The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for May 4-10 2015

EAC_260The chair of the Federal Election Commission says she has largely given up hope of reining in abuses in the 2016 presidential campaign, which could generate a record $10 billion in spending. Electionline Weekly posted an interview with the three new EAC commissioners. Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court issed instructions to reconsider a December decision that upheld the maps, the North Carolina Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments in August on the challenges to the 2011 redistricting maps outlining legislative and congressional districts across North Carolina. Ohio became the latest state to propose automatic voter registration. The Harris County Clerk and the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector’s offices successfully led opposition to a proposal for online voter registration in Texas. An editorial in the Deseret News warns of the security challenges facing proposals for an online primary in Utah. After two weeks of protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza bid for a third term, demonstrations in Burundi have degenerated into a man being burned alive in the capital, Bujumbura. The UK general election exposed flaws of the country’s “first past the post” voting system, as Conservatives won an outright majority of seats in Parliament with only 36% of the vote.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 27 – May 3 2015

texas_id_260A divided Supreme Court ruled that states can prohibit judicial candidates from soliciting campaign donations, rejecting arguments such bans violate the free-speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. Strategists for the campaign of Jeb Bush are reportedly considering turning over some of the campaign’s central functions to their “independent” Right to Rise super PAC, to take advantage of its unlimited fund-raising ability. Legislators approved a proposal to automatically register Californians to vote when they get a driver’s license. After adding a provision for a “comprehensive risk assessment” every two years, the Florida House overwhelmingly passed legislation that would establish online voter registration in the state. The Minneapolis Post reviewed the unexpected demise of a bill to restore voting rights to ex-felons on probation. Republican lawmakers in Ohio have re-introduced legislation to require photo identification for voting as a similar law in Texas headed back to court. Togo’s opposition party has challenged the re-election of incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe and, as the United Kingdom prepared for a general election next week,  the Daily Mail considered the security challenges of internet voting.

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

hong_kong_260Campaign finance reform has emerged as an early campaign issue in both parties but there is little chance of reining in money in politics no mater who gets elected. Electionline Weekly surveyed the implementation of online voter registration in states across the country. The special election forced by the resignation of US Rep. Aaron Schock has posed problems for clerks in his 19-county former district in complying with a new law requiring same-day voter registration. Montana Governor Steve Bullock signed a bi-partisan bill into law that will tighten the state’s campaign finance laws to require anonymous so-called “dark money” groups to report how they are spending money in state political races. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that had upheld the state’s Republican-drawn legislative and congressional districts. North Dakota lawmakers approved legislation Tuesday clarifying the acceptable forms of voter identification. Opposition lawmakers denounced the latest election proposals from the Chinese Communist Party and almost half a million voters registered to vote online in the final hours before the deadline to participate in the 7 May UK general election, the vast majority of them young people.

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

AVSWinVote_260Although official Pentagon policy opposes the transmission of voted ballots over the internet, including email and fax voting, Defense Department officials have testified in State legislatures in support of bills that would allow military and other overseas voters to cast election ballots via email or fax without having to certify their identities. After a report from the state’s Internet Technology Security Team revealed serious security vulnerabilities in the AVS WINVote voting machine, the Virginia Board of Elections moved to decertify the equipment effective immediately leaving many localities scrambling to make alternate plans for June primaries. Two hours before the city council planned to start removal hearings for Hartford’s three registrars of voters, a Superior Court judge ruled that the council doesn’t have the power to oust the elected officials. In defiance of the top estate election official, both chambers of the Florida legislature passed a measure to implement online voter registration. Voting rights advocates and Ohio’s top election official have settled a lawsuit over controversial cuts to the pivotal presidential state’s early voting period. Researchers have demonstrated that as many as 66,000 votes in the New South Wales state election 2015 cast through the iVote internet voting system could have been tampered with and Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, was re-elected amid widespread apathy and a call for a boycott by opposition groups.

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

connecticut_260The Election Assistance Commission approved a measure to update the guidelines against which manufacturers test electronic voting machines to make sure they are secure and accessible. Following Oregon’s lead, a bill has been introduced into the California Assembly that would establish automatic voter registration in the state. Hartford City Council members looking to oust the city’s registrars of voters will hold a hearing Tuesday, but they won’t be able to hear testimony or consider evidence after a Superior Court judge on Monday postponed ruling on whether to grant an injunction that would stop the removal hearings. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner faced criticism from lawmakers for his opposition to their plan to let people register to vote online by October 2017 and from elections officials, when they learned that Detzner released private data on more than 45,000 voters — including judges and police officers — and didn’t alert them immediately. Marshall County Illinois wants former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock to pay the $76,000 in unbudgeted county costs for special elections to fill the 18th Congressional District seat he abandoned. A new bill filed in the North Carolina House of Representatives would delay some counties from having to buy new voting equipment for the 2016 election. Electionline Weekly looked at the Virginia Department of Elections review that is critical of the AVS WINVote touchscreen voting machines used in 29 localities in the state. New South Wales election officials seemed more interested in protecting their reputations than the integrity of elections when they sharply criticized researchers for their discovery of security vulnerabilities in the iVote internet voting system and the Phillippine Commission on Elections will no longer purchase precinct-based direct recording electronic (DRE) machines amid questions on the reliability of the touch screen technology.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly March 30 – April 5 2015

Joe Biden, Barack ObamaWith roughly two out of every three American adults, or 64 percent, owning a smartphone, Politico considered the ways that this new mobile reality will change the dynamics of the 2016 election cycle. A legislative compromise aimed at professionalizing Connecticut’s election system after a spate of polling mishaps met with approval from registrars and state election officials alike. A bill in the state senate could lead to the end of North Dakota’s unique status as the only state without voter registration. Ohio Governor John Kasich used a line-item veto to eliminate language in a transportation bill that that Democrats and voting-rights activists contended would have discouraged students from voting. The Vermont Senate rejected a last-ditch effort Wednesday to require photo identification at the polls as part of a same-day voter registration bill. An investigation into voting irregularities during the November general election in Virginia has raised serious security concerns about the AVS WinVote touchscreen voting machine used in about one-fifth of the state’s precincts. A UK citizen living in France is running for Parliament to bring attention to a law preventing Britons from voting at home once they’ve been out of the country for 15 years and international observers voiced criticism after the landslide re-election of Uzbek president Islam Karimov.

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

nigeria_260The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case involving the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s strict voter ID requirement shifts attention now to voter identification laws working their way through the courts in Texas and North Carolina. David Jefferson, computer scientist in the Lawrence Livermore’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing believes “security, privacy, reliability, availability and authentication requirements for Internet voting are very different from, and far more demanding than, those required for e-commerce,” making voting more susceptible to attacks, manipulation and vulnerabilities. The Supreme Court sided with black challengers and told a lower court to reconsider whether a redistricting plan drawn by Alabama’s Republican-led legislature packed minority voters into districts in order to dilute their influence. A bill in the Colorado legislature would allow military and overseas voters to submit ballots via fax machines and email. Election officials from Kansas and Arizona are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision and restore state laws requiring proof-of-citizenship documents to register to vote. Cyberattacks disabled the State of Maine’s website several times this week. The result of an Australian election is likely to be challenged after a security flaw was identified that could potentially have compromised 66,000 electronic votes and Nigeria’s presidential election was marred by hackers, failed biometric registration devices and violence that claimed at least 39 lives.

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

Voter RegistrationReflecting a movement is growing around the country to dismantle felon disenfranchisement laws that keep nearly 6 million Americans from the polls, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced legislation that would restore voting rights for federal elections to Americans with past criminal convictions upon their release from incarceration. Russell Berman at The Atlantic considered the ramifications an automatic voter registration bill, signed into law this week by Oregon’s Governor (and former Secretary of State Kate Brown. Electionline Weekly noted the increase in special elections and the toll on the budgets and resources of election administrators. San Francisco is considering a proposal that would make it the first major city in the US to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal elections. Legislation that would return Nebraska to a winner-take-all presidential electoral vote system was blocked from further consideration this session by a successful filibuster. A proposed Voter ID requirement drew contentious debate in the Nevada Assembly. A online ballot error in an election in Australia could lead to litigation and the Guinean opposition withdrew its lawmakers from parliament Wednesday and said it would no longer recognize the election commission in protest over the timetable for presidential elections.

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

.Contrary to popular belief, the fundamental security risks and privacy problems of Internet voting are too great to allow it to be used for public elections, and those problems will not be resolved any time soon, according to David Jefferson, who has studied the issue for more than 15 years. Jefferson, a computer scientist in the Lawrence Livermore’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing, discussed his findings in a recent Computation Seminar Series presentation, entitled “Intractable Security Risks of Internet Voting.” Florida election officials have warned that “Habitual” technology failures in an “obsolete” and glitch-prone state voter registration system could have devastating effects in 2016 if not addressed quickly. 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, U.S. citizens in Guam and the other territories still can’t vote for president. Voter registration rules enacted by former Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz that critics said threatened to disenfranchise eligible voters will not take effect, after a long-running lawsuit was resolved. The North Dakota House defeated a bill that would have required the state’s colleges and universities to provide student identification cards that could be used to vote. Despite numerous attempts to overturn it, Utah lawmakers stood by last year’s deal to reform how political parties choose their nominees. Up to 250,000 votes are expected to be cast using the iVote electronic voting system between March 16 and the close of polls on March 28 in an election in New South Wales Australia and on March 17th, citizens resident in Israel will vote for the 20th Knesset since the country’s founding.

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

obama_selma_260President Obama and a host of political figures from both parties came to Selma Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of one of the most searing days of the civil rights era, to reflect on how far the country has come and how far it still has to go. Congressional Democrats have written a letter urging the Government Accountability Office to review the status of voting machine technology and the potential problems posed by using outdated equipment. The U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical of a voter-approved plan that stripped Arizona state lawmakers of their role in drawing congressional districts in an bid to remove partisan politics from the process. Lawyers argued that Florida’s congressional redistricting maps should be rejected because they are the product of a shadowy process infiltrated by Republican political operatives in violation of the law against partisan gerrymandering. Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler has raised concerns about the the state’s AVC Advantage voting machines that are entering their third decade of service. In North Dakota, student leadership and university officials debated a bill that would create a new student identification option for voting amid questions of student safety and over whether it creates a special class of voters. The Oregon Senate has sent a bill calling for automatic voter registration to Governor Kate Brown, who was a champion of the legislation as Secretary of State. A report commissioned by the New South Wales Electoral Commission warned cyber attacks could be waged against iVote, an electronic system that will allow eligible people to vote in the March 28 election using the internet or a phone and following delays in announcing the results of El Salvador’s parliamentary elections, officials have alleged that the process of transmitting the votes electronically was sabotaged.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for February 23 – March 1 2015

Two Democratic Congressmen have revived a proposed amendment to add the right to vote to the constitution, a proposal that generated responses from numerous voting rights advocates including Heather Gerken and Josh Douglas. Legal battles have arisen in New Hampshire and other states that prohibit ‘ballot selfies‘ in polling places. After four years without commissioners,…

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

hartford_260NPR reviewed the state of voting technology in the US, while in ab Atlantic oped Noah Gordon considered gerrymandering and proportional representation. Pew Charitable Trust’s Make Voting Work Initiative and the JEHT Foundation have released the Survey of the Performance of American Elections, a comprehensive national public opinion study of voting from the perspective of the voter. Less than 24 hours after beginning what many expected to be a long, heated debate, Nebraska lawmakers voted 25-15 to table a voter ID proposal. Just as Secretary of State Kate Brown became Oregon’s Governor, the automatic voter registration that she has championed cleared its first legislative hurdle. In a disappointing decision for election integrity advocates, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court denied an appeal of 2013 Commonwealth Court decision allowing the continued use of direct recording electronic voting machines without voter-verified paper records in the State. the postponement of Nigeria’s Presidential election has raised fears of vote rigging and increased violence and the United Kingdom is poised to join the only 20 countries around the world that look to private corporations to provide electronic voting systems, a potential windfall for the international voting industry.

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

A bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced legislation that would restore some of the enforcement provisions removed from the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. In a Slate column, Alec McGillis commented on this week’s Federal Election Commission hearing. New research by the California Journal of Politics & Policy, found no evidence…

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

nvrd_260Pam Fessler surveyed voting legislation being considered in state legislatures in 2015 while Techonomy considered the potential of open source voting systems to upend the elections technology market. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case brought by Arizona legislators challenging the authority of the state’s independent redistricting commission, which was set up by voters through a ballot initiative back in 2000. A longstanding proposal to change Nebraska’s Electoral College system to winner-take-all may finally reach the Republican governor’s desk, amid a renewed push by conservative lawmakers hoping to have new rules in place for the 2016 presidential election. A Democratic proposal that would establish automatic voter registration, adding as many as 300,000 new voters to the rolls, appears likely to pass the Oregon legislature. In Washington abill has been introduced that would provide prepaid postage on ballots as well as another that would allow, in spite of the well-established security concerns, the return of voted ballots by fax and as email attachment. In a move seen as favorable to the ruling party, Nigeria’s electoral commission has said it is postponing the Feb. 14 presidential election until March 28 and with events held across Britain on National Voter Registration Day over 80,000 people used Gov.uk to apply to be put on the electoral register.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for January 26 – February 1 2015

lynch_confirmationAttorney General nominee Loretta Lynch was questioned about her position on controversial voting laws during her confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A network of conservative advocacy groups backed by Charles and David Koch pledged Monday to spend $889 million on the 2016 election. An Arizona case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that questions whether it’s constitutional for independent state commissions to have the sole power to draw political district maps may force California and other States to return to partisan congressional gerrymandering. In a direct response to Chad Taylor’s withdrawal from last year’s U.S. Senate race, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is advocating legislation to severely limit the situations in which a candidate’s name can be removed from the ballot. Almost a decade after passing legislation requiring a paper ballot voting system, Maryland will finally abandon their touchscreen voting machines in 2016. On Friday, a Superior Court judge heard arguments in a case challenging North Carolina’s voter id requirement. In spite of widespread voter displacement and terrorist violence, Nigeria’s electoral commission has pledged to hold presidential elections in February as scheduled. And in ComputerworldUK Glyn Moody comments on the push for internet voting in the United Kingdom.

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

zambia_260In his State of the Union address, a day after the Martin Luther King Holiday, President Obama encouraged legislation to protect the right to vote. David Cole observed the 5th Anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Officials in Arkansas joined the growing list of election administrators voicing concern over aging voting technology. The Hartford City Council moved to remove the city’s three registrars of voters after a review of the November election. A New Mexico State Senator has suggested using biometric data for voter registration, while the Oregon legislature appears poised to implement a proposal for universal voter registration. The founder of Sweden’s Pirate Party dismissed the notion of internet voting and opposition parties have denounced the results of Zambia’s Presidential election, which saw the ruling party returned to power.

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

mlk_selma_260A day after a top Republican seemed to dismiss the need to restore a critical part of the Voting Rights Act, members of the Congressional Black Caucus announced  they would re-introduce bipartisan voting rights legislation next week. Five years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions campaign contributions in Citizens United v. FEC, a report from eight of the nation’s largest government watchdog groups finds that regular Americans are losing their voice in democracy while a “tiny number” of wealthy individuals have gained record influence. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach proposed legislation to bring back straight-ticket party voting and restrict the reasons allowed for a candidate’s name to be withdrawn from an election. At a conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, incoming EAC Commissioner Matthew Masterson raised concern about aging voting technology and the lack of funding available for upgrades. Despite serving a six month sentence stemming from a teen sex scandal, Virginia State Senator Joseph Morrissey won the special election for his seat that was held as a result of his own resignation. Rural lawmakers in Wyoming are concerned about legislation that would allow counties to replace precinct polling places with vote centers. India’s Supreme Court has asked the government to provide an absentee voting method for Non-Resident Indians and widespread terrorist violence has raised concerns in advance of Nigeria’s presidential election.

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

no_voter_id_260In a Florida case, the Supreme Court will consider whether restrictions on contributions to judgeship campaigns are a violation of freedom of speech. Marking the culmination of over ten years of efforts by many individuals and organizations including Verified Voting and with crucial technical staff support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the IEEE has developed a new standard for election results reporting (1622-2). Ari Berman checked the new film “Selma” against the history of the civil rights movement. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sent a contentious voting rights case involving Fayette County Georgia back to a lower court for trial. Illinois Democrats gave speedy approval to a measure that would require a special election to fill part of the term left vacant after the death of Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, as Republicans railed against the move as a power grab aimed at undermining Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner as he prepares to take office. Vermont’s election law calling for legislative selection by secret ballot in the case that no candidate received a majority of the votes on election day was in the spotlight as incumbent Peter Shmulin was chosen for a third term. Civil rights advocates asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision upholding Wisconsin’s voter photo identification law, arguing the case raises questions of national importance about limits on a state’s ability to restrict voting. The right of long-term expats to vote in federal elections will be decided by Ontario’s top court and voters in Sri Lanka braved violence and intimidation to give a surprise victory to opposition presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 29 2014 – January 4 2015

sri_lanka_260A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision allowing residents of Kansas and Arizona to register to vote using a federal form without providing proof of their U.S. citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide who has the authority to divide Arizona into its nine congressional districts. After more than a century in California’s political spotlight, the state’s initiative process will be getting a major bipartisan revision in 2015. In a case entering its fourth year, former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White remains a convicted felon, despite the Indiana Court of Appeals Monday vacating three of the six guilty verdicts against him. A case involving the city council of the small town of Pasadena Texas could become a test of the Supreme Court ruling last year that struck down most of the federal Voting Rights Act, giving cities in many Southern states new latitude to change election laws affecting minorities without first getting federal approval. Voters in a dozen Virginia House of Delegates districts have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a legislative map that they say illegally concentrates African Americans voters and therefore dilutes their influence. Governments and investors across Europe braced for renewed economic upheaval on Monday after the Parliament in Greece failed to avert an early general election and an election watchdog organization in Sri Lanka has charged that the ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is using violence to deter opposition political activities.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 22-28 2014

Kevin KennedyNow that a quorum of commissioners has been confirmed for the Election Assistance Commission, the co-chairs of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Ben Ginsberg and Bob Bauer, have written letters to the new commissioners laying out some immediate short-term steps to jump-start the agency’s voting technology testing and certification process. As New Hampshire braces for another wave of White House hopefuls next year seeking votes in the first-in-the-nation nominating primary, much of the credit for the state’s hold on that position goes to one man: Secretary of State William Gardner. With roughly 44 percent of registered voters participating in 2010 and 2014 midterm elections, the impact of changes to North Carolina’s election law on the overall turnout remains unclear. With the support of both parties, the Ohio House gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to draw voting districts for the General Assembly using a bipartisan process. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that he will shrink the time violent felons must wait to seek reinstatement of their voting rights and will remove some offenses from that list. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel argues that the State’s non-partisan Government Accountability Board “remains the best model for supervising partisan elections and ethical behavior.” In the culmination of a four-year democratic transition Beji Caid Essebsi , an 88-year-old veteran of Tunisia’s political establishment won the country’s presidential election and proponents of online voting in the United Kingdom face the same concerns over security and privacy that have plagued such proposals in other countries.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 15-21 2014

eacAfter four years and two election cycles, the Election Assistance Commission finally has new commissioners. IEEE is seeking public content on proposed election data reporting standards. The closest race of the 2014 midterm election cycle was decided, with Republican Martha McSally defeating incumbent Rep. Ron Barber after a protracted recount. Legislation pending in Congress that could require the state to allow former felons to vote in federal elections is contributing to efforts at easing the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons in Florida. Maryland has approved a $28 million contract with ES&S to replace the State’s Diebold touch-screen voting system with optical scanners, while Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is proposing $28 million to fund optical scanners fn time for the November 2015 general election. A Senate election is taking place this weekend in Ebola-hit Liberia and Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation was the only bidder that passed the first stage of the bidding for the lease of touchscreen voting machines for the 2016 national elections in the Philippines.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 8-14 2014

recount_260Good government groups criticized language in the omnibus spending bill that dramatically eases spending limits on individual contributions to national political party committees. A hand recount of random ballots from Arizona Congressional District 2 will be performed Monday and used to verify the accuracy of the machine count completed this week. After an investigation determined that 21 ballots had been counted twice during the recount of a state senate race, Republican Cathleen Manchester resigned to allow the correct winner, Democrat Catherine Breen, to take the seat. Following legal action, New Mexico elections officials have said that rejected provisional ballots cast by voters who registered at the Motor Vehicle Division should be counted in the recount of the land commissioner race. The Ohio Senate passed a bi-partisan House-backed redistricting reform plan before adjourning for the session. Supporters of Oregon’s Ballot Measure 92 to require labeling of genetically modified foods conceded defeat after failing to make up enough ground in a statewide recount. Conservatives have introduced legislation to tighten the rules for Canadians who want to cast a ballot while living outside the country and and fear of the Ebola virus has led to a debate over Senate elections in Liberia planned for this week.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 24-30 2014

namibia_260Election officials across the country are facing the prospect of replacing aging voting machines without the benefit of federal funding. Heading into a recount, incumbent Arizona Congressman Ron Barber lost a lawsuit seeking to force two counties to include the 133 ballots the campaign says were legally cast but have been erroneously disqualified. Previously secret testimony and documents about the 2012 redistricting process, released this week provide detailed information about an alleged plan by Republican political consultants to funnel maps through members of the public to conceal the origins. In Saline County Kansas a malfunction of ES&S iVotronic voting equipment left 5,207 votes out of the original Nov. 4 vote total. The Maine Democratic Party is calling for an investigation into ballot count discrepancies on Long Island that tipped the scales in favor of the Republican candidate in the Senate District 25 race in Portland’s northern suburbs. Ohio lawmakers from both parties are working to coalesce around a new system for drawing congressional and legislative districts with hopes they can reach the resolution they have promised the public by year’s end. Moldova’s election commission barred Renato Usatii, a populist pro-Russian candidate, from running in Sunday’s parliamentary elections after a leaked audio recording appeared to show him discussing his close connections to the Russian security service and Namibia is to become the first African country to use electronic voting machines in a general election, after the Windhoek high court dismissed a legal challenge by an opposition political party.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 17-23 2014

voter_id_2016_260Analysts continue to debate the effect of new voter id requirements and other restrictive election legislation on the midterm elections. A poll from the Public Religion Research Institute asked people which they thought was a bigger problem: voter fraud or voter disenfranchisement and the results reflecting sharp partisan divisions. Election Assistance Commission nominee Myrna Perez has withdraw her nomination and has been replaced by Matthew Butler, a former CEO of Media Matters. Arizona state law may require Pima and Cochise counties to recount all 220,000 votes in the race for Congressional District 2 by hand. With over half the State already choosing to vote by mail, some election officials are urging the California to join Washington, Colorado and Oregon and to run all of their elections entirely by mail and election officials in Florida are concerned about the costs of replacing aging voting equipment.  A Parliamentary Committee tasked with investigating the feasibility of digitising Australian ballots has unanimously found that a high-tech solution is still too risky, complicated and expensive to make it a reality in the near term and repeated crashes of the national election commission’s servers have raised doubts about the integrity of local elections in Poland.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for November 10-16 2014

alabama_260National Journal took a look behind the scenes at those who run elections and the complexity of election administration. A computer science research and development firm published a paper that explains an attack against common home routers that would allow a hacker to intercept a PDF ballot and use another technique to modify a ballot before sending it along to an election authority. Voter turnout in the 2014 Midterm elections was the lowest since World War II and possibly also one of the four lowest-turnout elections since the election of Thomas Jefferson. Depressed turnout has been blamed on a wave of new election laws enacted by Republican statehouses since 2010 and research suggests that efforts to suppress voter turnout may have changed the outcomes of some of the closest races. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought by black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the state Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. Election watchdog groups are worried about the role electronically submitted ballots in Alaska might play in the state’s two tight federal elections. The Hartford Courant looked at mistakes that denied some voters the opportunity to vote in Connecticut, while new restrictive voter ID requirements are blamed for voter disenfranchisement in Texas. Voters in Romania held to the polls to choose a new President in a run-off election and over two million Catalans defied a Spanish court and voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting New Weekly for November 3-9 2014

In the mid-term elections on Tuesday, voters encountered malfunctioning machines, website crashes and delayed polling place openings in polling places around the country, while new voter ID requirements contributed to heavy volume on national election protection hotlines. Nationwide the trend away from touchscreen voting machines continued with over 70 percent of votes cast on voter-marked paper…

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 27 – November 2 2014

tunisia_260A House Armed Services subcommittee has requested the inspector general’s office to examine how the Pentagon’s Federal Voting Assistance Program spent $85 million in research funding from 2009 to 2013 and if it is violating a prohibition on the use of Defense Department grant dollars to create online voting systems. The New York Times reports on the debate over the potential of voter fraud in next Tuesday’s election. A state judge in Georgia ruled against civil rights groups seeking to force the secretary of State to account for roughly 40,000 voter registrations that were filed but allegedly haven’t shown up on the voting rolls. The Maryland Republican Party is calling on the state Board of Elections to investigate reports that voting machines are switching ballots cast for GOP candidates to their Democratic rivals. Political Science researchers from Stanford and Dartmouth may have violated university policy and state laws by sending official-looking campaign mailers assessing the political leanings of candidates to voters in California, Montana and New Hampshire. South Carolina voters will cast ballots Tuesday for the seat once held by House Speaker Bobby Harrell, after the State Supreme Court halted a special election ordered by state election officials. Voters and election officials have complained of problems casting ballots due to Texas’ new voter ID requirement. Tunisia completed its second genuinely competitive, peaceful elections since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaders told Russian President Vladimir Putin that elections planned for Sunday in eastern Ukraine were illegitimate and would not be recognised by European leaders.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 20-26 2014

voter_id_260Anticipating election challenges, both parties have hired armies of lawyers ahead of next month’s elections. Matthew McKnight considered the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions in voting rights cases. Following the Arkansas state supreme court ruling that the State’s voter ID law was unconstitutional, county election officials are scrambling to make last minute changes, redoing things they’ve already done in order to get the proper information to polling sites. Los Angeles Supervisors approved a $15-million contract with Palo Alto consultant Ideo for the design of a new voting system. The Florida Supreme Court has set the day after the opening of the 2015 Legislature for a pivotal hearing into whether the state’s redrawn congressional districts are valid. According to a a highly-critical report released by the Rutgers School of Law in Newark, emergency measures intended to allow people to vote in the days immediately following Hurricane Sandy violated New Jersey state law. Richard Hasen considered Justice Ginsburg’s scathing dissent in the Supreme Court decision to allow Texas’ Voter ID for this election. Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been put on hold for the fall election, leaving local election officials to make adjustments less than a month before voters go to the polls. Voters in Brazil return to polls for a run-off between the top two candidates from last month’s Presidential election and Ukraine’s election website was hacked in advance of this weekend’s parliamentary elections.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 13-19 2014

voter_id_260Over the past three weeks, the Supreme Court gave Ohio the green light to cut early voting by a week, let North Carolina end same-day voter registration and blocked Wisconsin from implementing a new voter ID law. And early on Saturday morning in an unsigned order, the Court allowed Texas to use its strict voter identification law in the November election. The flurry of legal action on restrictive voter ID laws has raised concern over whether state election authorities can prevent confusion among poll workers themselves—the people who have the de-facto last word in determining whether you are eligible to vote. An appeals court rejected a challenge to a Miami-Dade County law aimed at curbing absentee-ballot fraud. In Georgia, a fight over alleged voter registration fraud in Georgia appears headed to the courts as early voting begins in the state, amid concerns that tens of thousands of Georgians who show up to vote may learn instead that their registration forms were never processed. Members of the two opposition parties in Mozambique claimed they had discovered election fraud by the incumbent Frelimo party and, citing security concerns, the UK government has ruled out proposals for internet voting.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 6-12 2014

2012SanJoseSampleBallotA new report from the Atlantic Council and Intel Security “Online Voting: Rewards and Risks,” discusses the challenges that must be solved before online voting could be safely implemented and a report issued by the General Accounting Office found that fewer African Americans have the types of identification required to obtain a ballot than whites. A dual-track voting system, in use in Arizona for the first time in the upcoming election, has created problems for some first voters – especially students. With California heading into another election relying predominately on paper ballot voting systems, Doug Chapin, director of Future of California Elections noted “paper based balloting may feel old fashioned, but in many ways it’s the most modern and reliable system that we have.” The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a brief, unsigned order reinstating provisions of a North Carolina voting law that bar same-day registration and counting votes cast in the wrong precinct. The Supreme Court also blocked Wisconsin’s Voter ID law. Meanwhile, a federal judge on Thursday struck down a Texas law requiring voters to show identification at polls, saying it placed an unconstitutional burden on voters and discriminated against minorities and another federal court ruled that Virginia’s congressional map violated the 14th Amendment and instructed the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries. Two reports in Canada highlighted the security and accessibility challenges facing the creation of an online voting system while Cambridge Professor of security engineering Ross Anderson, speaking about proposed online voting in the UK, observed that with internet voting “you can have subversion of the technical mechanism, subversion of the organisation that does the vote tabulation and announces the result, or you can have coercion of individual voters.”