Arkansas: Secretary of state asks judge to keep voter ID law in effect | Arkansas News

A judge’s stay of his ruling that Arkansas’ voter ID law is unconstitutional should remain in place, Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office argued in a filing Wednesday in Pulaski County Circuit Court. Pulaski Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled May 2 that Act 595 of 2013, which requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, is unconstitutional because it imposes qualifications for voting in Arkansas that go beyond the qualifications set out in the state constitution. Fox stayed his ruling, however, so Act 595 remained in effect in the May 20 primary election and the June 10 runoff election.

California: Thousands with disabilities denied right to vote in California, group says | Associated Press

At a time when election officials are struggling to convince more Americans to vote, advocates for the disabled say thousands of people with autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy and other intellectual or developmental disabilities have been systematically denied that basic right in the nation’s largest county. A Voting Rights Act complaint to be filed Thursday with the U.S. Justice Department goes to a politically delicate subject that states have grappled with over the years: Where is the line to disqualify someone from the voting booth because of a cognitive or developmental impairment? The complaint by the Disability and Abuse Project argues that intellectual and developmental disabilities, including conditions such as Down syndrome, are not automatic barriers to participating in elections. It seeks a sweeping review of voting eligibility in Los Angeles County in such cases, arguing that thousands of people with those disabilities have lost the right to vote during the last decade. “We want these past injustices to be corrected, and we want the judges and court-appointed attorneys to protect, not violate, the rights of people with developmental disabilities,” Thomas F. Coleman, the group’s legal director, said in a statement.

District of Columbia: The Little-Known Election That’s About to Cost the District $300,000 | Washington City Paper

Are you pumped for election day this Tuesday? LL’s not talking about the mayoral primary—that was in April. Or the general election, which is still four months from now. Instead, District voters will go to the polls next week to cast ballots for a special election for Ward 8’s seat on the State Board of Education. A special election to fill a position on the toothless State Board of Education isn’t anyone’s idea of a hot race. But even if District residents aren’t paying attention to it, they are paying for it. Holding the election will cost roughly $300,000, according to D.C. Board of Elections spokeswoman Tamara Watkins. That might seem steep, but according to a draft budget prepared by the DCBOE, even running a small election costs a lot of money. Printing fees are expected to cost around $38,500, while voting systems cost $37,000. $43,730 will go to payments to poll staff, including $28,200 just for election day work.

North Carolina: New voting law will hurt minority voting, witness says | Greensboro News-Record

North Carolina has a long and established history of voter discrimination against blacks and that history would continue under a new state voting law, an expert testified this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem. Poll taxes were on the books until the 1920s, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And literacy tests, in which blacks were sometimes forced to read the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, remain on the books, even though they aren’t enforced, Burden said. Burden was testifying in a hearing on a preliminary injunction to block provisions of North Carolina’s voting law that was passed in 2013. Those provisions include reducing the number of days for early voting from 17 to 10, eliminating same-day voter registration and prohibiting county elections officials from counting ballots cast by voters in the correct county but wrong precinct.

Texas: Travis County Forges New Territory in Voting Machines | The Texas Tribune

With the nation facing what a January government report described as an “impending crisis” in voting technology, officials in Travis County are taking matters into their own hands by seeking to create a unique, next-generation system of voting machines. The efforts put Travis County, along with Los Angeles County in California, at the cutting edge of a race against time to create an alternative voting technology system. The new machines would have voters use off-the-shelf electronic equipment like tablets, but also provide them with receipts and printed ballots to allow for easier auditing. The development and implementation process won’t be finished in time for the 2016 elections, though officials hope to have the system ready by the 2018 gubernatorial race. … Some election administrators have said the status quo will likely fall apart within a few years. Across the country, “it’s all just a guessing game at this point: How long can we last?” said Dana DeBeauvoir, the Travis County clerk.

Wyoming: Lawmakers consider allowing nonviolent felons to regain the right to vote | Associated Press

Wyoming lawmakers are considering setting up an automatic process to allow some felons to regain their voting rights after they serve their time. The bill would to set up a process to restore voting rights for nonviolent, first-time offenders once they finish serving their sentences, including any probation or parole. Currently, offenders must apply to the state parole board for restoration of voting rights. The Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee is set to consider the issue next week in Newcastle. Bob Lampert, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, is set to testify to the committee next week. He said Wednesday he’ll be prepared to answer questions without taking a position on what lawmakers should do.

Afghanistan: Election Crisis Risks Splitting Country | Wall Street Journal

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory in defiance of preliminary vote results showing he lost and considered forming his own government, despite U.S. warnings that the country risked losing financial and security aid. “There is no doubt we are the winners of this election,” Mr. Abdullah told supporters during a boisterous rally in Kabul. “We will not allow a fraudulent government for a day.” Before the rally, President Barack Obama called Mr. Abdullah and urged him to await a probe of ballot-stuffing allegations, telling him that “there is no justification for resorting to violent or extra-constitutional measures,” said White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “We’ve been clear that any such move would cost Afghanistan the financial and security assistance of the United States,” she added. Mr. Abdullah said he would decide within a few days whether to form his own administration, a statement his supporters jeered because they wanted him to say he was taking power immediately.

China: Macau Activists Plan Hong Kong-Style Poll on Greater Democracy | New York Times

Activists in the Chinese territory of Macau say they plan to hold an informal referendum on direct elections after a similar effort in Hong Kong attracted a large turnout and helped publicize residents’ aspirations for democratic change. Like Hong Kong, Macau’s top official is chosen by a largely pro-establishment body of electors who are unlikely to challenge China’s central government. The chief executive of Macau, Fernando Chui, is expected to be granted a second five-year term by the 400-member election commission when he faces re-election on Aug. 31.

Slovenia: Snap polls unlikely to end turmoil | Daily Times

Slovenians head to the polls on Sunday faced with a choice between a political novice and a former prime minister serving time for corruption and with little hope of returning their troubled country to stability. The vote will be the second early elections in three years for Slovenia, a once model member of the European Union that has been on a downward spiral since the 2008 financial crisis. Miro Cerar, a prestigious law professor, is favoured to win despite his lack of political experience, and analysts predict that any new government will not last long, spelling further instability for the small nation of two million. The Miro Cerar Party, which he founded only in June, is expected to win between 29 and 37 percent of the vote, according to the latest polls. The main opposition centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party, whose leader, former prime minister Janez Jansa, began serving a two-year prison sentence just last month, is meanwhile polling at 15 to 24 percent.

Editorials: Millennials get cut off at the polls | Catherine Rampell/Washington Post

First they came for blacks, and we said nothing. Then they came for Latinos, poor people and married women, and we again ignored the warning signs. Now, after our years of apathy, they’re coming for us: the nation’s millennials. Across the country, Republican state policymakers have hoisted barriers to voting by passing voter-ID laws and curtailing electoral accommodations such as same-day registration and early voting. These policy changes are allegedly intended to eradicate the imagined scourge of voter fraud, but the real point seems to be voter suppression. For a time, the targeted populations were primarily racial, ethnic and income groups that traditionally vote Democratic. Now they happen to include Gen-Y’ers, more specifically my college-age brethren. We millennials may be fickle in our loyalties, generally distrustful of government institutions and unaligned with any political party, but our generation’s motley, liberal-to-libertarian-leaning ideological preferences still threaten red-state leadership.

Editorials: Do voting restrictions prevent fraud or cause disenfranchisement? | Al Jazeera

Lawyers from the Justice Department and a variety of civic groups appeared at an Asheville, North Carolina, federal courthouse this week, seeking an injunction that would delay portions of a state voting law from going into effect before the midterm elections this November. At issue are a reduction in days for early voting, the elimination of same-day voter registration and a prohibition on counting provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. (The most controversial provision, a photo ID requirement, does not go into effect until 2016.) Now a judge will decide if those elements should be delayed or implemented at all.

California: Pérez’s challenge a test of California’s recount law | Los Angeles Times

th just 481 votes keeping him from the November runoff for state controller, former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez filed a request this week to begin machine and hand recounts of ballots in 15 counties, making this the largest recount request in California’s modern history. Perez’s petition for a recount is understandable, even necessary, given the close margin in the race — the deciding votes were 0.01% of the ballots cast. Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, finished first in the June 3 primary. Board of Equalization member Betty Yee, a Democrat like Pérez, came in second to advance to the general election.

California: Recount in controller’s race raises questions, anxiety for registrars | Sacramento Bee

Election officials across California on Monday began preparing for a historically large hand recount in the state controller’s race amid uncertainty about how to coordinate an effort involving thousands of precincts in 15 counties. During a normally slow time on the election calendar, counties were calling back employees from vacation, getting in touch with potential members of recount boards and studying the finer points of the state’s recount laws. The activity began after former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez filed papers Sunday seeking manual recounts in 15 counties where he ran well against Board of Equalization member and fellow Democrat Betty Yee. “There are more questions right now than answers,” said Michael Scarpello, registrar of voters in San Bernardino County, where the Pérez campaign seeks recounts in 495 of the county’s nearly 1,700 precincts.

Guam: Senators discuss funding for election tabulators | KUAM

Lawmakers went into back to back sessions today to discuss a pair of bills – the first of which would address funding to purchase new tabulation equipment for the Guam Election Commission. “Si yu’os ma’ase to all of them for their support,” said Guam Election Commission executive director Maria Pangelinan. She refers to swift action by lawmakers today on addressing funding for new tabulation machines. It was last week when Bill 334 lapsed into law appropriating $206,000 from the Supplemental Appropriation Revenue Fund for the purchase of the machines along with ballot stock and coding services. However BBMR recently informed her that there is actually no funding in the SAR account. “So because of that, the only option they would have is to see about using fiscal year funding that was brought up to the attention of the commissioners and we all know that the commissioners and I don’t want to have a deficit at the end of the fiscal year,” she said.

Maryland: Blind voters suing elections board in hope of online ballot | Maryland Reporter

A blind voter who had a “horrific” experience voting during the primary election has filed a new complaint against the state election board, adding to the list of grievances in a lawsuit initiated by the National Federation of the Blind in May. One of the original plaintiffs, Janice Toothman, is seeking an unspecified amount of damages for what she says was a bungled voting experience that left her without the ability to vote privately or independently. Toothman, 52, is deaf and blind with a limited ability to hear. … Election officials eventually determined Toothman’s voting card was not properly programmed as a “non-visual ballot,” an observation Toothman originally offered. Toothman’s voting card was updated which allowed for sound in the headset, but Toothman said she had difficulty hearing due to background noise in the voting station and the low volume of the head set.

Michigan: Election Commish Live: Which Votes Count? | The Ann Arbor Chronicle

At 11 a.m. today, July 8, the Ann Arbor city election commission will meet to discuss the question of how to count votes that are cast in the Ward 3 Democratic primary. In-person voting for the election takes place on Aug. 5, 2014. But the point in dispute concerns ballots that were printed incorrectly and sent to absentee voters. … The question of counting votes has arisen because the ballots for the race were initially printed incorrectly, omitting the name of one of the candidates. Printed correctly on the ballots were Julie Grand and Samuel McMullen. However, Bob Dascola – who had filed a successful lawsuit against the city in order to be a candidate – was mistakenly left off the ballots. About 400 of those incorrect ballots were sent to absentee voters. The city has taken steps to attempt to rectify the situation, sending replacement ballots with instructions to those voters who received incorrect ballots. For background on the series of events that led to the incorrect printing of ballots, see “Dascola Mistakenly Left Off Ward 3 Ballot.”

Mississippi: McDaniel weighs challenge in Mississippi U.S. Senate primary | Reuters

Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate, is preparing a possible legal challenge to his defeat in last month’s Republican primary after supporters spent Monday sorting through voting records in dozens of counties, campaign officials said. The conservative state senator has blamed his loss to U.S. Senator Thad Cochran on what he describes as illegal voting by Democrats who favored the six-term incumbent. The primary election is scheduled to be certified on Monday evening by the state Republican party, which will forward the results to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office, party spokesman Bobby Morgan said. McDaniel and his supporters allege that the Democrats in question voted in the Democratic primary and then in the Republican runoff, which is against election rules.

Missouri: Kander expands military voting opportunities | The Rolla Daily News

Missourians serving in the Armed Forces who are stationed away from home now have access to a new online platform that makes voting significantly easier for them, according to the Missouri secretary of state’s office. The Military and Overseas Voting Access Portal available at www.momilitaryvote.com, has been launched to give active duty service members the opportunity to securely register to vote and request and receive absentee ballots for all local, state and federal elections.

New Mexico: Independent challenges ballot access rules | Associated Press

A Public Education Commission member is asking a federal court to invalidate New Mexico’s requirements for independent candidates to secure a place on the ballot. Tyson Parker of Corrales brought a lawsuit in federal district court last week, contending state election laws discriminate against candidates unaffiliated with a political party by requiring them to submit an unfairly high number of voter signatures on nominating petitions. To get on the ballot, Parker needed nearly eight times more signatures than a Democratic candidate, almost five times more than a Republican and three times more than a minor party candidate.

New York: Twenty-six votes could be all it takes to become mayor of this tiny New York town | The Washington Post

Things are getting tense in the nail-biter that is Dering Harbor’s mayoral election. Never heard of Dering Harbor, you say? That could be because the tiny village boasts only 11 full-time residents, according to the most recent census. Its current mayor, Timothy Hogue, is fighting for his political life after last month’s election resulted in a 25-25 tie with his challenger, retired Wall Street banker Patrick Parcells, who wrote himself in, according to Newsday. A second election is being held today in the 35-home village on Shelter Island, N.Y.

Texas: Dallas County thrown out of fed. voter ID lawsuit | KDFW

A federal judge recently ruled that Dallas County has no business being involved in a lawsuit against Texas over its Voter ID Law. The county bankrolled the partisan lawsuit using taxpayers’ money. The Voter ID Law passed in Texas in 2011, and Democratic Congressman Marc Veasey, the U.S. Justice Department and a number of others, including two Texas counties, joined the lawsuit challenging the law. Last summer, Commissioner Mike Cantrell balked over Dallas County voting to join the federal lawsuit and then voting to spend $275,000 to help pay for that lawsuit. “This is not something that our taxpayers should be on the tab for,” said Cantrell. Turns out, Cantrell was right.

Editorials: Virginia Voter ID law sets stage for confusion | Courtney Mills/Roanoke Times

For the third time in recent years, Virginia voters will face new voter ID requirements when they go to the polls this November. Virginia’s new photo ID law, which went in to effect on July 1, was a long time coming. The law, sponsored by Senator Mark Obenshain, was passed in the 2013 legislative session but is only now being fully implemented. Despite over a year of time to plan, one of the largest questions still has to be answered: what IDs will actually serve as voter ID? At a State Board of Elections (SBE) hearing on June 10, board members heard testimony from community groups, voters, and county registrars (the people tasked with enforcing this ID standard at the polls).

Afghanistan: Candidate rejects election results | Associated Press

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah defiantly told thousands of supporters Tuesday that he will declare victory in the country’s election, claiming massive fraud was responsible for preliminary results that put his rival in the lead. The United States warned both camps against trying to seize power, saying international financial and security support was at stake. The turmoil came as violence escalated around the country. A suicide bomber struck Afghan and foreign forces near a clinic in the eastern province of Parwan, killing at least 16 people, including four Czech soldiers. Abdullah said he received calls from President Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and he was told that Kerry would be flying to the Afghan capital on Friday in a bid to help defuse the crisis. State Department officials accompanying Kerry in Beijing declined to comment on his travel plans.

China: After Hong Kong, Macau announces democracy vote | AFP

Activists in the gambling hub of Macau have announced an unofficial referendum on electoral reform in the latest challenge to Beijing, after almost 800,000 turned out for a similar poll in Hong Kong. The former Portuguese colony returned to Chinese rule in 1999 and has a separate legal system from the mainland. As with Hong Kong, Macau’s leader is known as its chief executive and is chosen by a pro-Beijing electoral committee. Three civil groups have joined forces to organise the poll, which will run between August 24 and August 30 — just ahead of the naming of the enclave’s new leader on August 31.

Indonesia: Polls open after tightly fought presidential campaign | The Guardian

Indonesians are voting in the tightest and most divisive presidential election since the downfall of dictator Suharto, pitting Jakarta governor Joko Widodo against Prabowo Subianto, a former general with a chequered human rights record. After a bitterly fought campaign that saw long-time favourite Widodo’s lead shrink dramatically, voters in the world’s third-biggest democracy must choose between two starkly different candidates. A former furniture exporter from a humble background, Widodo is the first serious presidential contender without links to the authoritarian past, who is seen as likely to usher in a new style of leadership and consolidate democracy.

Indonesia: Tight Indonesian Election Sparks Unrest Fears | Wall Street Journal

Up to 190 million Indonesians will cast ballots in a tightly contested presidential race Wednesday, with questions mounting about whether one candidate can win convincingly enough to stave off vote challenges and unrest over ambiguous results. Pollsters say the race is too close to call between candidates with starkly different leadership styles and backgrounds: Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, a former army general under the late authoritarian ruler Suharto. Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, at the end of his maximum 10 years in power, has warned of potential unrest in a close election, Indonesia’s first presidential race featuring only two candidates. The vote will pave the way for the first exchange of power between two directly elected presidents in the Southeast Asian nation’s history. More than 250,000 police will be on hand throughout the archipelago during the vote, with the military adding more than 30,000 in a supporting role.

Editorials: How Can We Fix the Broken Primary Election System? | Seth Masket/Pacific Standard

We’ve all heard plenty of complaints in recent years that national and state legislatures have simply grown too polarized to govern effectively. Democrats and Republicans not only can’t work together, they see each other as enemies and threats to the country. Thanks to this polarization, the country can’t solve the problems it faces. The Bipartisan Policy Center has produced a comprehensive document aimed at addressing this issue. (Disclosure: I served as a consultant on this project during an event last year.) To its credit, the Center isn’t pushing any magic bullets. There is no one simple reform that will substantially reduce polarization while allowing the United States to remain a democracy. It is, however, pushing a series of reforms that, enacted together, could potentially have some kind of impact. Given how many of us decline to even join parties in the first place, should we be encouraging, no less mandating, that such people vote in party nomination contests?

Editorials: What do you call 7 lbs. of campaign mail for 3 voters? | Dary Sragow/Los Angeles Times

We’re conscientious voters in my household, never missing a chance to cast a ballot. And that’s probably why, in the final weeks before elections, we find our mailbox flooded with a tsunami of political advertisements. In the recent primary, for example, nearly 200 pieces of mail showed up for my wife, my daughter and me, with 29 of them arriving on the Monday before the election, long after we had made up our minds and voted by mail. As a voter, I was annoyed by the 7 pounds of mail we received. We got 19 mailers in the race to replace County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, 16 of them from a single candidate. In the race for the state Senate seat that Ted Lieu vacated to run for Congress, 70 pieces of mail came. Fifty-five mailers came from those hoping to replace retiring Congressman Henry A. Waxman, 43 of them on behalf of candidates who didn’t make it into the runoff. And there were 25 so-called slate mailers laying out a list of candidates we should vote for, most of whom (if you read the fine print) had paid to be included on the slate.

Arizona: Tom Horne sues to stop Clean Elections investigation | Arizona Republic

Attorney General Tom Horne has filed a lawsuit, challenging the right of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to investigate … Attorney General Tom Horne. For a guy who says he wants the truth to come out, he’s fighting awfully hard to squelch it. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Horne’s asking that a Maricopa County Superior Court judge block the Clean Elections Commission from investigating him. Horne’s been on the hot seat for a while now. The latest scorcher comes courtesy of a former employee who claims Horne and other members of his executive staff were campaigning for his re-election on the taxpayer’s dime. Sarah Beattie produced e-mails sent from private accounts during work hours and said Horne often held strategy sessions and even gave out her work number for campaign-related calls.

Arizona: Redistricting panel urges US Supreme Court to reject challenge from state lawmakers | Arizona Capitol Times

A bid by state lawmakers to take back the power to draw congressional lines is legally flawed and should be rejected, the lead attorney for the Independent Redistricting Commission told the nation’s high court. Mary O’Grady acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution does say that the “times, places and manner” of electing members of Congress “shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof.” But in legal papers filed with the Supreme Court, O’Grady said that doesn’t necessarily mean the 90 people who serve in the Arizona House and Senate. O’Grady pointed out that the Arizona Constitution, while setting up the two legislative bodies, spells out that the people “reserve the power to propose laws and amendment to the (Arizona) constitution and to enact or reject such laws and amendments at the polls, independently of the legislature.” She said that’s exactly what happened in 2000, when voters created the redistricting commission: They constitutionally took away the power that lawmakers had had since statehood to draw both congressional and legislative lines.