National: Campaign Cash in State Judicial Elections Grows | Associated Press

With three seats open on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and a chance to flip control of the judicial branch, a wave of campaign cash, independent expenditures and negative TV ads flooded the state in the weeks before the November election. Six candidates combined for $12.2 million in contributions, with two independent groups spending $3.5 million. The record sum for a state judicial election serves as a hint of what lies ahead when voters in two dozen states will cast ballots for state supreme court justices in 2016. The flow of money into state judicial races has been rising in recent years and shows no sign of slowing down. Races in a handful of states, including Ohio and North Carolina, are among those that will be watched closely.

National: Database of 191 million U.S. voters exposed on Internet: researcher | Reuters

An independent computer security researcher uncovered a database of information on 191 million voters that is exposed on the open Internet due to an incorrectly configured database, he said on Monday. The database includes names, addresses, birth dates, party affiliations, phone numbers and emails of voters in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, researcher Chris Vickery said in a phone interview. Vickery, a tech support specialist from Austin, Texas, said he found the information while looking for information exposed on the Web in a bid to raise awareness of data leaks. Vickery said he could not tell whether others had accessed the voter database, which took about a day to download.

National: Is Your Election Night Reporting System Ready for 2016? | Government Technology

There is a certain buzz in the air on election nights that gives voters a sense of involvement in a larger process and state elections officials knots in their stomachs. Will state reporting systems keep up with the deluge of access attempts so common in our technology-driven society? As media outlets and the public at large pound on the digital front door for the latest poll numbers, results portals across the country face the strain of hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of hits. Some falter and are overwhelmed by the attention and come crashing down; others come to the game prepared, having learned from past follies. Though 2014 wasn’t exactly what you’d call a big-ticket election — with no presidential candidates on the ballot — states across the country experienced issues with their election reporting websites. Whether the problems were due to overwhelmingly high Web traffic or just technical difficulties, several states had to step back and rethink their online reporting strategies.

National: Legacy voting machines ripe for tampering, breakdowns | GCN

As America preps for the next presidential election, its voting machines are in need of a serious update. Almost every state is using electronic touchscreen and optical-scan voting machines that are at least 10 years old, according a recent Wired article, with Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Texas and Virginia are all using voting machines that are at least 15 years old. When these machines were introduced, dial-up Internet was used by most of the country, and the voting technology was equally primitive. These outdated machines have a litany of problems including degrading touchscreens, worn-out modems and failing memory cards. And this is before one considers the cybersecurity issues.

National: Voting only by mail can decrease turnout. Or increase it. Wait, what? | Washington Post

Voting by mail — and only by mail — has become an option in the United States. Will it spread? According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all states will mail an absentee ballot to voters who request one. While 20 states require a reason, 27 states permit “no-excuse” absentee voting. And three states now use mail-only voting. Oregon’s Ballot Measure 60 kicked off in 1998, making Oregon the first state to conduct its elections exclusively by mail. In 2011, Washington’s legislature moved the state to an entirely vote-by-mail system. Colorado joined in during the 2014 general election. In 2015, California launched a limited all-mail pilot as a test run. Lawmakers will use that pilot to learn how such an election would work in California. Supporters hope that voting by mail means more citizens will vote. Is it so? Generally, the answer is both “no” and “yes,” but with important qualification

National: Beefed-up DoD voter education campaign to launch soon | Military Times

Service members will get their first reminder about registering to vote on Jan. 15, when a Defense Department message will go out to everyone with a dot.mil email address. The 2016 general election is almost a year away, but the primaries start in February, and the Federal Voting Assistance Program has been gearing up for months to fulfill its mission of helping voters vote. “I want to make it loud and clear: the Defense Department is ready for election season,” said Matt Boehmer, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. “We want to make sure everyone who wants to participate, can.”

National: New Federal Election Commission Head Aims for Calm | Al Jazeera

The Federal Election Commission, tasked with policing what’s expected to be the nation’s most expensive election ever, will drag itself into the New Year perhaps more internally injured than at any point in its 40-year history. It will do so under the leadership of Matthew Petersen, a Republican appointed chairman Thursday in a perfunctory vote by his five commission colleagues. The job switches annually between Republicans and Democrats. But Petersen, a soft-spoken and professorial attorney by trade, says his tenure at the commission’s helm will prove decidedly different than that of Democrat Ann Ravel, the current chairwoman who’s used her office’s meager power — a bully pulpit, mainly — to its maximum. “I’ve learned to take a more low-profile approach,” he told the Center for Public Integrity in an interview earlier this month. “I don’t feel any need to have my face out there any more than it is.”

National: More Than a Dozen States Eye Automatic Voter Registration | The American Prospect

Advocates of automatic voter registration won two legislative battles in Oregon and California this year, and lost another in New Jersey when GOP Governor Chris Christie vetoed automatic registration legislation last month. Now the question is whether 18 states mulling a variety of automatic voter registration bills will approve or reject those proposals. The bills would in one form or another allow government agencies to transfer voter eligibility information to state election officials, who would confirm and register eligible voters, excluding any who chose to remain off the rolls. The push for automatic registration comes at a time when voting rights advocates are contending with state-based initiatives around the country that erect a variety of barriers to the polls. These include voting restrictions in North Carolina that have become the subject of a federal challenge.

National: Bill includes money for Election Assistance Commission | Jackson Clarion-Ledger

A spending deal that Congress is poised to pass this week will give the Election Assistance Commission $9.6 million next year to help states run elections, including congressional and presidential contests. The $1.1 trillion spending bill released Wednesday ends the threat of a year-end government shutdown and will fund federal agencies through the rest of fiscal 2016. Funding for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) was included in the bill over objections by Rep. Gregg Harper and other Republicans who complain the commission has outlived its usefulness. Harper, a member of the House Administration Committee, re-introduced a bill earlier this year to eliminate the agency. … Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said not all Republicans share Harper's disdain for the EAC. “It’s obvious the Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not agree with him, otherwise it wouldn't have been in there,’’ he said.

National: Campaign Finance Disclosure Efforts Dealt Severe Blow in Omnibus | Election Law Blog

While campaign finance reformers were busy fighting off an attempt by Sen. McConnell to include a rider in the omnibus which would allow for unlimited coordinated party spending with candidates, three other very bad campaign finance provisions slipped into the must-pass congressional omnibus as riders. All three relate to disclosure. Via Jason Abel, one provision stops the IRS from engaging in rulemaking on 501c4 activity, which would rein in shadow Super PACs who have been engaging in heavy federal election activity without publicly disclosing their donors.

National: Voter equality: The Supreme Court seems suddenly worried about partisan gerrymandering | The Economist

On December 8th, the Supreme Court heard back to back arguments in cases involving the idea that everyone’s vote should bear roughly equal weight—the so-called “one person, one vote” principle that was developed in a series of cases in the 1960s. Evenwel v Abbott, a challenge to the calculus Texas uses to work out population, makes an appearance in this week’s paper. Harris v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, which poses a similarly fraught question about district map-drawing, was argued one hour prior to Evenwel. Harris re-ignites a debate most court watchers thought was long settled: whether and to what extent America's constitution permits partisan considerations to factor into the drawing of electoral maps. Until last week, the justices looked askance only at racial gerrymandering. Now at least a few Supremes seem to be entertaining the idea that there may be sharp limits on partisan political considerations as well, at least where voter equality is at stake.

National: Inside the 2016 black market for donor emails | Politico

Scott Walker has begun selling access to his email list to pay off his leftover presidential debt, renting out the email addresses of hundreds of thousands of supporters to former rivals, including Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. The solicitations arrive as if Walker’s donors magically landed on the lists of his old foes, as they plead for cash for themselves, linking to their own campaign sites. But there’s a catch. While it never says so in the emails from his old foes, or anywhere, the money that donors give isn’t necessarily all going to whichever smiling candidate is pictured on the site and writing the email. That is because Walker’s committee has struck secret deals with at least some of his old competitors to split the proceeds — unbeknownst to those doing the giving. It’s part of the presidential campaign’s hidden world of digging for donors online, where so-called revenue-sharing agreements — rev-shares, for short — are skyrocketing in popularity. “Is that ethical to the donor? I’m not sure,” Vincent Harris, chief digital strategist for Rand Paul’s campaign, said of such pacts. “I can say, if I was the donor, I would probably be pretty upset.”

National: GOP preparing for contested convention | The Washington Post

Republican officials and leading figures in the party’s establishment are preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as businessman Donald Trump continues to sit atop the polls in the GOP presidential race. More than 20 of them convened Monday near the Capitol for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, and the prospect of Trump nearing next year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion, according to five people familiar with the meeting. Weighing in on that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listened, several longtime Republican power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said.

National: Outdated Voting Machine Technology Poses Security and Election Risks | StateTech

Votes being registered for the wrong candidate. Voting machines running out of memory. Election officials searching eBay for outdated notebook computers. These are just a few of the nightmarish scenarios state and local officials face as the country’s voting machines age and break down. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that the expected lifespan of core components in electronic voting machines purchased since 2000 is between 10 and 20 years, and for most systems it is probably closer to 10 than 20. Experts surveyed by the Brennan Center agree that the majority of machines in use today are either “perilously close to or exceed these estimates.”

National: Potential Power Shift as Court Weighs ‘One Person One Vote’ | The New York Times

A closely divided Supreme Court on Tuesday struggled to decide “what kind of democracy people wanted,” as Justice Stephen G. Breyer put it during an argument over the meaning of the constitutional principle of “one person one vote.” The court’s decision in the case, expected by June, has the potential to shift political power from urban areas to rural ones, a move that would provide a big boost to Republican voters in state legislative races in large parts of the nation. The basic question in the case, Evenwel v. Abbott, No. 14-940, is who must be counted in creating voting districts: all residents or just eligible voters? Right now, all states and most localities count everyone.

National: In Redistricting, Somebody Will Be Slighted | The Texas Tribune

Some people think it’s unfair to have more eligible voters in one legislative district than in another — that basing things solely on total population is the wrong way to draw political maps. But that’s only one way the lines might be seen to slight a particular group of Texans. The question stems from a lawsuit that went to the U.S. Supreme Court this week challenging the current maps for Texas Senate elections. The plaintiffs argue that those maps — drawn to put approximately the same number of people in every district — put them at a disadvantage by including unequal numbers of eligible voters in each district.

National: Will the Supreme Court Hand Republicans a Redistricting Revolution? | National Journal

The Su­preme Court on Tues­day will de­bate wheth­er to re­write the rules for le­gis­lat­ive re­dis­trict­ing—in a way that would fur­ther strengthen Re­pub­lic­ans’ dom­in­ance in state polit­ics. State le­gis­lat­ive dis­tricts are ap­por­tioned un­der the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ciple of “one per­son, one vote.” And, for dec­ades, states have taken that to mean that each dis­trict should con­tain roughly the same num­ber of people. But the chal­lengers in the case be­fore the high court Tues­day say that’s not the right in­ter­pret­a­tion. They say dis­tricts should be ap­por­tioned with equal num­bers of eli­gible voters, rather than total res­id­ents. If the chal­lengers suc­ceed, the case could ush­er in a re­dis­trict­ing re­volu­tion—and big gains for the GOP. Densely pop­u­lated urb­an areas tend to lean Demo­crat­ic, and also to con­tain more people who aren’t eli­gible or re­gistered to vote. If state le­gis­lat­ive dis­tricts were re­drawn to equal­ize the num­ber of eli­gible voters, rather than the num­ber of total res­id­ents, in­ner cit­ies’ polit­ic­al power would likely be di­luted in­to more con­ser­vat­ive sub­urbs.

National: Campaign to Lower Voting Age to 16 in Local Races Ignites a Debate | The New York Times

Turning 16, for many teenagers, means finally driving a car without supervision or starting the college search. Now, a new campaign is hoping to add the ability to vote in local elections to the milestones of that age. The campaign, called Vote16USA, which will be announced on Wednesday, aims to lower the voting age to 16 from 18 to spur civic engagement by younger Americans. But the push, by a nonpartisan group based in New York called Generation Citizen, which seeks to promote youth participation in politics, is igniting a debate about voter competency, adolescent decision making and whether allowing younger people to vote is the best way to politically engage teenagers. Opponents say that teenagers are not mature enough to vote at 16, that they will not make informed decisions and that Vote16USA is a partisan push to get more liberals on voter rolls. Advocates, however, argue that lowering the voting age would increase turnout, allow teenagers to weigh in on issues that directly affect them and push schools to improve civic education.

National: Wary High Court Tackles Texas ‘One Person, One Vote’ Case | Associated Press

Practical concerns about forcing states to abandon the way they have drawn electoral districts for more than 50 years seemed to give a key justice pause Tuesday in a Supreme Court case of immense importance to the nation's growing Latino population. The court heard arguments in a case from Texas on the meaning of the principle of "one person, one vote," which the court has said requires that political districts be roughly equal in population. But it has left open whether states must count all residents, or only eligible voters, in drawing district lines. In Texas, and other states with large immigrant populations, the difference is more than academic. Urban districts include many more people who are too young, not citizens or otherwise ineligible to vote.

National: Latino Clout Turns on Supreme Court View of One-Person-One-Vote | Bloomberg

It turns out the idea of "one person, one vote" isn’t as simple as it sounds. The U.S. Supreme Court will put that half-century-old constitutional principle to the test Tuesday, hearing an appeal that liberal groups say would transform the way legislative maps are drawn, giving more voting clout to Republican strongholds and less to Hispanic communities. The debate centers on an issue that until recently had appeared to be settled. For decades, map-drawers virtually everywhere have tried to equalize the size of districts based on their total population. Now an appeal pressed by two Texans, including a Republican county chairwoman, says the measure should be eligible voters, an approach that would reduce representation for areas heavy with children and non-citizens.

National: Backlash grows over McConnell’s campaign spending measure | The Hill

A bipartisan backlash is growing against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's efforts to insert an obscure measure into a year-end spending bill that would allow unlimited spending by political parties in coordination with candidates. McConnell -- who has long believed that money is an expression of free speech and that restrictions should be removed on political spending -- is trying to mimic a tactic that was employed last year. In late 2014, congressional leaders from both parties used a massive year-end bill as a vehicle to greatly increase the amount of money that can flow into political parties. But while last year’s rider was snuck in at the last minute, this year McConnell’s plan has been smoked out early. The backlash now comes from both the left and -- perhaps surprisingly given conservatives' fervent advocacy of looser restrictions on political spending -- the right, but for different reasons.

National: Courts Are Shaking Up House Elections in 2016 | Bloomberg

After every U.S. census, states redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts to account for changes in population. This sets off a decennial exercise in partisan gamesmanship, with Democrats and Republicans seeking to alter the lines to their advantage. Lawsuits inevitably follow. Since new maps were drawn before the 2012 election, courts have weighed in on them in 22 states. Five years after the census and less than a year away from the 2016 election, five states are still waiting on judges to determine the fate of their districts. Their decisions could help Democrats chip away at the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. One of the most acrimonious redistricting fights in the nation came to an end on Wednesday, when Florida's Supreme Court replaced the Republican-drawn congressional map with one that shakes up all but three districts in the state.

National: U.S. Supreme Court to hear key voting rights case | San Jose Mercury News

With the potential for a seismic shift in the political landscape of California and other states hanging in the balance, the U.S. Supreme Court this week takes on a case that will test the framework of the "one person, one vote" principle that has defined political boundaries for generations. The high court on Tuesday will hear arguments in a case out of Texas that threatens to upend the way states draw their political districts based on census-driven overall population numbers -- and which could alter political influence in states such as California, where mushrooming Latino populations in urban areas, including illegal immigrants and other noncitizens, play a key part in shaping political maps. Conservative groups have challenged the "one person, one vote" premise based on a simple argument that counting overall population, including those ineligible to vote, unfairly diminishes the power of citizens who are eligible to vote. They have urged the Supreme Court to invalidate the current system, which would force states to completely redraw local and state political districts using different factors and perhaps open the door to eventually reconfiguring congressional districts.

National: 4 Court Cases That Could Impact the 2016 Elections | Roll Call

Breaking news can be hard to predict, except when it’s tied to a controversial court case. Candidates and consultants spend their time, energy and dollars staying on message — trying to focus voters on winning issues. But breaking news, even something such as a court decision that can be anticipated, often derails those plans by interjecting a subject that wasn’t in the campaign prospectus into the national conversation. It’s far too early to declare which issues will be decisive in the 2016 elections, but a handful of court cases are likely to become news throughout the next year. That would force candidates for president, the Senate, and the House to respond, creating opportunities for them to shine — or to say something controversial, even stupid. Of course these news events could be trumped by bigger breaking news, such as another terrorist attack.

National: States push for voting rights for felons | Washington Examiner

Maryland state lawmakers have taken up legislation to allow felons to vote once they were released from prison. Currently, felons must wait for their parole or probation to run out. Jane Henderson, a longtime advocate for criminal justice reform and executive director of Communities United, was surprised to learn that the legislation was getting action. She had assumed it would have been difficult to get the legislature to address the matter, let alone pass legislation. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed it in May, but she is optimistic that the legislature will override him, and soon. "By state constitution, they have to take it up soon when the next session starts in January," Henderson told the Washington Examiner. "In the Senate, we're fine. The House voted 82 for it and we need 85 … We're very close." If Maryland does approve the bill, the state would be the latest in an accelerating trend. Since 2009, six states have rolled back laws limiting felon voting rights.

National: Election Funding for 2020 and Beyond | The Canvass

As jurisdictions across the country are preparing for 2016’s big election, many are already thinking of the next presidential election—2020 and beyond. This is especially true when it comes to the equipment used for casting and tabulating votes. Voting machines are aging. A September report by the Brennan Center found that 43 states are using some voting machines that will be at least 10 years old in 2016. Fourteen states are using equipment that is more than 15 years old. The bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration dubbed this an “impending crisis.” To purchase new equipment, jurisdictions require at least two years lead time before a big election. They need enough time to purchase a system, test new equipment and try it out first in a smaller election. No one wants to change equipment (or procedures) in a big presidential election, if they can help it. Even in so-called off-years, though, it’s tough to find time between elections to adequately prepare for a new voting system. As Merle King, executive director of the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University, puts it, “Changing a voting system is like changing tires on a bus… without stopping.” So if election officials need new equipment by 2020, which is true in the majority of jurisdictions in the country, they must start planning now.

National: How Far Will The Supreme Court Go In The Big New Voting Rights Case? | TPM

Almost everyone in the voting rights community agrees that the unexpected case challenging long-held assumptions about the concept of “one person, one vote” -- which is being heard by the Supreme Court next week -- could have devastating consequences. But a point of contention among experts is what threat a more incremental decision poses to the already crippled Voting Rights Act. The case is called Evenwel v. Abbott. It is coming out of Texas, where the challengers are contesting the state legislature’s senate redistricting plan. At issue is whether the use of total population to draw districts -- as Texas and other states have near universally done -- is unconstitutional. The challengers suggest that some other metric -- perhaps one that counts districts by citizens or by eligible voters -- is preferable. They say their votes have been diluted because they live in a district that has a higher percentage of eligible voters compared to district that is roughly the same size in total population, but has a lower rate of voter eligibility -- in part because of the presence of Latino noncitizens.

National: Meaning of ‘One Person, One Vote’ at Stake at Supreme Court | Associated Press

Texas was the big winner in the 2010 census when it picked up four congressional seats, due mainly to growth in its Hispanic population. A Supreme Court case being argued Tuesday threatens to diminish Latinos' clout and benefit white, rural voters. Two voters in Texas are asking the court to order a drastic change in the way Texas and every other state divides their electoral districts. Rather than basing the maps on total population, including non-citizens and children who aren't old enough to vote, states must count only people who are eligible to vote, the challengers say. They argue that change is needed to carry out the true meaning of the principle of one person, one vote. They claim that taking account of total population can lead to vast differences in the number of voters in particular districts, along with corresponding differences in the power of those voters. A court ruling in their favor would shift more power to rural areas and away from urban districts in which there are large immigrant populations that are ineligible to vote because they are too young or not citizens.

National: Campaign Finance Riders Face Fight in Year-End Spending Bill | Roll Call

Progressive and political money groups say they will intensify their lobbying in the coming days to prevent four campaign finance measures from hitching a ride on a year-end spending deal. With a deadline to reach agreement on government-wide funding less than two weeks away, the effort will be no easy pitch. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., authored one of the measures, which would relax limits on coordination between political parties and candidates. “They’re swimming upstream every step of the way,” said Costas Panagopoulos, a Fordham University professor who specializes in campaign and election issues. “Legislators are going to be hard-pressed to vote against an appropriation bill that’s otherwise appealing to them on the basis of some of these riders.”

National: Redistricting Reform Gains Steam | US News and World Report

State legislatures are constitutionally obligated to redraw congressional districts every 10 years. But now, with an increased awareness of the potential for unfairness and abuse, voters are starting to push back. Most states make the redistricting decisions themselves, and accusations of gerrymandering – drawing the maps to unfairly preserve majority advantage – are frequent. Since the most recent census in 2010, lawsuits challenging congressional, state Senate or state legislature redistricting maps have been filed in 38 states; there were 37 such challenges following the 2000 round of redistricting. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court considered arguments over whether the Democrat-designed map in Maryland could be reviewed and potentially thrown out by a state panel. At the heart of that dispute is the fact that the state's political affiliation, currently 54.3 percent Democrat and 25.8 percent Republican, has changed only marginally since Democrats held a 57 percent to 29.7 percent advantage in 2000. And yet Maryland's eight-member congressional delegation has gone from being evenly split between the parties 15 years ago to a 7-1 Democratic advantage now after two rounds of redistricting under Democratic governors and legislatures. One of the districts, which have survived reviews by federal courts, was recently described by a federal judge as resembling "a broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state." "Most people know that Maryland is home to some of the most egregiously gerrymandered districts in the country," says Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary's College in Maryland.