used to program ballots and the passwords for both voting machines and election supervisors. Further, all of this data was connected to a public-facing website that was accessible for at least 10 months to anyone with an internet connection and technical expertise.

Maryland: Supreme Court will take up a second gerrymandering case this term | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court announced Friday it will add a second case this term to determine whether partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, accepting a challenge from Maryland Republicans who say the state’s dominant Democrats drew a congressional district that violated their rights. The court already has heard a challenge from Wisconsin Democrats, who challenged a legislative redistricting drawn by the state’s Republican leaders. The cases could reshape the way American elections are conducted. The Supreme Court has never thrown out a state’s redistricting efforts due to partisan gerrymandering, and political parties consider drawing the map one of the perks of being in charge of state government.

Montana: Political watchdog says Democratic Party violated campaign finance laws | Associated Press

The Montana Democratic Party failed to identify the issues and candidates that benefited from its spending of about $375,000 on the 2016 general election, the state’s top election watchdog found. Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan also found that the party failed to include Supreme Court candidate Dirk Sandefur on a list of candidates it was supporting. He referred the case to the Lewis and Clark County attorney for potential prosecution, but his Dec. 5 finding said such cases are usually settled with a civil fine.

New Mexico: Santa Fe mayor proposes money, runoff for March ranked-choice election | Albuquerque Journal

The Santa Fe City Council on Wednesday will consider two new proposals related to the March 6 municipal election, which a district court judge last month ordered to be conducted using the ranked-choice voting method. One would create a new section in the city’s election ordinance that calls for a runoff election between the top two voter-getters if no one receives a majority of all votes cast, a possibility despite ranked-choice voting’s description as an “instant runoff.” The other amends the city’s public campaign financing ordinance to allow surplus funds to be used on a public education campaign about ranked-choice voting (RCV).

Pennsylvania: Lawsuit challenging congressional map begins state court | WHYY

Testimony in a fast-tracked lawsuit alleging gerrymandering got underway in Pa. Commonwealth Court Monday. The case could force a new state congressional map before the 2018 midterm election. Eighteen registered Democrats — one from each congressional district — claim Pennsylvania’s map was drawn unfairly by state GOP leaders to advantage Republicans. Congressional maps have to follow certain rules, such as distributing equal numbers of voters between districts. Advocates for fairer congressional maps say it’s also a best practice to avoid dividing counties and municipalities when drawing district boundary lines.

Wisconsin: Lawmakers Push For Recognition Of Tribal ID Cards | Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow members of federally recognized tribes to use their tribal identification cards for voter registration and more. The bill would allow tribal ID cards to be used to pick up medication at a pharmacy, as well as buy alcohol and tobacco products. State Sen. Jerry Petrowski, R-Marathon, said other states recognize tribal IDs as official forms of identification, including Idaho, Minnesota and Washington. “I think this bill is reasonable and I would hope you all would support it,” said Petrowski in a Senate Committee hearing Thursday.

Cambodia: EU suspends funding for Cambodian election | Reuters

The European Union has suspended funding for Cambodia’s 2018 general election because the vote cannot be credible after the dissolution of the main opposition party, according to a letter sent to the national election committee on Tuesday. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the country’s highest court last month at the request of the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen after the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha for alleged treason. “An electoral process from which the main opposition party has been arbitrarily excluded cannot be seen as legitimate,” read the Dec. 12 letter reviewed by Reuters.

France: Corsica calls for greater autonomy from France after election | The Guardian

Corsican nationalists have demanded talks with the French government over more autonomy after a convincing win in Sunday’s regional elections. President Emmanuel Macron now faces the dilemma of whether to loosen France’s grip on the Mediterranean island or to maintain centralised control. Like Catalonia, whose bid for independence from Spain has sparked a crisis with Madrid and in the European Union, Corsica has long harboured separatist ambitions. Sunday’s second-round vote, in which a coalition of nationalist candidates won a 56.5% share, strengthens the hand of those seeking greater control. Unlike Catalonia, which is wealthy and self-sufficient, Corsica depends heavily on funding from Paris, prompting the Pè a Corsica (For Corsica) movement to insist it is seeking autonomy not independence.

Germany: Merkel, Social Democrats seek clarity on coalition talks | Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) say they hope to find clarity soon on prospects for a new ruling coalition as they gear up for exploratory talks this week. The conservatives, meeting on Monday to map out their negotiating positions, believe compromises can be reached to renew the “grand coalition” that governed for the past four years. The two blocs must overcome differences over the future of Europe, pensions, health care and education. Merkel, whose CDU/CSU alliance last month failed to cut a coalition deal with two smaller parties after an inconclusive national election in September, is due to brief the media at 1 pm (1200 GMT).

Honduras: Election turmoil erupts in protests, clashes | Miami Herald

Thousands of protesters marched on the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on two separate occasions over the weekend, calling for U.S. support amidst a deepening political crisis sweeping their country. Protesters claim current President Juan Orlando Hernández stole the Nov. 26 presidential election from the Opposition Alliance candidate, Salvador Nasralla, who ran on a popular anti-corruption platform. This weekend, protesters also linked their struggle to U.S. border security and immigration concerns, saying the spike in U.S.-bound migration since 2014 can be blamed on violence and impunity perpetuated by the Hernández administration and his National Party. “Before the reason for migration was uniting families and looking for better paid work. Now violence, extortion, cartels and impunity are forcing people to leave Honduras,” said Darlan Alvarado, coordinator for the Honduras chapter of Doctors of the World, which helps treat immigrants’ medical needs. Hernández’s presidency has seen widespread human rights abuses, as well as a corruption scandal involving skimming money from the social security system.

Venezuela: Maduro bans opposition parties from election | Telegraph

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced Sunday that leading opposition parties will be barred from taking part in next year’s presidential vote after they boycotted mayoral polls, in a move set to further consolidate his grip on power. That includes the groups of key figures who have led street protests against his rule such as Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo Lopez and others, Mr Maduro told reporters after casting his vote in the municipal polls. “That’s what the National Constituent Assembly set out,” he said, referring to a controversial Maduro-allied special powers legislature whose legitimacy has been questioned by many in the international community.

National: Ex-Spy Chief: Russia’s Election Hacking Was An ‘Intelligence Failure’ | Poitico

The politics of spying in America has never been more intense. President Trump has taken to publicly bashing his intelligence agencies and continues, a full year later, to question their conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 U.S. election on his behalf. For their part, an array of career spooks have come out of the shadows where they spent their careers to challenge the commander-in-chief in once unthinkably public terms. Michael Morell is one of the career types who’s broken with decades of practice to confront Trump. A veteran of nearly three decades in the CIA, Morell rose from within the ranks to become the agency’s longtime deputy director, twice serving as its acting leader before retiring during President Barack Obama’s second term. In the summer of 2016, he broke with tradition to endorse Hillary Clinton over Trump, and he has continued to sound the alarm ever since.

National: With 2020 Census Looming, Worries About Fairness and Accuracy | The New York Times

Census experts and public officials are expressing growing concerns that the bedrock mission of the 2020 census — an accurate and trustworthy head count of everyone in the United States — is imperiled, with worrisome implications. Preparations for the count already are complicated by a sea change in the census itself: For the first time, it will be conducted largely online instead of by mail. But as the Census Bureau ramps up its spending and work force for the 2020 count, it is saddled with problems. Its two top administrative posts are filled by placeholders. Years of underfunding by Congress and cost overruns on the digital transition have forced the agency to pare back its preparations, including abandoning two of the three trial runs of the overhauled census process.

Editorials: Stop the Manipulation of Democracy Online | The New York Times

Surreptitious techniques pioneered in Moscow and Beijing to use the internet to drown out dissent and undermine free elections broke into view during the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. But Russian efforts to influence the American election are part of a larger, profound challenge to democracy worldwide. Online manipulation tactics played an important role in at least 17 other elections over the past year. From the Philippines and Ecuador to Turkey and Kenya, governing parties used paid commentators, trolls, bots, false news sites and propaganda outlets to inflate their popular support and essentially endorse themselves. In the Philippines, members of a “keyboard army” said they could earn $10 a day operating social media accounts that supported Rodrigo Duterte or attacked his detractors in the run-up to his May 2016 election as president. Many of those social media fabricators have remained active under his administration, amplifying the impression of widespread support for his brutal crackdown on the drug trade.

Florida: Advocates Push to Get Florida Ex-Felons the Right to Vote | Wall Street Journal

Civil-rights advocates in Florida are pushing to put a fundamental democratic question on the ballot: Should people convicted of felonies be able to vote? Florida bars an estimated 1.7 million people with felony records from voting unless they successfully petition the state to regain their rights. Its population of disenfranchised people with felony records accounts for more than a quarter of the 6.1 million nationally, according to the Sentencing Project, which advocates for criminal justice policy changes. Only Kentucky and Iowa currently maintain similar restrictions on voting. Every state except Maine and Vermont disenfranchises felons in some way, but in most states, they regain the right to vote automatically either after leaving prison, or completing probation and parole. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia has used executive authority to restore voting rights to 154,000 former felons in the last two years.

Iowa: In major reform, 2020 Iowa caucuses would include absentee voting, public vote totals | Des Moines Register

Iowa’s first-in-the-nation Democratic presidential caucuses would break with decades of tradition in 2020 by allowing voters to cast absentee ballots and then releasing the raw total of votes won by each candidate. A Democratic National Committee panel known as the Unity Reform Commission set those changes into motion during a meeting here on Saturday, clearing the way for perhaps the most significant changes to the Iowa caucuses since they emerged as a key step in the presidential nominating process five decades ago. “There’s never been an absentee process. We’ve never released raw vote totals,” said Scott Brennan, a Des Moines attorney who serves on the DNC. “Those would seem to be pretty darn big changes.”

Michigan: Clerk vote: 1 in 5 Detroit precincts can’t be recounted | Kaplan Herald

City Clerk Janice Winfrey has prevailed in a general election recount that uncovered poll worker errors that prevented about 20 percent of reviewed precincts from being recounted. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers on Friday certified the results at Cobo Center, declaring Winfrey as the official winner of the race. But with the conclusion came more questions about election operations in Detroit amid the review of votes that turned up missing ballots and mismatched tabulations. Winfrey’s challenger Garlin Gilchrist II sought the recount after losing to Winfrey by 1,482 votes on Nov. 7, saying his request was prompted by stories of “chaos and confusion” from absentee voters during election season.

Michigan: Special election to replace Rep. John Conyers Jr. set for November 2018 | The Washington Post

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has scheduled a November 2018 election to replace disgraced Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), a decision that will leave much of Detroit without representation in Congress for nearly a year. “Having ample time for candidates to make a decision about running for office and file their paperwork gives people more options as to who will next represent them in Congress,” Snyder said in a statement. “In order to allow several months for that to take place and to reduce the financial burden on local taxpayers, the primary and general elections will be held when regularly scheduled elections are already occurring.” The 88-year-old Conyers, who served in Congress for 52 years, stepped down Tuesday after multiple former aides accused him of sexual misconduct.

New Hampshire: Fight looming in State Senate over voting rights | Seacoast Onine

A showdown over residency and voting rights is expected to begin when the New Hampshire Senate reconvenes in January. The state Senate Election Law and Internal Affairs Committee approved an amendment to a retained bill, which passed the House of Representatives in the last session, and would tighten the legal definitions of “resident, inhabitant and residence or residency.” The move is expected to pit Senate Democrats who consider the bill an infringement on voting rights against Republicans who claim it eliminates the legal gray area surrounding domiciled citizens.

Editorials: Ohio must take steps to secure elections | Kathleen Clyde/The Toledo Blade

Computer hacks and cybersecurity threats have been in the news a lot lately. Millions of Americans’ data were breached in the Equifax hack and a huge number of accounts were compromised at Yahoo. Worse than those reports, it was recently confirmed that Ohio was one of the 21 states reported on over the summer whose systems hackers attempted to breach in the lead up to the 2016 election. Foreign interference with our elections and the electronic machinery they run on is one of the biggest cyber threats we face because it’s a matter of national security. Our enemies want to create chaos at best and change outcomes of our elections at worst. It’s a direct attack on our society, the American way of life, and our ability to self-govern.

Pennsylvania: Second gerrymandering challenge heads to trial today | WITF

By some measures, Pennsylvania’s Congressional districts are among the most gerrymandered in the nation.
But the resulting district maps are being challenged, and one case is slated to begin today in Commonwealth Court. The League of Women Voters is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of registered voters from all over the state.
They’re accusing Republicans of intentionally designing districts so that Democrats’ votes are diluted, which they argue is a violation of the state constitution’s equal protection clause. They are calling for a new map.

Editorials: Paperless voting leaves South Carolina vulnerable | Greg Summers/The Lancaster News

South Carolina is one of only five states whose voting machines create no paper trail that could be used to reconstruct the balloting if hackers found a way to change votes in an election. The state has used its touch-screen system since 2004, when Congress spent $4 billion to upgrade systems across the country. That eliminated punch-card systems like the one plagued by “hanging chads” in the crucial Florida recount of the 2000 Bush-Gore race. Lancaster County Elections Director Mary Ann Hudson, whose office has 190 of the paperless machines, is concerned about the dated equipment. “I doubt any of us would wait that long to replace our personal smartphones and computers,” Hudson said. “When you have a system as old as ours, you have to start thinking about possible options.” In the wake of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, many states are upgrading their machines and electoral databases and adding cybersecurity measures to assure the integrity of the voting process.

Editorials: Virginia’s House election is irreparably tainted | The Washington Post

The mystery of how, why and by whom a few hundred Northern Virginians were registered to vote in the wrong state legislative districts in this fall’s elections does not look as though it will be resolved soon. For one thing, the registrar who might have been able to shed some light on the issue died last spring. The more pressing question is what to do about the razor-thin result in one of the districts, on which partisan control of the state House of Delegates may hinge. Short answer: A federal judge now reviewing the mess should order a do-over. That would be an unusual recourse for the race in the 28th House District, including parts of Stafford County and Fredericksburg, where Republican Robert Thomas leads Democrat Joshua Cole by 82 votes. It would also be warranted.