National: Senators: Some mail-in voter registration deadlines defy law | Associated Press

Two Democratic senators say nine states are violating federal law with their mail-in voter registration deadlines for the November election, potentially disenfranchising thousands of people by blocking applications as many as three days earlier than other states. U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to intervene and work with election officials in those states to ensure compliance with the National Voting Rights Act. The states cited in their letter Thursday are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. “The right to vote is too precious to have something so simple to fix potentially prevent so many Americans from participating in the upcoming Election,” the senators wrote. The calendar appears to be the culprit. The deadline for registering by mail under federal law — 30 days before the election — falls on a Sunday this year. The next day happens to be Columbus Day, when there will be no postal service, preventing registrations from being postmarked. All other states have adjusted their deadlines to account for the long holiday weekend, accepting registration applications postmarked by Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Ohio: A million Ohio voters didn’t get absentee ballot mailing | The Columbus Dispatch

The news release said, “Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today announced his office will begin mailing absentee ballot applications to voters statewide this weekend.” What it didn’t say was that more than a million of Ohio’s 7.7 million registered voters wouldn’t get the mailing, because Husted’s office had pared the list beforehand. The 1,035,795 voters left out fall into two categories:

• 650,730 who have changed their address. This includes 568,456 who moved within Ohio; they were sent cards asking them to update their address. The 82,274 who moved out of state were mailed information on how to cancel their Ohio registration.

• 385,065 who did not vote in either the 2012 or 2014 elections and have not responded to queries about their address from their county board of elections.

“We’re working extremely hard to encourage participation this November and to help people make sure they have the information they need to cast a ballot with ease,” said Husted spokesman Joshua Eck.

Ohio: Judges’ decision upholding Ohio absentee-ballot rules is appealed | The Columbus Dispatch

The battle over voting rights in Ohio rages on with a new federal appeal challenging state laws enacted by the GOP-dominated legislature in 2014 and signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich. A group that includes the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Ohio Democratic Party wants the full 15-judge 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider a decision earlier this by month by a three-judge panel of the appellate court. The case “involves a question of exceptional importance that will impact the upcoming presidential election,” the group told the appeals court. The panel’s ruling also conflicts with other court rulings, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore that settled the 2000 presidential election. The three-judge panel that largely left the GOP laws intact divided along party and racial lines, with two whites appointed by Republican presidents in the majority and a black picked by a Democrat issuing a withering dissent.

Arizona: Judge rejects hold on Arizona ‘ballot harvesting’ law | The Arizona Republic

Democrats are taking their fight to block a controversial voting law to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after a federal judge Friday denied their request for an injunction. U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Rayes rejected a request from state and national Democrats to suspend Arizona’s law that bans ballot collection. He found the Democrats did not demonstrate that the new law would hurt minority voters more so than others, and said it would have a minimal effect, if any, on broader voting rights. That means that in the Nov. 8 election, as it was in the Aug. 30 primary, people who attempt to take another person’s mail-in ballot to elections officials will be subject to penalties.

Colorado: Secretary of State investigates votes cast with names of dead people | The Coloradoan

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams is investigating reports that votes have been cast for people months or years after their deaths. A review of databases by KCNC-TV of voting histories in Colorado compared with federal death records turned up dozens of discrepancies. The discrepancies involve mail ballot votes that were cast and possible errors by election judges. Williams says Colorado’s election system is not perfect and there are gaps that allow situations like this to occur. “We do believe there were several instances of potential vote fraud that occurred,” Williams said.

Texas: Controversial voter ID law can’t stop mail-in ballot fraud | The Washington Post/News21

Until the day she was arrested, 53-year-old Vicenta Verino spent years canvassing poor, elderly and mostly Latino neighborhoods, harvesting mail-in ballots for candidates who paid her to bring in votes. Her crime: unlawful assistance of a voter, an offense that would not have been prevented by the state’s voter ID law. Texas officials claim that the law is needed to prevent fraud, but only 15 cases have been prosecuted by the Texas attorney general’s office between the 2012 primary election and July of this year, according to a News21 review of more than 360 allegations the office received in that time. Eleven of those 15 are cases are similar to Verino’s, in which “politiqueras” — people hired by local candidates in predominantly Latino communities — collect and mail ballots for mostly elderly local voters. Texas election laws restrict who can have assistance while voting by mail and require a signature on the ballot from the person who assisted the voter. “We used to work street by street seeing people, talking about the candidates, and those times, it kind of used to help the people,” Verino said, now two years after her arrest for voter fraud.

Montana: Officials say ballot delay could harm election | Associated Press

Some Montana residents may not be able to vote in the November election if the state Supreme Court grants Republican Party chairman Jeff Essmann’s petition to delay the printing of ballots to remove a Libertarian candidate’s name, state officials said Monday. Changing the ballots now to remove Roger Roots’ name from the ballot could cause counties to miss the deadline to mail ballots to Montana residents currently outside of the United States, said Jorge Quintana, the lawyer for Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, in his response filed with the Supreme Court. It would also require changing the handicapped-accessible electronic voting system and the vote tabulating equipment for the more than 700 ballots statewide, said Lisa Kimmet, McCulloch’s elections deputy. And ballots would have to be reprinted because the candidates’ names in each race are rotated on different ballots so that each name appears at the top of the list an equal number of times.

Arizona: Ballot ruling to come Friday in Arizona’s 5th District race | Associated Press

A judge will decide Friday whether to allow hundreds of contested ballots to count in the hotly contested Republican primary in a Phoenix-area congressional district. Unofficial results from the Aug. 30 primary for the 5th Congressional District had state Senate President Andy Biggs leading former internet executive Christine Jones by nine votes out of some 85,500 votes cast in the four-way race. Jones’ campaign contends Maricopa County should have counted votes from at least 300 eligible voters who cast ballots that weren’t counted for various reasons. A lawyer for Biggs argued that Jones was creating chaos and disruption in an attempt to win the election.

Arizona: Republicans train poll workers to document ‘ballot harvesting’ | Arizona Daily Star

The state Republican Party is training volunteers to look for and document illegal “ballot harvesting” after county election officials said they won’t enforce the new law. Party Chairman Robert Graham said the volunteers, who already are designated as poll watchers, will be the eyes and ears of the GOP to look for those who show up with multiple ballots. And he said they will be given a checklist — still being developed — of what to document. Graham acknowledged that other state laws limit what party-designated observers can actually do inside the polling places. Talking to voters is forbidden, as is photography. But Graham said they’re still free to follow voters out into the parking lot, ask them questions, take their pictures and photograph their vehicles and license plate. That information, he said, might give police and prosecutors the information they need to bring charges.

Missouri: St. Louis Election Board asks local prosecutor and U.S. attorney to review allegations of voter fraud | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Election Board of Commissioners has referred allegations of voter fraud in the race for the 78th District state representative to the city’s top prosecutor and the U.S. attorney’s office. “The written complaint received this morning contained the serious allegation that evidence exists of illegal activity regarding the absentee ballot process,” the commissioners wrote in a news release Wednesday afternoon, in explaining its action. The action was taken after a large group of residents walked into the downtown Election Board offices Wednesday morning, asking to talk with Democratic Director Mary Wheeler-Jones. Each person had in hand a signed form letter, alleging that absentee ballots cast in the Aug. 2 primary race between newcomer Bruce Franks and incumbent Penny Hubbard were “obtained illegally, were tampered with, or both.”

Arizona: Democrats ask federal judge to block ballot collection law | Albuquerque Journal

Lawyers representing state and national Democratic groups opposed to a new Arizona law outlawing collection of early ballots by get-out-the-vote groups urged a federal judge Wednesday to block it from going into effect. U.S. District Court Judge Douglas L. Rayes heard nearly two hours of arguments Wednesday for and against the Democrats’ request for an injunction blocking the law from taking effect. He said he’ll rule later on the request. The law makes it a felony to return someone else’s ballot to election officials in most cases. Republicans pushed House Bill 2023 through the Legislature earlier this year, arguing that so-called “ballot harvesting” can lead to election fraud. Gov. Doug Ducey signed it into law in early March, saying it will ensure a chain of custody between the voter and the ballot box. “We join 18 other states in this common sense approach to maintaining the integrity of our elections,” Ducey said in a statement.

Arizona: Pima elections director on ‘ballot harvesting’: ‘We’re not police’ | Arizona Daily Star

The top election officials in Pima and Maricopa counties say they will not enforce a new state law that makes “ballot harvesting” a crime. “We’re not police,” said Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson. “People bring early ballots to us, we’re going to process them like we always have,” said Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell. And that means whether someone brings in their own ballot — or a basket full of them. Potentially more significant, both Nelson and Purcell said they will not take down the names of those who show up with multiple ballots. The law that takes effect Saturday makes it a felony, punishable by a year in state prison, to knowingly collect blank or filled-out early ballots from another person. Rebecca Wilder, spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, said the only way for her office to bring charges against someone for violating the law is if there is first a report to prosecutors from a law enforcement agency. If election officials do not take names, there is nothing to provide to police and, therefore, nothing to report to prosecutors.

California: It only took a month to count California’s votes. Here’s why, and why it may get better | Los Angeles Times

Well, that’s a relief. For the last four weeks, Californians have ceased to be those goofy people on the left coast. For the last four weeks, we have been the people who can’t count. And now the votes from the June 7 primary, more than 8.5 million of them, have been counted; they are due to be certified by Secretary of State Alex Padilla on Friday. The lingering question isn’t who won the presidential primaries or the Senate race; the margins in those races, and most other regional and local contests across the state, were big enough that the winners have been known almost since primary day. No, this was the question: What took you so long? The answer: It’s complicated. More than voters know. But it may be about to get faster. For voters, the most time-intensive part of balloting is deciding which candidate to like. The act of filling in the answers at a polling place or mailing it in from home doesn’t take long. But this year, several factors combined to give elections officials a giant counting headache.

United Kingdom: British expats considering lawsuit over missing postal votes after hundreds denied say in EU referendum | The Independent

The Electoral Commission has said it “appreciates the frustration” of hundreds or possibly thousands of expats who were unable to have their say on the UK’s membership of the European Union because of missing postal votes. Infuriated voters have reported more than 500 cases to The Independent where they registered but did not receive their papers in time for the historic referendum. Those affected live in dozens of countries across the globe, including Thailand, Australia, the US and across the channel in France. Some voters, many of whom said they backed Remain, have called for a re-run of the referendum over the “farce”. One man is investigating the possibility of a class action lawsuit with a London solicitors’ firm over the “denial of a fundamental right”.

National: Early voting reduces voter turnout, mailing ballots boosts | Washington Times

Allowing voters to show up and cast ballots ahead of Election Day appears to actually reduce participation, but letting them vote by mail or to show up and register on Election Day boosts turnout, the government’s chief research agency said in a new report last week. The surprising findings by the Government Accountability Office contradict the conventional wisdom in a number of states, which are moving to expand so-called early voting, believing it makes it easier for those who are busy on Election Day to take part in the political process anyway. But the findings confirm the experiments of states such as Colorado, where voting by mail has become the standard. Still, the changes affect only the margins, and the main factors in predicting voter turnout are voters’ demographics and whether an election is seen as interesting, GAO analysts said.

California: Stanislaus County supervisor expects CEO’s office will look into ballot blunder | The Modesto Bee

Ron Hurst of Modesto was as confused as other voters who participated in the June 7 primary election. Arriving at his polling place, Hurst was told by an election worker that he was an inactive voter and had to vote with a provisional ballot, which would not be counted with the election day returns. An inactive voter? Hurst, 29, said he has voted in every election since turning 18, and certainly voted for himself when he ran for a Modesto City Council seat last November. “I am disturbed by how much was wrong with this year’s election,” Hurst said. “I know some people who were registered as Democrats and were sent the Republican primary forms.” Plenty of voters from across California were confused by the primary election. The nonpartisan Election Protection voter hotline, a nationwide service, received more than 1,300 calls from voters June 7, with the complaints ranging from polls that opened late to failed voting equipment, issues with mail ballots and election workers providing inaccurate information. More than half the complaints were from California.

Louisiana: State increases private and independent voting options for voters with disabilities | American Press

People with disabilities will now find it easier to vote. On Thursday, Governor John Bel Edwards signed HB 614 into law. This legislation, authored by Rep. Helena Moreno, D-New Orleans, will provide voters with disabilities the opportunity to vote privately and independently via absentee ballot for the first time. “I was honored to author this necessary legislation so that individuals with disabilities will finally gain the independence of filling out their own ballots. This not only enhances voting rights, but also helps reduce fraud,” said Moreno said in a news release. With the signing of this legislation, Louisiana will become one of the first states in the country to make its absentee ballot by mail process accessible to people with disabilities.

Ohio: Federal judge finds Ohio laws on absentee and provisional ballots violate U.S. Constitution | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out provisions in Ohio’s law that had voided absentee and provisional ballots for technical flaws made by otherwise qualified voters. In a lawsuit filed by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless and the Ohio Democratic Party, U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley ruled that the laws violated provisions of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that require citizens receive equal protection under the law. Marbley also ruled that the state’s attempt to shorten a period from 10 to 7 days during which voters could fix those technical flaws was also unconstitutional, as was a provision that forbid poll workers from helping to fill out the ballot forms unless the voter declared he or she was either illiterate or disabled. Witnesses in a voting rights case in federal court said this week that in 2014 some legitimate ballots were rejected, while in other cases flaw ballots were counted. The case involves a lawsuit by advocates for the homeless and Ohio Democrats who are challenging the constitutionality of some Ohio election laws.

Austria: Freedom Party Alleges Violations in Presidential Election | Wall Street Journal

Austria’s right-wing, populist Freedom Party on Wednesday challenged the result of the presidential election it narrowly lost last month, injecting fresh uncertainty into a country already in political turmoil amid Europe’s migrant crisis. The party alleged “catastrophic” violations of election law centering on what it said was the improper processing of mail-in ballots in the May 22 vote. “We have always said that we will not challenge the election for the sake of challenging the election,” party chairman Heinz-Christian Strache said. “But the disaster around how the vote was counted cannot be accepted without comment.” The mail-in ballots are a key point of contention in part because a big margin of victory there helped independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, who was supported by the left-of-center Greens, beat out the Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer in the runoff.

United Kingdom: Thousands of EU referendum postal votes feared lost in Germany | The Guardian

Thousands of British citizens fear their votes in the EU referendum could have got lost in the post after Germany’s postal service said its workers were confused by the format of pre-paid envelopes sent out to Britons living abroad. A spokesperson for Germany’s postal service, Deutsche Post, said that while the pre-paid envelopes were valid under the Internal Business Reply Service (IBRS) scheme, many of its employees had rejected the envelopes and told voters to pay postage instead. More than 100,000 British citizens are registered as living in Germany. The confusion has arisen partly because the European Union has so far failed to regulate the size of standard letters across the continent.

Hawaii: Voting reforms mulled | Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Two bills aimed at making it easier to vote will head into conference committee today at the state Legislature. The legislation would allow residents to automatically register to vote when applying or renewing a driver’s license and would start a vote-by-mail program. The House and Senate each passed versions of the bills. Lawmakers will be tasked with working out the differences. The registration measure, House Bill 401, would give residents the option of registering to vote or updating their voter information while taking care of their license. Rep. Nicole Lowen, D-Kona, is a co-sponsor. HB 1653 in its latest form would require the state Office of Elections to start a vote-by-mail program incrementally. Mail ballots currently are limited to absentee voters.

Ohio: Absentee ballot fix could impact general election after missing Summit County in the primary | Akron Beacon Journal

Instead of automatically tossing out more than 1,000 absentee ballots in March, innovation and a last-minute directive from state officials allowed Cleveland poll workers to count dozens of votes. After a spike last fall in absentee ballots lacking postmarks, state and county election officials began exploring ways to reduce the number of mail-in ballots that arrive after the election without proof that they were mailed out on time. Ballots that arrive within 10 days of an election may be counted if mailed before the election. The issue, locally, was big. Nearly 900 late ballots in Summit County lacked the sufficient postmark to determine the time of mailing. All were discounted, automatically. Cuyahoga County, which also saw a surge in troublesome ballots, took the lead in researching an alternative solution.

Florida: Voters’ mistakes mean some won’t have their vote-by-mail ballots counted | Sun Sentinel

Florida voters who cast their ballots by mail are making mistakes — which may mean their choices in the March 15 presidential primary won’t count. The numbers are small. Of the 580,000 Florida ballots processed as of Friday, about 8,000 weren’t accepted. Polls currently show blowouts in the Democratic and Republican primaries, but if the contests tighten, those uncounted votes could be significant. Statewide, about 99 percent of mail ballots returned as of Friday have been accepted, said Daniel Smith, the University of Florida political scientist who crunched the numbers.

Voting Blogs: The Will of the People: Michigan’s Ballot Initiative to Allow By-Mail Voting | State of Elections

Alexander Hamilton once said, “A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law.” In Michigan, the citizens have incredible power to voice their opinion and influence the sovereignty of their state. Through initiative, Michiganders may propose either a constitutional amendment, which does not require state legislative approval before being placed on the ballot, or state statutes, which must first be submitted to the state legislature for approval before being placed on the ballot. In order to participate in the initiative process, Michigan does not even require that the petitioner register with the state, but rather only requires that the petitioner report campaign contributions in excess of $500. However, petitioners may submit their proposal to the Bureau of Elections in order to greatly reduce the chance that formatting errors will prevent the proposal from being accepted.

Florida: Some absentee voters ask for re-dos on ballots after Bush drops out | WFTV

Although former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has dropped out from the presidential race, his name remains on Florida’s primary ballot. Tens of thousands of absentee ballots have been casted already in Florida, some with Bush’s name on them. Supervisors of elections have received calls from voters, asking if they can recast their vote now that Bush has suspended his campaign. “Every single year, we get these calls, and every single year, it’s no surprise,” Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel said. Ertel said the answer is always the same: No.

Editorials: Making validly cast absentee ballots count in Ohio | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A recent directive to Ohio’s county boards of elections by Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio’s chief election officer, should reduce the possibility that mailed-in absentee ballots might not get counted because of confusion or questions over postmarks. During the 2015 general election, an unusually large number of absentee ballots were not counted in Summit County and other counties because they lacked a postmark. Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections must count absentee ballots returned by mail for up to ten days after Election Day. But such ballots must have been postmarked no later than the day before Election Day. Trouble is, the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t necessarily postmark envelopes much larger than a No. 10, or “letter size,” envelope. And some elections boards use bigger courtesy-reply envelopes. Meanwhile, it’s been unclear whether barcodes the post office adds during mail-sorting or Postage Validated Imprint (PVI) postage — imprinted, label-like postage, sold at post office counters and kiosks — are postmarks. PVI postage and barcodes include dates (although a scanner is needed to read barcodes).

Ohio: Cuyahoga County elections officials find 250 ballots should have counted as plan to fix broken voting system stalls | Akron Beacon Journal

Elections officials in Cuyahoga County have discovered that 250 invalidated votes should have counted in Ohio’s last statewide election. But the discovery, which other counties can duplicate for about $500, will not change how Ohio runs the upcoming presidential election without action from state leaders. In a post-election analysis, Sean Webster of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reviewed roughly 1,500 absentee ballots that arrived after the polls closed on Nov. 2. About 900 lacked postmarks, which would clearly state when the ballots were mailed. Another 563 were postmarked too late. All were tossed out. Statewide, about half of 7,244 late-arriving ballots lacked postmarks. “Proportionally,” Webster said of the same issue in Summit County, “we had significantly fewer ballots that needed thrown out. And we think that’s because we use a smaller envelope.”

Ohio: Husted says he’s intent on finding fix to absentee-ballot postmark issues | The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said he isn’t sure the U.S. Postal Service has a solution to the postmark issues that plagued absentee ballots during last year’s general election. Speaking at the Ohio Association of Election Officials Convention at the Hilton Downtown Columbus on Wednesday, he said it was partially up to election workers to figure out a solution to the problem. “We don’t need to look at blame. We need to look at a way forward,” Husted said. Ohio voter law allows absentee ballots to be counted if their postmark date falls before Election Day, even if the ballots don’t arrive until after. In November, 1,523 ballots were not counted because the U.S. Post Office did not postmark them. “My priority is to ensure voters who follow the law that their votes will be counted,” said Husted, a Republican.

Ohio: Elections experiment in Norton could strengthen voting process for all | Akron Beacon Journal

While there’s still no solution for what happened in November, when 861 voters were silenced after the post office failed to postmark absentee ballots, county elections officials are looking to a relatively tiny race in Norton to ensure they play no part in future screw-ups.
Summit County Board of Elections officials have devised a plan to determine, as quickly as possible, if votes are misplaced between the poll workers who collect them and the staff who count them. The plan, to be tested in Norton on Tuesday, involves comparing the number of ballots sent to each polling location with the number that return as either voted, voided or set aside as provisional ballots, which are counted after workers check voter eligibility.

Michigan: Detroit city clerk, voting rights advocates come out against “unnecessary” elections bills | Michigan Radio

Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey and voting rights advocates are denouncing a pair of election bills in the Michigan Legislature right now. One is a state Senate bill that would restrict absentee voting hours, and ban absentee voting at satellite office locations. Winfrey says Detroit is one of just a few Michigan cities to use satellite voting, and it’s been “very successful” there. “So when you begin to impede that process, when you want to eliminate that process, now you’re affecting a particular group of people,” she said. Winfrey also criticized a bill to eliminate single-party, straight-ticket voting, saying that will make for longer lines and more confusion, disproportionately affecting urban voters.