Alaska: Native Voting Rights Case Kicks Off | Alaska Public Media

A federal trial is underway to determine whether the State of Alaska does enough to serve voters who speak Native languages. Toyukuk v. Treadwell was brought by two Alaska Native voters, along with two tribal councils. Natalie Landreth, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, is arguing the case. She says there’s a “huge amount” of voting information available to people who speak English, Spanish, and Tagalog, compared to the amount of materials for speakers of Yup’ik and Gwich’in. Landreth says the disparity amounts to discrimination.

Kansas: Kobach foe’s child affected by Kansas voter rule | Associated Press

The youngest daughter of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s challenger in the Republican primary had her voter registration put on hold temporarily because of a proof-of-citizenship requirement criticized by her father. GOP challenger Scott Morgan said Monday the Douglas County clerk’s office told his 18-year-old daughter, Grace, that her registration was incomplete last week because she hadn’t documented her U.S. citizenship. Morgan is a Lawrence attorney and businessman, and Grace Morgan is a University of Kansas student. Scott Morgan said his daughter registered online last week and submitted an electronic image of her passport, only to receive the letter days later asking for documentation of her citizenship. His campaign’s Facebook page Sunday posted a picture of his daughter holding the letter, and he tweeted about it.

Maryland: Elkridge company tasked with statewide shipping, security for voting booths | Baltimore Sun

Early one morning last week, Jack Kane was pacing around a Glen Burnie warehouse, reviewing paperwork and checking equipment to make sure everything was in order to deliver scores of voting machines to regional polling stations. Kane, 26, is the Anne Arundel County project manager for the Kane Co., an Elkridge-based firm that’s transporting some 16,000 voting machines to nearly 1,800 voting centers throughout Maryland. Security is a top priority, and part of Kane’s job involves making sure machines don’t get tampered with. Before trucks are sent out, seals marked with serial numbers are placed on the machines and the truck door latches to note each time they have been unlocked. Those who break the seals must sign off when they do so, and a state board employee later reviews the tags and records.

Mississippi: Crazy runoff turns ugly: “Poll watchers” head to black voting sites | Salon.com

The Mississippi GOP Senate race has already been a real … well, it’s been something. Tea Partyers are being arrested for breaking into nursing homes or accidentally getting locked inside government buildings where ballots happen to be held. Poor old Southern gentleman Sen. Thad Cochran has little idea what the hell is going on at any given moment and is relying on lobbyists to pitch pork to voters for him. For the most part, it’s been a quaint, entertaining tribute to old-timey Southern political high jinks. Unfortunately, the last moments of the primary campaign, which concludes in tomorrow’s runoff between Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel, are also closely resembling old-timey Southern political high jinks — only now, the less entertaining parts. The race is getting mighty race-y. Polls of Republican voters indicate that McDaniel, the Tea Party challenger, is likely to pick off Cochran tomorrow. This has been the understood dynamic of the runoff from the get-go. The Cochran campaign and its well-funded backers, therefore, have been appealing to Democrats — which in Mississippi mostly means African-Americans — to cross over and vote for Cochran, who’s done a lot for the state over the years. The rule is that any Democrats who did not vote in the June 3 Democratic primary are eligible to vote in tomorrow’s GOP runoff. The Cochran campaign and affiliated PACs have gone about reaching out to black community leaders.

Mississippi: Senate race muddles voter ID debate | CBS News

When Mississippi voters arrive at the polls for Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary runoff, they’ll be required to show a driver’s license or other government issued photo ID – the result of a new state voter ID law that went into effect for the June 3 primaries. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi – a staunch opponent of the voter ID requirement – was ready to spend June 3 fielding complaints from voters turned away at the polls. As it turns out, they received no such complaints, an ACLU employee told CBS News. “99.9% of Mississippians cast their ballot by showing an ID. Only 300 voters out of 400,000 voters failed to return within seven days with a photo ID to verify their affidavit ballot,” commended Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican.

North Dakota: Secretary of state says election glitch shouldn’t resurface | Bismarck Tribune

Officials with the North Dakota Secretary of State’s office said the cause of an election night technical problem with the state’s election results page has been fixed. Secretary of State Al Jaeger said safeguards have also been put in place to ensure any similar problems don’t occur during the Nov. 4 general election. To prevent a repeat of the primary election, a load test of the department’s site will be conducted sometime prior to the November election. Jaeger said testing of the state election website was done prior to the 2012 general election, which produced the largest voter turnout in state history. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum said the problem was a relatively minor one discovered in the system. “It was a query that was running inefficiently,” Silrum said. “I can’t blame it on Information Technology Department; I can’t blame it on our vendor.”

Wisconsin: Voter fraud case targets Scott Walker backer | Capital Times

In one of the biggest cases of voter fraud ever in Wisconsin, a Milwaukee area health insurance executive has been charged with casting multiple votes for Republican candidates — including Gov. Scott Walker in the 2012 recall election. Robert Monroe of Shorewood was charged Friday with 13 felonies related to his voting a dozen times in five elections between 2011 and 2012, using his own name along with his son’s and his girlfriend’s son. The charges followed a WisPolitics.com review of records from the John Doe investigation that revealed the investigation into Monroe’s voting habits. “During 2011 and 2012, the defendant, Robert Monroe, became especially focused upon political issues and causes, including especially the recall elections,” says the criminal complaint against Monroe.

Afghanistan: Claim of Fraud in Afghan Vote Leads Official to Step Down | New York Times

Afghanistan’s election crisis has twisted through each of the past 10 days, as the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has wielded boycott and brinkmanship in his quest to expose what he calls industrial-scale fraud against him. On Monday, he won his first major concession, when one of the country’s top election officials resigned after repeated accusations by Mr. Abdullah that he was at the heart of a conspiracy to rig the presidential runoff. The official, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil, said in an emotional news conference here that he was stepping down “for the sake of the country and for national unity.” But he maintained that he was innocent. And he criticized Mr. Abdullah’s release of audio recordings that the candidate has offered as evidence that Mr. Amarkhil was directing widespread ballot-box stuffing, saying the tapes had been faked. The tapes, whose authenticity could not be verified, are a compendium of conversations between a man said to be Mr. Amarkhil and an array of subordinates, as well as people said to be campaign staff members for the other presidential candidate, Ashraf Ghani.

Canada: Expat voting: Court denies Ottawa’s fight for 5-year rule for voters abroad | CBC News

Canadians living abroad, regardless of when they left the country, will be able to cast ballots in next week’s federal byelections in Ontario and Alberta. An Ontario Court of Appeal judge made the ruling today, denying the federal government’s request for a stay of a lower court ruling that would have extended voting rights to anyone who had lived outside the country for more than five years. Monday’s decision comes just days before voters were to head to the polls on June 30 for four byelections — two in Alberta, two in Ontario. It paves the way for about 1.4 million longtime Canadian expats to vote alongside others who moved abroad more recently.

Tunisia: Voter registration for fresh elections begins | Ahram Online

Tunisia began voter registration on Monday for heavily-delayed legislative and presidential elections due to take place later this year. The elections would consolidate the gains of an accord in January to end months of political crisis, which had blocked the democratic transition in the birthplace of the Arab Spring. Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Chafik Sarsar, who heads the electoral organising commission, gave the order to begin the registration process at Tunis city hall, the government said. After months of negotiations, the electoral commission this month proposed that legislative polls take place on October 26 and the first round of the presidential poll on November 23, with the run-off on December 28. The provisional election dates are to be submitted to parliament on Wednesday for approval.

National: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: Expand Online Voter Registration Access | Associated PRess

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says people across the country should be able use their computers, smartphones or electronic tablets to register to vote. The New York Democrat is announcing legislation Sunday that would force the 23 states that don’t have an online registration system to establish one. The bill also would expand enrollment access in states that currently have online systems by making them open to all eligible voters without requiring a state-issued ID.

National: Sen. Rand Paul seeks to expand voting rights to some ex-cons | Politico

Rand Paul is opening a new frontier for Republicans: Voting rights. The Kentucky senator is introducing this week a bill that restores voting rights to nonviolent felons in federal elections. Paul is also pursuing drug sentencing reform in the Senate and is mulling efforts aimed at easing nonviolent criminals back into the job market. He even wants to redefine some drug offenses currently classified as felonies to misdemeanors. Together, the moves add up to a concerted effort to get minorities, young people and civil libertarians excited about Republicans — groups that much of the party admits it needs. Paul argues he’s inspired by a sense of justice, but the expected 2016 contender won’t deny that his criminal justice portfolio is also motivated by politics. “I believe in these issues. But I’m a politician, and we want more votes,” he conceded in an interview. “Even if Republicans don’t get more votes, we feel like we’ve done the right thing.”

Editorials: California’s jungle primary: Tried it. Dump it. | Harold Myerson/Los Angeles Times

Though county registrars are still tallying the votes in several close contests, the memory of California’s June primary has already begun to fade from the state’s collective consciousness — assuming, that is, that it ever made an imprint there at all. Before it vanishes altogether, though, Californians should take away one lesson from June’s balloting: The state’s new method for conducting primary elections is an asinine idea that can lead to perverse and anti-majoritarian consequences. The most obvious effect the jungle system has had is to convey a clear advantage to the party that runs fewer candidates for an office. Under the so-called jungle primary system, which came into being through a 2010 ballot measure that voters narrowly ratified, primary voters can cast their ballot for any candidate in the June election, and the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November runoff. Both the 2012 and the 2014 primaries were conducted under these rules, so we can now look at the effects this new process has had on California politics.

Kansas: Proof of citizenship law will be focus of secretary of state race | Wichita Eagle

With Aug. 5 primary elections less than two months away, more than 18,000 potential voters find themselves with an incomplete registration status because their applications have not met the state’s proof of citizenship law. The issue is at the center of the race for secretary of state – the state’s top election officer. Scott Morgan, a Republican challenger, and Jean Schodorf, the Democratic candidate, both accuse incumbent Kris Kobach of disenfranchising voters. Kobach argues that the controversy has been overblown and says voters can fix their incomplete status. He also argues that the law helps prevent election fraud. The secretary of state’s office tracks the totals at the start of every month. As of June 1 there were 18,071 incomplete voter registrations, according to spokeswoman V. Kay Curtis.

Minnesota: No excuse needed to vote absentee in Minnesota | Star Tribune

Minnesotans will no longer have to stretch the truth to get an absentee ballot. A new law, approved overwhelmingly last year, will allow voters to request absentee ballots regardless of whether they can get to their polling places on Election Day. The program, coupled with online tools that will let voters register online and check the status of their ballots, is part of a nationwide movement to make voting easier. Minnesota’s law doesn’t go as far as those in some states, where vote-by-mail and early voting have become commonplace, but its supporters say the changes will help the state maintain its best-in-the-nation turnout status. “I think anything that permits more people to vote, as long as they are doing so lawfully, is a boon,” said DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. “The more people who will vote, the better off we’ll be.”

Mississippi: Conservatives Plan to Use Poll Watchers in Mississippi | New York Times

As Senator Thad Cochran, the veteran Republican, fights for his political life in Mississippi by taking the unexpected step of courting black Democrats, conservative organizations working to defeat him are planning to deploy poll watchers to monitor his campaign’s turnout operation in Tuesday’s runoff election. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars backing Mr. Cochran’s Tea Party opponent, State Senator Chris McDaniel, said in an interview on Sunday that his group was joining with Freedom Works and the Tea Party Patriots in a “voter integrity project” in Mississippi. The groups will deploy observers in areas where Mr. Cochran is recruiting Democrats, Mr. Cuccinelli said. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department official and conservative commentator who said he was advising the effort, described the watchers as “election observers,” mostly Mississippi residents, who will be trained to “observe whether the law is being followed.”

Montana: State Republicans vote for closed primaries, for runoff elections | Billings Gazette

Irked at what they believe is Democrats interfering in their primary elections, state Republican Party delegates on Saturday called for closing their primaries and allowing only registered Republicans to vote in them. Delegates also voted to support a second measure calling for quick runoff elections in general elections between the two candidates with the most votes. Runoffs would take place if no one in the general election won the majority of the votes. Neither resolution will take effect unless the Legislature passes laws to implement them or a court orders them. They simply reflect the viewpoints of a majority of the 207 convention Republican delegates present. The resolution for a closed Republican primary sparked a debate.

Oregon: Backers of ‘top two’ nonpartisan primary say they have enough signatures to make ballot | The Oregonian

James Kelly, the chief petitioner of an initiative that would radically rewrite Oregon’s primary system, said Thursday that he believes his group has gathered enough signatures to get on the November ballot. Kelly, a Portland businessman who now lives on an eastern Oregon ranch, said his group will finish petitioning Friday and most likely turn in signatures early next week.  He said they’ve collected about 145,000 signatures, which gives them a large margin to ensure they have the 87,213 valid signatures from registered voters needed to qualify. Kelly’s initiative would replace Oregon’s partisan primary races with the type of system now used in California and Washington. Under this system, all of the candidates would be listed on the same primary ballot, and the top two finishers regardless of party would advance to the general election.

Wisconsin: Rigged maps mean less choice for voters | Wisconsin State Journal

Nearly half of all voters this fall will have little choice in who represents them in the Wisconsin Legislature. That’s because 55 of 116 legislative seats up for election will be uncontested or lack a major-party challenger, according to a tally by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. This is true even though an unusually large number of incumbents, 29, are leaving the Legislature. Open seats typically invite more competition. Yet the total number of candidates for state Senate and Assembly — 246 — is among the lowest over the last eight elections, the Taxpayers Alliance found. A lot of factors may dissuade potential candidates from running, including the nasty and expensive nature of campaigns.

Afghanistan: Election Official Draws Ire of Abdullah Supporters | Wall Street Journal

Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s campaign stepped up pressure on Afghanistan’s chief election officer on Sunday, releasing phone recordings that allegedly show the officer orchestrated the rigging of the nation’s election. Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has demanded that the chief election officer, Ziaulhaq Amarkhil be fired, accusing him and his Independent Election Commission of perpetrating “industrial-scale” fraud in favor of the rival contender, Ashraf Ghani, in the June 14 runoff election. Mr. Amarkhil, shown a transcript of the recordings before the Abdullah campaign released them, said he doesn’t recall having had such a conversation. “I would never talk like that,” he said in an interview.

China: Hong Kong unofficial referendum extended after online voting problem | Deutsche Welle

Voters in Hong Kong will have a further week to cast their votes either online or at the polling booth in a referendum on democratic reform that was due to finish on Sunday. Although the unofficial referendum has no legal force, it is offering a choice of three options on how the 2017 chief executive ballot should be carried out. Each option would allow voters to choose candidates for the top job. China’s State Council called the vote “illegal and invalid.” The current system allows a 1,200 member committee to choose the former British colony’s leader.

China: Poll on Democracy Draws Big Turnout in Hong Kong | New York Times

Participation in an informal poll to gauge Hong Kong’s desire for democracy is exceeding expectations, helped on Sunday by hundreds of volunteers who are reaching potential voters in subway stations and shopping malls, bringing American-style retail politics to one small corner of the People’s Republic of China. Three days into a 10-day voting period, more than 689,000 ballots had been cast, equal to almost one-fifth of the number of registered voters in Hong Kong, a former British colony that was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Organizers had publicly said they hoped for at least 100,000 participants in the poll, which has been condemned as “illegal and invalid” by the central government in Beijing. Most votes have been cast online — on computers through a website or by smartphones with an app — but on Sunday, polling centers opened across Hong Kong, and people voted in curtained booths. The poll is nonbinding and does not have the backing of the Hong Kong government.

Mauritania: Result of presidential vote awaited amid controversy and poll boycott | The National

Mauritania awaited the results of its presidential election on Sunday with incumbent Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz expected to win handily after his main rivals boycotted a process they regard as a sham. The former general, who seized power in the north-west African nation in 2008 coup, campaigned strongly on his success in fighting armed groups linked to Al Qaeda at home and in neighbouring Sahel nations. Men and women voted separately on Saturday, in accordance with the country’s Islamic law, emerging from voting booths to stain their fingers with ink to show they had voted.

New Zealand: Mixed Member Proportional System: why some want change | Bay of Plenty Times News

MMP has enjoyed more than a two-decade tenure as New Zealand’s voting system. But three months out from the general election, cracks are showing. Cassandra Mason investigates the prides and pitfalls of MMP and whether there’s room for change. New Zealand’s mixed member proportional system (MMP) ousted first past the post (FPP) when it was voted in in 1993. The change answered calls from an increasingly diverse New Zealand that Parliament more closely resemble its population. With September’s election on the horizon, the system’s more controversial characteristics are fuelling debate. Many maintain that MMP is the only truly democratic way to represent a population, while critics say it gives minor parties disproportionate power and influence, putting politics before people. So who’s right?

Poland: Ruling party ‘paid rival to pull out of election’ – magazine | Reuters

A Polish news magazine said on Sunday it had obtained a secret recording of a former minister saying the ruling party had settled the debts of a rival candidate in the 2005 presidential election in exchange for his withdrawal from the race. The report in Wprost magazine was the latest to emerge from a series of mysterious tapes that have tarnished the government’s reputation and confronted Prime Minister Donald Tusk with his biggest challenge since taking power in 2007. Wprost published what it said were excerpts of a secret conversation at a restaurant between Slawomir Nowak, a former infrastructure minister, and Dariusz Zawadka, a former head of military special forces and now deputy head of oil pipelines operator PERN.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 16-22 2014

cyberattack_260With the midterm elections only months away, efforts to carry out some of the country’s strictest photo ID requirements and shorten early voting in several politically pivotal states have been thrown into limbo by a series of court decisions concluding that the measures infringe on the right to vote. The Senate Judiciary Committee will examine the Voting Rights Amendment Act, a bill aimed at updating those sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last summer. Legislation in Massachiusetts requires military and overseas voters to waive their right to a secret ballot when voting online. As part of a settlement in a federal voting-rights lawsuit, Montana will open satellite voting offices on four Native  American reservations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that an anti-abortion group can challenge the constitutionality of an Ohio law that bars lies about politicians during an election. Afghanistan’s presidential election was cast into crisis on Wednesday as the candidate Abdullah Abdullah announced a boycott of the electoral process, accusing his opponent and President Hamid Karzai of engineering huge fraud in a runoff vote. A major anti-Beijing news site and an online voting platform have been hit by major DDoS attacks rendering them unusable, just days before an unofficial referendum in Hong Kong on universal suffrage, while a three-pronged wave of cyber-attacks aimed at wrecking Ukraine’s presidential vote – including an attempt to fake computer vote totals – was narrowly defeated by government cyber experts.

National: Court Rulings on Voter Restrictions Create Limbo as Midterms Near | New York Times

With the midterm elections only months away, efforts to carry out some of the country’s strictest photo ID requirements and shorten early voting in several politically pivotal states have been thrown into limbo by a series of court decisions concluding that the measures infringe on the right to vote. The most recent ruling came last Wednesday, when a federal judge ordered Ohio’s elections chief to restore early voting hours on the three days before Election Day. It is the second lower court decision in Ohio since 2012 that bolsters voter rights. The court decisions have gone both ways, but several have provided a new round of judicial rebukes to the wave of voting restrictions, nearly all of them introduced since 2011 in states with Republican majorities. The decisions have ensured that challenges will remain a significant part of the voting landscape, perhaps for years. And, with challenges still going through the courts, voting rules and requirements remain uncertain in several states before the midterm elections.

Florida: What’s Missing Matters in Redistricting Trial | Sunshine State News

As Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis begins his final deliberations on congressional districts drawn by lawmakers in 2012, the gaps in conversations among lawmakers and political consultants might be as important as what’s in the record. Groups challenging the map have painted the words not committed to paper, and documents destroyed by the Legislature, as evidence of improper activity. The state has countered that there’s no proof that those gaps contain any damning information. A coalition of voting-rights groups filed a lawsuit after the once-a-decade redistricting process in 2012, saying the new map ran afoul of the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts amendments that voters approved two years earlier.

Editorials: Reduce polarization with mandatory voting | Christopher Flavelle/Miami Herald

Data showing Americans’ increased political polarization breathes new life into an old cause: mandatory voting. If the connection between the two isn’t clear, then bear with me. A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that a growing share of Americans hold increasingly strident ideological views; those views are increasingly far apart; and the people who hold those polarized views are the most likely to vote. It seems self-evident that this is a problem. Increased polarization means voters elect lawmakers who are increasingly unwilling to compromise, which in turn means Congress can’t react to new problems or deal with old ones. It also means that whichever party wins the White House is all but guaranteed to infuriate the half of the country whose votes it didn’t get, as the demands of each party’s most strident supporters become increasingly irreconcilable.

Indiana: Second effort to identify outdated voter records underway | NWI.com

Secretary of State Connie Lawson has identified 727,000 potentially inaccurate voter registration records across Indiana. A massive May postcard mailing to all 4.4 million registered Hoosier voters saw about 16 percent returned as undeliverable. Starting this week, the state is sending a second, forwardable postcard to those registrants urging them to update their address and voter registration data. “Inaccurate voter information impairs the integrity of our voting process, and it artificially lowers our voter turnout statistics,” Lawson said. Hoosiers who receive a second postcard must update or confirm their voter information by July 24. Those who do not will be placed on “inactive” status. Inactive registrants still can vote this year, in the 2015 municipal elections and 2016 elections. But inactive voters who fail cast a ballot or update their registrations by 2017 will become eligible for removal from the poll lists.