Burundi: New blow to Nkurunziza as top Burundi election official flees; may be a ‘catastrophe’ | AFP

Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid to stand for a third term in office suffered a new blow on Saturday after it emerged a top a election official had fled the country. Sources said the election commission’s vice president, Spes Caritas Ndironkeye, jetted out of the crisis-hit central African nation late Friday, leaving behind a resignation letter and preparations for next week’s parliamentary elections in disarray. A second election board member is also thought to have fled, reflecting mounting unease with the country’s power structure over Nkurunziza’s attempt to stay put despite worsening civil unrest. Human Rights Watch said Burundi has been gripped by “pervasive fear”, while the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention think tank, said Burundi was headed back into conflict unless the president backed down.

United Kingdom: EU referendum voting rights will not be extended to all UK citizens living abroad | The Guardian

The government has ruled out extending the right to vote in the upcoming EU referendum to all British citizens living abroad, despite a promise made by the Conservative party chairman that it would. The EU referendum bill, which will be announced after the Queen’s speech on Wednesday, will make clear that the franchise – the people eligible to vote – will be the same as in general elections, which is adults from the age of 18, Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK, and British citizens who have lived abroad for less than 15 years.

National: Supreme Court Agrees to Settle Meaning of ‘One Person One Vote’ | New York Times

The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a case that will answer a long-contested question about a bedrock principle of the American political system: the meaning of “one person one vote.” The court’s ruling, expected in 2016, could be immensely consequential. Should the court agree with the two Texas voters who brought the case, its ruling would shift political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would benefit Republicans. The court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally, including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic.

National: Supreme Court to Consider How to Calculate Size of Voting Districts | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether the Constitution requires only eligible voters be counted when forming legislative districts, taking up a lawsuit that could shift political power to less populous rural areas from urban centers. If successful, the challenge to the state Senate map the Texas Legislature drew in 2013 could reshape the political dynamic in states with large Hispanic populations. The lawsuit offers the high court a chance to clarify the one-person, one-vote doctrine it established in the 1960s, when the justices swept away legislative maps that gave rural voters disproportionate power over urban areas. Since then, the near-universal practice has been to draw maps based on total population without regard to legal status. Subsequent electoral disputes centered on whether the racial composition of resulting districts complies with the Voting Rights Act.

National: Supreme Court to consider redefining ‘one-person, one-vote’ principle | USAToday

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to define what it meant by “one person, one vote” a half century ago. The justices will consider a challenge brought by two rural voters in Texas who claim their state Senate ballots carry less weight than those cast in urban areas with large numbers of non-citizens ineligible to vote. Under the current system in nearly all states, state legislative districts are drawn with roughly equal populations. The standard dates back to decisions made by the Supreme Court in the early 1960s.

Editorials: ‘One Man, One Vote’ Keeps Changing | Noah Feldman/Bloomberg View

Does the Constitution guarantee one person, one vote? Or is it one citizen, one vote? This deceptively simple question is actually profound — and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide it in the term that will begin in October. The answer will define the nature of American democracy for generations to come. The legal nature of the question can be stated simply. In the 1961 case Reynolds v. Sims, the Supreme Court announced a principle that was then referred to as “one man, one vote.” Until then it had been up to state legislatures to allocate congressional districts according to whatever principle they wanted. There was no requirement that districts have roughly equal numbers of residents, which meant that some districts might have many fewer residents and voters than others. The court said this imbalance violated equal protection of laws because it diluted the votes of those who lived in relatively overpopulated districts.

Alaska: Anchorage Assembly votes to recertify runoff election after ballots found | Alaska Dispatch News

The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday recertified the mayoral runoff election, taking into account 58 ballots not previously tallied that altered the result by 0.01 percent but did not change the outcome. Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones, who oversees municipal elections, said the bulk of the uncounted ballots were found inside a silver ballot box in a conference room in City Hall. Absentee ballots sent by mail are moved between three rooms — including the conference room — and two floors during the counting process. The day after the Assembly certified the runoff election on May 19, staffers discovered the silver box with the ballots still in their envelopes, she said.

Kentucky: What Actually Happens During a Kentucky Recanvassing? | Election Law

County Clerks offices around Kentucky will be busy Thursday morning as they re-tally the votes in not just one, but two Republican primary races. (In addition to recanvassing the 83-vote margin between gubernatorial hopefuls Matt Bevin and James Comer, Republican Richard Heath has asked for a recanvass of his 1,427 vote loss to Ryan Quarles for state agriculture commissioner.) But what will the County Clerks offices actually be doing on Thursday at 9:00 am when they recanvass these races? It is fairly simple, and it depends on the kind of vote counting system each county uses. The recanvass essentially mimics the counting process from election night.

Nevada: Lawmakers defeat proposal dumping Nevada’s caucus system | Associated Press

A proposal that would have changed how Nevada votes for presidential candidates has been defeated, but supporters say the measure could be revived. The Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections failed to approve SB421, voting 6-4 on Wednesday, with Republicans John Moore and Shelly Shelton joining Democrats to defeat the bill. The measure would have allowed national political party heads to change Nevada’s current caucus system for selecting a presidential nominee to a primary election. Supporters say the change would increase voter turnout and avoid a confusing caucus process.

Nevada: Measure that would raise bar on voter initiatives fails | Associated Press

A Nevada committee has defeated a proposal that critics say would make it more difficult to file voter-led initiative petitions. The Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee voted 4-6 on Tuesday to defeat SB434. The measure would have required petitions to gather at least 1,000 signatures from registered voters before being filed with the Secretary of State, and included more judicial review and oversight in submitting ballot questions.

South Dakota: Online voter registration not coming to South Dakota in the near future | KSFY

With 20 states currently allowing online voter registration and seven states plus the District of Columbia in the process, South Dakota legislators are waiting for a push from voters before considering any legislation. “There has not been a push for it, or vocal opposition to it, as far as I know,” said House Democratic Leader and Board of Elections Member Richard Casey. “I believe the change to allow online voter registration would have to be adopted by the legislature.” The new online systems would allow people to sign up anywhere with an internet connection. Applicants must provide their driver’s license number and the last four digits of their social security number.

Texas: Voting group alleges Texas keeping thousands from registering | MSNBC

Thousands of Texans are being disenfranchised thanks to chronic failures in the state’s voter registration system, a Democratic group alleges based on government records and extensive additional evidence. The charges raise serious questions about Texas’s commitment to making the ballot box accessible to new voters, and about its compliance with federal voting law. In a letter sent Wednesday to Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos, lawyers for Battleground Texas, which works to register voters in the state, wrote that the state government’s “voter registration failures are widespread and systematically undermining the right to vote in Texas.”

Ethiopia: Ethiopian Ruling Coalition Wins Majority of Parliament Seats | Bloomberg

Ethiopia’s ruling coalition won a majority in national elections, extending its 20-year rule over Africa’s second-most populous country, the electoral board said. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF, and allied parties won all 442 of the seats counted so far in the 547-member federal parliament, Chairman Merga Bekana told reporters Wednesday in the capital, Addis Ababa. In the last election in 2010, the ruling coalition won all but one seat in the assembly. “The election was successfully completed as scheduled with high participation of our citizens who really committed themselves to the development of democracy,” Merga said. More than 90 percent of the country’s 37 million registered voters cast their ballots in the May 24 vote, he said.

Editorials: Rejection of presidential age referendum shows ageism at heart of Irish society | Ireland Times

What happened on Friday was truly odd. In the same breath, the Irish electorate triumphantly extended equality to same-sex couples, and resoundingly denied it to young people. The result sent an unequivocal message: adults under the age of 35 are not held in equal esteem to those above that age. No matter how exceptional, competent or popular the individual, the idea of a person younger than 35 even presenting themselves to the electorate as a candidate for the highest office of State is apparently so preposterous as to require constitutional prohibition. To paraphrase three-quarters of the electorate: “It’s not just that we won’t vote for you. We won’t even let you run”. Granted, the mere representation of marginalised groups in political office does not necessarily translate to improved conditions – but their unqualified exclusion is symbolic of broader structural problems.

Turkey: Votes from abroad and the coming election | Today’s Zaman

This weekend marks the end of the chance to cast votes in the Turkish election from abroad. And so this gives us another opportunity to analyze what — if any — influence these votes have on the election as a whole. In the meantime, this election will be yet again another test for the Supreme Election Board (YSK). In the first election in which Turks could cast votes from abroad, the appointment system, which requires Turkish nationals to apply for an appointment and determine the day they will vote through an online procedure on the YSK website, was alleged to have had a negative effect on voter turnout. Even in cities like Berlin, where the population of Turks is particularly high, there were turnout rates as low as around 8 percent, which many pointed to as being one result of the appointment system for voting. This has subsequently been eliminated, but it likely not the only factor influencing low turnout. In the meantime, a great deal of curiosity surrounds the question of who exactly Turks abroad will be voting for.

United Kingdom: Expat vote ban lifted, but not in time for EU referendum | Telegraph

Long-term expats will have their right to vote in British and European elections restored. However, they will be unable to vote in the European referendum if they’ve lived abroad for more than 15 years. The Votes for Life Bill, announced after the Queen’s Speech today, will scrap the 15-year rule that sees expats lose their votes in UK and European parliamentary elections once they have been out of the country for that long. This had been promised by the Conservatives in their manifesto. The rule affects around one million of the five million British citizens overseas. However, Downing Street said it will remain in place for the referendum on Europe, as there is not enough time to enforce the change by the time of the vote, due by the end of 2017 at the latest.

Editorials: Voter Turnout in U.S. Mayoral Elections Is Pathetic, But It Wasn’t Always This Way | CityLab

As far as recent history is concerned, voter turnout in most major U.S. city elections can accurately be described as anemic. On Tuesday in Philadelphia, just about 27 percent of registered voters went to the polls to give Jim Kenney a landslide victory in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. In Los Angeles, 23 percent bothered to show up in 2013 for the sleepy election that Mayor Eric Garcetti won. Even New York’s high-profile 2013 election, which brought Mayor Bill de Blasio to power, attracted just 26 percent of registered voters to cast a ballot, the lowest turnout in that city since at least 1953. For many observers, that election signaled a historic repudiation of the aggressive police tactics and warm embrace of the super-rich that characterized the Michael Bloomberg era. But in a larger sense, it also proved that most New Yorkers didn’t care either way.

Voting Blogs: More Conflict at the FEC: The Question of Partisanship and the Problem of Finger-Pointing | More Soft Money Hard Law

A dispute over whether the FEC is tilting its investigations against conservatives or Republicans is mostly a waste of energy. Commissioner Goodman got this started at a Commission hearing and has been rebuked by Commissioner Ravel. The Republicans profess to be outraged; the Democrats announce that this outrage has rendered them speechless. Once again there is here, in the midst of this clamor, an important question– the uses and misuses of the agency’s enforcement process—that is being misdirected into another round of finger-pointing about bad faith and improper motive.

California: Supreme Court could deal California ‘a one-two punch’ on redistricting | Los Angeles Times

In recent years, California voters have backed a series of changes to the state’s elections system to reshape its political landscape. Now, potential upheaval is brewing again, this time from the U.S. Supreme Court. Next month, the nation’s highest court will rule on a case challenging the legality of independent commissions to draw congressional districts. On Tuesday, the court said it would consider whether state and local voting districts should be based on total population or eligible voters. Both cases could have enormous implications in California, where voters first approved citizen-led redistricting panels nearly seven years ago and where the state’s burgeoning immigrant population has contoured the political map, regardless of eligibility to vote. Should the Supreme Court issue rulings overhauling the redistricting process, it would be a “one-two punch to the gut to California,” said Bruce Cain, professor of political science at Stanford University.

Florida: Volusia looks to buy new voting equipment for 2016 elections | News-Journal

Volusia County will switch to a new voting system next year for the first time in more than two decades. Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall said Tuesday she will start contract negotiations with Election Systems & Software, one of two companies to put in a bid to be the county’s provider. Dominion Voting Systems, which has been the county’s vendor since 1994, was the other company. But McFall said the package offered by ES&S surpassed anything Dominion could bring to the table. “They’re clearly the winner,” she said of ES&S.

Editorials: Veto of felon voting bill disenfranchised 40,000 Marylanders | Cory McCray/Baltimore Sun

After the death of Freddie Gray, leaders from Annapolis came into our neighborhoods, shot some hoops, attended church services and gave lip service about change. But those leaders have never endured the high levels of poverty, lack of access to fresh food, dilapidated housing or high levels of joblessness that plague those neighborhoods. That is why many community members were not convinced by their words. On Friday, Gov. Larry Hogan gave them more reason to be skeptical. At 2 p.m. on the Friday before a holiday weekend, when many people were already away on vacation, he vetoed House Bill 980, which restored voting rights to ex-felons upon their release from prison, rather than waiting until they’re off parole or probation.

Texas: Supreme Court to hear challenge to Texas redistricting plan | The Washington Post

Decades after the Supreme Court set “one person, one vote” as the standard states must meet in creating legislative districts that equitably distribute political power, the justices agreed Tuesday to decide exactly which persons should count. The court, in accepting a Texas case brought by a conservative advocacy group, will consider whether states and localities may continue to use a place’s total population as the basis or must make redistricting decisions based on the number of citizens who are eligible to vote. A shift from using total population would have an enormous impact in states with large immigrant populations because of the greater numbers of children and noncitizens. It would most likely transfer power from urban areas to more rural districts. The court will schedule the case for the new term that begins in October.

Virginia: Stimpson to file suit against ‘unfair’ absentee ballot process | Fredericksburg.com

The testy race for the 28th District House seat’s Republican primary nomination is about to get a little more heated. Susan Stimpson plans to file a lawsuit in Stafford County Circuit Court on Wednesday to block an absentee voter application process she claims gives her opponent, House Speaker Bill Howell, an unfair advantage in the race. “I am filing this lawsuit … on the principle of it,” she said Tuesday. “There’s no other path.” The lawsuit, prepared by Lynchburg attorney Rick Boyer, states that the state Board of Elections “acted arbitrarily and capriciously,” overstepped its authority and “took the regulatory action without meeting any of the notice requirements imposed by the Virginia Administrative Code.” The lawsuit adds that the board’s “action enabled Howell to plan, create, and produce a website dedicated to generating absentee ballot applications with electronic signatures.”

Myanmar: Myanmar on track for Nov vote, challenges remain – Election Commission | Reuters

Myanmar plans to go ahead with an election in November despite the challenges it faces in completing an electoral roll in the many areas of the country that have suffered ethnic conflict, the country’s election commission chairman said on Tuesday. The country is gearing up for a historic election in November, the first free vote in 25 years and a milestone in the country’s transition to democracy after 49 years of military rule ended in 2010.

Ethiopia: African observers say Ethiopia poll credible, opposition cries foul | Reuters

African Union observers said on Tuesday that Ethiopia’s parliamentary election held on Sunday was credible except for a few irregularities, but the opposition dismissed the vote as marred by violations including ballot box theft. Provisional results in Africa’ second most populous nation are due later this week and few expect anything but a landslide for the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition, in power since ousting dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who took over after EPRDF’s long-serving leader Meles Zenawi died in 2012, has pushed on with EPRDF’s highly-centralised statist economic model credited with turning around the fortunes of a country once ravaged by war and famine.

Luxembourg: No comment from Juncker on foreigner voting rights | Luxemburger Wort

European Commission President and former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has refused to comment on the upcoming June 7 referendum and the foreigner voting rights question. Questioned about the issue by the “Luxemburger Wort”, Juncker did not comment, with his press office later issuing a statement that the Commission in principle thinks that it is important “to support the participation of EU citizens in the democratic life of the EU.” The statement does not, however, address the specific question at hand in Luxembourg.

Nigeria: Smartphones Galvanized Nigeria’s Younger Voters | VoA News

Of the more than 175 million people who live in Nigeria, 70 percent of them are young. And among those millions are more than 125 million mobile phone subscribers, the largest such market in Africa. So, as Nigeria turned to a crucial national election last month, a group of political activists selected a smartphone application might galvanize a few million of those citizens and guarantee a free and fair election in a nation not known for its transparency. Yemi Adamolekun is one of those who tapped that demographic with technology. Dressed in T-shirt and a trousers of Ankara fabric, Adamolekun walked briskly into Terra Kulture, a bookstore located in the high-brow area in Lagos State. Her simple clothing style and a natural hairdo underscore her no-nonsense approach to national affairs.

New Zealand: Online voting cost alarms councillors | Wanganui Chronicle

Wanganui district councillors have agreed to try and be among local authorities trialling online voting next year but not without expressing concerns about the cost involved. The Government wants to trial online voting as an option in the 2016 local body elections and councils wanting to be the guinea pigs have been asked to indicate their interest. Noeline Moosman, the Wanganui electoral officer, said the council had platforms in place to handle the online voting. And she said the district’s high voter turnout could be another plus.

Editorials: 2016 presidential campaigns chase money, with no cop on the beat | USAToday

Money has always been the dark force of politics, but it’s reaching a tipping point in the 2016 presidential election. Whoever wins will be more beholden than any recent predecessor to megadonors who write huge checks. Campaigns are skating up to, or over, ethical and legal lines to maximize the dollars. There’s little worry about prosecution, though. The agency set up to enforce campaign laws after the Watergate scandals in 1974 — the Federal Election Commission — is mired in partisan stalemate on major issues, meaning there’s effectively no cop on the beat. That leaves no one (except the news media) to police the flood of big money set loose by court decisions in 2010 that made it legal for corporations, labor unions and rich people to give unlimited amounts to “super PACs,” which can support candidates as long as they remain independent from them.