Editorials: A vote of confidence | Miami Herald

Online voting registration is an idea whose time has come. And why not? It’s favored by all 67 election supervisors in the state, most legislators and the League of Women Voters. Currently, Florida law says those registering to vote must mail or deliver a paper registration form to an elections office, or they can apply when getting a driver’s license at the Division of Motor Vehicles. After confirming eligibility to vote, the elections office then must manually transfer prospective voters’ information into its computer database — not a very nimble process. If Floridians could register online, the information could more easily and more accurately be transferred. But the idea is getting a lot of pushback from Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who also is the state’s elections chief. In the past two weeks, Mr. Detzner has testified before two state Senate committees. Each time, he offered up dire consequences for online voter registration.

Michigan: House votes to end February elections | MLive

Michigan would eliminate February elections under legislation approved Thursday by the Michigan House, limiting local and statewide elections to three dates a year. Supporters say optional February elections often feature single-issue ballot questions on school millages or bonds but are marked by low voter turnout. “This is pro-taxpayer and good government legislation,” Rep. Lisa Lyons, R-Alto, said in a statement. “…It just makes sense that questions of increased taxes or fees are posed in elections when more voters participate.”

US Virgin Islands: Senators question Elections board members, vow changes | Virgin Islands Daily News

Senators grilled Elections board members and staff Tuesday night about the 2014 primary, General and run-off elections. Senate President Neville James said at the beginning of the Committee of the Whole hearing that the purpose of the meeting was to talk about the issues that came up during the 2014 election cycle, and not to discuss election reform. He said election reform would be a topic for a future hearing. During Tuesday’s committee meeting, senators often were frustrated by the lack of a unified voice from the Elections board members. Sen. Kenneth Gittens said every time someone made a statement, some board members would be nodding in agreement and some would be shaking their heads in disagreement. “Not even a choir singing here today, everyone with their own sheet of music,” Gittens said.

Ohio: Settlement reverses some cuts to Ohio early voting | MSNBC

Voting rights advocates and Ohio’s top election official have settled a lawsuit over controversial cuts to the pivotal presidential state’s early voting period. The deal, announced Friday morning between Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, and the ACLU, undoes some but not all of the damage to voting access caused by last year’s cuts.…

Rhode Island: Bill would allow Rhode Islanders to vote early in 2016 | Providence Journal

Rhode Islanders would be able to register to vote online and vote early in person under new legislation promoted by Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea. The new legislative package, dubbed Voting and Elections Modernization Act of 2015, would, among other things, make early voting available up to 28 days prior to an election using the emergency mail-balloting process. Under the proposal, voting would be available on the weekend before Election Day in 2016. By 2018, in-person early voting would be available on two weekends prior to Election Day.

Rhode Island: Gorbea backs online voter registration; early voting | Providence Journal

Rhode Islanders would be able to register to vote online and vote early in-person under new legislation promoted by Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea. The legislative package, dubbed Voting and Elections Modernization Act of 2015, would among other things make early voting available up to 28 days prior to an election using the emergency mail balloting process. Under the proposal, voting would be available on the weekend before Election Day in 2016. By 2018, in-person early voting would be available on two weekends prior to Election Day. “I think it’s important that elections are modernized and adapt to people’s lives and schedules and commitments,” Gorbea said.

Arkansas: Proposed amendment could prevent wasteful elections | Harrison Daily

Early voting technically started Tuesday in the special election for the state Senate District 16 race even though there’s only one candidate on the ballot, but a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot could negate the need for further such elections. Former Sen. Michael Lamoureux resigned late last year to become Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s chief of staff, which left the seat vacant. Then-Gov. Mike Beebe declared a special election to be held Tuesday, April 14, with one week of early voting to precede it. Greg Standridge defeated Stan Berry in the Republican Primary runoff election in February. No other party or Independent candidates filed for the seat, leaving Standridge unopposed in the April election in the district covering Newton and Pope counties and parts of Boone, Carroll and Van Buren counties.

North Carolina: Machines limit 2016 early voting options | Winston-Salem Journal

With its current equipment inventory, the Forsyth County Board of Elections would have to make a tough choice for the 2016 general election: offer fewer early voting sites than it did in 2012 or offer fewer electronic voting machines at each site. Steve Hines, elections director for Forsyth County, presented those scenarios to election board members on Tuesday as part of his pitch for new equipment. He put in a budget request this year for about $1.4 million to replace the county’s voting equipment, which is about 10 years old. County commissioners will decide in the next few months whether to approve the request. In the 2012 general election, Forsyth County had 15 early voting sites, Hines said.

Voting Blogs: Indignities and Tyrannies in Local Elections | Texas Election Law Blog

I am informed that the city secretary for the City of Bartlett in Williamson County has asserted once again for the fourth year running that there is “no state law” requiring the city to conduct early voting within its city limits during the entirety of the early voting period for the May election, and that despite the fact that in-person early voting is to be conducted from April 27, 2015 through May 5, 2015, there will only be one day of early voting within the City of Bartlett city limits; namely on Saturday, May 2nd. This is both annoying and wrong, and a disservice to the voters of that city, but it may also be a shortcut chosen by other political entities as well, given that various other entities inside Williamson County also have weirdly truncated and limited early voting. Last year, in response to complaints about the lack of early voting, the Temple Daily Telegraph ran a story asserting the city’s position that an election services contract with Williamson County justified the lack of early voting locations. The story is behind a paywall, but there’s not much point in reading it, given that the city’s premise is wrong and is flatly contradicted by state law, as I’ve explained before.

Georgia: In voting rights win, bill to cut Georgia early voting is dead | MSNBC

A Republican bid to cut early voting in Georgia – which was slashed once already not long ago – failed last week after voting rights activists mobilized against it. A measure that would have cut the maximum number of early voting days that counties could offer from 21 days to 12 passed a House committee in February, and its prospects for passage in Georgia’s GOP-controlled legislature looked good. It would have left only one weekend of early voting, and just four hours on Sunday. But when the state’s legislative session ended Thursday, the bill hadn’t received a full house vote. That means its supporters would have to start from square one when the legislature reconvenes, or tack the cuts on to a different measure. The effort’s apparent demise came after feverish organizing by a broad coalition of voting rights, civil rights, good government, and Democratic groups.

Nevada: GOP Moves To Limit Early Voting On Sundays, Weeknight Evenings | Huffington Post

A Nevada state Senate committee has introduced legislation that would eliminate early voting on Sundays and restrict counties’ abilities to set their own voting hours, in the latest move to reshape how elections are held in the state. Senate Bill 433 was introduced on Monday by the Nevada Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. Under the terms of the bill, voting on Sundays during the early voting period ahead of next year’s elections would no longer be allowed, and counties would no longer be able to keep their polls open beyond 7 p.m. Previously, polling sites in areas like Clark County, which contains Las Vegas, had kept polls open until 9 p.m. State Sen. Patricia Farley (R), who chairs the committee that introduced the early voting legislation, and state Sen. James Settelmeyer (R), the committee’s vice chair, did not respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post about why they introduced the bill.

Oklahoma: Voter encouragement: Legislature doing about-face on election reform | Tulsa World

After years of doing just about all it could to restrict voting, the Oklahoma Legislature is now trying to encourage it. Historically low voter turnout last year prompted lawmakers to come forward this session with dozens of election reform proposals. About a half-dozen remain in play. The proposals range from increasing the number of absentee ballots a notary public can notarize to an 80-percent reduction in the number of signatures needed for a political party to gain access to the ballot. Others include consolidating elections, online registration and a permanent absentee ballot list. All are Republican bills, and in most cases survived their first floor votes with little opposition.

Iowa: Absentee ballot change would affect Democrats’ practices | Chronicle Bulletin

Democrats and older Iowans would have to adjust their early voting habits the most if a bill that needs absentee ballots to be in county auditors’ hands by the time polls close on Election Day becomes law. Republicans would see an effect too, legislators say, but they vote in particular person on Election Day with much more frequency than Democrats or those registered for no celebration, and also Iowans 65 and older, an IowaWatch analysis of voting data in common elections more than the final 20 years shows. Regardless of who feels the impact, Republican and Democratic state legislators trying to amend Iowa’s absentee voter registration law agree that modifications are crucial since ballots are not being counted when they possibly really should be. The explanation: U.S. post offices are not putting time-stamped postmarks on lots of of the absentee ballots. “So we are throwing ballots out, and we don’t want to do that,” state Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, stated.

Editorials: Ohio should focus on better voter access | Sean Wright/Cincinnati Inquirer

It is often remarked, “So goes Ohio, so goes the nation,” a common sentiment signifying that Ohio is a bellwether state for national politics. Perhaps it’s time to ask: Where is Ohio going? If you’re Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, you may think Ohio is heading toward rampant voter fraud. Last week, Husted released the results of an exhaustive investigation into non-citizen voting in Ohio, something he considers an “expanding loophole.” But despite the Republican’s alarmist calls, the investigation identified just 145 cases of non-Ohio citizens illegally registered to vote, an amount totaling a miniscule two ten-thousandths of a percent of the 7.7 million registered Ohio voters. Unsurprisingly, a similar investigation released by Husted’s office in 2013 found that only 0.0003 percent of all ballots casted in the state were by non-citizens.

North Carolina: House Democrats push for election changes | WRAL

House Democrats are seeking changes to state election laws that they say will make voting easier in 2016. House Minority Leader Larry Hall unveiled the two bills at a news conference Tuesday. House Bill 239 would restore the week of early voting that was cut from state law by the Voter Information Verification Act, the Republican election overhaul bill passed in 2013. The proposal would be effective in 2016. Prior to VIVA, state law allowed up to 17 days of early voting, including three weekends. The overhaul reduced that to 10 days, including two weekends.

National: Fight over voting rights continues on Selma anniversary | USA Today

With tens of thousands of people expected to gather this weekend in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a turning point in the American Civil Rights movement, activists hope to use the moment to turn the spotlight back on voting rights issues in the USA. President Obama will visit the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday, joining living foot soldiers of the civil rights movement at the landmark. The bridge is where hundreds of peaceful protesters were brutally beaten on “Bloody Sunday” as they sought to end discriminatory tactics — such as poll taxes and arbitrary literacy tests — used by white officials to prevent African Americans from voting. The protesters of Selma ultimately prevailed, and the moment helped usher in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in moves that activists call sweeping erosions of voting rights that disproportionately affect minority communities, several states have passed more stringent voter ID rules after the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key provision of the landmark legislation that was birthed with the blood and sweat of the Selma protesters.

Arkansas: County election officials raise concerns about 3 state bills | Nortwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

A handful of bills working through General Assembly committees could change how and when voters participate in primary, special and general elections, officials said last week. One bill would lump all special and school district elections to either May or November instead of throughout the year. Another would push the presidential candidate primaries back two months into March. A third bill would cut down early voting from two weeks before an election to just one. Benton and Washington county election officials said the proposals could make elections more difficult to hold and could confuse voters. “We want to do the best job that we possibly can,” said Russell Anzalone, chairman of the Benton County Election Commission. “To us, the commissioners, it’s all about the voter.”

Editorials: The Next attack on voting rights and why Democrats should fight for a constitutional right-to-vote amendment | Jamelle Bouie/Slate

he last round of voter restrictions came after the 2010 Republican wave, when new GOP majorities passed voter identification laws and slashed ballot access in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. Now, three months after the 2014 Republican wave, another class of state lawmakers are prepping another assault on voting rights under the same guise of “uniformity” and “ballot integrity.” In Georgia, reports Zachary Roth for MSNBC, Republicans are pushing a bill to slash early voting from the present maximum of 21 days to 12 days. The goal, says Rep. Ed Rydners, a sponsor of the proposal, is “clarity and uniformity.” “There were complaints of some voters having more opportunities than others,” he said, “This legislation offers equal access statewide.” If cities like Atlanta want to have more voting access, said Rydners, they could open more precincts and “pay to have poll workers present.”

California: Officials seek ways to boost Los Angeles County’s voter turnout | Los Angeles Times

After abysmal voter participation in California’s last election and in Los Angeles County in particular, some state officials want to follow in the footsteps of Oregon and look into creating an automatic voter registration system. Proponents say creating a system that automatically signs up eligible voters instead of requiring them to take the initiative would remove a major barrier to participation and free up resources that could be spent on getting more people interested in voting. That proposal came up Friday at a joint legislative hearing in Los Angeles that focused on increasing voter turnout in Los Angeles County. The county is the largest in the nation and has 4.8 million registered voters. But its turnout was the lowest in the state in last November’s general election. Statewide turnout of registered voters was 42%, but in Los Angeles County only 31% of registered voters cast ballots. Turnout was particularly low among Latino registered voters, at only 23%, and Asian and black voters, at 26%, according to a report by the bipartisan firm Political Data Inc. The number of people eligible to vote — citizens 18 and older — who cast ballots was even lower: 31% statewide and 25% in Los Angeles County.

Minnesota: Push to expand early voting in Minnesota faces hurdles | Pioneer Press

Minnesota’s first big run with no-excuse absentee voting has some lawmakers setting their sights on a more-expansive form of early balloting for future elections. Legislation moving in the Minnesota Senate would establish an early voting window 15 days before an election when polling places would be open, including on Saturdays. The period would close three days prior to the scheduled election. But the bill faces a tougher course in the House, where a key Republican says his colleagues aren’t inclined to pursue another significant voting change so soon. Last year was the first statewide election where voters could request and cast an absentee ballot without a qualified excuse. In the end, there were 55 percent more absentee ballots cast in 2014 compared with the midterm election of 2010. New Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said it’s a sign people crave opportunities to vote at their convenience.

Utah: Same-day Voter Registration Extended to Early Voting Days | KUER

House lawmakers passed a bill Friday to slightly expand a pilot program aimed at getting more voters to participate in Utah elections. Utah had one of the nation’s worst turnout rates in the last election. Now some counties have opted to take part in a three-year experiment that allows voters to register and vote on election day. Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Sanpete and Kane counties haves seen more than twelve hundred additional voters cast ballots through the program.

Minnesota: Senate committee approves early voting | Minnesota Public Radio News

The Minnesota Senate subcommittee on elections approved legislation Thursday that would allow people to vote beginning 15 days before Election Day. Right now, the state has a no-excuse absentee voting system. The only ways to vote absentee are by mail or by visiting a polling place. But if the absentee ballot is cast in person, the voter has to fill out lots of paperwork and the ballot is kept under lock and key until Election Day. Bill sponsor Sen. Katie Sieben, DFL-Newport, said the process is confusing for voters, because they expect to be able to cast a ballot as easily as they would on Election Day.

Missouri: Senate passes cutoff for changes to ballot measures | Kansas City Star

Missouri ballot measures would need to be finalized earlier if legislation passed by the Senate on Thursday is signed into law, an effort to save money on reprinting ballots that last year cost the state close to $680,000. The bill, approved 26-8, would set a deadline to change ballot measures about two months before an election, which is two weeks sooner than the generally accepted standard. Current law allows measures to be finalized at any point within 180 days of an election, although absentee and military ballots must go out about six weeks early. The legislation follows hundreds of thousands of dollars in reprinting expenses after a mid-September court ruling that required last-minute changes to the wording of a proposed constitutional amendment to create a limited early, no-excuses-needed voting period.

Georgia: Bill To Shorten Early Voting Period Advances In Georgia Legislature | Huffington Post

An extra day of voting access at some Georgia polls in 2014 may have inadvertently backfired, as Republican state legislators push a bill to reduce the number of early voting days from 21 to 12. When, for the first time, the state’s most populous counties decided to open some polling places on the Sunday ahead of the November midterms, GOP lawmakers argued that the early voting sites were chosen to maximize votes for Democratic candidates. Fears that Sunday voting would lead to Democratic victories were unfounded in the highest-profile races, however, as U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn and gubernatorial challenger Jason Carter lost their races by about 8 percentage points each.

Georgia: New Plan To Make Voting Even Harder | ThinkProgress

A plan to further slash the availability of early voting is rapidly advancing in Georgia. A committee of state lawmakers voted along party lines last week to slash the state’s early voting days from 21 to 12. The full legislature could call a vote on the cuts at any time, and with Republicans holding a majority of the House seats, the measure would likely pass. More than a third of the state’s voters cast their ballot early in this past election, and demand for early voting was so high that several counties opened the polls on a Sunday for the first time in state history. In 2008, more than half of participants voted early. But the bill’s sponsors say the goal of the cuts is to ensure “uniformity” and “equal access” between counties. Civil rights advocates, including President Francys Johnson of the Georgia NAACP, disagree, and tell ThinkProgress the measure would suppress the votes of the state’s growing minority population. “People of color tend to utilize early voting, and I think at the heart of all of this is an attempt to reduce the opportunities for people to let their voice be heard,” he said. “They’re saying to working Georgians and seniors and communities of color and the young: ‘We’re not interested in your participation.”

National: Voting rights for minorities threatened, experts say | Gannett

Since 2010, 21 states have restricted voting rights, said Nicole Austin-Hillery, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington, D.C., office. Proponents of the new laws, which do such things as requiring government-issued photo IDs to vote, say they are designed to combat voter fraud. Opponents point out that documented cases of in-person voter fraud are all but non-existent. The real reason for the new laws, the say, is to make it harder for minorities or poor people to vote. “The move ‘Selma’ has come out, and we’re still in the fight to secure and protect voting rights,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization founded in 1999. “We no longer have poll taxes. But instead, we have voter IDs. We don’t have literacy tests. But we have things like cuts to early voting and cuts to Sunday voting, all which are targeted at communities of color who have gained access to the ballot because of the Voting Rights Act. “We see more subtle attempts to make it harder to vote. It’s just a different page out of the playbook that makes it harder for African Americans to participate,” Browne Dianis said.

Georgia: Republicans look to cut early voting again | MSNBC

Georgia Republicans look set to significantly cut their state’s early voting period — the latest fallout from the Supreme Court’s crippling of the Voting Rights Act. A legislative committee voted on party lines last week to advance a bill that would shorten Georgia’s early voting period to 12 days, from a current maximum of 21 days. It would also bar counties from offering more than four hours of voting on weekends. The state’s early voting period was already cut dramatically just four years ago. The new move comes after a 2014 election in which 44% of voters — disproportionately minorities — cast their ballot early. Many counties, responding to popular demand, offered Sunday voting for the first time. Rep. Carolyn Hugley, a member of the Democratic legislative leadership, said the scheme is an effort to produce an electorate that’s more favorable to the GOP. “We cannot choose the electorate, the electorate chooses us,” Hugley said. “And it looks like somebody has an idea that they want to choose who is going to make the decisions, based on the patterns of how people vote.”

Georgia: Bill to cut early voting advances | Atlanta Constitution Journal

A revised bill that would limit early voting to 12 days passed a key committee vote Wednesday. The House Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-5 to advance House Bill 194. Sponsored by Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, the bill originally would have required every county to be open on the Sunday during the early-voting period. But in an effort to please religious conservatives, the bill now makes Sunday voting optional. Any county choosing not to open the polls on Sunday would be required to allow access to the polls on an additional Saturday.

Arizona: Bill would require daily early ballot reports from rural counties | Cronkite News

Currently, Pima and Maricopa counties must maintain daily updated lists of those who have turned in early ballots if requested by state or county party chairpersons. Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Payson, wants to expand that requirement to all counties, saying it can be difficult to obtain early ballot information in a timely manner from election officials in rural Arizona. Her bill, HB 2427, won a unanimous endorsement Monday from the House Elections Committee, despite a representative for counties saying the change would be burdensome. It was heading to the House floor by way of the Rules Committee.

Georgia: Republican Bill Would Cut Early Voting Days, Mandate Sunday Voting | WABE

A Republican-sponsored bill in the Georgia House would shorten the number of early voting days from 21 to 12. Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, said his bill is about creating a more uniform voting system. “Cities and counties all over the state have different days, different times … The purpose of this was really uniformity,” said Hamilton. Under the bill, polling locations would be open on the 12 consecutive days before elections.