National: Will popular vote elect president in 2020? | The Hill

The movement to change how presidents are elected is gaining steam and proponents of the long-stalled popular vote initiative are predicting victory by 2020. Eleven states/jurisdictions have enacted the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill, giving the proposal 165 electoral votes — 61 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to trigger the new voting system. Legislatures that passed the law include California, Illinois, New Jersey. Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a popular vote bill into law last week. All of these states, as well as the nation’s capital are liberal leaning, but activists note they are making progress in red states, such as Oklahoma and Nebraska. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush lost the popular vote and won the presidency. At the time, Democrats rallied behind the popular vote idea. The memory of that contested election has made many Democrats eager to jump on board, and some Republicans skeptical.

National: Supreme Court suspicious of Ohio law that criminalizes false speech about candidates | The Washington Post

Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum seemed deeply suspicious Tuesday of an Ohio law that criminalizes the spreading of false information about a political candidate during a campaign. Now they have to find a way for someone to bring them the proper challenge. Technically, the court was reviewing a decision by a lower court that an antiabortion group did not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of Ohio’s law, which is similar to ones in more than a dozen other states. But the justices couldn’t resist giving a preview of their skepticism about what Michael A. Carvin, the Washington lawyer representing the group Susan B. Anthony List, called Ohio’s “ministry of truth” during oral arguments.

National: Parties vie for high ground on November get-out-the-vote efforts | The Hill

Ask any party operative and they’ll tell you that a ground game wins or loses elections. But new voter ID laws and expansive targeting technology have made get-out-the-vote efforts even more complicated and crucial for this year’s midterms and the next presidential election for both parties. After Republicans faced devastating losses in 2012, the GOP is investing heavily in its ground game to prevent a similar outcome in the 2016 presidential year, when Democrats will have the advantage. But Democrats are more immediately worried about 2014. After historic losses in the 2010 elections, when crucial voting blocs stayed home, the party is gearing up for another tough midterm fight by investing tens of millions of dollars in turnout operations in competitive Senate states to translate their presidential ground-game advantage to the midterms. Jeremy Bird, the architect of Obama’s revolutionary data operation, is now involved in that effort with his consulting firm, 270 Strategies. Bird said while many of the same tactics apply, Democrats have to grapple with a different universe of voters in the midterm elections. “We’re not trying to recreate the presidential electorate but trying to create a winning midterm electorate. We’re trying to figure out who are those drop-off voters. Who are the voters likely to vote in presidential elections and likely to vote in midterms if you engage them, educate them and turn them out?” he said.

National: Federal Election Commission to Consider Allowing Bitcoin Donations to Campaigns | NewsBTC

Bitcoin and politics. They may soon go hand-in-hand. Financially speaking, of course. The Federal Election Commission will reportedly consider a request on Wednesday to officially allow political campaigns to accept bitcoin donations in the mid-term elections coming up. The news comes as bitcoin continues its rapid growth and more organizations are embracing the digital currency, which allows for easy transactions less hefty fees charged by traditional card processors. A non-partisan political group by the name of Make Your Laws made the request, which they’re hoping will be approved. Make Your Laws is launching soon, and seeks to use technology to empower citizens when it comes to elections and democracy.

National: Rand Paul calls out GOP over voter fraud claims | MSNBC

Sen. Rand Paul thinks the GOP might be over-hyping instances of voter fraud, and that Republicans shouldn’t scrap early voting. “There is still some fraud, and so we should stop that,” the Kentucky senator, considered a leading potential contender for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, told former Obama adviser David Axelrod during a sit-down Tuesday at the University of Chicago. “Although the incidence of fraud is relatively small,” Axelrod said. “It probably is, and I think Republicans may have over-emphasized this. I don’t know,” replied Paul, who made clear that, like most of his party, he supports voter ID requirements.

National: Supreme Court hears challenge to Ohio law that bars campaign lies | Cleveland Plain Dealer

U.S. Supreme Court justices of all ideological stripes expressed free speech concerns about an Ohio law that makes it a crime to lie about politicians during an election, making it appear likely they will back a challenge to the law launched by an anti-abortion group. The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List told the court Tuesday that the law – which allows citizens to file complaints about untruthful statements with Ohio’s Elections Commission – chills free speech when it’s most needed – immediately before an election. Attorney Michael A. Carvin said complaints filed before the commission typically can’t be resolved before an election because of the time it takes to process them. He urged the Supreme Court to reject a lower court’s decision that his group lacks standing to challenge the law because it was never found guilty of a violation. “We’re facing a credible threat,” said Carvin. “We ask the Court to lift this yoke so that we can become full participants in the next election cycle.”

National: Supreme Court to Consider Challenge to Law Against Lying in Elections | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court will consider Tuesday whether two conservative groups can pursue a free-speech challenge to an Ohio false-statements law that if allowed would advance a broader push against state laws making it illegal to lie about a political candidate or ballot initiative. Although Ohio’s elections commission rarely refers complaints over false statements for prosecution, the conservative groups, including the anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony List, said the law discouraged them from running advertisements against a Democratic congressman. “It almost never comes to a criminal prosecution, but that doesn’t mean there’s no chilling effect on speech,” Daniel Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University who isn’t involved in the case, said of the law. More than a dozen other states have laws authorizing criminal or civil penalties for spreading falsehoods in political campaigns. The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling, expected by June, is unlikely to affect the state laws or political discourse in the current elections cycle. The case would instead likely be sent back for lower courts to consider whether the false-statement law violates the First Amendment by improperly suppressing protected speech.

National: SCOTUS hears local free speech case today | Cincinnati Inquirer

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a Cincinnati case that touches on free speech in elections, with an anti-abortion group seeking to challenge the constitutionality of an Ohio law that bans lying about political candidates. The case will pit two brilliant but stylistically opposite lawyers against each other, as they make competing arguments before the nine justices. Ohio’s State Solicitor Eric Murphy is an up-and-coming conservative star who will defend the Ohio law. Washington super-lawyer Michael Carvin is a seasoned Supreme Court veteran seeking to knock it down. Murphy and Carvin will face off in a legal clash that began during the 2010 congressional race between then-Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus and his GOP challenger Steve Chabot of Westwood. An anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List, wanted to launch a billboard ad campaign accusing Driehaus of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions by voting in favor of the federal health reform law.

National: Clock ticking on fix to Voting Rights Act | The Hill

Time is running out for Congress to fix the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court last year struck down major parts of the voting law, and a bipartisan fix has stalled in Congress. The justices ruled that the formula used to designate which parts of the country must face heightened federal voting clearances was outdated and unconstitutional. New legislation, introduced earlier this year, seeks to update the procedures. Advocates believe the bill will pass both chambers of Congress if it is brought up to a vote, but that looks unlikely. In the House, conservative Republicans, especially those from Southern states that are singled out for the extra scrutiny, are skeptical of the measure Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) hammered out with House and Senate Democrats. If the bill were signed into law soon, it would be in effect for this November’s elections. Some Democrats are unhappy with compromises struck to win GOP support related to voter identification. Others on the left are concerned with the scope of the bill. Previously, nine states with histories of voter discrimination were required to get federal approval before they changed their election procedures. Under the new plan, only four states would be forced to seek such approval. Still, most Democrats would back the bill if it comes up for a vote. A number of senior Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, are on board.

National: Meet TrustTheVote, A Project To Make Voting Open Source And Transparent | TechCrunch

How was your last voting experience? Smooth? Perhaps not. The Open Source Election Technology Foundation wants to change that by making voting simpler and more transparent. Its chief effort, called TrustTheVote, is a push to develop airtight, open-source vote casting and tabulation software that can be paired with off-the-shelf hardware. Open-source code and off-the-shelf plastic mean that TrustTheVote will, if it meets its goals, sell better, transparent voting machines to precincts at a fraction of the current cost. Each major election cycle in the United States brings the same whispers: Irregularities in Ohio counties, odd voting machine behavior in Iowa, and constant fringe intrigue about which candidate is getting a secret electronic bump due to a distant relative’s relationship with a voting machine company. It’s not healthy for our democracy.

National: Supreme Court to consider challenge to law barring campaign falsehoods | Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court next week will consider for the first time whether states may enforce laws that make it a crime to knowingly publish false statements about political candidates. The justices will hear an antiabortion group’s free-speech challenge to an Ohio law that was invoked in 2010 by then-Rep. Steve Driehaus, a Democrat. He had voted for President Obama’s healthcare law and was facing a tough race for reelection. The antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List launched a campaign to unseat Driehaus, preparing to run billboard ads saying, “Shame on Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortion.” The statement was false, Driehaus said, since under the law no federal funds can be spent to pay for abortions. He threatened to sue the billboard company, which decided against running the ad.

National: Supreme Court ruling sets off race for bigger donations | USAToday

Political parties, election lawyers and some donors are racing to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down the overall limits on what wealthy contributors can give to candidates, parties and political action committees. National Republican officials recently launched the Republican Victory Fund, a new campaign vehicle that will allow a single donor to contribute nearly $100,000 to be split among the Republican National Committee and the two GOP campaign committees working on House and Senate races. The goal of the joint fundraising plan is to “maximize our donations to help candidates win in November,” Kirsten Kukowski, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. The Supreme Court’s decision maintained limits on how much an individual can give to one party or candidate but tossed out the aggregate caps that barred a single donor from giving more than $48,600 to all federal candidates and $74,600 to political parties and PACs in the current election cycle.

National: Military Voting Bill Advances | KTRH

The U.S. Senate Rules Committee has passed a bill aimed at strengthening voting protections for military members.  The Safeguarding Elections for our Nation’s Troops through Reforms and Improvements (SENTRI) Act is co-sponsored by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).  Upon its passage out of committee this week, Senator Cornyn released a statement urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to “immediately” bring the bill before the full Senate.  “The 2012 election made clear that there are still too many barriers to military service members and their families having their votes counted,” Cornyn wrote in his statement.  “These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, and the least we can do is ensure that everything possible is being done to safeguard their voting rights.”

National: Obama, Citing New Laws, Says the G.O.P. Is Moving to Restrict Voting Rights | New York Times

President Obama deplored on Friday what he called a Republican campaign to deny voting rights to millions of Americans as he stepped up efforts to rally his political base heading into a competitive midterm campaign season. Appearing at the annual convention of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in Manhattan, Mr. Obama accused Republicans of trying to rig the elections by making it harder for older people, women, minorities and the impoverished to cast ballots in swing states that could determine control of the Senate. “The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago,” Mr. Obama said in a hotel ballroom filled with cheering supporters, most of them African-American. “Across the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote.”

National: Get Ready for the Datapalooza of Election Performance! | American Prospect

During the brief time in the election cycle when the voting booths are actually open, we hear a lot how smoothly elections are going—where voters are waiting in long lines, where ballots are getting rejected, and the like. Elections expert Doug Chapin, who heads the University of Minnesota’s Elections Academy, calls it “anec-data”—anecdotes substituting for hard numbers.  In a presidential election, we tend to hear all about problems in swing states, since the national press corps is already there, but we’re less likely to hear about issues in Montana or Connecticut, where the election outcome is almost a foregone conclusion. Good data would make it easy to compare states’ election performance, and more importantly, let us see how states are improving or declining from one election to the next. That’s why Pew’s 2012 Elections Performance Index is a big deal. Released this week, the index uses standardized data from the U.S. Census, the Elections Assistance Commission, and a major survey to assess states on 17 different variables and judge just how well they are running their elections. Because Pew offered an index for 2008 and 2010, we can now compare two different presidential elections to actually see whether election administration is getting better or worse—rather than just guess. It’s the first time such a tool has been available. For the most part, the results are encouraging. A quick perusal shows 40 of the 50 states have improved since 2008—wait times are down an average of three minutes and online registration is spreading quickly, with 13 states offering online voter registration during the 2012 election, up from just two in 2008. (Since the election, another five states have started offering it.) Many of the top-performing states in 2008, like North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Colorado, stayed on top in 2012 while low performers, like Mississippi, Alabama, California, and New York remained at the bottom.

National: Clinton: Voting limits derail civil rights | The Hill

President Bill Clinton ripped the Supreme Court’s conservative justices and Republicans pushing voter identification laws on Wednesday, accusing them of undermining civil rights. Clinton, speaking at an event at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas celebrating the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, warned that some “would turn back the clock” on civil rights for short-term political gain. “Last year in one of the most radical departures from established legal decision-making in my lifetime the Supreme Court threw [The Voting Rights Act] out, or at least threw a very important provision of it out, and said ‘We don’t care what Congress found by 90 percent vote and we have no evidence to prove them wrong, but our opinion is they should not have extended the Voting Rights Act. And it sent a signal across the country,” he said.

National: RNC chairman: Strike down all contribution limits | Washington Post

The chairman of the Republican National Committee said Tuesday that he would like for the Supreme Court to overturn more campaign finance restrictions — including the limit on the amount of money someone can give to an individual or a political party. Last week, in McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court struck down the limit on the overall amount people can give to all candidates and parties per election cycle but left in place the limits in individual contributions.

National: Report: Election administration improving, in most states | Washington Post

The average voter who cast a ballot on Election Day in 2012 had to wait in line for three minutes less than he or she would have in 2008, while fewer people with disabilities or illnesses had problems voting, according to a new report measuring election administration procedures across the country. The report, published Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trust’s State and Consumer Initiatives program, found a sharp increase in the number of states that offered online voter registration, the number of states conducting post-election audits and the number of states that offer a transparent look at the data they collect. Overall, the Pew researchers found, states that improved the most year over year embraced technological reforms that made the process function more smoothly, from evaluating absentee and provisional ballots to hurrying people through lines and judging their own effectiveness in order to spotlight areas for improvement.

National: Microsoft Co-Founder Allen Bets on Online Voting; Funds Scytl | Wall Street Journal

People bank online and do their taxes online. But not many vote online. On Monday, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen‘s venture-capital fund said it was betting that online voting will win over skeptics worried about security and gradually become the norm for elections world-wide. Vulcan Capital’s growth equity fund, based in Palo Alto, Calif., said it will invest $40 million in Scytl, a digital voting services company based in Barcelona with customers in more than 30 countries, including Canada, Mexico and Australia. Scytl, founded in 2001, sells a range of services aimed at modernizing elections, from training poll workers and registering voters to hosting elections online and counting votes. Scytl has previously received investments from Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital and Spinnaker SCR.

National: Democrats, civil rights groups push for action on voting rights bill | Gannett

Democrats and civil rights groups are stepping up demands for Congress to move on legislation that would require some Southern states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, to once again get federal approval before making election changes. Almost 160 Democrats in Congress recently wrote House Republican leaders calling for action on the stalled bill, which they said would “restore the safeguards of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.” Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., signed the letter. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, didn’t, saying the measure wouldn’t include key states with a long history of discrimination, including Alabama. “There is a lot of concern that many of those areas will not be covered with the new bill,” said Thompson. “At the end of the day if the bill comes to the floor in whatever form, in all probability I’ll support it. But at this point, I’m going to lobby for a better bill.”

National: Study: States Did Better Job Running Elections In 2012 | NPR

For all the criticism about long lines and other Election Day snafus, most states actually improved the way they handled elections between 2008 and 2012, according to a new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The report found that, overall, wait times at polling stations decreased by about three minutes over 2008, and 40 states and the District of Columbia improved their “election performance index” scores, which Pew calculated from 17 indicators that make up the index. Pew analyzed state election administration by looking at factors such as the availability of voting tools online, voter turnout, wait times at polling stations and problems with registration or absentee ballots.

National: Legal victory for big-money campaign donors to be felt in states, courts | Reuters

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the overall cap on federal election contributions is sending ripples across American politics, as states have begun backing away from their own restrictions on donations and lawyers are forecasting a new wave of challenges to campaign finance laws nationwide. The court’s 5-4 ruling on Wednesday was unsettling for many Washington fundraisers, donors and lobbyists who were comfortable with federal rules that had limited total donations to candidates and party groups to $123,200 in the 2014 election cycle. Now, thanks to the court’s decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, donors who are able to give millions of dollars to candidates and their parties will see their influence expanded – much as it was by a 2010 ruling that inspired the creation of independent “Super PACs” and other groups that could receive unlimited donations.

National: Ruling Spurs Rush for Cash in Both Parties | New York Times

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader in the House, wasted little time on Thursday blasting the Supreme Court’s latest decision freeing donors to spend more money on campaigns. The founding fathers, Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference on Thursday morning, had fought for “a government of the many, not a government of the money.” Democrats, she said, will not “unilaterally disarm.” Indeed, her fund-raisers had already begun to exploit the new ruling. That morning, Ms. Pelosi’s political team began asking donors for tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of additional contributions permitted by the decision, while circulating a legal memorandum to donors who had questions about the new rules, according to Pelosi supporters.

National: Republicans See Opening to Ask Court to Void More Campaign Limits | Wall Street Journal

Republican officials and their allies, reviewing Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance, say they now have ammunition for additional challenges to restrictions on political contributions and may press to strike down all limits on donations to candidates and political parties. Motivated by the ruling in their favor, GOP lawyers and conservative advocates are discussing whether to bring lawsuits that would seek to permit companies and labor unions to donate directly to candidates for Congress and the White House; allow the Republican and Democratic parties to accept unlimited donations; and raise the current $10,000 cap on yearly donations to state political parties. “The political parties are going to take a hard look at some of the more extreme provisions of [the campaign-finance rules] to see if those provisions can withstand review” by the court, said Bobby Burchfield, a longtime GOP campaign-finance lawyer.

National: Ruling Hints More Campaign Finance Dominoes May Fall | New York Times

The sweeping language and logic of Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision on campaign finance may imperil other legal restrictions on money in politics. The 5-to-4 decision, which struck down overall limits on contributions by individuals to candidates and parties, was the latest in a series of campaign finance decisions from the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that took an expansive view of First Amendment rights and a narrow one of political corruption. According to experts in election law, there is no reason to think that the march toward deregulating election spending will stop with the ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. “Those who support limits see the court right now as the T. Rex from ‘Jurassic Park,’” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “What’s next? ‘Just don’t move. He can’t see us if we don’t move.’” For now, federal law bars corporations from making contributions to candidates, though they can spend what they like independently to support or oppose candidates. Contributions from individuals to candidates are capped at $2,600 per election. Individual contributions to political parties are capped, too. Public financing of elections is allowed.

National: Supreme Court Strikes Down Aggregate Limits on Federal Campaign Contributions | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a major campaign finance decision, striking down limits on federal campaign contributions for the first time. The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will change and most likely increase the role money plays in American politics. The decision, by a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines, was a sequel of sorts to Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. But that ruling did nothing to disturb the other main form of campaign finance regulation: caps on direct contributions to candidates and political parties. Wednesday’s decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, No. 12-536, addressed that second kind of regulation.

National: Election Assistance Commission seeks stay of order in voter citizenship case | Associated Press

Federal election officials have asked a judge to temporarily suspend his own order that they help Kansas and Arizona enforce state laws requiring voters to prove their U.S. citizenship, arguing that the case “implicates the fundamental right to register to vote.” The court filing late Monday comes in response to U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren’s decision on March 19 requiring the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to immediately modify a national voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about those states’ proof-of-citizenship requirements. More than a dozen voting rights groups, which had previously intervened in the litigation, made a similar joint request for a stay last week. Project Vote Inc. filed its own motion Tuesday seeking the same thing. Kansas and Arizona had asked the federal agency for state-specific modifications, but it refused. Secretaries of State Kris Kobach of Kansas and Ken Bennett of Arizona, both conservative Republicans, sued the agency last year.

National: Supreme Court strikes down limits on federal campaign donations | The Washington Post

A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns. The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections. “If Citizens United opened a door,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in reading his dissent from the bench, “today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the opinion striking down the aggregate limits of what an individual may contribute to candidates and political committees. The decision did not affect the limit an individual may contribute to a specific candidate, currently $2,600. But Roberts said an individual should be able to contribute that much to as many candidates as he chooses, which was not allowed by the donation cap.

National: Will other states delay use of SAVE for voter checks? | Miami Herald

Florida is one of a handful of states that signed agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to use SAVE to search for non-citizens on voter rolls. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Thursday that he was delaying his plan to start a new round of looking for non-citizen voters due to DHS revamping the SAVE website. DHS started changes to the website in February but may not finish the project until after the 2014 election however SAVE remains operational by agencies nationwide. So we wondered if any other agencies that use SAVE for voter registration purposes have also halted efforts as a result of the website changes.

National: Democrats call on GOP to move voting rights bill | The Hill

House Democrats are amping up their pressure on GOP leaders to move on legislation to restore voting rights protections shot down by the Supreme Court last year. In a March 27 letter, Democratic leaders noted that the high court’s ruling “acknowledged the persistence of voter discrimination,” and they urged the Republicans to take up a bipartisan proposal, designed to counteract such prejudices, before November’s elections. “Some of us believe the bill should be enacted in its current form, and some of us would prefer to see it amended,” the Democrats wrote to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). “But all of us stand united in our desire for the House to consider the issue in time for the entire Congress to work its will before the August district work period.” Spearheaded by Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, the letter was endorsed by 160 Democrats, including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.), caucus Vice Chairman Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the ranking member of the Judiciary panel, and Rep. John Dingell (Mich.), the House dean. GOP leaders have not said if they’ll try to move legislation on the issue this year.