Florida: Groups ask to move Florida election, draw new map | Miami Herald

A Florida judge is being asked to move this year’s election dates — including postponing next month’s primary — in order to draw up new congressional districts for the state. The request was filed Wednesday by a coalition of groups, including the League of Women Voters, who successfully challenged Florida’s current congressional map. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis ruled earlier this month that the state Legislature illegally drew the districts in 2012 to primarily benefit the Republican Party. Florida legislative leaders have said they will change the districts, but they want to wait until after the November elections to avoid disruption and problems at the polls. More than 1 million absentee ballots for the Aug. 26 primary went out this week.

Florida: Redistricting clash heats up as hearing approaches | Florida Today

The coalition, which includes organizations like the League of Women Voters of Florida, asked Lewis to either go ahead with the November elections after drawing a new map or delay the elections until December. If the November elections are held under the existing map, the state should hold a separate, special election as soon as March to choose members of Congress under new lines, the groups said. They also asked Lewis to draw a new map instead of allowing the Legislature to do it. “The citizens of Florida have already endured elections under gerrymandered districts after the Legislature blatantly disregarded their will,” the groups’ lawyers said in a filing. “Legislative defendants have expended considerable taxpayer money to resist public scrutiny and defend their unconstitutional conduct. Florida?s voters should not have to wait for two more years for constitutional elections, and they certainly should not have to sit by as legislative defendants risk additional elections under an invalid congressional plan.”

Mississippi: McDaniel case gets under way today in court | The Neshoba Democrat

A hearing was to get underway this morning at the courthouse in a suit filed by Sen. Chris McDaniel against Neshoba County Circuit Clerk Patti Duncan Lee, alleging she “withheld voter records” while his representative canvased ballots from the June 24 Republican runoff election in the race for U. S. Senate. In the suit, McDaniel claimed that Lee allegedly withheld voting records when two people representing his campaign went to canvass the ballots in the Neshoba County courthouse in early July. In response to the suit, Lee said she “properly followed the law” and gave McDaniel’s representatives more than what they wanted. Circuit Court Judge, Place 1 Marcus Gordon was to preside over the hearing beginning at 9 a.m. In the midst of McDaniel’s quest for voting irregularities, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday that circuit clerks must redact voters’ birth dates before poll books are open for public inspection.

New Hampshire: State faces lawsuit over new election law | New Hampshire Union Leader

The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union is suing the state over a new law that it says will stack the deck against third parties trying to gain ballot access. The lawsuit, filed July 22 on behalf of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, challenges a requirement that nomination papers for a political organization “be signed and dated in the year of the election.” It compresses the time frame to collect these signatures and poses a hindrance for the Libertarian Party to compete, according to Gilles Bissonnette, staff attorney for the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. “This law strips away voter choice,” he said in an interview.

New York: Nick Di Iorio, longshot GOP candidate for Congress, signed to star in reality show about ‘unwinnable’ races | NY Daily News

A longshot congressional candidate in Manhattan apparently makes for a sure-fire winner on reality television. Nick Di Iorio, a Republican challenging veteran Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, has been signed to star in a proposed reality show about candidates running in “unwinnable” races. In a draft opinion released Monday, the Federal Election Commission said Di Iorio can appear on the series — as long as he doesn’t get paid. Di Iorio and his campaign manager, Joseph Shippeee, have a production deal to do the show if the project is picked up by the Esquire network, a new channel that is set to debut this fall, Shippee told the commission.

Texas: Democrats look to get in front of voter ID issue | Houston Chronicle

Texas Democrats are renewing their opposition to the state’s voter-identification law, rolling out a program to educate voters ahead of a decisive few months that could see the controversial statute become a top issue in the governor’s race. The law is considered one of the toughest of its kind in the country, requiring voters to show one of a few types of identification cards at the polls. Those whose actual names do not match the names on their IDs must sign an affidavit attesting to their identities. The gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. Wendy Davis, Battleground Texas and the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday announced a “voter protection” program to tackle the issue by dispatching more than 8,000 volunteers to help with voter registration and making sure voters know what the law requires.

Utah: Committee to investigate electronic voting options in Utah | Daily Herald

A new committee created by Utah’s lieutenant governor will look at what it will take to move the state to the point where it can hold elections online.  Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox’s office announced the formation of the committee Tuesday. The group, which is officially named the iVote Advisory Committee, is made up of state legislators, election officials in the state and individuals who have a strong background in Internet security.  “This is the beginning of just trying to understand electronic voting,” said Mark Thomas, director of elections for the state of Utah.  … Cox and Thomas both explained there are a number of hurdles that need to be crossed before Utah could host an online election. First would be how to create a process that allows for a ballot to be cast and kept confidential but provide a way for the election to be audited. Another hurdle would be how to protect the integrity of the vote count from hackers.

Afghanistan: In Kabul, vote recount delayed in dispute over what constitutes a fraudulent ballot | The Washington Post

Election authorities on Wednesday halted the inspection of about 8 million ballots cast in last month’s presidential runoff in Afghanistan, heightening concerns that an already chaotic process to choose the country’s new leader could take months to complete. The effort to reexamine the votes was paused for a full day to hammer out differences between the two candidates over what criteria to use to scrap suspicious ballots, a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said. The audit, which began last week, was expected to resume Thursday. Tensions have been high since the June 15 election, in which former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah faced off against former World Bank executive Ashraf Ghani after a first round of voting in April in which neither secured the majority needed to win the presidency.

Indonesia: Subianto Set to Challenge Indonesia Election Results | Wall Street Journal

Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto will challenge results from the July 9 election at Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, focusing a final bid for leadership of the world’s fourth most-populous nation on what his team suspects are irregularities involving 21 million votes. Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo was declared president-elect of the Southeast Asian nation Tuesday with 53.15% of the vote, defeating Mr. Subianto by a margin of 8.4 million votes. More than 133 million ballots were cast in what was a tightly-contested two-man race to the end. Mr. Subianto’s campaign team on Wednesday raised questions about voting at about 52,000 of the country’s 479,000 polling stations and demanded a revote at those stations. They said that ballots cast at those stations far exceeded their total number of eligible voters. “We will prove improper conduct,” said team lawyer Mahendra Datta.

Editorials: Indonesia’s democracy: A new kind of president | The Economist

The wait is over. After taking two weeks to count 135m ballots from 480,000-odd polling stations across the vast archipelago, Indonesia’s Election Commission (the KPU) has at last confirmed that Joko Widodo has been elected president. The commission said that Mr Joko, the governor of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, and his vice-presidential running mate, Jusuf Kalla, won 71m votes at the election on July 9th. That represents 53.2% of the valid votes. The losers, Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa, won 62.6m votes, or 46.9%. Mr Joko was victorious in 23 of the country’s 33 provinces. His winning margin of 8.4m votes, or 6.3 percentage points, was even wider than had been predicted by most of the respected pollsters on the night of the election.

Saudi Arabia: Nod for Saudi women to contest, vote in municipal council polls | Al Arabiya

The Saudi Council of Ministers approved late Monday the Law of Municipal Councils that grants women equal rights with men to vote and contest municipal elections. In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency following the session, Minister of Culture and Information Dr. Abdulaziz Khoja said that the Cabinet took the decision after reviewing a report presented by Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs and a Shoura Council decision. The councils will have not more than 30 members, including two-third of elected members and one-third nominated by the minister.

Turkey: Voters in Europe | Today’s Zaman

For the first time in Turkey’s history, Turkish citizens who live in a foreign country will be able to vote in the elections. Turkey’s envoy to Berlin says that the number of voters is 3 million. This is a significant number given that it corresponds with 7 percent of the total number of voters, and the winner is determined by a small margin in the second round of the presidential elections. Unfortunately, we are not well prepared for these elections, which will take place abroad for the first time. I believe that there will be many problems in how the election is handled and carried out. Half of the voters in Europe live in Germany (1.4 million). Five hundred ballot boxes are reserved for these voters. It appears that there will be 3,000 voters for each box, the voters will have to sign up for a time to vote and the boxes will be stationed in predominantly Turkish areas.

Afghanistan: Election Result Hinges on a Squabble-Prone Audit | New York Times

Seemingly endless squabbles are interrupted by full-scale shouting matches. Campaign aides mutter suspiciously about what foreign visitors might be up to. And ballot boxes are piling up, waiting to be cracked open and examined for signs of fraud. In two spartan, stifling warehouses on the edge of Kabul, hundreds of Afghans, Americans and Europeans are engaged in a last-ditch attempt to salvage an acceptably democratic result from an election dispute that has been tumbling toward a street fight, or worse. They are auditing all of the roughly eight million ballots cast in last month’s presidential runoff, trying to separate fraud from fact. But a week into the process, the audit has engendered little confidence, and is already desperately behind schedule.Only 4.5 percent of the roughly 22,000 ballot boxes had been examined by Wednesday. Each day has seemed to yield some new dispute or confusion that has put on the brakes. Does writing “insh’allah” — God willing — next to the name of a candidate on a ballot constitute a legitimate vote? Is it proper for campaign representatives to move between tables, urging colleagues to argue harder? And who was that tall, bearded foreigner with no badge?

Canada: Toronto cancels plan to allow online, phone voting for disabled citizens in 2014 | Toronto Star

Toronto’s government has cancelled a plan to allow disabled residents to vote online and by phone in the 2014 election, saying there is not enough time to build and test the system. Council only approved the online and phone voting in February, a month into the campaign period. The city clerk said she had the authority to call off the project “to protect the integrity of the election” if key deadlines were not met. She did so this month. “The clerk engaged independent third-party experts, including an accessibility and usability expert, two security and cryptographic experts, an external auditing firm and a testing firm,” city officials wrote in a report to council. “There is insufficient time for the third-party experts to conduct a full assessment of the security and accessibility of the (system) before the start of Internet and telephone voting registration on September 8, 2014.”

Ukraine: Bitter election faced in midst of conflict with Russia | Reuters

Ukraine’s prime minister has launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign that could divide pro-Western parties and complicate their efforts to fight pro-Russian rebels in the country’s east. Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, a key interlocutor of the West during months of turmoil, announced on Thursday he would quit, saying parliament was betraying Ukraine’s army and people by blocking reforms supported by Western backers. His move, following the exit of two parties from the ruling coalition, amounted to the start of a campaign for seats in a legislature still packed with former allies of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich, ousted by protests in February. “History will not forgive us,” Yatseniuk told parliament on Thursday, in what analysts said was the first campaign speech for the party led by Yulia Tymoshenko, a rival of President Petro Poroshenko, who was elected to replace Yanukovich in May. Pro-Western political forces in Ukraine have been bitterly divided almost continuously since the country won independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

National: NAACP worries that low November turnout could lead to voter ID expansion | Associated Press

Civil rights leaders at the NAACP annual convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday worried that dwindling African-American turnout in November could lead to the expansion of voter-identification laws that makes it harder for that community to vote in subsequent contests. In 2012, blacks turned out at a higher rate than whites for what is believed to be the first time in American history and helped re-elect President Obama. But in the prior midterm election, in 2010, blacks turned out at a much lower rate, and Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and many state and local offices.

National: Cardin, Paul seek voting rights for former felons | Baltimore Sun

Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin teamed up with an unlikely political ally on Tuesday — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — in pushing for federal legislation to allow millions of Americans with felony convictions to regain their right to vote. Paul, a conservative Republican who many believe is eying a presidential run in 2016, joined Cardin, a Democrat, at a forum on Capitol Hill to call attention to the issue. Despite different political ideologies, the two have introduced similar bills to restore voting rights for felons who have served their sentences. “We’ve had some differences over the years, but we have joined forces in recognizing that there’s an important policy that we can advance in helping people reenter into our society,” Cardin said. “This is one of the Jim Crow laws of our time.” If either measure is approved it would replace a patchwork of state laws that vary widely on when a felon may vote.

Florida: Election Issue Likely Headed To Florida Supreme Court | Daily Business Review

Ronald Bray submitted all the required paperwork to qualify as a write-in candidate on the Nov. 4 general election for the seat of state House District 96. Two candidates from the Democratic Party qualified to have their names printed on the ballot. Article VI, §5(b) of the Florida Constitution provides that primaries are open to all voters regardless of party affiliation where the winner of the primary “will have no opposition in the general election.” In the Fourth District Court of Appeal, any opposition, even write-in candidates, precludes the application of the clause, and keeps the primary closed. Telli v. Snipes, 98 So.3d 1284 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012). Bray, as a write-in candidate, is the only opposition candidate for the general election for House District 96. Because Bray is an opposition candidate, the Democratic primary in the district was going to be held as a closed primary.

Georgia: Justice Department suspends most poll watching | CNN

For the first time in decades, voters in Georgia are going to the polls Tuesday without the chance of having Justice Department observers inside their polling places. CNN has learned that’s because Justice Department lawyers in recent months have determined they no longer have legal authority to unilaterally assign poll observers after the Supreme Court ruling invalidating key sections of the Voting Rights Act. The department has suspended posting observers inside polling stations except for in nine jurisdictions in seven states covered by separate court orders, government officials tell CNN. The internal legal finding hadn’t been made public before. Observers had the authority to be inside polling places, and the department may still send monitors who keep an eye outside polling precincts. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department’s civil rights division declined to comment.

Michigan: Federal judge: Votes on defective 3rd Ward ballots in Ann Arbor won’t count | MLive.com

A federal judge has ordered the city of Ann Arbor not to count any votes for 3rd Ward City Council candidates Julie Grand and Sam McMullen on defective ballots that left off Bob Dascola’s name. Dascola, a candidate in the three-way race for the open seat, was left off a batch of absentee ballots that went out to voters this past month due to what the Washtenaw County clerk’s office has described as a series of unfortunate events, including an error by a third-party ballot programmer. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff ruled on Tuesday that should any absentee voters turn in the defective ballots without following up and turning in replacement ballots, then any votes in the 3rd Ward race on those defective ballots should not be counted.

Editorials: Early-voting cuts in Ohio rightfully draw Justice Department ire: editorial | Cleveland Plain Dealer

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has signaled that the Justice Department will back pending Ohio litigation aimed at providing more early voting days for Ohioans and restoring Ohio’s voting “golden week.” Holder and his department are more than justified in doing so. At stake is one of the most precious of constitutional rights, the right to vote. That is a fundamental right Americans have died for, as, for example, three patriots – two white, one black – did 50 years ago in Neshoba County, Mississippi. In February, Ohio General Assembly Republicans passed, and Gov. John Kasich signed, Senate Bill 238. The bill, passed along party lines (Republicans for, Democrats against), abolished Ohio’s so-called golden week. This was the week right before Ohio’s voter registration deadline when an Ohioan simultaneously could register to vote, apply for and then cast an in-person, early-voting ballot at his or her county board of elections.

Tennessee: Complex ballot has voters stumped | Paris Post-Inteligencer

With the county into its fourth day of early voting for the Aug. 7 election, it’s become apparent to local election official Darrin Thompson that a large percentage of voters so far are very confused by the ballot. Thompson, Henry County’s administrator of elections, said Monday there seems to be general bewilderment about this particular election. Many voters apparently aren’t grasping the fact that there are really two elections in one — a general election in the county and primaries to decide state and federal offices. “The state primaries seem to be throwing them quite a bit,” Thompson said. “A lot of them don’t seem to be aware that it’s two elections happening at the same time — and that it’s only in the primaries that they have to choose a particular party in which to vote.” … It appears some of the confusion is stemming from the judicial races that are on the ballot. Thompson reminded voters Monday that those judicial races — for Circuit Court judgeships, chancellor, and district attorney general, among others — are part of the general election.

Cambodia: Parties Agree to End Year-Long Deadlock | Radio Free Asia

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen and opposition leader Sam Rainsy forged a landmark agreement Tuesday that will see the opposition end a one-year boycott of parliament and the ruling party adopt key reforms to the country’s electoral body. The agreement broke a year-long political impasse following disputed July 2013 general elections in which Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) was declared the victor by the government-appointed National Election Committee (NEC) despite allegations of widespread irregularities. The pact was announced in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh after a five-hour meeting between the CPP and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) led by Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy. The agreement led to the immediate release of seven CNRP lawmakers and another opposition politician from jail following their arrest last week on charges of waging an “insurrection” which could see them being imprisoned for up to 30 years if convicted.  … In a key compromise that led to the end of the CNRP boycott of parliament, the CPP and CNRP agreed Tuesday that each party could appoint four members to the NEC, with the ninth member to be jointly picked.

Cook Islands: Cook Islands Democratic Party leader to challenge election result on corruption allegations | ABC

Cook Islands Democratic Party (DP) leader Wilkie Rasmussen says his party will be challenging the result of the national election, saying the process was mishandled. Official results returned Prime Minister Henry Puna’s Cook Islands Party (CIP) to government with a majority of 13 seats in the 24-member parliament. Mr Rasmussen, who lost his seat at the July 9 election, says questions have been raised about many aspects of the process, including concerns that the prime minister’s son accompanied ballot papers back from New Zealand. The initial count pointed toward a win for the DP but a huge surge of last minute declaration and postal votes turned the result, raising questions of corruption.

Indonesia: Prabowo Subianto ‘withdraws’ from Indonesian presidential election on day vote was to be declared | Sydney Morning Herald

Former army strongman Prabowo Subianto claims to have ‘‘withdrawn’’ from the presidential race on the day it was to be announced that he had lost. In an extraordinary statement in his campaign headquarters on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Prabowo said he entirely rejected the judgment delivered by 133 million Indonesians at the ballot box on July 9, because it was the result of ‘‘massive cheating that is structured and systematic’’. He said the country’s Electoral Commission had failed in its duty to democracy, so he withdrew his participation from the process. He also suggested, though not explicitly, that he would not take his appeal to Indonesia’s constitutional court. Later, his legal representative, Mahendradatta, confirmed to kompas.com that, “only those with legal standing can go to the Constitutional Court – that is those who are registered as presidential candidates … By withdrawing we … no longer have legal standing”.

Editorials: Living Dangerously in Indonesia | Wall Street Journal

Instead of representing a triumph of democracy, Indonesia’s presidential election threatens to spark a crisis. On Tuesday afternoon officials were poised to announce that Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo won the July 9 election with 53% of the vote. But losing candidate and self-styled strongman Prabowo Subianto denounced the result, leveled charges of widespread fraud and withdrew from the race. “We are rejecting this presidential election, which is legally flawed,” Mr. Subianto said from his campaign headquarters, insisting that the vote was “riddled with problems” and “undemocratic.” As confusion spread, his brother and campaign advisor Hashim Djojohadikusumo clarified that “Prabowo Subianto is no longer a presidential candidate.” Though he has complained of irregularities since the vote, Mr. Subianto has marshaled little evidence that the result is illegitimate. Indonesia has some unusual voting practices across its 900 inhabited islands and 190 million eligible voters, but observers and officials generally judged the balloting peaceful, free and fair.

United Kingdom: Online voting registration – what’s the verdict? | Public Technology

The UK’s democracy has many problems. Important among these is the fact that swathes of the population don’t exercise their right to vote – something that’s both a consequence and, less directly, a cause of the growing public disenchantment with our political leaders. In the last general election, for example, turnout was just 65%; in May’s European elections, it was a paltry 34%. There are many reasons behind these low figures – and some of them, at least, have their roots in our electoral system. As the Coalition Agreement was being drawn up in 2010, the Liberal Democrats inserted a referendum on the Alternative Vote system of PR. This was soundly lost: they had accepted a timetable which ensured the referendum would coincide with both continued recession, and expanding austerity. But another electoral reform has survived: the shift from household to individual voter registration. …  It is, therefore, essential that the new system makes joining the roll as easy as possible, creating the lowest possible barriers consistent with security against fraud. A key part of this accessibility is the ERTP’s online registration service, and this has now gone live.

Editorials: Adopt the Open Primary | Sen. Charles Schumer/New York Times

Polarization and partisanship are a plague on American politics. Political scientists have found that the two parties have each grown more ideologically homogeneous since the 1970s. The Senate hasn’t been so polarized since Reconstruction; the House has not been so divided since around 1900. As measured by laws passed, the current Congress is on track to be among the least productive in our republic’s history. How did this happen? One of the main causes has not gotten enough attention: the party primary system. … We need a national movement to adopt the “top-two” primary (also known as an open primary), in which all voters, regardless of party registration, can vote and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, then enter a runoff. This would prevent a hard-right or hard-left candidate from gaining office with the support of just a sliver of the voters of the vastly diminished primary electorate; to finish in the top two, candidates from either party would have to reach out to the broad middle.

California: ‘Voting’ Part of Voting-Rights Settlement Not Actually Workable | SCV News

Despite various Santa Clarita Valley governing boards’ approval of election changes in response to California Voting Rights Act concerns, an outdated county system won’t be able to handle the changes for at least another four years, officials said. “Our current voting system both the devices we use at the polls and, more importantly, the tabulations system we use… can not run a cumulative voting system,” said Efrain Escobedo, governmental and legislative affairs manager for the Los Angeles County’s Registrar-Recorder’s Office. “It’s just the limitations of the technology,” he said, referring to a voting system created in the late 1960s. And there’s no statewide precedent for how cumulative voting — a system that would allow a voter to cast up to three votes for one candidate in a three-seat race — is to appear on the ballot. “There’s also no voting system currently approved for use in California that can actually do that, either,” he said.

Editorials: What’s wrong with Palmdale: an unfair election system | Los Angeles Times

In the year since the city of Palmdale’s at-large election system was found by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to have violated the California Voting Rights Act, city officials have responded aggressively. Instead of fighting so hard to keep the status quo, Palmdale should turn its attention to fixing a broken electoral system. In the fall, after Judge Mark V. Mooney ordered the city to cancel its Nov. 5 at-large election, Palmdale officials persuaded California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal to allow the election to proceed. Then, in the winter, Mooney banned the certification of the election results and ordered a new election by district rather than at large; Palmdale again appealed, arguing that as a charter city, it was not governed by the state Voting Rights Act.