National: Unusual level of glitches at US polling stations reported on election day | The Guardian

As the United States went to the polls for the first time in 50 years without the full protection of the federal Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, lawyers and voter registration groups around the country reported an unusual level of irregularities and glitches at polling stations. The largest non-partisan voter protection coalition in the US received more than 12,000 calls to its hotline from people struggling to cast their ballot amid a slew of new voter-ID laws. The coalition of 150 groups led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said it has received an unusually high volume of distress calls from would-be voters to its eight call centers across the country. The top three states (in terms of the number of cries for help) were Florida – a state notorious for its long lines and historical voting interference – Georgia, and Texas. In Georgia, almost 1,500 calls had come in over the past two days and long lines were reported in Atlanta and several other urban centers. Many were from people who are among the 40,000 “disappeared” people who were registered to vote but whose details have not been transferred to voting rolls, a problem that was exacerbated on Tuesday by the secretary of state’s own voting website crashing, leaving voters in the dark about the location of their polling stations.

Editorials: Midterm Election Results 2014: Did Voter ID Laws Help Republicans Win The Senate Majority? | Howard Koplowitz /International Business Times

Thousands of voters in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia said they were unable to cast ballots in Tuesday’s midterm elections amid growing efforts by Republicans to stamp out voter fraud. The complaints suggest that a slew of laws passed in recent years by GOP lawmakers and blasted by critics as a modern-day poll tax aimed at suppressing Democratic turnout may have influenced the results in some of the nation’s most contested contents. In states that recently passed election reform laws, voters said they were turned away because they didn’t have photo identification or after they showed up at the wrong precinct. Voters also complained of long lines, faulty voting machines, language hurdles and confusion over voter requirements, according to the nonpartisan coalition Election Protection. In all, the nonprofit fielded 18,000 complaints, a 30 percent increase from 2010, according to the Seattle Post‑Intelligencer. Republicans have led efforts in recent years to require photo identification and reduce or eliminate early voting or same-day voter registration because of alleged incidents of voter fraud. But critics argue that the laws suppress voter turnout of key Democratic demographics, including low-income, black, Hispanic, female and young voters.

Arizona: McSally leads Barber by 36 votes; recount set for early Cochise County ballots | KGUN

Republican challenger Martha McSally grabbed a 36-vote lead overnight against Democratic incumbent Rep. Ron Barber in the rematch of a congressional race decided by less than one percent of the vote in 2012. McSally trailed Rep. Barber after the initial early ballot numbers from Congressional District 2 were released Tuesday night. But those numbers did not include early ballots from Cochise County, the conservative portion of District 2 McSally won with 59 percent of the vote in 2012. Late Tuesday night the Cochise County elections website posted this message: “Due to technical difficulties the early ballot counting machine did not match the hand count. Therefore, early ballots are in the process of being delivered to Graham County where they will be counted by their equipment.”

Connecticut: Voters Reject Constitutional Amendment for Early Voting | CT News Junkie

Connecticut voters appear to have rejected a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would have eased restrictions on absentee voting. With 90 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday afternoon, 441,469 — or 53 percent — voted “no” on the ballot question, outnumbering the 395,309 — or 47 percent — who voted “yes.” Final figures were not available as of late Wednesday afternoon. Had it passed, the amendment would have given the legislature the authority to pass laws that would allow “no excuse” absentee voting, or allowing polls to be open on the Saturday before elections. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, advocates said changing the Constitution could increase voter turnout by allowing people to vote early and make voting more accessible. Opponents feared the change would lead to voter fraud and endanger the state’s election process. With the amendment’s defeat, current restrictions will stand: absentee voting is allowed only when a voter is sick on Election Day, outside the district, serving in the military, or has a religious obligation that keeps him or her from the polls.

Illinois: City, county election consolidation wins on third try | Journal Star

The third time was a charm for the vote to consolidate city and county election commissions. Voters decided to create an Peoria County Election Commission out of the Peoria City Election Commission and the portion of the Peoria County Clerk’s Office that handles the county’s polling places. Voters approved the referendum with 25,589 votes in favor, or 53 percent, and 23,026 votes opposed, or 47 percent. “I’m pleased that it passed,” said Peoria County Board Member Allen Mayer, who represents District 6. “I look forward to working with everyone in the next couple of months to transition to a countywide election commission.” The vote totals reflected different desires in the county and the city.

Mississippi: Hinds County election official takes blame for ballot shortage | WAPT

A Hinds County election commissioner is taking the blame after several polling places ran out of ballots on election night. Election officials said 35 to 40 polling locations in Hinds County ran out of paper ballots before the polls closed at 7 p.m. “I usually zip right in and right out, but not tonight. I’m going to sit here until I vote,” voter Susanna Green said Tuesday night. “Most of these people are taking it very nicely. They are, as you can see, sitting around waiting for the ballots to show up,” said poll worker Sandy Wilkerson. Connie Cochran, the District 4 election commissioner, apologized Wednesday to voters who were inconvenienced. Scores of voters were forced to stand in line, some for more than an hour, waiting for more ballots to be brought in.

Montana: State Votes To Keep Same-Day Voter Registration | MTPR

Montanans rejected efforts to curb late voter registration Tuesday. The legislative referendum, LR-126, would have ended the ability for people to register to vote as late as Election Day, which has been allowed in Montana since 2006. With 78 percent of precincts in, the Associated Press reported that 56 percent had voted to keep same-day registration and 44 percent had voted to end it. The measure was sponsored by Sen. Alan Olson, a Republican from Roundup, who says he introduced it because late registrants cause problems for volunteers at polling places and create long lines.

North Carolina: Recount possible in North Carolina Supreme Court race | News Observer

Despite an effort by the Republican State Leadership Committee to influence the Supreme Court races in North Carolina, the three candidates targeted by the organization emerged as victors. Democrats Cheri Beasley, Sam Ervin IV and Robin Hudson won their races for seats on the bench of the state’s highest court. Hudson, an incumbent targeted in a spring attack ad funded largely by the Republican State Leadership Committee, and Ervin each received more than 52 percent of the vote. Ervin, a N.C. Court of Appeals judge who ran an unsuccessful bid for a high court seat in 2012, collected more votes than Bob Hunter, a former colleague on the state appeals court.

Oregon: Voters reject change to state’s “top-two” primary system | Associated Press

Oregon voters on Tuesday rejected a big change to the state’s primary election system. They voted down Measure 90, a proposal to scrap Oregon’s current primary-election system in favor of a “top-two” format. Currently, only Democrats vote in the Democratic primary, and only Republicans vote in the Republican primary. In a top-two system, all primary candidates are on single ballot, and all registered voters can participate. The top two vote-getters then advance to the general election, even if they are from the same party.

Vermont: Legislature to decide Vermont governor’s race  | Associated Press

Vermont’s 2014 gubernatorial election appears headed for a decision in 2015, with incumbent Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin holding a narrow lead over Republican Scott Milne but not the majority needed to keep the decision from going to the Legislature. With all but a handful of precincts reporting early Wednesday, Shumlin had won about 47 percent of the vote. Milne had about 45 percent, with five other candidates accounting for the balance. Under Vermont’s Constitution, if no candidate for governor, lieutenant governor or treasurer gets an outright majority, the election goes to the Legislature Democrats are expected to maintain control of both houses, but the Legislature nearly always chooses the plurality winner in a gubernatorial election — the last time it didn’t was in 1853. That’s happened 23 times before — including in 2010, when Shumlin got 49.5 percent of the vote to 47.7 percent for the Republican, then-Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie.

Virginia: Election officials look into machine glitches | The Washington Post

Virginia election officials were gathering information Wednesday about a glitch that affected 32 voting machines in the southeastern part of the state, a Department of Elections spokeswoman said. Rose Mansfield said that once all the information is received, the head of the department will conduct a complete review and will likely present a report on Tuesday’s troubles to the State Board of Elections. “Our voting technology specialists are working on it,” Mansfield said, adding that the priority is to get the right answers about what went wrong on Election Day. The faulty machines are a fraction of the 820 touchscreen devices that were used in the affected precincts, most of them in Virginia Beach. They were taken out of service after voters complained that they tried to vote for one candidate, but the machine attempted to record the vote for another. Mansfield said all the machines were calibrated and tested before the election.

Lebanon: Lawmakers delay elections, sparking dismay, anger among voters | The Washington Post

Lebanon’s frenetic but relatively functional democracy suffered what many here describe as an ominous setback as lawmakers decided Wednesday to postpone parliamentary elections for the second time in less than two years. Amid fears of rising instability linked to the civil war in next-door Syria, Lebanon’s 128-member legislative body voted overwhelmingly to extend its mandate for an additional two years and seven months. The elections had already been pushed back from June 2013 because of similar security concerns. Recent attacks by militants linked to the Syrian conflict have shaken the fragile sectarian balance in Lebanon, where a 15-year civil war ended in 1990. Rights groups and activists warned that the vote’s postponement could sow further instability in one of the few democracies in the Middle East, a region beset by chaos and dominated by monarchies and authoritarian leaders.

Ukraine: Analysts say separatist election results rigged | Kyiv Post

While Russia hailed the Nov. 2 elections held by Ukraine’s Kremlin-backed separatists as a legitimate expression of popular will, more evidence has piled up in recent days that the results of the elections had been rigged. Other reported problems with the elections: not being held in accordance with Ukrainian and international law, the absence of independent observers, the removal of all major competitors of the incumbent leaders from the race, the distribution of vegetables at polling stations and the lack of media freedom. On top of that, separatist guards wielding assault rifles at polling stations were seen by some commentators as intimidating. Others criticized the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic for artificially decreasing the number of polling stations to a minimum, causing long lines intended to demonstrate a high turnout on Russian television. The governments of the unrecognized republics were not available for comment.

Tunisia: Arab Spring Alive in Tunisia as Power Transfers Peacefully | Businessweek

Like the rest of Egypt, Tahrir Square in Cairo is off-limits nowadays to the protesters who made it famous three years ago. Its Tunisian equivalent is still open for business. In the run-up to the North African country’s parliamentary election last week, Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis hosted rallies by major parties. Islamists and leftists were among groups sharing the tree- and café-lined boulevard, marking out their own spaces for rival campaign events. Violent upheaval and even civil war have followed the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria in 2011. Tunisia, where that wave of unrest began, showed that it’s on a different trajectory when Islamists agreed to cede power peacefully after losing the latest vote. The Tunisian exception, analysts say, results from a less meddlesome army, more flexible politicians, and an absence of the external interference that countries deemed more important were subjected to.

Ukraine: Merkel, Juncker Say EU’s Russia Sanctions to Stay After Eastern Ukraine Elections | Wall Street Journal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the new European Commission president said there was no prospect in sight of scaling back sanctions on Russia, maintaining a tough stance after Moscow embraced the results of a separatist election in eastern Ukraine. Ms. Merkel said in Berlin on Wednesday that the European Union should consider expanding its sanctions list to include the winners of Sunday’s local voting. The EU, Kiev and the U.S. have refused to recognize the elections and said that Russia’s refusal to condemn them are a breach of a September cease-fire. “We should also have another look at the list of specific individuals who now have responsibility in eastern Ukraine due to these illegitimate elections,” Ms. Merkel told reporters. “Otherwise I think we should maintain the sanctions we have.”

National: Preliminary Turnout Numbers Are Way Down From 2010 And 2012 | FiveThirtyEight

We don’t know final turnout numbers for Tuesday’s elections for the same reason we don’t have official winners in the Senate races in Alaska and Virginia: Ballots remain uncounted. Nonetheless, enough data is in for Michael P. McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida, to make preliminary estimates of turnout. And what they show is a steep decline from recent national elections. McDonald estimates that just 36.6 percent of Americans eligible to vote did so for the highest office on their ballot. That’s down from 40.9 percent in the previous midterm elections, in 2010, and a steep falloff from 58 percent in 2012.

National: As New Rules Take Effect, Voters Report Problems in Some States | New York Times

Some longtime voters in Texas reported on Tuesday that they were refused a ballot because they lacked newly required photo identification. In North Carolina, voters who showed up at the wrong precinct were unable to vote, reflecting a new policy. And in Georgia, hundreds of frustrated people called a hotline to say they were unsure if their voter registrations had been processed, some of the thousands of would-be new voters who reportedly faced uncertainty. In many cases, the accounts seemed to reflect concerns raised by civic groups and civil rights leaders that new photo identification requirements in several states and cutbacks in early voting and same-day registration in others would deter significant numbers of people from participating in the elections. Most of the new policies were adopted by Republican legislatures in the name of electoral integrity, even though evidence of voter fraud has been negligible. They are opposed by Democrats who say tighter rules are aimed at discouraging minorities, poor people and college students, groups that tend to prefer Democrats, from voting. Many of the changes adopted in recent years “will make it harder for millions of Americans to participate,” said Wendy R. Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. “But the problems of disenfranchisement don’t show up in a visible way,” Ms. Weiser added. “It’s people who don’t show up, or someone’s who’s turned away.”

National: U.S. voters contend with new voting rules in 14 states | Reuters

U.S. voters in 14 states are navigating new laws that critics say make it harder for lower-income and minority voters, who typically back Democrats, to cast ballots in the midterm elections. Advocacy groups across the country are gearing up to help voters contend with cutbacks in early voting and new state requirements for voter identification, which the mostly Republican sponsors say are necessary to combat voter fraud. Democrats and civil rights groups counter there is scant evidence of fraud, and say the measures are a Republican effort to depress turnout by Democratic-leaning demographic groups such as the young, poor and minorities. The laws are the latest in a wave of voting restrictions instituted by Republican-controlled legislatures and Republican governors since the party’s big election gains in 2010. Many are being used for the first time in a national election on Tuesday, after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2013 invalidated a section of the Voting Rights Act that required areas with a history of racial discrimination, mainly in the U.S. South, to get federal approval for changes to voting laws.

National: Voting machine, ID problems crop up in U.S. elections | Reuters

Voting machine and voter identification problems emerged in some U.S. states on Tuesday when Americans went to the polls in midterm elections that will shape the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Although a full picture of the problems was not yet clear, officials and voting rights advocates reported machine failures in North Carolina and Texas, polling breakdowns in a key Florida county and an overall increase in the number of people reporting they were turned away for lack of proper identification. “It all points to problems we need to solve,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the non-partisan Brennan Center Democracy Program. In North Carolina, where a strict election law barring provisional voting outside a voter’s normal precinct was upheld last month by the U.S. Supreme Court, voting was briefly halted at one precinct after officers responded to an altercation between voters and election officials, according to the state’s Democratic Party. There were also reports of voting machines in Columbus County that were down but later fixed, said Election Protection, a non-partisan voting rights group.

National: Voting monitors report complaints in states with new voter ID laws | Los Angeles Times

Poll monitors and voting rights groups reported thousands of questions and complaints during the early hours of voting in the first major national election since the Supreme Court overturned key aspects of the Voting Rights Act. The Election Protection Coalition, composed of civil society activists and lawyers, reported receiving more than 14,000 calls to its election day hotline from voters asking for registration information and to report complaints about mistreatment at the polls. That tally, through 5 p.m. EST, was higher than the total number of calls they received during the last midterm election in 2010, the group said. “Today and for the past several weeks during early voting, we have been witnessing the most unfair, discriminatory and confusing election landscape in almost 50 years,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a member of the coalition. The most complaints came from Georgia, Florida and Texas, the group said. All three states have some form of voter identification law.

National: How Facebook Could Skew an Election | The Atlantic

Open Facebook today and you’ll see a public service announcement of sorts. “It’s Election Day,” proclaims the text. “Share that you’re voting in the U.S. Election and find out where to vote.” Then Facebook offers you a button to do that sharing: “I’m a Voter.” To entice you to Vote (or, at least, click that button), Facebook listed a couple friends’s names and some profile pictures, and told me that 1.8 million other people had already done the same. (Which is a little staggering, since polls hadn’t even opened on the West Coast yet.) This civic-minded setup has become an election-day tradition on the website. Some form of the “I Voted!” button has appeared on the page for every major U.S. election since 2008. You vote, then you tell Facebook about it, exhorting your friends to engage in their civic duty. These buttons, though, have also always been part of experiments. The voting button in 2010, for instance, was part of a study later published as “a 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization.” That study found that the voting button could shape who actually voted to a significant degree: If you’re told your friends have voted, you’re 0.39 percent more likely to vote than someone who hasn’t. Facebook believes that in 2010, its election-day module was responsible for more than 600,000 additional votes.

National: America’s Long, Weird Search for the Perfect Voting Machine | Gizmodo

Millions of Americans will vote today, and for the first time in years, many of them will use paper ballots. For a nation that’s produced some of the most advanced machines in the world, we’ve had a hell of a time figuring out one of the most important. However you vote today, take a second (and make sure your machine isn’t switching your vote) to consider just how massive a project elections are: Over a single day, millions of Americans filter through gyms, fire halls, and community center to vote, creating individual data points in all are analyzed over the course of a few hours. It’s a remarkable project of numbers and engineering, and it helps to explain why voting is still evolving two centuries after the first American election. To get a sense of how many iterations and failures have plagued voting day, look no further than the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which helpfully pulled some of the more notable machines from its archives today, adding, “as Americans embrace their Constitutional right to vote, they’ll have IP all around them.” If you go all the way back in the USPTO’s archives, you’ll find dozens of patents for “improvements to ballot boxes,” to outsmart ballot stuffers. According to Richard Bensel’s The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, intimidation was common in polling places across the country, where Americans would cast their votes amongst their peers.

National: Voter ID Laws Sowed Confusion Tuesday, Lawyers Report | National Law Journal

Civil rights lawyers monitoring polls across the country on Tuesday reported some confusion in states where contested voter identification laws were in effect. In Texas, where the state’s voter ID law faces a court challenge, voters reported receiving contradictory information about what types of identification they could show at the polls, according to Nicole Austin-Hillery of the Brennan Center for Justice. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that Texas officials could enforce the law while a court challenge was pending. In Virginia, there were inconsistencies in how poll workers implemented the state’s voter ID law, according to Hope Amezquita of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia; this was the first statewide election with the law in effect. Amezquita said her team fielded reports from two counties about voters showing up without identification who weren’t provided with provisional ballots, which should have happened. “There are people out there who did not vote and should have been offered the opportunity,” Amezquita said. “If it’s happening and we’re hearing about it, it’s probably happening elsewhere and we’re not hearing about it.” Vicky McPherson, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig who was coordinating lawyers monitoring polls through the National Bar Association, reported situations in which Virginia voters were asked to provide supplemental identification when they weren’t legally required to do so. She said her team was in touch with state officials to make sure they were giving poll workers proper instructions.

National: With new voter laws, fears persist of fraud | McClatchy

With several key elections potentially hinging on razor-thin margins, Americans went to the polls Tuesday in 34 states with new voting laws that critics fear will adversely impact minority turnout and proponents say are needed to protect against voter fraud. The new laws – ranging from photo identification requirements to restrictions on same-day registration – brought increased scrutiny Tuesday from the two major political parties, civic groups, voting rights advocates and the Justice Department, almost all deploying monitors and lawyers to polling stations to look out for voting problems. “It’s the new normal since 2000,” said Richard Hasen, a law and politics professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “The Voting Wars: From 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown.” “Some of this is legitimate fear, some of it is a way of getting the base wound up and (to) raise funds.” From the moment polls opened ‑ and in some cases before ‑ reports of voting irregularities began. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s election protection program reported more than 12,000 calls to its hotline – the bulk of them from Florida, Georgia, Texas, New York and North Carolina.

Editorials: Online voting rife with hazards | Barbara Simons/USA Today

Today Americans are voting in an election that could shift control of the U.S. Senate and significantly impact the direction our nation will take in the next few years. Yet, 31 states will allow over 3 million voters to cast ballots over the Internet in this election, a practice that computer security experts in both the federal government and the private sector have warned is neither secure nor trustworthy. Most states’ online voting is limited to military and overseas voters, but Alaska now permits all voters to vote over the Internet. With a hotly contested Senate seat in Alaska, the use of an online voting system raises serious concerns about the integrity of Alaska’s election results. Alaska’s State Election Division has even acknowledged that its “secure online voting solution” may not be all that secure by posting this disclaimer on its website: “When returning the ballot through the secure online voting solution, your are [sic] voluntarily waving [sic] your right to a secret ballot and are assuming the risk that a faulty transmission may occur.” Unfortunately, faulty transmission is only one of the risks of Internet voting. There are countless ways ballots cast over the Internet can be hacked and modified by cyber criminals.

Editorials: Why we don’t have online voting (and won’t for a long while) | Michael Cochrane/World Magazine

Society deems the voting process so important that it must be 100 percent reliable. We may tolerate failures with our cars and computers, but not our elections. The degree to which an election is free and fair is the very heart of our representative form of democracy in the United States. Technological advancements that might make the voting process more efficient or convenient could also chip away at that integrity, which requires a voting system that is available, secure, and verifiable. At an early October panel discussion on internet voting hosted by the Atlantic Council, Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, addressed voting system availability. “If the equipment should happen to break down, you need something else to vote on to replace it. Otherwise people are disenfranchised by that malfunction,” she said. … “Any voting system that you use has to be able to demonstrate clearly to the loser and their supporters that they lost,” Smith said. “And to do that, you need actual evidence. Voters need to be able to see that their votes were captured the way that they meant for them to be and election officials need to be able to use that evidence to demonstrate that votes were counted correctly.”

Editorials: Dangers of Internet Voting | Kurt Hyde/New American

Yesterday’s USA Today had an article entitled “Internet Voting ‘not ready for prime time.'” The story quotes Verified Voting as saying that there are about three million people eligible to vote online in today’s elections, most of them members of the military. Numerous security risks are cited that are inherent in Internet voting. Readers of The New American have often been warned about the dangers of Internet voting. For instance, the October 9, 2000 issue carried an article entitled “Voting on the Web,” in which readers were told of the dangers to electoral integrity due to the inherent insecurity of the Internet. … There are a great number of security weaknesses in Internet voting: no voter-verified paper audit trail, denial of service attacks, spoofing, eavesdropping by servers along the way capturing people’s passwords and enabling verification of vote selling, just to name a few. There are also security weaknesses in the user devices such as laptops or smart phones. They include key-stroke monitors, stored passwords, and many others. There are numerous special interests in both the United  States and foreign counties for whom the outcome of our elections is of major importance. They have the resources to exploit these security weaknesses, and it’s well worth their investment.

Editorials: Elections benefit from states’ use of technology | David Becker/Boston Herald

One thing this election cycle has taught us is that although recent court battles and political arguments over voter identification laws, gerrymandering, and the Voting Rights Act tend to grab the headlines, election officials across the political spectrum are improving how well elections actually work by implementing some of the technological improvements the private sector has been using for years. Consumers — in this case, voters — want the convenience, accessibility, and mobility offered by new technologies. This has led to a quiet revolution in red and blue states alike that has made the voting process more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient. After all, we’re accustomed to using our smartphones and laptops to pay bills, book flights, and scan the news. So why not use them to register to vote or find out where to cast a ballot? A great example of this approach is online voter registration. Four years ago, citizens in only eight states, representing 12 percent of eligible voters nationwide, could register online. But as of the end of September 2014 — with registration deadlines rapidly approaching — almost 110 million of the approximately 225 million eligible U.S. voters were living in the 20 states that now offer online registration. This innovation was driven not by political partisans but by professional election administrators; pioneered by Republican election officials in Arizona and then Washington, online voter registration is now offered by states as red as Kansas and Georgia, and as blue as California and Maryland.

Editorials: A case for compulsory voting | Ruth Marcus/The Washington Post

A thought experiment in the election’s aftermath: What if, instead of focusing on making it harder for people to vote, we made voting mandatory? Indulge me in a rant against the phantom menace of voter fraud. The efforts to suppress it are barely disguised Republican moves to hold down minority votes that would, presumably, go to Democrats. This year, the Supreme Court allowed a new Texas voter-ID law to proceed despite a lower court judge’s finding that it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax that could disenfranchise 600,000 registered voters, about 4.5 percent of the total. This in low-turnout Texas, with voting participation rates near the bottom of a country with overall anemic turnout. Pivot to Australia, one of 11 countries that have, and enforce, mandatory voting, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and the nation most culturally similar to the United States.

Connecticut: Hartford Voting Issues Result in Parties Waging Midday Court Battle | Connecticut Law Tribune

Gov. Dannel Malloy has asked a judge grant an emergency injunction that would give voters an extra hour to cast ballots at Hartford’s polling places after the governor’s campaign said an early-morning snafu “discouraged” people from voting. A judge will hear arguments from both Democrats and Republicans, who are expected to oppose the extended polling times, at a 2:30 p.m. hearing in Hartford Superior Court. The complaint was filed by attorneys William Bloss, of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, and James Wade, of Robinson & Cole on behalf of Malloy, who is running against Republican Tom Foley in a rematch of their hotly contested election in 2010. The request for extended voting hours echoes a controversial request made four years ago, when Democrats persuaded a judge to keep Bridgeport polls open late after city voting officials ran out of ballots. On Tuesday, Malloy’s campaign filed a complaint in Hartford Superior Court just after noon. Malloy has asked a judge to intervene after he says at least a dozen of the city’s polling places didn’t open at 6 a.m. as required by state law. At nine of those locations, voters were forced to wait for up to 90 minutes “with no certainty as to when the polls would be able to be opened,” according to the complaint because voter registrations lists were not ready when polls opened.