Arizona: Republicans Planning Redistricting Push After SCOTUS Decision | Morning Consult

The U.S. Supreme Court is nearing a decision over the constitutionality of independent commissions created to draw district lines, but lawmakers in Arizona aren’t waiting for the outcome to start radically redrawing the state’s political boundaries — for their own gain. House and Senate leaders have already begun discussing how and where to redraw lines, and they are likely to come to some sort of agreement over the summer, sources close to Republican leaders in both chambers said. Once an agreement is close, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) would call a special legislative session to dispense with the new maps.

California: California elections chief proposes making voting easier | Los Angeles Times

California’s top elections officer on Wednesday expanded his proposed overhaul of the way citizens vote, aiming to make it easier for them to cast ballots. Secretary of State Alex Padilla wants the state to mail all voters a ballot and allow them to use it at any of several voting centers during a 10-day period before elections. That would allow people to vote near their jobs or other convenient locations rather than limit them to visiting polling places near their homes on election day or mailing in their ballots. Voters also would be able to drop ballots off 24 hours a day at secure locations during a 14-day period before elections.

Editorials: A Voter-Fraud Witch Hunt in Kansas | Ari Berman/The Nation

In fall 2010, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach held a press conference alleging that dead people were voting in the state. He singled out Alfred K. Brewer as a possible zombie voter. There was only one problem: Brewer was very much alive. The Wichita Eagle found the 78-year-old working in his front yard. “I don’t think this is heaven, not when I’m raking leaves,” Brewer said. Since his election in 2010, Kobach has been the leading crusader behind the myth of voter fraud, making headline-grabbing claims about the prevalence of such fraud with little evidence to back it up. Now he’s about to become a lot more powerful. On Monday, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed a bill giving Kobach’s office the power to prosecute voter-fraud cases if county prosecutors decline to do so and upgrading such charges from misdemeanors to felonies. Voters could be charged with a felony for mistakenly showing up at the wrong polling place. No other secretary of state in the country has such sweeping prosecutorial power, says Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

Pennsylvania: Questions raised about possible election reforms | New Castle News

As of May, 27 states have passed laws offering online voter registration.Pennsylvania isn’t one of them, but Gov. Tom Wolf wants to change that and possibly recommend other election reforms, including allowing early voting, same day registration and no excuse absentee voting. Jeffrey Sheridan, the governor’s press secretary, said Wolf “is committed to implementing commonsense, secure election reforms” that encourage better participation. He noted that the state Senate previously authorized online registration by unanimous vote, but the measure did not come up for a vote by the House.

Tennessee: Davidson County Election Commission digs in, defends early voting move | The Tennessean

The Davidson County Election Commission is not flinching in a budget dispute with the mayor’s office that could result in the elimination of early voting satellite locations this election. The ball is now in the court of the Metro Council as it prepares to vote on a 2015-16 operating budget Tuesday that could decide how many early voting sites operate next month. Election commission chairman Ron Buchanan, at a commission meeting Thursday, vigorously defended the commission’s 3-2 vote last week to operate only one early voting site ahead of Nashville’s August election — the number required by state law — if the Metro Council approves Mayor Karl Dean’s recommended budget without more funding added to it.

Washington: Yakima’s cost in fighting ACLU case tops $1 million | Yakima Herald

Yakima has now spent more than $1 million defending a voting rights case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that upended the city’s elections system. Assistant City Attorney Helen Harvey said Wednesday the city has spent $1,074,062 to date — and costs will continue to rise. Yakima’s attorneys on Tuesday filed a request with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking a stay of this year’s elections, and the city expects to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court by early August in a Texas case that could effectively reverse the outcome of the ACLU ruling.

Burundi: Opposition to boycott elections they predict won’t be fair | Associated Press

A group of 17 political parties have agreed to boycott elections in Burundi because they don’t believe they will be free and fair, an opposition leader said Thursday. The opposition groups are also opposed to the current electoral commission because it isn’t complete after two of its five members fled, said Frederic Bamvuginyumvira, deputy head of a party known by its initials as FRODEBU. Burundi has been rocked by unrest since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his plans to run for a third term, which many see as unconstitutional even though the nation’s constitutional court has ruled in the president’s favor.

India: Election Commission likely to introduce ‘preferred time-slot’ for voters | The Indian Express

Voters could soon be able to book a preferred time-slot in which they would want to cast their votes during elections. With an eye on tackling urban apathy amongst voters and making a serious bid to get more people out of their homes to go to the polling stations to vote, the Election Commission is mulling the possibility of introducing this system. “The idea of letting voters book a time-slot is being deliberated upon,” Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said. A system could be put into place where voters may be given the facility of calling or SMSing to a designated number to book one of the several time-slots on offer on a given voting day. Those who use the facility could be given a reference number that they would need to show to avail of the facility at the booth, EC officials said. A pre-booked time-slot would ensure that a voter gets to vote at the time of his choice without having to stand in a queue, officials added.

Myanmar: Draft charter bill still bars Suu Kyi presidency | AFP

Myanmar’s ruling party Thursday released a draft bill on changes to its junta-era constitution that could end an effective army veto on charter amendments, but still bars opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party is expected to sweep landmark elections, slated for November, but she is barred from the top job under a constitutional provision excluding those with a foreign spouse or children from the presidency. The long-awaited draft bill published in state newspaper The Mirror on Thursday kept this provision under clause 59f but, in a slight relaxation, it no longer applies the ban to those whose Myanmar national children have married foreigners. Suu Kyi’s late husband and two sons are British.

Philippines: Online registration for overseas voters rolled out worldwide | Inquirer

The online voters’ registration program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Commission on Elections can now be accessed by overseas Filipino workers worldwide. The DFA-Overseas Voting Secretariat said on Thursday that it had opened iRehistro in the Foreign Service Posts in the Asia-Pacific region. Through the iRehistro program, OFWs can fill out voters’ registration forms in their homes, workplaces, and Internet cafés in their convenience. They can also set their appointment in the FSPs through iRehistro where they will sign their duly-accomplished forms and have their biometrics captured.

United Kingdom: Prime Minister refuses to rule out EU referendum on same day as other elections next year | The Guardian

David Cameron has left the door open for an early EU referendum to be held on the same day as other elections next year, despite Labour’s call for it to take place on a different date. At his weekly prime minister’s question time, Cameron was pressed by the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, to rule out holding the poll at the same time as elections for the Scottish parliament, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies and the London mayor in May 2016. Harman said she “strongly agreed” with the Electoral Commission that referendum polling day should not feature any other elections and urged the prime minister to agree a separate voting day.

Turkey: Election result heralds a new Turkey, but not the one Erdoğan wanted | The Guardian

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the most formidable vote-winner and election conjurer Turkey has ever seen. He founded his own party, led it to three absolute parliamentary majorities as prime minister, then last year performed a Putinesque sidestep to become the country’s first directly elected president with more than half of the popular vote. But on Monday Erdoğan stared defeat in the face. He had forsaken his famously intuitive feel for the popular mood, miscalculated in his highly aggressive election campaign and paid the price. Even if his Justice and Development party (AKP) retained the biggest parliamentary presence with 41% of the vote, many of his longstanding supporters deserted him, concluding that he was out of touch with their lives and the mood of the country.

Press Release: Three More Virginia Jurisdictions Purchase Hart InterCivic’s Verity Voting System | Hart InterCivic

Hart InterCivic, a full service election solutions innovator and national leader in election technology, announced today that three more localities in the Commonwealth of Virginia have elected to purchase the Verity Voting system. Richmond, Henry and Essex Counties voted to purchase Verity, replacing their existing outdated voting equipment. These localities’ adoption of Verity follows on the heels of Prince William County, Virginia’s successful June 9, 2015 primary using the system. Verity in VA: Primary Election in Prince William County, VA Complete Success with Verity Voting System As in Prince William County, voters in Richmond, Henry and Essex Counties will scan their paper ballots using Verity Scan. Voters with disabilities may use the Verity Touch Writer ballot marking device with accessibility features to mark their ballots electronically before scanning them.

Editorials: You can transfer your paycheck, fill out your taxes and control airplanes online. Why can’t you vote? | Bangor Daily News

You can transfer your life’s earnings between bank accounts online. You can apply for a credit card and file your tax returns online. If you’re an air traffic controller, you probably use a Web-based system to direct the planes — and people’s lives — above you. So what’s the deal with voting? Why can’t you use your phone or computer to cast your ballot remotely? Experts don’t have faith in the ability of the Internet to maintain what’s needed in a voting system: keeping your vote secret, preventing coercion, verifying your identity, allowing you to vote only once, and recording your vote correctly. If not now, though, will the option to vote online be available in the future? … Skeptics of online voting are of course concerned about security breaches. Could a third party hack into the system and interfere with an election’s results? What about the potential for violations of voter privacy?

Editorials: Why should some Native Americans have to drive 163 miles to vote? | Natalie Landreth/The Guardian

Imagine if, in the 2016 elections, you had to drive 104 miles (167 km) to your nearest polling station, like National Congress of American Indians research found those people living in the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada do, or 163 miles (262 km), like residents of the Goshute Reservation in Utah do. Or imagine if you had to take a plane flight to the nearest polling place because you cannot get to it by road, which was the case for several Native communities in 2008, when the state of Alaska attempted a “district realignment” to eliminate polling places in their villages. That’s just half the trip. In those circumstances, can you really be said to be enjoying full voting rights? Consider, too, that many reservations do not have access to early voting, so they will have just one day on which to make that astonishingly long journey. You can imagine the line at that polling place: either it will be very long because everyone is forced to go on that same day, or very short because not many people could afford an entire day off work to vote – that is if they even have a car and a driver’s license.

Voting Blogs: “Desperate” at the FEC | More Soft Money Hard Law

By petitioning their own agency for a rulemaking, Commissioners Weintraub and Ravel have found a novel way to charge their colleagues with fecklessness. Call it a populist gesture: they are stepping out of their roles as administrators and issuing their appeal from the outside, as members of the general public. They may have done all they could or intended to do with this Petition, which was to publicize their grievances. Or they may have sought to add to public understanding of the grounds of this grievance-to enlighten and inform, and not only turn up the volume of their complaint. A first point—minor but worth considering– is whether this agency needs another quirky procedural controversy. What does it mean for two Commissioners, one of whom is agency Chair, to dispense with their formal roles and petition as citizens, filing a petition on plain paper without their titles and just the Commission’s street address? Will they recuse themselves from voting on the petition as Commissioners? Will they testify before themselves?

Colorado: Smartphone voting isn’t ready | The Durango Herald

Technology isn’t yet ready to allow voting on your smartphone, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Tuesday during a visit to Durango. “Right now, the technology isn’t sufficiently secure for that,” he said during an interview with The Durango Herald’s editorial board. In commercial applications, Williams said, “There are security breaches occasionally. We’re just not there yet.”

Florida: State’s top elections chief faces critics in Orlando | Miami Herald

As Florida heads toward a historic presidential election cycle with two home state favorites running, those in charge of orchestrating convenient, snafu-free voting statewide have charged that the administration of Gov. Rick Scott too often works against them, rather than with them. The ongoing tension was on display in Orlando Wednesday, as Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Florida’s top elections official, addressed a conference of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. Association leaders are still fuming over Detzner earlier this year trying to torpedo online voter registration in Florida, which is offered in at least 20 other states and had overwhelming bipartisan support. His opposition came after he told supervisors he supported the initiative.

Florida: Ex-congressman’s top aide to plead guilty to breaking election law | Miami Herald

A former campaign manager for one-time Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia plans to plead guilty Thursday in Miami federal court to financing a tea party candidate in a scheme to siphon votes from his Republican nemesis. In April, Jeffrey Garcia was charged with a misdemeanor of conspiring to give a campaign contribution of less than $25,000 to the shadow candidate in the 2010 Miami congressional race. Prosecutors said Garcia, no relation to the former congressman, surreptitiously put up the $10,440 qualifying fee for Jose Rolando “Roly” Arrojo to pose as a GOP challenger to David Rivera in the general election. Arrojo was also charged with the same misdemeanor.

Guam: Election Commission seeks funds to clear debt | Pacific Daily News

More than $246,000 in legal services and $12,500 in commissioner stipends is among the debt the Guam Election Commission hopes to wipe clean. The commission last month requested an appropriation of about $371,000 for the coming fiscal year that would go toward paying debt accrued in prior years. GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan said she recently reached out to Sen. Rory Respicio to follow up on the request, but the senator is off island. Respicio is chairman of the committee that oversees the commission.

North Carolina: State Officials Deciding How Voter ID Law Will Work At Polls | WFMY

The State Board of Elections held a public hearing in Winston-Salem Tuesday night to get feedback from voters about how the voter ID law should work at the polls. The board of elections has a proposed list of rules that voters got to comment on during the two-hour hearing. “Voting is fundamental, it’s extremely important. We take it very seriously, it’s what we do every day. It doesn’t surprise us that folks have feelings that run deep on these issues,” Josh Lawson said, the public information officer for the board of elections. This is the fifth meeting state officials have held to get feedback from citizens across the state. The next meeting is in Boone. A large crowd came to share their thoughts on the hotly debate law that goes into effect in 2016. It will require all voters to show a photo ID before casting a ballot. “This is not a light subject, these rules. People died trying to earn a right to vote. People died. So, please keep that in mind,” one woman said at the meeting.

Ohio: Electronic pollbooks a possible solution to long lines on Election Day | The Columbus Dispatch

In a move that could ease lines on Election Day and one day allow Ohioans to vote at any polling location in their county, the Ohio Senate wants to provide $13 million to help all counties purchase electronic pollbooks. The proposal drew praise from county elections officials and Secretary of State Jon Husted, who said that for voters in the 19 counties that currently use electronic pollbooks, the check-in process is streamlined and wait times are reduced. “Electronic poll books are revolutionizing elections here in Ohio, making it easier for voters to cast ballots and saving valuable taxpayer resources,” said Shawn Stevens, president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials and a member of the Delaware County Board of Elections.

Virginia: GOP ponders: Primary or convention in 2016 presidential race | Daily Press

Virginia Republican Party leaders will gather later this month to decide whether to hold a presidential primary next year. Based on the past positions of the party’s State Central Committee, which will make the decision, a nominating convention seems more likely, party insiders said Wednesday. This is an ongoing struggle in the Republican Party of Virginia, but it takes on wider significance going into a presidential election year. The party’s right wing generally prefers conventions, figuring the dedicated folks willing to spend all Saturday in a political meeting will pick more conservative nominees. Others push for primaries, arguing that they help widen the party’s tent and juice the Republican ground game as GOP candidates traipse through the state and campaign volunteers collect voter information well ahead of general elections.

Virginia: Another lawsuit coming in redistricting fight | Daily Press

Virginia’s General Assembly districts, already under attack from a federal lawsuit, will face a new challenge in coming months: A lawsuit in the state courts questioning their fitness under the state constitution. The federal challenge alleges that the assembly’s Republican majority packed minority voters into a handful of districts to dilute their strength – and boost GOP fortunes – in neighboring ones. This new suit will focus instead on the idea of compactness. Like many modern-day districts, a number of Virginia House and Senate districts stretch into amoeba-like ink blots as they meander across the map, picking up known pockets of Republican or Democratic voters.

Washington: Senate bill would let cities hold district elections | Yakima Herald

The state Senate is considering new legislation to give localities more authority to hold elections by district. Senate Bill 6129, filed Tuesday by Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, would change state law to allow all counties and cities to hold district elections for their councils or commissions if local officials or voters so choose. State law currently only allows charter cities such as Yakima to change their elections systems, but a number of nonchartered localities with increasing minority populations, such as Pasco, have sought to create districts to improve minority representation. Yakima is one of just 11 charter cities in the state.

Belarus: Election set for Oct. 11, Lukashenko poised to run again | Reuters

Belarus on Tuesday named Oct. 11 as the date for a presidential election which is almost certain to usher in a new five-year term for veteran Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko, 60, who has been in power in the ex-Soviet republic since 1994, has said several times he will stand for what will be a fifth consecutive term in office. Lukashenko has been ostracized by the West for most of his rule because of alleged human rights abuses and his clampdown on political dissent which has eradicated any real political opposition. His re-election for a fourth term in 2010 brought huge street demonstrations which were dispersed by riot police. Several opposition candidates were beaten up and detained and dissenters rounded up.

Burundi: New election dates set after weeks of civil unrest | Deutsche Welle

President Pierre Nkurunziza has approved parliamentary elections for June 29 and a presidential poll for July 15. “He has published the decree,” spokesman Gervais Abayeho said on Wednesday. The revised dates were proposed by the electoral commission, CENI. The parliamentary dates were originally set for May and the presidential vote for late June. Burundi’s opposition has rejected the commission’s proposal saying its demands for free elections have not been met.

Mexico: Electoral authorities to recount more than half of midterm election votes | VideoNews

Electoral authorities in Mexico announced Wednesday that they are recounting more than half of the ballot boxes from midterm elections held last Sunday. At little more than 89,000 of the more than 149,000 ballot boxes installed will be recounted – about 60 percent of the vote in the congressional election. The National Electoral Institute (INE) Edmundo Jacobo Molina said the entire votes in 17 of the 300 electoral districts will be recounted.

Editorials: Russia’s Sham Democracy Is Fooling Nobody | Georgy Bovt/The Moscow Times

The authorities have bumped up State Duma elections from December to September 2016 as nonchalantly as if they were merely doing a routine oil change on their car. It is obvious to everyone that the Kremlin administration made this decision, reasoning that the ruling authorities could achieve a stronger win in September before everyone has returned from summer vacation than in cold and gloomy December. The shorter time frame will make it more difficult for the opposition to mount a serious campaign, and the traditionally low voter turnout in fall will work to the advantage of the authorities, who can more easily mobilize their administrative resources. Many political analysts maintain that the ruling authorities will also benefit from the fact that half of the Duma deputies come from single-seat districts. According to the rules, such candidates are not required to state their party affiliation.

United Kingdom: UK lawmakers back Cameron’s EU referendum plans but debate highlights risks | Reuters

Lawmakers on Tuesday backed Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, but a heated debate highlighted passions that could split his Conservative Party and re-open Scotland’s bid for independence. Cameron, seeking to put an end to a decades-old rift within his party over Britain’s place in Europe, has promised to negotiate a new settlement with Brussels and hold a referendum by the end of 2017. Voters will be asked: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”, a choice of wording which allows the “in” campaign to brand itself as “Yes”.