Connecticut: Trump Panel Push For Voting Data Could Lead To More Connecticut Voter Privacy Protections | Hartford Courant

The push by President Donald Trump’s anti-voter-fraud commission to get huge amounts of voter data from across the nation could have unintended consequences in Connecticut: more state protections for registered voters’ personal information. Connecticut lawmakers and election officials say they will renew efforts to restrict public release of at least some of the personal information on voters that is now on file with the state. Many Connecticut voters are unaware that their dates of birth, home addresses, party affiliation, recent history of going to the polls and sometimes even telephone numbers are public information and easily available on the Internet. “It’s basically a ready-made, identification-theft kit,” said Dan Barrett, legal director of the Connecticut branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. Many states do have broad restrictions on how voter data can be released or used, but Connecticut only protects the addresses of law enforcement personnel and some types of crime victims.

Florida: Thousands wait decades to regain the right to vote | Tampa Bay Times

Adam McCracken has a Ph.D., practices psychology in Orlando and is married with two sons. But for 25 years, the state of Florida said he couldn’t be a full-fledged citizen because of a long-ago drug conviction. McCracken served 10 months in a federal prison and five years on probation for possession with intent to distribute LSD. It was a serious mistake. It happened in 1991. He was 21. The case is so old that a Google search turns up nothing. The state of Florida allows McCracken to practice psychology. But he can’t vote. A law-abiding citizen for 26 years, he wants to bury his past. But the state won’t let him.

Georgia: Buying voting machines in Georgia not so simple anymore | The Brunswick News

Voting being the essential democratic function that it is, the Glynn County Board of Elections is charged with keeping the county’s voting machines running and in good condition. That task has become more difficult this year. The board voted Tuesday to buy five used voting machines from San Diego County, Calif., to use as backups. The machines board members chose to buy have only been used once and can be had at a savings. However, they did not have the option to buy new machines. No county in Georgia does. Glynn County Board of Elections Supervisor Tina Edwards said the board was prompted to buy the machines because the newer models are no longer being sold by the manufacturer, Electronic Systems and Software. San Diego County is the only source of the machines that she is aware of at the moment. The company has no plans to stock more in the near future, leaving Georgia counties with no choice but to buy machines secondhand or from third parties, Edwards said.

Georgia: ACLU says Georgia voting mailer is illegal | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The ACLU of Georgia says a letter mailed to nearly 50,000 Fulton County voters, telling them they could be declared inactive because they filed change of address forms but didn’t update their voter registration, is illegal. The letter states that voters have 30 days to confirm their address on their registration record before being deemed inactive, meaning they could be removed in the future. ACLU of Georgia legal director Sean J. Young said the organization plans to sue if Fulton doesn’t correct the issue. The mailers referenced by the ACLU in its Tuesday letter specifically involve voters who have moved within Fulton County. “You cannot say, ‘Do something in 30 days or something bad is going to happen to you,’” Young said. “This kind of nonsense is straight out of the voter suppression playbook.”

New Hampshire: ACLU-NH mulls constitutional challenge to voting bill signed by Sununu | WMUR

A day after Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law legislation to tighten voter registration identification requirements, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire said it is reviewing whether to mount a constitutional challenge. ACLU legal director Gilles Bissonnette, who was one of the most outspoken critics of Senate Bill 3 throughout the legislative session, in a statement called it “an attack on eligible voters’ voting rights.”  Bissonnette said the bill improperly allows people to be fined for “doing nothing wrong other than not returning to a government agency with certain paperwork — paperwork that these legitimate voters may not have. Senate Bill 3 is also a violation of voters’ privacy by sending government agents to voters’ homes to check their documents. Requiring people to accept this government intrusion as a condition of voting will chill the right to vote.”

Texas: State accused of withholding documents in Texas redistricting case | San Antonio Express-News

Plaintiffs challenging the 2013 redistricting maps on Tuesday accused the state of improperly delaying the release of thousands of pages of documents from them, including 113 documents that state lawyers refuse to hand over because they say they are privileged. The spat may further delay a conclusion to the weeklong trial, which already was frustrating judges on Tuesday because of repetitive questions during the House maps portion of the trial. Testimony over congressional maps was heard late Tuesday. Many of the documents in question pertain to communications of the chairman of the 2013 redistricting committee, Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, with other people involved in the redistricting, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

Texas: Why Texas is Texas: A gerrymandering case cuts to the core of the state’s transformation | Los Angeles Times

Civil rights groups descended on a San Antonio courthouse Monday to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s current redistricting maps and accuse Republican legislators of deliberately drawing them to dilute the voting power of minorities. The trial is only the latest round in a long-running Texas saga over gerrymandering and race. Voting rights advocates have long accused Texas Republicans of working to undermine the growing political clout of Latino and African American voters by intentionally — and unfairly — cramming them into districts or splitting them up so they are outnumbered. Republican legislators still control roughly two-thirds of State House and Senate and congressional seats.

Editorials: A post-election assessment of the Cayman Islands electoral process | Cayman Compass

In a report released this week, election observers from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association British Islands and Mediterranean Region made 21 recommendations to improve the voting process in the Cayman Islands. Their observations, especially those concerning suffrage and campaign finance, deserve serious consideration. Of particular note, the observers took issue with the obvious – the unequal weight of voters depending on the districts in which they reside. For example, East End’s 692 registered voters have a disproportionately greater impact in their district’s elections than, say, the 1,513 registered voters in Bodden Town East. The Sister Islands are also way out of balance. Observers also voiced concerns about lengthy residency requirements for voters – even those of Caymanian status – and the exclusion of permanent residents from voting. This is the junction at which voting rights and human rights oftentimes collide. But some of the most troubling shortcomings found by observers are in the area of campaign finance.

Editorials: Kenya election: ‘I’m tired of people asking about violence’ | Kate Lyons/The Guardian

One of Kenya’s leading economists has said he is “sick” of being asked whether the country’s general elections next month will trigger violence. He added that people whose sole interest in the polls on 8 August was whether or not there would be clashes were setting a “very low bar” for the country. Kwame Owino, chief executive of Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs, told the Guardian he was fed up with people only asking him for a prediction as to whether there would be unrest after the country goes to the polls, as there was after the 2007 elections, which resulted in more than 1,000 people being killed and 600,000 displaced from their homes. “We are hung up with 2007 and 2008, which were very specific circumstances,” he said. “We have the view that anything that doesn’t lead to violence is acceptable. It’s not.

New Zealand: Greens’ co-leader says his MP spoke ‘out of turn’ on New Zealand First | The National Business Review

Green Party co-leader James Shaw is distancing himself and his party from comments made by new MP Barry Coates about the party not supporting a Labour/New Zealand First government. In a post on The Daily Blog, Barry Coates –  a list MP who entered Parliament in October last year – said if the Greens are not part of a coalition government, the party would not accept a Labour/New Zealand First government. Mr Coates said this could mean forcing the country back to the polls for another election. “[Labour/New Zealand First] could not count on the support of the Green Party there is no automatic support that is provided for a government under those circumstances,” he wrote. But Mr Shaw says Mr Coates spoke “out of turn.”

Papua New Guinea: Candidate launching court case over ‘unconstitutional’ Sunday voting | ABC

A candidate opposing Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister has taken the country’s Electoral Commission to court for allowing voting on a Sunday. Voting in Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s electorate of Ialibu-Pangia began on Sunday July 2 after two days of delays, symptomatic of widespread problems with the current PNG national election. Opposing candidate Stanley Liria has filed an application in the PNG Supreme Court, asking for it to decide if the Sunday voting breached the constitution. Mr Liria said Sunday voting was prohibited in section 130 of PNG’s Organic Law on National and Local-level Government Elections, which says polling must take place on days “other than a Sunday or a public holiday”.

Spain: Catalonia plans to hold an independence vote whether Spain lets it or not | The Economist

The production was as dramatic as any other the National Theatre in Barcelona has seen. There, on July 4th, the president of Catalonia’s government, Carles Puigdemont, announced plans to hold a unilateral referendum on independence from Spain on October 1st. The draft law he unveiled says that, whatever the turnout, if those voting in favour outnumber those against, within 48 hours the Catalan parliament will declare independence. To Mr Puigdemont’s supporters, this is a national epic. To Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s conservative prime minister, it is “authoritarian delirium”. He is determined that it should not take place. Mr Puigdemont’s push follows five years of secessionist agitation in Catalonia, one of Spain’s richest regions, whose 7.5m people make up 16% of its population.

Venezuela: Electoral Chief Rejects Constituent Assembly Boycott | teleSUR

Venezuelan National Electoral Council, CNE, President Tibisay Lucena on Wednesday rejected calls by the right-wing opposition to boycott National Constituent Assembly elections scheduled for July 30. Lucena said that despite the call for violent protests by the opposition, the electoral body will guarantee citizens their right to participate by providing security throughout the election. The CNE official said opposition supporters are allowed to be against the National Constituent Assembly, but can’t impede other Venezuelans from voting. “An electoral process can not be prevented, it’s an attack to the very heart of democracy and human rights,” Lucena said. “I am sure that peace will prevail on July 30.”

Editorials: Trump’s voter panel is scaring away voters | Joshua A. Douglas/CNN

President Donald Trump and Kris Kobach’s voter fraud commission is a stain on our democracy. It is already harming voters by reducing the registration rolls. Two weeks ago, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity asked election officials in all 50 states to turn over detailed voter information. Now, in response, voters in some states — such as Colorado, Florida and North Carolina — are seeking to “unregister,” asking their states to remove them from voter rolls before any information is sent to the commission. As Denver elections director Amber McReynolds lamented, “I never expected to see more withdrawals in a day than new registrations. The impact on voters is real. The impact on civic engagement is real. The impact on election offices is real.”

National: Trump Jr.’s Russia emails could trigger probe under election law | Reuters

Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who had incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that could help his father’s presidential campaign could lead investigators to probe whether he violated U.S. election law, experts said. Trump Jr. met the woman, lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, on June 9, 2016, after an email exchange with an intermediary. The emails, tweeted by Trump Jr. on Tuesday, could provide material for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. In one of the emails dated June 3, 2016, Trump Jr. wrote: “If it’s what you say I love it.” He released the tweets after the New York Times said it planned to write about their contents and sought his comment.

National: Trump’s Election Commission Plans to Abandon Insecure Voter Data Collection Methods | Gizmodo

Since the president’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity requested voter rolls from state election officials—allegedly for the purpose of investigating Trump’s unproven claims about widespread voter fraud—45 states and the District of Columbia have either partially or wholly declined to share their data, and security experts have raised concerns about whether the commission has the technical capabilities to keep the data secure. A federal judge raised questions last week about the security of voter data transferred to the commission. Sources tell Gizmodo that the White House is backing down from its initial requests for state election officials to send the data through a file transfer website created by the Army and not intended for civilian use. The commission plans to propose another option for states to submit data, the sources said. …  Kris Kobach, the vice chairman of the commission, initially provided two ways for officials to send in their voter data: The first is an email address that, as Gizmodo reported, does not support basic encryption protocols. Voter data sent to the address would be transmitted over an unencrypted connection, leaving it vulnerable to interception or manipulation.

National: While Kobach Commission Bumbles, DOJ Sends Its Own Voter Suppression Signals | TPM

The voting rights community isn’t holding its breath for a “report” expected out of President Trump’s sham election commission that advocates predict will be used as a cudgel for restrictive voting laws. They already have a good idea of how the Trump administration, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will seek to scale back access to the ballot with an approach that has its antecedent in the scandal-plagued Justice Department of George W. Bush. It was signaled clearly in a under-the-radar letter sent by the DOJ to most states late last month. The letter did not get as much as attention as the wide-reaching data request from the Trump election commission—which is being led by Vice President Mike Pence and hard-right Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R)—but voting rights advocates told TPM they find it just as concerning, if not more so.

National: Some voters un-registering following Trump administration’s data requests | ABC

Following the Trump administration’s request for voter registration data as part of the newly established Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, some U.S. states have seen an uptick in citizens moving to keep their information out of the federal government’s hands. Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and vice chairman of the commission, sent a letter asking officials in each state to provide personal records of voters — including name, birthdate, last four digits of Social Security numbers, party affiliation and felony convictions. A total of 16 secretaries of state and Elections Board members spoke with ABC News about constituents’ responses to the request. Ten states noted at least a slight increase in citizen calls and emails, and some citizens inquired about the process to unregister to vote, or how to secure their personal information.

National: Big Data and the Voting Booth | Electronic Design

Wired magazine had it right with its headline “Trump Wants All Your Voter Data. What Could Go Wrong?” As the article notes, “The private ballot is tradition in the United States. Now, President Trump’s voter fraud commission wants to collect every American’s voting history and make it available to the public—all in the name of ‘election integrity.’” Forty-four states have already said they will not comply for a variety of reasons. Other sites can discuss the merits of the request or rejection of the requests. Here we want to examine the implications of big data and why arbitrary collection of this information may not be a great idea. For this particular request, states were asked to provide quite a bit of information about voters and their voting history. This included details like a voter’s political party affiliation, address, voting history, felony history, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Some of this is disturbing in its own right like the last four digits of Social Security numbers. This information is often used in conjunction with other details like an email address to set up accounts on websites. These are often financial sites.

Editorials: The Trumps Embraced a Russian Plot | Nicholas Kristof/The New York Times

The astonishing email just released by Donald Trump Jr., setting up the meeting last year with a Russian lawyer, is devastating for the White House. Above all, it underscores that the Trump family knew of a secret Russian campaign to interfere in the American election — and embraced it. Read the whole email exchange, but here’s the key paragraph: “The Crown prosecutor of Russia … offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” This passage undermines the Trump and White House position in three crucial ways — not attributed to vague “sources” but in black and white documentary form.

Editorials: Voter fraud commission very quickly runs into roadblocks | Carl P. Leubsdorf/The Dallas Morning News

One of democracy’s best protections against blatantly preposterous proposals is that the perpetrators inevitably go too far. In the case of President Donald Trump’s fraudulent voter fraud commission, that didn’t take long. Even before next week’s first official meeting, the panel Trump created to pursue his ridiculous claim that 3 million to 5 million Americans voted fraudulently last November, is running into roadblocks both federal and state. On Monday, it temporarily suspended its request for reams of public and personal election data in the wake of multiple federal court suits from liberal groups contending it has failed to protect voters’ privacy. But the principal resistance has come from the nation’s secretaries of state, many of them Republicans.

Alabama: ‘Restoration clinics’ to help felons register to vote under new Alabama law | AL.com

In March 1965, Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma served as the starting line of the two famous marches toward Montgomery that propelled the voting rights movement into the national consciousness. Four months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, ushering in a new era of increased access to the polls for African-Americans and other minorities across the South and beyond. On Saturday, a new voting rights effort kicked off inside that historic church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke and Selma marchers nursed their wounds after being beaten by state troopers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge 52 years ago.

Florida: Local elections officials trying to convince some registered voters to stay registered | News-Press

Local elections officials are trying to talk voters out of unregistering, as privacy concerns continue to mount in response to a special commission created by President Donald Trump. Fears about data breaches and identity theft — or flat-out aversion to what many perceive as a Big Brother-ish information gathering activity — continued even as a representative of the commission on Monday told state officials not to provide the voter data previously requested. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner was among the state officials who received the missive from Andrew Kossack, the designated federal officer for the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

Kansas: Inaccuracies Posted On Kansas Secretary Of State Website Through Voter Registration Deadline | KMUW

Kansans who registered to vote at the DMV or otherwise used the federal voter registration form are eligible to vote in all races, according to court rulings, whether they’ve provided a citizenship document or not. But those voters might be confused by inconsistencies on Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s website. As of Tuesday, the deadline to register to vote in the primary elections on August 1, the website contained conflicting information on the Kansas proof-of-citizenship rule. In accordance with a federal court order issued last October, some parts of the KSSOS.org site, and associated state websites, have been updated. The new language clarifies that voters using the federal registration form aren’t currently subject to the proof-of-citizenship rule and can vote in all races.

New Hampshire: Law toughens voting registration requirements | Associated Press

A new law in New Hampshire requires that voters moving to the state within 30 days of an election provide proof that they intend to stay and subjects them to an investigation if they can’t provide the proof and want to vote in future elections. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump alleged widespread voter fraud in New Hampshire, although there’s been no evidence to support this. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed the bill into law Monday, effective in 60 days. It provides that those who can’t provide proof such as a driver’s license or lease would still be allowed to vote, but if they don’t follow up with elections officials within 10 to 30 days, authorities could go to their homes to investigate. In cases where officials can’t verify someone’s address, the voter would be removed from the voter rolls for future elections.

Texas: Voting rights battle in Pasadena could have Texas-wide legal ramifications | The Texas Tribune

Cody Ray Wheeler has a cowboy’s name. It’s a product, he says, of being born the son of a North Texas refinery worker. In some ways it’s emblematic of a changing Texas: Wheeler, who is Hispanic, represents a city council district with a majority-white voting constituency in this Houston suburb. It’s also a name that has put him at the center of a voting rights battle over whether city leaders here pushed changes to the council map to undercut the electoral power of a booming Hispanic majority. “A Hispanic wasn’t supposed to win that seat,” Wheeler said over barbecue on a recent steamy afternoon. He’s convinced his non-Hispanic last name made the difference in his narrow 33-vote margin of victory in 2013. “I could not run as a Hispanic candidate,” he said. “I would’ve lost.”

Wisconsin: The research that convinced SCOTUS to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case, explained | Nicholas Stephanopoulos/Vox

In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear its first partisan gerrymandering case in more than a decade. This case, Gill v. Whitford, involves a challenge to the district plan that Wisconsin passed for its state house after the 2010 Census. The case also involves a quantitative measure of gerrymandering — the efficiency gap — that has created a bit of a buzz. One reporter compares it to a “silver-bullet democracy theorem” and a “gerrymandering miracle drug.” Another speculates that it may be the “holy grail of election law jurisprudence.” I’m an attorney in Whitford and the co-author of an article advocating the efficiency gap, so I appreciate the attention the metric is getting. But I still think much of this interest is misplaced. The efficiency gap is, in fact, a simple and intuitive measure of gerrymandering, and I’ll explain why in a minute. But the true breakthrough in Whitford isn’t that plaintiffs have finally managed to quantify gerrymandering. Rather, it’s that they’ve used the efficiency gap (and other metrics) to analyze the Wisconsin plan in new and powerful ways. These analyses are the real story of the litigation — not the formulas that enabled them.

Congo: Opposition decries Kabila election delay as ′declaration of war′ | Deutsche Welle

A vote to replace Congo’s president Joseph Kabila might not be possible this year, the head of the electoral commission said. Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi said it was “a declaration of war on the Congolese people.” Corneille Nangaa, the president of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s electoral commission, said on Sunday that the 12-month deadline since the end of Kabila’s tenure was unlikely to be met for logistical reasons. “The parameters at our disposal give us, more or less, reason to think that, in December, it will probably not be possible to stick to that date,” Nangaa said in an interview on France’s TV5Monde.

Italy: The Surprisingly Long and Tortured History of Italian Electoral Reform | MIR

Italy’s politics is currently paralysed. Since the resignation of PM Matteo Renzi last December, the majority of the population and most political parties want an election, even though one is not scheduled to occur until next year. The country is now on its fourth consecutive unelected PM, Paolo Gentiloni. As he leads the government Renzi remains behind the scenes, calling the shots for his party and itching to get back into power. Yet an early election cannot occur immediately, nor can electoral reform happen overnight. It is a debate Italians and Canadians are quite familiar with. Italy has seen such proceedings, on and off, for more than two decades. The numerous reforms that have emerged from this debate demonstrate perfectly the various tradeoffs that electoral reform entails, and illustrate the idea that no electoral system is perfect.

New Zealand: How New Zealand’s growing alt-right movement plans to influence the election | New Zealand Herald

A worldwide surge in populist politics has breathed new life into the vestiges of New Zealand’s far right. Kirsty Johnston reports from within the fringe. When outrage over racist posters at Auckland University hit headlines in late March, their white supremacist creators were elated. They’d tricked the media! Their message was being heard! Their Facebook page was up to almost 100 likes! Members of the Western Guard, the supremacists’ secret online group, began to plan a second wave. They decided to mobilise their new recruits and plaster campuses nationwide. They made signs for Nelson, for New Plymouth, for Taupo. “White Lives Matter” the templates read. “You can prevent white genocide. Your country needs YOU!” As more recruits joined in the coming days, energy built. The fledgling club discussed its limits – were gays allowed? No way, the hive mind said. They decreed it was probably best not to use ethnic slurs in public “just yet”.