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If you can’t bring yourself to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in November, you can always write in your presidential candidate of choice. Just don’t expect it to count. Write-in votes for president aren’t counted in Virginia unless the candidate has declared the candidacy and filed a slate of electors with state elections officials. “There is a write-in space on the ballot, but unless the candidate has adhered to proper procedures” as set forth in Section 24.2-644 of the Code of Virginia, “those write-ins don’t count,” said Martin Mash, confidential policy adviser to the Virginia Department of Elections. Under section 24.2-644 (C) of the Code of Virginia, “Write-in votes for president and vice president shall be counted only for candidates who have filed a joint declaration of intent to be write-in candidates for the offices with the secretary of the State Board (of Elections) not less than ten days before the date of the presidential election.”

Canada: Trudeau government creating committee to study electoral reform and replace first-past-the-post system | National Post

The Trudeau government is creating a long-awaited special parliamentary committee on electoral reform and proposing to hold town halls in every riding to discuss the issue. “We deserve broad, representative politics, a stable government and an opportunity to shape our democracy,” Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef said in announcing the plan. “That’s why our government is determined to meet our commitment that 2015 was the last election to use a first-past-the-post system.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during last fall’s election campaign to create a committee to examine electoral alternatives and report back with recommendations within 18 months.

Dominican Republic: Land of poverty and beaches, Dominican Republic votes | AFP

The Caribbean tourist haven of the Dominican Republic votes for a president on Sunday, with incumbent Danilo Medina tipped to win despite crime, poverty and corruption accusations against his party. His centrist PLD party has been in power for 12 years in the Spanish-speaking state, which shares the island of Hispaniola with its troubled neighbor, Haiti. The Dominican Republic’s economy is booming thanks to the millions of dollars foreigners spend visiting its luxury hotels and beaches. Output grew seven per cent last year. But 40 per cent of the island’s 10 million residents are estimated to live in poverty and the unemployment rate is about 14 per cent, according to the government.

United Kingdom: Nine police forces now investigating claims Tories breached spending rules | The Guardian

Nine police forces have now launched inquiries into whether the Conservative party breached spending rules during the 2015 general election campaign. Lincolnshire police became the latest force to confirm on Thursday that they were investigating the claims as the Tories handed over evidence regarding the controversy to the Electoral Commission. The allegations regarding breaches of spending rules centre on claims that the party listed the costs of bussing activists into key marginal seats under national spending accounts, rather than as local spending. Lincolnshire appears to be the ninth police force examining the allegations, which were first broadcast by Channel 4 News. The others are Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia, and Devon and Cornwall. Any candidate found guilty of an election offence could face up to one year in prison and being barred from office for three years.

Arizona: Attorney General: Secretary of State broke law, but May special election to proceed | KTAR

An Arizona special election will go forward despite the secretary of state’s office illegally failing to mail publicity pamphlets to more than 200,000 households, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Thursday. The attorney general did not pull any punches and said his office was launching an inquiry into the latest voting debacle in Arizona. “We do believe the secretary of state did violate Arizona law,” he told media. “Unfortunately, there is nothing in the statutes to provide an adequate remedy.” Brnovich said Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s office has admitted it violated the law by not mailing pamphlets to more than 200,000 households with multiple voters, but a state law gave his office little recourse to correct the error with just one week to the election.

Kansas: Johnson County election process adds tech upgrades with iPads | The Kansas City Star

Voters in Johnson County, get your index fingers ready. You’ll be signing your name on an iPad when you show up at the polls for the primary and general elections this year. The voting process will go further into the digital age this year with new hardware and software to replace the big poll books the election commission has used for decades. Poll books hold a list of voters for each precinct. One of the first tasks of voting involves telling a poll worker your name to be sure you’re in the right place, then signing under the ruler in the poll book to record that you’ve voted. That will change this year because the county elections commission is updating its equipment, moving more of it into an electronic system. The Johnson County Commission on Thursday approved a measure to budget $936,000 to replace of administrative software and buy iPad Air 2 tablets so they can be in place by July for advance voting in the August primary. The county already had about $836,000 in an account reserved for new equipment. The action adds $100,000 to that.

National: Super PAC coffers swell with more than $700 million | The Washington Post

A burst of giving by liberal donors and a last-ditch effort to fend off GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump helped super PACs pick up nearly $100 million in new donations by the end of March, pushing the total raised by such groups this cycle to more than $700 million, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission reports. At this pace, super PACs will raise $1 billion by the end of June. In the entire 2012 cycle, such groups brought in $853 million, according to FEC filings. The Post is keeping a running tally of the largest contributors of the 2016 cycle, whose six- and seven-figure checks have allowed super PACs to spend $278 million so far on ads and voter outreach.

National: Arcane RNC Rule Could Be Last Resort for #NeverTrumpers | Rolling Stone

It’s been one week since Donald Trump assumed the mantle of presumptive Republican nominee. Over the last seven days, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has called for unity in the party, and has even convinced a number of prominent Republicans who’d voiced reservations about Trump to fall in line behind the party’s nominee. Still, there are some Trump supporters who fear shadowy party bosses are plotting to steal the nomination out from under him at the convention in July. On Tuesday, Trump operative Roger Stone warned the stealth effort is already underway. “A motion to unbind all delegates, along with many other underhanded strategies, is being discussed by the elite of the Republican legal establishment, with the permission (if under not the instruction) of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Stone wrote. And while there may be an appetite among the surviving #NeverTrump-ers on Twitter and in other corners of the Internet to block Trump’s nomination, there isn’t much evidence of the kind of vast conspiracy to which Stone refers. There’s really only one prominent member of the RNC publicly advocating for a change to the party’s rules: a pool-supply salesman from North Dakota named Curly Haugland.

Arizona: Secretary Of State: No Authority To Cancel Special Election Over Missed Pamphlets | Capitol Media

The Arizona Secretary of State’s office says there’s no authority to cancel next week’s election despite a foul-up over sending publicity pamphlets to voters. Attorney Tom Ryan filed a formal complaint this week asking Attorney General Mark Brnovich to void the May 17 vote. Ryan said Arizona law required the pamphlets describing Propositions 123 and 124 and giving pro and con arguments be sent out by April 10. “That did not happen for substantial numbers of voters,” Ryan said. “And by our estimate could be as many as 400,000 voters that did not get this in a timely fashion.”

Arizona: Ballot harvesting law could impact Latinos and seniors in general election | Cronkite News

Arizona’s new law that criminalizes the collection of voters’ early ballots by volunteers could impact the ability of the elderly and Latinos to cast their votes, according to local voter outreach groups. For the staff and volunteers who work with Latino-focused voter advocacy groups, ballot collecting is a means of outreach that accompanies voter registration, translating ballots and going door-to-door to remind people to vote. Although there is no available data on the number of ballots collected from people on the early voting list, the advocacy organizations’ staff and volunteers interviewed by Cronkite News said the new law will hinder their work and add another hurdle for voters to jump.

Colorado: Presidential primary revival falls apart | The Coloradoan

Bipartisan efforts to revive presidential primaries in Colorado have failed — for now. A long debate over presidential primaries in Colorado ended in failure Tuesday at the state Legislature. Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature could not agree on how to revive a statewide primary instead of precinct caucuses in 2020. With a deadline looming Tuesday, talks broke down on two separate plans to bring back primaries. The legislative stalemate means that Coloradans could see a ballot measure this fall asking about bringing back the primaries, at a cost of about $5 million. Colorado held presidential primaries from 1992 to 2000. But the state switched back to caucuses in 2004 to save money. Political parties pay the tab for caucuses, though taxpayers would be responsible for running an election.

District of Columbia: Clinton calls for making DC the 51st state | The Washington Post

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called for making the nation’s capital the country’s 51st state on Wednesday, promising to be a “vocal champion” for D.C. statehood. She blasted presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for failing to say whether D.C. residents should have the same voting rights as other Americans. “In the case of our nation’s capital, we have an entire populace that is routinely denied a voice in its own democracy. . . . Washingtonians serve in the military, serve on juries, and pay taxes just like everyone else. And yet, they don’t even have a vote in Congress,” Clinton wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Informer, an African American weekly newspaper.

Missouri: Change afoot as troubled St. Louis County election headquarters heads toward November | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

With a change in leadership on the horizon, the St. Louis County Election Commission is taking preliminary steps toward resolving a pattern of missteps that has marred countywide voting twice in under 18 months. At separate meetings Tuesday afternoon, the commission and the County Council gave voice to the sense of urgency for change at the beleaguered agency as it prepares for the most important date on the electoral calendar: the Nov. 8 presidential balloting. One key figure, Republican Election Director Gary Fuhr, will be absent as the election office enters the fall election season and, prior to that, the August primary to pick the local candidates who will appear on November general election tickets.

New Hampshire: Expert says electronic pollbooks for voters need more testing | New Hampshire Union Leader

An expert on the use of electronics for elections said to date, no electronic voter registration and checklist system “is ready for prime time.” Legislation allowing Manchester, Hooksett and Durham to use “electronic poll books” during the September primary and November general elections will be decided Thursday by the Senate. Tuesday Andrew Schwarzmann, head of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut and director of the Center for voting Technology Research said every poll book system his center has tested has faults that need to be addressed and are not ready for implementation.

Ohio: Judge says blind denied voting access but don’t expect changes for November | The Columbus Dispatch

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that blind Ohioans have been denied “meaningful access” to the state’s absentee voting system. However, U.S. District Judge George C. Smith said changes can’t be made prior to the fall election without having to “fundamentally alter Ohio’s voting system as a whole.” Disability Rights Ohio filed a lawsuit in December in federal court alleging Secretary of State Jon Husted discriminated against blind voters by denying them access to a suitable, private absentee voting system, and to his state website. The agency represents three blind residents of Columbus, Cincinnati and Oberlin, Ohio, and the National Federation of the Blind. The suit is based on claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Washington: Final bill for ACLU case to cost Yakima County $3 million | Yakima Herald

The final invoices are in, the ACLU has been awarded costs and fees, and Yakima is out $3 million as the book closes on its long-running voting rights battle in federal court. From 2012 through April of this year, the city spent $1,167,552 on attorney fees and expert witness costs, according to records obtained from the city. With $1,846,014 paid to the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union under a court order, Yakima’s final costs in the case are at $3,013,566. City legal staff said they do not anticipate more costs, although population changes in the years to come could lead to redistricting adjustments that may require legal services.

Bulgaria: Electoral Code: Nationalists Ready to Backtrack on Curbs to Voting Abroad | Novinite

The co-heads of the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, which backs Bulgaria’s minority government, have said they are inclined to understand the President’s veto on a key text in electoral legislation. The development comes as a meeting is being held on Tuesday of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the leaders of several parties. MPs passed in April amendments to the Electoral Code introducing restrictions to the number of polling stations for Bulgarians outside the country. The changes were tabled (albeit in a much more restrictive version) by the Patriotic Front, which said the move would reduce the impact of ill-regulated mass voting by Bulgarian expats in Turkey.

Canada: Liberals move on electoral reform as deadline looms | Toronto Star

The Liberals have set aside less than seven months to consult Canadians on a brand new voting system. A notice posted online late Tuesday proposes striking a special electoral reform committee — where the Liberals would hold a majority — to hold consultations over the next several months. The committee would have to report back to the House of Commons no later than Dec. 1. The Liberals promised to recommend new legislation by May 2017, but Elections Canada has warned the clock is ticking to have a new system in place by 2019. “(The committee will) identify and conduct a study of viable alternative voting systems, such as preferential ballots and proportional representation, to replace the first-past-the-post system, as well as to examine mandatory voting and online voting,” a notice posted online Tuesday reads.

Comoros: Presidential vote re-run ends under tight security | AFP

Several thousand voters in Comoros, the archipelago nation off the east coast of Africa, went to the polls Wednesday in a partial re-run of the presidential election with the result hanging in the balance. Former coup leader Azali Assoumani won last month’s run-off vote by just 2,100 votes, according to provisional results, but a court ordered 13 polling stations on Anjouan island to vote again due to “irregularities”. Polls closed at 1500 GMT and voting passed off without any major incidents, according to an AFP journalist. Just 6,305 voters were called to vote on Wednesday, two percent of the Comoros electorate.

Editorials: Beirut’s election was surprisingly competitive. Could it shake up Lebanese politics? | Amanda Rizkallah/The Washington Post

On May 8, Lebanon held the first of four rounds of municipal elections. The only elections since 2010, this round of voting represents Lebanese citizens’ first opportunity to exercise their political voice since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, ensuing influx of refugees and popular protests against a paralyzing trash crisis. Lebanon’s politicians have repeatedly postponed the parliamentary elections originally scheduled for June 2013 and the country has been without a president since May 2014. Amid this political impasse at the national level, municipal elections have become the last remaining institutional mechanism for generating a modicum of political accountability. Beyond activists’ efforts to ensure the funding of these elections, protesters and members of civil society have called for greater decentralization and fiscal resources for municipal councils.

United Kingdom: Electoral Commission strikes 11 pro-Brexit campaign groups from official register | Telegraph

The Electoral Commission has struck off 11 pro-Brexit campaign groups from their official registered of EU Referendum campaigners after a Telegraph analysis raised concerns about how the Grassroots Out Movement intended to spend millions in campaign donations. In a statement, the Commission said that the 11 Grassroots Out or “GO” groups had been removed from the official register of campaign groups after “they were found not to meet the registration requirements” following a review. The move came a week after The Telegraph had reported misgivings among ‘Remain’ campaigners that the multiple ‘GO’ groups might be used to circumvent spending caps imposed on non-official campaigners.

Zambia: Electoral Commission Bans Cellphone Use in Polling Stations | VoA News

The Electoral Commission of Zambia has issued a directive banning the use of cellphones inside polling stations during the August 11 presidential, legislative and local elections. But some opposition groups have questioned the rationale behind the directive. Parliament member Request Muntanga, of the main opposition United Party for National Development, called it disturbing. Local media quoted Muntanga as saying, “I want to see where there is a regulation that says no cellphone [in polling stations]. … The [electoral commission] is already creating uneasiness among players.”

National: Automatic Motor-Voter Registration Now Law in Four States | BillMoyers.com

At first glance, this does not seem a season of political hope: With the November election still months away, voters’ patience already is frayed by negative, exhausting nominating fights. Those who had the stomach to go to the polls faced, in some places, hours-long lines and other hiccups just to cast a ballot as new voting restrictions take effect across the country. But breaking through the negativity comes encouraging news: Two weeks ago, Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a bipartisan bill making Vermont the fourth state in the country to enact automatic voter registration — a revolutionary policy that can help add millions of new voters nationwide. And it’s getting broad, bipartisan support. With outdated voting systems causing problems and confusion at the polls, automatic registration offers a new way out of the voting wars, and a much-needed reprieve from the partisan bickering plaguing our political debate.

National: How Congress members opened door to bigger checks for their parties | Miami Herald

During the 2012 presidential campaign, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin famously complained that the wealthy have “insufficient influence” in politics, which is kind of like saying that a crocodile needs even more teeth, when the 24 it has do just fine, thank you very much. But as money pours into the 2016 campaign – where the issue of income inequality has been a powerful touchstone –the wealthy might be feeling a bit more empowered. No longer are donors bound by the strict contribution limits of just two years ago, when a mere $32,400 was the maximum amount you could annually contribute to either the Democratic or Republican national committee. Under new rules, that amount, which inflation pushed to $33,400, has increased tenfold: to $334,000. But wait. Among all the party outlets now available for contributions, a single donor over the course of the two-year election cycle can actually give more than $1.6 million. A couple, should they be feeling similarly generous, could write checks totaling more than $3 million.

Alabama: Bill would require driver’s license offices to be open 2 days a week | AL.com

On the last day of the legislative session last week, Alabama lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state to operate a driver’s license office in every county at least two days a week. The bill, by Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 99-1 on Wednesday. It had earlier passed the Senate by a vote of 24-3.There was no immediate word from Gov. Robert Bentley’s office on whether he will sign it into law. Bentley could let the bill die without his signature.

Alaska: Challenges and joys of crafting a Yu’pik ballot | Alaska Public Media

The state’s Division of Elections is required to translate ballots and create an elections glossary in six dialects of Yu’pik and also Gwich’in. Those are the terms of a lawsuit settled last year by Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. But as Alaska Public Media’s Anne Hillman learned – that process isn’t easy. Think about these words – candidates for elected office are running for a seat. What image pops in your head? Retired Yup’ik professor Oscar Alexie says not a political event. “I’m thinking of people like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and all those guys at the race line waiting for someone to say ‘Go!’” And whomever gets to the chair first is the boss, Alexie said. Alexie is part of the eight-person team that’s trying to translate election materials into Yup’ik. He said it’s not easy because the words need to mean something in Yup’ik, not just be literal translations from the English. So one word in English – like candidate – ends up being a phrase in Yup’ik. But technical ballot language in English is dense. Something like “candidate statement” isn’t straightforward.

Arizona: Reagan won’t cancel next week’s special election | Arizona Capitol Times

Secretary of State Michele Reagan won’t cancel next week’s special election even though her office failed to mail out on time more than 200,000 pamphlets with details of what’s on the ballot. Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts conceded the law about when voters need to get the brochures was broken. And while saying the fault lies with an outside company that made up mailing lists, Roberts acknowledged the foul-up is Reagan’s responsibility. But Roberts rejected the contention by attorney Tom Ryan that her failure is fatal and the election for Propositions 123 and 124 cannot take place as scheduled this coming Tuesday. “There’s nothing in statute that we’re finding that would allow this office to not allow the election itself to move forward,’’ Robert said.

Arizona: Attorney seeks to delay special election, argues pamphlet error disenfranchised voters | Arizona Republic

Claiming thousands of voters have been disenfranchised ahead of the May 17 special election, an attorney filed complaints Tuesday with Arizona’s attorney general and secretary of state asking that the election be postponed. Attorney Tom Ryan, of Chandler, asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich to seek a court ruling to cancel next Tuesday’s election and reschedule…

California: San Francisco Supervisors OK ballot measure to lower SF voting age to 16 | San Francisco Chronicle

A charter amendment to lower the voting age to 16 that will appear on the November ballot would put San Francisco at the forefront of expanding voting rights at a time when some other governments around the country have implemented increasingly restrictive voting laws. “Regardless of whether this measure is approved or not, (San Francisco) is starting a trend that will happen across the country, where cities like ours will consider whether young people can vote,” Supervisor John Avalos, who championed the measure, said at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. The measure would allow people as young as 16 to vote in city elections.

California: DMV Voter Registration is more complicated than it looks | San Francisco Chronicle