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Democratic State Rep. Luis Moscoso’s Washington Voting Rights Act goes to the full House of Representatives after a committee approved it along with four other elections bills. Members of the House Government Operations and Elections Committee approved five pieces of legislation Monday, including the Voting Rights Act, a bill aimed at ending voter exclusion and promoting diversity in elected office. The Washington Voting Rights Act would encourage cities, towns and other local jurisdictions to switch from at-large elections to smaller districted elections. The bill, Moscoso said Tuesday, would empower local communities that have difficulties getting community members elected in at-large elections. The bill would exempt municipalities with populations under 1,000 and school districts with less than 250 students but would give people in qualifying communities the ability to sue in state courts if they feel their rights are being violated.

Armenia: Thousands in Armenia protest Sarksyan’s re-election | World Bulletin

About 5,000 flag-waving protesters rallied on Wednesday against Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan’s re-election, saying his victory was tainted by fraud.
Supporters of Sarksyan’s second-placed rival Raffi Hovannisian filled Freedom Square in the centre of the capital Yerevan to condemn what they said were uncounted ballots and other violations. “Are you ready to stay here long?” Hovannisian asked the crowd. “Are you ready to stay here until victory? I’m ready. The constitution should win over fraud,” he said, raising a first above his head after kneeling to kiss the national flag.

Barbados: Voters to elect new leader after a close and brief campaign | chicagotribune.com

Voters in Barbados will cast ballots on Thursday in a close but low key race between the ruling Democratic Labour Party led by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and the opposition Barbados Labour Party led by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur. Thirty seats in Parliament are at stake in the general election in the southeast Caribbean nation of 290,000 people, with the leader of the winning party becoming prime minister. Polling released on Monday by the Caribbean Development Research Services Inc, or CADRES, gave a slight margin in favor of the opposition Barbados Labour Party, or BLP, both in terms of seats and in popular support.

Italy: Rivals battle it out on and off-air | BBC News

From a media baron’s on-air antics to a comedian who shuns television, the campaign strategies employed by contenders in Italy’s election have been poles apart, reports the BBC’s Alan Johnston in Rome. Silvio Berlusconi is in a live television studio, half out of his seat and bellowing furiously at the audience about the Communist past of his left wing opponents. It is just one moment in a typical media performance by Italy’s former Prime Minister. He had gone into what was for him a lion’s den; the Servizio Pubblico political talk show It airs on a channel beyond the control of Mr Berlusconi’s Mediaset television empire. Some of his sharpest critics were lying in wait for him.And over more than two hours they launched attacks aimed at exposing Mr Berlusconi’s many failings. It was a chance to almost put him on trial, and the bookmakers were suggesting he might storm off the set. But he stayed in his seat, and rose to the occasion. He twisted and turned, counter-attacked and blustered and ranted and joked and charmed.

Kenya: Landlocked neighbours worried by possible Kenya poll violence | Reuters

Kenya’s landlocked neighbours are stocking up on fuel and food to prevent the kind of disruption they suffered after being cut off from the port of Mombasa by angry rioters following a disputed election five years ago. About 200 million people in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern Congo could be affected if Kenya goes through a fresh bout of fighting when it holds presidential and parliamentary elections on March 4. The port of Mombasa serves its wide hinterland with imports that include oil, clinker which is used to make cement, steel, bitumen for road construction and second-hand cars, while the main exports include tea, coffee, and horticultural products. Some 95 percent of all the cargo coming in through the port is trucked by road. Truck drivers at a weigh bridge in the small town of Athi River on the fringes of the capital Nairobi said there were already fears of violence.

Malta: Should prisoners in Malta be allowed election vote? | The Times of Malta

As the voting documents are being distributed, one part of Maltese society will not be expecting any deliveries. Based on the UK tradition, Malta bars people serving a prison term longer than one year from voting. Those given a suspended sentence retain the right. The matter was a controversial battlefield in the UK in 2001 when convicted killer John Hirst challenged the blanket ban on prisoners voting. He lost the case in the English High Court but subsequently won it in the European Court of Human Rights. None of the main political parties was happy about the ruling; the last British Labour government put off doing anything in response. In March 2011, the UK Government set up a Commission to look into the possibility of drafting a Bill of Rights and providing advice on reforming the European Court of Human Rights. In Malta, no such debate is taking place but according to criminal lawyer Joe Giglio, the fact that a person has committed an offence should not have much to do with his right to vote.

Vatican City: How secure is the papal election? | Bruce Schneier/CNN.com

As the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new pope, security people like me wonder about the process. How does it work, and just how hard would it be to hack the vote? The rules for papal elections are steeped in tradition. John Paul II last codified them in 1996, and Benedict XVI left the rules largely untouched. The “Universi Dominici Gregis on the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff” is surprisingly detailed. Every cardinal younger than 80 is eligible to vote. We expect 117 to be voting. The election takes place in the Sistine Chapel, directed by the church chamberlain. The ballot is entirely paper-based, and all ballot counting is done by hand. Votes are secret, but everything else is open. First, there’s the “pre-scrutiny” phase. “At least two or three” paper ballots are given to each cardinal, presumably so that a cardinal has extras in case he makes a mistake. Then nine election officials are randomly selected from the cardinals: three “scrutineers,” who count the votes; three “revisers,” who verify the results of the scrutineers; and three “infirmarii,” who collect the votes from those too sick to be in the chapel. Different sets of officials are chosen randomly for each ballot. Each cardinal, including the nine officials, writes his selection for pope on a rectangular ballot paper “as far as possible in handwriting that cannot be identified as his.” He then folds the paper lengthwise and holds it aloft for everyone to see. When everyone has written his vote, the “scrutiny” phase of the election begins.

National: Supreme Court to weigh whether Voting Rights Act has run its course | USAToday

The murders of three young civil rights workers bent on registering black voters during 1964’s “Freedom Summer” still haunts this tiny town in central Mississippi. Jewel Rush McDonald shudders at the thought of the beatings her mother and brother endured at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan five days before the murders. Stanley Dearman bemoans the four decades it took to get even one manslaughter conviction, and only after he badgered state officials in his weekly newspaper. James Young recalls the tension of being the only black pupil in his elementary school class at the time of the murders, when poll taxes and literacy tests helped keep 95% of eligible blacks in Mississippi from voting. After dark in those days, he says, “we were told to be in the house.” But “things have changed in the South,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said June 22, 2009, almost 45 years to the day since the murders. It was one line in the court’s most recent decision on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and though it kept the law largely intact, Roberts warned the act’s days might be numbered.

National: Supreme Court will hear appeal of campaign donation limits | Politico.com

Three years after the landmark Citizens United decision that dramatically changed campaign finance laws, the Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will take up another campaign finance case challenging how much donors can give to campaigns and committees. The court will hear McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which deals with the constitutionality of aggregate contribution limits, in October. Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama resident, contributed a total of $33,088 to 16 different candidates during the 2012 election cycle and thousands more to party committees. He wanted his contributions for the cycle to total $75,000 to party committees and $54,400 to candidates but was barred from giving at that level by federal aggregate limits. The Republican National Committee and McCutcheon challenged the FEC’s contribution limits under the First Amendment, saying the $46,200 aggregate limit for candidates and $70,800 limit for committees was “unsupported by any cognizable government interest … at any level of review.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the limits.

National: Supreme Court Takes Campaign Finance Case, Will Rule On Contribution Limits | Huffington Post

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a case challenging the per-biennial cycle limit on campaign contributions from individuals. The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, argues that the limit on what individuals are allowed to give candidates ($46,200 per two-year cycle) and parties and PACs ($70,800 per two-year cycle) is an unconstitutional violation of the individual donor’s free speech rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals already ruled in favor of keeping the biennial limits, which have been in place since 1971 and were upheld in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case. By accepting the case, the Supreme Court is stepping into the thick of another controversial campaign finance case just three years after ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations and unions can spend freely on elections. If the court rules against the two-year limits, it would mark the first time a court has overturned a part of the landmark Buckley ruling that deals with campaign contribution limits. This is not terribly surprising as the court has been hostile to campaign finance laws ever since Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a supporter of campaign finance regulation, was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s conservative bloc who is opposed to campaign regulation.

Editorials: Can Vote-By-Mail Fix Those Long Lines At The Polls? | ProPublica

In his State of the Union address, President Obama returned to a point he’d made on election night: The need to do something about long voting lines. Obama announced his plan for a commission to “improve the voting experience in America.” But often missing from discussions about how to make voting easier is the rapid expansion of absentee balloting. Letting people vote from home means fewer people queuing up at overburdened polling places. So why hasn’t vote-by-mail been heralded as the solution? When it comes to absentee and mail-in voting, researchers and voting rights advocates aren’t sure the convenience is worth the potential for hundreds of thousands of rejected ballots. Although Oregon and Washington are the only two states to conduct elections entirely by mail, absentee voting has expanded rapidly nationwide. Since 1980, the number of voters using absentee ballots has more than tripled. Roughly one in five votes is now absentee.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act: the 2012 Election Proves Exactly Why We Need It | PolicyMic

This month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments that could end key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Shelby County vs. Holder will challenge the provision requiring designated jurisdictions to receive “pre-clearance” before changing election laws. If there was any doubt that the Voting Rights Act needs to be retained, those doubts should have been erased by what happened in 2012. The greatest justification was the concerted effort by right-wingers to suppress the vote. Republican state houses throughout the country constructed an elaborate and calculated effort to suppress voter turnout. The widespread effort targeted specific demographics and were designed to make it more difficult for voters to exercise their franchise. It was the type of activity expressly forbidden by the Voting Rights Act. The 2012 elections were a case study in support of retaining the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The right to vote is not articulated in the Constitution; however, constitutional amendments state that you cannot prevent an eligible citizen from voting. The Voting Rights Act outlaws practices that prevent eligible citizens from reaching the polls, and yet, in 2012 elected officials were still trying to find ways to deny the vote.

Kentucky: Military voting bill’s key backers disagree over email provision | The Courier-Journal

A dispute over emailing completed ballots has fractured the bipartisan support behind a bill designed to simplify voting for Kentucky military personnel overseas. Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and Republican Senate President Robert Stivers joined forces to push Senate Bill 1 — designed to make it easier for Kentuckians serving abroad to vote. Grimes got the idea after visiting Kentucky soldiers serving in the Middle East last year. But their alliance has splintered because of concerns over the security of emailed votes. The bill, which Stivers filed Friday, includes a phrase that says such votes can be cast “by facsimile” or by “electronic transmission.” But Lourdes Baez-Schrader, a spokeswoman for Stivers’ office, said the phrase was included by mistake, adding that it conflicts with other parts of the bill that do not authorize electronic transmission of ballots.

Montana: Bill to give option of all-mail Montana elections meets opposition | Missoulian

A proposal, backed by Montana’s top election official and local election administrators, to give counties the option of switching to all-mail voting for elections ran into a buzz saw of opposition Friday. Lining up against House Bill 428 were representatives of groups representing Native Americans, disabled people, the elderly, environmentalists, plus some conservatives, including Tea Party advocate Mark French of Paradise. The bill by Rep. Doug Kary, R-Billings, would make it a local option for county commissioners in to decide whether to switch to vote-by-mail elections for their county in all federal and state elections. Nearly 59 percent of Montana voters last year cast their votes by mail, and the percentage rises every year, Kary told the House State Administration Committee. The bill would save money and reduce the possibility of fraud, he said. Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said the percentage of people voting absentee has risen by four times from 15 percent in 2000 to the near 60 percent last year.

Nebraska: Secretary of State Gale testifies in support of reducing in-person early voting days | Nebraska City News-Press

Secretary of State John Gale testified today in support of LB271 which would reduce the number of in-person early voting days in Nebraska from 35 to 25. The bill, sponsored by Senator Scott Lautenbaugh, arose from a complaint filed under the Help America Vote Act against the Lancaster County Election Commissioner’s office by a visually impaired voter. She was unable to vote in early October, due to the unavailability of the AutoMARK machine, which allows disabled voters to cast an unassisted ballot at their precinct. Following a hearing on that complaint, the hearing officer recommended that in-person early voting days be reduced to 25. Speaking to the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs committee, Gale said that the recommendation made by the hearing officer and supported by the proposed legislation, was the simplest and most accommodating way to address the problem.

Pennsylvania: Voter ID legal fight will skip primary | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Despite confusion last November about whether Pennsylvania voters needed to present photo identification to vote, the state does not plan to roll out an ad campaign about the new law before the May 21 primary election. Pennsylvania voters will not be required to show photo identification in the primary election, but some worry that voters may still be confused. “At the moment, we have no funding for a paid ad campaign,” said Ron Ruman, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State. Under an agreement signed Thursday in a pending lawsuit over the voter ID law, both sides agreed that voters will not be required to show photo identification in the primary. Lawyers representing the Corbett administration and plaintiffs who are challenging the constitutionality of the voter ID law in state Commonwealth Court agreed that the law won’t be enforced as voters choose nominees for judicial and municipal offices.

South Carolina: Tug-of-War at State House Stopping Early Voting | wltx.com

Lawmakers says a tug-of-war between bills in the Senate is standing in the way of early voting. Senators on of both sides of the aisle have called for changes to make true early voting a reality in South Carolina, but the senate bill could face some setbacks if nothing happens soon. If early voting does not pass Tuesday, another piece of legislation will take the front seat, pushing the bill back on the calendar. “I thought we had it very close to being resolved, every close, but it just fell apart,” said Senate President John Courson. The last few days in session senators have struggled to advance the bill that would allow South Carolinians to head to the polls and cast their ballots early, but failed deals have stalled that process.

US Virgin Islands: Federal funds to buy voting machines depend on compliance with Disablilities Act | Virgin Islands Daily News

The V.I. Elections System must overcome at least two distinct hurdles before it can purchase new electronic voting machines. Board of Elections attorney Kimberly Salisbury told the St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections at its meeting Thursday that the Elections System must become compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act – and all other federal laws – before the federal government will release the funds to purchase the machines. That means getting the U.S. Justice Department to certify that the new St. Thomas elections office is ADA compliant, according to board members Claudette Georges and Alecia Wells. It also means the board must adopt a new facilities plan – a process that, according to Georges and Wells, requires a public comment period and may take several months. The ADA certification could happen by the end of the month following a planned Feb. 21 visit by Justice Department officials, according to St. Thomas-St. John Deputy Elections Supervisor Mabel Maduro. It is less clear how long it might take to adopt a new facilities plan. No one at the meeting Thursday knew specifically where the last form of such a plan might exist.

Virginia: Senate approves voter ID bill; separate House bill advances | The Washington Post

A GOP-sponsored bill to tighten voter identification rules cleared the Senate on Friday with help from Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who also supported a Democrat’s amendment to delay the change. But the bill, which originated in the House, now returns to the lower chamber because the Senate amended it. Also Friday, a House committee approved a separate Senate voter ID bill, which now heads to the full House. Both pieces of legislation — House Bill 1337 and Senate Bill 1256 — would remove several forms of identification, including utility bills and paychecks, that the General Assembly added last year to the list of IDs accepted at the polls. SB1256, sponsored by Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), would go further, requiring that voters present photo identification. Bolling, who presides over the Senate and is exploring an independent bid for governor, broke two tie votes related to HB1337, which is sponsored by Dels. Mark L. Cole (R-Spotsylvania) and Rob R. Bell III (R-Albemarle). The lieutenant governor first sided with Democrats to delay implementation until July 2014 and further specify that it not take effect until money is appropriated to educate voters about the change. But he then voted with his party to pass the underlying bill.

Djibouti: Tensions Rise Ahead of Historic Legislative Elections | Somaliland Sun

Djibouti is undergoing a major change. For the first time since the independence of this small east African nation in 1977, the opposition party might be elected to parliament in the legislative elections taking place on February 22. To date, the electoral campaign, which started on February 8, has been unfolding calmly. But the political discourse between supporters of the different parties has already soured. A historic image: thousands of people gathering beneath the banners of the Union for National Salvation (USN), the coalition that brings together the Djiboutian opposition. After ten years of boycotting elections, these political parties are now participating in the legislative elections and running against the UMP, the Union for the Presidential Majority. After having been shut out from political life for the last 36 years, the opposition will now finally be able to sit in parliament.

Egypt: Draft electoral laws contradict Egypt’s national charter: Constitutional Court | Ahram Online

Hopes for holding Egypt’s parliamentary elections this summer have become dim in recent days. On Monday, the High Constitutional Court (HCC) took the Islamist-led Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt’s parliament) aback by deciding that as many as ten articles of two draft laws regulating parliamentary polls run counter to the newly-approved constitution. The HCC decision has thrown a wrench into the legal ratification process and could complicate the process of conducting parliamentary elections this summer. The Shura Council must meet again to debate the HCC ruling, amend the laws and then refer them back to the HCC. “This must be completed in one week or before 23 February,” said Mohamed Mohieddin, an appointed Shura Council member representing the liberal Ghad Al-Thawra Party.

Italy: Parliamentary Election Pre-Election Report | The Monkey Cage

On February 24th and 25th Italian parliamentary elections will be held. The electoral system in place is referred to in Italy as the “Calderoli law”, approved in 2005 and already used in the 2006 and 2008. Both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are elected with a proportional system with a majority premium. The two systems however are not identical. For the Chamber of Deputies it is a majority-assuring system. The party or coalition of parties that gets a plurality of the votes at the national level is guaranteed 54% of the seats (340) regardless of its percentage of votes [JT: Unless it gets more than 54% of the vote – which won’t happen in this election – but in that case it would get the correct proportion. It is only a bonus, never a penalty.] In the case of coalitions the votes of all its parties are counted for determining who gets the majority bonus. The remaining seats are allocated proportionally among the losers which meet the conditions for gaining representation. For parties running alone the threshold for getting seats is 4%. For parties running in coalition the threshold is 2%, provided their coalition gets at least 10% of the votes. For each coalition with more than 10% the largest party below the 2% threshold is entitled to receive seats. Party lists are closed.

Zimbabwe: Crackdown On Civic Groups Continues As Police Raid Zimbabwe Election Support Network Offices | allAfrica.com

Police have been criticized for intensifying their crackdown on civil society organizations, after the latest raid on the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) offices in Harare. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights director Irene Petras, who is also vice chairperson of ZESN, said officers raided the offices on Tuesday looking for subversive material, documents, gadgets or recordings and illegal immigrants. Petras told SW Radio Africa that the police search warrant was the same as the one used to raid the offices of the Zimbabwe Peace Project recently. “The raids are carried out by the Law and Order unit of the police but we don’t know where the instructions are coming from. It’s quite confusing. One minute we hear from politicians that they have been discussing this, and that attacks on civil society organizations are going to cease, and the next minute there is a raid of another organization. So it seems the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,” Petras said.

National: Decades later, attorney tracks new challenge to Voting Rights Act | The Advertiser

It was a battle that attorney Armand Derfner thought he had helped win almost five decades ago. In 1968, Derfner represented black Mississippi voters before the Supreme Court in one of the first constitutional tests of a key Voting Rights Act provision. Derfner and a team of civil rights lawyers prevailed, expanding the provision’s scope and keeping the protection in place. Today, Derfner, 74, is watching the Voting Rights Act confront a new challenge — on the same issue he argued 45 years ago.

Colorado: Ethics commission delays release of Gessler probe once again | The Denver Post

The state’s ethics commission on Friday again postponed release of an ethics probe of Secretary of State Scott Gessler after his legal team filed motions accusing the commission, one of its members and its executive director of unfairness. “There is a cloud over the commission’s preliminary handling of this case,” the motions from Gessler argue. A Denver district judge last week denied Gessler’s effort to halt the investigation by the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. Gessler’s attorneys have argued the commission has no jurisdiction in what may be a criminal case arising from allegations the Republican misspent state funds for political purposes by attending a meeting of GOP lawyers last year and piggybacking on a trip to the Republican National Convention.

Florida: Supreme Court to weigh constitutionality of voting rights protection | Tallahassee Democrat

Iron-fisted enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act transformed American politics, especially in the South, by making sure minorities had a clear path to the ballot box and an equal shot at public service. Forty-eight years later, after the re-election of an African-American president, the heart of that law is on trial. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 27 in a case that is sure to ignite a national debate over how far the country has progressed on racial issues and whether minority voters still need extra protection. Shelby County, Ala., opposed by the Justice Department and civil rights groups, wants two key sections of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional. Section 5 bars election officials in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination from changing their voting procedures unless they first prove the changes won’t hurt minorities. Section 4b uses a formula to determine which states, counties and municipalities are subject to Section 5. Though they are not challenging the law, five Florida counties — Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe — are covered by the Voting Rights Act.

Idaho: Early Voting Bill, Streamlining Process, Gets Affirmative Vote From Idaho House Committee | Boise Weekly

Following unprecedented lines of early voters leading up to last November’s election, state officials want to dramatically alter the process of moving ballots. A proposed measure that would change early voting procedures—and presumably speed up the vote count—moved through an Idaho legislative committee this morning with a “do pass” recommendation to the full membership of the Idaho House. “In Ada County, our population has grown 33 percent while our election costs have grown 313 percent,” Phil McGrane, Ada County chief deputy clerk, told members of the House State Affairs Committee today. “The cost and complexity has risen dramatically. But we’re trying to reduce the complexity so that we can focus on the accuracy and integrity of the voting process.” McGrane told lawmakers that Ada County needed to hire 90 additional workers on Election Night simply to open envelopes containing early ballots.

Illinois: County clerk tells of possible campaign problems in Cicero | chicagotribune.com

Allegations such as voters being offered pizza coupons and campaign workers insisting on handling mail-in ballots for town residents have sprung up in Cicero as the heated race for town president heads into its final week. The Cook County clerk’s office has notified law enforcement officials, including the state’s attorney’s office and the U.S. Department of Justice, of such allegations and other claims of voter intimidation and voter fraud in the western suburb. Incumbent Larry Dominick is seeking his third term as town president. He will face former McPier executive Juan Ochoa and former town senior services director Joe Pontarelli next Tuesday. “The state’s attorney is out there (in Cicero) this week interviewing people about the allegations,” Cook County Clerk David Orr said Monday at a news conference. Orr said his office has gotten several complaints from voters. He said he is disturbed about town employees in uniforms who are allegedly campaigning and knocking on doors.

Kentucky: Advocates for felons’ voting rights hope changes in legislature prove beneficial to bill | Kentucky.com

In describing Jesse Crenshaw, the average person could call him a long-time state representative who was first elected to serve the 77th District in 1993. But for convicted felons who have paid their debt to society, the adjectives used could be determined, persistent, unflagging and resolute. That’s because for years Crenshaw has introduced a bill in the House that would call for the automatic restoration of voting rights for all felons except those who convicted of “treason, intentional killing, a sex crime or bribery.” “It is one of the most important rights a person can have,” Crenshaw said. “From a Christian standpoint, it is about redemption.” There are more than 234,000 Kentuckians with felony convictions, he said, “and most of those are already out of prison. These are people in our society who deserve to be able to vote.”

Missouri: Photo Voter I.D. Questions Remain | CBS St. Louis