South Carolina: Lawsuit could lead to another wave of 2012 primaries in South Carolina | TheState.com

A disqualified Charleston County Council candidate has asked a judge to order a new Republican primary in his district – a request that, if it succeeds, could lead to another wave of election lawsuits across the state. Brian Moody, a Republican, was disqualified along with more than 250 other candidates after the state Supreme Court ruled they did not file their financial paperwork properly. Subsequently, candidates across the state have tried, mostly in vain, to get back on the ballot. But, last week, when a state judge disqualified Paul Thurmond from a state Senate race for similar reasons, the judge ordered the GOP to hold a new primary, giving Thurmond a way back onto the ballot. The next day, Moody filed a lawsuit asking for the same thing. “It’s probably a ‘hail Mary,’ but if you’re already going to have a primary with my good friend Mr. Thurmond, why not have one for us?” Moody said.

Kentucky: Kentucky special election for Congress leaves questions over ballots | cincinnati.com

The special election spurred by U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis’ resignation in July has left questions for election officials about how the ballots will be handled. Gov. Steve Beshear has set the special election to fill the vancancy for Geoff Davis’ Fourth Congressional District seat on the same day as the general election on Nov. 6. Some, however, fear the two elections–one for the general election and the other special election to fill out the final months of Davis’ term that expires at the end of the year–will cause confusion. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and county clerks await on a Franklin Circuit Court judge’s decision on how to proceed with absentee ballots. Grimes filed suit to move the Oct. 9 deadline for candidates to file for the special election up to Sept. 10, when the state certifies the names on the general election ballot. Grimes has said it must send out ballots 45 days prior to an election for people overseas, such as the military, to have time to fill out and send back the ballots. An Oct. 9 deadline only leaves 28 days.

National: New database of US voter fraud finds no evidence that photo ID laws are needed | News21

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent. In an exhaustive public records search, reporters from the investigative reporting projecdt News21 sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Click to search the national database of voter fraud cases compiled by News21.

Pennsylvania: State drops plans for 2 online initiatives to boost voting | Philadelphia Inquirer

On the same day a judge cleared the way for the state’s new voter identification law to take effect, the Corbett administration abandoned plans to allow voters to apply online for absentee ballots for the November election and to register online to vote. A spokesman for the Department of State said county elections officials told the agency that implementing the new online initiatives as well as voter ID requirements was too much to handle less than three months before the election. But Stephanie Singer, the top elections official in Philadelphia, said she was unaware that there was an issue with setting up a system to allow voters to register and apply for absentee ballots online, and said shifting more activity online would actually make for less paperwork.

Ohio: Election boards required to standardize early voting hours | The Columbus Dispatch

It matters not whether a county tilts Democratic or Republican, all Ohio voters will have the same opportunity to show up and cast an early ballot under a new directive Secretary of State Jon Husted issued today. Husted’s move came in response to a growing controversy over disparities in early voting hours across Ohio. In big urban counties, voters were being confined to normal business hours, but hours were being extended into the evening and Saturdays in several more-Republican counties. “There’s no question that the principle of fairness is being upheld today in Ohio, because all voters are being treated equally,” he said at a hastily called press conference this afternoon. Under his directive, county boards must be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the first three weeks, and from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the last two weeks before the Nov. 6 election. No board will have Saturday hours. “For the first time in Ohio history all Ohioans will vote by the same standard,” Husted said. “I am leveling the playing field on voting days and hours during the absentee voting period in each of the 88 counties – rural, urban and suburban.” Early voting in the 2008 presidential election had a “patchwork of hours and days of operation,” he said.

Massachusetts: Voter fraud suspected in Massachusetts House primary | Boston.com

The district attorney in Hampden County is investigating whether a ­Republican candidate for state representative orchestrated an illegal scheme to cast absentee ballots on behalf of hundreds of voters in hope of winning a primary election. State election officials were tipped off to the potential voter fraud when a suspiciously large number of residents of the Springfield suburb of East Longmeadow suddenly changed party registration from Democrat to independent, making them eligible to vote in the upcoming Republican primary. When contacted, several of the voters said they had not changed party affiliations, raising concern that someone had switched their party in an attempt to cast fraudulent absentee ballots on their behalf.

National: State Laws Vary Widely on Voting Rights for Felons | New America Media

Josh and Katy Vander Kamp met in drug rehab. In the seven years since, they have been rebuilding their lives in Apache Junction, Ariz., a small town east of Phoenix. He’s a landscaper; she’s studying for a master’s degree in addictions counseling. They have two children, a dog and a house. Their lives reveal little of their past, except that Katy can vote and Josh can’t because he’s a two-time felon. She’s been arrested three times, but never convicted of a felony. By age 21, Josh was charged with two — for a drug-paraphernalia violation and possessing a burglary tool. “I didn’t do anything that he didn’t do, and he’s paying for it for the rest of his life,” Katy said. With voting laws a heated issue this election year as civil rights groups and state legislatures battle over photo ID requirements in this election year, felon disenfranchisement laws have attracted less attention despite the potential votes at stake.

National: Voter fraud found to be rare, survey indicates | KansasCity.com

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent. The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters. The News21 report is based on a national public-records search in which reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of alleged fraudulent activity — including registration fraud; absentee-ballot fraud; vote buying; false election counts; campaign fraud; the casting of ballots by ineligible voters, such as felons and non-citizens; double voting; and voter impersonation.

National: Early Voting in 2012: What to Expect | Huffington Post

Early voting in recent American elections has skyrocketed, reaching a record thirty percent of all votes cast in the 2008 presidential election, remarkably higher than the twenty percent cast in 2004. All indications are the record will be shattered again in 2012, with somewhere around thirty-five of the vote cast prior to Election Day. States vary their early voting options. Some states like Indiana and Texas allow persons to vote early at special polling locations. Some like Oregon and Washington, and some local jurisdictions, run all-mail ballot elections. Some like California and Colorado allow persons to request that they vote by mail in all future elections. Some like Ohio allow persons to request a mail ballot for any reason. Then there are a handful of holdouts like Pennsylvania and Virginia have traditional absentee balloting laws that extend early voting only to those who provide a valid excuse. Complicating definitions is that some states like Florida and North Carolina allow both early voting at special polling locations and no-fault absentee balloting. And where mail balloting is the primary method of early voting, voters can vote in-person at an election administration office. (I recommend seeking up-to-date voting information from state and local election officials.)

National: Election Day impersonation, an impetus for voter ID laws, a rarity, data show | The Washington Post

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent. The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters. The News21 report is based on a national public-records search in which reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of alleged fraudulent activity — including registration fraud; absentee-ballot fraud; vote buying; false election counts; campaign fraud; the casting of ballots by ineligible voters, such as felons and non-citizens; double voting; and voter impersonation.

National: Voter ID lawsuits could delay election results again | CNN.com

Partisan legal showdowns in battleground states over a spate of new voting laws could turn the 2012 elections into a repeat of the 2000 presidential vote recount saga, political experts say. “Whenever you change the rules by enacting new laws, it triggers a round of litigation. I don’t think we’ll see an end to this anytime soon,” said Dan Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor. “It could come down to the states counting of absentee ballots. … We could see a replay of the 2000 election, where we don’t have a winner for weeks.” This year’s fight has gotten ugly, especially in the hotly contested states of Florida and Pennsylvania, where there are high-profile fights over new voter identification laws, and Ohio, where President Barack Obama’s and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaigns are locked in a showdown over early voting. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a legal think tank at the New York University School of Law that has criticized the increase in what it sees as prohibitive voting laws, 16 states have passed measures “that have the potential to impact the 2012 election.” The endgame, political experts say, is all about parties crafting laws to help ensure that their side wins.

Ohio: Fact check: Obama not trying to curb military early voting | USAToday.com

Mitt Romney wrongly suggests the Obama campaign is trying to “undermine” the voting rights of military members through a lawsuit filed in Ohio. The suit seeks to block state legislation that limited early voting times for nonmilitary members; it doesn’t seek to impose restrictions on service members. In an Aug. 4 Facebook posting, Romney called the lawsuit an “outrage,” and said that “if I’m entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.” He painted the court filing as an attack on the ability of service men and women to vote: “The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote.” Conservative blogs and opinion pieces have also misrepresented the case, claiming in headlines that President Obama was suing to “restrict military voting.” A fundraising email appeal from a group called Special Operations Speaks — which wants to “remove Barack Obama from the White House” — wrongly says that Obama “deploys army of lawyers to suppress military’s voting rights,” claiming that “Obama needs the American military to not vote, so he has set out to make it as difficult as possible for them to do so.” But that’s not what the Obama lawsuit aims to do at all.

Ohio: Commission: Only Ohio Distinguishes Military, Civilian Early Voters | BuzzFeed

Despite claims that Democrats’ challenge to an Ohio voting law would undermine military voters’ rights everywhere, no other states offer soldiers’ the special status afforded in Ohio. A report issued Aug. 1 by the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission found that no other states have any legal provision that has one early in-person voting deadline for most voters and another for service members, as does the Ohio law being challenged by the Obama campaign and defended by Ohio Republicans and some fraternal military organizations. The report, which has not been released publicly, was obtained by BuzzFeed and has been published here for the first time. The report does note that two states — Indiana and North Carolina — have exceptions in their laws that would allow a very narrow subset of service members to vote early in-person later than other voters. The Obama campaign’s lawsuit in Ohio, in which it is joined by the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party, is about early voting. The specific laws being challenged, however, relate only to in-person early voting and not to traditional mail-in absentee voting, which clearly cuts down on the number of affected active service members. Ohio law, as it is slated to be run in this year’s presidential election, contains one end-point for early in-person voting for most voters (the Friday before the election) and another for those service members and their family voting under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).

Ohio: Military Groups’ Argument About Obama Voting Lawsuit “Extremely Misleading,” Prof Says | BuzzFeed

The Obama campaign’s lawsuit to expand early, in-person voting in Ohio for all voters back to the 2008 presidential election rules hit a snag when fraternal military groups opposed the lawsuit because of the claimed possible future impact a ruling in the case could have on military voting. At that point, the Romney campaign jumped in — and Obama advisor David Axelrod was left defending the campaign’s lawsuit to Chris Wallace on Fox News on Sunday. Captain Sam Wright, a retired members Navy Judge Advocate General Corps who heads the Reserve Officers’ Association’s Service Members Law Center, told BuzzFeed on Sunday, “It MUST be constitutional to make accommodations for military voters that are not made for voters generally.” University of Florida law professor and former Air Force officer Diane Mazur emailed in to disagree. Of the fraternal military groups opposing the Obama campaign’s lawsuit, Mazur tells BuzzFeed, “Their arguments are extremely misleading and also damaging to military professionalism.”

Voting Blogs: Should We Have VIP Lanes for Military Voters? | Diane Mazur/Election Law Blog

The Obama campaign has challenged an Ohio law that extends the early voting period for members of the military, but not for civilians.  The focus is on the three days right before Election Day.  Under the new law, service members stationed in Ohio can continue to vote in person on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before the election, but civilians can cast early votes only through Friday.  When the Obama campaign asked a federal court to open the full early voting period to all voters, Mitt Romney accused the President of trying to undermine military voting rights. Republicans said the lawsuit questioned whether it was constitutional to ever make accommodations for military voters.  This characterization is inaccurate, and silly.  There is a long history of accommodation for military and overseas citizens to vote by absentee ballot (for example, the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act), and this is a settled understanding. The Ohio law is the first, as far as I know, to grant extra voting privileges to service members voting in person, not by absentee ballot.  The Obama campaign is not arguing that service members are never entitled to accommodation based on the unpredictable circumstances of their assignments, but only that it is arbitrary to hold “military-only” voting days when all voters are physically present and able to vote in person.  If the election offices are going to be open, we should let everyone in the door.

Editorials: A Détente Before the Election – Voter Fraud and Manipulation of Election Rules | Rick Hasen/NYTimes.com

Does voter fraud sometimes happen in the United States? You bet.  But we are dealing with this relatively small problem in an irrational and partisan way. In a 1996 primary in Dodge County, Ga., rival camps for county commissioner set up tables at opposite ends of the county courthouse and bid for voters’ absentee votes in what a county magistrate later called a “flea market” atmosphere. Recently, officials in Cudahy, Calif., admitted intercepting absentee ballots and throwing out ballots not cast for incumbents. Every year we see convictions for absentee ballot fraud. Not a lot, but enough to know it’s a problem. So you might think that Republicans, newly obsessed with voter fraud, would call for eliminating absentee ballots, or at least requiring that voters who use them show some need, like a medical condition. But Republicans don’t talk much about reining in absentee ballots. Eliminating them would inconvenience some voters and would likely cut back on voting by loyal Republican voters, especially elderly and military voters. If only Republicans would apply that same logic to voter-identification laws. The only kind of fraud such ID laws prevent is impersonation: a person registered under a false name or claiming to be someone else on the voter rolls. I have not found a single election over the last few decades in which impersonation fraud had the slightest chance of changing an election outcome — unlike absentee-ballot fraud, which changes election outcomes regularly. (Let’s face it: impersonation fraud is an exceedingly dumb way to try to steal an election.)

California: Voting by mail jumps, altering campaigns | North County Times

More Californians are bypassing the polling place in favor of voting by mail, changing campaign dynamics but helping to identify the winners and losers early in the night in the first count of ballots. The growth of what is known as “convenience voters” was evident in the June 5 primary, when a whopping 65 percent of Golden State residents made their choices via mail ballot. San Diego County mirrored the statewide trend, also coming in at 65 percent. In adjoining Riverside County, more than 70 percent of voters chose the mail method. Voting by mail greatly increases the number of early voters, requiring campaigns to make sure they reach those people weeks before the official Election Day. “No longer can campaigns count on a last-minute surge through some kind of story or advertising or revelation that could change the election in the last few days,” said Jack Pitney, a widely respected political scientist at Claremont-McKenna College near Los Angeles.

Michigan: Write-in votes in Republican primary could slow counting process | Detroit Free Press

It’s going to be a long night — and day — on Tuesday and Wednesday for candidates and voters in the 11th Congressional District in suburban Wayne and Oakland counties. The emergence of a vigorous write-in campaign by former state Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, means final results will be delayed until at least Wednesday afternoon. That may also slow vote tallies for issues on ballots in those communities. Local clerks will be able to determine how many votes Kerry Bentivolio, a Milford teacher, reindeer farmer, tea party activist and the only Republican who will appear on the ballot, gets on election night. But the results for Cassis — and the other two certified write-in candidates, Drexel Morton and former state Sen. Loren Bennett, both of Canton — will show up only as write-in votes after polls close. It might be possible to call a winner if Bentivolio has a significant majority of votes. But if write-ins are close to or exceed Bentivolio’s total, it gets complicated.

Ohio: Thousands of ballots are disqualified each year in Ohio | Lancaster Eagle Gazette

Each election year, Ohio residents cast thousands of ballots that are not counted. Despite efforts to simplify the state’s voting to avoid the widespread discarding of ballots, significant questions remain about whether every Ohioan’s vote will be counted Nov. 6 — and whether the state, always pivotal in close presidential races, can assure the nation a timely, accurate and lawsuit-free count. “If the Wednesday headlines the day after the election say, ‘All eyes are on Ohio,’ it probably won’t be a good thing,” said Ed Foley, an Ohio State University law professor and a nationally respected expert on election laws.

Editorials: Repeat After Me: In-Person, In-Person, In-Person | Mother Jones

The court case against Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law is wrapping up, and supporters of the law say it’s necessary in order to reduce voter fraud. However, when you hear the words “voter fraud,” there are three things you need to keep clearly in mind: In-person, In-person, In-person. Got that? There’s only one kind of fraud that voter ID stops: in-person voter fraud. That is, the kind of fraud where someone walks into a polling place and tries to vote under someone else’s name. That’s it. There are plenty of other types of voter fraud, of course. There’s registration fraud, where you send in forms for Mary Poppins and James Bond. There’s insider fraud, where election officials report incorrect tallies. There’s absentee ballot fraud, where you fill in someone else’s absentee ballot and mail it in. But a voter ID law does nothing to stop those kinds of fraud. Even in theory, the only kind of fraud it stops is in-person voter fraud.

Minnesota: How could voter ID impact rural Minnesota elections? | Morris Sun Tribune

This November, Minnesota residents will be asked to decide whether voters should be required to present valid, government-issued photographic proof of identity prior to casting a ballot. While it is not the job of local election officials to determine whether this concept is valid, it is the responsibility of all local units of government, ranging from the smallest township to the largest county, to be properly prepared to administer elections in compliance with all applicable laws. In order to be fully prepared for the implementation of the proposed amendment, the Greater Minnesota Advisory Panel (GMAP), a voluntary association of representatives of rural townships, cities, counties, and school districts seeking to work with both the legislative and executive branches of the state government on rural concerns), believes it is important that local officials and voters understand the details and potential impact of what they are being asked to approve, and how local governments must prepare now even though the amendment has not yet been approved nor enabling legislation enacted.

Georgia: Computer communication issue caused a delay in Muscogee County GA election results | WRBL

Candidates in this year’s Primary Election were left waiting for results from 1,500 mail-in absentee ballots, well in to the early morning hours on Wednesday. Election officials blame a computer communication error for the delay. Absentee by mail ballots come from all over the county from folks who knew ahead of time they could not vote in person in the 2012 primary. To count them, they must be imported in to a computer using an optimal scan unit.  That computer is supposed to “talk” to another computer that then totals the results. When it became clear the machines weren’t communicating with each other, officials were forced to re-scan all 1,500 ballots.

Michigan: Justice Department sues Michigan for failure to send absentee ballots in time to military, overseas voters | MLive.com

The U.S. Justice Department sued the state Tuesday, seeking an order requiring that hundreds of military and overseas voters who did not receive absentee ballots on time be given more time for their votes to be counted. The lawsuit – predicted late last week by Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson – was filed in the Grand Rapids federal courthouse. Johnson had warned that 70 of more than 1,500 local clerks did not mail or email absentee ballots to military and overseas voters on time. More than 200 others did not give the state a status update on whether they had met the 45-day deadline to do so before the Aug. 7 primary election. As of Tuesday, the number of non-responders had dropped to 24. Federal attorneys also are seeking to make sure all absentee votes are counted for the Sept. 5 special primary election in the 11th Congressional District in suburban Detroit. “Americans have fought and died for the right to vote,” said Patrick Miles, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan. “We must ensure eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their vote and for it to count.”

National: Partisan Rifts Hinder Efforts to Improve U.S. Voting System | NYTimes.com

Twelve years after a too-close-to-call presidential contest imploded in a hail of Florida punch card ballots and a bitter 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling for George W. Bush, the country’s voting systems remain as deeply flawed as ever with any prospect of fixing them mired in increasing levels of partisanship. The most recent high-profile fights have been about voter identification requirements and whether they are aimed at stopping fraud or keeping minority group members and the poor from voting. But there are worse problems with voter registration, ballot design, absentee voting and electoral administration. In Ohio, the recommendations of a bipartisan commission on ways to reduce the large number of provisional ballots and long lines at polling stations in 2008 have come to naught after a Republican takeover of both houses of the legislature in 2010. In New York, a redesign of ballots that had been widely considered hard to read and understand was passed by the State Assembly this year. But a partisan dispute in the Senate on other related steps led to paralysis. And states have consistently failed to fix a wide range of electoral flaws identified by a bipartisan commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III in 2005. In Florida, for example, the commission found 140,000 voters who had also registered in four other states — some 46,000 of them in New York City alone. When 1,700 of them registered for absentee ballots in the other state, no one investigated. Some 60,000 voters were also simultaneously registered in North and South Carolina.

Voting Blogs: Better Design, Better Elections | Brennan Center for Justice

Design problems continue to have a major impact on elections. In 2008, the Brennan Center for Justice publication Better Ballots documented how design errors continued to plague elections, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of votes. The report made several policy recommendations to alleviate this chronic problem. This report continues the work of Better Ballots, detailing a few of the biggest design flaws in the elections of 2008 and 2010. Unlike Better Ballots, which only discussed Election Day ballots, this report also includes voting machine error messages, provisional and absentee ballot envelopes, and voter education materials. The quality of design of all of these materials can be the difference between counting and losing voters’ intended choices. Download the Report (PDF)

Hawaii: State taps FBI for help in voter fraud probe | Hawaii News Now

The FBI has gotten involved in an investigation into allegations of voter fraud on the Big Island, sources told Hawaii News Now Friday. The elections office in Hilo run by Hawaii County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi shut down Monday for what she called an “audit” less than three weeks before the primary election, without further explanation.  That raised concern among politicians and other elections officials in the state, especially since for the last five days, Kawauchi has not returned State Elections Officer Scott Nago’s calls to brief him on problems in her office.  About one week ago, state officials received reports about possible voter fraud on the Big Island, allegations that someone was doctoring absentee ballots, sources said.  State officials then notified FBI agents, members of the public corruption team based at the FBI’s Honolulu office, sources said.  It’s unclear whether the FBI will launch its own voter fraud investigation.

Ohio: Will Ohio count your vote? | Cincinnati.com

Each election year, Ohio residents cast thousands of ballots that are not counted. Despite efforts to simplify the state’s voting to avoid widespread discarding of ballots, it could happen again in November’s presidential race. The Enquirer, during a weeks-long examination of the state’s electoral procedures, found that voting – America’s most precious right and the foundation for all others – is a fragile civic exercise for many Ohioans. A confusing maze of state laws, administrative directives and court rulings on voting procedures, errors – by voters and poll workers alike – and other factors cause large numbers of ballots to end up in the electoral trash can every year, particularly in urban counties.

Ohio Election Summit report

National: Embattled postal service faces challenge on Election Day | NBC

In states that rely largely or entirely on vote-by-mail or absentee ballots, a pre-Nov. 6 disruption of mail delivery caused by the U.S. Postal Service’s fiscal crisis would be a fiasco for voters and election officials. With partisan battles already under way on voter eligibility across the nation over fears of voter fraud and charges of vote suppression, the last thing the upcoming election needs is another procedural snafu. Washington and Oregon voters cast their ballots entirely by mail or at local drop boxes, and in California’s June primary, nearly two out of three voters cast their ballots by mail. Even in states where voters still show up in person to vote at their local precinct, absentee voting by mail is common. In order for the election to take place, the mail must get delivered promptly – no matter how dire the Postal Service’s fiscal crisis is – and it’s dire indeed. In the second quarter of its fiscal year (January to March) the Postal Service lost $3.2 billion. Congressional postal experts will be scrutinizing its third-quarter financial statement on Aug. 9 to see if the distress has worsened. While the Senate has passed a reform bill to keep the Postal Service afloat, the House hasn’t yet acted. Urging the House to move, one of the Senate reform leaders, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said Wednesday “Only one week from now, the Postal Service will default on a $5.5 billion payment to Treasury – further eroding the confidence of the millions of customers and businesses” that rely on mail to get delivered.

Hawaii: Voter fraud investigation targets Hawaii County | Hawaii News Now

A possible voter fraud case on the Big Island is the subject of an investigation, a law enforcement source told Hawaii News Now Thursday. The probe focuses on allegations that some absentee ballots were improperly “doctored,” the source said.  A second source, a state government employee, said Hawaii County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi spent much of Thursday afternoon meeting with a lawyer at the state Attorney General’s office in Honolulu.  Further details about the allegations or about what she spent hours meeting with a deputy attorney general about were not available Thursday night.  With just 15 days to go until the primary election, Hawaii County election officials are re-sending some voter registration notices after a first batch was sent with wrong information. The state’s chief election officer, Scott Nago, is worried the mix-up could prompt candidates to challenge election outcomes and upset that county clerk has not briefed him on what’s happening since she closed her office for an audit on Monday.

Pennsylvania: New voter ID law criticized as inconsistent | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvanians who vote by absentee ballot in November will need only to provide proof on their applications that they have Social Security cards, state Rep. Dan Frankel said Monday night. All voters who show up in person on Election Day, however, must have state-approved photo identification, the Squirrel Hill Democrat said. “If the last four digits [of a Social Security number] are good enough for absentee ballots, they should be good enough for voting at the polls,” he said during a discussion of the state’s new voter ID law.