Voting Blogs: California Legislation Restricting ‘Recounts’ to the Wealthy is Gutted | Brad Blog

A controversial California election reform bill that had been sailing through the state legislature with the inexplicable support of Democrats after being authored by a Republican lawmaker, has now been substantially rewritten — some might say ‘gutted’. And that’s a very good thing, according to Election Integrity experts we’ve spoken with. … The new provision would have been a very big change to current law and, as we reported, would restrict voters from raising funds to help pay for such a count. In the process, it would have drastically reduced the opportunity for citizen oversight of public elections in the state. Democrats in the state Assembly supported AB 2369, as authored by Republican Assemblyman Curt Hagman for unknown reasons. It passed out of the lower chamber late last month by an astounding 66 to 7 vote, before being sent on to the state Senate.

Colorado: Secretary of State adopts emergency rule related to Loveland special election | Loveland Reporter-Herald

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office adopted an emergency rule Tuesday that forces the Larimer County Clerk and Recorder to count Loveland special election ballots that come in a county primary envelope. As a result of the city of Loveland running its own election separate from the Larimer County primary election, affiliated voters in Loveland received two ballots — one encased in a blue envelope that needs to be returned to the city and one in a white envelope returnable to the county. Larimer County Clerk and Recorder Angela Myers said last week that approximately 40 Loveland ballots that were received in Larimer County envelopes have been disqualified.

Florida: Trey Radel passes $1.5 million bill to voters for special election | WFTX

He may no longer be in Congress, but Trey Radel may still pass one more bill for the voters of Southwest Florida. The special election to replace Radel, who resigned for his cocaine scandal, is costing you the taxpayer more than $1.5 (m). Lee County Supervisor of Elections, Sharron Harrington, says she could have saved the taxpayers money if the state legislature would consider some new ideas. Harrington wants to have the option to do “mail only” for special and municipal elections. Trey Radel’s resignation will cost the voters of Southwest Florida one million dollars, according to Harrington. Collier County had to shell out another $500,000 to cover their expenses.

Editorials: All not well on voting | Wichita Eagle

With the Aug. 5 primary approaching, the voting rights of more than 18,000 Kansans are snagged on the law requiring proof of citizenship to register as of 2013. Yet Secretary of State Kris Kobach acts as if all is well. As for the governor, attorney general and legislative leaders – cue the crickets. Kobach even described the voters in limbo – 18.5 percent of the total attempted registrations since Jan. 1, 2013 – as “actually a pretty small percentage of the people who have registered since Jan. 1 (2013).” Recall that Kobach persuaded the Legislature of the need to pass a law in 2011 requiring photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register though there had been just seven convictions for voter fraud between 1997 and 2009. And although he claimed as a candidate in 2010 that “in Kansas the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive,” he recently referred to 20 cases of illegal immigrants registering to vote between 2006 and 2009 in Kansas having been presented in federal court.

Afghanistan: Election contender Ghani dismisses fraud claims | AFP

Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday defended himself against electoral fraud allegations that have tipped the country into a political crisis, vowing to fight for every ballot cast for him. Ghani’s poll rival Abdullah Abdullah has said he will reject the result of the ongoing vote count due to what he claimed was “blatant fraud” committed by Ghani, the election authorities and outgoing President Hamid Karzai. “I ask Dr Abdullah as a national figure to respect the rule of law,” Ghani told supporters in his first speech since the dispute over alleged fake votes erupted. “We are all tired of the language of threats and unlawfulness… Our votes are clean, and we will defend each vote,” he said. Ghani, who travelled abroad for dental treatment after the June 14 election, returned to Kabul to deliver an uncompromising message to Abdullah, who has boycotted the Independent Election Commission (IEC). “It is the people’s right to elect their leader through votes. Some people have created a situation where they threaten that right,” he said.

China: Hong Kong Democracy Poll Puts Beijing in a Corner | US News & World Report

A 10-day unofficial pro-democracy referendum opened in Hong Kong on June 20, attracting higher-than-expected turnout and angering China’s central government in Beijing. Organized by pro-democracy group Occupy Central, the referendum offers voters a choice of three reform plans for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, all of which include public nomination of candidates, an idea rejected by Beijing. Despite massive cyberattacks blamed on mainland China, more than 700,000 online and in-person voters cast ballots in the first three days of voting. Beijing, as expected, was deeply displeased. Chinese state-run media attacked the referendum as an “illegal farce” that is “tinged with mincing ludicrousness.” Chinese media, officials in Beijing, and pro-Beijing officials in Hong Kong have been unrelenting in their efforts to discredit the referendum process, calling it “invalid” and raising suspicions of an “inflated turnout due to the flawed online voting system.” Chen Zuo’er, former deputy director of China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said that the referendum was not a valid indicator of how Hong Kong residents wanted to elect their chief executive. “The media have reported that there are dishonest elements during the process of conducting the public vote, which will result in its failure to truly reflect public opinion,” said Chen, without elaborating on these claims.

Nigeria: Participants Endorse Diaspora Voting Rights | allAfrica.com

Nigerians living overseas may be on the verge of realising their dream of exercising voting rights during future elections in the country. This is because the National Conference delegates yesterday voted in favour of Nigerians in the diaspora to exercise their voting rights and participate adequately in elections. The Committee on Foreign Policy and Diaspora Matters had explained in their report that in line with the provisions of section 13(1) C of the Electoral Act 2096 as amended and sections 77(2) and 117(2) of the Constitution of the country, which provided that only citizens present in Nigeria as at the time of registration of voters can register and vote in any elections. It said the provision had disenfranchised millions of Nigerians living abroad, who are vehemently seeking to exercise their voting rights as part of their fundamental human rights.

Tunisia: Election date spells end for transition | Associated Press

Tunisia’s assembly on Wednesday set parliamentary and presidential elections for October and November of this year to complete the transition to democracy after its 2011 revolution. The assembly decided that the vote for the new parliament will be on Oct. 26 and the vote for a new president on Nov. 23. If no candidate for president wins a majority, there will be a runoff on Dec. 28. It means the newly chosen electoral commission has just four months to organize the parliamentary elections and update the electoral rolls to register the 3 million eligible voters that didn’t participate in the October 2011 elections for the interim assembly. Tunisia kicked off the region-wide pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring by overthrowing its dictator in January 2011.

Editorials: Scaring Away Black Voters in Mississippi | Juliet Lapidos/New York Times

Several right-wing groups have banded together to form a “voter integrity project’ in response to the news that Republican Senator Thad Cochran is courting black Democratic voters in his runoff with the Tea partier Chris McDaniel. The Senate Conservatives Fund, Freedom Works and the Tea Party Patriots, all political action committees, will “deploy observers in areas where Mr. Cochran is recruiting Democrats,” according to a Times article. Ken Cuccinelli, the president of the Senate Conservative Funds, said these observers would be trained to see “whether the law is being followed.” Does anything think this “project” will actually encourage voter “integrity” as opposed to voter suppression? Misinformation is already circulating as to the details of the law that voters must follow.

Ohio: A ‘people’s movement’ for voting rights | MSNBC

After taking office in 2010, Democratic Ohio State Rep. Alicia Reece was determined to push back against Republican-sponsored voting restrictions. So Reece did what a lawmaker is supposed to do: She introduced bills, drew up amendments, pushed for hearings and testified before commissions. But with the GOP in complete control of state government beginning January 2011, she didn’t get far. Reece, 42, grew up immersed in the civil rights movement. She volunteered for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition before she was old enough to vote, and at college in Louisiana she organized her dorm to fight David Duke, a onetime state lawmaker and former Ku Klux Klan leader who was running for governor. So with Democrats shut out in Columbus, and no end in sight to GOP efforts to restrict access to the ballot, Reece decided to go back to her roots. “I tried to work on the inside,” Reece, 42, explained on a recent Saturday over lunch at Pleasant Ridge Chili—the self-proclaimed inventor of gravy cheese fries. “Now, I had to go outside, and get organizing a people’s movement.”

Virginia: State Board of Elections to re-evaluate voter ID rule after lawmaker raises concern | Associated Press

The State Board of Elections plans to re-evaluate its definition of a valid identification under Virginia’s new voter ID law after a state lawmaker raised concerns about the rule. On June 10, the board determined that expired but otherwise valid forms of identification will be accepted at the polls. Board members voted Tuesday to reconsider the regulation and reopen the public comment period for 21 days. The board plans to study whether it has the authority to determine what forms of ID are valid, media outlets reported. “What we are after is to find out if this person representing themselves at the polls is who they say they are,” said Chairman Charles Judd. “Then we have achieved what we need to achieve.”

National: Senate debates voting rights proposal | USA Today

In the year since the Supreme Court ended close federal oversight of elections in Alabama and some other states, discrimination against minority voters has crept back into place, voting rights advocates say. “The result of that decision is that minority voters have been left without critically needed voting protections for an entire year,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony Wednesday that, because the Justice Department is no longer looking over their shoulder, several local and state governments around the country have restricted some people’s access to the ballot box.

National: NCSL Launches Elections Administration Research Database | National Conference of State Legislatures

What is the impact of major court rulings on voter ID laws? How are states ensuring voter registration lists are accurate? Which new voting system designs are being developed for the marketplace? Finding these answers and other information about elections policy can quickly eat up the kind of time that a lawmaker, legislative staffer or elections administrator can hardly afford to spend. But that was life before the Elections Administration Research Database, a new tool launched today by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The database brings together more than 1,900 reports that, altogether, address a wide range of elections topics. It is supported by generous funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

California: Recount possibility looms in California controller’s race after canvass | The Sacramento Bee

They’ve been counting votes for three weeks in the race for California controller, and Democrat Betty Yee has gone from second place to third place, to fourth place and back to third. As of Tuesday afternoon, she was again clinging to second place, ahead of former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez by a mere 865 votes. Whoever survives gets a spot in the Nov. 4 runoff against Republican Ashley Swearengin. “I get text messages from people who’ve been following this much more closely than I am,” said Yee, a member of the state Board of Equalization, downplaying any anxiety as officials finish processing more than a million vote-by-mail, provisional and damaged ballots by next Tuesday’s canvassing deadline.

Kansas: Democrat proposes changes in Kansas voting rules | Associated Press

Kansas would end strict enforcement of a proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters under proposals outlined Tuesday by the presumed Democratic nominee for secretary of state. Democrat and former state Sen. Jean Schodorf outlined a plan for fixing what she called problems with the state’s voter registration system. But conservative Republican incumbent Kris Kobach said Schodorf is promising to ignore the proof-of-citizenship requirement if elected secretary of state, making the office “lawless.” Schodorf would allow prospective voters to cast ballots even if their registrations are on hold because they’ve not yet documented their citizenship for election officials. She also proposed that Kansas stop requiring proof of citizenship from new residents who’ve had valid voter registrations in other states and allow anyone using a national voter registration form to vote in all state and local elections — though the form doesn’t instruct voters to provide citizenship documents.

Mississippi: Judge Dismisses McDaniel Supporter’s Lawsuit To Prevent Crossover Voting | TPM

A lawsuit aimed at stopping crossover voting in Mississippi was dismissed by a judge in the state on Tuesday. The race has been caught up in controversies about the practice of “crossover voting,” in which some outside groups are accusing Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) campaign of encouraging Democrats and African-American voters to support him in the runoff. The lawsuit, by Ronald W. Swindall, a supporter of Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) was filed on Monday. McDaniel is facing Cochran in the runoff for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

South Carolina: Richland County absentee ballot question | WISTV

A WIS Twitter fan tweeted us an image of an absentee ballot categorizing the document as ‘lazy’ and questioning whether or not it is legal. The ballot was mailed to Twitter user Ryan Brown so he could vote for this Tuesday’s runoff races in Richland County. Questioning the ballot, @ryabro wrote: “Really Richland County?” with the hashtags #lazy and #cantbelegal. The races that had been decided during the June 10 primary election has been crossed out with black marker using an “X.” Meanwhile the contests that are to be decided Tuesday were edited to only show those candidates who are part of the run-off.

Editorials: Do South Carolina pollworkers know the law they’re enforcing? | Cindi Ross Scoppe/The State

I got an email early this morning from John Schafer, who reported that when he asked the poll workers at his Spring Hill precinct in the Richland County portion of Irmo what happened if he didn’t have a photo ID, “The two ladies said, simultaneously, ‘Then you can’t vote.’ ” He continued: “Since I was the only voter in the poll at the time, I let them expand on their answer before I corrected them and they eventually got around to the provisional ballot. I politely told them I had my ID, but I was quizzing them. They told me they were only responding as they were trained. The precinct manager was nowhere in sight, so I did not have a chance to talk with him.” Mr. Shafer had also contacted me two weeks ago to report a similar encounter, and I had heard similar stories from others since South Carolina’s photo ID law took effect last year, so I decided to conduct my own test when I went to the Meadowfield precinct near the VA hospital to vote for Molly Spearman and Henry McMaster.

Virginia: Election Board’s authority on ID statuses in question | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Six days before Virginia’s new voter ID law goes into effect, the State Board of Elections essentially froze one of the law’s key regulations. Earlier this month, the board had determined that expired but otherwise valid forms of identification permitted under Virginia’s new photo voter ID law will be accepted at the polls. But after the sponsor of the photo ID law — Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg — voiced his concern with this regulation, the board in a meeting Tuesday voted to re-open the public comment period for an additional 21 days and explore whether the agency has legal authority to determine what forms of ID are valid. In a June 16 letter to board members, Obenshain wrote that he is concerned that the definition of “valid” that was adopted by the board conflicts with state law.

Editorials: GOP’s voter fraud humiliation: Turns out Wisconsin’s worst case is a Republican | Joan Walsh/Salon

It’s always seemed strange that Wisconsin Republicans like Reince Priebus and Scott Walker would insult their own state by claiming that it has a problem with voter fraud and needs tougher laws to prevent it. Wisconsin has traditionally been known for an uncommonly clean political culture (until recently, anyway), and I’ve never quite understood why conservatives would want to impugn it. Can you say “projection”? Now we learn about the curious case of Robert Monroe, a 50-year-old health executive who is accused of voting a dozen times in 2011 and 2012, including seven times in the recalls of Scott Walker and his GOP ally Alberta Darling. Wisconsin officials say it’s the worst case of multiple voting in memory. Oh, and, did I mention he’s a Republican? Monroe got my attention because he’s from the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, where I went to high school. Television coverage of the case focused on Shorewood’s quaint Village Hall, where I registered to vote at 18, and where Monroe allegedly filled out an absentee ballot for his son, who voted in person a few towns away, which helped trigger the investigation. Monroe lives six blocks away from where I grew up.

China: San Francisco firm defends Hong Kong vote from online attack | Los Angeles Times

Two weeks ago, Matthew Prince, the chief executive of San Francisco tech company CloudFlare, had no clue that people in Hong Kong were preparing to hold a controversial online referendum on democratic reforms. By Thursday night, half a world away from the southern Chinese city, he found himself on the front lines of a battle to defend the nonbinding, unofficial vote from sabotage. Amazon Web Services and Hong Kong’s UDomain had initially been onboard to support and protect the voting website. But at the last minute, both bowed out, saying the expected size of the cyberassault could affect their other customers. That was a somewhat worrying sign for Prince and team, whose small, 5-year-old company specializes in making websites run more quickly and smoothly and preventing disruptions and recently launched a pro bono service for situations just like this.

Libya: Election begins amid violence | Al Jazeera

Polling is under way in Libya to elect a new national parliament despite much of the country being in the grip of the worst violence since the 2011 uprising. Polling stations opened at 6am GMT on Wednesday, with 1.5 million registered voters choosing from the 1,628 candidates contesting 200 seats in parliament. The vote is Libya’s third legislative election since the declaration of liberation that ended the 2011 uprising against the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. The 200-seat House of Representatives will replace the General National Congress which has become deadlocked in recent months in disputes between Islamist members and their opponents. On June 21 and 22, 11,000 registered Libyan voters in 13 foreign countries cast their votes in 22 voting stations, according to the Higher National Elections Committee.

Afghanistan: Thousands march on Afghan president’s palace to protest election | Reuters

Thousands of angry protesters marched on the Afghan president’s palace on Friday in support of candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s allegations that mass fraud had been committed during the presidential election by organizers and state officials. The run-off pitting the former Northern Alliance leader against ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani on June 14 has fallen into deadlock over Abdullah’s decision to drop out last week. The impasse has revived longstanding ethnic tensions in Afghanistan because Abdullah’s base of support is with the Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group, while Ghani is Pashtun, the largest group. It also comes at a dangerous time, with the Taliban insurgency still raging and most NATO-led forces preparing to leave the country by the end of the year. Abdullah joined protesters aboard a small truck, driving alongside the crowd and waving a flag.

China: Herculean hacking attack takes aim at Hong Kong’s dreams of democracy | The Globe and Mail

The full fury of the Internet attack started three hours before polls opened. As people in Hong Kong prepared to cast electronic ballots in an effort to show Chinese authorities their hunger for democracy, hackers opened fire with a potent effort to derail the vote. Suddenly, a flood of data swarmed the servers designed to handle the voting in a poll held by Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a burgeoning protest movement that has sought the right for Hong Kong people to nominate and elect their own chief executive, the territory’s most powerful position. But the informal vote on universal suffrage was attacked by at least 300 gigabits of data per second – and perhaps as high as 600, a level not before reached in a publicly disclosed hacking attack. The torrent reached 200 million packets, or tiny bits of data, per second. It was “just a stunning amount of traffic,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive officer of CloudFlare, the San Francisco-based Internet security company that managed to keep the website online.

Norway: Norway Does A Ctrl+Alt+Delete On E-Voting Experiment | NPR

After a two-year trial for Internet voting, Norway is pulling the plug. The country’s Office of Modernization said in a statement that there’s no evidence that online voting, tested in elections in 2011 and 2013, improved turnout. It also said that “political disagreement” over the issue, along with voters’ fear that ballots might not be secure, could undermine the democratic process. The office said it had “decided that the attempt with voting over the Internet should not be promoted.” The idea of online voting has been in the ether for as long as the Internet, so Norway’s experience might be relevant elsewhere. … David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, wrote in 2011 that “computer and network security experts are virtually unanimous in pointing out that online voting is an exceedingly dangerous threat to the integrity of U.S. elections. “There is no way to guarantee that the security, privacy, and transparency requirements for elections can all be met with any practical technology in the foreseeable future,” he says.

National: Cantor loss clouds prospects for new voting rights bill | The Washington Post

The recent primary loss by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor set off a barrage of political analysis that concluded that any large-scale overhaul of the country’s immigration laws was dead. But the ouster of Cantor (R-Va.) also upended Democratic hopes for a bill intended to counter a Supreme Court decision last year that halted several major provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Shelby v. Holder decision stalled the requirement that nine states — each with histories of racially discriminatory actions to keep minorities from voting — must submit any changes to voting procedures to the Justice Department before they can be implemented.

Editorials: Give Voters a Bill of Rights | Bloomberg

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key formula in the Voting Rights Act last year, Chief Justice John Roberts had a constructive but not entirely practical suggestion: “Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.” Against all odds, this Congress — on track to be the least productive in modern history — actually came up with a new formula. Unfortunately, it could do more harm than good. The old formula dictated which states and counties were subject to more stringent requirements under the Voting Rights Act, now almost half a century old. The law protects the voting rights of all Americans but — until the court’s decision — paid special attention to election rules and practices in eight states and parts of seven others, mostly in the South. Because of their history of disenfranchisement, those districts were required to get “preclearance” from the federal government for any changes to election practices, including ID requirements and polling hours.

Editorials: Do people know what Voter ID means? | Charles D. Ellison/Philadelphia Tribune

In recent months, a slew of polls have asked one of the more critical questions in electoral politics: Do you support Voter ID? The answers are as controversial as the topic itself. An ongoing stream of debate over Voter ID laws easily gives the impression of a highly charged polarizing tug of war between competing parties. And the assumption, especially among pundits battling over it, is that the larger public knows what that is. Lawmakers, particularly on the state level, continue to litigate or pass some form of Voter ID law, with Republicans pushing a statistically questionable voter fraud narrative and Democrats pushing back with accusations of voter suppression. National polls from sources such as Fox News, Rasmussen and others suggest the issue, at least in the minds of voters, is resolved. The most eye-raising was an early June Fox News survey, which showed 51 percent of African Americans actually supported Voter ID laws — despite clear campaign trail and advocacy angst to the contrary.

Voting Blogs: FEC Deadlocks and the Role of the Courts | More Soft Money Hard Law

Critics of campaign finance enforcement, or the lack of it, continue to be infuriated by the FEC’s record of deadlocks in major cases, and they are further troubled by the obstacles to judicial review.  When complainants stymied by deadlock appeal to the courts, they must still overcome the “deference” generally granted to the agency’s expertise, except where the law is clear or the agency is acting arbitrarily.  In these cases, the courts review the agency’s action by examining the stated position of the Commissioners voting against enforcement.  This is the so-called “controlling group” of Commissioners—the ones whose refusal to authorize enforcement controlled the outcome. Two FEC Commissioners, Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub, now argue that this is all wrong, and have called for the courts to reconsider the process by which deadlock decisions are reviewed. They want an end to the “controlling group” analysis; the courts, the Commissioners contend, should review deadlocks on a de novo basis. So if the FEC dismisses a complaint because the Commissioners cannot agree on what sort of an organization constitutes a regulated “political committee,” the court would take it from there—disregarding the Commissioners’ disagreement and proceeding to judge the issue from scratch.