Wisconsin: Bill would allow electronic voting for in-person absentee ballots | The Sun Prairie Star

A bill that would let voters casting in-person absentee ballots use an electronic voting machine is getting widespread support from municipal clerks, who argue the change would reduce costs while increasing public confidence.
Currently, those voting absentee in person must fill out paper ballots, seal them in an envelope and sign the envelope. They then aren’t opened and tallied until Election Day, a timeline some clerks and the bill’s author argued strains poll workers and taps into local resources. Under the bill from Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, those ballots still wouldn’t be tallied until Election Day, although municipal clerks would have to post a daily tally of ballots cast – if the municipalities opted into giving its voters the option to cast ballots that way. “This is really just about instead of putting it in an envelope, you as a voter have the opportunity to feed it into a machine,” Brandtjen said Nov. 28 at an Assembly public hearing on the legislation.

France: Corsicans vote to elect new regional assembly | Associated Press

Corsican nationalists swept elections Sunday on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica for a new regional assembly, crushing President Emmanuel Macron’s young centrist movement and traditional parties. The nationalists on the once-restive island of 320,000 people want more autonomy from Paris but unlike those in the nearby Spanish region of Catalonia, they aren’t seeking full independence — yet. In what French media called an unprecedented score, a coalition of moderate and harder-line nationalists won 56.5 percent of the vote in Sunday’s second-round election, according to figures from the Interior Ministry. Local media showed nationalists sing Corsican songs and celebrating in the streets after the results were announced.

Honduras: Opposition parties ask for disputed election to be annulled | Reuters

Honduras’ two main opposition parties on Friday presented formal requests to annul the results of the still-unresolved presidential election, deepening a political crisis that has roiled the poor, violent Central American nation. The Nov. 26 vote has been marred by accusations of electoral fraud, sparking protests, a widespread curfew and a growing chorus of international concern over the situation in Honduras, which has one of the world’s highest murder rates. Opposition leader Salvador Nasralla, who trails conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the widely criticized official count, arrived at the election tribunal shortly before the midnight deadline to present his center-left coalition’s request.

Russia: Putin’s Re-election Is Assured. Let the Succession Fight Begin. | The New York Times

Ask Russian analysts to describe the coming presidential election campaign, and their answers contain a uniform theme: a circus, a carnival, a sideshow. What they do not call it is a real election. With the victory of President Vladimir V. Putin assured, the real contest, analysts said, is the bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred fight to determine who or what comes after him by the end of his next six years in office, in 2024. What might be called the Court of Putin — the top 40 to 50 people in the Kremlin and their oligarch allies — will spend the coming presidential term brawling over that future. When Mr. Putin confirmed last week that he would run again, he might as well have been firing the starting gun for the race toward his succession. He is barred by the Constitution from seeking a third-consecutive term, his fifth total, in 2024.

United Kingdom: Labour urges action to improve voting among UK homeless | The Guardian

Labour has urged the government to use planned reforms to the electoral system to ensure more people without a permanent home are helped to vote, after statistics showed that only about 2% are registered. The Cabinet Office is due later to announce details later this month of its democratic engagement strategy, which aims to improve voter turnout by making it more straightforward for people to join the electoral register. Concerted efforts to help overseas voters and students to sign up had increased the size of the electoral register, but Labour says the system for people without a permanent address is unwieldy and offputting. Most voters can sign up online, but people who are homeless or in temporary accommodation have to download, print and manually fill in a form called a declaration of local connection, which must then be sent to the local electoral registration officer.

Venezuela: Mayoral elections reveals opposition turmoil | Associated Press

Venezuelans will choose hundreds of mayors on Sunday in elections pitting candidates backed by President Nicolas Maduro against a fractured opposition still bruised by a poor showing in recent gubernatorial voting. The ballots for local leaders in 335 city halls across the oil-rich nation are the final national elections before presidential elections next year in which Maduro is expected to run. Voting takes place against a backdrop of soaring inflation, shortages of food and medicine, and charges that Maduro’s government has undermined Venezuela’s democracy by imprisoning dissidents and usurping the powers of the opposition-controlled Congress. The economic and political crises have caused the socialist president’s popularity to plunge but the opposition has largely been unable to take advantage.

Venezuela: Maduro threatens to ban rivals from future elections | The Guardian

Venezuela’s ruling socialists triumphed in nearly all mayoral elections across the country, as President Nicolas Maduro threatened to ban opposition parties from future elections in the oil-rich country wracked by economic crisis. Hundreds of supporters shouted “Go Home, Donald Trump” to interrupt Maduro at a rally late on Sunday in the colonial centre of Caracas, where he announced that pro-government candidates had won more than 300 of the 335 mayoral offices. Sunday’s voting marked the last nationwide elections before next year’s presidential race, when Maduro is expected to seek another term despite his unpopularity. “The imperialists have tried to set fire to Venezuela to take our riches,” Maduro told the crowd. “We’ve defeated the American imperialists with our votes, our ideas, truths, reason and popular will.”

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weey for December 4-10 2017

The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee has suggested that the committee’s forthcoming report on Russian interference in the 2016 election will include little in the way of legislative proposals. Rather, the report will recommend best practices for state and local election officials.

An amicus brief signed by more than a half-dozen technology experts and former national security officials including former national intelligence director James R. Clapper Jr. urged a federal court to halt the collection of voter information for a planned nationwide voter database. Filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the brief supports a lawsuit by Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group, that seeks to halt the commission’s collection of a wide array of sensitive data about American voters.

A lawsuit was filed against Alabama’s Secretary of State and the state’s election director seeking to preserve electronic ballot images of paper ballots cast in next week’s high-profile special U.S. Senate election between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore. “As a result of Defendants’ failure to comply with Alabama’s public records law, digital ballot images used for tabulating votes and possible post-election adjudication will be destroyed following the December 12, 2017, special election for United States Senate in Alabama,” the suit said. “The issue continues to be ripe through all elections scheduled in 2018.”

In a Congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray declined to answer questions about whether the bureau retained data on a Georgia election server before it was wiped clean by state election officials. He also declined to state whether there was an ongoing investigation into the erasure. Joe Kiniry, CEO of Free and Fair, a company that tests election systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities, said the combination of Georgia’s reliance on paperless voting, outsourcing of election operations to a third-party and “really bad security processes” by KSU created a perfect storm that inevitably led to lawsuits but also opportunity.

The Supreme Court has added a second case this term to determine whether partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.  Having already has heard a challenge from Wisconsin Democrats, who challenged a legislative redistricting drawn by the state’s Republican leaders, the court accepted a case in which Maryland Republicans challenge districts drawn by the state’s Democrats.

In a Pennsylvania lawsuit, a group of voters claim they have been harmed by partisan gerrymandering and are calling for a new map in time for the 2018 congressional midterm elections. The trial wrapped up in a Philadelphia courtroom on Thursday with a string of stirring closing arguments before a three-judge panel.

Texas officials hoped to persuade a federal appeals court that the latest version of the state’s voter ID law should be allowed to take effect. The hearing centers on a law re-worked in May by the Texas Legislature after years of court battles.

Verified Voting President Marian Schneider penned an oped in the Virginia-Pilot arguing for manual recounts of state legislative races in Virginia rather than simply re-scanning the ballots. “The only way for Virginia to mitigate the possibility of a risk of error in recounts is for the state to pass legislation calling for manual recounts. Retabulation is not enough to provide confidence in election outcomes. Not in this state election, and not at any point in the future.”

Verified Voting’s Board Chair Barbara Simons and Advisory Board member Mark Halvorson were interviewed about electronic voting, voter verified paper audit trais and post-election audits in India by the National Herald.

Liberia’s Supreme Court told the electoral commission to proceed with organizing the final round of presidential elections that was initially scheduled Nov. 7 but put on hold to probe allegations of fraud during the first round.

National: Senate Intel chair doesn’t plan legislative push on election cyber | FCW

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) hinted that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election will be light on legislative proposals for Congress and focus more on recommendations to state and local governments about how best to protect the integrity of their election systems. “The determination of how states run their elections: states. It’s their responsibility, and we don’t want to do anything to change that,” Burr said during a Dec. 6 Council on Foreign Relations event on hacked elections and online influence operations. While Burr did not give a timeline on when — or if — the final report will be released to the public, he said he expects the committee will make the section on election security available to states before the 2018 election primary season kicks off in earnest. However, he downplayed expectations that the end product would contain recommendations for Congress. “These are not necessarily initiatives that involve federal legislation,” Burr said.

National: Trump’s fraud commission plans to create a massive voter database. Former national security officials say it could be hacked. | The Washington Post

More than a half-dozen technology experts and former national security officials filed an amicus brief Tuesday urging a federal court to halt the collection of voter information for a planned government database. Former national intelligence director James R. Clapper Jr., one of the co-signatories of the brief, warned that a White House plan to create a centralized database containing sensitive information on millions of American voters will become an attractive target for nation states and criminal hackers. This summer, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity issued a sweeping request to state officials to submit voter data to “analyze vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting.” The commission, which is chaired by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), was established after President Trump claimed that he would have won the popular vote if not for as many as 5 million illegally cast ballots. State officials haven’t found any indication that there was widespread voter fraud.

Alabama: Preserving Real Ballot Integrity In Alabama | The National Memo

Lawyers representing Alabama citizens may file a lawsuit within days to preserve electronic images of every paper ballot cast in next week’s high-profile special U.S. Senate election between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore. As of late Tuesday, the lawyers were still in talks with Alabama election officials, urging them not only to preserve all election records—a requirement under federal law—but to ensure the electronic scanners that will read and count the ink-marked paper ballots are properly programmed to capture the digital ballot images. “There are Alabama voters who have come forth seeking to enforce the federal requirement that all election materials be preserved for 22 months after the election,” said Chris Sautter, attorney for the Alabama voters. “It’s our understanding, having talked to state officials, that they preserve only the digital ballot images of the write-in ballots.”

Georgia: Is the FBI investigating Georgia’s wiped election server? | FCW

At a Dec. 7 House hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray declined to answer questions about whether the bureau retained data on a Georgia election server before it was wiped clean by state election officials, then declined to answer whether the FBI was investigating the matter. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) raised the specter of an investigation into a server containing voting data from a recent special election 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. … Joe Kiniry, CEO of Free and Fair, a company that tests election systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities, praised Johnson’s line of questioning. He said the combination of Georgia’s reliance on paperless voting, outsourcing of election operations to a third-party and “really bad security processes” by KSU created a perfect storm that inevitably led to lawsuits but also opportunity. “I believe that the positive outcome of all of this will be that, eventually, Georgia will replace its election system with machines that have paper ballot records, Kiniry said.

Pennsylvania: Compelling closing arguments bring federal trial over gerrymandering to an end | WHYY

The federal trial over Pennsylvania’s congressional district map wrapped up in a Philadelphia courtroom on Thursday with a string of stirring closing arguments before a three-judge panel. During four days of deliberations, a group of more than 20 Pennsylvania voters challenged the way Republican lawmakers drew the state’s congressional districts in 2011, asserting a gerrymandering scheme that violates the U.S. Constitution. If the voters are successful, they could trigger a new congressional map impacting the 2018 midterm elections when all 18 of Pennsylvania’s seats in the U.S. House of Representative could be contested.

Texas: State Heads Back To Federal Appeals Court In Long-Winding Voter ID Fight | KUT

State officials and the minority rights groups suing Texas over its strict voter identification restrictions are headed back to court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Tuesday over the state’s recent revisions to its 2011 voter identification law and whether those changes cure legal issues with the original law. The recent changes — which softened previous voter ID requirements considered among the toughest in the nation — were passed in response to court rulings that the 2011 law discriminated against Hispanic and black voters. Since Texas lawmakers passed the 2011 voter ID law, the state and the measure’s foes have faced off several times in court. This time around, they’ll largely focus on Senate Bill 5, a bill the Legislature passed earlier this year after courts found fault with the previous law.

Editorials: Manual recount needed to ensure valid election results in Virginia | Marian Schneider/The Virginian-Pilot

If Virginia’s 2017 gubernatorial race appeared heated, the post-election drama around the state’s House of Delegates race is reaching its boiling point. Virginia’s State Board of Elections certified the results on Nov. 27, despite its inability to confidently verify votes due to anomalies with the ballots. After the board certified the results, candidates in four races filed petitions for recounts in Virginia circuit courts. The outcome in these tight races will determine control of the House of Delegates. Despite the recount petitions, unless the recount is conducted manually, an unacceptable level of risk of error in the count can cast a pall over the outcome. The margin of victory is so close that only a manual recount can truly ascertain the voter’s intent.

India: Electronic Voting Machines unsafe and VVPATS need more robust safeguards | National Herald

Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is useless unless a statistically significant number of VVPATS are manually counted after the election to ascertain that they functioned properly, say two American computer scientists who believe that the only safe election technology is the ‘paper ballot’. In other words, the Election Commission’s provision of testing VVPATs at just ONE polling booth in each constituency is not good enough to inspire confidence.National Herald on Sunday asked two pioneers engaged in advocacy for election integrity in the United States, Barbara Simons and Mark Halvorson to comment on the controversy over Electronic Voting Machines in India. While Simons, a computer scientist who worked for IBM, was one of the founders of the non-profit Verified Voting (verifiedvoting.org), Halvorson continues to be on its board of advisors. He was also the founder and former director of Citizens for Election Integrity, Minnesota (US) and helped organize the first national Audit Summit in the United States in 2007.

Liberia: Supreme Court Says Runoff Vote Should Go Ahead | Bloomberg

Liberia’s Supreme Court told the electoral commission to proceed with organizing the final round of presidential elections that was initially scheduled Nov. 7 but put on hold to probe allegations of fraud during the first round. The runoff should go ahead, Justice Philip Banks said in the ruling Thursday in the capital, Monrovia. The ruling ends weeks of uncertainty over the electoral process in a country that emerged from a protracted civil war in 2003. The runoff will be contested by former soccer star George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change and Vice President Joseph Boakai of the ruling Unity Party. Weah got 38 percent of votes in the first round on Oct. 10, while Boakai came second with 29 percent of ballots cast. The Supreme Court on Nov. 1 halted preparations for the second round to hear complaints lodged by presidential candidate Charles Brumskine, who came third as leader of the Liberty Party. Brumskine was joined by the Unity Party in his call for a rerun of the election, saying it was marred by fraud and irregularities. Brumskine also questioned the professionalism of Liberia’s electoral commission, demanding its commissioners be fired.

National: States raise security concerns about Crosscheck voter database during call with Kobach’s office | Lawrence Journal World

Officials from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office conducted a conference call Thursday with election officials from several other states to discuss concerns about the Crosscheck program, a multistate database of voter registration information that Kansas manages and that some critics have said is not secure. Bryan Caskey, director of elections in the secretary of state’s office, confirmed Thursday that the conference call took place, but he said the issue of security concerns only came up “at a very high level.” “I would describe it as more of a kickoff conference call that we do at the start of every election year,” Caskey said. The Crosscheck database was originally launched in the early 2000s when Ron Thornburgh served as secretary of state.

National: Apparent White House pick to lead census sparks concern about partisanship | The Washington Post

This week the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Research Centers, whose members include over 3,000 scientists and over 40 federally-funded organizations, sounded an alarm bell about one of their most sacred cows: the United States Census Bureau. Reports had surfaced saying the White House planned to install as the bureau’s deputy director Thomas Brunell, a political science professor with scant managerial experience who is best known for his testimony as an expert witness on behalf of Republican redistricting plans and a book that argues against competitive electoral districts. News of the appointment, which sources close to the bureau say is imminent, sparked handwringing among statisticians, former bureau directors, and civil rights leaders.

Editorials: With democracy under attack, it’s time to protect American elections | A. Scott Bolden/The Hill

From freedom of the press to separation of powers, the years-long erosion of America’s democratic institutions has many voicing their concerns. As the country gears up for elections in 2018 and 2020, it’s time to restore faith in a bedrock principle of American politics that is under serious threat: reliable election results and the peaceful transference of power. Controversies surrounding the 2016 election gave people across the political spectrum reason to distrust the integrity of America’s democratic process. President Trump undermined our elections during his final days as a candidate, when he claimed that if he lost to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, it could be the result of a widespread conspiracy. Mounting evidence of Russian interference, disinformation campaigns, and collusion with the Trump campaign has given many who oppose the president reason to doubt the election results as well.

Colorado: Former GOP chairman found guilty of voter fraud and forgery for signing ex-wife’s ballot | The Denver Post

Steve Curtis, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, faces up to three years in prison after being convicted Thursday of voter fraud and forgery for signing his ex-wife’s ballot during the 2016 election, prosecutors say. The 58-year-old, who also was a KLZ radio host, was charged in February after authorities say DNA evidence and handwriting analysis linked him to the ballot of his ex, Kelly Curtis.  The Weld County District Attorney’s Office says court testimony during Curtis’ trial revealed that Kelly Curtis had moved to Charleston, S.C., in December 2015. When she called the county’s clerk and recorder to get her mail-in ballot, she was told she had already voted.

Georgia: A Look At How Election Recounts Work In Atlanta | WABE

City Council member, and possible mayor elect, Keisha Lance Bottoms seemed to have won the most votes in Atlanta’s mayoral runoff Tuesday, although official results have not been certified. Bottoms beat Mary Norwood by almost 800 votes, and her campaign has already declared victory. Certified results may not be available until the end of the week, but Norwood said she is committed to requesting a recount if the margin turns out to be 1 percent or less. “We’re going to know that every single vote that has been cast is exactly reported out the way that it should be and will be,” Norwood told supporters Tuesday night.

Illinois: Lawsuit challenging Chicago election audit loses in landslide | Cook County Record

A lawsuit challenging the way Chicago’s elections board audits election results has been shredded by a federal judge. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of Illinois, was brought by several election monitors. It claimed the methods used by the Chicago Board of Elections (BOE) to audit the 2016 state primary elections violated their right to vote as well as their right to association and to petition the government. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief. The plaintiffs took particular issue with the so-called “5 percent test” used in the audit. The 5 percent test refers to the sample size of voting machines included in the post-election audit analysis. The Board of Elections argued the audit had no effect on election outcomes, so it could not have violated voting rights or rights to association or to petition the government. U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey agreed.

Illinois: Cook County says it can fix election hacking, if it just had the money | USA Today

Illinois’ most populous county has a plan to keep hackers out, after the state’s voter registration list was breached during last year’s presidential race. There’s one big sticking point: the money. The director of elections for Illinois’ Cook County and a group including Ambassador Douglas Lute will present a strategy to bolster U.S. election systems’ defenses against foreign intruders on Thursday. That roadmap comes with a request for the federal government to fund their plan, underlining a hurdle for many municipalities as they head into the 2018 midterm and 2020 presidential elections. While last year’s general election made clear the voting system was vulnerable to hackers, and the federal government has instructed the nation’s 9,000 election officials to make their voting rolls safer, many municipalities lack funding to make these changes. 

Kentucky: 700 new voting machines will change how Louisville ballots are cast in 2018 | WDRB

The next time voters in Jefferson County go to the polls, they’ll use a pen to cast their ballot, the first indication of Louisville’s new voting system. The Jefferson County Clerk’s office spent more than $3 million this year on 700 new machines. “This is about voter integrity,” said James Young, co-director of the Jefferson County Election Center. “It’s about ensuring the best technology is available for the voters.” The County Clerk’s office plans to roll out the new machines at every polling location in Louisville, completely eliminating its old fleet. “Our neighboring state, Virginia, just de-certified equipment we had in this county for nearly 20 years,” Young said. Writing in pen instead of pencil is new, along with the machines those ballots will be counted on, but Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw is was quick to point out that there will still be paper ballots. “There will always be a paper trail,” she said.

Michigan: What happens next to replace Conyers in Congress? | Detroit Free Press

The process of filling the seat left open by the retirement of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, could take some time to sort out and cost a good bit of money. By law, the governor is required to call a special election to select someone to fill out the remainder of the congressman’s term, which ends on Jan. 3, 2019. The governor can schedule that election whenever he wishes, though it often comes on the date of the next regularly scheduled election — which, at present, is May 7, 2018, when there will be balloting for local boards and millages.

Nebraska: Election technology in Nebraska is ‘extremely behind,’ senator says | Omaha World Herald

When Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse tells election officials from other states how votes are counted in Nebraska’s largest county, the responses vary. “Oh, that’s painful,” is one response. “How long did you work?” is another. “We like to say, ‘Well, 26 hours, but we loved every minute of it,’” Kruse told members of the Nebraska Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee during a hearing Thursday. In Douglas County, all of the ballots are brought to a central location and tallied. Kruse compared that with Birmingham, Alabama, where votes on election night are tallied at the precincts and results are reported in about four hours.

New Mexico: Procedural questions on ranked voting remain | Albuquerque Journal

Santa Fe city government late Wednesday released a draft ordinance to establish processes for ranked-choice voting, something a district court judge last week ordered the city to put in place for the municipal election on March 6. While about a dozen cities across the country hold elections using the ranked-choice voting (RCV) method, Santa Fe would be the first jurisdiction in New Mexico to do so. The City Council is expected to adopt a final version of the ordinance after a public hearing at a special meeting on Dec. 20. While the draft ordinance answers some of questions about how the election will be conducted, provided the city’s appeal of Judge David Thomson’s ruling is denied by the state Supreme Court, there’s still much to be worked out.

Pennsylvania: York County details lack of internal controls in post-election report to state | York Dispatch

York County’s voting machine programming error was the result of a failure to establish and execute proper internal controls, according to a post-election report submitted to the state. A technical oversight by the county’s elections department allowed a single voter to cast multiple votes for a single candidate during the Nov. 7 general election in certain races where more than one candidate was elected. The Pennsylvania Department of State directed the county to review and explain the issue to them, which county solicitor Glenn Smith did in a report submitted Nov. 27.

Editorials: In Pennsylvania gerrymander case, experts can’t defend the indefensible | Nicholas Stephanopoulos/Philadelphia Inquirer

Pennsylvania is no stranger to partisan gerrymandering disputes. In a blockbuster 2004 case, the Supreme Court declined to strike down the congressional map then in effect. The court didn’t quite hold that the map was lawful; rather, it couldn’t think of a workable standard for evaluating the map’s validity. Another gerrymandering suit is now making its way through the Pennsylvania courts, with a decision expected by the end of the year. But unlike its predecessor, this suit is based on a manageable test as well as a mountain of damning evidence. Perhaps for this reason, it has thoroughly flummoxed the state’s lawyers and experts.