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Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that the Justice Department will continue its efforts to protect voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision which gutted the Voting Rights Act earlier this summer. During remarks to the Congressional Black Caucus, Holder explained that the lawsuits filed to stop Texas’s discriminatory redistricting and voter ID laws are “just the beginning.” “Thanks to the hard work of our Civil Rights Division, we are continuing to refine and re-focus current enforcement efforts across the country,” he said. “And while the suits we’ve filed in Texas mark the first voting rights enforcement actions the Justice Department has taken since the Supreme Court ruling, they will not be the last.”

Estonia: Electoral Committee Launches E-Voting Tests | ERR

Officials begin a three-day period of testing Estonia’s e-election system today, and voters can also participate. The testing comes in light of the fact that the upcoming local government elections will be the first in which Internet voters will be able to verify that they have voted – a sort of electronic receipt, reported ETV. Those wishing to vote online, as has been possible in Estonia since 2005, must download the voting software and log in with their national ID card or mobile ID. Despite its reputation as an Estonian success story, e-voting has been a controversial issue that has been challenged by political opposition, claims of security vulnerabilities and an ensuing Supreme Court case.

Iraq: Votes Being Counted In Kurdish Regional Elections In Iraq | RFERL

Vote-counting is under way in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, following regional parliamentary elections on September 21. Officials have put the turnout at 73.9 percent in voting that transpired without major incident. One man was reported shot to death in the capital, Irbil, after polls closed. And Hiwa Mohammed, an election monitor in Irbil, told Reuters that difficulty with the voting procedure may have kept some residents from casting their vote

Germany: No concerns over election fraud in Germany | Deutsche Welle

“Germany’s election process is quite transparent,” said Klaus Pötzsch of the electoral committee responsible for the organization and running of any federal or EU election in Germany. The committee is trying to make sure that nothing goes wrong. “For instance you could look at the situation in the polling stations. In each station we have eight to nine volunteers helping out.” Around 630,000 such volunteers will be at polling places for the federal elections on Sunday. Anyone 18 or older can volunteer, but local authorities might also recruit you to help – and you can only turn down their request if you have a very convincing reason. Before polling stations open, the volunteers will check to ensure ballot boxes are indeed empty. During the election they’ll make sure that everybody has an ID with them and can show the documents every citizen receives by mail proving that they are eligible to vote.

Maldives: Supreme Court postpones presidential run-off | BBC

The Maldives Supreme Court has postponed the second round of the country’s presidential election, due to have taken place on Saturday. The court says a new run-off date will be set once it has ruled on the case. Qasim Ibrahim, who came in third in the first round of voting, asked the court last week to annul the results, alleging electoral fraud. Mohammed Nasheed, who was forced from office in an alleged coup last year, won 45% of the vote in the first round. Mr Nasheed, who won the first free election in the Maldives in 2008, needed more than 50% to avoid a run-off against his nearest rival, Abdulla Yameen, who got 25% of the vote. Mr Yameen is the half-brother of the Maldives’ former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who led the country for 30 years. “We order the Elections Commission and other relevant state institutions to delay the second round of the presidential election scheduled for 28 September 2013 until the Supreme Court issues a verdict in this case,” the court said.

Russia: Moscow court confirms election defeat for Navalny | Associated Press

A Moscow courthouse on Friday upheld the results of mayoral elections in which the Kremlin-backed incumbent narrowly avoided a run-off with opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Russian news outlets reported. The judge rejected Navalny’s claims that the campaign was marked by abuse of government finances and selected voter fraud, ruling that there were no grounds for a recount. Navalny’s success in the elections proved an embarrassment to his Kremlin-backed opponent, incumbent Sergei Sobyanin. Sobyanin got 51 percent of the vote, just avoiding the 50 percent cut-off that would have forced him into a second round against Navalny. Independent election monitor Golos also criticized the election result, saying that there had been no evidence of widespread vote-rigging but that isolated violations could have tipped the close election. Also Friday, another court that Navalny’s appeals trial will begin on Oct. 9. Navalny was sentenced in July to five years in prison for embezzlement in a case that he and his supporters describe as legally dubious and a punishment for his exposure of high-level corruption.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly September 16-22 2013

September 22, 2013

detroit Recall elections, formerly a rarity reserved for cases of gross negligence or criminality, have become an increasingly common over the past decades, often driven by specific issues and ideology. Confirming a policy shift with implications for the state’s administration of a separate proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters, Kansas no longer plans to require people renewing driver’s licenses to produce proof that they are living in the U.S. legally. Extending the life of a nine-year legal challenge to the use of direct recording electronic voting machine, a New Jersey appeals court called further review of the state’s voting system security procedures. Investigating allegations of fraud, Michigan officials continued a recount of last month’s mayoral election in Detroit. South Dakota Secretary of State formed a commission to investigate the use of federal funds for early voting facilities in Native American reservations. Several civil rights groups joined enjoined lawsuits challenging Texas’ voter ID law. The Economist looked laws in several nations that require citizens to vote and Germany heads to the polls in an election with broad implications for Europe.

Arizona: Clean Election Commission asks court to overturn judge’s ruling – quickly | The Verde Independent

Saying a quick answer is needed, the Citizens Clean Election Commission asked the Court of Appeals on Wednesday to overturn a trial judge’s decision allowing candidates to take a lot more money from political supporters. Tom Collins, the commission’s executive director, said his board believes the judge erred in concluding that lawmakers are free to reset the donation limits to whatever they want. The commission believes those limits are linked to the parallel public funding system, which, by virtue of being enacted by voters, is protected from legislative tinkering. Potentially more significant, Collins said last week’s ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain allowed candidates for legislative office to immediately start accepting up to $4,000 from individual donors and political action committees. The old limits — the one Collins is trying to have restored — cap that at $440.

Arkansas: Panel approves rules for voter ID law | Associated Press

Arkansas’ top elections panel on Wednesday approved guidelines for how poll workers should enforce the state’s new voter ID law when it takes effect next year, after it removed a proposal that one member warned could lead to political favoritism. The state Board of Election Commissioners unanimously approved the rules, which closely mirror those outlined in the law passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in April despite Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto. Before approving the new guidelines, the panel voted to remove a provision that would have allowed poll supervisors to settle disputes when voters don’t resemble their ID photos. Board member Stu Soffer, who called for the provision’s removal, said the voter ID law didn’t give them the authority to include that step in the rules. He said the voter could cast a provisional ballot even if their identity is challenged, and the final decision could be made by the county election commission.

California: New rules aim for transparency in online campaign material | Los Angeles Times

Under new rules approved Thursday, the state hopes to help Californians determine whether political material they read online is a writer’s own opinion or propaganda paid for by a campaign. Campaigns will now have to report when they pay people to post praise or criticism of candidates and ballot measures on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other websites. “The public is entitled to know who is paying for campaigns and campaign opinions,” so voters can better evaluate what they see on blogs and elsewhere online, said Ann Ravel, who chairs the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Open-government groups endorsed the new rules, which govern “favorable or unfavorable” content — although much of the time that information may come weeks or even months after publication. Bloggers and some others say the rules infringe on free speech. The regulations require disclosure by campaigns that pay someone $500 or more to post positive or negative content on Internet sites not run by the campaigns. In periodic spending reports required by the state, the campaigns would have to identify who was paid, how much and to which website or URL the posting was made.

Florida: State wants to scrub voter rolls again | Highlands Today

Ken Detzner wants to counties to purge voter rolls again. After last year’s fuss, however, Florida’s secretary of state is touring the state to explain Project Integrity. Penny Ogg will listen, but Highlands County’s elections supervisor isn’t convinced another state-led purge is necessary. “Through transparency and the statutory due-process protection afforded to every voter, we can ensure the continued integrity of our voter rolls while protecting the voting rights of eligible voters from those who may cast an illegal vote,” Detzner said in a press release last week. “I am going to the roundtable discussion with Secretary Detzner in Orlando on Oct. 7,” Ogg said. “After that meeting, we hope to have better information regarding this issue since we, as supervisors, have not been given details of how they plan to roll out this new phase.” More meetings are scheduled in Panama City, Jacksonville, Sarasota and Fort Lauderdale. Nearly all the 67 elections supervisors scrapped last year’s purge – requested by Gov. Rick Scott – after they discovered the majority of 2,600 voters flagged by Detzner’s office were eligible. Most were minorities or had Hispanic-sounding surnames. Last year’s Florida crossmatched dataset included the names of naturalized citizens and even some who were born in the U.S.

Michigan: Cost of recounts soars in legislation passed by Michigan House | Detroit Free Press

Asking for a recount of an election could get a whole lot more expensive under a bill passed by the state House of Representatives on Thursday. Currently, a candidate requesting a recount must pay $10 per precinct to get a recount underway. Under the bill passed Thursday on a 95-9 vote, that amount would increase to $25 per precinct. And for candidates who lost by more than 50 votes, it would cost them $125 per precinct if they asked for a recount. The bill was drafted long before the election mess in Detroit, where the votes have been counted multiple times by city, county and state officials.

Ohio: Counties cutting back on polling locations | The Columbus Dispatch

The head of the Licking County Board of Elections knows she’s in for a bumpy November after nearly half of the county’s voting locations were eliminated. “People are going to be upset, and I understand that,” said Director Sue Penick. “But we’re playing with their money and trying to ultimately be fiscally responsible with it. Hopefully, we’ve done that.” Most central Ohio counties have streamlined their precincts in recent years, and Licking County became the latest by announcing on Tuesday that it is eliminating 30 precincts and more than 20 polling locations. The move is expected to save about $20,000. Licking County will go from 125 precincts to 95, and consolidate 47 voting locations into 24 or 26 for the November election. The impetus, besides cost-cutting, was efficiency, Penick said. Seven precincts that served villages with fewer than 200 voters were consolidated into locations that now will serve a village/township split.

Wisconsin: Advocates quietly challenging voter ID law | Florida Courier

The first legal challenge to an elections law under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), since the United States Supreme Court shot down preclearance protections under Section 5 of the VRA in June, is under way with little to no fanfare. On Nov. 4, 2013, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman will hear a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter identification law brought by Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group, and pro bono counsel Arnold & Porter. In 2011, the state’s Republican-led legislature passed a law that would require voters to present a government-issued ID in order to cast a ballot in local, state and federal elections. The new measure would have counted Wisconsin among nearly three-dozen states with voter ID laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Germany: The SPD election campaign: Getting out lost voters | Policy Network

The Länder election that took place in Bavaria, Germany´s second biggest state, last Sunday added flavour to what was previously a dull election campaign on federal level. According to Allensbach Institute, the share of people talking with others about the election rose from 29% to 49% recently. While the Christian Social Union (CSU) – sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – came out on top, chancellor Angela Merkel´s coalition partners the Free Democratic Party (FDP), who had also been part of the governing coalition in Bavaria, received only 3.3% of the votes, thus clearly failing to get over the 5% threshold that dictates whether a party can enter parliament. The liberals now fear they could miss entering the federal parliament next Sunday too. This would make Merkel´s “dream coalition” history. The liberals immediately started to aggressively beg for conservative voters to step in and help them. If successful, this strategy would take voters from the CDU/CSU. Indeed, at the Länder election in Lower-Saxony in January, “pity votes” for the FDP prevented a victory for the CDU. Only 8.6% of Bavarians voted for the Greens on Sunday, which is in line with the negative trend in the polls on the federal level that is lowering the prospects for a Red-Green coalition government. Even the “Free Voters of Bavaria” superseded the Greens – a local organised party with a strong base in Bavaria which plays no role on federal level. It will be interesting to see where the votes for the Free Voters move to next Sunday.

Guinea: Guinea opposition leader seeks poll delay, threatens protests | The Star Online

Guinea’s main opposition leader on Thursday threatened to call supporters onto the streets if authorities push ahead with a parliamentary election due on Tuesday without fully addressing complaints over preparations. Cellou Dalein Diallo, leader of the largest opposition party and arch rival of President Alpha Conde, said it would be impossible to fix problems linked to voter lists and polling stations on time so a delay of a few weeks was needed. The poll, meant to cap Guinea’s transition back to civilian rule, has been repeatedly delayed since Conde was elected three years ago, sowing doubts amongst Guineans, investors and donors over political progress in the world’s top bauxite exporter. Dozens of people were killed in protests during months of wrangling over the election earlier this year.

Iraq: Kurds vote for first time in Kurdistan in more than four years | Middle East Online

Iraq’s Kurdish region goes to the polls on Saturday, grappling with a swathe of disputes with the central government while fellow Kurds fight bloody battles across the border in Syria. The legislative election also comes amid questions over the future of the Kurdish nation, spread across historically hostile countries that have more recently either shown a willingness to discuss Kurdish demands, or have suffered instability, allowing Kurds to carve out their own territory. The September 21 vote is the first to be held in Kurdistan, a three-province autonomous region in north Iraq, in more than four years. It will see three main parties jostle for position in the Kurdish parliament, with long-term implications both domestically and farther afield. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of regional president Massud Barzani is widely expected to garner the largest number of seats.

Maldives: Supreme Court orders Elections Commission to hand over original voter list | Minivan News

The Supreme Court has ordered the Elections Commission (EC) to hand over the original voter lists of all ballot boxes placed during the recent first round of Presidential Elections held on September 7. A Supreme Court battle between the EC and Jumhooree Party (JP) ensued this week after the latter announced its decision to dismiss the outcome of the presidential poll after narrowly missing out a place in the run-off election with 24.07 percent of the vote. The party accused the EC of electoral discrepancies and irregularities that altered the results of the poll to the JP’s disadvantage.

eSwatini: Voting in a ‘monarchical democracy’ | Al Jazeera

Voters in the tiny mountain kingdom of Swaziland are voting to elect a new parliament in an election dismissed by critics as a rubber stamp for King Mswati III’s absolute rule. About 415,000 of the country’s 1.2 million citizens are registered to cast their ballots for 55 parliamentarians on Friday. However, of the 65 seats in the parliament, 10 are allocated by the king when he selects his cabinet and prime minister. Political parties are not formally banned, but are restricted, and the country remains sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Election candidates are hand-picked locally by traditional chiefs, who are loyal to the king. Mswati holds ultimate sway over the government: he can veto new laws, dissolve parliament and may not be sued or charged. Opposition groups including the banned Pudemo party and South Africa-based Swaziland Solidarity Network have called for a boycott of the poll. The king recently described the system as a “monarchical democracy”.

California: State Gives Expanded Rights to Noncitizens | New York Times

California is challenging the historic status of American citizenship with measures to permit noncitizens to sit on juries and monitor polls for elections in which they cannot vote and to open the practice of law even to those here illegally. It is the leading edge of a national trend that includes granting drivers’ licenses and in-state tuition to illegal immigrants in some states and that suggests legal residency could evolve into an appealing option should immigration legislation fail to produce a path to citizenship. With 3.5 million noncitizens who are legal permanent residents in California, some view the changes as an acknowledgment of who is living here and the need to require some public service of them. But the new laws raise profound questions about which rights and responsibilities rightly belong to citizens over residents. “What is more basic to our society than being able to judge your fellow citizens?” asked Jessica A. Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, referring to jury service. “We’re absolutely going to the bedrock of things here and stretching what we used to think of as limits.”

National: The Recall Is the New Normal: The Rise of the Permanent Campaign | Pacific Standard

Last week, in a first for the state of Colorado, two state legislators were recalled by their constituents. Senator Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) and Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) were sent packing in large part due to their votes in favor of new gun laws passed and signed into law earlier this year. As I’ve noted elsewhere (here and here), recall elections are a rarity in the United States, but they’re becoming increasingly common. There have only been 38 state legislative recall elections since states first began adopting the procedure in 1908. Seventeen of those—nearly half—have occurred just since 2010. And some of them, particularly the recent Colorado ones, would have to be labeled as political successes for their backers. A vocal and passionate minority (in this case, gun owners) wanted to punish some lawmakers for their votes and send a message of intimidation to others. They did that. My guess is that the recall will only become more popular in the coming years. Now, I remember quite a few people predicting the same thing after the successful 2003 recall of California Governor Gray Davis. In fact, it would be another five years before anyone would attempt to recall a state legislator, and another three years after that until an attempt to unseat another governor. Why would it not catch on then but catch on now?

National: Tea party wants socialist treatment | Politico.com

A national tea party group is asking for permission to keep their donors secret — just like the socialists. Citing a long litany of harassment examples, the Tea Party Leadership Fund is asking the Federal Election Commission for the same right granted to the Socialist Workers Party to shield the names and information of their donors from the public. In a new request to the FEC shared with POLITICO, the group argues that tea party donors and activists are being targeted for harassment by government officials and private groups — and they cite derogatory comments by politicians and overbearing government investigations as evidence. “Nobody likes the communists and really for good reason,” said Dan Backer, the attorney for the group who wrote and filed the complaint. But, Backer said, the same legal principle that grants left-wring groups the right to hide their donors should also cover tea party groups. “As we very thoroughly document at almost three times the length of the socialist request, tea party supporters are subject to an unprecedented level of harassment and abuse,” Backer said. If the tea party request is granted, the decision could open the floodgates to outside groups, candidates and political parties who want to hide their donors with the government’s blessing. “This will be the beginning of a conversation about the burdens and the perils of disclosure,” Backer predicted.

Kansas: Proof-of-citizenship law top reason voters on hold | Associated Press

Four times as many prospective Kansas voters have their registrations on hold for failing to meet a proof-of-citizenship requirement than for all other reasons combined, state statistics show. Kansans with registrations on hold can’t legally cast ballots. A law that took effect in January requires new Kansas voters to produce a birth certificate, passport or other papers documenting their U.S. citizenship, but election officials also put registrations on hold for other reasons, such as when people fill out registration forms improperly or register before turning 18. Kansas had about 21,300 voter registrations on hold this week, and more than 17,100 — 80 percent of the total — were for people who hadn’t met the proof-of-citizenship requirement. The secretary of state’s office provided the figures to The Associated Press.

Michigan: 3 men to be charged with illegal possession of absentee ballots | Detroit Free Press

Three men, including a Hamtramck City Council candidate in August’s primary election, are being charged with returning absentee ballots that did not belong to them, state Attorney General Bill Schuette and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s offices announced today. Hamtramck Deputy City Clerk August Gitschlag told authorities that three people had delivered multiple absentee ballots to City Hall in violation of state election law, which says those in possession of ballots must be the voter, a relative, mail carrier or authorized official.

Montana: Judge rules campaign disclosure law constitutional | The Missoulian

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Montana’s requirement that political committees disclose their campaign spending is constitutional. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen sided with the state in a new decision, and dismissed a case brought last year by the National Association for Gun Rights. He wrote that the public’s right to know who is financing political campaigns vastly outweighs the minimal burden imposed on committees required to report the information. The Virginia nonprofit organization originally argued it wanted to send political mailings on gun issues without registering as a political committee. The organization said it advances the “God-given right” to keep and bear arms.

New Jersey: Donors’ Funds Sidestep Law, Aiding Christie | New York Times

In early May, Gov. Chris Christie arrived at the Liberty National Golf Course in New Jersey for a political fund-raiser. Donors, many of them longtime backers of his, enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and views of the Lower Manhattan skyline while he spoke of the important work to be done on issues like jobs and the economy. Not a single check was written to Mr. Christie’s campaign. Indeed, some of those in attendance were legally prohibited from doing so, because they had sizable contracts with state agencies and were therefore barred by New Jersey law from making large contributions to the governor. Instead, the donors wrote checks for as much as $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association, an organization Mr. Christie helps lead that has collected $1.65 million from New Jersey donors during the first six months of the year. The association has, in turn, poured $1.7 million into Mr. Christie’s re-election effort, with television advertisements attacking State Senator Barbara Buono, his Democratic opponent in the election this year.

South Carolina: Strong Mayor Vote Bumped to December | Free-Times.com

After more than three hours of debate and public comment at a special meeting Wednesday night, Columbia City Council voted 4-3 not to put a strong mayor referendum on the November ballot. Instead, they’ll hold a special election Dec. 3 — but only if and when they receive a certified petition from the Richland County Election Commission. Petition gatherers presented a petition calling for a referendum to the election commission last Tuesday, but the commission hasn’t yet certified it. Councilman Sam Davis was the swing vote last week to give initial approval to a November vote, but said he’d only give it final approval if the petition was certified.

South Dakota: Task force to examine voting | The Argus Leader

Secretary of State Jason Gant will convene a task force this fall to consider possible changes to the state plan under the Help America Vote Act. The decision to name a task force comes after Gant and the Board of Elections deflected a request to establish in-person absentee voting and voter registration stations in three predominantly Native American communities. In his release announcing the task force, Gant said that issue and others could be addressed by the task force. The news release said Gant hoped the group would “strive for uniformity in our election system across all South Dakota counties.” Earlier this summer, voting rights group Four Directions asked the state’s Board of Elections to approve a request to place absentee voting stations in Wanblee, Eagle Butte and Fort Thompson. Four Directions Executive Director OJ Semans noted the state still had about $9 million in HAVA funds, money that Congress appropriated to states to modernize voting equipment and procedures following the controversial presidential election of 2000. Semans estimated the request would cost the state $50,000 per election cycle.

Virginia: Felons slow to seek restoration of rights | The Free Lance Star

Some 350,000 convicted nonviolent felons became eligible to have their civil rights restored on July 15. Two months later, only a small fraction of those eligible know about the policy. Even fewer have applied. Gov. Bob McDonnell issued an executive order that eliminated a two-year waiting period before an application could be filed to restore rights. Now, a nonviolent felon who has completed all court-ordered conditions can apply and be automatically approved. What this means is that eligible individuals need only register with the Secretary of the Commonwealth via mail, email or phone to have their rights to vote, serve on a jury and work as a notary public restored. Organizations that are spreading the word about the change say that reaching those who are eligible is easier said than done. “Virginia only has the names of people currently incarcerated, but not those who have been released. They don’t know where these people are,” said Ladelle McWhorter of Virginia Organizing, a non-partisan grass-roots group. “The thing that [the governor’s office needs] is for people to come forward.”

Editorials: Wisconsin’s Anti-Voting Law Heads to Federal Court | Penda D. Hair/Huffington Post