Editorials: Maryland election law needs a serious upgrade | Baltimore Sun

There are some big things that are wrong with the way Marylanders elect candidates to office. We hand the drawing of legislative and congressional district lines to self-interested politicians who abuse the process to bolster their political parties, reward friends and punish enemies. And we have a campaign finance system that magnifies the influence of wealthy special interests. Those are foundational problems in our political system, and the possible solutions to them — redistricting reform and publicly financed campaigns — have proven to be difficult to enact. But this year’s elections have uncovered some dumb problems that are eminently fixable.

Editorials: California’s ‘jungle primary’ isn’t working. We need election reform 2.0 | Andrew Gumbel/Los Angeles Times

As California hurtles toward its state primary June 5, it is obvious there’s a problem. Its open primary system — which sends the top two vote-getters to the general election, regardless of party affiliation — is not working as intended and risks throwing the midterm election into acrimony and confusion. This system is called a “jungle primary” for a reason: It is brutal and unpredictable. In three high-profile House races, there are so many candidates from the two major parties eating into one another’s support that the election results may end up owing more to chance than any discernible will of the people. Polls show that Democrats have an excellent chance of capturing the Southern Californian seats being vacated by Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) and Darrell Issa (R-Isla Vista) and have a good shot at unseating Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach). These are all bona fide swing districts that surely deserve an up-and-down contest between a Republican and a Democrat in November.

Editorials: Congress must act to restore the integrity of American elections | Donna Brazile/The Hill

Before the 2017 German election, Angela Merkel issued a loud call to build an election firewall. Everyone listened. By contrast, Eric Rosenbach, in charge of cybersecurity for the Defense Department from 2011 to 2017, told the Financial Times, “They [the states] are just not equipped to be fighting the pointy end of the spear of the Russian [intelligence agency] GRU.” He got that right. Are people listening? To some extent, they cannot hear through the constant distractions. It’s time to issue a loud call to protect our upcoming midterm elections from foreign interference. Where are we now? In April, 38 states took part in an election “cybersecurity bootcamp” conceived and directed by Rosenbach. A few weeks later on May 4, the White House issued a readout of President Trump’s meeting on election security: “The president received an update about current federal election security-related efforts, including…best practices like using paper ballots, issuing security clearances, and conducting security assessments.”

Editorials: In Tiny Burundi, a Huge Vote | The New York Times

As many as five million people went to the polls in Burundi on Thursday to vote on a referendum to alter the country’s constitution. I came here as one of the few foreign reporters with a visa and accreditation to cover the scenes at the polls, where voters are deciding on some significant changes. The biggest change of the new constitution would be the extension of the presidential term, from five years to seven years. Pierre Nkurunziza, who has been president of Burundi since 2005, is widely expected to use the new constitution — if it passes — to run in 2020. Under the new rules, he could stay in power until 2034 — and then run again (and again) after sitting out for just one term. Most foreign correspondents were denied access, and two weeks ago the government suspended the BBC and Voice of America from broadcasting inside the country. With help from local journalists, I visited polls in the northern province, home to both Burundi’s president and his biggest challenger, Agathon Rwasa, and I spoke with those casting their ballots. These ladies posed for a photo as they waited after the president left his polling station.

Editorials: Venezuela’s Empty Election | Bloomberg

Elections are supposed to enable voters to improve their fortunes. Sadly, that is not the case with this weekend’s vote in Venezuela. Regardless of the outcome, voters can expect no quick exit from their country’s downward spiral. Officials from the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the European Union, the U.S., and Venezuela’s neighbors have denounced the upcoming vote as flawed beyond redemption. Even if one of President Nicolas Maduro’s three opponents were allowed to win — other more popular candidates have been barred, leading to a broader opposition boycott — he would be hamstrung by Maduro’s allies. They control the military and effectively all branches of government. Maduro’s tenure has been an economic disaster. Inflation will exceed 13,000 percent this year. Gross domestic product is expected to shrink by 15 percent; it has fallen by almost 50 percent since 2013. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves — but thanks to mismanagement, you’d never know it: By 2020, oil production will be less than half of what it was in 2013. Venezuela has already defaulted on some of its debt, which stands at nearly 120 percent of GDP.

Editorials: Our soldiers deserve secure votes | Audrey Malagon/Gazette Mail

Amid suspicions of interference in the 2016 elections, states must be more careful than ever to provide heightened security in this year’s primaries. Yet, West Virginia has just introduced a more vulnerable form of voting for deployed military personnel. West Virginia is now the first state to pilot blockchain technology, to allow some deployed soldiers to vote through mobile phones. Yet cyber security experts warn that this technology, also used for cryptocurrencies, poses dangers for voting. Instead of pioneering voting’s future, West Virginia is paving the way for future election hacking. Blockchain technology addresses only part of the security process currently used by those administering U.S. elections. It’s like installing a high-tech lock and alarm system in your home, and then leaving a front door key and the alarm pass code under the doormat. The alarm system may work perfectly, but until the keys and pass codes are also secure, your home won’t be secure, either.

Editorials: It’s up to Trump to prepare for Kremlin cyberattacks. He’s falling short. | The Washington Post

The Obama administration was slow and ineffective in its response to Russian election interference in 2016. But it is now on President Trump and his team to prepare for a new round of Kremlin cyberattacks — and this White House, too, is falling short. That was the upshot of a bipartisan report on Russian election interference that the Senate Intelligence Committee released Tuesday, the first in a series that promises to provide a fairer picture of the Russian threat than what the highly partisan House Intelligence Committee offered following its brief and slanted investigation.

Editorials: What Just Happened in Malaysia? | Tash Aw/The New York Times

Not long after midnight, the crowd of thousands began to sense that something historic was taking place. They had gathered on a vast lawn to watch the election results roll in through the night, and the mood was cheerful and relaxed. Here, in Petaling Jaya, a heavily residential city that blends into Kuala Lumpur, support for the opposition party, Pakatan Harapan, the Alliance of Hope, runs high, and as P.H.’s tally began to outstrip that of Barisan Nasional, the ruling party, everyone present began to contemplate the unthinkable: the end of the only government Malaysia has ever known. The ramifications of P.H.’s stunning victory in Wednesday’s elections are only just starting to filter through. The person who appears to be our new prime minister is Mahathir Mohamad, who is 92 years old and earlier served as prime minister — with B.N. Even after the election commission confirmed this morning that P.H. had won at least 112 of the 222 seats in Parliament (or the simple majority that entitles it to form the next government) Najib Razak, the outgoing prime minister, was not clearly conceding his loss. Twelve of the country’s 13 states also held assembly elections yesterday, and B.N. won in just three.

Editorials: Kentucky felons may get voting rights back after Florida case | Ben Carter/Courier Journal

When it comes to people without a lot of political power, people with felony convictions are near the top of an increasingly long list. All but two states (Vermont and Maine) temporarily strip people convicted of felonies of their right to vote. Three states (Florida, Kentucky and Iowa) permanently strip people with felony convictions of the right to vote. In between these extremes, the rest of the states automatically restore the right to vote at varying stages of rehabilitation: after release, after parole or after probation. Here in Kentucky, people convicted of felonies lose their voting rights permanently. The only way get the right to vote back is to apply to the governor and, according to the application for restoration of voting rights, that decision is solely within the governor’s “prerogative.” 

Editorials: Crosscheck is ineffective and insecure. But states aren’t withdrawing | Aaron Sankin/Salon

At least eight states have stopped using Kansas’ anti-voter fraud program because of its ineffectiveness, but put citizens’ personal data at risk by not formally withdrawing. The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program was supposed to help states scrub ineligible voters, but many states have for years found the program’s data to be inaccurate and burdensome to verify. Rather than immediately cancelling the free program, these states continued to send sensitive voter information — in one case, for nearly a full decade — through a system with serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Sending data through this insecure system had the potential of opening up millions of American citizens to identity theft. Based on interviews with state election officials and communications obtained through public record requests, the following states have sent voter registration data to Crosscheck without using the analysis received in return to clean their voter lists: South Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Louisiana and Colorado. None of the states listed have submitted voter data into the Crosscheck program since these cybersecurity vulnerabilities were made public late last year.

Editorials: Ahead of the 2020 election, let’s address Pennsylvania’s election security so your vote can count | David Hickton & Paul McNulty/Philadelphia Inquirer

Exercising our right to vote is the purest expression of our faith in democracy. Without a shared sense of trust in the integrity of that vote, we risk becoming a nation dangerously divided against itself. Great vigilance would be in order, then, even if Pennsylvanians could rely on secure, resilient election systems and architecture. The reality, however, is otherwise. Today our state is among the most vulnerable in the country to hacking and cyber attack – a democratic four-alarm blaze just waiting to happen. Pennsylvania’s role as a perennial swing-state brings with it high stakes, close presidential elections, and even closer scrutiny. In 2016, Donald Trump’s margin of victory here – fewer than 70,000 votes – was barely one percent of the nearly six million votes cast statewide. We know that faith in the validity of our elections is a quality much harder to earn than to lose. That’s why, as proud Pennsylvanians who have dedicated our careers to justice, law, and education, we feel strongly that the time is now to address this vulnerability. We must come together as a commonwealth, as communities, and as citizens to make an honest assessment of Pennsylvania’s election security architecture, to diagnose and discuss its strengths and weaknesses, and to plan for a better, more secure future.

Editorials: How voters lost the freedom to access the campaign website of their choice | Jon M. Peha/The Hill

The Senate may soon be voting on net neutrality. The net neutrality debate is driven in part by the fact that Internet service providers (ISPs) have the technical ability and financial incentive to act as gatekeepers, picking winners and losers in the Internet marketplace. Perhaps an ISP will favor a particular airline reservation website or an online newspaper by blocking access to its competitors, or simply by making access to competitors’ content painfully slow. These delays matter; Google found that a majority of viewers typically abandon a website if they have to wait just three seconds.

Editorials: Rudy Giuliani may have just implicated President Trump in serious campaign finance violations. | Richard Hasen/Slate

Donald Trump’s new lawyer Rudy Giuliani took to Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Wednesday night to defend the president from the ongoing Mueller investigation and to calm the waters for the Trump faithful. But it looks like he’s gotten the president into potentially greater legal jeopardy by admitting that Trump repaid his fixer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet, seemingly contradicting the president and potentially implicating Trump and his campaign in some serious campaign finance violations. Just to review where we are so far. It is undisputed that Trump’s sometimes-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen negotiated an agreement with Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to get her not to discuss an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in exchange for $130,000. Cohen eventually said that he paid that money out of his own pocket, and he secured a loan to do so. He said that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign reimbursed him (he did not say that he was not reimbursed at all, leaving open the possibility of a Trump reimbursement). The president told reporters he had known nothing about the payment.

Editorials: Democracy Is Held Back in Armenia | Viken Berberian/The New York Times

On Tuesday, electoral arithmetic defeated democratic sentiment in Armenia after the Republican Party of Armenia, the majority party, used its numerical strength to back a discredited government and block the election of the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan as the new prime minister. A chorus of defiant honks expressing the collective angst filled the streets of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, as the disappointing result became public. Tens of thousands of people had been singing and chanting at the Republic Square near Parliament throughout the day in support of Mr. Pashinyan’s election. Mr. Pashinyan, a former crusading journalist and opposition leader, had led the massive protests against the government in April, which culminated in the resignation of the former president and prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan.

Editorials: What’s the longest war in American history? Fighting for the right to vote | Anga L. Sanders/The Hill

“No, Gertrude, you can’t go. I might not make it back, and somebody has to stay here and raise these girls.” With those words, my grandfather, farmer James DeWitt Rhoden, left his wife and two daughters in the late 1930s and set off for downtown Quitman, Texas to vote. He knew that his mission could end his life. As he mounted the tall steps of the Wood County courthouse, a crowd of hostile white men closed in behind him. “DeWitt! Where do you think you’re going?” He never turned around. Perhaps because they knew he wouldn’t go down alone, my grandfather was allowed to cast his vote and return home to his family. Decades later, my mother (his daughter) related this story to me. History may record that the longest war in the history of the United States was neither the Vietnam War nor the war in Afghanistan, but the ongoing war against disenfranchisement, which is the denial of the right to vote. History has also shown us that lynching and other forms of vigilantism were leveled at blacks who attempted to vote.

Editorials: Truth Has Stopped Mattering in the Russia Investigation | Michelle Goldberg/The New York Times

On Friday, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a report based on their cursory investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Full of shoddy rationalizations and evasions, it purported to show that America’s intelligence community failed to use “proper analytic tradecraft” in concluding that Russia wanted to help elect Donald Trump, and that there is no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Its real message was that, for Republicans in Congress determined to protect this president, evidence is irrelevant. Consider just one bit of spin about the Trump campaign’s clandestine Russia connections. During the presidential transition, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Michael Flynn, who had been named national security adviser, tried to set up a back channel to the Kremlin through the Russian Embassy, in an apparent attempt to evade American intelligence monitoring. The majority report treats this, amazingly, as exculpatory: “Possible Russian efforts to set up a ‘back channel’ with Trump associates after the election suggest the absence of collusion during the campaign, since the communication associated with collusion would have rendered such a ‘back channel’ unnecessary.”

Editorials: The House’s Russia report has some good ideas — but bias drowns them out | The Washington Post

Of the three major investigations into Russia’s 2016 election interference, the House Intelligence Committee’s has been the briefest, sloppiest and most partisan. The result is a report released Friday that contains some useful information and recommendations — which will be drowned out by its slanted attacks on the intelligence community and its other attempts to give President Trump cover. “In 2015, Russia began engaging in a covert influence campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” the report begins. “The Russian government, at the direction of President Vladimir Putin, sought to sow discord in American society and undermine our faith in the democratic process.” Although these sentences suggest that the committee does not live in the president’s world of total denial, the committee neverthe less refused to accept that the Kremlin tried to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump.

Editorials: Ohio redistricting proposal unites strange bedfellows | Dan Krassner/Cincinnati Inquirer

Political reformers across America are paying close attention to how Ohioans vote on May 8. But it’s not about candidates or political parties. It’s about how you vote on Issue 1, the ballot measure that would end gerrymandering of Ohio’s congressional districts. Gerrymandering is when politicians draw the boundaries of those districts in order to create an unfair advantage for one political party over another. Ohio voters get the first say on the topic of ending gerrymandering this year before voters consider similar ballot initiatives in November in Michigan, Missouri, Utah and Colorado. Seventy-one percent of Ohio voters approved another Issue 1 in 2015 to end gerrymandering of state legislative districts. This year’s Issue 1 ends gerrymandering of federal congressional districts. If passed, it would create a fair system to draw congressional district lines in an open, transparent manner, with citizen input. It’s a common-sense reform that would bring fairness and a level playing field to congressional elections.

Editorials: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections | The Washington Post

As this year’s midterm elections approach, the country is still unprepared for another Russian attack on the vote, and President Trump continues to send mixed signals — at best — about what he would do if the Kremlin launched an even more aggressive interference campaign than the one that roiled the 2016 presidential race. In last month’s omnibus spending bill, Congress set aside more than $300 million for states to invest in hardening their election infrastructure. They have a lot to do. New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks election technology and procedures nationwide, reports that most states are using electronic voting machines that are at least a decade old, many running antiquated software that may not be regularly updated for new security threats. Though most states recognize that they must replace obsolete machines, not much has changed since 2016.

Editorials: Why gerrymandering is going to get even worse | Richard Pildes/The Washington Post

As the Supreme Court increasingly confronts cases challenging partisan gerrymandering, one underlying question appears to be: Is this getting worse? The answer is yes. There are some structural reasons for that. For years, party control of the House was stable. Now it’s regularly up for grabs.  For at least 50 years, from 1950 to 2000, partisan control of the House was never perceived to be at stake during any redistricting cycle. The Democratic Party dominated the House; the Republican Party consigned itself to being the permanent minority; and no one in either party thought partisan control of the House could switch hands in any upcoming election.

Editorials: Everybody wants fair maps. Right? | Chicago Tribune

The people of Illinois want fair legislative maps. They want maps that are drawn by an independent body working on behalf of voters, not by politicians looking after themselves. They want maps that promote competitive elections instead of protecting incumbents. They’ve said so, over and over again, in polls going back decades. They’ve collected hundreds of thousands of signatures — three times — and raised millions of dollars, trying to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. State lawmakers know this. That’s why they always tell us they want fair maps too. It’s why there are always several fair map proposals on file in Springfield, with many sponsors eager to point to their names at election time. Guess what? It’s election time. But this year is different. This year, voters want lawmakers to put up or shut up.

Editorials: Judge deserved more than probation after trying to rig election | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Former Justice of the Peace Russ Casey walked out of a Tarrant County courthouse this week with a gift: He got a five-year, probated sentence after consciously trying to manipulate the electoral process. Casey’s plea deal looks even sweeter when compared to two other election fraud cases recently prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office. In those two cases confused — or at the very least misguided — women got prison sentences for voting violations. Forcing Casey to surrender his office — and his $126,000 salary — may be seen as a just penalty. It’s not enough. This Editorial Board thinks prosecutors and the public need to ask themselves if the scales of justice are out of balance. It offends our sense of fair play to see this kind of inequality. In the one case where an election was in real jeopardy, the guilty guy skates.

Editorials: Cybersecurity woes in U.S. midterm elections | Mary Scott Nabers/Born2Invest

The voting environment in America has been forever changed. That’s because the significant vulnerability of the country’s election systems and the fear of election “interference” by foreign or domestic operatives are genuine. With midterm elections only seven months away, this situation weighs heavily on the minds of both candidates and public officials responsible for ensuring secure and accurate election results. While hacking of American voting systems is a relatively new challenge, technical problems caused by the advanced age of most voting machines are not new. Technology in recent years set the bar for improved voting efficiency by replacing paper ballot systems with electronic voting machines. But the new technology, which does not leave a paper trail, tends to fall short when it comes to security, accuracy and attacks by hackers. Too many voting machines currently in use have not been replaced or updated in more than a decade, and a high percentage have exceeded their life expectancy.

Editorials: NRA Proves the Need for Campaign-Finance Reform | Bloomberg

The National Rifle Association is finished answering questions. That’s what the organization told Senator Ron Wyden last week in a letter complaining about Wyden’s “time-consuming and burdensome” inquiries into the NRA’s ties to Russians. That answer isn’t good enough. The NRA’s relationship with Alexander Torshin, a Russian politician and deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who has been linked both to Vladimir Putin and to Russian organized crime, is too troubling to ignore. And the group’s dismissive response to Wyden has a larger significance: It underlines the need for full disclosure of sources of political funding. The Treasury Department recently put Torshin on a list of sanctioned Russians. He has been an NRA member since 2012 — tweeting (in Russian) repeatedly about his affiliation with the group and attending multiple NRA functions where he socialized with the group’s top leaders. At one such meeting in 2016, he’s reported to have spoken with Donald Trump, Jr.

Editorials: With elections looming, Canada cannot be complacent on policing social media | Tim Harper/The Toronto Star

Starting in Ontario, followed by Quebec, Alberta and the country as a whole, voters will go to the polls. New Brunswick also votes this year and another vote in British Columbia cannot be ruled out. But with these key contests looming, there has been very little serious discussion in this country about how voters will receive information they need to cast informed ballots, and the overall security of our democratic process. It’s time for a serious look at how our votes can be manipulated by “bots” and fake news, and whether the electoral process itself is safe from meddling by internal or external sources.

Editorials: Texas must retire paperless voting systems to prevent hacking | Houston Chronicle

The mechanic finishes repairing your car. “I fixed that power steering lines,” he says. “But I noticed the clutch is about to fail. Maybe next week or next month, but you’re living on borrowed time.” So what do you do? You have him install a new clutch, of course. It’s too dangerous not to. Alarmingly, Texas policy makers have not applied this logic to our state’s voting systems.  Cyber experts have warned that many electronic voting machines used in Texas and 13 other states are vulnerable to hacking because they do not produce paper records as a backup. But in recent months, counties have spent millions of dollars on new voting machines that, yet again, do not keep paper records.

Editorials: Give a lower voting age a try | The Washington Post

When DC Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) introduced legislation in 2015 to lower the voting age to 16, he was pretty much laughed down. He recalled the skeptical questions: “‘How can you convince me that a 16-year-old is mature enough, smart enough, engaged enough?” The bill died in committee. When the proposal was reintroduced this week, a majority of council members signed on as co-sponsors and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) expressed support. One reason for the different reception — and why the nationwide push for lowering the voting age has been reinvigorated — is the thoughtful and influential activism of young people following February’s mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Editorials: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future | Kai Stinchcombe/Medium

Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future. Its failure to achieve adoption to date is because systems built on trust, norms, and institutions inherently function better than the type of no-need-for-trusted-parties systems blockchain envisions. That’s permanent: no matter how much blockchain improves it is still headed in the wrong direction. This December I wrote a widely-circulated article on the inapplicability of blockchain to any actual problem. People objected mostly not to the technology argument, but rather hoped that decentralization could produce integrity.

Editorials: Was Facebook’s work with the Trump campaign illegal? | Daniel I. Weiner/Slate

Among the more painful moments for Mark Zuckerberg in his second day of Capitol Hill grilling was the angry dressing-down he got from Rep. John Sarbanes. The Maryland Democrat zeroed in not on Facebook’s relationship with the data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, but on the fact that Facebook (like Twitter and Google) had employees embedded with the Trump campaign to help craft its digital advertising strategy. For free. That arrangement may have violated long-standing campaign finance rules that prohibit even in-kind donations from private companies to candidates. Perhaps more than any exchange Zuckerberg had with lawmakers, it is a clear reminder that everyone—including the big tech companies—would benefit from better, clearer rules.

Editorials: Florida Gov. Rick Scott continues to suppress the vote by seeking to deny ex-felons’ right to cast a ballot | Perry E. Thurston/Miami Herald

Well, that didn’t take long. Instead of correcting a wrong of their own making, Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi decided to double-down to support a clemency process that a federal judge recently determined was both “arbitrary” and “unconstitutional.” In February, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ordered the state to develop a new method of deciding when and how convicted felons can regain their voting rights by April 26. Scott and the other Republicans in the Florida Cabinet wasted little time snubbing the ruling and opting to file an appeal, a process that wastes taxpayers’ money and deprives 1.5 million Floridians of their basic civil right to vote. The decision shouldn’t surprise anyone, given state leaders’ track record of making it even more difficult for felons to regain voting and other civil rights. Seven years ago, the governor and the newly elected Cabinet dismantled what had been the makings of a legitimate clemency process and replaced it with an administrative beg-a-thon.