Oklahoma: Senator is seeking online voter registration | Associated Press

The new Democratic leader in the Oklahoma Senate said Thursday he will introduce a bill in 2015 to allow citizens to register to vote online, a move designed to increase voter participation in a state with traditionally poor voter turnout. State Sen. Randy Bass, D-Lawton, studied the issue with members of the Senate Rules Committee and received testimony from party officials and election experts. “We’re just trying to get in line with other states and get more people out to vote,” Bass said. “I think it will be safe and secure.” Rules Committee Chairwoman Sen. A.J. Griffin, R-Guthrie, said she would need to see cost estimates and have assurances the online database was secure before she agreed to grant the bill a hearing.

Editorials: Texas should learn from states that led in voter turnout | Elaine Ayala/San Antonio Express-News

Secretaries of state across the country have begun to report their voting statistics, and the United States Elections Project out of George Mason University is eagerly awaiting them. It will be deep into January, however, before its analysis will be completed. Already, however, indications are that history has repeated itself — the states that historically have done the best job of getting voters to the polls were on top again. Think Oregon, South Dakota, Alaska, Wisconsin and Maine. Texas is expected to come in at the bottom again with one of the lowest voter participation rates in the country. What do the best voting states do? It’s not too surprising. They’re liberal in their openness, having instituted same-day registration, or voting by mail, or in one of the most interesting cases (North Dakota) no voter registration at all. These high-turnout states share some characteristics. They have higher educational and income levels. They’re whiter and older, and many of them have had highly competitive elections in which no one party dominates. They’re states that UTSA political scientist Patricia Jaramillo has called “moralistic states,” which encourage participation, as opposed to “traditionalistic individualist states” that don’t encourage voting beyond those already engaged.

Virginia: King William’s voting machines are old enough vote | Tidewater Review

King William County’s first district polling center at the West Point Armory experienced technical difficulties on Election Day when one of the optical scan voting systems stopped working. The system, an AccuVote-OS central scanner and tabulator used to read paper ballots, reportedly stopped working when its scanner malfunctioned. A technician was able to repair the machine before polls closed at 7 p.m. Had a technician failed to repair the scanner on election night, all paper ballots would have had to be counted by manual hand-count. King William County General Registrar Susan Mickens said all eight of the county’s scanners are aging and need to soon be replaced.

Bahrain: 13 female activists demanding anti-regime vote arrested | AFP

Bahraini authorities have arrested 13 women in a crackdown on activists calling for an anti-regime referendum during the upcoming parliamentary election, activists said on Sunday. Most of the arrests took place last week after the interior ministry accused activists of “preparing an anti-regime referendum on the day of the legislative elections,” one activist told AFP on condition of anonymity. Two of the women were released while the remaining 11 have been kept in custody for a week for questioning, the source said. Several men were also arrested, activists said, adding however that the majority of those held are women. King Hamad set elections for a new 40-seat lower house of parliament for November 22, the first such polls since 2011 Shiite-led protests calling for democratic reforms in the Sunni-ruled Gulf state. Municipal polls will be held simultaneously. Most opposition groups, led by the main Shiite bloc Al-Wefaq, have announced they will boycott the November polls.

Luxembourg: Country divided on foreigner voting rights | Luxemburger Wort

Half of Luxembourgers would support a move for foreign nationals to vote in national elections, the final segment of the Politmonitor survey suggests. The poll tests the waters ahead of the 2015 referendum, scheduled for June 7, in particular in relation to foreign resident voting rights, capping ministerial posts to 10 years and religious subsidies. On foreigner voting rights, 47 percent of Luxembourgers who responded to the survey said they would support a move allowing non-Luxembourg nationals the right to vote in legislative elections. They pledged their support provided that to be eligible, voters had resided within the country for at least 10 years and had previously participated in European elections in Luxembourg. Of the total group polled, nearly two thirds (62 percent) support this move, as did 80 percent of foreign residents.

Namibia: Africa’s first to use e-voting | AFP

In a first for Africa, Namibians will cast their ballots electronically in this month’s presidential and legislative polls, the election commission said Friday. Over 1 million voters, or just about half of the nation’s 2.3 million people, are due to vote on November 28. “I think it’s a big achievement for Namibia and the African continent at large,” Nontemba Tjipueja, chairwoman of the Electoral Commission of Namibia told AFP. She said the voting machines, imported from India, will help improve accuracy, speed up counting, eliminate human interference and cut down on spoiled ballots. “Results will come through the same day just after the closing of the polls,” she said, adding that final results will be announced within 24 hours.

Romania: Center-Right Mayor Scores Upset Win in Romania’s Presidential Runoff | Wall Street Journal

A center-right mayor scored an upset victory Sunday in Romania’s presidential runoff after the prime minister’s early lead evaporated in the wake of public anger over a marred first round of voting. Prime Minister Victor Ponta, a Social Democrat, conceded defeat to Klaus Iohannis, a former physics teacher turned politician who campaigned on strengthening the justice system and reducing the role of the state in the economy, which grew dramatically under Mr. Ponta. State debt has risen to about 40% of gross domestic product from 19% in 2009. During that time, economic growth has averaged about 1% annually.

Voting Blogs: After the Catalan vote, Spain needs to buy time | openDemocracy

An unparalleled participatory process, organized by the Catalan Government through militant volunteers, mobilized 2.3 million people across Catalonia on Sunday, November 9. In an election-style press conference that same evening, Catalonia’s regional president stated: “Today, the Catalan people have looked themselves in the mirror, and they liked what they have seen.” Narcissistic or not, it was a massive, civic demonstration of political will and determination, and the emotional part of it demonstrates how much this is also a matter of feelings, pride and dignity, but also love, and hate. Standing up for what they called their national “right to decide”, countless Catalans deeply felt an extraordinary patriotic emotion. Numerous people sported proudly their Catalan flags and yellow t-shirts recycled from previous mobilizations, happily standing in long lines across the country, and some hugged each other in tears when they cast their ballots. For an act of defiance of the Spanish state, it was an amazingly calm process, led by highly engaged and disciplined people. By all standards.

Tunisia: Presidential Elections in Tunisia | Associated Press

Campaign posters and banners for next week’s presidential elections have covered the walls of Tunisia’s cities and towns, papering over the flaking posters from the parliamentary elections just three weeks ago. The presidential campaign, featuring 25 competitors, kicked off in early November and it’s the first time since Tunisians overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 that they will choose their head of state through universal suffrage. If no candidate wins a majority Nov. 23, there will be a runoff between the top two vote-getters on Dec. 28. Alone among the countries that experienced the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, Tunisia’s transition has remained on track. The favorite to win is Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year-old veteran politician who served under Ben Ali and his predecessor Habib Bourguiba, and whose party won the most seats in parliament — 39 percent — in the October elections.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 10-16 2014

alabama_260National Journal took a look behind the scenes at those who run elections and the complexity of election administration. A computer science research and development firm published a paper that explains an attack against common home routers that would allow a hacker to intercept a PDF ballot and use another technique to modify a ballot before sending it along to an election authority. Voter turnout in the 2014 Midterm elections was the lowest since World War II and possibly also one of the four lowest-turnout elections since the election of Thomas Jefferson. Depressed turnout has been blamed on a wave of new election laws enacted by Republican statehouses since 2010 and research suggests that efforts to suppress voter turnout may have changed the outcomes of some of the closest races. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought by black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the state Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. Election watchdog groups are worried about the role electronically submitted ballots in Alaska might play in the state’s two tight federal elections. The Hartford Courant looked at mistakes that denied some voters the opportunity to vote in Connecticut, while new restrictive voter ID requirements are blamed for voter disenfranchisement in Texas. Voters in Romania held to the polls to choose a new President in a run-off election and over two million Catalans defied a Spanish court and voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence.

National: The Epic 2014 Frenzy Voters Never Saw | National Journal

It’s Oct. 17, three days before early voting commences in Texas, and about 20 election judges—the folks who oversee polling sites—are spread out around an oblong training room in the Travis County clerk’s building in Austin, listening to an hour-long, rapid-fire lecture by a trainer named Alexa Buxkemper. The walls are lined with paraphernalia that most Americans see just once every two or four years—stacks of ballots, voting machines, old-model laptops that still process voter information. “Pick the correct voter,” Buxkemper says, rattling off the basics. “Collect 100 percent of statements of residence. Fill out all the forms completely, legibly. Give every voter the right ballot style.” And then, more pointedly: “Always follow the steps in the manual—don’t wing it. I hate to say, ‘Don’t think, just follow the manual,’ but we have sat around and done the thinking. So follow these steps.” The election judges nod solemnly and scribble notes. Most are over 60, and they’ve been through similar trainings before. They’ve run the polls during tough elections before, too. But they are nervous. Finally, interrupting the trainer’s staccato marching orders, a woman raises her hand and asks what’s on everyone’s mind: “Can they change the law on us again after we start?”  “Don’t even ask that question!” Buxkemper says, only half-joking. “I would just say be ready for anything.” This fall, “be ready for anything” has become the credo of local election offices in Texas and several states like it, where legal challenges to new voting laws have resulted in a steady stream of court rulings that have confused voters and forced elections administrators to invent new procedures on the fly. In recent weeks, as the election judges know, Texas’s voter-ID law was ruled discriminatory and unconstitutional by a federal District judge—and then abruptly reinstated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. With fewer than 72 hours before polls open, the Supreme Court still hasn’t made a final call. The steps the election judges are being instructed to follow still could change by the time voters show up.

National: Internet Voting Hack Alters PDF Ballots in Transmission | Threatpost

Threats to the integrity of Internet voting have been a major factor in keeping the practice to a bare minimum in the United States. On the heels of the recent midterm elections, researchers at Galois, a computer science research and development firm in Portland, Ore., sent another reminder to decision makers and voters that things still aren’t where they should be. Researchers Daniel M. Zimmerman and Joseph R. Kiniry published a paper called “Modifying an Off-the-Shelf Wireless Router for PDF Ballot Tampering” that explains an attack against common home routers that would allow a hacker to intercept a PDF ballot and use another technique to modify a ballot before sending it along to an election authority. PDF ballots have been used in Internet voting trials in Alaska, and in New Jersey as an voting alternative for those displaced by Hurricane Sandy. The ballots are downloaded, filled out and emailed; the email is equivalent to putting a ballot into a ballot box. Election authorities then either print the ballots and count them by hand, or count them with an optical scanner. The Galois attack is by no means the only attack that threatens Internet voting; malware on a voter’s machine could redirect traffic or cause a denial of service condition at the election authority. But the attack described in the paper is certainly a much more quiet attack that the researchers say is undetectable, even in a forensics investigation.

National: We probably just saw one of the lowest-turnout elections in American history | The Washington Post

Turnout was low last week. Not “midterm low,” or “unusually low,” but “historically low.” As we noted on Monday, it was probably the lowest since World War II. But it was possibly also one of the four lowest-turnout elections since the election of Thomas Jefferson. You know, before there was such a thing as “Alabama.” The U.S. Election Project, run by Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, compiles data on voter turnout over time. It’s tricky to estimate voter turnout in the 1700s and 1800s, and McDonald explains on his site how the numbers are calculated. So comparing 2014 to 1804 (the Jefferson example) should be considered a rough comparison at best. … The figure for 2014, currently 36.3 percent, is not yet final. McDonaldexplains that, too, in his compilation of vote tallies from the states. These numbers are not percentages of registered voters, the common metric for evaluating turnout. Instead, McDonald compares the number of votes with the number of people in the state eligible to vote.

Editorials: Voter suppression laws are already deciding elections | Catherine Rampell/The Washington Post

Voter suppression efforts may have changed the outcomes of some of the closest races last week. And if the Supreme Court lets these laws stand, they will continue to distort election results going forward. The days of Jim Crow are officially over, but poll-tax equivalents are newly thriving, through restrictive voter registration and ID requirements, shorter poll hours and various other restrictions and red tape that cost Americans time and money if they wish to cast a ballot. As one study by a Harvard Law School researcher found, the price for obtaining a legally recognized voter identification card can range from $75 to $175, when you include the costs associated with documentation, travel and waiting time. (For context, the actual poll tax that the Supreme Court struck down in 1966 was just $1.50, or about $11 in today’s dollars.) Whatever the motivation behind such new laws — whether to cynically disenfranchise political enemies or to nobly slay the (largely imagined) scourge of voter fraud — their costs to voters are far from negligible.

National: Simple hack could alter Internet ballots | The Hill

Basic cyberattacks could tamper with electronically submitted ballots, leaving no trace behind, according to research from computer science firm Galois. On the heels of election watchdog groups criticizing Alaska’s use of ballots submitted online, Galois demonstrated that electronic ballots could be modified through simply hacking into home routers, which often have minimal security measures. “An off-the-shelf home Internet router can be easily modified to silently alter election ballots,” said the researchers, Daniel Zimmerman and Joseph Kiniry. A few states now allow voters to receive and return a ballot electronically. Election officials argue it is a way to increase voter participation, while technologists insist heightened turnout isn’t worth the high risk of fraud.

National: Voting rights battles will continue in runup to 2016 | USA Today

Supreme Court rulings forced last-minute changes in state voting procedures for the midterm elections across the country, but the battle over voting rules is far from over. Courts are still hearing arguments over voter ID and early voting laws, legal challenges that could reshuffle voting rules again before 2016, when a presidential election will probably increase voter turnout and long lines at polls. “The cases are not over,” says Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California-Irvine and author of the Election Law Blog. “In a number of states, restrictions, which have been on hold or which were scheduled to be phased in, will be in effect. More states will pass new restrictive voting rules. And some states may pass rules making it easier to vote.”

• In Ohio, legislation shortened early voting and eliminated “Golden Week,” a time period in which voters could register and early-vote on the same day. The Supreme Court upheld the changes for the midterm election, but the case challenging the law must go to trial in federal court.

Editorials: The Supreme Court Hears an Alabama Case on the Voting Rights Act | New York TImes

As long as politicians are entrusted with drawing legislative maps, they will use their pen to gain partisan advantage. Courts generally do not interfere with that process, but there are limits to this where race is involved. The problem is figuring out which motive — race or partisanship — underlies the redistricting. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered this issue in a thorny case that could have significant implications for the future of the Voting Rights Act. The main legal question before the justices was whether Alabama lawmakers had paid too much attention to race when they redrew the state’s district lines. The 1965 voting law requires states to create districts where minorities can elect candidates of their choice, specifically in places where whites and blacks tend to pick different candidates. That’s clearly the case in Alabama, where, in 2008, Barack Obama received 98 percent of the black vote and 10 percent of the white vote. The Constitution also requires that state legislative districts contain roughly equal populations.

Arizona: Ex-aide to Gabrielle Giffords faces recount in House race | Reuters

U.S. Representative Ron Barber, an Arizona Democrat who was an aide to Gabrielle Giffords, faces a recount after his Republican challenger finished the race for a congressional border district with 161 votes ahead of him. Tea Party favorite Martha McSally claimed a razor-thin victory over Barber, who was struck by gunfire alongside Giffords in the 2011 shooting rampage that killed six people and injured 13 outside a suburban Tucson supermarket. But Arizona law requires an automatic recount because the final tally in the Second Congressional District left the two candidates separated by less than 0.1 percent of the total, in this case fewer than 200 votes after the Nov. 4 election.

Connecticut: Election Day report card could lead to reform | WTNH

The state’s top election official say she wants the General Assembly to consider reforming the way elections are supervised. Every city and town has at least two Registrars of Voters with paid staff, but there always seems to be a major problem. The report card on last week’s election shows a lot of A’s in most towns, some B’s for minor problems, and a big red F in the Capitol City. Second-grade kids at the Gilead Hill Elementary School in Hebron got to participate in Democracy Thursday, unfortunately it’s the adults that are messing it up. The kids were drawing the names of 77 voting districts across the state for the annual post-election audit. State law requires that 10-percent of the state’s 763 voting precincts be audited after every election.

Florida: State Supreme Court: Release redistricting documents | News Service of Florida

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected a Republican political consultant’s efforts to keep his redistricting records private, promising to give the public its first glimpse of documents that helped lead to the state’s congressional districts being thrown out this summer. While different justices signed onto two separate opinions about the case, both found that Pat Bainter and his consulting firm, Data Targeting Inc., waited too long to claim that releasing some of the documents would violate his First Amendment rights. The documents were requested by voting-rights organizations challenging the state’s congressional districts. Writing for five members of the court, Justice Barbara Pariente used unusually harsh language to paint Bainter’s efforts as part of a monthslong stalling tactic as the battle over the congressional map played out in a Leon County court.

Illinois: Chicago election official fired | Chicago Sun Times

A Chicago election official has been fired in the aftermath of a contentious election that has resulted in a criminal probe of disruptive robocalls and complaints about “irregularities” in handling ballots in the state treasurer’s race. A division supervisor for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has been fired, said Jim Allen, a board spokesman. Allen would only say the person fired was a division supervisor and not “a top manager.”  He declined to say why the person was fired, saying it was a personnel issue.  But the firing comes amid complaints from the campaign of Republican candidate for state treasurer Tom Cross. A lawyer for the campaign wrote a letter to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners about “numerous irregularities identified by election monitors in the handling of ballots” for the Nov. 4 election.

Voting Blogs: Mississippi’s Newfound Frustration With Open Primaries | State of Elections

Mississippi garnered unexpected national attention this summer as its system of open primary voting became a contributor to the wider debate of how best to fairly and legitimately select candidates and representatives. If you haven’t been paying attention, Mississippi’s long running Republican Senator, Thad Cochran, came very close to losing his seat to Tea Party Conservative Chris McDaniel in a rather ugly, tight primary race. In an effort to overcome his challenger in a runoff election, Cochran strategically capitalized on Mississippi’s use of open primary voting by asking traditionally Democratic voters to support him in the primary runoff against his far more conservative opponent. In a state where Democrats’ primary voters turned out in less than half the number of participants as the Republican primary, Cochran’s gambit to garner those as-yet uncast primary votes could be considered borderline tactical genius. McDaniel and his supporters are pretty sure, however, that it should be considered less than legal.

Oklahoma: Election board denies special election | Associated Press

The Oklahoma Election Board on Wednesday certified the results of last week’s election despite a request by Democrats for a special election in the 2nd Congressional District where Democratic nominee Earl Everett died two days before the vote. After a closed-door session with attorneys from Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office, the three-member board returned to open session and certified the results based on the attorneys’ recommendation. Oklahoma Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax says state law in this case is pre-empted by federal law.

Vermont: Milne won’t seek recount, but isn’t conceding the race | Bennington Banner

Republican Scott Milne will not call for a recount of last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election, the candidate said Wednesday. Milne acknowledged that incumbent Gov. Peter Shumlin received the most votes of any candidate for governor, but opted not to concede. He left open the possibility of an appeal to the Legislature, which will formally elect the next governor because no candidate got a majority of the vote. Milne said he will talk next week about how he believes the Legislature should vote in January. He has denied claims that he is lobbying legislators to vote for him. Debate since the election has centered around whether lawmakers should vote for the candidate they choose or the one who won their legislative district. The Legislature has elected the first-place finisher in every instance since 1853.

Ireland: Irish emigrants should have right to vote, report says | The Irish Times

Voting rights should be extended to Irish citizens living abroad, an Oireachtas committee has recommended. In its Report on Voting Rights of Irish Citizens Abroad, to be published later today, the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs said “Irish emigrants should continue to have a stake in the future of their home country”. More than 120 countries around the world have provisions for their citizens abroad to cast a ballot, but Ireland does not currently allow emigrants to vote in presidential or Dáil elections. The Oireachtas committee review was prompted by criticism from the European Commission earlier this year, which said Ireland was “disenfranchising” its citizens living in other EU member states by not providing them voting rights in national elections. “Such disenfranchisement practices can negatively affect EU free movement rights,” it said.

Pakistan: Detailed plan sought: Panel asks for demo on voting machines | The Express Tribune

A sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms has asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to provide a practical demonstration of electronic voting machines (EVM) on November 17 before these can be woven into the country’s electoral laws. ECP officials on Thursday gave a briefing to the sub-committee on merits and demerits of using EVMs — an idea that the commission wants to implement in the next general elections due in 2018. The panel, holding its in-camera session, asked the ECP to bring the vendors who have prepared these machines for a practical demonstration in the next meeting scheduled on Monday. It has also asked ECP officials to come up with a detailed plan that should include the cost to implement electronic voting method and also a time-frame to implement the proposed system.

Voting Blogs: Catalonia referendum: a reality check | openDemocracy

First of all, let’s look at the facts. On November 9, an important cross-section of Catalan society went to vote. Was it a referendum? Or was it –as the Catalan government insisted – a “non-referendum consultation”? Technically it was neither. Instead, it was a kind of peaceful manifestation, a massive civic ceremony symbolically consisting of putting ballots inside of boxes. It did not meet even the most basic standards of an official referendum. It had no legal basis (and in fact had been suspended by Spain’s constitutional court), no list of registered voters, no impartial staff at voting booths, no legally bound electoral management bodies etc… If this were not enough, we found out on Monday that some voting venues would be open until….the end of the month! No this was something different: an original, massive, protest event. As such, it was highly successful, regardless of what the Spanish government says. They seem to be sticking to the ostrich’s approach.

Alabama: Justices Hear Black Lawmakers’ Challenge to Alabama Redistricting | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with the role race may play in drawing legislative maps. The issue was an old one, but the case had a novel twist: Wednesday’s challenge came from black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the state Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. Justice Antonin Scalia said things have changed in how voting rights cases are litigated. “You realize, I assume, that you’re making the argument that the opponents of black plaintiffs used to make here,” he told Richard Pildes, a lawyer for one set of challengers. The problem with the Alabama districts, Mr. Pildes said, was that the Republican-controlled Legislature had used “rigid racial quotas” in drawing district lines. “Racial quotas in the context of districting are a dangerous business,” he said. “They can be a way of giving minorities faced with racially polarized voting a fair opportunity to elect, but they can also be a way of unnecessarily packing voters by race in ways that further polarize and isolate us by race.”

Alaska: Electronic ballots raise concerns in outstanding Alaska races | The Hill

Election watchdog groups are worried about the role electronically submitted ballots in Alaska might play in the state’s two tight federal elections. Ballots returned online are vulnerable to cyberattacks and lack a proper paper trail, said government accountability advocate Common Cause and election oversight group Verified Voting. Alaska’s gubernatorial and Senate races have both dragged on long after Election Day, with opponents split by narrow margins. Early Wednesday, The Associated Press declared former Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan (R) the winner over incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), even though 30,000 ballots remain uncounted. Begich has yet to concede. Former Valdez, Alaska, Mayor Bill Walker (I) maintains a thin lead over incumbent Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R), although the race remains too close to call. If either race “is to be determined by ballots sent over the Internet, its legitimacy is in doubt,” said Verified Voting President Pamela Smith.

Connecticut: Anatomy Of A Flawed Election | Hartford Courant

At 4 a.m. on Election Day, a bleary-eyed group of poll workers walked into the Hartford town and city clerk’s office to check the last of more than 1,200 absentee voters off the voter registration lists. The task was routine; the time and day troublesome. The job, crucial to ensuring that absentee voters couldn’t show up Tuesday at city polling places and vote again, should have been mostly finished days earlier, city and state officials said. The last-minute scramble, completed less than an hour before polls were to open, was one in a series of lapses that led to some polling places not having registration lists when voting was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. As a result of the failure, voters were turned away, a judge ordered the extension of hours at two polling places and the state’s chief election official filed a complaint with the State Elections Enforcement Commission. Interviews show that the problems were widespread.