California: Santa Clara’s current voting system isn’t fair, judge says | San Jose Mercury News

In a declaration that may force Santa Clara to deal with long-standing complaints about equal representation on the City Council, a judge on Tuesday said the city’s current election system isn’t fair to minority voters. Superior Court Judge Thomas Kuhnle leaned in favor of the group of Asian Americans who sued Santa Clara last year claiming the city’s at-large election system discriminates against Asian Americans by diluting their vote. “Based on the evidence presented at trial, the court finds that plaintiffs have proven by a preponderance of the evidence that the at-large method of election used by the city impairs the ability of Asians to elect candidates as a result of the dilution and abridgment of their rights as voters,” wrote Kuhnle in a proposed statement of decision Tuesday. “Having found the City liable for violating the [California Voting Rights Act], this action will now proceed to the remedies phase.”

California: California is quietly disenfranchising thousands of voters based on their handwriting | Slate

California is not typically viewed as a hotbed of voter suppression, and not just because it’s California. Over the past few years, its legislature has passed sweeping reforms to protect residents’ right to vote with the strong encouragement of Gov. Jerry Brown. Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra has praised these measures and sued the Trump administration for attempting to abridge “our fundamental voting rights.” But even as Becerra attacks Trump for disenfranchising Americans, he is voluntarily defending a California scheme that nullifies tens of thousands of votes on the basis of dubious handwriting analysis. How did California, of all states, wind up suppressing so many votes? The problem lies in the state election code’s rules for counting absentee ballots. All registered voters can choose to vote by mail in California if they want to; they need only request a ballot, fill it out, sign the ballot envelope, and drop it in the mail. Unbeknownst to most voters, however, is the stipulation that their signature on the envelope must match the signature on their voter-registration form. If it does not, election officials do not count the ballot.

California: Non-citizens voting in San Francisoc school board elections to get immigration warning | The San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco’s implementation of non-citizen voting in school board elections this November will come with a warning — federal immigration enforcement officials could obtain the voter registration information. Voters approved a ballot measure in 2016 to allow non-citizens to vote in school board elections beginning in November, but there are concerns over how the federal government could use the information as President Donald Trump has targeted California and San Francisco over sanctuary policies. San Francisco plans to issue a warning in 51 languages to non-citizens before they register, including on a Department of Elections affidavit they would need to sign to register and on the Department of Elections website.

California: Counties Hardening Defenses Against Vote Hacking | Techwire

In Southern California, home to some of the nation's most competitive congressional contests, that threat of Russians cyberhacking this year's midterm elections is being taken seriously. Consider just a few of the many new security protocols being adopted by election officials in the four-county region encompassing Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Office emails are being encrypted and networks buttressed. Election employees are randomly being mock phished to see if they'll fall for simulated online invaders. Federal officials are being invited to inspect and test the region's many voting systems.

California: Voter fraud conviction inspires bill loosening oversight of lawmaker residency | The Sacramento Bee

Four years ago, Rod Wright resigned from the California Senate and served 71 minutes in jail after being convicted of eight felonies, including perjury and voter fraud, for living outside the district where he ran for office. Wright argued that he had done everything necessary to establish as his legal "domicile" an Inglewood home that he owned and where he registered to vote. But using photos of another house in the upscale neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, with his Maserati parked in front and closets full of his clothes, Los Angeles County prosecutors convinced a jury that Wright actually lived several miles away. The conviction upset many of Wright's colleagues, who point out that the definition of a "domicile," which establishes the eligibility of someone to run for a particular legislative seat, does not include the word "live" anywhere in it: "that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning."

California: Confusion over independent voters prompts redesign of voter registration card | The San Diego Union-Tribune

The card millions of Californians use to register to vote is receiving its first makeover in more than a decade, inspired in part by confusion over how to become an “independent” unaffiliated voter — a problem highlighted by a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2016. “It's an issue that's been lingering for years,” said Secretary of State Alex Padilla. “But that was the first time it was really in the spotlight.” The Times found a substantial number of Californians who registered with the American Independent Party wrongly believed they weren’t part of any political party — an error that later kept some from casting ballots in the state’s 2016 presidential primary. “A combination of issues prompted us to see if there was a better way,” Padilla said.

California: State funding proposal for open source voting gains support | The San Francisco Examiner

Supervisor Malia Cohen has announced she now supports a state-level effort to provide matching funds to develop an open source voting system in San Francisco after hearing from thousands of residents backing the effort. Cohen’s support comes after the San Francisco Examiner reported Sunday that she was not willing to commit to sending a letter to Sacramento representatives backing the funding plan to help cities like San Francisco develop an open source voting system. Cohen said she changed her mind and sent a letter in support Tuesday after hearing from “thousands of our citywide constituents over the last 24 hours” supporting open source voting.

California: Ballot label rules for candidates unique to California | The Sacramento Bee

It’s hard to think of three words subject to more intense election-year scrutiny than the ones California candidates can include beneath their names on the ballot. Every two years, campaigns do battle with the California secretary of state – and one another – over whether or not the professional descriptions they pick are within the bounds of state law. This year has been no different, with more than a half-dozen congressional and statewide candidates forced to amend their “ballot designation,” as its known, before the certified list of candidates for the June primary was released March 29. It turns out, it’s a pretty unique election-year tradition.

California: Open-source voting in San Francisco may require match of state, local funds | The San Francisco Examiner

If San Francisco wants an open-source voting system that supporters say would be more reliable and transparent than current proprietary machines, it could cost between $11.5 million and $27.8 million, according to a new consultant’s report. The report comes as supporters of an open-source system, which includes the Elections Commission, are calling on Mayor Mark Farrell to help fund the effort. An open-source voting system means the software used to tabulate the ballots is open to public view. Anyone with computer knowledge can examine the software code and look for vulnerabilities or bugs.

California: Trump administration is no help on Russian election meddling, California officials say | The Sacramento Bee

As the 2018 elections approach, California officials are taking steps to combat foreign interference, with or without the help of the federal government. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla has been critical in recent months of the federal government's lackluster response to Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections, and Padilla renewed his criticism this week after a new report said the U.S. State Department has failed to spend money to combat foreign interference in our elections. The department has spent none of the $120 million allocated since late 2016 for combating foreign attempts to interfere in U.S. elections and sow distrust through social media, The New York Times reported Sunday. Padilla said the delay is another example of the passive approach President Donald Trump has taken in fighting suspected Russian efforts to attack state election systems.

California: Voters with sloppy signatures must have a chance to correct them, court rules | The Sacramento Bee

California elections officials must notify voters before rejecting their mail-in ballots over concerns that the signature is not authentic, a San Francisco judge ruled this week. Current California election law allows officials to toss out vote-by-mail ballots if they suspect the signature on the envelope does not match the signature on file for the voter, without giving the voter a chance to respond. In November, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California and law firm Cooley LLP sued Secretary of State Alex Padilla, arguing the practice is unconstitutional.

California: Counties Await State Funds For New Voting Systems | Capital Public Radio

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing millions of dollars for an upgrade of old voting machines, long sought by counties. The money would come as counties transition to a much cheaper voting system, mostly based on mail-in ballots. In a large warehouse at the Sacramento County voting head office, staff are carting, unloading and scanning in 87 pallets of equipment, including new color printers and touch screens for voters with disabilities. In another aisle, county Registrar of Voters Jill LaVine lifts the leather cover off a hulking, gray hunk of metal, the current equipment.

California: Sacramento Bee Leaks 19.5 Million California Voter Records, Promptly Compromised by Hackers | Gizmodo

Last month, a local California newspaper left more than 19 million voter records exposed online. Gizmodo confirmed this week that the records were compromised during an apparent ransomware attack. The Sacramento Bee said in a statement that a firewall protecting its database was not restored during routine maintenance last month, leaving the 19,501,258 voter files publicly accessible. Additionally, the names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of 52,873 Sacramento Bee subscribers were compromised. “We take this incident seriously and have begun efforts to notify each of the individuals on the contact list and to provide them resources to help guard against potential misuse of their personal contact information,” the paper said in a statement. “We are also working with the Secretary of State’s office to share with them the details of this intrusion.”

California: Old Voting Machines Are ‘Biggest Threat’ To California Elections | KPBS

Since the 2016 election, U.S. election officials have been focused on ensuring the integrity of the nation's election system due to cyber security concerns. But California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the biggest threat to the state’s election system is actually old voting equipment. “Not only is it based on outdated technology, the bottom line is the machines are old,” Padilla said. “When they have to find replacement parts that are no longer made and they have to hunt for them on Ebay, that’s not a good thing… We’re kind of living on borrowed time.”

California: Golden State Settles Suit Over Moter-Voter Rules | Courthouse News

Starting this April, the more than 1 million Californians who renew their driver’s licenses by mail each year will be able to register to vote using one form under the terms of a new settlement agreement. The settlement reached Jan. 10 ends eight months of litigation over California’s alleged violations of the National Voting Rights Act of 1993. The League of Women Voters and three other groups sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Secretary of State’s Office in May 2017, claiming the state burdens would-be voters by making them fill out the same information on two separate forms to register to vote.

California: Sen. McGuire introduces bill to ensure all votes are counted | Lake County News

A strong democracy depends on a voter’s belief that their vote counts. However, in California, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, more than 25,000 residents would be shocked to know that their ballots had been thrown away and not counted in the November 2016 General Election cycle. These 25,000 mail ballots were thrown out because of a mismatching signature — the voter’s signature on their ballot did not match what was in their file. While mismatching signatures can occur for a number of reasons, there is no law that mandates local election officials notify voters that their ballot will be tossed, or provide them with an opportunity to correct the mistake.

California: How an election could be decided with poker chips or a coin toss | Orange County Register

A coin flip could decide your next elected official. Some Democrats are wringing their hands over the logjam of their candidates — 25 so far — challenging Orange County’s four Republican Congress members. One worry is draining Democratic money in the primary that will be crucial in the general election against Republicans. Another is the possibility that too many Democratic candidates could lead to vote-splitting among Democrats, allowing two Republicans to advance out of the top-two primary to the general election. But a reader presented another intriguing — if unlikely — scenario last week: What if the GOP incumbent finishes first and two Democrats tie for second? The state’s open primary system calls for the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election, regardless of party … unless there’s a tie for second. Then the top three vote-getters appear on the November ballot.

California: Millions of California voter records exposed in unprotected MongoDB | SC Magazine

California officials are investigating a report that an unprotected MongoDB database has been discovered possibly containing the names of every California voter. Kromtech Security's Bob Diachenko that earlier this month Kromtech came across an database named cool_db containing 19.2 million voter records gathered in two collections that was fully unprotected and thus open for anyone to view. One batch contained voter registration data for a local district and the other the millions of records. “Kromtech researchers were unable to identify the owner of the database or conduct a detailed analysis due to the fact that the database has been deleted by cyber criminals and there is a ransom note demanding 0.2 bitcoin ($2,325.01 at the time of discovery),” he said. 

California: Hackers demand ransom for California voter database | The Hill

Hackers have deleted a database of potential California voters with more than 19 million entries, demanding around $3,500 to restore it. Researchers at the security firm MacKeeper's Kromtech research group first noticed the issue, but have not been able to identify the database's owner to notify them. "We decided to go public to let everyone who was affected know," said Bob Diachenko, head of communications for Kromtech. Kromtech primarily searches for misconfigured databases on cloud storage accounts that accidentally reveal private information to the public. In early December, they found a misconfigured database on an Amazon cloud account containing what appeared to be information on 19 million Californian citizens, including contact and mailing information as well as voting precinct information. But while the company was investigating the misconfigured files, they noticed the files were suddenly removed and replaced with a ransom note demanding 0.2 bitcoin, or about $3,500. 

California: Will Jerry Brown move Senate recall election to June? | The Sacramento Bee

With their Democratic supermajority potentially in peril, California state legislators passed a law earlier this year that lengthened the timeline for the state to officially certify a recall election. Now their efforts may give Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, a better shot of surviving a GOP coup. Since Secretary of State Alex Padilla did not certify the voter signatures collected to recall Newman 180 days before the June 5, 2018 primary, Gov. Jerry Brown can opt to add the recall to the primary ballot instead of establishing a special election. The 180-day deadline expired last week. Voter turnout is typically higher for regularly scheduled elections than special elections, which may give Newman better odds at the ballot box.

California: Latino groups join voting rights lawsuit | The San Diego Union-Tribune

A number of civil rights organizations and activists are asking to join the opposition to a federal lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the California Voting Rights Act. The groups, which include the oldest and strongest Hispanic rights organizations in the country, want to side with the California Attorney General’s office in opposition to the lawsuit. Filed on behalf of former Poway Mayor Don Higginson with representation and funding from the conservative Virginia-based The Project on Fair Representation, the lawsuit claims the voting rights act violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by denying all citizens the right to choose who they want to represent them.

California: Saving throw: Securing democracy with stats, spreadsheets, and 10-sided dice | Ars Technica

More than a dozen counties have now participated in a California-wide pilot project to provide a real-world test of what had previously been an academic theory. The pilot was authorized under California Assembly Bill 2023, which passed in 2010. Including audits conducted before the bill’s passage, 23 contests have been audited across several county-level elections in the state in recent years, and other counties, including Orange, Marin, and Yolo, will have additional audits in the coming weeks. California already has a mandatory audit law, which stipulates that a public manual tally of 1 percent of the precincts, chosen at random, must take place. But in Stark's view, this is the wrong way to proceed. “There is no statistical justification for the 1 percent tally,” Stark explained. “It is a check on the accuracy of the system, but it is not well tied to ensuring that outcomes are right. It doesn't require more counting for small margins than for large ones, and it does not require a full hand count, even if something is obviously wrong.”

California: New California Law Strikes Blow to Election Audits | WhoWhatWhy

As the most populous state in the country by far — and a leader in innovations — California is always worth watching. In no situation is that more true than in its attempts to fix its voting system. Sometimes, however, those efforts prove to be entirely counterproductive. In response to reports from US intelligence that Russia interfered with the 2016 election, election officials across the country are striving to fortify their security procedures. In light of all this, many experts were shaking their heads in disappointment after California recently passed a law that election activists are calling “an open invitation to large-scale election fraud.” Earlier this month, a seemingly innocuous bill reached the desk of Governor Jerry Brown (D) after passing the State Assembly and Senate unopposed. Given its ostensible purpose — to allow mail-in voters to re-submit overlooked signatures via email — the lack of scrutiny might have been understandable. However, when the bill was amended before its final Senate vote, its purpose took an unforeseen shift. The altered bill “dramatically reduc[es] the number of ballots counties must include in the [post-election hand count] performed to verify the accuracy of software vote counts,” said the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation in a letter calling for the bill’s veto.

California: Democrats fall short on gathering signatures to halt recall | The Sacramento Bee

California Democrats fell far short of collecting enough signatures to prevent a recall election of state Sen. Josh Newman, a vulnerable Democrat targeted by Republicans over his vote to increase the gas tax. Under a rule change rushed through the Legislature by Democrats this year, voters who signed a petition supporting a recall election were given a chance to remove their signatures, which Democrats argued were gathered by Republicans who used deceptive methods. Democrats needed roughly 7,000 signature withdrawals to halt the recall. They garnered just 846, the Secretary of State's office said Wednesday.

California: ‘Accessible Vote by Mail System’ Comes To San Mateo Co., Election Officials Say | San Carlos Patch

San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Mark Church Wednesday announced the release of a new Accessible Vote by Mail system for disabled and visually impaired voters. The new Accessible Vote by Mail system allows disabled and visually impaired voters to access and mark their ballot in a screen-readable format using their personal computers. San Mateo County will be the first county in the State of California to deploy an Accessible Vote by Mail system for disabled and visually impaired voters, as authorized under AB 2252 Remote Accessible Vote by Mail Systems. “Once again, San Mateo County is at the forefront of expanding voting opportunities,” said Chief Elections Officer Church. “This time we are leading the way by improving voting accessibility for disabled and visually impaired voters”. 

California: State audit probes Santa Clara County election mistakes | San Jose Mercury News

A state audit of Santa Clara County’s elections office — which has been plagued with an inordinate amount of mistakes over the years — found that it lacks detailed policies employed in other counties to prevent errors and analyze them fully when they do occur. The audit — called for by a frustrated Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, who previously chaired the assembly’s elections committee — reviewed 26 errors that have happened from 2010 to 2016. In addition to the lack of procedural guidelines, the audit found that the county doesn’t have a clear plan or process to alert voters potentially affected by an error in ballot materials. And while “in most in most cases, it identified and took action to notify voters of the errors before the relevant elections,” auditors found that there’s no concrete system of recording these mistakes.

California: Injunction sought that would freeze switch to voting by district | The San Diego Union-Tribune

A movement to change the way Californians elect their local officials, one that is costing millions of dollars to implement, may find itself in legal limbo. A federal court judge in San Diego is being asked to issue a preliminary injunction that could halt changes being made, under threat of legal action, by dozens of cities, school districts and other agencies statewide in the way they elect their representatives. Last month, former Poway Mayor Don Higginson, being represented by a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank and law firm, filed a lawsuit against the state and Poway challenging the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA).

California: Bills mount as cities switch to district elections | The San Diego Union-Tribune

North County cities have spent more than $1 million switching from traditional at-large elections to a system that elects City Council members by voting districts, according to a tally by U-T Watchdog. The change has been spurred by a Malibu attorney threatening to sue cities over voting rights, but many officials see the effort as opportunism rather than any sincere desire to offer better representation to minority communities. “It’s just a money-making scheme,” said Oceanside consultant Mary Azevedo, who’s helped run numerous local political campaigns. “It’s not for the betterment of any city or group of individuals.” The attorney, Kevin Shenkman, said his motives are pure and “it’s about time” that minorities get the voice they deserve in local government.

California: New voting model coming to Sacramento County | Elk Grove Citizen

Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill LaVine on Oct. 10 presented details about how county voters will vote next year. She gave the details to the Elk Grove-South County Democratic Club. LaVine’s speech was an educational presentation related to Senate Bill 450 – aka the California Voters Choice Act – which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 28. Through that bill, beginning in 2018, ballots will be sent to every registered voter. LaVine noted that voter registration will automatically occur through any interaction one has with the Department of Motor Vehicles. But she added that those who do not specify a political party preference will be defaulted to the category of “no party preference.” Voters will also be introduced to vote centers, LaVine said.

California: Conservative group sets sights on California’s Voting Rights Act | San Francisco Chronicle

A conservative who led a successful legal challenge to a core provision of the federal Voting Rights Act is training his sights on California’s version of the law, which allows minorities to challenge the practice of local “at-large” elections on the basis of racial discrimination and seek to switch them to voting by district. The 2002 California Voting Rights Act forces cities, counties and school districts “to make race the sole factor in districting,” said Edward Blum, president of the nonprofit Project on Fair Representation, as his Virginia-based group asked a federal judge to overturn the law. The contention is related to the reverse-discrimination argument Blum’s group used in 2013 when it persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the 1965 federal law’s central enforcement provision.