The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 18-24 2016

ids_260Federal courts have reined in strict voter ID laws in Texas and Wisconsin, while a legal battle continues to rage over North Carolina’s rules mandating showing identification at the polls — even after lawmakers there took pre-emptive steps to soften them. PCWorld reports that this November, 15 states will still be using outdated direct recording electronic voting machines that don’t support paper printouts used to audit their internal vote counts. Mark Buchanan wrote about the potential impact of internet bots on the presidential election. An Illinois judge tossed from the fall ballot a constitutional amendment to take away the General Assembly’s power to draw legislative district boundaries, dealing a loss to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and a win to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block a Kansas election rule that could throw out thousands of votes in state and local races by people who registered at motor vehicle offices or used a federal form without providing documents proving U.S. citizenship. In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order restoring voting rights to 206,000 felons, dealing a severe blow to what the governor has touted as one of his proudest achievements in office. Joshua Wong, the teenage leader who is the face of the youthful pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, was convicted of participating in an unlawful assembly that snowballed into a massive sit-in known as the Umbrella Movement and a Japanese court has found an election law provision denying prisoners the right to vote in a national poll is constitutional.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 11-17 2016

Several noted computer security experts were interviewed in an Pacific Standard article about internet voting. The FBI investigated a hacking threat against Arizona’s voter registration database and deemed the threat credible, labeling it an “8 out of 10” on the severity scale. Responded to threats of violence Palm Beach Couty Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher was forced to rescind an invitation to the Islamic Center of Boca Raton to host a polling site in the upcoming primary and general elections. A small group of state officials approved a new rule Tuesday that will enable 17,000 Kansans to vote in federal elections but not in state and local races. Conservative activists received a frosty reception from a three-judge panel in Baltimore Tuesday as they sought to scrap Maryland’s bitterly disputed congressional district map. A federal judge struck down an obscure element of Virginia’s presidential primary laws, handing a symbolic victory to a Republican National Convention delegate who has refused to support Donald Trump. Advocacy for online voting by Australian politicians and entrepreneurs has not eliminated the security and integrity concerns surrounding internet voting and the UK House of Commons has scheduled a debate on a petition calling for a second EU referendum that was signed by more than four million people.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 4-10 2016

australia_260g News Weekly The publication Risk & Insurance examined the security concerns involved in electronic voting and Johns Hopkins computer scientist Avi Rubin explained why he believes that we will not be able to securely vote on the Internet in the foreseeable future. The FBI has alerted the Arizona Secretary of State that the state’s voter registration system has been compromised by malicious software. A controversial measure that would require a government-issued photo ID to vote was vetoed by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, with the Democratic governor arguing it would act as a barrier against citizens’ fundamental right to vote. The New York Times questioned the state of Ohio’s practice of periodically removing infrequent voters from voter rolls. A little-known Virginia law that dictates how the state’s delegates must vote at presidential nominating conventions could be struck down by a federal judge. The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has declared victory in the federal election aeight days after polls closed in the tight race, while Democratic Audit UK examined the security and privacy issues that led Norway to terminate its internet voting trials.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 27 – July 3 2016

vbm_260A federal judge in Washington rejected a request by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP in Georgia and other civil rights groups that would have blocked Kansas, Alabama and Georgia from enforcing proof-of-citizenship requirements for people using a federal form to register to vote. Voting Groups have promised to appeal the decision. In a Guardian editorial, David Van Reybrouck considered the Brexit referendum and the ramifications for the future of democracy. California is still counting the last ballots cast in the June 7th primary election. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled against a wide expansion of voting rights for convicted criminals on Thursday, finding that all felonies are “infamous crimes” resulting in disenfranchisement under the state constitution. A federal judge has ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is not illegally removing voters from voter registration rolls, while a federal judge noted that there are few clear guidelines for how to rule on parts of a challenge to Wisconsin’s voting rules and questioned how much of an effect the state’s voter ID law has had on elections. Australians awoke Sunday to a government plagued in uncertainty after a stunningly close national election failed to deliver a clear victor, raising the prospect of a hung parliament and Austria’s Freedom party will get another go at providing the first far-right president in the European Union, after the country’s constitutional court annulled the result of May’s presidential election.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 20-26 2016

so_long_260The Canvass surveyed the “Crazy Quilt” of election equipment that will be used to count votes this November, while  in The New Yorker Elizabeth Kolbert considred the past and present of gerrymandering in US elections. With three active lawsuits that challenge different aspects of Kansas voting laws, county election officials throughout the state are still unsure about which voters will be allowed to cast ballots in which races. According to a survey by the ACLU, only about half of Nebraska’s 93 counties accurately provide voting rights for ex-felons, Members of a federal appeals court expressed skepticism that North Carolina’s 2013 major rewrite to voting laws, requiring photo identification to cast in-person ballots, doesn’t discriminate against minorities. More than five years after Republicans fast-tracked legislation limiting the forms of ID accepted to vote in Texas elections, state taxpayers have picked up the $3.5 million tab for defending the nation’s strictest voter identification law in court. Britain’s vote to leave the EU has sent shockwaves through markets across the world and could impact today’s presidential election re-run in Spain.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 13-19 2016

Hackers_260Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach. The Daily dot examined the security concerns surrounding internet voting. The Supreme Court has left in place a lower-court ruling preserving American Samoa’s status as the only overseas U.S. territory without birthright U.S. citizenship, rejecting a legal challenge aimed at making people born there automatic citizens. A Kansas judge has re-confirmed an earlier ruling that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has no legal right to bar people from casting ballots in local and state elections because they registered to vote using a federal form that did not require proof of citizenship. Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed a bill fast-tracked by lawmakers in his party that would have required a payment, possibly thousands of dollars, if a judge ordered polls to stay open longer on Election Day. A conservative legal advocacy group has filed a second challenge to Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order that restored voting rights for roughly 206,000 Virginia felons. The body overseeing elections in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has acknowledged researchers’ claims of a bug in the software it uses to count votes and the assassination of a pro-Remain MP has heightened uncertainty over this week’s referendum on EU membership.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 6-12 2016

absentee_ballots_260In a Stanford Review interview Verified Voting founder David Dill discussed the risks of Internet voting, the challenge of educating an increasingly tech-comfortable public, and why paper is still the best way to cast a vote. Voters faced a tough time in the California primary, with many voters saying they have encountered broken machines, polling sites that opened late and incomplete voter rolls, particularly in Los Angeles County. A federal appeals court ruled that Kansas cannot prevent thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots in the November federal election because they didn’t prove they were U.S. citizens when registering to vote at motor vehicle offices. A federal judge threw out provisions in Ohio’s law that had voided  absentee and provisional ballots for technical flaws made by otherwise qualified voters. Computer scientist Daniel Lopresti notes that the Pennsylvania Legislature is considering an internet voting bill that would jeopardize the vote and voice of our troops and compromise the integrity of elections by exposing them to attacks from hackers operating anywhere and everywhere throughout the world. The U.S. Supreme Court said it would intervene in another political redistricting case from Virginia to consider whether state office voting lines were racially gerrymandered. Haiti’s major foreign donors reluctantly gave the green light to the country’s elections body to rerun last year’s contested presidential elections in October and the U.K. government’s website for voter registration crashed, sparking panic that citizens may miss out on casting their ballots.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 30 – June 5 2016

Three Democratic U.S. congressmen have asked a federal agency to provide information regarding whether EC Executive Director Brian Newby had the right to unilaterally change voter registration forms in three states to require proof of citizenship. A federal judge refused to reopen voter registration in California ahead of next week’s presidential primary, telling a group led by backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that the rights of the state’s unaffiliated voters have not been harmed. Louisiana has repealed a century-old state law that required naturalized citizens to provide proof of their citizenship when they registered to vote, a change that effectively resolves a lawsuit’s discrimination claims. A group of activists is asking a federal court to order a new primary for Baltimore voters, alleging that a series of irregularities and a “vote-buying scheme” marred the election’s outcome. A panel of federal judges rejected the most recent challenge of North Carolina’s newly drawn congressional districts. The Supreme Court of Virginia will hold a special session on July 19 to take up the Republican challenge to Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order restoring voting rights for more than 200,000 felons. The head of a five-member panel charged with reviewing Haiti’s presidential elections has stated that the results were such a disaster that the election should be held again and Russia’s Central Election Commission has ruled the final results of the Democratic Coalition’s online primaries void after their website came under attack from hackers.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting Rights Weekly for May 23-29 2016

blood_260The Washington Post examined the challenges many Americans face in obtaining the specific forms of identification required for voting in some states. The Economist notes that while “today’s voting-rights disputes are less clear-cut than those of the civil-rights era, but they are inflammatory all the same.” While giving him two more weeks to comply, a federal judge let Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach know that she would brook no further delays in carrying out her order to restore 18,000 Kansas residents to the voter rolls. Hillary Clinton remains the winner of Kentucky’s Democratic presidential primary after a recanvass of votes requested by her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Baltimore’s elections board recertified the results of the April primary election Wednesday after an unusual intervention by state officials. A federal judge struck down an Ohio state law that eliminated “Golden Week,” several days at the beginning of the state’s early voting period when Ohio voters could both register to vote and cast a ballot. The Supreme Court left in place a court-imposed congressional redistricting map in Virginia, dismissing a challenge from three Republican congressmen. Witnesses in the federal court challenge to Wisconsin’s voter id requirement provided insight into real motives for enactment of the law. The failed far-right contender in Austria’s presidential election has dismissed claims by some of his supporters alleging fraud while the UK high court upheld an earlier ruling that Britons who have lived abroad for more than 15 years will not be allowed to vote in the EU referendum.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 16-22 2016

maryland_260Despite warnings from computer security experts and some senior Obama administration officials, 30 states will allow the electronic transmission of voted ballots for some voters this November. The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles and secretary of the state have worked out an agreement to implement a “streamlined motor voter system” that will automatically register eligible citizens to vote when they go to DMV for a driver’s license or state-issued identification card. A federal judge ordered Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to register about 18,000 rejected voters who filed applications at Department of Motor Vehicles offices but didn’t provide the proof of citizenship Kansas law requires. About 1,000 more votes were cast during Baltimore’s primary election than there were voters who checked in at the polls, an ongoing state review has found. For a second time in four years, a federal judge ruled that Montana’s campaign contribution limits are unconstitutional — a decision that could open the way for a flood of money from political parties just three weeks before the June 7 state primary. A federal judge has upheld Virginia’s voter ID law challenged by the Democratic Party of Virginia and two voters alleging the Republican-controlled state legislature enacted it to curb the number of young and minority voters. A former chief of staff to a GOP state senator testified Monday in a federal trial that Wisconsin Republicans were “giddy” about a voter identification requirement enacted in 2011 that they saw as an opportunity to drive down Democratic turnout at the polls. Viewed widely on social media, images of police violence against Kenyan protesters calling for electoral reform have caused international outrage while Western mediators welcomed a decision by a Macedonian court to strike down plans for early elections, in a blow to the ruling VMRO party which was the only major party registered to participate.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 9-15 2016

voter_id_260Over the last four years, 17 states, mostly in the Deep South and Midwest, have passed stringent voting laws with many demanding voters show official photo ID.In the Boston Globe Renée Loth explores the potential impact of those new regulations. A Florida man has been charged with felony criminal hacking charges after gaining unauthorized access to poorly secured computer systems belonging to a Florida county elections supervisor. Maryland election officials ordered the results of Baltimore’s primary election decertified Thursday and launched a precinct-level review of irregularities, with an audit to begin Monday. Missouri House Republicans voted Thursday to put a proposed constitutional amendment that would require photo ID at the polls on the November ballot. Ahead of Monday’s federal trial on the state’s voting laws, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has approved a new rule that would allow voters who are seeking a photo ID card but not yet received one to use a Division of Motor Vehicles receipt to vote in many cases. The Australian high court has unanimously rejected Senator Bob Day’s challenge of Senate voting changes, clearing the way for the 2 July election using the new voting system and former coup leader Azali Assoumani was elected as president of Comoros, according to provisional results, after last month’s election was partially re-run due to violence and “irregularities”.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 2-8 2016

indiana_260A series of data breaches the Philippines, Turkey and Mexico are spurring concerns that hackers could manipulate elections in the United States. Already facing a lawsuit from the League of Women Voters for his decision earlier this year to allow Kansas and two other states to require residents to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote using a federal form, EAC executive director Brian Newby has now been rebuked by the EAC’s Board of Advisors. The board – composed of election officials from around the country – approved a resolution saying that such changes should be made by the commissioners themselves. Voting was delayed at several polling sites in Hancock County Indiana after a software update from the county’s voting equipment vendor — Election Systems & Software — failed to load, while another software error caused entire races to be left off voters’ ballots at five of the county’s 12 polling sites, affecting over 2000 ballots. Civil Rights Attorneys are seeking a court order blocking enforcement of a Louisiana law, which requires naturalized citizens to provide documents proving their citizenship when they register to vote, while other residents simply must swear that they are citizens on the voter registration application. A bipartisan compromise led to the passage of a Voter ID requirement in Missouri that may face a gubernatorial veto and, in any case, requires voters to approve a constitutional amendment in November. Republican lawmakers in Virginia will file a lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s decision to allow more than 200,000 convicted felons to vote in November. The four opposition coalitions said they will not drop their demand for all the alleged irregularities to be fully investigated by the Republic Electoral Commission even though all of them made it into parliament at the April 24 polls and King Felipe VI of Spain signed a decree on Tuesday to dissolve Parliament and hold a rerun of national elections for the first time since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 25 – May 1 2016

north_carolina_260Time Magazine reported on the nationwide move toward paper ballot voting systems. A judge rejected a challenge to the results of Arizona’s problematic presidential primary despite evidence that there were glitches in the election. Kansas is fending off multiple legal challenges to its proof-of-citizenship requirements and just months before the state’s August primary, the status of the “dual registration” system remains unclear. Democratic lawmakers filibustered a Voter ID bill in Missouri while civil rights leaders will appeal a federal judge decision upholding a  sweeping Republican-backed changes to North Carolina election rules that includes a voter identification provision. In a setback for civil rights challengers, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas to continue to enforce its Voter ID law while litigation over the measure continues. Vermont became the fourth state to enact provisions for automatic voter registration. Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s executive order restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons outraged Republicans who accused McAuliffe of abusing his power to help longtime ally Hillary Clinton win a battleground state by putting more likely Democratic voters on the voter rolls. Claiming fraud and irregularities. Serbian opposition supporters rallied in Belgrade demanding a nationwide recount of last weekend’s election ballots and the UK high court has rejected an attempt to force the government to grant millions of UK citizens living abroad a vote in this June’ s EU referendum.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting New Weekly for April 18-24 2016

voter_id_260A Republican National Committee panel has rejected an effort to make preliminary changes to the rules governing the party’s convention this summer, batting away a move to make it more difficult for party leaders to draft a “white knight” candidate into the race. Andrew Gumbel considered the potential impact of new Voter ID laws on the November election. The Supreme Court upheld Arizona state legislative districts drawn by an independent commission, rejecting claims by Republican voters that slight population deviations favoring Democrats violated the Constitution. A panel of federal judges rejected an effort by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown to throw out the current district boundaries. New York’s presidential primary generated by than 1,000 complaints from voters statewide to State Attorney Eric Schneiderman. One month after the Utah presidential caucuses, the state Republican party still has not published its final results as evidence amasses of a breakdown in the party’s new online voting system as well as email and other communication failures. Citing concerns about security and voter privacy, New Zealand has cancelled plans for online voting trials this Fall and the British High Court will hear a legal challenge against the government brought by several Britons living in Europe who claim they have been wrongly disenfranchised in the planned EU vote because they have lived outside Britain for 15 years, meaning they are ineligible to vote.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 11-17 2016

As the general election approaches, the complex and often confusing laws around voter registration have led to court challenges and legislative action in many states. Richard Hasen examines the even more complex nomination process that has raised suggestions that the system is “fixed” or “rigged” Both major Democratic presidential candidates will sue the state of Arizona over voter access to the polls after the state’s presidential primary last month left thousands of residents waiting as long as five hours to vote. The upcoming New York primary, has focused attention on the state’s restrictive closed primary and lack of in-person early voting. A panel of three federal judges opened up the possibility Tuesday that Wisconsin voters who have great difficulty getting photo IDs could cast ballots without them. The Canadian Supreme Court said it would take on a case challenging the disenfranchisement of citizens who have lived abroad for longer than five years and South Korea’s ruling conservative party suffered an unexpected defeat in a parliamentary election.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 4-10 2016

djibouti_260The Election Assistance Commission is in federal court this month, its executive director accused of trying to suppress voter turnout in this November’s election. The Supreme Court endorsed the way Texas draws its legislative districts based on total population and not just eligible voters – the same method used by all 50 states – rejecting a conservative challenge in a case focusing on the legal principle of “one person, one vote.” The Justice Department has opened an investigation over the decisions that led to the chaotic presidential primaries in Arizona’s most populous county, where thousands of voters waited up to five hours to cast ballots and thousands more were barred from participating because of mistakes and confusion over party registration. Nebraska Republicans cleared a major hurdle in their efforts to reinstate a winner-take-all system in presidential elections, a move that would wipe out any chance of the state splitting its electoral votes as it did for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008. The ACLU is suing Ohio Secretary of State over how state officials remove inactive voters from the rolls. Wisconsin congressional staffer Glenn Grothman pretty much said what everyone already knew: The state’s voter ID law was all about power. It had nothing to do with voter fraud, of which there has been virtually none that a photo ID would stop. Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh, in power since 1999, was expected to win a fourth term in office in an election that began on Friday, although some opposition candidates openly doubted the integrity of the vote and a cyber-attack on the website of the Philippines Commission on Elections has resulted in personally identifiable information of roughly 55 million people being leaked online.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 28 – April 3 2016

Februrary 26, 2016. Bogotá, Colombia. Ándres Sepúlveda (31) lives at an undisclosed maximum-security building of the General Attorneys office (Fiscalia Nacional) in Bogotá, Colombia; where he is serving a 10 years sentence for hacking and spying on the government and elected officials. Photo Credit: Juan Arredondo for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. StateTech Magazine examined the reason behind the nationwide shift away from direct recording electronic voting machines to paper ballot system. The Canvass considered the traditionally low voter turnout among youger voters.The Washington Post posed the question of whether Arizona’s primary debacle was just a big mistake, or something more nefarious. The Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of a woman who is challenging the state law that permanently strips felons of their voting rights. Brian Newby, a Kansas county elections official used close ties to one of the nation’s leading advocates of voting restrictions to help secure the job of executive director of the Election Assistance Commission, a government agency entrusted with making voting more accessible, and then used the federal position to implement an obstacle to voter registration in three states. Civil rights groups challenging Texas’ voter identification law are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the measure from being used during the 2016 general election. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Andrés Sepúlveda, an online campaign strategist, claimed he helped to manipulate elections in nine countries across Latin America by stealing data, installing malware and creating fake waves of enthusiasm and derision on social media and Uganda’s Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the presidential election held in February, issuing a ruling on Thursday that secured President Yoweri Museveni a mandate for another five-year term.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 21-27 2016

People wait in line to vote in the Arizona Presidential Primary Election at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Phoenix, Ariz., Tuesday, March 22, 2016. (David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

While the country is still a long way from online voting, some states are testing the waters and building technology into election-related processes. Joe Kiniry at Free and Fair explains why using Bitcoin (or a blockchain) as an election system is a bad idea that really doesn’t make sense. Some voters in Arizona’s largest county waited five hours to vote Tuesday, after local election officials, looking to save money, slashed the number of polling places on offer. A federal judge ruled that prisoners can’t be counted for population or in drawing up boundaries of voting districts in Florida, a decision that could have repercussions statewide. The U.S. Supreme Court  seeking to close Montana’s primary elections in June, meaning any registered voter will be able to select a GOP ballot. Security researchers pretty much uniformly agree that letting people vote online is a very bad idea, one that is fraught with risks and vulnerabilities that could have unknowable consequences for the future of democracy. This week, the Utah GOP gave it a whirl anyway. Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou won a second term with 92.5 percent of the vote in a run-off election that the opposition coalition chose to boycott and in Peru the frontrunner to win the presidential election next month, Keiko Fujimori, has been given the go-ahead to stay in the race after vote-buying accusations were rejected by a court.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 14-20 2016

Andrew Krech/News & Record via AP According to an audit released on Thursday, Election Assistance Commissioner Brian Newby improperly claimed mileage and travel expenses, intentionally skirted oversight of government credit card expenses and wasted taxpayer funds while at his former job as an elections commissioner in Kansas. Richard Hasen examined “soft” Voter ID laws in an Atlantic editorial. Voting rights advocates and the state of Nevada settled a lawsuit over the state’s implementation of a federal law aimed at registering low-income voters. Democracy NC, a group that advocates for more voter participation, blamed many of the long lines at polling places across North Carolina on confusion surrounding the state’s new voter ID laws. According to a complaint filed in federal court the Texas Civil Rights Project, thousands of Texans are being denied the chance to register to vote, due to the state’s failure to follow the federal National Voter Registration Act. In spite of concerns voiced by computer security experts, Utah residents will have the option of casting ballots in the Republican presidential contest using computers, tablets and smartphones next week. Niger’s opposition coalition has announced that they “will not recognize” the outcome of the second round of the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for Sunday and Newsweek examined vote rigging and election fraud in last month’s elections in Uganda.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for March 7-13 2016

voter_id_260NIST, the Center for Civic Design, Verified Voting Foundation and experts in security, accessibility, usability, and election administration have released a report detailing general principles and guidelines that can inform the design, development, deployment or selection of remote ballot marking systems. In the Washington Post, David Cole surveyed state legislation aimed at limiting voting rights that has been passed since 2008. Voting rights advocates said Monday they have sent a pre-litigation notice letter to Nevada officials, warning that the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is failing to meet its federally mandated voter registration obligations. The New York Times examined how pending lawsuits challenging redistricting maps in North Carolina reflect nationwide battles over voting rights. An Ohio judge has granted teenagers who will turn 18 before Election Day the right to vote in the state’s presidential primary elections next week. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear a case on Texas’s voter-ID law with its full complement of judges, setting up a major voting-rights battle ahead of the 2016 elections. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies will be challenged by the right wing Alternative for Germany party in three state elections today and Uganda’s Supreme court rejected a request for a presidential vote recount by lawyers representing Amama Mbabazi in the petition challenging the results of the February 18 election.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for February 22-28 2016

ire;and_260Civil rights leaders who marched from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery in 1965, who received the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday lamented Congress’s failure to pass a renewed Voting Rights Act after the US Supreme Court’s recent dismantling of landmark legislation. A federal judge has turned down a request to block a federal official’s move allowing three states to enforce proof-of-citizenship requirements for people attempting to register as voters. Barbara Simons and David Jefferson looked at three internet voting initiatives that may reach the California ballot this November. In testimony before the D.C. Council, the acting chair of the District’s troubled Board of Elections blamed a lack of professionalism for the board’s weak financial controls, as council members questioned the board about election preparedness and internal bureaucracy. A Missouri bill to require photo ID at the polls passed one last test before heading to the Senate floor — where St. Louis Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a Democrat, has vowed to lead a filibuster to stop it. Nevada’s caucuses were marred by volunteer captains who failed to show up, and alleged double-voting lent a circus-like atmosphere to some of the caucus locations. Critics of North Carolina’s congressional redistricting process asked the federal court that ordered the map redrawn to establish an expedited schedule to determine if a new map, approved by the General Assembly, is valid under constitutional considerations. Virginia voter ID law went on trial in federal court, challenged by Democratic Party activists who allege it throws up barriers to voting by minorities and the poor. Preliminary results in Iran indicated that reformist and moderate candidates were set to expand their influence after two important elections, while the general election Ireland is set to produce a hung parliament after the poor performance in the poll of the existing coalition.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for February 15-21 2016

uganda_260A group of voting rights activists filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking a federal judge for a temporary restraining order after the executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) told elections officials in three states that they could require residents to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship when using federal forms to register to vote. Pam Fessler observed that so far, support for automatic voter registration — now being considered in about two dozen states — has pretty much broken down along party lines. Rick Hasen considered the impact of Justice Scalia’s death on the 2016 election. A federal judge decided against effectively suspending Alabama’s voter ID law. , while a judge in Kansas ruled that a Wichita State University statistician won’t get access to paper tapes from voting machines to search for fraud or mistakes. The US Supreme Court declined to stay a lower court ruling that has forced North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature to redraw its congressional electoral maps on the grounds that the original maps amounted to racial gerrymandering. Former Central African Republic prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera has won a presidential run-off and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni won a fifth term, extending his three-decade rule in a vote rejected as fraudulent by an opposition leader under house arrest and criticised by the international community.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for Feb. 8-14 2016

car_260A coalition of voting rights groups has sued EAC Executive Director Brian Newby who decided that residents of Alabama, Kansas and Georgia can no longer register to vote using a national form without providing proof of U.S. citizenship. Despite a sharp decline in the number of people participating in the $3 tax return check-off that funds the FEC’s Presidential Public Funding Program (down from a high of 28 percent in 1977 to less than 6 percent last year), the fund has been growing steadily – because candidates don’t want the money anymore. Attorneys filed a petition requesting that the Supreme Court review the decision of a lower court denying citizenship to people born in American Samoa and other U.S. territories. After a close count left doubts about which Democratic candidate actually won the Iowa caucuses, there are fresh calls for the party to mirror the simple, secret-ballot method that Iowa Republicans use. The Maryland legislature narrowly overturned Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill to extend voting rights to felons before they complete probation and parole. Less than an hour after a three-judge panel refused to delay its order from last week that found two North Carolina congressional districts unconstitutional, lawyers for Gov. Pat McCrory and other state officials filed an emergency request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case in hopes of protecting next month’s primary election. Central African Republic’s long awaited presidential runoff vote will go forward Sunday alongside a second attempt at credible legislative elections, while human rights advocates are concerned about increasingly violent rhetoric coming from Uganda’s leaders ahead of elections next week.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for February 1-7 2016

caucus_260Newly-appointed Election Assistance Commission Executive Director Brian Newby has decided — without public notice or review from his agency’s commissioners — that residents of Alabama, Kansas and Georgia can no longer register to vote using a federal form without providing proof of U.S. citizenship. The action by the new executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is being roundly criticized by voting rights activists, who say the “secretive move” will create additional barriers for potential voters, and one of the agency’s own commissioners, who says it contradicts policy and precedent. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan told black lawmakers Wednesday that he supports new voting rights protections they’ve championed, but said he won’t bypass a committee chairman to move legislation. In the Iowa Democratic party’s chaotic attempt to report caucus results on Monday night, the results in at least one precinct were unilaterally changed by the party as it attempted to deal with the culmination of a rushed and imperfect process overseeing the first-in-the-nation nominating contest. Early voters in Maryland’s primary will cast their ballots on paper that will be scanned by a machine — just as election day voters will — after elections officials nixed the use of their ES&S ExpressVote ballot-marking devices for early voting. A federal court panel ruled lthat two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts were racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn within two weeks, sparking uncertainty about whether the March primary elections can proceed as planned. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from Republican members of Congress to put on hold a Virginia election map that gives Democrats a chance to pick up a seat in this year’s election. Renewed fighting between communities has sparked tensions as presidential elections in the Central African Republic draw closer, while Haiti’s outgoing president prepared to leave office despite having no replacement after a botched election.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for January 25-31 2016

nc_voter_id_260National Journal and USA Today published articles detailing the serious security concerns surrounding internet voting. USA Today also considered the impact of new voting laws implemented since the 2012 election cycle. The Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from lawyers representing Shelby County, Alabama, who tried to recover $2 million in attorney fees from the U.S. government in a case that nullified a key part of the Voting Rights Act. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Monday unveiled a plan that would require counties to perform audits of voting equipment for all elections starting in 2017. After a week of testimony, closing arguments will be presented Monday in a closely watched federal trial challenging the constitutionality of North Carolina’s voter ID law. Ohio election officials have known for nearly two years that the state’s failure to keep pace with modernization at the U.S. Post Office could result in absentee ballots getting tossed, even if voters followed the rules perfectly. Central African Republic’s Constitutional Court has annulled the results of a legislative election and called for a re-vote, while a presidential run-off election was cancelled by Haiti’s electoral council creating a constitutional crises as out-going President Michel Martelly prepares to leave office next week.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for January 18-24 2016

voter_id_260Many might spend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday remembering the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to push for voting equality for black Americans, voting rights advocates note that there have been many major voting rights setbacks in recent years. Currently Internet voting is “a nonstarter,” according to Aviel D. Rubin, technical director of Johns Hopkins University’s Information Security Institute and author of the 2006 book Brave New Ballot. “You can’t control the security of the platform.” The Florida Legislature will not contest a court ruling that redraws all of the state’s 40 state senate districts for the 2016 election cycle. Maryland’s legislature began the process of overriding Gov. Larry Hogan’s vetoes, with the House upholding legislation that would allow felons to regain the right to vote sooner. The legality of a 2013 North Carolina law requiring identification to vote will be challenged in a trial set to begin in federal court Monday ahead of March U.S. presidential primaries in the state. North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger was served with a lawsuit by seven members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who claim that recent changes to the state’s voter identification laws infringe on their right to vote. Virginia’s election officials urged the Supreme Court to keep in place a new, judge-selected redistricting plan for this year’s congressional elections, putting the officials at odds with 10 current and former members of the state’s Republican delegation in Congress. Bulgaria’s Parliament approved a resolution on the introduction of electronic voting, while the United States pressed Haiti’s leaders to go ahead with a presidential runoff election, despite a growing chorus of warnings that the vote could lead to an explosion of violence.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for January 11-17 2016

taiwan_ballot_260One of the biggest applause lines from fellow Democrats in President Obama’s State of the Union address came in response to his call for an end to partisan redistricting. Lawrence Norden examined the Supreme Court’s decisions under Chief Justice Roberts that have loosened restrictions on political advertising by corporations and unions, gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, upheld the rights of states to enact restrictive voting laws, and, in the words of Justice Stephen Breyer, “eviscerate[d] our Nation’s campaign-finance laws.” This week, without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to disturb lower court rulings which upheld a 2011 Arizona law that only the two parties with the highest number of adherents get to be listed on the forms. A state judge ruled that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach can’t operate a two-tier voting system that allows him to count only votes cast in federal races for voters who registered using a federal form. A U.S. District Judge denied a motion filed by the North Carolina NAACP for a preliminary injunction, saying that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the photo ID would place an undue burdens on blacks and Hispanics and had failed to prove they would likely prevail on the merits of their case in a trial set for Jan. 25. A federal judge in Virginia denied a motion by supporters of Donald Trump for a preliminary injunction to block the so-called statement of affiliation in state’s March 1 Republican presidential primary. Only one candidate is campaigning for Haiti’s upcoming presidential run-off election, as second-place finisher Jude Celestin has said he will take part in the runoff only if sweeping changes recently recommended by a special commission are adopted to improve Haiti’s much-criticized electoral machinery, while the party of Chiang Kai-shek was defeated for the first time since 1949 as voters in Taiwan elected their first female president.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for January 4-10 2016

catalonia_260The Guardian profiled Edward Blum, the former stockbroker who over the past two decades has orchestrated lawsuits to challenge and, in some instances, dramatically reverse legal principles on voting rights, the drawing of electoral districts, and, in a case currently pending before the Supreme Court, the entire basis of electoral representation. That case, Evenwell v. Abbott is discussed in a New York Times editorial by Emily Bazelon and Jim Rutenberg. The Atlantic investigated the impact of California’s “top-two” primary that allows the two leading finishers in a primary to proceed to the general election regardless of party affiliation. The Michigan Senate in December broke a pair of bills apart to avoid passing no-reason absentee voting, but now they’re facing calls to pass that bill from Gov. Rick Snyder and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. A U.S. District Court judge signed an order modifying the deadlines for discovery in the case so a trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement can begin Jan. 25. A federal court has picked a new congressional map for Virginia that significantly changes the racial makeup of two districts, but could be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Haiti President Michel Martelly issued a presidential order officially scheduling the country’s postponed presidential and partial legislative runoffs for Jan. 24 and the decision of Catalan far-left party CUP not to support acting regional head Artur Mas in his bid for another term, forces new local elections and increases the likelihood of a new elections in Spain later this year.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 28 2015 – January 3 2016

car_260A database containing this information from 191 million voter records was mysteriously published over the last week, the latest example of personal voter data becoming freely available, alarming privacy experts who say the information can be used for phishing attacks, identity theft and extortion. In his review of recall elections in 2015, Joshua Spivak reports that 108 recalls got on the ballot or led to a resignation and in those 108, 65 officials were ousted, and 15 resigned, while only 28 survived the voters’ wrath. Colorado’s choice of Dominion Voting Systems as the statewide voting technology vendor has generated negative reactions from some counties. In a setback for the Republican-led legislature, a state judge on Wednesday approved an entirely new map of Florida’s 40 Senate districts that was recommended by a coalition of voting rights groups. Both Republican and Democratic party leaders in Iowa are hoping that a new app developed by Microsoft and its partner Interknowlogy will help avoid reporting errors that have marred the state’s presidential caucus in the past. Virginia’s strict voter-identification law will go on trial in a federal court in Richmond in February, part of a national strategy by Democrats to remove what they say are barriers to voting by African American, Latino and poor voters. Despite calls from both the left and right that any changes to how Canadians elect their government require the direct input of the people, Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc ruled a national referendum on election reform and voters in the Central African Republic cast ballots in long-delayed elections that follow three years of sectarian violence that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 21-27 2015

haiti_260Government Technology reviewed election technology issues faced in several states heading in the 2016 elections. In the Washington Post, William Frey considered Evenwel v. Abbott, the case in which the Supreme Court heard arguments for altering the long-standing principle of “one person, one vote” by substituting voting-age citizens for total population when drawing legislative districts within states. Colorado has chosen Dominion Voting Systems to provide a statewide uniform voting system beginning in 2017 in part because their technology is well suited to performing the risk-limiting post-election audits. Kentucky’s new Republican governor has rescinded an executive order that restored voting rights to as many as 140,000 non-violent felons. Closing comments were filed in a court case over changes to voting rules in swing state Ohio which alleges that a series of Republican-backed revisions disproportionately burden black voters and those who lean Democratic. Democrats in Virginia claimed a victory on parts of a voting rights lawsuit in the state, with a settlement on the portion related to long waiting times for voters to cast ballots, especially in precincts with large numbers of minorities residents. A national election in Central African Republic has been postponed until the end of the month and the United Nations Security Council urged Haiti on Wednesday to quickly reschedule its postponed presidential election ahead of further civil unrest.