The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 14-20 2015

spain_260Matthew Peterson the incoming President of the Federal Election Commission has promised a more low-profile approach than his immediate predecessor. Advocates of automatic voter registration with two legislative battles in Oregon and California this year, and a loss in New Jersey turn their attention to 18 states that are considering a variety of similar bills. Ned Foley warns that a 2000-style disputed election is always a possibility. With only seven months left until D.C. voters cast ballots in the 2016 primary, the agency in charge of running the city’s elections remains without top leadership — and on Wednesday struggled to explain whether it has the money to buy new voting machines it says it needs. After eight rulings by the Florida Supreme Court and an admission of guilt by legislators, the Senate redistricting trial ended Thursday with a Tallahassee judge asking the parties to tell him their top choices for a new Senate map. Facing a potential court battle that could go on for years, Na‘i Aupuni announced this morning that it will cancel the Native Hawaiian election and proceed to a four-week convention in February. On the same day a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the voter ID requirements, the court also allowed a lawsuit to proceed that claims that Republican-drawn legislative district maps are unconstitutional. Voters in the Central African Republic appear to have overwhelmingly approved a new constitution aimed at stopping more than three years of violence between Muslims and Christians and Spain faces its most uncertain national election in 40 years today.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 7-13 2015

voter_id_260On Tuesday, a closely divided Supreme Court on 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 also weighed a challenge to Arizona’s legislative districts, in which plaintiffs have argued the fact that almost all the state’s Republican-leaning districts are overpopulated, and almost all of the state’s Democratic-leaning districts are underpopulated. Writing for Reuters, Herman Schwartz disputed claims by defenders of voter id requirements that public opinion polls indicate widespread support for their arguments. On the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, Richard Hasen writes about what has changed – and what hasn’t – in America’s elections. Maryland has joined the states considering automatic voter registration. With many states across the country relying on aging voting technology, many jurisdictions are facing the potential of problems like the calibration issues found in Halifax County Virginia. Nearly two months after the pivotal balloting and three weeks before the scheduled Dec. 27 presidential runoff, Haiti remains at an impasse and Britain’s lower house of parliament voted against reducing the voting age for a referendum on EU membership.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 30 – December 6 2015

venezuela_260Aging voting machines have forced many states to begin seeking funding for new equipment for the 2020 elections, even as they prepare for the presidential vote next year. The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week in Evenwel v. Abbott, a case is the questions the meaning of the “one person, one vote” rule. A federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s voter ID law was filed by Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP. With just over four years left before another redistricting cycle begins, the Florida Supreme Court gave final approval to Florida’s congressional map, rejecting the Legislature’s arguments for the fourth time and selecting boundaries drawn by the challengers in time for the 2016 election. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked votes from being counted in a unique election that’s considered a major step toward self-governance for Native Hawaiians. Ohio House Democrats and some liberal advocacy groups have challenged the state’s purging of voters from voter-registration rolls just because they move within the state or have not voted for a few years. Newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has indicated that he would review a law disenfranchising long-term expats and as voters in Venezuela go to the polls to elect a new parliament, the incumbent President has signalled his unwillingness to relinquish power should his party lose.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 23-29 2015

Senate Reapportionment Chairman Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton discusses an amendment on the floor of the Senate Monday, August 11, 2014, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. Behind him are maps of the 2012 Florida congressional districts, left, and the redrawn districts he is proposing in Senate Bill 2. Legislators are meeting for a rare summer one-week special session, to redraw the boundary lines of two congressional districts ruled unconstitutional last month, and have a Friday deadline for a resolution. (AP Photo/Phil Sears) The Supreme Court’s docket is crowded with voter redistricting disputes this term, including a Texas case that could redefine the principle of  “one person, one vote”. State redistricting battles continue in Florida and North Carolina. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp plans to hire top auditing agency Ernst & Young to review his technology department in the wake of a data breach that exposed private information of more than 6 million voters. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ordered officials in Hawaii not to count ballots or name the winners of an election there in which only people of native Hawaiian ancestry could vote. Weeks before he leaves office, Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear issued an executive order that immediately granted the right to vote to about 140,000 nonviolent felons who have completed their sentences. Violent protest erupted in Haiti after results were announced for a run-off election that international observers say was marred by systemic fraud, voter confusion and intimidation, and in some areas disenfranchisement, while Pakistan has abandoned plans to offer internet voting to overseas voters.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 16-22 2015

haiti_260Security Intelligence considered voter registration and voting technology challenges presented by the 2016 election. An editorial by Ari Berman focuses on new measures to tighten access to the ballot, such as requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, shutting down voter-registration drives, curtailing early voting, disenfranchising ex-felons, purging the voter rolls, and mandating government-issued photo IDs to cast a ballot. The Florida Senate recommended to a Leon County judge a plan for the chamber’s 40 districts that was never voted on by either the House or Senate during a recent special redistricting session. Iowa Democrats are increasingly worried the state party may not be prepared for the caucuses, putting Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status at risk. A U.S. District Judge heard opening statements in a legal dispute over changes to the Ohio’s voting laws that plaintiffs claim places burdens on voters that outweigh any benefit to the state. Wisconsin Assembly Republicans sent Gov. Scott Walker bills rewriting campaign finance laws and replacing the state’s ethics and elections board with two new commissions. Amid violent protest, Haitian elections officials have rejected requests to form an independent commission to verify the preliminary presidential election results, saying the law doesn’t grant them the authority to do so and The House of Lords has backed giving 16 and 17 year-olds the vote in the upcoming in-out EU referendum in the United Kingdom.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 9-15 2015

dc_260Drawing on data from a recently-released report from the Brennan Center, an article in Government Technology surveyed the state of voter registration in the United States. Seth Flaxman considered the importance of investing in new voting technology. At its 20th session in Brussels, Belgium, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization formally voted to accept the District of Columbia as a new member. A Leon County Circuit Court Judge has rejected a request by the Florida Senate to have the court hire a redistricting expert to redraw the Senate maps, saying “we just don’t have enough time left” to hire a newcomer to the process and get the boundaries set in time for the 2016 election. U.S. citizens living in Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have filed a lawsuit in Illinois’ northern district court arguing that statutes allowing them to vote in particular areas but not certain U.S. territories are a violation of their equal protection rights, according to court documents. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed legislation that would have would have established automatic registration and online registration, as well as creating more opportunities for in-person early voting. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy has won a majority in Myanmar’s parliament, and foreign ministers and senior officials from more than a dozen countries agreed to work for a ceasefire in Syria’s civil war, outlining a plan on Saturday for a political process in Syria leading to elections within two years.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 2-8 2015

myanmar_260Voters in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco approved ballot initiatives that campaign-finance reform advocates hail as turning points in their movement. In The Atlantic, Joshua Douglas considered the role of state courts in defending voting rights. The Florida Senate voted down a plan proposed by the House and for the second time in three months, the Legislature will turn to the courts to redraw political boundaries needed for next year’s elections after failing to do the job itself, all while running up an $11 million taxpayer tab. Delays, mistakes and technological failures caused by electronic pollbooks in several Ohio counties have lead to concern about the state’s preparation for next year’s Presidential election. A three-judge panel in Texas rejected a motion to temporarily block a set of redistricting maps passed by the Legislature in 2013 for Congress and the Texas House. A federal judge ruled that Utah cannot force political parties to open their primaries to unaffiliated voters, a move that will allow the Utah Republican Party to continue to close its primaries and complicate a potential signature-gathering path to the primary ballot. More than 30 million Myanmar citizens go to the polls today in the nation’s most important election in 25 years and Turkey’s Islamist-rooted AK Party swept to an unexpected victory, returning the country to single-party rule in an outcome that will boost the power of President Tayyip Erdogan.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 26 – November 1 2015

verity_260Voting rights groups accused the Obama administration of violating federal law by not doing more to ensure opportunities for voter registration through the online federal health insurance exchange Robert Maguire examined the exponential growth in election-related spending by groups that don’t disclose their donors since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. F.E.C. The personal and political conflicts that have divided Florida Senate Republicans for months reached the boiling point on Wednesday as the Senate narrowly approved a redrawn redistricting map 22-18. The Maryland Redistricting Reform Commission has recommended the establishment of an independent group to redistrict both congressional and legislative districts. Following the decertification of the AVS WINVote used a fifth of the state, much of Virginia will vote on new paper ballot voting systems in polls this week. Wisconsin Senate Republicans are grappling with pressure from groups on opposing sides of bills to replace the state’s Government Accountability Board and rewrite state campaign finance law. The Daily Telegraph considered the security risks of online voting in Australia and Tanzania’s ruling party candidate has been declared the winner of a controversial presidential election marred by claims of vote rigging and fears of violence.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 19-25 2015

tibet_260The ballot has been a political battleground since the dawn of the republic. But the voting-rights arms race that ramped up during the Obama Administration will be on full display in November 2016, when 15 states will have new restrictions in place for the first time during a presidential election, while at least two states will have automatic voter registration. Nathaniel Persily looked at Evenwel v. Abbott, in which appellants are asking the Supreme Court to redefine the “one person, one vote” rule so that districts may be drawn only around eligible voters. The Senate Reapportionment Committee voted 4-3 along party lines to bring a Republican-leaning map to the floor next Tuesday but its prospects for passage remained cloudy. A federal judge on Friday refused a request from state lawmakers to dismiss a challenge to the North Carolina voter ID law. A panel of three federal judges ruled that the 12 House of Delegates districts that Democrats challenged in federal court are constitutional. Since abandoning his presidential bid, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican controlled legislature have fast-tracked bills that would dramatically change the state’s campaign finance laws and restructure the Governemnt Accountability Board that oversees election administration. Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau has promised that Monday’s election would be the final one ever conducted using the traditional first-past-the-post system and foreign observers observing the ‘Exile Tibetan Primary Elections’ said that “Tibetans in Exile will further strengthen the moral example they display to the world.”

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 12-18 2015

long_line_260NPR and The New York Times examined concerns expressed by election officials across the nation about aging voting machines and the potential problems they might cause in the 2016 election. The governor of Alabama has partially reversed a decision to close more than 30 government offices that issue driver licenses and photo IDs, following weeks of criticism by civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers who say the action would make it harder for some black residents to get the identification needed to vote. Amid national anxiety about aging voting machines, Colorado elections officials are testing four types of new machines in elections next month as they move toward upgrades statewide. A federal court threw out a lawsuit filed by two Florida Republican Party officials who claimed the state’s anti-gerrymandering law violated the constitution because it had a “chilling effect” on their free speech and petition rights. In a move that has touched off a new battle over voter registration, county election officials in Kansas, under a new rule adopted by the secretary of state’s office, began to cull names from voter lists, removing people who had been on it at least 90 days. Guinean President Alpha Conde was re-elected, avoiding a runoff with his closest rival, who vowed to protest the results and with elections offering the chance for Myanmar to escape a half-century of military dictatorship, many fear the rug will be pulled from under at any moment as illustrated by the fatalistic reaction to Tuesday’s announcement that the long-awaited polls may be postponed because of widespread flooding and landslides. Within hours a statement from the Ministry of Information insisted the vote would proceed on Nov. 8 as planned.

 

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 5-11 2015

alabama_i_260Coordination is not allowed between a candidate’s official campaign organization and the mysterious entities dubbed super-PACs, or political-action committees that now fuel runs for the White House, but almost no one agrees exactly what coordination means. Barely one year after Alabama’s voter-ID law went into effect, officials are planning to close 31 driver’s license offices across the state, including those in every county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters. Targeting California’s recent record-low voter turnout, Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed a measure that would eventually allow Californians to be automatically registered to vote when they go the DMV to obtain or renew a driver’s license. A Circuit Court Judge rejected the Florida Legislature’s third attempt at redrawing its congressional districts and recommended a map proposed by the challengers to the Florida Supreme Court for its final review. Local officials in Kansas said even when they’re done culling the more than 31,000 records as required under a new rule from Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the canceled registrations still will be accessible in their voter registration databases. North Carolina state attorneys want a federal judge to dismiss the legal challenge to North Carolina’s voter-identification law before the March 2016 presidential primary, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Wisconsin Republicans unveiled bills Wednesday to double political contribution limits, rewrite campaign financing rules and split the state’s elections and ethics board into two agencies and fill them with partisan appointees. The European Union’s most senior court has ruled that it is lawful for countries such as Britain to impose a voting ban on prisoners convicted of serious crimes and a decision by pro-Russian separatists to postpone local elections that Ukraine had said were illegitimate was welcomed on Tuesday by Kiev, the European Union, Washington and Moscow.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 28 – October 4 2015

in_redistricting_260A district court judge dismissed four corruption charges against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and his donor Salomon Melgen, but denied motions to toss out other charges including, notably, the senator’s solicitation of contributions for a super PAC. In a Newsweek Op-Ed, William Galston and E.J. Dionne consider the arguments in favor of compulsory voting. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have criticized a decision by Alabama officials to close dozens of driver’s license offices, a move that disproportionately affects government ID services in black Democratic areas of the state. The Florida House and Senate announced that they had reached agreement on how to move forward with a process to draw new lines for the state Senate in a special session starting next month. A special 12-member study committee convened at the Indiana Statehouse to begin a two-year investigation into the state’s redistricting process. Kansas election officials began removing the names of more than 31,000 prospective voters from their registration records in line with the state’s tough voter identification law, which requires applicants to prove their citizenship before casting a ballot. A ban on long-term expatriates voting from abroad has drawn the ire of Canadian business groups in Asia, who argue the measure runs contrary to both their rights and the country’s interests and pro-independence victories in regional elections in Catalonia have posed a constitutional crisis in Spain.

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

catalonia_260Following Oregon’s lead, the California Legislature has passed a bill that would establish automatic voter registration and similar proposals have been introduced in Pennsylvania and New York. On the Verified Voting Blog, Barbara Simons considered the parallels between software in Volkswagens and voting machines. Two Miami congressional districts emerged as the heart of the differences over which of seven redistricting maps should be the one chosen by a Florida court. A North Carolina judge has refused a request from state lawmakers to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Voter ID requirement. A group of Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced bills that would automate voter registration, form an independent redistricting commission and allow in–person absentee ballot voting. Attorneys defending the state against a lawsuit that targets Virginia’s voter ID laws and long election-day waiting times have asked a federal judge to dismiss the case. A local government specialist at Massey University’s School of Management challenged the assertion that internet voting would increase voter turnout and legislative elections today in Catalonia are seen as a referendum on independence.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 14-20 2015

greece_260Nearly every state is using electronic touchscreen and optical-scan voting systems that are at least a decade old, according to an important report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Kim Zetter wrote a detailed review the report in Wired and the report’s authors published an overview at The Atlantic. Lawmakers on Monday filed three potential maps of the state’s 27 congressional districts for a Leon County judge to consider, as the deadline for turning plans into the court approached. In a move opposed by voting rights groups, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach issued a rule that incomplete voter registrations will be canceled after 90 days. According to data obtained under the state’s Public Information Act, Texas’ has spent more than $8 million defending a controversial voter ID law and new redistricting maps passed in 2011. A lawsuit filed in Richmond Circuit Court challenges 11 of Virginia’s legislative districts, arguing that they violate the state constitution’s requirement of compactness. Reuters reports on Greece’s third election this year and Maxim Trudolyubov commented on regional elections in Russia in a New York Times editorial.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 7-13 2015

morocco_260Tech firms are courting campaigns ahead of the 2016 presidential election, with as much as 10 percent of political media budgets going towards digital media — a total of $1 billion. Civil Rights icon John Lewis wrote an oped for the Washington Post on the past and future of the Voting Rights Act. A settlement has been reached between the state and Alaska Native plaintiffs who sued in federal court over the translation of voting materials for voters with limited English proficiency.  The California Senate approved a bill that would automatically register to vote any eligible Californian who gets a driver’s license unless they opt out. A Circuit Court Judge gave the Florida House and Senate, and the two groups of redistricting challengers, until the end of the day on Monday to submit their proposals for him to choose from when he recommends Florida’s final congressional districts map. The Kansas ACLU has asked a state court to put an end to the two-tiered voter registration system that Secretary of State Kris Kobach has created, a system that critics call the law’s “unintended consequence” or, less kindly, “collateral damage.” Over 1.1 million voters participated in local and regional elections in Morocco, the first after the constitution was amended in 2011 and the city council in Christchurch New Zealand cancelled plans to participate in an online voting trial following a deputation from a group of IT experts who told them the security risks with online voting were too high and could open the election up to fraud.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 31 – September 6 2015

switzerland_260While the drawing of legislative districts is supposed to be a once-a-decade process, the map-drawing based on the 2010 count—the most litigious in recent memory—is still dragging on. A federal appeals court ruled that the Shelby County Alabama isn’t owed any legal fees from the federal government despite winning its challenge against a core provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Shawnee County election commissioner and representatives of advocacy groups clashed over merits of the Kansas secretary of state’s plan to purge more than 32,000 voter registration applications for failure to document citizenship. A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit saying Nevada public assistance offices weren’t doing enough to help low-income clients register to vote. Eight months after the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of congressional and legislative voting maps drawn by the Republican-led General Assembly in 2011, the maps were back before the court on Monday. In a Slate oped, Richard Hasen analyzed the novel legal arguments presented in the Texas Voter ID case. Two days after the Virginia legislature missed a court-imposed deadline for redrawing the state’s congressional election maps, federal judges on began the process of setting new district boundaries. After proposals for internet voting trials in nine Swiss cantons were rejected  a government spokesman explained “in the area of protecting voting secrecy in particular, some serious deficiencies were noted … In the case of a cyber-attack, hackers would have been able to reveal the electors’ vote, which is not tolerable in a democracy.” In the United Kingdom, Labour Party members and supporters have protested to the party about their lack of ballot papers with less than a week to go before the party’s leadership election closes.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 24-30 2015

wilson-suffrage-260As Saudi Arabia prepares to allow women to vote for the first time, the US marked the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which guarantees all American women the right to vote. The Election Assistance Commission has ruled that states are free to use federal grant money intended to improve how elections are run in order to pay for criminal investigations of potential voter fraud. In Alabama a three-judge federal court today asked plaintiffs if they could draw a new redistricting map that would strike the delicate balance of protecting majority black districts while not using race as the main factor, while a Florida judge said he did not have the authority to resolve the map dispute without the approval of the state’s Supreme Court, which ruled in July that the current redistricting map was unconstitutional. Also this week, a judge in Kansas denied a move by Secretary of State Kris Kobach to quash a lawsuit challenging the state’s two-tier voter registration system and said Kobach has exceeded his authority with the way he runs elections. Pennsylvania has become the latest state to launch an online voter registration application. Canada’s upcoming election will be a test of the Fair Elections Act, the controversial and sweeping legislation that has introduced changes to how Canadians prove they are eligible to vote, the way elections are financed and how voting shenanigans are investigated and Golos, Russia’s only grassroots election-monitoring organization, has been fighting an exhausting battle to prove it does not receive foreign funding.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 17-23 2015

virginia-puzzle-260A USA Today analysis shows donations of $1 million or more account for nearly half of the money channeled into candidate-aligned super PACs and other outside groups during the first six months of the Presidential election cycle. In a Washington Post editorial, E.J. Dionne writes about the continuing importance of the Voting Rights Act, 50 years after it was signed. After meeting in a two-week special session, Florida’s House and Senate adjourned without agreeing on what the maps should look like, leaving it to a state judge to draw new maps for the state’s 27 congressional districts. Virginia’s legislature was similarly unable to agree on a map and now the same federal three-judge panel that has twice ruled the state’s congressional map unconstitutional will now be responsible for remedying the injustice it found. Senator Rand Paul has offered to personally finance a separate Presidential caucus for the Kentucky Republican Party to get around a state law disallowing a candidate’s name to appear twice on the same ballot. In court documents submitted Monday, attorneys representing the NAACP and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the ID provision and other parts of 2013 North Carolina election law overhaul said their pending claims “may be able to be resolved through discussion and negotiations with Defendants.” A Federal Appeals Court ruled that Texas must pay more than $1 million in legal fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans. The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has announced he is stepping down to pave the way for snap elections next month and one of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership has called an emergency meeting over concerns of “large scale” infiltration of Conservative supporters in the leadership race.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 10-16 2015

vra-reauthorization_260Jim Rutenberg considers the dramatic partisan divide on voting rights that has developed since Congress voted overwhelmingly to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006. John Sebes of the Open Source Election Technology Foundation takes issue with statements made by Smartmatic’s Antonio Mugica regarding his claim that their system is “un-hackable.” By the end of the third day of the 12-day special session on redistricting, at least eight Florida legislators were working on alternative redistricting plans that, in some cases, would significantly change an initial base map that lawmakers started debating on Monday. A federal judge struck down New Hampshire’s 2014 ballot selfie law on the grounds it limited free political speech. A new study shows that Texas’ strict voter identification requirements kept many would-be voters in a Hispanic-majority congressional district from going to the polls last November — including many who had proper IDs.The head of Virginia’s elections board postponed action on a plan that would let people registering to vote skip questions about their citizenship and criminal history, saying it needs to be reworked. International observers and Haitian human rights groups on Tuesday sharply criticized the country’s violence-marred legislative elections as poorly policed and organized and with less than a year left before the 2016 elections, the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) appears poised to turn to Smartmatic for most voting machine deals.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for Aug 3-9 2015

On the 50th anniversary of Voting Rights Act, President Obama renewed a call for new, broader voting rights legislation and urged people to exercise their hard-won voting rights instead of staying home on election days. Ari Berman notes that 2016 will be the first presidential contest in 50 years where voters cannot rely on the full protections…

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 27 – August 2 2015

Florida Republican state Sen. Rene Garcia examines a map of proposed changes in congressional districts in January 2012.

The National Conference of State Legislatures looked at the prospects for internet voting in their election newsletter The Canvass. On the 50th anniversary of the passage of The Voting Rights Act, Jim Rutenberg considered the challenges still facing minority and disadvantaged voters in an extensive piece in the New York Times. The Arizona Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of a Bullhead City woman who prosecutors said voted in both Colorado and Arizona, saying that the way the Arizona law is worded, people who are qualified to vote here can also cast ballots in other states. As the result of a settlement between lawmakers and lawyers for Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, the Florida Legislature will be called into its third special session of the year to redraw at least 28 of its 40 districts statewide. A federal trial regarding North Carolina’s election law — one that civil-rights activists call the most sweeping and restrictive in the country — ended late Friday afternoon, a week before the 50th anniversary of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Virginia Board of Elections members mulling a redesign of voter registration forms have heard complaints from conservatives local registrars. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper is poised to call a parliamentary election for October 19, kicking off a marathon 11-week campaign – the longest in the nation’s history and the Philippine Commission on Elections awarded Smartmatic, a division of Dominion Voting Systems, a major contract for the lease of 23,000 vote-counting machines.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 20-26 2015

burundi_260House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) expressed an interest in an “overall review” of potential amendments to the Voting Rights Act, though remains limited by resistance from Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goddlatte (R-VA). Lawrence Lessig advocated for campaign finance reform in a New York Times editorial. After a nine-year wait, California has begun a limited launch of VoteCal, its computerized voter registration database. Florida legislators announced they will convene a 12-day special session starting Aug. 10 to comply with a court order to revise the state’s congressional districts. A mathematician at Wichita State University who wanted to check the accuracy of some Kansas voting machines after finding odd patterns in election returns said she is finding out how difficult it can be to get government officials to turn over public documents. After two weeks, attorneys representing the North Carolina NAACP and other groups rested their case Friday, having called more than 40 witnesses who testified either in court or via video depositions, that North Carolina’s election law is racially discriminatory. Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza won a third term in office on Friday after the opposition boycotted the vote, while an Ontario Appeals Court overturned an earlier victory for two Canadian expatriates that had restored right to cast a ballot to the roughly 1.4 million Canadians of voting age who have lived abroad for five or more years.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 13-19 2015

haiti_vote_260Both Democrats and Republicans think controlling state legislatures in 2020 is one of the most important political battles to fight, mostly for one reason: the power to draw congressional boundaries. Hans A. von Spakovsky surveyed the security challenges posed by internet voting. Los Angeles County is developing a new model for voting technology in the 21st Century. A Florida judge ordered the State Legislature to finalize congressional maps by Sept. 25. A federal trial began Monday over North Carolina’s 2013 voting law that tightened photo identification requirements and restricted early voting and same-day registration. A Rhode Island bill has stripped the state Board of Elections of its power to buy new voting equipment and placed that responsibility with the secretary of state. An Ontario Superior Court Justice ruled that a request for an interim injunction against new rules for voter identification could not be granted and at a UN donors conference, Haiti’s prime minister and elections council president sought over $30 million to help ensure free and fair elections in the country.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for July 6-12 2015

burundi_260The U.S. Vote Foundation’s report “The Future of Voting: End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting Specification and Feasibility Assessment Study” asserts that Internet voting systems must be transparent and designed to run in a manner that embraces the constructs of end-to-end verifiability – a property missing from existing Internet voting systems. A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to a long-standing ban on U.S. government contractors making campaign contributions in federal elections, emphasizing that the policy was put in place to prevent corruption. The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected political gerrymandering by state legislators and ordered eight congressional districts redrawn within 100 days, a decision likely to complicate preparations for next year’s elections. New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan vetoed a bill that would have required a 30-day waiting period to vote saying the bill placed unreasonable restrictions on citizens’ voting rights. Lawyers for Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell claimed that partisan politics targeting Democrats fueled the 2011 redistricting process rather than race. Wisconsin Democrats sued election officials over legislative maps Republicans drew in 2011 that helped give them a firm grip on state government. Local police raided the home of an Argentinian programmer who reported a flaw in an electronic voting system that was used last weekend for local elections in Buenos Aires and Burundi’s ruling party swept to an expected overwhelming victory in controversial parliamentary elections that were boycotted by the opposition.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 29 – July 5 2015

oxi_nai_260On the same day that the US Supreme Court ruled that states can appoint independent commissions to draw the boundaries of congressional districts, they also declined to consider letting states require evidence of citizenship when people register to vote for federal elections, rejecting an appeal from Arizona and Kansas. In the redistricting decision, like last week’s Obamacare ruling, Rick Hasen sees a rejection of conservative attempts to use wooden, textualist arguments to upset sensible policies. The special election in Illinois’ 18th Congressional District has brought a variety of challenges, and some unexpected costs, for election officials — and some confusion for voters. The New Jersey legislature has passed a sweeping election reform bill that awaits a signature from Governor Chris Christie. A U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the upcoming federal trial on several provisions of North Carolina’s 2013 elections law won’t consider challenges to the state’s voter identification requirement in light of recent changes to the mandate. A coalition of voting rights advocates has challenged restrictive voter identification requirements in Canada’s ‘Fair Elections Act’, while Greeks face one of the most important votes in its modern history, one that could redefine its place in Europe, though many acknowledge they barely have a clue as to what, exactly, they are voting on.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 15-21 2015

hong_kong_260Nationwide many states and counties will have to move to new voting systems for the first time in more than a decade in advance of the 2016 election cycle. During a fraught exchange at Thursday’s Federal Election Commission monthly meeting, a Republican commissioner said none of the six panel members should be counted as a “person” when it comes to petitioning their own agency. Already implemented in Oregon, automatic voter registration is being considered in several other states. Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin announced that he had chosen Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software to replace the state’s voting equipment for nearly $30 million. Legislation proposed by New Jersey Democrats would provide in-person voting for two weeks, same-day and online voter registration, and automatic registration for people receiving driver’s licenses or state identification cards from the Motor Vehicle Commission. Just weeks before a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s voting restrictions is due to reach Federal Court, state legislators passed a bill allowing voters who do not have government-issued photo identification to still vote in next year’s elections by signing an affidavit and presenting alternate forms of ID. The Hong Kong government’s controversial Beijing-backed election reforms were defeated in the legislature, while electoral reform campaigners stepped up demands for 16- and 17-year-olds to be given full voting rights across the United Kingdom.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 8-15 2015

turkey_260Electionline Weekly surveyed the many states and counties that are moving to new voting systems for the first time in more than a decade in advance of the 2016 election cycle. The chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a fellow Democratic commissioner have filed a petition asking their own agency to do its job. “Don’t hold your breath“, advises Ruth Marcus in a Washington Post editorial. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has signed a bill that gives Secretary of State Kris Kobach the power to prosecute voter fraud, while New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan is likely to veto legislation that would require people to live in New Hampshire for 30 days before they can vote in the state. Ohio is the latest state to move toward online voter registration. Democrats allied with Hillary Clinton have filed a voting rights lawsuit in Virginia, the third time they have done so in a crucial presidential battleground state in the last two months. A group of 17 political parties have agreed to boycott proposed elections in Burundi because they don’t believe they will be free and fair while the failure of the failure of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP to secure a parliamentary majority, the backlash against Erdoğan and the electorate’s embrace of the leftist pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) represent a watershed in Turkish politics.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 1-7 2015

Members of a teachers union holding banners with images of some of 43 missing rural teachers college students are reflected in the sunglasses of a policeman wearing riot gear, outside the offices of the National Electoral Institute, in Chilpancingo, Guerrero State, Mexico, Friday, June 5, 2015. The confrontation between the teachers and scores of police surrounding the electoral offices ended peacefully. Radical groups and unionized teachers have vowed to block Sunday's voting for the lower house of congress, nine governorships and hundreds of mayorships. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) In an address in Texas, Hillary Clinton called for sweeping changes to elections and voting laws, arguing that measures including universal voter registration and national early voting are necessary to counteract a tide of laws aimed at making it more difficult for some people to vote. Nathaniel Persilly notes that as they consider a major redistricting case, the justices of the US Supreme Court, like most of us, might be surprised to learn that the most basic information as to who is an American citizen cannot actually be found in any publicly available government data set — anywhere. Nevada is keeping its caucuses for selecting presidential nominees, disappointing supporters of several Republican presidential contenders who had hoped to shift the early-voting state to a system of primaries. Vermont became the 14th state to allow same-day voter registration. A federal court concluded for the second time that Virginia’s congressional boundaries are unconstitutional because state lawmakers packed black voters into one district in order to make adjacent districts safer for Republican incumbents. One Wisconsin Institute, Inc., and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund along with a half-dozen voters have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a host of changes Republicans have made to Wisconsin’s election laws, alleging the provisions burden black people, Latinos and Democratic-leaning voters. Burundi’s opposition parties and civil society groups welcomed a decision to postpone Friday’s parliamentary election, while Mexico has experience experienced severe violence and demonstrations ahead of this weekend’s parliamentary elections.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 25-31 2015

burundi_260The Supreme Court agreed to hear Evenwel v. Abbott, a case that will answer a long-contested question about a bedrock principle of the American political system: the meaning of “one person one vote.” Richard Hasen examines the case in an editorial in Slate Magazine. The NCSL Canvass considers the ramifications of the fact that most of the equipment in use around the nation was bought with federal money made available through the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) – before smartphones were invented, and even iPods were new technology – and a significant portion of the country uses equipment that was bought well before that. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a Montana case could make it more difficult for states to defend their restrictions on the amount of money that individual donors give candidates in state elections. A bill that would allow major political parties to hold a presidential-preference primary election passed the Nevada Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee on Thursday — a day after the same committee voted against the measure. A mandate to replace AVS WINVote voting machines has stretched the budgets of some Virginia localities. Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid to stand for a third term in office suffered a new blow on Saturday after it emerged a top a election official had fled the country and the newly-elected UK government has ruled out extending the right to vote in the upcoming EU referendum to all British citizens living abroad, despite a promise made by the Conservative party chairman that it would.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 18-24 2015

ireland_260NPR’s Pam Fessler reported on the move toward online voter registration and the New York Times examined the role of super PACs and tax-exempt groups in the 2016 presidential election. Elizabeth Drew considered the ways that the very rich donate – and the candidates collect and spend – increasingly large amounts of money on campaigns. Justice Department agents are looking into allegations that the state of California and its courts are denying voting rights to residents with intellectual disabilities. University of Florida professor Michael McDonald has researched the impact of laws disenfranchising ex-felons in Florida at his site United States Election Project. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan vetoed a bill that would allow felons to vote as soon as they leave prison rather than waiting to finish parole or probation. Ireland has voted by a huge majority to legalise same-sex marriage, becoming the first country in the world to do so by popular vote and in Poland, voters go to the polls in a Presidential run-off election.