National: Supreme Court’s big gerrymandering decision | The Sacramento Bee

Now that the 2017-18 U.S. Supreme Court term has sputtered to a stop, let’s reflect on the justices’ most important decision of the year. It’s not a case in which the court issued an opinion, but rather one in which it has merely agreed to hear arguments. The most consequential decision the court made this last term was to hear arguments in a case involving the drawing of legislative district lines. Please don’t yawn. This process of drawing district lines, called redistricting, dictates who our state and federal representatives will be. Decisions regarding how we draw district lines implicate every important policy issue, from health care and immigration, to the environment and criminal justice. Because of partisan gerrymandering, many Americans don’t chose their lawmakers. Their lawmakers chose them.

Editorials: Fraudulent voting fraud | Baltimore Sun

Nothing telegraphs a federal commission’s basic incompetence quite like having 44 states refuse to cooperate with its inquiry. But that’s the running total, according to a recent CNN survey, of states that have declined to provide requested voter data to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, the Trump administration’s sham inquiry into voter fraud. As cynically partisan as the commission appears to be in makeup and mission, the decision by the states was far more straightforward: In most cases, state laws expressly forbid election agencies from releasing much of the data (including the last four digits of voter Social Security numbers) for privacy reasons. That was certainly true in Maryland where the state elections administrator formally notified the commission of its rejection Monday in a two-paragraph letter that simply noted that much of the information requested was protected by state and federal law. Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh offered a more damning statement calling the request for personal data “repugnant” and designed “only to intimidate voters and to indulge President Trump’s fantasy that he won the popular vote.”

Alabama: Group wants Alabama to educate voters about new voting law | Associated Press

A voting rights group has asked a federal judge to force Alabama to tell people that they could be eligible to vote after previously being disqualified for a felony conviction. U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins on Wednesday scheduled a July 25 hearing on the Campaign Legal Center’s injunction request. The Campaign Legal Center last week asked Watkins to require the state to implement an education campaign and take other steps, after lawmakers approved legislation clarifying which felonies cause a person to lose voting rights. The group also asked the state to reinstate eligible voters and disclose all voter registration applicants and voter registrants who were denied the right to vote on the basis of conviction in the past two years.

Georgia: Secretary of State’s office: “We look forward to our day in court” | WGCL

A spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp indicated Thursday that Kemp is eager to show a jury why there should not be a rematch between Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff in the 6th District Congressional race. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, demonstrated for reporters why they believe their lawsuit has merit. A diverse group of Georgia voters, along with a nonprofit government watchdog group, filed a lawsuit Monday in Fulton County Superior Court demanding that the results of the June 20th special election runoff be tossed out. The suit requests a new election using a paper ballot system. The suit names as defendants Kemp, local elections supervisors who oversaw the runoff election, and Kennesaw State University’s Center for Election Systems and its director, Merle King.

Illinois: Board Says Illinois Will Not Turn Over Its Voter Data To fraud commission | Chicagoist

Illinois will not hand over voter roll data as requested by a Trump administration panel, the Board of Elections announced on Thursday, saying that it does not have a publicly available roll. After Trump’s newly created Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity issued a letter asking that states provide voter data—including names, addresses, birth dates, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting history, stretching back ten years—the Illinois office was met with an influx of calls urging the Board to deny the request. Kenneth Menzel, General Counsel of the State Board of Elections, wrote in a letter to Kris Kobach, Vice Chair of the PACEI, that the Commission’s stated intention to make public any submitted data prevents the Board from turning it over, per the state’s election-code safeguards.

Kansas: Kobach Can’t Duck $1,000 Sanction in Voter ID Case | Courthouse News

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach suffered another setback in an ongoing voter ID case with the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday, after a federal judge refused to reconsider an order requiring Kobach to sit for a deposition and pay a $1,000 fine for misleading the court. On June 30, U.S. Magistrate Judge James O’Hara fined Kobach for misleading the court as to the nature of the voting and immigration policy documents he shared with President Donald Trump in a November meeting. Kobach asked O’Hara to reconsider, contending that last-minute changes to the court filing led to the misleading information. Kobach also asked O’Hara to reconsider the deposition requirement, stating it might prevent him from acting as counsel in the case due to a potential conflict of interest. He also said the deposition was “intended to harass, annoy, or embarrass” him.

Kentucky: Secretary of State emerges as most quotable opponent of fraud panel | Yahoo News

More than 40 states and the District of Columbia are saying they can’t or won’t hand over voter data to President Trump’s “election integrity” commission — and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes had a colorful way to describe how the White House request has been received in her state. “As my grandmother used to say, ‘It’s about as welcoming as a breeze off an outhouse,’” Grimes said on MSNBC Wednesday. “The folks across the state — not just Democrats, but Republicans — are realizing that turning over personal sensitive information to the federal government — to the president who has requested this — one, isn’t in the state’s interest and two, isn’t in individuals’ interests.” The data requests were first made last week by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a group formed by Trump following his unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election. The letters requested information about voters, including birthdays, party affiliation and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

Editorials: Kentucky voters could become victims of cyber crime | Lisa Berry-Tayman and Eric Hodge/Courier-Journal

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity has asked that the Commonwealth turn over its voter records to the federal government. The legality of such a request is questionable, however, and the Commission’s actions could put Kentucky’s voters at significant risk of identity theft and election fraud. It’s a dangerous cyber world where hacking tools and consumer information are sold openly on the Internet. In 2016, data breaches exposed more than 4.2 billion pieces of information about individuals. The Russian hacking of the presidential election was followed by global ransomware attacks that hijacked thousands of networked systems and foreshadowed new, more destructive attacks. Most recently, a consultancy engaged by the Republican National Committee accidentally exposed the personal voter information of nearly 200 million Americans.

Massachusetts: Legal Fireworks Begin in Trial Over Voting Rights | Public News Service

The Fourth of July celebration is over, but the legal fireworks are just getting started in a trial that got underway Wednesday focusing on a key concern of the founding fathers – the right to vote. Jessie Rossman, one of the lawyers handling the case for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says as early as 1887, the state Supreme Court ruled that the cut-off for voter registration should occur as close to Election Day as possible. Rossman argues the technology is available to allow for same-day registration, so she says the current system is arbitrary and unconstitutional. “Every year, thousands of people in Massachusetts are disenfranchised and unable to vote as a result of this 20-day registration cut-off,” she states.

North Carolina: With elections board vacant, Cooper wants state Supreme Court to block board designed by GOP | News & Observer

North Carolina’s election oversight board has been vacant for more than a month, but the N.C. Supreme Court is poised to decide if Gov. Roy Cooper must make appointments to the new board designed by Republicans. Cooper last week asked the Supreme Court to block the law creating the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, which would be split equally among Republicans and Democrats – a change from the previous elections board, which was controlled by the governor’s party. Attorneys for House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger called on the court Monday to deny the request, and both the GOP legislative leaders and the N.C. Republican Party say Cooper needs to make appointments immediately.

North Carolina: Legislative leaders urge court to avoid special election | Associated Press

North Carolina Republican legislative leaders are re-affirming opposition to a special election this fall or winter for General Assembly seats, but say they’re prepared to redraw districts for the scheduled November 2018 election. The lawmakers’ attorneys responded Thursday to a Greensboro federal court seeking input about what to do after last month’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Justices agreed nearly 30 districts are racial gerrymanders and should be thrown out. But the high court rejected the Greensboro court’s order for a special election and wrote more work was needed evaluating whether it’s necessary. The GOP leaders say they’ve already laid out a schedule to draw new maps by this November. They say accelerating the timetable could short-circuit public and legislative feedback on maps and could prevent orderly elections.

Pennsylvania: Snyder seeks to broaden absentee voting | Observer-Reporter

State Rep. Pam Snyder, whose district includes Greene County and parts of Fayette and Washington counties, would like to see Pennsylvania allow early voting and no-excuse absentee balloting. “We’re busy people, on the go constantly to jobs, family responsibilities (and) civic duties,” Snyder said at a Harrisburg news conference last month, noting 37 states and the District of Columbia offer some sort of early voting. Twenty-seven states and the nation’s capital offer no-excuse absentee voting. “Not all of us work 9-to-5 shifts. We can do better. We should do better,” she continued.

Editorials: Texas and other states are right to refuse Trump panel’s request for private voter information | Dallas Morning News

Voting is a right in a democracy and the secrecy of the ballot protects citizens from reprisal. President Donald Trump may not appreciate this core American principle, but we’re pleased that most state election officials do. At least 43 states, including Texas, have pushed back against all or parts of  the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity’s sweeping and unprecedented request to hand over names, addresses, dates of birth, political party and voting histories, criminal records, military status and the last four digits of  Social Security numbers of voters dating back to 2006. Texas will turn over information already publicly available but rightly refuses to release full or partial Social Security numbers. We find it disturbing that Trump continues to deny Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, but remains preoccupied with using this commission to pursue his own unproven allegations that millions voted illegally, costing him the popular vote.  

Utah: Group Plans Neutral Redistricting Board Ballot Item | Associated Press

Utah residents might have the chance to vote to form an independent redistricting commission that would redraw congressional and legislative district boundaries after the 2020 Census. A group called Utahns for Responsive Government is working to collect the more than 100,000 signatures required to put the initiative on the state’s 2018 ballot. “I strongly believe that the redistricting process (the determination of political boundaries), badly needs to be improved, and that politicians should not be choosing their voters,” said Ralph Becker, a former Salt Lake City mayor who is a member of the group.

Wyoming: Secretary of State rejects White House request for voter data, citing federal overreach | Casper Star-Tribune

Wyoming is joining more than 20 states in refusing to turn over public voter data to a federal commission investigating the integrity of elections. “I’m going to decline to provide any Wyoming voter information,” Secretary of State Ed Murray told the Star-Tribune on Monday. “It’s not sitting well with me.” The Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity sent a request to all 50 states last week, asking them to turn over any publicly available personal voter data. Many state officials, from across the political spectrum, have declined to do so.

Australia: Labor challenges election of Nationals MP David Gillespie in high court | The Guardian

Labor has launched a high court challenge to the right of a National party MP to sit in the parliament, which could remove the Coalition government’s one-seat majority. Labor’s national executive confirmed the decision on Friday morning to challenge the assistant health minister and National MP for Lyne, David Gillespie, over a potential commercial interest with the commonwealth. If the case were successful, a byelection would be triggered in the safe National party seat on the New South Wales mid-north coast. If the Coalition candidate lost, the Turnbull government would lose its one-seat majority. Gillespie won the seat after the former independent Rob Oakeshott retired at the 2013 election. Oakeshott ran at the 2016 election in the nearby safe National seat of Cowper but failed to unseat MP Luke Hartsuyker after a three-week campaign.

Canada: Online voting still too risky, cybersecurity expert says | The Record

Online voting is not a secure way for electors to choose a new government, says the chief technology officer of a Cambridge-based cybersecurity firm eSentire. “As a technologist and someone who is very concerned about the integrity of our elections, I would not be a fan or supportive of any electronic voting system,” said Mark McArdle. Online voting is expected to be used by 150 to 200 Ontario municipalities in the next round of municipal elections in October 2018. One of those cities will be Cambridge, which allowed online voting and telephone voting for a two-week advance voting period in 2014. In the next election in 2018, Cambridge will expand early voting to three weeks, and allow internet and telephone voting on election day.

Germany: De Maiziere expects Russian leaking to start in ‘weeks’ | EUObserver

Germany expects Russia to start publishing compromising material on German MPs in the summer in order to destabilise elections in September. Its interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, and spy chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, issued the warning in Berlin on Tuesday (4 July) after unveiling a yearly intelligence report. De Maiziere said the material “could be published in the coming weeks,” the Reuters news agency reported. Maassen said Russia’s intention was “to damage trust in and the functioning of our democracy so our government should have domestic political difficulties and not be as free to act in its foreign policy as it is today.”

Papua New Guinea: From ‘anticipation, excitement’ to dictatorship fears in Papua New Guinea election | Asia Pacific Report

Feelings of “anticipation, excitement” first gripped Papua New Guinea as polling opened last month. … But the anticipation and excitement was short-lived and quickly descended into condemnation of the state of the electoral common roll as thousands reported they had not been listed, despite registration, and also disruptions as reported a week later on PMW’s Southern Cross. In Lae, students set fire to ballot papers in protest, while others at Unitech missed out on voting as only 1100 ballot papers arrived for a voting population of 5000. Similar stories were echoed across Papua New Guinea as 4000 to 5000 students in Goroka were denied the chance to cast a ballot.

Russia: Russian investigators raid election offices of Putin critic Navalny | Reuters

Russian investigators raided the Moscow election headquarters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Thursday and police entered a warehouse, where activists said they confiscated pre-election pamphlets. Navalny, who has organized two big anti-government street protests in recent months, is currently serving out a 25-day jail term for repeatedly violating the law on organizing public meetings. He is due out on Friday. Navalny says he wants to run for the presidency in March next year, but the Central Election Commission has said he is ineligible due to an embezzlement conviction which Navalny says was politically-motivated.

Rwanda: Climate of Fear Engulfs Rwanda’s Upcoming Vote, Amnesty Says | Associated Press

Rwanda’s presidential election next month will be held under “a climate of fear” following two decades of often deadly attacks on political opponents, journalists and rights activists, Amnesty International charged Friday, calling for serious political reforms in the East African country. “Since the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front took power 23 years ago, Rwandans have faced huge, and often deadly, obstacles to participating in public life and voicing criticism of government policy,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, an Amnesty official in East Africa. “The climate in which the upcoming elections take place is the culmination of years of repression.” Many killings and disappearances, including some recent ones, have been blamed on the government of President Paul Kagame, who has been his country’s de facto leader or elected president since the end of the 1994 genocide.

National: Voter Data Request Is Illegal, Not Just Controversial | The Regulatory Review

Recently, the newly created Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to all fifty states asking them to submit extensive information about registered voters. The letter has created an uproar among state officials, and many have announced their intention to refuse the request. President Donald Trump has tweeted his disapproval of these state refusals. Overlooked in the controversy has been the rather obvious conclusion that, because the Commission on Election Integrity appears to have ignored the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), its request is simply illegal.

National: Why almost every state is partially or fully rebuffing Trump’s election commission | The Washington Post

Officials in nearly every state say they cannot or will not turn over all of the voter data President Trump’s voting commission is seeking, dealing what could be a serious blow to Trump’s attempts to bolster his claims that widespread fraud cost him the popular vote in November. The commission’s request for a massive amount of state-level data last week included asking for all publicly available information about voter rolls in the states, such as names of all registrants, addresses, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers and other data. It immediately encountered criticism and opposition, with some saying it could lead to an invasion of privacy and others worrying about voter suppression. The states that won’t provide all of their voter data grew to a group of at least 44 by Wednesday, including some, such as California and Virginia, that said they would provide nothing to the commission. Others said they are hindered by state laws governing what voter information can be made public but will provide what they can.

National: Justice Department Request For State Voter Information Follows Similar Kobach Query | KCUR

Officials with the U.S. Department of Justice are asking states including Kansas for information related to the National Voter Registration Act — a move made the same day that the president’s commission on voter fraud sent a request for “publicly available voter roll data.” In a letter sent June 28, Justice Department officials requested data on how states purge registrations of people who have died or moved. The letter seeks information to confirm that states are complying with federal law and keeping voting lists updated. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on the same day sent requests for voter registration information to all states in his role as vice chairman of President Donald Trump’s commission on voter fraud. Numerous states have said they will not provide some or all of the information that Kobach requested.

National: This DOJ Letter May Be More Alarming Than Trump Commission’s Request For Voter Data | HuffPost

Former Department of Justice officials and voting advocates are seriously alarmed over a DOJ letter sent to states last week that they say could signal a forthcoming effort to kick people off voter rolls. This comes as national attention focuses on several states blocking a request for voter information from President Donald Trump’s commission to investigate voting fraud, which does occur, but is not a widespread problem. The DOJ sent the letter to 44 states last Wednesday, the same day the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter controversially requesting personal voter information. The DOJ letter requests that election officials respond by detailing their compliance with a section of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which covers 44 states and was enacted to help people register to vote, but also specifies when voters may be kicked off the rolls.  Several experts said it’s difficult not to see the DOJ letter in connection with the commission’s letter as part of a multipronged effort to restrict voting rights. 

National: ‘Worse Than What I Thought’: Voting Experts Balk At Trump Panel’s Latest Moves | TPM

From the outset, voting rights advocates warned that President Trump’s creation of a shady “elections integrity”commission would be used as cover for his bogus claims that 3-5 million people voted illegally and exacerbate overblown allegations for voter fraud.Trump himself removed any remaining doubt about the commission’s true purpose over the July 4 holiday weekend when he called it the “VOTER FRAUD PANEL.” … “It’s even worse than what I thought it would be in terms of commission’s composition and the job it’s going to do,” Rick Hasen, the UC-Irvine Law School professor who runs “Election Law blog,” told TPM Friday. “It really seems like they’re not even trying to give the veneer of bipartisanship or a serious effort.”

National: Investigators explore if Russia colluded with pro-Trump sites during US election | The Guardian

The spread of Russian-made fake news stories aimed at discrediting Hillary Clinton on social media is emerging as an important line of inquiry in multiple investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Investigators are looking into whether Trump supporters and far-right websites coordinated with Moscow over the release of fake news, including stories implicating Clinton in murder or paedophilia, or paid to boost those stories on Facebook. The head of the Trump digital camp, Brad Parscale, has reportedly been summoned to appear before the House intelligence committee looking into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 US election. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee carrying out a parallel inquiry, has said that at least 1,000 “paid internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia” were pumping anti-Clinton fake news into social media sites during the campaign.

Editorials: Why does Trump’s voting commission want data it shouldn’t have? | David Becker/The Hill

It’s an understatement to say the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity’s request to every state for highly-sensitive personal information on every U.S. voter is raising major concerns among leaders in almost every state. … Dozens of states, from deeply blue to deeply red to everything in between, either refused to provide any personal data on voters, or agreed only to provide the minimum of what the law in their state required (usually just name, address and political party information). Incredibly, even secretaries of state that serve on this commission, including Secretaries Lawson of Indiana, Dunlap of Maine, and Gardner of New Hampshire, and Secretary Kobach himself, have refused to turn over all the information requested. And for good reason. … [A]ll these taxpayer resources are being spent to research a question to which we already know the answer – the extent to which voter fraud exists. On this point, every piece of research conducted by states both red and blue, academics, and even the Bush Department of Justice, agrees – voter fraud exists but only barely. It is extremely rare, comprising only thousandths of a percent of the total ballots cast.

Arizona: Secretary of State denies fraud commission request for personal voter information | KVOA

Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan is denying a sweeping request by a federal voter commission for registration information of all voters in Arizona. President Donald Trump created the Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after he claimed without evidence that 2 million to 3 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. Last week, the commission sent letters to secretaries of state of all 50 states requesting all “publicly available” information of voters including names, addresses, birth dates, party affiliation, and last four digits of Social Security numbers. … Reagan said after she received the request letter on Monday she conferred with her attorneys and decided that releasing any information to the commission would not be “in the best interests of the state.”

California: Why California denied the administration’s request for voter data | The Sacramento Bee

When a commission created by President Donald Trump to investigate voter fraud asked all 50 states last week to share the name, party affiliation, last four digits of social security number, voting history and other personal information for each of the country’s 200 million registered voters, the outcry was swift, widespread and bipartisan. More than 40 states so far have turned down the request completely or in part, citing privacy laws and concerns about how the data would be used by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity. The commission was established in May, following Trump’s complaints that he only lost the popular vote in the November election because there were millions of illegal voters.