Editorials: If you’re worried about rigged elections, look at Trump’s tactics first | Rick Hasen/ LA Times

Donald Trump has begun claiming that the only way he can lose the 2016 presidential election is if the voting is rigged. But if there’s a threat to the integrity of the election, it’s coming from Trump himself, and the best response may be for Democrats and voting rights activists to take him to court to protect the franchise. Let’s start with a fair definition of “rigging”: An election is rigged when eligible voters are prevented from voting, when some voters can vote multiple times, when ineligible voters are allowed to vote, or when vote totals are changed, all with an intent to affect an election outcome.

California: Bill would restore voting rights for some felons | Associated Press

A bill restoring the voting rights of convicted felons serving time in county jails is headed to California Gov. Jerry Brown. Democrats in the Senate approved the measure in a 23-13 party-line vote Tuesday. AB2466 stems from California’s criminal justice realignment, which led to some people convicted of low-level felonies serving time in county jails. Supporters say civic participation can be a critical component of reducing recidivism when people return to the community.

Michigan: Straight-ticket fight echoes national debate | The Detroit News

Michigan’s high-stakes battle over straight-ticket voting echoes a national fight over new laws critics argue could disenfranchise minorities and affect the outcome of the 2016 elections. Much of the national debate centers on strict voter identification laws backed by Republicans as a means to curb election fraud. Federal courts recently struck down strict ID and other voting rules in North Carolina and Texas. An appeals court last week reinstated a Wisconsin version. The North Carolina law “required in-person voters to show certain photo IDs, beginning in 2016, which African-Americans disproportionately lacked, and eliminated or reduced registration and voting access tools that African Americans disproportionately used,” a three-judge appeals court panel of all Democratic appointees ruled in July. Democrats and allies have pushed legal challenges to new voting rules in several states they say could limit participation by minority voters more likely to support presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than Republican businessman Donald Trump.

New Jersey: How this bit of nasty New Jersey history may foil Trump’s vow to stop ‘rigged election’ | NJ.com

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s call for election observers to prevent the Democrats from “rigging this election” could run afoul of a 30-year-old restriction on GOP activities targeting minority voters that stems from a New Jersey election. The Republican National Committee and “its agents” have been under court-imposed limits since the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election, narrowly won by Tom Kean, in which the state party reportedly targeted heavily minority communities that tend to support Democratic candidates. The question is whether Trump, who is raising money jointly with the RNC, could be considered an “agent” of the party. “I think there’s a good argument for that, but it is far from certain a court would agree,” said election law expert Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. Hasen first raised the issue in his blog.

North Carolina: McCrory asks Supreme Court to restore voter ID law | News & Observer

Gov. Pat McCrory wants the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate North Carolina’s voter ID law for the November election. The law, which requires voters to bring a photo ID to the polls, was thrown out by a federal appeals court ruling. Late Monday, McCrory announced that he has sent a formal request to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to stay the ruling while state leaders appeal the decision. “Allowing the 4th Circuit’s ruling to stand creates confusion among voters and poll workers and it disregards our successful rollout of Voter ID in the 2016 primary elections,” the Republican governor said in a news release. “The 4th Circuit’s ruling is just plain wrong and we cannot allow it to stand. We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold our state’s law and reverse the 4th Circuit.” The McCrory administration hasn’t yet petitioned the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the ruling, but it said it will submit one soon. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the 2013 voter ID law was passed with “discriminatory intent” and would “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

North Carolina: U.S. Supreme Court stance on North Carolina law to send signal on voting limits | Reuters

The U.S. Supreme Court’s handling of North Carolina’s long-shot bid to reinstate its contentious voter identification law will set the tone for the court’s treatment of similar cases that could reach the justices before the Nov. 8 elections. Voter identification laws were adopted by several states in recent years, generally driven by Republicans who said the laws were meant to prevent election fraud. Democrats have argued that the laws were meant to keep minorities, who tend to vote for Democrats, away from the polls. Civil rights groups have challenged the laws in court. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on July 29 invalidated the North Carolina law, ruling that it intentionally discriminated against minority voters.

Texas: Judge asks for election-law changes to help voters with language barriers | Houston Chronicle

Voting rights advocates are poised to propose changes to help voters who face language barriers at the polls after a federal judge ruled recently that a provision of Texas law violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The case began when a Williamson County voter of Indian descent, Mallika Das, was barred from letting her son serve as an interpreter at the polls during the fall 2014 election because state law required interpreters be registered in the same county as the voter. Das’s son was registered in neighboring Travis County. District Court Judge Robert Pitman on Friday tossed out that requirement, writing in an order that those provisions of state law “restrict voter choice in a manner inconsistent with the Federal Voting Rights Act.” The law states that voters facing language barriers should largely be able to choose who helps them at the polls.

Texas: State will ask U.S. Supreme Court to keep strict voter ID law in place | Dallas Morning News

Texas will file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to keep its controversial voter identification law in place, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said Tuesday. A federal appeals court ruled July 20 that the stringent law discriminates against black and Hispanic voters. The state will soon file an appeal to “protect the integrity of voting in the state,” said Paxton spokesman Marc Rylander. He declined to specify whether Paxton would file an emergency appeal or go through the standard process, which could make it less likely the stringent ID rules will be in place for November’s elections. In July, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Texas voter ID law violates the federal Voting Rights Act. Rather than strike down the law in its entirety, the judges ordered a lower court to find a temporary solution for disenfranchised voters as quickly as possible. “The primary concern of this court and the district court should be to ensure that SB 14’s discriminatory effect is ameliorated…in time for the November 2016 election,” Judge Catharina Haynes wrote.

Canada: Elections P.E.I. working on electoral reform education campaign | The Guardian Charlottetown

The plebiscite countdown is on. Prince Edward Islanders will be going to the polls in just three months to vote on whether they would like to change P.E.I.’s voting system, and Elections P.E.I. has been touring the province to educate Islanders about the upcoming plebiscite on electoral reform. After all, there will be many new elements in this vote that many Islanders may never have experienced, including online and telephone voting as well as a ranked ballot. Paul Allen, director of communications for Elections P.E.I., says some Islanders have told him they had no idea a vote on electoral reform was scheduled for this fall. That’s why Elections P.E.I. was tasked with mounting an education campaign – to try to help Islanders understand the five different options they will be asked to choose from on the plebiscite ballot.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Election Committee Disqualifies Pro-Russian Centrist Party | Georgia Today

Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) Chair Tamar Zhvania announced Tuesday that the controversial pro-Russian Centrist Party has been barred from taking part in the upcoming October Parliamentary Elections following the party’s release of a campaign ad promoting integration with Moscow. Zhvania said the party’s leadership had failed to legally register themselves and would be barred from running in the October polls. “The Centrists’ leadership is not legal, therefore I signed a decree cancelling the registration of the party,” said Tamar Zhvania at a special briefing.

Russia: Parliamentary elections to take place under new rules | Deutsche Welle

Russia will elect a new parliament three months earlier than planned after a majority vote in mid-2015 to move the elections up from December 4 to September 18 of this year. The initiative from the Duma chairman Sergey Naryshkin was supported by President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, as well as Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats. Like the Communists, who are more or less loyal to the Kremlin, these parties are sure to remain in parliament. Meanwhile, a coalition between the two main opposition parties has fallen apart. The “Russian Democratic Party” (Yabloko) and the “People’s Party of Freedom” (RPR-PARNAS), co-founded by Boris Nemtsov, the opposition politician who was murdered in February 2015, will now go into the election independently from each other. Polls say that these “outlier” parties barely stand a chance of crossing the 5 percent threshold for representation.

South Africa: Independent Electoral Commission Warns People Of Email Scam | Buzz South Africa

The attention of South Africans have been drawn to a recent email making rounds in the country. According to the SA Independent Electoral Commission, “the emails are being distributed by the ‘Independent Elections Council’ under the email address elections@IEC.co.za and have ‘Electronic Voting Testing Phase’ in the subject field.” Speaking further, the SA Independent Electoral Commission says the fraudlents designed the whole process in a way that, unsuspecting users are automatically lodged in a site that has similar features with the Independent Electoral Commission of SA, once they click a link attached to the email.

National: Ballot box uncertainties hang over US election | Financial Times

Fewer than 90 days before election day, the rules governing who can vote remain unsettled in at least 10 US states including pivotal battlegrounds that are home to millions of voters. Judges in recent weeks have struck down voting restrictions introduced by several states following a 2013 Supreme Court decision that allowed them for the first time in decades to make such changes without obtaining federal approval. Voting rights advocates welcomed those rulings, but courtroom fights over the rules for the November 8 election continue in the swing states of North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Virginia and Ohio. Those five alone account for nearly one-quarter of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. “It does raise questions about the rules that will be in place this November,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. “There’s a need to provide voters greater clarity. All of this is a cause for concern.”

National: Experts Fear Possible Voting Machine Tampering in November | CNC News

A group of cyber security experts say they fear that voting machines in the U.S. could be a target for hackers. “Coming out of the [Democratic National Committee] hack … I think there’s a lot of us trying to call more attention to the election machines,” Jason Healey, a Columbia University senior research scholar and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative said on Wednesday. Healey, who was in Washington, D.C., as part of the council’s “Cyber Risk Wednesday” series, pointed out the difference between how gambling machines in Las Vegas are secured compared to voting machines. “Someone tweeted out: ‘Here’s how Las Vegas handles gambling machines.’ It covered all these controls that Las Vegas includes for [them]… “Someone can inspect it. If you as a player think that the [gambling] machine is fraudulent, you can go talk to the inspector. There are rules. There [is] independent testing to see if it’s right,” Healey said.

National: Pants on Fire!: Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the election being ‘rigged’ | PolitiFact

Donald Trump preemptively challenged the results of the November presidential election, claiming in media appearances and rallies that the entire system is “rigged.” Trump’s charges of election fraud are not new to his campaign. He’s tweeted about dead voters delivering President Barack Obama’s victory in 2012, floated charges about multiple voting in the primaries, and suggested…

Editorials: Donald Trump Is Encouraging Intimidation and Racial Profiling at the Polls | Ari Berman/The Nation

In 1981, during a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the Republican National Committee launched a “Ballot Security Task Force” that sent sample ballots to voters in predominantly African-American and Hispanic precincts. When 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the RNC tried to remove the voters from the rolls and hired off-duty cops to patrol polling sites in black and Hispanic neighborhoods of Newark and Trenton. Police carried firearms at polling places and wore armbands reading “National Ballot Security Task Force,” while the RNC posted large signs saying, “this area is being patrolled by the national ballot security task force. it is a crime to falsify a ballot or to violate election laws”. After the election, the Democratic National Committee won a court settlement ordering the RNC to “refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities.” Now Donald Trump may be violating the consent decree against the GOP by asking his supporters to become a “Trump Election Observer” to “Stop Crooked Hillary From Rigging This Election.” Trump unveiled the page on his website the same day he campaigned in Pennsylvania, where he claimed, “The only way we can lose, in my opinion—and I really mean this, Pennsylvania—is if cheating goes on…. And we have to call up law enforcement. And we have to have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching…. The only way they can beat it in my opinion—and I mean this 100 percent—if in certain sections of the state they cheat, OK? So I hope you people can sort of not just vote on the 8th, go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100 percent fine, because without voter identification—which is shocking, shocking that you don’t have it.”

Alabama: This November, some Alabama voters will sign in on iPad-based system | AL.com

There might be no way to soften the polarizing nature of this year’s presidential candidates, but some Alabama election officials have high hopes that new technology will smooth the way for voters this November. The Alabama Secretary of State’s office is backing a trial program that will deploy an iPad-based system at some polling places throughout the state. The tablets won’t take the place of conventional voting machines, but they will be used to check voters in, replacing the conventional bulky printouts of voter lists – and, proponents say, taking some human error out of the equation. It’s a pilot program, so most voters won’t see it. According to the secretary of state’s office, indications are that more than half the state’s 67 counties will opt to take part, with each using it at a limited number of polling places. Early adopters include Barbour, Hale, Houston, Jackson, Jefferson, Madison, Morgan and Shelby counties.

Delaware: Law restores voting rights for ex-offenders | NewsWorks

A few Wilmington residents will head to the polls for the first time to vote thanks to a new state law restoring voting rights to ex-offenders. Though the new law made headlines in July when it was signed by Gov. Jack Markell, a local man is on a mission to make sure people are aware of it. His name is Vash Turner, and so far he has registered at least 400 ex-offenders since last month. “Sometimes they get out, they lose fight because they feel as though they’re not a part of society anymore,” Turner said. Throughout the years, state leaders have taken several steps to help ex-offenders feel like they are a part of society. Years ago, ex-offenders were allowed to vote after a five year waiting period and settling court fees.

Editorials: Florida is running out of time to give all voters equal early voting | iara Torres-Spelliscy/Tampa Bay Times

Florida’s supervisors of elections are running out of time to provide equal access to voting to all Florida voters by offering a full two weeks of early in-person voting. The supervisors of elections across the state work year-round to ensure that the right to vote is a meaningful one for Floridians. They don’t get enough credit for being the backbone of our democracy. As the U.S. Supreme Court once said in Reynolds vs. Sims, “The right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights.” Florida law grants supervisors of elections the discretion over how many days of early voting are offered in each county. This has resulted in a confusing patchwork of different early voting days, which can vary county to county, even among counties that are side by side.

Hawaii: Federal appeals court upholds Hawaii’s open primary | Associated Press

A federal appeals court is upholding an earlier decision to support the way Hawaii holds its primary elections, rejecting the Democratic Party’s desire to exclude non-Democrats from advancing candidates to the general election. The Democratic Party of Hawaii had challenged the state’s open primary system where registered voters can choose any party’s ballot to cast their votes without formally joining the party. Party leaders wanted to limit primary elections to formal members or people willing to declare their allegiance, because they said the open primary system allows people from opposing parties to influence their party’s candidate selection. Judge Wallace Tashima of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it was up to the Hawaii Democratic Party to prove that problem exists. But he said in an opinion Monday the party didn’t provide evidence that opponents are determining the Democratic Party’s election outcomes.

Illinois: Democrats, advocates blast Rauner veto of automatic voter registration bill | Chicago Tribune

Democrats and voting rights advocates cried foul Monday over Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s last-minute veto of a bill that would make voter registration automatic in time for the 2018 election, vowing to push for an override when lawmakers return to the Capitol in late November. Rauner, who has long said he supports expanding access to the polls, cited concerns about potential voting fraud and conflicts with federal law. He vetoed the bill on the final day to act and made his announcement Friday afternoon, a time politicians typically dump controversial news as the public’s attention is focused on the weekend. On Monday morning, Democratic state lawmakers and Cook County Clerk David Orr attempted to keep the story alive, casting the veto as a step backward for voting rights in Illinois and suggesting that Rauner was acting to protect his own political agenda.

Maryland: Is it constitutional to draw a congressional district that only one party can win? | Baltimore Sun

A crop of legal challenges to contorted legislative districts in states like Maryland will soon give the Supreme Court its best opportunity in years to consider whether maps drawn for partisan advantage deprive voters of an equal voice in elections. Good-government groups believe the justices are poised to take up redistricting cases from North Carolina or Wisconsin — or both — in the next term. The plaintiffs are challenging the legality of one party drawing an electoral map that all but guarantees its candidates will win nearly all the seats. Either case could have implications for Maryland, where squirrelly congressional lines have helped Democrats control seven of the state’s eight House seats, but have drawn criticism from analysts, voters and the high court itself. The late Justice Antonin Scalia described Maryland’s congressional map as a “crazy quilt” in a redistricting case last year.

North Carolina: North Carolina asks Supreme Court to restore strict voting procedures | The Washington Post

North Carolina on Monday asked the Supreme Court to restore most of its strict voting procedures for the November elections, despite a lower court’s ruling that the law intentionally discriminates against African Americans. The state said the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit was unprecedented and that “there is no reason to believe that [the law] will have any detrimental effect on voters, minority or otherwise.” [Court strikes down North Carolina voting law as discriminatory] North Carolina brought in former Bush administration solicitor general Paul D. Clement to argue that it is too close to the election for courts to prohibit a system that was used in the state’s primary elections.

Editorials: North Carolina Took 17 Days To Ask Supreme Court To Rescue Its Voter ID Law | Christian Ferias/Huffington Post

The state of North Carolina on Monday filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court so that it can enforce a broad set of voting restrictions that an appeals court in July called one of the worst “since the era of Jim Crow.” That ruling was significant because it found that North Carolina lawmakers purposefully targeted African-American voters, leading the court to invalidate the law in full ― including the voter ID provision and those restricting early voting, same-day voter registration and out-of-precinct voting. North Carolina said that restoring some of these requirements will minimize confusion on Election Day. “Maintaining the status quo … and permitting this year’s general election to proceed under the same rules as this year’s primary election will avoid voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls,” the state’s lawyer, Paul Clement, a former solicitor general who specializes in Supreme Court practice, wrote in the petition.

Pennsylvania: Aging voting machines prompt concern about election security | CNHI

Decade-old voting machines in much of the state are creating concern as they age, with lawmakers now urging a review of the systems. This comes as Pennsylvania’s widespread use of touch-screen voting is viewed with suspicion by supporters of Donald Trump. Many already feel the Republican presidential nominee is campaigning up-stream, and Trump has suggested that if he loses, it will be because voting systems in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are rigged. “I think paper ballots that the voter fills in circles with ink that are read by optical scanners would be a good way to go,” said Rep. Brad Roae, R-Crawford County, a member of the House State Government Committee. Roae attended Trump’s Erie rally on Friday and has said he supports the nominee.

Texas: U.S. judge blocks Texas law on election interpreters | Austin American-Statesman

A federal judge Friday blocked Texas from enforcing a state law that limits the availability of interpreters in polling places, ruling that it violates protections guaranteed by the U.S. Voting Rights Act. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of Austin came in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Mallika Das, who was born in India and who, in October 2014, brought her son into a Round Rock polling station to act as an interpreter because she had limited proficiency in English. Officials at the Williamson County polling station, however, barred Saurabh Das from helping his mother, relying on a state election law that requires interpreters to be registered to vote in the same county as the person they intend to help.

Editorials: Canada need not import Australia’s woes with ranked ballot voting system | Joan Bryden/The Canadian Press

Australia’s deadlocked election last winter has been held up as a grim example of the chaos that could be unleashed in Canada were this country to adopt a system of ranked ballots — as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at one time openly preferred. Instability. A plethora of tiny, extremist or vanity parties. Unholy alliances among the micro-parties that wind up holding the governing party to ransom. There’s just one problem with the warnings: neither Trudeau nor anyone else thus far has suggested that Canada adopt the Australian model. In fact, Australia has two different voting models — a simple ranked ballot system for its House of Representatives (equivalent to Canada’s House of Commons) and a single transferable vote system (STV) for its elected Senate (Canada’s Senate is appointed). STV is actually a complex form of proportional representation, which includes a ranked ballot. Yet some of the purported dire consequences of adopting a simple ranked balloting system here have been based on the worst features of Australia’s Senate elections.

China: Hong Kong student Joshua Wong avoids jail over pro-democracy protest | The Guardian

Joshua Wong, the most public face of Hong Kong’s umbrella movement demonstrations, has avoided a jail term for his role in a protest that helped launch the unprecedented 79-day political convulsion. Wong, 19, and fellow activist Alex Chow, who is 25, had been convicted last month of unlawfully entering a fenced off area outside Hong Kong’s government headquarters on 26 September 2014. A third activist, 23-year-old Nathan Law, was convicted of inciting others to take part in the action which happened just before Hong Kong was gripped by almost three months of demonstrations against Beijing’s refusal to grant democratic concessions to the territory. At the time Amnesty International denounced the verdicts as “a chilling warning for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly” in Hong Kong. On Monday a court in the former British colony stopped short of handing down jail terms to the three men.

Zambia: President Lungu re-elected in disputed vote | Reuters

Zambian President Edgar Lungu narrowly won re-election on Monday in a vote his main rival said was rigged. Hakainde Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) said it would appeal the result at the Constitutional Court, accusing election officials of fraud during the count which began after voting ended on Thursday. Lungu faced a tough challenge from Hichilema in a campaign to rule over Africa’s second-largest copper producer which has suffered an economic slump due to depressed commodity prices. Lungu, who narrowly beat Hichilema in a vote last year to replace late president Michael Sata, won 50.35 percent of the vote against 47.63 for his opponent, the Election Commission of Zambia (ECZ) said on Monday.