Nevadans may get another weekend of early voting. Assembly Bill 272 would allow county elections officials to have early voting last until the Sunday before Election Day. Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, D-Las Vegas, told the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee on Wednesday that the measure is intended to increase voter access.
Iowa voters soon will need to show identification at the polls under a new law signed Friday by Gov. Terry Branstad. The measure overhauls Iowa’s election laws through a series of changes that Republicans say are needed to ensure the integrity of the process and to prevent fraud, but which Democrats and others argue will suppress votes by creating barriers for the poor, elderly, people with disabilities and minorities. “Protecting the integrity of our election system is very important,” Branstad said at a public bill signing Friday. “And we’re very proud that Iowa has a tradition and history of doing so, and this is going to strengthen our ability and make it more effective and efficient.”
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans flocked to polling stations across the nation on Thursday (May 4) to choose their next president, two months after the previous one was ousted from office in disgrace and amid regional tension over a belligerent North Korea. Instead of voting on the scheduled election day of Tuesday (May 9), many chose to cast ballots earlier as they have to work or have other plans, such as a trip to vacation hot spots. Some 3,500 polling stations are open across the nation from 6am to 6pm from Thursday to Friday.
Marion County’s single location for early voting provides unequal access to the ballot, argues a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by Common Cause and the NAACP. Plaintiffs in the case allege Indianapolis’ sole early-voting precinct is discriminatory and constitutes voter suppression. The lawsuit takes aim at the system in which one of the three unelected members of the Marion County Election Board, most recently Republican Party member Maura Hoff, has vetoed multiple early-voting locations in the state’s most populous county. The result has been sometimes-long lines at the only location for early voting, the Marion County Clerk’s office in the Indianapolis City-County Building.
Common Cause Indiana and two branches of the NAACP filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to challenge the law that governs early voting in Marion County. In 2008, two sites were established outside downtown Indianapolis that offered in-person early voting. But now they’re gone, meaning anyone in Marion County who wants to cast an early ballot has to make the trip to a single downtown office. Indiana law mandates that county election boards unanimously endorse early-voting locations. Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause Indiana, says the lack of access has become a constitutional issue, and that it also violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Advocates for election reform say voter turnout across the New York could be greatly increased by allowing citizens to cast their ballots early and adopting automatic voter registration, as other states have. Without such measures, said Jennifer Wilson, program and policy director for the League of Women Voters of New York State, this state will continue to have one of the lowest voter-participation levels in the nation. “We think early voting would have an immediate impact,” Wilson said Wednesday after the Assembly Election Law Committee advanced legislation that would allow voting in New York up to seven days before an election.
A new law to strengthen Kentucky’s early voting statutes took effect late Tuesday, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced Wednesday. Gov. Matt Bevin signed House Bill 319 into law just before the 10-day veto period expired after the General Assembly adjourned. “I am extremely proud to see part of the early voting reforms we have pushed for years finally take effect,” Grimes said. “This new law will give thousands of voters who struggle with age, a disability or illness a path to have their voices heard by voting early via mail or in person.” Prior to the enactment of House Bill 319, voters who could not vote in person on Election Day due to age, disability, or illness could only cast absentee ballots by mail. Those voters may now visit their county clerk’s office to cast ballots in-person during the absentee voting window.
The Iowa Senate gave final approval Thursday to contentious legislation that will require voters to show government-issued identification at the polls and will reduce the time period for early voting. House File 516 passed on a 28-21 vote with Republicans casting all the yes votes. Democrats and one independent all voted no. The bill now heads to Gov. Terry Branstad, who is expected to sign it. The measure had previously passed the Senate, but a second vote was needed on Thursday because of several amendments approved by the House. There was only brief debate Thursday, but Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, strongly objected to one amended provision. The change pushes back the date for allowing 17-year-old Iowans to vote in primary elections if they will turn 18 by the date of the general election. The change will now take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, instead of being available for the 2018 election. “This change goes hand in hand with a voter suppression bill,” Bisignano said.
A new law to strengthen Kentucky’s early voting statutes took effect late Tuesday, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced Wednesday. Gov. Matt Bevin signed House Bill 319 into law just before the 10-day veto period expired after the General Assembly adjourned. “I am extremely proud to see part of the early voting reforms we have pushed for years finally take effect,” Grimes said. “This new law will give thousands of voters who struggle with age, a disability or illness a path to have their voices heard by voting early via mail or in person.”
Delawareans would be able to vote early, would be automatically registered to vote at the DMV, and would vote in local primary elections and presidential primary at the same time if a trio of bills passes the General Assembly. The goal of all three proposals is to encourage more people to vote, the sponsors say. Rep. David Bentz, D-Christiana, sponsored a bill that would allow citizens to vote in the 10 days leading up to any general, primary or special election. There would be one early-voting polling place in each county, plus one in Wilmington. “We should try to make it so that our elections fit into the people’s schedules, and not where people should have to fit their schedule into the government’s,” Bentz said.
The bill from Rep. David Bentz (D-Christiana) would require the Department of Elections to allow voters to cast ballots for at least 10 days prior to any election – including local races. At least one polling place would be open for eight hours in all three counties and Wilmington Bentz says access to the ballot should be as open as possible for all eligible citizens. “It just makes it easy as possible for people to get to the polls on their own time that fits their schedule – their busy schedule. The culture is one that’s more on demand,” he said.
The future of a bill that trims down the early voting period is uncertain after its author withdrew it from committee consideration Monday following logistical concerns from the attorney general’s office and county election officials. House Bill 288, authored by state Rep. Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, would have shrunk the early voting period from 12 to seven days and pushed it closer to Election Day. Jason Millsaps, Keough’s chief of staff, said the attorney general’s office had concerns with how the bill could impact litigation over the state’s voter ID law. The attorney general’s office was worried prosecutors in federal court could potentially use HB 288 as an example of attempted voter suppression, Millsaps said.
HB 150, the House-passed bill that sought to limit early voting in Idaho counties so that it could occur only from three weeks before an election to one week before, ran into trouble in the Senate State Affairs Committee this morning. Sen. Marv Hagedorn’s motion to pass the bill died for lack of a second. Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, then moved to send the bill to the Senate’s amending order for changes, to expand it to add another week of possible early voting time for counties; Hagedorn seconded the motion. Sen. Todd Lakey spoke against the motion. “This seems to be more about the convenience for the candidate than for the electorate,” he said. “I don’t like curtailing it. I don’t know if the amending order is the right way to handle this. I prefer to see a more consensus bill come forward if there is one.” Hagedorn’s motion then died on a 4-4 tie, with Sens. Hagedorn, Hill, Winder and Lodge supporting it; and Sens. Lakey, Stennett, Buckner-Webb and Siddoway opposing it.
A state proposal to offer early voting during the 20 days before official election dates would cost Cumberland at least an added $20,000, Town Clerk Sandra Giovanelli said this week. Calling it an “unfunded mandate” by state officials, Mayor Bill Murray and a coalition of mayors and administrators are readying opposition to this plan that will require hiring personnel and record-keeping challenges during one of the busiest times in Town Hall. Giovanelli’s $20,000 is based on the current wage paid for election clerks and doesn’t include the cost of renting space or other expenses.
The U.S. Supreme Court should dismiss the appeal of a ruling that struck down a North Carolina voting law based on racial bias, the state’s new Democratic attorney general says. Lawyers for Republican lawmakers still want the appeal considered. Attorney General Josh Stein’s office also rejected accusations made by the GOP’s lawyers that he had a conflict that disqualifies him in the matter. Stein was a state senator opposed to the 2013 law and testified in the trial for the groups and voters who challenged the law. It required photo identification to vote in person, reduced the number of early voting days and eliminated same-day registration during the early-vote period.
A proposal to allow people to register to vote closer to Election Day was narrowly rejected by a House committee Thursday.
Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Española, crossed party lines to join with Republicans to table the bill – a procedure that blocks it from moving forward. The proposal, Senate Bill 224, would have allowed people to register at early-voting sites, which operate until the weekend before Election Day. As the law stands now, the registration period ends 28 days before the election.
Republicans in the Massachusetts Senate want to reimburse cities and towns for the state-mandated costs of last year’s early voting program. Early voting in the 2016 election in Massachusetts cost the state’s municipalities an estimated $720,000 in expenses mandated by the state. Republican State Senator Don Humason of Westfield said legislation that is to be filed this week by the Senate’s minority party will allow cities and towns to seek some financial assurance following the introduction of early voting. “Now that the program has been implemented and was successful and we’ve had time to look back on it, I think it is a good idea our caucus files this bill,” he said Tuesday.
Legislators debated Monday whether Connecticut should ease restrictions on absentee ballots and also join 37 other states by allowing early voting. Early voting is common around the country but has never become law in the Land of Steady Habits. To ease the restrictions, lawmakers are proposing two separate constitutional amendments for “no excuse” absentee ballots and early voting. In November 2014, Connecticut voters rejected a constitutional amendment on absentee ballots that asked them in a one-sentence question if the Constitution should be changed.
Iowa’s top election official threw his support Wednesday behind GOP changes to his voter identification bill, after Republicans reversed course on plans to reduce early voting and polling hours in the state. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate initially declined to comment on whether he backed an amendment in the House that was briefly attached to his voter ID bill. It proposed reducing the number of early voting days in primary and general elections from 40 days to 29 days. It also would have cut polling hours for those elections from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m. Iowa currently has one of the longest early voting periods in the country, and Pate had not planned to change that distinction with his original version of the bill.
House bills to allow early voting and online voter registration died without a vote in a Senate committee on Tuesday, frustrating House Elections Chairman Bill Denny. “They didn’t even take them up in committee,” said Denny, R-Jackson, who also authored both bills. “The Senate Elections chairwoman had said they were DOA. To me that’s almost insulting, to have our committee in the House pass these out two years in a row, then have them pass the full House with no more than two to four dissenting votes, and then the Senate committee not even discuss them, to announce that they are DOA before they even get them.”
Early voting in Iowa would be reduced under new proposed changes to a voter identification bill approved Monday by a Republican-controlled House subcommittee. The changes, introduced in an amendment by Rep. Ken Rizer, R-Marion, go beyond the scope of the voter ID bill originally filed and promoted by Secretary of State Paul Pate. The amendment was approved about an hour after it was made public during a subcommittee of the House State Government Committee, which Rizer chairs. It advanced with only Republican support. Among the changes is a plan to reduce early voting in a primary or general election in Iowa from 40 days to 29 days. Iowa has one of the longest early voting periods in the country. Rizer said it’s wrong to assume fewer people will vote early under the proposed new system.
North Carolina Republican legislative leaders want the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the new Democratic state attorney general’s bid to dismiss their appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down a voting law based on racial bias. Lawyers the General Assembly hired to defend the 2013 law approved by the GOP objected Monday to Attorney General Josh Stein’s petition last week and want the justices to continue considering their previously filed appeal. They say Stein lacks authority to step in because previous Attorney General Roy Cooper stopped defending the law last summer after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit found the law targeted minority voters. The legislature’s private lawyers continued the appeal.
Despite a determination by state Auditor Suzanne M. Bump that certain early-voting costs incurred by local city and town clerks, totaling nearly $720,000, should be paid for by the state, there is little chance of that happening unless the municipalities seek relief from the courts or the Legislature. “This sounds like there will need to be a lot of work done at the state and local level to work all this out,” said Fitchburg City Clerk Anna Farrell about how municipalities, including Fitchburg’s nearly $11,500 in mandated expenses, might go about getting reimbursed for the state-mandated early voting during the 2016 election. Lowell spent more than $16,700 on early voting according to Director of Elections Eda Matchak. “We have submitted our cost to the state Auditor’s Office through the form of the municipal survey that they did following the election,” Matchak said. The determination by Bump’s Division of Local Mandates about whether the early-election expenses could be recouped was requested by the city of Woburn and the town of Oxford.
State Auditor Susan Bump has determined that early voting in last year’s presidential election constituted a state mandate on cities and towns, and the state should pay for it. Bump made the determination after Wakefield and Oxford asked for it. The state Unfunded Mandate Law allows cities and towns to petition the auditor for a determination if they believe they are incurring additional costs as a result of state mandates. Bump said about one million voters, or 22 percent of the total, cast ballots during the 12 days leading up to the November election, and staying open those extra days cost cities and towns about $1.1 million. “The early voting law certainly is to be regarded a success. It did, however, mandate new procedures for clerks. Some of these should be paid for by the state, not municipalities, according to the Local Mandate Law,” she said. Most of the cost came from paying for additional hours for poll workers.
A measure limiting early voting in Idaho is on its way to the House floor after squeaking through a skeptical legislative panel. Freshman Republican Rep. Dustin Manwaring, of Pocatello, says his bill creates a standardized system for early voting that’s lacking in Idaho. “This is a new layer of consistency that we’re adding. We’ll actually increase voter access to the polls and fairness because we’ll have that consistency statewide in our counties when early voting will be open to the public,” Manwaring said. If passed, Idaho’s early voting window could take place any time from three weeks prior to the election to one week before. Currently, county clerks have the choice to begin early voting on or before the third week from the election. This has resulted in a hodgepodge of early voting start dates across the state, with the majority of smaller counties choosing not to open the polls early to save on costs.
Despite a determination by state Auditor Suzanne Bump that certain early-voting costs incurred by local city and town clerks, totaling nearly $720,000, should be paid for by the state, there is little chance of that happening unless the municipalities seek relief from the courts or the Legislature. “This sounds like there will need to be a lot of work done at the state and local level to work all this out,” said Fitchburg City Clerk Anna Farrell about how municipalities, including Fitchburg’s nearly $11,500 in mandated expenses, might go about getting reimbursed for the state-mandated early voting during the 2016 election. The determination by Bump’s Division of Local Mandates about whether the early-election expenses could be recouped was requested by the city of Woburn and the town of Oxford.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman unveiled an extensive voting reform package Wednesday that aims to streamline New York’s voter registration system, boost voter participation and increase voter turnout. Standing with elected officials, good government groups, union members, and voting reform advocates outside Federal Hall in Manhattan, Schneiderman released the legislation, called the New York Votes Act. The bill contains provisions to update the state’s voting systems by adding early voting, automatic and same-day voter registration, consolidated primaries, shortened party registration deadlines, increased language access at the polls, online absentee ballots, and more. “Any law that makes it easier to vote is a good law; any law that makes it harder to vote is a bad law,” said Schneiderman, in a statement Wednesday. “New York has long been a bastion of democracy, but our state’s current system of registration and voting is an affront to that legacy.” New York State has seen abysmal voter turnout for years. In 2014, the state ranked 49th of 50 in the country, with just 29 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots in the general election. While other states have tweaked their voting laws to encourage participation, voter turnout in New York has only grown worse, with just 19.7 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots in the 2016 presidential primaries.
Early voters in some Utah counties would be allowed to cast ballots on the day before an election under a bill a House committee approved Tuesday. State law permits early voting to start two weeks before Election Day, but not on the Monday before a Tuesday election. Salt Lake County turned away hundreds of voters in November who showed up to vote on Monday. HB105, sponsored by Rep. Craig Hall, R-West Valley City, would give counties the option to extend the last day of early voting to the day before the election.
Georgia Democrats are facing an uphill climb as they try to expand voters’ rights by allowing same day registration and removing ID requirements. The minority lawmakers control less than one third of the state Legislature, but are putting forth a set of proposed laws to expand voter access. President Donald Trump falsely maintains there was massive voter fraud in the 2016 election. Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been adamant that no illegal votes were cast in the state. … Georgia already offers voters the option of registering online, but three Democratic lawmakers are pushing for registration to be even easier. They introduced bills to allow automatic voter registration when obtaining or renewing a drivers’ license, or during any other interactions with a state agency.
The Senate Elections Committee passed its own version of campaign finance reform on Wednesday and an ‘omnibus’ bill to clean up and tweak Mississippi election code. Senate Elections Chairwoman Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, said her committee would be open to a House-passed campaign finance bill, but indicated House proposals to allow early voting and online voter registration would be DOA if passed on from the House to the Senate. “There are just too many concerns about online hacking — even allegations from this last election — to look at (online registration) this year,” Doty said of a measure House Elections approved to allow first-time voters to register online. Last year, the Legislature approved people changing their registration online after they move, but the Senate stripped out first-time registration online.