National: Donald Trump’s ‘Rigged Election’ Claims Raise Historical Alarms | NBC

As Donald Trump’s campaign falters, his warnings that the presidential contest will be rigged have become a focus of his pitch to voters. Historians say Trump’s sustained effort to call the process into question has no close parallel in past elections. And some are increasingly worried that his claims — for which he’s offered no real evidence — could leave many of his supporters unwilling to accept the election results, potentially triggering violence and dangerously undermining faith in American democracy. Day after day — at rallies, in interviews and on Twitter — Trump and several top backers have hammered the message that a victory for Hillary Clinton would be illegitimate. Trump has frequently suggested that widespread voter fraud will swing the election, and he has urged his supporters to closely monitor the voting process. In a tweet Monday, he declared that there’s “large-scale voter fraud happening on and before election day.” In fact, numerous studies have shown that in-person voter fraud is vanishingly rare.

National: Donald Trump is warning of election fraud, but GOP officials oversee process in most battleground states | Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump on Monday continued a potentially dangerous drumbeat — questioning the integrity of the American election system. These warnings are not new and not supported by evidence; they defy numerous studies that have found that voter fraud is minimal. They also invite a question: If the election is rigged, who is doing the rigging? Presidential elections are conducted on a state-by-state basis, not nationally. And in most of the states seen as presidential battlegrounds, the chief elections officers are Republicans — most directly accountable to their state’s voters.

National: Officials Fight Donald Trump’s Claims of a Rigged Vote | The New York Times

Republican leaders and election officials from both parties on Sunday sought to combat claims by Donald J. Trump that the election is rigged against him, amid signs that Mr. Trump’s contention is eroding confidence in the vote and setting off talk of rebellion among his supporters. In a vivid illustration of how Mr. Trump is shattering American political norms, the Republican nominee is alleging that a conspiracy is underway between the news media and the Democratic Party to commit vast election fraud. He has offered no evidence to support his claim. “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary — but also at many polling places — SAD,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Mr. Trump made the incendiary assertion hours after his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, tried to play down Mr. Trump’s questioning of the fairness of the election. Mr. Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he and Mr. Trump “will absolutely accept the result of the election.”

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 10-16 2016

flood_260Officials are more concerned by the discovery in recent weeks that hackers, including ones believed to be working for the Russian government, are trying to access voter registration files, perhaps to alter or delete them, in more than 20 states. Signal Magazine published a four part series on election cybersecurity focusing in turn on: voting lists, voting equipment, voter databases, and efforts to secure elections. MIT Technology Review considered ways in which the November election maybe the most secure yet, in spite of concerns about cyber-hacking. In separate legal actions, an appeals court panel refused to block a new Arizona law prohibiting get-out-the-vote groups from collecting early ballots and a U.S. District Court judge declined to order the state to count votes cast in the wrong precinct. A federal judge issued a scathing rebuke to Florida’s top election official in an order cancelling a hearing on a lawsuit over vote-by-mail ballots. Democratic legal teams successfully extended voter registration deadlines in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. A progressive advocacy group is launching an advertising campaign accusing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who also is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, of allowing voter suppression after state police raided the offices of a voter registration program aimed at signing up African Americans. A federal judge ordered Wisconsin to provide more information to the public about how they could easily get voting credentials even if they don’t have birth certificates, but declined to suspend the voter ID law. In Bosnia, as a vote recount for the disputed mayoralty of Srebrenica began in Sarajevo, the Bosniak-led Party of Democratic Action, SDA called for a complete annulment of the local polls and voters go to the polls today in Montenegro in what analysts view as a choice between Russia and the West.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 3-9 2016

absentee_260The US government has formally accused Russia of hacking the Democratic party’s computer networks and said that Moscow was attempting to “interfere” with the US presidential election. PCWorld asked several computer security experts and voting advocates to propose steps that could improve the security of American elections. Stanford computer science professor David Dill discussed security concerns presented by internet voting with KQED Radio. Democrats filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Florida Secretary of State to stop the practice of election officials tossing vote by mail ballots if the signature on the ballot envelope does not match the one on file. Indiana State Police said on Thursday that they have expanded an investigation of possible voter registration fraud to 57 of the state’s 92 counties. A new online ballot system and marking tool could weaken Maryland’s voting security and make it the most vulnerable state in the nation, according to some cybersecurity experts. A federal judge on Friday found partially in favor of two Native American tribes in their lawsuit against the Secretary of State’s Office and two Nevada counties in a voter disenfranchisement case. Voting rights advocates are concerned about the impact the elimination of straight party voting will have on November’s election. Thousands of mailed absentee ballots in Wisconsin could be thrown out because witnesses for the voters did not provide their full addresses. Colombians narrowly rejected a peace deal with Marxist guerrillas in a referendum on Sunday, plunging the nation into uncertainty and dashing President Juan Manuel Santos’ painstakingly negotiated plan to end the 52-year war. Suffering from the impact of Hurricane Matthew, Haiti has postponed Presidential elections for the fourth time and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s referendum against EU refugee quotas suffered a stinging domestic rebuke drawing just 40 percent of eligible voters, rendering the plebiscite invalid.

National: Voter ID laws could prevent 34,000 trans people from voting | Metro Weekly

A new study has found that over 34,000 transgender people may be prevented from voting in the upcoming election due to strict voter ID laws. The study, “The Potential Impact of Voter Identification Laws on Transgender Voters in the 2016 General Election,” was released by UCLA School of Law’s The Williams Institute — a think tank focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. Its author, Williams Institute Scholar Jody L. Herman, Ph.D., used data from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality to look at voter ID laws in eight states: Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. In those states, around 112,000 transgender are estimated to have transitioned and be eligible to vote, but about 30% may be prevented from doing so. The reason? A lack of identification that accurately reflects their correct gender, according to the study. Currently, thirty-four states have voter ID laws that require someone to produce an “acceptable” form of identification to poll workers in order to vote. The strictest forms of those laws require government-issued ID, which is where transgender people face a potential barrier.

New Hampshire: Federal appeals court strikes down ballot selfies ban | Union Leader

A federal appeals court on Wednesday soundly struck down New Hampshire’s ban on ballot selfies concluding it restricted innocent, political speech in the pursuit of what the judges called an “unsubstantiated and hypothetical danger” of vote-buying. A three-judge panel unanimously concluded that the state’s 2014 ban was unconstitutionally over broad. “The ballot selfie prohibition is like burning down the house to roast the pig,” wrote Judge Sandra Lynch in a 22-page decision. The state will now weigh its options, which include appealing this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said. “We’ll probably have a better idea later Thursday about how we proceed from here,” Scanlan said.

National: Lack of address an extra barrier in strict voter ID states | Street Sense

Not everyone has the financial means to replace a lost or stolen identification card. People experiencing homelessness may additionally struggle with accessing other proofs of identification and residency required to obtain a new identification card. Not having any identification can mean denied access to benefits or services and, in some states, the loss of the ability to vote. While some states and the District only require identification during voter registration, others require a photo ID at the ballot box. North Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and Virginia all require photo IDs on Election Day. Other states accept non-photographic proof of identification, such as a bank statement with a voter’s name and address. So what happens if a voter goes to the polls without an acceptable form of identification in their state?

Minnesota: State Supreme Court’s decision keeps Trump on ballots | Minneapolis Star Tribune

Donald Trump will be on Minnesota’s ballot this November, despite a DFL Party legal maneuver to try to keep him off. In a six-page decision issued Monday afternoon, the state Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed last week in which DFL leaders argued that the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, should not be listed on the ballot because Republicans had not properly selected alternate electors. The court said the DFL waited too long to lodge its objections to what it characterized as a technical error. The DFL had argued that Secretary of State Steve Simon should not have accepted the GOP’s “certificate of nomination” for Trump and Pence because Republicans had missed one required step at their party’s convention last spring — selecting 10 alternate electors for the presidential race. GOP leaders selected the electors in August, after discovering the problem, but state law requires that the selection be made at political parties’ conventions.

National: Hacking the election is nearly impossible. But that’s not Russia’s goal. | The Hill

Elections authorities and cyber security experts say a concerted effort to alter the outcome of November’s elections through a cyber attack is nearly impossible, even after hackers gained access to voter registration databases in at least two states. But some of those same experts say hackers with ties to Russia aren’t aiming to change election results; instead, their goal is to create a perception that the results are in question, and to undermine confidence in American democracy. “Russian tampering with elections is not new. It’s only new to the U.S.,” said Chris Porter, who runs strategic intelligence for the cybersecurity firm FireEye Horizons. He pointed to Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and the Philippines, where Russian-backed hackers have gained access to electoral systems in recent years.
“It’s just enough create scandal,” Porter said. “That’s sufficient for Russian aims.” Last month, officials in Arizona and Illinois discovered their voter registration systems had been hacked, a leak that put thousands of voter registration records up for sale on the black market. In January, more than 17 million voter registration records from Washington, Delaware, Rhode Island and Ohio were stolen.

National: National Association of Secretaries of State names members of election security group | FCW

After reports of possible hacks by foreign entities on U.S. voting systems and massive data theft from political party databases, the Department of Homeland Security is assembling a group of state and federal officials who will explore ways to protect the integrity of U.S. election systems. On Aug. 31, the National Association of Secretaries of State named four representatives to DHS’ Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group: Denise Merrill, Connecticut’s secretary of state and the association’s president; Connie Lawson, Indiana’s secretary of state and the association’s president-elect; and NASS Elections Committee Co-Chairs Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, and Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state. Other participants in the group include the Election Assistance Commission, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program, the official said.

Editorials: When Poll-Watching Crosses the Line | Jocelyn Benson/Politico

As we near another historic presidential election, the fog of anxiety about the election is returning on a scale we haven’t seen in decades. Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that the general election may be “rigged” nationwide. He has called on his supporters to monitor the polls on Election Day, and said that voting locations should “have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching.” Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, doubled down on Trump’s suggestions, telling a New Hampshire audience that “the integrity of ‘one person, one vote’ is at the core of democracy, and that happens one precinct at a time.” Trump and Pence are partly correct: There is great value in having elections monitored. Poll watching helps to preserve an open, transparent democratic process by ensuring that elections are administered in a manner that protects access while inviting scrutiny. Poll observers can ensure the law is followed, provide support for voters and poll workers in navigating often confusing and ever-evolving election regulations. But in nearly a decade of organizing vote-monitoring efforts around the country, I have seen firsthand how volunteer monitors—often positioned as “challengers” at the polls—can intimidate and harass even the most seasoned poll workers and voters, interfere with the process, delay voting, and potentially alter the election’s outcome.

National: America scrubs millions from the voter rolls. Is it fair? | News21

The cleansing of America’s voter registration rolls occurs every two years and has become a legal battleground between politicians who say the purges are fair and necessary, and voting rights advocates who contend that they discriminate. Voting rights groups repeatedly have challenged states’ registration purges, including those in Ohio, Georgia, Kansas and Iowa, contending that black, Latino, poor, young and homeless voters have been disproportionately purged. In Florida, Kansas, Iowa and Harris County, Texas, courts have ordered elections officials to restore thousands of voters to the registration rolls or to halt purges they found discriminatory. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act mandates that state and local elections officers keep voter registration lists accurate by removing the names of people who die, move or fail in successive elections to vote. Voters who’ve been convicted of a felony, ruled mentally incompetent or found to be noncitizens also can be removed. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported that 15 million names were scrubbed from the lists nationally in 2014.

Editorials: Can the States Save American Democracy? | Hedrick Smith/The New York Times

In this tumultuous election year, little attention has focused on the groundswell of support for political reform across grass-roots America. Beyond Bernie Sanders’s call for a political revolution, a broad array of state-level citizen movements are pressing for reforms against Citizens United, gerrymandering and campaign mega-donors to give average voters more voice, make elections more competitive, and ease gridlock in Congress. This populist backlash is in reaction to two monumental developments in 2010: the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling authorizing unlimited corporate campaign donations, and a Republican strategy to rig congressional districts. Together, they have changed the dynamics of American politics. That January, Justice John Paul Stevens warned in his dissent that Citizens United would “unleash the floodgates” of corporate money into political campaigns, and so it has. The overall funding flood this year is expected to surpass the record of $7 billion spent in 2012. Later in 2010, the Republican Party’s “Redmap” strategy won the party control of enough state governments to gerrymander congressional districts across the nation the following year. One result: In the 2014 elections, Republicans won 50.7 percent of the popular vote and reaped a 59-seat majority. Now, with Congress often gridlocked by Republicans from those safe districts, the initiative on reform has shifted to the states. Insurgency has spread beyond California and New York to unlikely Republican bastions like Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska and South Dakota.

National: Will the US elections be hacked? It’s doubtful, but machines could be ‘rigged’ | The Guardian

It’s been a topic of debate ever since hackers – presumably working for Russia – stole thousands of private emails from the Democratic National Committee and leaked them on the net. Could a nation state or other adversary hack our elections and determine the next president of the United States? The answer depends on how they try to go about it, says Avi Rubin, computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University and technical director of the university’s Information Security Institute. Election hacking is highly unlikely, he says. Attackers reaching into the ballot box from thousands of miles away won’t happen, simply because the vast majority of election machines are not connected to the internet. Some 31 states offer voting via internet, email, or fax, but nearly all only allow it as an option for military families and Americans living overseas – a very small percentage of the electorate. Only Alaska allows any voter to cast a ballot across the net, according to Verified Voting. But election rigging is a potential threat, says Rubin. That’s where adversaries attack the electronic voting machines themselves, altering the software inside the machines to favor one candidate. “There are a thousand points of vulnerability,” says Rubin. “Anyone with access to the machines at any stage could attack them.”

National: How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes | Politico

When Princeton Professor Andrew Appel decided to hack into a voting machine, he didn’t try to mimic the Russian attackers who hacked into the DNC’s database last month. He didn’t write malicious code, or linger near a polling place where the machines can go unguarded for days. Instead, he bought one online. With a few cursory clicks of a mouse, Appel parted with $82 and became the owner of an ungainly metallic giant called the Sequoia AVC Advantage, one of the oldest and vulnerable, electronic voting machines in the United States (among other places it’s deployed in Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania). No sooner did a team of bewildered deliverymen roll the 250-pound device into a conference room near Appel’s cramped, third-floor office than the professor set to work. He summoned a graduate student named Alex Halderman, who could pick the machine’s lock in seven seconds. Clutching a screwdriver, he deftly wedged out the four ROM chips—they weren’t soldered into the circuit board, as sense might dictate—making it simple to replace them with one of his own: A version of modified firmware that could throw off the machine’s results, subtly altering the tally of votes, never to betray a hint to the voter. The attack was concluded in minutes. To mark the achievement, his student snapped a photo of Appel—oblong features, messy black locks and a salt-and-pepper beard—grinning for the camera, fists still on the circuit board, as if to look directly into the eyes of the American taxpayer: Don’t look at me—you’re the one who paid for this thing. Appel’s mischief might be called an occupational asset: He is part of a diligent corps of so-called cyber-academics—professors who have spent the last decade serving their country by relentlessly hacking it. Electronic voting machines—particularly a design called Direct Recording Electronic, or DRE’s—took off in 2002, in the wake of Bush v. Gore. For the ensuing 15 years, Appel and his colleagues have deployed every manner of stunt to convince the public that the system is pervasively unsecure and vulnerable.

Tennessee: Democrats call for changes to voter ID law | The Tennessean

Seizing on recent federal court decisions that have struck down voter identification laws in several southern states, Tennessee Democrats on Tuesday called for their Republican counterparts to make changes to state and federal laws. Citing decisions by federal judges in North Dakota, North Carolina and Texas, which have similar voter identification laws as Tennessee, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee, quoted Abraham Lincoln. “He said that government is of the people, by the people and for the people. The people cannot express their wishes unless they vote,” Cooper said, explaining that, in the aftermath of a 2007 Supreme Court decision in Indiana, several state legislatures, including ones in the South, successfully passed laws to “not only ID voters but to suppress the vote.”

Texas: Fixing Voter ID Law Ruled to Be Discriminatory Will Be Tricky Task | The New York Times

Ever since Texas’ strict voter identification law was passed in 2011, Democratic lawmakers and minority groups had focused on how to get it struck down. This week, after a federal appeals court ruled that the law discriminated against minorities, there is a new, equally vexing question: how to fix it. The appellate court’s decision kept the law in place but instructed a lower court judge to come up with procedures to minimize the law’s effect on those who do not have an approved form of government-issued photo ID or who face hurdles in easily obtaining one, many of whom are black or Hispanic. North Carolina, South Carolina and other states that have passed voter ID requirements have had similar court battles over how, and whether, to loosen their rules to accommodate poor and minority voters. One option is allowing voter-registration cards to be used as ID. Those cards are mailed to voters and do not have a photograph, and might be more readily available to an impoverished voter than a government-issued photo ID. Another option is expanding the list of acceptable IDs to include student IDs or government-employee IDs. And yet another possible solution involves having the state exempt the poor from having to show a photo ID to vote, an exception modeled on Indiana’s voter ID law.

Editorials: Political Reality Smacks Down Texas’ Voter ID Law | Noah Feldman/Bloomberg View

In time for the presidential election, an appeals court has determined that Texas’ voter identification law is discriminatory. Those without a government-issued photo ID will therefore have their votes counted on the basis of other evidence of residency. If Texas turns out to be in play in November, the result could have a small but meaningful effect in Hillary Clinton’s favor. More important, the decision has great symbolic significance in an election in which Donald Trump has focused on illegal immigration. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a voter ID law in Indiana as a permissible way to avoid voter fraud. The different result in Texas — a state with distinctly different demographics — highlights how much things have changed in the last eight years. A federal district court had previously found that the Texas law, S.B. 14, violated both the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld part of the decision. Texas then asked the entire court to sit and reconsider the result. In the meantime, the 5th Circuit issued a stay that kept the law in place. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the lower court decision and block the law. In an unusual move, the justices told the 5th Circuit that if it didn’t decide the case by July 20, 2016, the court would be willing to consider a motion to block the law. The Fifth Circuit got the message — and issued its carefully crafted opinion on July 20.

National: Trump foes try to create a ballot spot for a challenger-to-be-named | USA Today

The so-called #NeverTrump movement has not come up with a candidate to stop Donald Trump’s run for the White House, but a new group is trying to make sure that if they do, that candidate will have a place on ballots nationwide. John Kingston, a longtime Republican donor and ally of Mitt Romney, has put up seed money for a new group called Better for America to get a spot on ballots for a presidential candidate to be named later. “You have this moment this year that if you keep the option open, I believe there will be a time when the right American steps forward and says ‘this is country in crisis,’” Kingston told USA TODAY. “I’m basically keeping the option open for these folks.” The group, which launched in mid-June, has begun petitioning for ballot access using Better for America as a party name, planning to add a candidate name later. “You can get on a lot of state ballots with a party line, not a candidate line,” Kingston said.

Editorials: Get Ready: The Next ‘Citizens United’ Is Coming | Carrie Levine/ Politico

Most Americans last heard from conservative lawyer Jim Bopp six years ago when he crafted a case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that won the Supreme Court’s favor and helped uncork a torrent of cash—some of it secret—that continues pouring into elections. But Bopp is back. The Terre Haute, Indiana-based attorney, who was literally laughed at by a judge when he made his first arguments in Citizens United, is now the lead lawyer in the most prominent of a series of lawsuits attempting to further destroy political contribution limits. The case, brought by the Republican Party of Louisiana, addresses restrictions on how state and local political parties use “soft money” contributions to influence federal elections. Bopp’s clients argue that if independent outside groups such as super PACs are permitted to raise and spend unlimited amounts of such money, there’s no reason why state political parties, acting independently of federal candidates, should be treated differently. Political parties are “disadvantaged” compared with super PACs, Bopp said in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity. “They want to compete, and they want to do this activity without the severe restrictions that they suffer under,” said Bopp.

National: Momentum builds to reduce politics in redistricting | Associated Press

They have nicknames like “the dead lizard,” ”the praying mantis” and “the upside-down elephant.” The odd-shaped legislative districts that dot many states are no coincidence. The jagged lines often have been carefully drawn by state lawmakers to benefit particular incumbents or political parties. The tactic, known as gerrymandering, is nearly as old as the country itself. It’s also a maneuver that can result in an underrepresentation of minorities in some legislatures. Across the U.S., minorities now comprise nearly two-fifths of the population, yet hold less than one-fifth of all legislative seats, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Congress and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Federal guidelines require that legislative districts are similar in population and not drawn to deny minorities a chance to elect the candidate of their choice. But racial gerrymandering can occur in a couple of ways: when minority communities are divided among multiple districts, thus diluting their voting strength; or when minorities are heavily packed into a single district, thus diminishing their likelihood of winning multiple seats.

National: Can redistricting reform close the minority gap in capitols? | Salon

They have nicknames like “the dead lizard,” ”the praying mantis” and “the upside-down elephant.” The odd-shaped legislative districts that dot many states are no coincidence. The jagged lines often have been carefully drawn by state lawmakers to benefit particular incumbents or political parties. The tactic, known as gerrymandering, is nearly as old as the country itself. It’s also a maneuver that can result in an underrepresentation of minorities in some legislatures. Across the U.S, minorities now comprise nearly two-fifths of the population, yet hold less than one-fifth of all legislative seats, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Congress and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Federal guidelines require that legislative districts are similar in population and not drawn to deny minorities a chance to elect the candidate of their choice. But racial gerrymandering can occur in a couple of ways: when minority communities are divided among multiple districts, thus diluting their voting strength; or when minorities are heavily packed into a single district, thus diminishing their likelihood of winning multiple seats.

Montana: Officials Seek To Delay Implementation Of Campaign Finance Ruling | MTPR

Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices is asking a federal court to put on hold a ruling that would allow political parties to donate unlimited amounts of money to campaigns. On Tuesday, a Montana District Court judge struck down limits on contributions to candidates. The judge said the limits were unconstitutional. When that happened, Montana’s old contribution limit laws went into effect, except for the laws capping how much a political party can give. Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl says he spoke with the Attorney General’s office and they will ask the judge for a stay. That would restore the current limits on political party contributions for 2016.

National: Stevens says Supreme Court decision on voter ID was correct, but maybe not right | The Washington Post

In the rapid expansion of states with voter-identification laws and the backlash of litigation that always follows, there is one constant from proponents: that the Supreme Court already has declared them constitutional. The court ruled in 2008 that Indiana’s requirement for a photo ID was legal, with none other than liberal justice John Paul Stevens writing what was described as the “lead opinion” in a fractured 6-to-3 ruling. But in the years since, Stevens — who retired from the court in 2010 — has never seemed comfortable with his role in the case. And he recently expressed doubts again about whether he had all the information he needed in reaching what he called a “fairly unfortunate decision.”

National: Courts may play pivotal role on voting rights in 2016 election | USA Today

The Supreme Court decided a presidential election 16 years ago based on how votes were counted. This year, a shorthanded court seeking to avoid the limelight may help decide who can vote in the first place. Petitions challenging restrictions on voting in key states could reach the high court before Election Day, putting the justices exactly where they don’t want to be — at the fulcrum of American politics in what promises to be a wild race for the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts’ court has itself to thank for some of the laws enacted after the justices struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Those laws impose new rules for registering and voting that could limit access to the polls for minorities and young people in particular — the coalition that propelled Barack Obama to the White House in 2008 and 2012.

New Mexico: Hundreds of newly eligible 17-year-olds register for voting | The Santa Fe New Mexican

The state’s first bloc of 17-year-olds who are qualified to vote numbers 1,267. They can cast ballots in the June 7 primary elections, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office said this week. A new state law allows 17-year-olds to register and vote in the June primaries if they will turn 18 before the general election on Nov. 8. State legislators approved the measure this year and Gov. Susana Martinez signed it. Of the New Mexico 17-year-olds who registered to vote in the primaries, 874 are Democrats and 393 are Republicans. Another 316 17-year-olds also registered, but they cannot cast a ballot in a primary because they did not align themselves with either major political party. New Mexico’s primaries are open only to those voters registered as Democrats or Republicans.

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.

National: Future of online voting | WLFI

As voting wrapped up Tuesday on one of the most significant primaries in Indiana history, some people walked away after standing in line for a few minutes but other places had long delays. That in turn, had some people asking: why online voting isn’t an option? … Eugene Spafford is a computer science professor at…

Texas: Fifteen GOP states back Texas voter ID law in legal brief | San Antonio Express-News

Fifteen Republican-controlled states are wading into the contentious court fight over Texas’ voter ID law, arguing in a legal brief that similar laws around the country have already been upheld by the courts. A three-judge panel at the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Texas’ law requiring voters to show picture identification at the polls violated parts of the federal Voting Rights Act. However, the court’s full bench has agreed to reconsider the case at a May 24 hearing. Ahead of oral arguments next month, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is leading a coalition of GOP states supporting Texas’ controversial measure. In a recent court filing with, Zoeller’s office argues that a ruling against Texas’ measure could create “uncertainty for States attempting to enforce or enact voter ID laws.” “This, in turn, would leave State voter ID laws in a constant state of flux,” Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher writes in an amicus brief.