North Carolina: Durham County Elections Chair: No evidence of inaccurate reporting on 94,000 votes | News & Observer

Officials have seen no evidence supporting questions raised about the accuracy of more than 94,000 votes that were counted manually on election night, Durham County Board of Elections Chairman Bill Brian said Tuesday. “We have seen no evidence to that effect,” Brian said during a Tuesday press conference. “Mr. (Thomas) Stark may have some, but we have seen no evidence to that effect.” Stark, general counsel for the state Republican Party, filed a formal protest Friday contending that the Durham County Board of Elections engaged in “malfeasance” with regard to ensuring the accuracy of votes counted Nov. 8. Durham County officials had to manually enter information after they were unable to upload data from six cards that saved information from ballot tabulators. The votes were pivotal on election night, pushing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper ahead of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, whose campaign has expressed concern about the votes. Cooper, the state’s attorney general, leads McCrory by about 5,000 votes with some absentee and provisional votes yet to be counted. McCrory can call for a recount so long as the margin between them remains less than 10,000 votes.

North Carolina: Falsified write-in votes alleged in Bladen County | News & Observer

A protest has been filed in Bladen County alleging that a handful of people may have improperly submitted hundreds of absentee ballots, while also getting paid for get-out-the-vote efforts by a community group funded by the N.C. Democratic Party. According to the protest filed by McCrae Dowless, who won election as soil and water district supervisor, the handwriting on a number of ballots and the signatures of some mail-in absentee witnesses were similar. He said the questioned ballots seem to have been cast in favor of a straight ticket of candidates and also to vote for a man named Franklin Graham, who ran a write-in campaign for soil and water district supervisor. A letter the Bladen County elections board wrote to the State Board of Elections, and attached to the complaint, raises the same concerns. While some ballots listed witnesses, few include the documentation that would be required if someone had also assisted the voters, according to the letter.

Ohio: Court Won’t Reconsider Ohio Online Ballot Tool Ruling | Bloomberg BNA

A federal district court Nov. 14 declined to reconsider a decision that implementing an online ballot-marking tool in Ohio is an unreasonable request under federal law ( Hindel v. Husted , S.D. Ohio, No. 2:15-cv-3061, 11/14/16 ). The National Federation of the Blind and three blind, registered voters alleged that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide an alternative to paper absentee ballots. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled in May that the technology would fundamentally alter the state’s voting system because it hadn’t been used in a prior Ohio election nor certified in accordance with state law.

Rhode Island: Pawtucket officials demand answers after ‘historic failure’ on Election Day | The Valley Breeze

City officials say they won’t soon forget the “historic failure” of the 2016 election in Pawtucket, saying they don’t want to see the interminable lines and disenfranchisement of voters ever again. The City Council is asking the Rhode Island Secretary of State and Board of Elections for an explanation of what happened in Pawtucket, which saw the worst of the problems across the state on voting day. Councilor Mark Wildenhain said the problems were consistent all day, with people waiting five minutes to vote and then two hours or more to get that vote registered by putting it through the machine. In some polling locations, residents ripped up their ballots and left, he said. Police nearly needed to break up a fistfight at the St. Cecilia Church polling place. … Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea said in a statement Monday that “the delays experienced in Pawtucket on election day were unacceptable.”

Europe: Italy and Austria elections keep Europe on edge | Financial Times

Nationwide votes in Austria and Italy on December 4 are causing palpable anxiety in Europe that, as in the Chicken Licken folk tale, this will be the day when the sky starts falling. Austria will re-run its presidential election, which in May a far-right candidate came within a whisker of winning. Italy will hold a constitutional reforms referendum on which Matteo Renzi, prime minister, has staked his political prestige. Alarmists fear that victory for the Austrian far right and defeat for Mr Renzi will signal that Europe, no stranger to anti-establishment insurgencies, is being submerged by a populist tide washing in from the Atlantic. This tide swept Britons in June into voting to leave the EU and last week lifted Donald Trump to the US presidency. In the context of rising populism, Austria’s election is arguably the more worrying event. No European democracy has elected a far-right head of state since the second world war. The symbolism of such a breakthrough in Austria, annexed to Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945, would be immense.

The Gambia: Three journalists arrested in Gambia ahead of election | The Guardian

The director-general of the Gambia’s state TV and radio broadcaster, Momodou Sabally, was dimissed last week and immediately arrested by the security services on unspecified charges. Soon after, a reporter with the same broadcaster, GRTS, Bakary Fatty, was also detained by members of the national intelligence agency, reported Gainako. These arrests were followed by a third. Alhagie Manka, a documentary maker, TV director and and photojournalist, was taken into custody after taking photographs of a presidential motorcade. All three have yet to appear in court, which is said by Human Rights Watch (HRW), to be a violation of Gambian law.

Italy: With Populists Poised to Quash Italian Referendum, Renzi Takes a Page From Trump’s Playbook | Foreign Policy

Despite a year of protest votes and howls against politics-as-usual worldwide, Italy’s leader is praying voters next month will stick with the establishment. On Dec. 4, a referendum will be put to voters on a constitutional reform proposal by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The plan itself is a dry, domestic issue, but the vote is seen by many as a proxy on Renzi’s mandate after more than two years of governing. Now emboldened by Donald Trump’s big upset in the U.S. presidential election, Italy’s anti-establishment parties are sharpening their knives in hopes that an opportunity to move in for the kill is nigh. “This is a general ‘Fuck off,’’’ Beppe Grillo, spokesman of Italy’s growing Five Star Movement, said after Trump won the election. Writing on his popular blog, the former comedian predicted his growing political party would be next to ride to power on a wave of popular discontent: “We are the barbarians! The real idiots, populists and demagogues are the journalists and the establishment intellectuals,” he crowed. “There are similarities between this American story and the Movement.”

National: Don’t expect Electoral College drama on December 19 | Constitution Daily

Despite a popular petition on the Change.org website about how the nation’s 538 electors should vote on December 19, there seems to be little chance of the tactic changing the recent presidential election’s outcome. As of Monday afternoon, more than 4.3 million people signed an online petition “to make Hillary Clinton President on December 19” by calling on electors in the Electoral College to ignore their commitments to vote for Donald Trump. For now, Trump has 290 votes in the Electoral College, compared with 228 for Clinton. The vote counting continues in two states: Michigan and New Hampshire. But Trump only needed 270 votes to clinch the election, which he received early on November 9. Regardless of what happens on December 19, Republican candidate Trump will become the elected President on January 6, 2017, unless some vastly unforeseen event prevents Congress from counting the Electoral College votes during a joint meeting of Congress, or the President-elect is unable to take his oath on Friday, January 20, 2017.

National: Are Absentee Ballots Counted Last? Votes Still Being Tallied In Some States | International Business Times

More than 42 million Americans voted before Election Day, but their ballots may still be getting counted a week later. Republican Donald Trump was declared the president-elect early Wednesday morning, beating out Democrat Hillary Clinton in Electoral College votes. However, as states have continued to tally their results, she’s pulled ahead in popular votes. According to data compiled by David Wasserman, the United States House editor of the Cook Political Report, Clinton was up by nearly 963,000 votes as of Tuesday morning. That total included 129.4 million votes — and there were “still millions left to go,” Wasserman added on Twitter. The numbers keep changing because states like California and Washington are still working on their provisional and absentee ballots, which were considered valid if they were postmarked by Election Day, the Atlantic reported. Don’t freak out: These votes, mostly cast in areas that already supported Clinton, won’t reverse Trump’s victory.

National: GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham wants Congress to investigate Russian cyberattack on DNC, election | Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump may seek improved relations with Russia, but top Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wants Vladimir Putin held responsible if the Russian government was involved in cyber-hacks to disrupt the U.S. elections. Graham, who has sparred openly with Trump, his former rival in the presidential primary, is proposing that Congress hold a series of hearings on “Russia’s misadventures throughout the world” – including whether they were involved in “hacking into the DNC.” “Were they involved in cyberattacks that had a political component to it in our elections?” Graham said. If so, Graham said, “Putin should be punished.”

Editorials: I’m Blind And I Voted. Here’s What Went Wrong | Ross Doerr/WBUR

The good news is that voting, as an American tradition, is alive and well. The bad news is that the disenfranchisement of people with disabilities — also a tradition in this country — is, too. I experienced it firsthand last Tuesday in Augusta, Maine, when I attempted to exercise my constitutional right to vote. I am a disability rights attorney who happens to be blind. Neither blindness nor accessible voting systems are new to me: I have been blind since childhood, and I was a driving force in the implementation of the accessible voting system component of the Help America Vote Act in Maine and New Hampshire. On Tuesday, when I went to vote, the problems were immediate: It took two people from the city clerk’s office a half hour to get the accessible voting machine working. Once it was ostensibly functioning, it would not accept my selections on the first try — or the second, third or fourth. In fact, not until my fifth attempt. Did nondisabled voters need to wrestle their paper ballots into compliance like this? Roughly 35 minutes after I had begun voting, my ballot was complete — or so I thought.

Arizona: Phoenix election official dumped for long voter lines | Associated Press

The county official who took the blame for hours-long lines that plagued this year’s presidential primary in Arizona was dumped from office amid widespread frustration among voters over the bungled election. Republican Helen Purcell conceded on Tuesday to Democrat Adrian Fontes in the Maricopa County recorder’s race. The county was still tallying ballots but she was nearly 13,000 votes behind when she acknowledged the loss. Purcell, 81, was first elected in 1988 and never before challenged for re-election while serving seven four-year terms as county recorder. Her decision to cut the number of polling places for the March election caused voters to wait more than five hours to cast their ballots. Purcell and Secretary of State Michele Reagan were blamed for the foul-up, but Purcell became the most public face for the decision.

California: Election officials across California still face as many as 4 million uncounted ballots | Los Angeles Times

California election officials continue their efforts to review and count as many as 4 million ballots from the Nov. 8 election, a daunting process that has kept a few closely watched races in limbo for almost a week. A report from the secretary of state’s office on Tuesday put the total number of unprocessed ballots at 4.1 million, down from the previous high of more than 4.5 million reported on Monday. But a closer look at the report reveals that it’s not entirely clear how to estimate the total number of uncounted ballots. Most notably, several counties have not updated their official count since the middle of last week. That could mean hundreds of thousands of ballots have, in fact, been counted — but just not reported to state officials.

Colorado: Recount possible on slavery in state Constitution | Associated Press

It seemed like a no-brainer: Colorado’s voters were asked to eliminate an archaic and offensive reference to slavery as a punishment for a crime in the state Constitution. But a week after the vote, the poorly-written amendment is on the cusp of failing, and a lack of clarity from lawmakers may be to blame. Adopted before President Ulysses S. Grant proclaimed Colorado a state in 1876, the constitution declares: “There shall never be in this state either slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.” That language mirrors the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that outlawed slavery in 1865. Both chambers of Colorado’s Legislature voted unanimously to refer Amendment T to voters. But it appeared on a state-issued voter’s guide under the title, “No Exception to Involuntary Servitude Prohibition.” The actual ballot question wasn’t much clearer. Not only that: The voter guide included arguments against the measure, even though there was no organized opposition.

Indiana: Warrant: Indiana workers submitted bogus voter registrations | Associated Press

Employees of an Indiana voter mobilization group with deep ties to the Democratic Party submitted several hundred voter registrations that included false, incomplete or fraudulent information, according to a search warrant unsealed Monday. The contents of the warrant, which allowed Indiana State Police to raid the offices of Patriot Majority USA in October, were revealed at the request of the group, which is at the center of an ongoing voter fraud investigation. It indicates state police contacted a handful of workers who admitted to falsifying registrations. Several said they were under pressure and faced the possibility of losing their temporary job if they did not register at least 10 new voters a day. Indiana law requires voter registration groups to submit all registrations they collect, even if they know they contain inaccurate information. Patriot Majority, which registered thousands of predominantly black voters before last week’s election, flagged many of the registrations that they believed contained incorrect or incomplete information to elections officials, the warrant states.

North Carolina: Could legislators decide governor race? ‘Last resort,’ House speaker says | News & Observer

House Speaker Tim Moore said in a podcast interview posted Tuesday it would be unlikely that the General Assembly would attempt to determine the outcome of the close contest between Gov. Pat McCrory and Attorney General Roy Cooper. “It is an absolute last resort for the General Assembly to be involved,” Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican, said in the interview on “What Matters in North Carolina,” a podcast on the Freedom Action Network website. There has been speculation that the computer problems that delayed counting some of the votes in Durham County on Election Day could set the stage for legislative intervention. State law allows the General Assembly to decide contested elections for the 10 Council of State offices, which includes the governor, and also for legislators. The provision has only been used once before in modern history, when lawmakers named June Atkinson state superintendent of public instruction over Bill Fletcher in 2005, in a process that took nine months to resolve. At the time, the legislature was controlled by Democrats; Atkinson was a Democrat and Fletcher was a Republican.

Wisconsin: At least 590 provisional ballots cast last week because voters lacked valid ID | Wisconsin State Journal

At least 590 people in Wisconsin cast provisional ballots in last week’s election because they didn’t present a valid photo ID, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said Monday. So far municipal clerks have reported issuing 717 provisional ballots in last week’s presidential election, the biggest election so far that the photo ID requirement was in place. Most went to people who didn’t have a valid ID at the polling place. It’s the first indication of how many people showed up at the polls and couldn’t meet the state’s hotly disputed photo ID requirement. The number could increase as more clerks report their provisional ballot numbers to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In 2012, when the photo ID requirement was on hold by court order, there were 132 provisional ballots cast — largely because a voter lacked the correct proof of residency. In the April presidential primary, when the photo ID was in effect, there were 434 provisional ballots cast, of which 343 were for people without a valid ID.

Cambodia: National Election Committee Ponders Registration Extension | Khmer Times

The National Election Committee (NEC) says it will consider prolonging voter registration in some areas only if it’s needed as compiling this year’s voter list ends in two weeks. Voter registration is changing from a manual to a computer system. Registration started on September 1 for next year’s commune elections and the national election in 2018. The process ends on November 29. Hang Puthea, a spokesman for the NEC, said yesterday that the organization’s top officials are going to the 25 provincial capitals to discover the challenges which have cut the rate of registrations from 70,000 in a day to below 30,000.

Ghana: US may deny visas over election violence | GhanaWeb

The United States Embassy in Ghana, has urged the leadership of political parties to call their members to order following recent eruption of partisan clashes. In a statement, the US warned that persons found culpable of inciting political violence ahead of the polls, would face some form of sanctions as violence has no place in the conduct of elections. This warning follows a clash over the weekend between some supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), in front of the Nima residence the NPP Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, during a health walk organised by the NDC. Supporters of the Parliamentary candidates of NDC and the NPP in the Wulensi constituency in the Northern Region, also clashed over the weekend, at a village called Garikpe in the constituency. This was after a similar clash in the Odododiodio constituency in the Greater Accra Region.

Haiti: The Perfect Storm before Elections | AS/COA

Five days before Haiti was set to elect a president on October 9, Hurricane Matthew made landfall, devastating a country still recuperating from a 2010 earthquake, and intensifying the spread of cholera in its wake. The storm, which hit October 4, was the first Category 4 hurricane to hit Haiti since 1954. Matthew claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Haitians and delayed presidential elections for a fourth time. With the original October 2015 election results scrapped due to irregularities, a redo is scheduled for November 20. The electoral delays have raised concerns over Haiti’s preparedness when it comes to casting ballots for a president and a third of the Senate. Voting will be more difficult with fewer poll centers. Matthew completely destroyed 25 voting centers, 16 of which were in schools.

National: DHS Secretary: No election day cyberattacks | CyberScoop

Despite warnings during the that there might be attempts by Russian hackers to disrupt or even influence the outcome of U.S. elections, authorities on high alert across the country last week detected no major cyber attacks or untoward online activity directed at election infrastructure, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday. “In connection with the election, we did not see anything that I would characterize as significant,” he told the Bloomberg Next forum in D.C., “There were minor incidents of the type that people might expect, but nothing of significance.”

Alabama: Mobile County Officials Admit Election Counting Error | WKRG

The Mobile County Probate Court website still shows that the County’s “pay as you go” construction measure passed with 99.7 percent of the vote. “This was like the perfect storm,” said Judge Don Davis, Mobile Probate Court. But as we’ve learned that’s incorrect. Judge Davis had to wait to figure it all out before he could say there was a problem. … At least 12 complaints were filed with the State Secretary’s Office over these results, leaving Judge Davis in the hot seat. But this Monday a representative for the voting machine is taking the blame. “This issue an issue Election Systems & Software performed, it’s a human issue. The machines counted as they were told to count and the oval was not in the right place,” said Kathy Rogers, Election Systems & Software. Essentially the wrong test ballot was used for the machines to count up the votes.

Colorado: Cause of Colorado’s Election Delays Explained | Government Technology

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday that there were limitations to an election system used in Pueblo County Tuesday that officials were not aware of at the time they purchased the equipment. Counting of all mail in-ballots was expected to be completed at about 10:30 p.m. on Election Day, but a computer server hit its capacity early that day, forcing Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz to call the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which provided a larger server. During a Thursday press conference in Colorado Springs, Williams repeated what Ortiz has been saying since the problem began. He told reporters that the size of Pueblo County’s four page ballot caused large scan files to clog the server. Williams said the server software (Microsoft SQL Express) was insufficient to handle the size. “The new (Pueblo County) system uses a scan of the entire ballot so judges quickly can adjudicate (ballots in) any race that might be in question,” Williams said.

Illinois: Lawmakers to try for veto override on automatic voter registrati | KFVS

Lawmakers in Illinois are pushing to override the governor’s veto of a bill aimed at increasing voter registration. That move would automatically register eligible Illinois residents to vote at the time they apply for a driver’s license or state-issued I-D. After receiving overwhelming support from both houses in the spring session, the effort was stopped cold in August when Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner issued a full veto on the bill, forcing lawmakers to either override his veto, or start from scratch. An override would require a three-fifths majority in both houses. A separate, new bill would take at least a year to be drafted and move through the house and senate.

Maine: Opponents of legalized marijuana set to request recount, at cost of $500,000 | The Portland Press Herald

A leader of the group opposed to marijuana legalization said Monday that it will request a recount of votes on the statewide ballot question that passed by a narrow margin last week. Such a recount, involving more than 757,000 ballots, could take a month to conduct and cost the state $500,000, the Secretary of State’s Office said Monday. Mainers Protecting Our Youth and Communities, which opposed Question 1 on the Nov. 8 ballot, is circulating petitions to collect the 100 signatures needed to request a recount. Scott Gagnon, campaign manager for the group, said the petitions will be turned in to the Secretary of State’s Office before the deadline at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The unofficial tally shows 381,060 votes in support of Question 1 and 376,658 opposed, a margin of 4,402 votes, less than 1 percent, according to unofficial results collected from communities across the state by the Associated Press and Portland Press Herald. The totals include about 4,000 absentee ballots received by the state from members of the military and Mainers living overseas.

Maine: Logistics could put ranked-choice voting on hold in 2018 | The Portland Press Herald

Mainers have voted for a radical overhaul of elections, and now there’s much work to be done before the first statewide ranked-choice system is implemented. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said that he’ll be meeting in coming weeks with legislative leaders and ranked-choice voting advocates to start the implementation process. And he’s already worried that the 2018 date in the referendum may be too ambitious. But Kyle Bailey, campaign manager of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, said there’s no wiggle room on the implementation date. “This is not a recommendation or an advisory opinion of the people. This was a statute enacted by the Maine people,” he said. Nationwide, a dozen cities have adopted ranked-choice voting, and Maine voters on Tuesday became the first to endorse the system for statewide elections.

Maryland: Scanner shortage caused lines and long waits Election Day | Maryland Reporter

There were long lines at some polling places on Election Day, and hundreds of voters waited for hours, particularly in Baltimore County. But there is no evidence of a partisan conspiracy, as some Republicans believed, just a shortage of scanners. Before the last voters cast ballots after 10 p.m. on Election Day, Maryland Republican Party Executive Director Joe Cluster was up in arms over the long waits that were exasperating some voters throughout the state. … “I’m concerned about the distribution of machines,” Cluster said. “Election Day was a fiasco! There was probably one [scanner] at every polling place. We definitely need more. The Board of Elections needs to make sure we find the money to put more scanners in the polling precincts.”

Michigan: More voting problems for blind people; state promises fix | WOODTV

Like everyone else on Tuesday, the blind and visually impaired wanted to make their voices heard. But for some people using specially-designed machines that either audibly reads the ballots or increases the size of the fonts, Tuesday was a night filled with frustration. The reader, called “AutoMARK,” is used statewide in 10 states. Jon Cauchi and Cassaundra Bell are both visually impaired and they had problems with the AutoMARK systems at polling places in the Burton Street and Breton Avenue SE area. “The computer jammed again and again my vote was cast for opposite candidates than I would have preferred,” said Bell. Cauchi said the same thing happened to him. “It jammed, the voting official took the paper out of the machine, handed it to me and I noticed the whole right side of my paper was mismarked,”

Mississippi: ID scanners called into question by voters | WAPT

For the first time ever, Mississippi voters had to show an ID to vote in the presidential election. Hinds County leaders used ID scanners to speed up long lines at the polls. “We have scanners that will scan the driver’s licenses and automatically pull out the voter’s name so they don’t have to manually go in and look for it,” election commissioner Connie Cochran said. But the ID scanners are only as good as the poll workers using them. Scanner problems might have cost a Jackson woman her vote because poll workers told her that her granddaughter had already voted using the woman’s name. “She had her ID and everything, but when the machine pulled it up, it pulled up my name (and) she didn’t know,” said the woman, who asked that her name not be used.