Voting Blogs: Can Judicial Candidates Solicit Money? | Andrew Cohen/Brennan Center for Justice

Last week, before they convened again at oral argument to mark the start of another term, the justices of the United States Supreme Court selected for review a case that will help further define the murky relationship between state judges and those who seek to shape justice before them. In Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, the Court will decide whether a state judicial canon that requires judicial candidates to seek campaign contributions through a committee, rather than directly from donors, violates that candidate’s first amendment free-speech rights. The case is interesting in its own right. The electioneering judgment employed by this particular judicial candidate was so disconcerting it’s probably a good thing for the law (not to mention the litigants of Florida) that ultimately she lost the election for which she was campaigning. But the timing of the case is interesting, too. It comes to the Court in a season of unprecedented spending on (mid-term) judicial campaigns all across the country—money unleashed upon campaigns, including judicial elections, because of the Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions.

Alaska: Translators scramble to meet election deadline | Juneau Empire

Translators are scrambling this week to meet a Friday deadline ordered by a federal judge to provide outreach and poll workers with election materials and voting information that have been translated into Yup’ik or Gwich’in. Gwich’in translators Allan Hayton and Marilyn Savage in Fairbanks are finding the work challenging, KUAC reported. “Some of it is very technical language, legal jargon,” Hayton said. But Hayton and Savage are up to the task, having translated other materials, including Shakespeare, according to Hayton. “Marilyn and I worked last year translating King Lear into Gwich’in, so we’re used to difficult challenges but we’re happy to do this.”

Colorado: State readies for inaugural vote-by-mail general election | KRDO

Election Day less than a month away and changes await Colorado voters. This November marks the first time a general election in the Centennial State will be all vote-by-mail. “All I know is I get something in the mail and I fill it out and send back in,” Colorado Springs voter Amanda Martinez said. “This is my first year voting.” “Before you used to have to opt in to get a mail ballot,” Ryan Parsell with the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office said. “Well, now everybody is opted in. As long as your registration is current, you should get a mail ballot around the middle of October.”

Georgia: Leaders worry over 42,000 missing voters | Henry Daily Herald

Just one week away from the start of early voting, at least 42,000 residents who registered to vote still haven’t been given that right. Some applied as far back as April. “The Secretary of State is supposed to represent all the people — Democrats, Republicans, Independents, registered and unregistered voters alike,” Congressman John Lewis said Monday, during a press conference hosted by the New Georgia Project in Atlanta. “But it seems like the Secretary of State of Georgia has picked sides in this election. It seems he is not on the side of the people of this state.” Stacey Abrams, the Democratic party leader in the state House of Representatives, leads the New Georgia Project, an initiative that aims to register minority groups to vote. The initiative was successful in registering 86,000 new voters — but Abrams said the group can’t understand why half those new voters haven’t shown up on Georgia’s official list of registered voters, yet.

Missouri: Huge Increase In Voter Registrations In Ferguson Apparently Never Happened | TPM

Last week, numerous news outlets, national and local, reported on a huge increase in registered voters in Ferguson, Mo., following the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown. But it apparently didn’t actually happen. The St. Louis County elections board reported that 3,287 Ferguson residents had registered to vote. That is a huge surge for a city of 21,000, particularly as controversy swelled about the racial make-up of the city government after the shooting. Ferguson is two-thirds African-American, but its mayor and all but one member of the six-person city council are white. But apparently that first report was in error. There was no voter registration spike. The county elections board reversed course on Tuesday and said that, actually, only 128 people had registered to vote since the shooting. Yamiche Alcindor of USA Today reported on the gigantic revision, attributed to an unexplained “discrepancy.”

North Carolina: Same-day voter registration restored – at least for now | Associated Press

North Carolina is moving ahead with plans to comply with an appeals court ruling that restores same-day registration and counting out-of-precinct ballots for the fall election, a state attorney told a federal judge Tuesday. But members of civil rights groups that sued to restore the activities told U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder the State Board of Elections has to do a better job of letting voters know they will be happening. The board’s website contains inaccurate information, including that “voters who appear at the wrong precinct won’t have their votes counted,” said Allison Riggs, a staff attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. She said that will cause “confusion among voters.” “These are things that can be easily changed and should be changed by this afternoon,” she said.

Ohio: Early voting begins in Ohio following dispute | Associated Press

Early voting began Tuesday morning in Ohio after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into a dispute over the schedule, pushing the start date back a week in the swing state. Voters will pick the next governor along with other statewide officeholders on Nov. 4. Residents also will decide a number of legislative races and the outcome of more than 1,600 local issues. Ohioans can cast an absentee ballot by mail or in person. The start of early voting had shifted amid a lawsuit over two election-related measures.

South Carolina: Richland County Elections Board chairwoman: ‘I am not confident’ in voting machine security | ColaDaily.com

The first meeting of the new Richland County Elections and Voter Registration Board on Tuesday included confusion over rules and a dispute over the security of the county’s voting machines. The meeting opened with state Sen. John Scott swearing in the board’s four new members, appointed by legislators after a recent shake-up. The board then elected new member Marjorie Johnson as chairwoman in a 4-0 vote with the other nominee, Pete Kennedy, abstaining. The board’s lone veteran, Adell Adams, was elected vice chairwoman in a 3-2 vote after a motion by Jane Dreher Emerson to postpone that vote was defeated. Johnson initially abstained in the vote for a vice chairperson, and confusion ensued over whether the chairwoman should always vote or if she should vote only when needed to break a tie. Adams said the chairwoman always voted and was not allowed to abstain. When Johnson questioned this, Adams said, “We have five votes. We always vote.” Johnson then voted for Adams as vice chairwoman, breaking the tie. The board did not consult any rules or bylaws concerning the powers of the chairwoman.

Virginia: Congressional Map Struck Down by Federal-Court Panel | Wall Street Journal

A federal-court panel on Tuesday struck down Virginia’s congressional map, ruling the state’s last redistricting effort relied too heavily on race in drawing boundaries. The 2-1 ruling, from a Virginia federal court, sided with challengers who said the Virginia election map packed black voters too heavily into one district, reducing their influence in other state districts. The federal judges, sitting as a special election review panel, didn’t require the state to change its map for the midterm elections, which are just weeks away. Instead, the judges said Virginia lawmakers should act “within the next legislative session” to draw new electoral districts. At issue was Virginia’s Third Congressional District, which includes parts of Richmond. The black voting-age population after the redistricting makes up about 56% of the district, according to the court’s opinion. The court described the district as an oddly shaped composition of a “disparate chain” of predominantly black communities.

Wisconsin: Court upholds Wisconsin voter ID law as SCOTUS mulls case | MSNBC

Whether to allow Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law for this fall’s election is up to the Supreme Court – a decision that could come any day. But on Monday, an appeals court gave the law’s backers a big lift. A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit issued a ruling upholding the law. It was the same panel of all-Republican appointees that last month removed a district court judge’s injunction on the law, leading voting rights groups to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. The 23-page ruling, written by Judge Frank Easterbrook, finds that the law is constitutional and does not violate the Voting Rights Act’s (VRA) ban on racial discrimination. The opinion is striking for its blithe tone in upholding a law that could disenfranchise many thousands. One prominent election law scholar called it “horrendous.” Still, the ruling could give the Supreme Court an additional reason to keep the ID measure in place. Courts tend to be less willing to overturn a full ruling on the merits than a more quickly issued order, which is all that the appeals panel had previously offered. And since Wisconsin has until 5 p.m. Tuesday to make its case to the Supreme Court, the ruling could also give state lawyers some helpful tips for making its case.

Editorials: What an Election Year Looks Like in Brazil | Jake Flanagin/New York Times

“President Dilma Rousseff emerged on Sunday as the front-runner in one of the most tightly contested presidential elections since democracy was re-established in Brazil in the 1980s,” reports Simon Romero for The New York Times. However, “she failed to win a majority of the vote, opening the way for a runoff with Aécio Neves, the pro-business scion of a powerful political family.” What’s so special about this election? Well, whoever wins will be running what was, until recently, “Latin America’s colossus,” according to David Biller of Bloomberg View. “Brazil’s economic growth has slowed to its weakest three-year pace in a decade, advancing just 2.1 percent on average from 2011 through 2013,” he explains. “In the first half of 2014, it entered technical recession. The currency has fallen 33 percent since President Dilma Rousseff rose to power in 2011. Business confidence in July reached the lowest level in more than a decade. Sovereign debt was downgraded on March 24 for the first time in that period.”

Bulgaria: Bulgarians and preferential voting: shift happens | The Sofia Globe

Bulgarians appear to have taken to preferential voting with a passion, with more than third who voted in the country’s October 5 elections using their right to re-arrange the order of candidates of the party of their choice. Going by provisional figures released by the Central Election Commission, about 34 per cent of those who voted exercised preferential voting – more than 1.1 million people. Preferential voting was brought into Bulgarian law by the rewritten Election Act that was approved in March 2014. Voters’ first chance to use it was in Bulgaria’s May 2014 European Parliament elections, with the most celebrated case involving the Bulgarian Socialist Party. In the May vote, then-party leader Sergei Stanishev was shoved down the list to be replaced by the candidate who was 15th on the list. Momchil Nekov, hitherto obscure, became the toast of those amused by the BSP’s misfortunes.

Canada: Tories refuse to reveal cost for splitting up Elections Canada | CBC

The Harper government is refusing to disclose how much it will cost taxpayers to separate the commissioner of elections from Elections Canada — a move Conservatives insisted upon even though electoral experts said it was unnecessary. The government says all briefing materials on the cost and logistics of transferring the election commissioner’s operations to the director of public prosecutions are cabinet confidences. As such, they can’t be released in response to an access-to-information request. Moving the election commissioner under the auspices of the public prosecutor was a key measure in a controversial overhaul of election laws pushed through Parliament by the Conservatives last spring despite near-universal condemnation by electoral experts at home and abroad. Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre insisted the move was necessary to ensure the commissioner’s independence from the chief electoral officer, who Conservatives contend is biased against their party.

Canada: Ranked ballot option coming to Ontario municipalities | Yahoo News Canada

It won’t help decide the heated race in the upcoming Toronto election — but it could in 2018. The Ontario Liberals are making good on a campaign promise to give municipalities some new tools to supposedly enhance local democracy. A spokesperson for Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin confirms that the Kathleen Wynne government will amend current legislation to give city governments the option of ranked ballots in future elections. “As the Premier indicated in our ministry’s mandate letter, in the course of reviewing the Municipal Elections Act, we will provide municipalities with the option of using ranked ballots in future elections as an alternative to the first-past-the-post system, starting in 2018,” Mark Cripps told Yahoo Canada News. “This work will get underway following the elections on October 27.”

Haiti: Long-delayed election likely postponed again | AFP

As Haiti prepared Tuesday to bury a former dictator who had little use for elections, it seemed all but certain that a long-delayed legislative vote due later this month will again be postponed. And, on the week that former strongman Jean-Claude Duvalier’s death revived memories of Haiti under dictatorship, observers warned this could leave the country’s current leader free to rule the impoverished Caribbean nation by decree. Four years after a sudden massive earthquake devastated the Haitian capital, the streets of Port-au-Prince are again bustling with working people struggling to get by, but there is no sign of any political campaign.

Taiwan: Hong Kong Protests Shaping Taiwan Election Campaign | VoA News

Mass protests against Chinese rule in Hong Kong are shaping election campaigns in Taiwan. Taiwan is self-ruled, but many citizens fear China will govern it someday as it pushes for unification. That has pressured Taiwan’s ruling party and the more anti-China opposition party to make strong statements in favor of Hong Kong’s protesters. As far as relations with China (PRC) are concerned, Taiwan’s local elections in November are pivotal. Wins for the ruling Nationalist Party would help it keep the presidency in 2016 and would signal four more years of engagement with China, which claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island and wants to take it back eventually. Conversely, victories next month and in 2016 for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party could chill ties with China.

North Carolina: Officials scramble after new voter law blocked by court | Reuters

North Carolina officials, scrambling to comply with a court ruling that blocked parts of a restrictive voter law just weeks before the November election, were in federal court on Tuesday to detail a proposed overhaul of their election plans. North Carolina was ordered to restore provisional ballots and same-day voter registrations last week when a U.S. appeals court found some provisions of a wide-ranging voter law, with restrictions considered among the nation’s most stringent, could disproportionately harm black voters. State attorneys said they did not anticipate problems bringing back provisional ballots, typically cast by voters who went to the wrong precinct. But they told the court it could be difficult to electronically process voter registrations occurring during early voting.

National: States and Election Reform | The Canvass

Minnesota Representative Steve Simon (D) always greets an elections bill with the same question: What impact will the proposed law have on both urban and rural communities? The query comes from an understanding that every jurisdiction in his state has different needs and conditions for running elections, from Hennepin County and its 712,151 registered voters in and around Minneapolis to the 2,075 voters in Traverse County. “I think most states have what Minnesota has: at least one densely populated metropolitan area and large swaths of rural communities,” he said. “The voting environment is very different in each of those communities.” In this article, The Canvass will examine some key variations between urban and rural jurisdictions, learn how some legislators have balanced a desire for statewide uniformity while still providing local flexibility, consider why innovations tend to take shape in communities with large numbers of voters and peek at a forecast for how such differences in jurisdiction sizes could further impact elections policy.

Connecticut: Ballot question in November could help change the way state votes | The Norwich Bulletin

There will be a constitutional question on the Nov. 4 ballot asking residents to empower the state Legislature to consider changes to the way people vote. The Connecticut Constitution states that ballots must be cast in person on Election Day with only a few exceptions: illness or disability; absence from the town; or religious prohibitions from going to the polls on the scheduled day. The ballot question will read: “Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to remove restrictions concerning absentee ballots and to permit a person to vote without appearing at a polling place on the day of an election?”

Florida: Voting in Leon County hits the new millennium | Tallahassee Democrat

As primary-elections wraps-up and general elections approaches in November, voter technicians are excited about the new technology they have. A new machine called I.C.E. will ultimately change the way voters vote in the future. The past decade technology has taken the world by storm. Here in Tallahassee the supervisor of elections Ion Sancho’s office and staff have worked hard in getting this new technology out to the capital cities voting poles and precincts. William Stewart a voting system tech here at the Leon County branch is hands on with this new technology. Testing and deploying voting equipment, the ImageCast Evolution also known to them as I.C.E. was the main attraction. “Combining two devices in one makes casting audio and visual ballots easier and faster for voters” said Stewart.

Hawaii: Election preparations for Puna lava threat | Hawaii News Now

Election officials are preparing for the possibility that the Puna lava flow could potentially disrupt voting in next month’s general election. Hawaii’s election chief outlined plans at a state Elections Commission meeting on Friday, but some critics fear a repeat of problems that happened during the primary due to Tropical Storm Iselle. “Please prevent another man-made disaster caused by the Elections Office,” said State Sen. Russell Ruderman (D-Puna, Kau). He recommended mail-in ballots only for next month’s election for precincts in lower Puna that could be affected by the lava. “We do not know at this time which precincts will be accessible, which neighborhoods will be accessible,” said Ruderman.

Minnesota: New website makes voting easier than ever | Twin Cities Daily Planet

MNVotes, the new website launched by the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, makes it easier than ever to vote in the Nov. 4 elections. Minnesotans can register online, request absentee ballots, find their polling places and more. The website has a new look and functionality to allow voters to better access and interact with voter tools and information on their computers, tablets and mobile phones. “The enhanced functionality provides voters with an easier way to connect and engage with our voter resources and information,” says Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

North Carolina: Some of North Carolina’s absentee voters hit a signature snag | News Observer

Thousands of North Carolinians have already locked in their ballots for this year’s general election, courtesy of the state’s postal voting period that began Sept. 5. But for some who’ve tried, compliance with voting law has been an issue. By early October, elections officials had marked more than 80 absentee-by-mail ballots as invalid. In most cases, they simply lacked the signatures of two witnesses – a change due to the voting law enacted by the legislature last year. Previously an absentee voter only needed one witness signature. Now if the voter doesn’t have two people witness as the ballot and accompanying envelope are filled out, he or she must have the ballot notarized. Without those signatures, the ballots go to the dead pile.

Ohio: Holder Faults Supreme Court on Early Voting | Wall Street Journal

Attorney General Eric Holder criticized the Supreme Court Monday for leaving in place a law shortening the early voting period in Ohio, calling the decision “a major step backward.” The broadside from Mr. Holder, delivered in a video posted on the Justice Department website, comes at a key moment in the political and legal battles surrounding this year’s congressional elections. Under the new schedule, early voting in Ohio for Congress, governor, and state legislators begins Tuesday. The Supreme Court could also soon decide whether voting laws in North Carolina and Wisconsin will go into effect for the election next month. The Justice Department is challenging those laws, as well as voting laws in Texas.

Ohio: Early voting changing election campaigns in Ohio | The Columbus Dispatch

Election Day is so 2007. Welcome to the start of Election Month in Ohio. “Just sitting back and waiting for people to turn out on Election Day is a fool’s errand,” said Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. With the growing popularity of casting ballots ahead of time, the fate of statewide elections, county races and local issues will be decided beginning Tuesday at early-voting centers across the Buckeye State — four weeks before polls open on Election Day, Nov. 4. Borges said he expects 11 percent of this year’s turnout to come in the first week of early voting. “I think what it does is it just moves everything up,” said Lauren Hitt, spokeswoman for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald.

South Carolina: State can keep redrawn districts, Supreme Court says | Associated Press

The Supreme Court said Monday that South Carolina can keep its redrawn state house and congressional maps despite a challenge from black voters in the state. The justices offered no comment when they rejected the appeal from voters, who wanted the court to re-examine the newly drawn borders of state house and congressional districts. In 2012, six black voters from counties in the southern and eastern parts of the state sued Republican Gov. Nikki Haley and the Republican-controlled state legislature. They sought to throw out the redrawn district maps and prevent the state from holding any elections based on those maps. They argued the maps pushed black voters into one congressional district and created “voting apartheid.”

Vermont: Burlington suspends early voting for ballot error | Burlington Free Press

Burlington has suspended early voting for the Nov. 4 election because of a ballot error and will print new ballots at a cost of about $10,000, the city announced Monday. Five of the 15 Republican nominees for justice of the peace had been left off the ballot. “I am disappointed that, for the second time in two years, the City finds itself in the position of having to correct a ballot,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a statement. “These avoidable and costly errors must end.” In a statement, the city Clerk/Treasurer’s Office apologized for the error, which it said was inadvertent. Sample ballots available on the city website Monday included 10 Republican nominees, 15 Democratic nominees and two Libertarian nominees. Voters may select up to 15 people to serve as justices of the peace.

Wisconsin: U.S. Appeals panel officially upholds voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

A panel of three federal judges upheld Wisconsin’s voter ID law Monday, finding it is in keeping with the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act. The panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last month ruled the voter ID law could be put in place for the Nov. 4 election between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Democrat Mary Burke. Monday’s ruling is the panel’s final decision on the issue and puts the voter ID law in place for other future elections. Attention now turns to what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan or the full Supreme Court might do. Even before Monday’s ruling, the groups that challenged the voter ID law had asked Kagan to block the voter ID law for the Nov. 4 election. Kagan is the justice responsible for handling emergency petitions in cases before the 7th Circuit, which covers Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Writing for the unanimous appeals panel, Judge Frank Easterbrook determined Wisconsin’s law was essentially identical to an Indiana voter ID law that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2008.

Wisconsin: Appeals Court Upholds Wisconsin Voter ID Law | Associated Press

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Wisconsin’s requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls is constitutional, a decision that is not surprising after the court last month allowed for the law to be implemented while it considered the case. State elections officials are preparing for the photo ID law to be in effect for the Nov. 4 election, even as opponents continue their legal fight. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Advancement Project asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to take emergency action and block the law. Opponents argue that requiring voters to show photo ID, a requirement that had, until recently, been on hold since a low-turnout February 2012 primary, will create chaos and confusion at the polls. But supporters say most people already have a valid ID and, if they don’t, there is time to get one before the election.

China: Hong Kong democracy protests fade, face test of stamina | Reuters

Pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong rolled into early Tuesday with hundreds of students remaining camped out in the heart of the city after more than a week of rallies and behind-the-scenes talks showing modest signs of progress. Student-led protesters early on Monday lifted a blockade of government offices that had been the focal point of their action, initially drawing tens of thousands onto the streets. Civil servants were allowed to pass through the protesters’ barricades unimpeded. Several streets through downtown Hong Kong, which houses offices for international banks, luxury malls and the main stock exchange, remained barricaded and vehicle-free, although pedestrians could walk freely through the area.