Arizona: Attorney General Says Counties Can Maintain Own Voter Rolls | Associated Press

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich says county election officials can maintain separate voter databases but are legally required to send voter information to the secretary of state’s office. Brnovich also said in an opinion released Monday that Secretary of State Michele Reagan can’t refer public records requests or legal subpoenas to counties since she also maintains the voter rolls. The opinion also clarified what voter registration information county recorders are required to provide to Reagan’s office. Solicitor General Dominic Draye wrote that includes everything, and immediately.

Illinois: Kane clerk looks at ways to handle Aurora elections | Aurora Beacon-News

Kane County Clerk John Cunningham said Monday he is looking at ways to handle Aurora elections if a referendum concerning the elimination of the Aurora Election Commission passes. Still, Cunningham was adamant in saying that even though he is an Aurora resident, he does not have a public opinion either way. “It’s not up to the county clerk to be involved in this,” he said. “It’s up to the people.” Cunningham said with a movement afoot to put a referendum question on the March 2018 ballot asking voters to eliminate the election commission, he needs to look at what might happen if voters approve it. An informal group of residents has been passing petitions seeking about 1,000 signatures they would need to put the question on the ballot. If they succeed, state statute mandates that Aurora voters be asked the question: “Shall the city election law be rejected?”

Arizona: Did Maricopa County elections boss Adrian Fontes flub voting rule? | Arizona Republic

Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a week after apologizing for insulting a voter, flubbed an election place rule Tuesday as he was trying to promote Election Day. Fontes, a lawyer and Democrat who took office this year following voting-day problems with his predecessor, recorded a Facebook Live video promoting Election Day within 75 feet of the Surprise City Hall ballot center. Arizona law restricts photography and video recording within that area at voting locations. Fontes downplayed the apparent violation, and a Republican election law expert said no harm was done. Voting otherwise appeared to be going smoothly at ballot centers across the Valley for school-district and city bond and override measures, a year after former Recorder Helen Purcell came under fire for long lines at too few polling locations. And this year’s voter participation seemed on track to exceed previous low-profile elections. 

Maryland: Baltimore County orders extra voting scanners, but not as many as elections officials say are needed | Baltimore Sun

Baltimore County is ordering extra ballot scanning machines for four dozen of the county’s busiest polling locations — far fewer than the 200-plus scanners sought by county elections officials. Rob Stradling, the county’s information technology director, said Tuesday that paying for 47 scanners for polling sites and five backup locations represents a “fiscally responsible” solution to easing lengthy backups that frustrated voters during the 2016 election. Stradling said the additional machines and other changes — such as having existing machines serviced, having manufacturer representatives on hand on Election Day and tweaking training for election judges — should make the voting process more efficient. His office spent five months researching the problem and posted its findings online Tuesday. But the county’s top elections official had sought much more. Director of Elections Katie Brown has previously asked the county to purchase a second ballot scanner for each of its 236 polling precincts. Only one precinct had two scanners in 2016.

Nepal: Court seeks amici curiae in petition seeking voting rights for public servants and security personnel | Republica

The Supreme Court on Sunday asked the Nepal Bar Association (NBA) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) to send amici curiae to plead in the apex court Monday in relation to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that demands voting rights for public servants and security personnel deployed on election duty. Following Sunday’s hearing on the petition, a division bench of justices Deepak Raj Joshee and Dambar Bahadur Shahi asked the bar bodies to send one representative each to plead as amicus curiae. Stating that this issue was sensitive as it is associated with the fundamental rights of citizens, the bench asked the two bodies to send their representatives. 

New York: Ahead of Election Day, Comptroller Audit Highlights Board of Elections Dysfunction | Gotham Gazette

Just four days before voters head to the polls on Tuesday, November 7, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer released a damning report highlighting the dysfunctional election operations of the New York City Board of Elections, a quasi-city agency that administers elections in the city. Stringer’s audit was launched in response to the BOE’s purge of more than 117,000 voters from the rolls in Brooklyn last year, ahead of the April presidential primary. The purge prompted widespread outrage, triggering an investigation by the state Attorney General’s office and a lawsuit by Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group. The BOE recently admitted to violating federal and state law in the case and agreed to implement reforms.

Arizona: Maricopa County’s Recorder Apologizes for His Online Tirade | Associated Press

Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes apologized Wednesday for recent inflammatory online comments made to a candidate for the Arizona Legislature who had criticized the design of election ballots. In a five-minute video on his Facebook page, Fontes said he was sorry for his “inappropriate and rude comments” to State House District 13 candidate Nathan Schneider and apologized to all county voters and residents and the elections department. Schneider complained on his own Facebook page Sunday that the county’s Nov. 7 election date was hard for him and his mother to find on the mail-in ballot and ballot inserts and wasn’t printed on the envelope.

Arizona: Maricopa County elections boss Adrian Fontes tells voter to ‘Go F- yourself’ | Arizona Republic

When a Goodyear voter complained on Facebook that his Nov. 7 ballot was confusing, Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes insulted him, attacked the voter’s mother and told him to “go F- yourself.” The social-media tirade comes as Fontes, the only Democrat to run Maricopa County elections in recorded history, is under a microscope. He beat a longtime GOP elections chief in 2016 with promises of better representation and communication with voters and has faced suspicion from Republican officials and voters. Tuesday’s local election is a litmus test for Fontes. Fontes responded angrily to the Goodyear voter, Nathan Schneider, who complained that the election date was hard for him and his mother to find on the mail-in ballot and ballot inserts, and was not printed on the envelope. “The public should not be forced to make assumptions when voting,” Schneider, a Democratic candidate for Arizona Legislature, posted on Facebook. “Adrian Fontes doesn’t listen to me, but if any of you have his ear, maybe you could ask him why they are not labeling the Election Day on the ballot and making it more legible, easier to find, and easier to identify.” Fontes responded by asking if Schneider’s mother ran his campaign and writing “go F- yourself.” 

North Carolina: Governor Roy Cooper would have lost in court vs. lawmakers | News & Observer

A panel of three judges would have ruled against Gov. Roy Cooper in one of his power struggles with state lawmakers, this one over control of elections boards. In a ruling released Tuesday, the judges said that if they had jurisdiction of the case they would have decided that lawmakers had not violated the state Constitution when they created an eight-member board – evenly divided between the major political parties – to preside over state election issues and ethics complaints. The case could determine whether Republicans will have leadership on elections boards at the state and county level during presidential election years when North Carolina voters also elect their governor. The findings from the three judges — L. Todd Burke of Forsyth County, Jesse Caldwell of Gaston County and Jeffrey Foster of Pitt County — put the case back before the state Supreme Court.

Nepal: Petition seeks voting rights for civil servants | The Kathmandu Post

The Election Commission’s decision not to allow civil servants and security forces deployed in the elections to vote have raised serious concerns from various organisations of the civil servants have raised serious over their constitutional rights. In his writ, civil servant Bharat Kumar Mainali has demanded a mandamus order with certiorari from the apex court to ensure the voting rights of the civil servants regardless of their deployment for the proportional representation election system. Mainali has demanded that the SC annul any provision that bars the civil servants from voting and issue a mandamus order to ensure the voting rights by including their names in the temporary voting list of the Election Commission.

New Hampshire: Bill gives state power to postpone local elections | Union Leader

The secretary of state will have the authority to postpone and reschedule local elections under extreme weather conditions, according to proposed legislation. The bill is designed to address the confusion that arose last March, when an Election Day nor’easter threw elections for municipal officials and local ballot questions into chaos. A House-Senate committee created to resolve conflicts that surfaced last March unanimously agreed to draft a bill that settles the matter in a way more satisfactory to the secretary of state than to the N.H. Municipal Association. According to draft language endorsed by the five-member committee on Monday, the secretary of state can postpone local or school district elections if he believes that an emergency exists, if the governor has declared a state of emergency, or if a town moderator requests such a delay based on an “extreme weather emergency or imminent serious threat to public health and safety.”

Arizona: Investigator: Secretary of state violated law, but no penalties | Arizona Republic

Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan broke the law when her office failed to mail publicity pamphlets to hundreds of thousands of voters in time for the May 2016 special election, a state-appointed investigator has concluded. But, the investigator found, there is no provision in state law to punish anyone for not delivering the pamphlets on time and Reagan and her staff did not act criminally. That’s the outcome of a long-awaited investigative report released Wednesday by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Michael Morrissey, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, led the review as an appointed special investigator. “Approximately 200,000 households did not receive the publicity pamphlets in a timely manner,” Morrissey’s report states. “That is a violation of law.”

Arizona: Report says Reagan broke state law in election | Arizona Daily Sun

The failure of Secretary of State Michele Reagan to get ballot brochures on time to the homes of 200,000 voters ahead of last year’s election broke state law, according to a new report released Wednesday. Attorney Tom Morrissey, asked to investigate by Attorney General Mark Brnovich, said his year-long inquiry found Reagan’s staff failed to follow various procedures designed to ensure that Arizonans knew what they were voting on in the May 2016 special election. Potentially more significant, Morrissey said Reagan was aware of the problem more than two weeks before she notified the public that many of them would not be getting the brochures on time describing the details of Proposition 123 to put more money into public education and Proposition 124 to make changes to public pension plans.

Illinois: Aurora City Council backs Election Commission referendum | Aurora Beacon-News

The Aurora City Council has backed an effort to put a referendum on the March 18 primary ballot asking voters if they want to eliminate the Aurora Election Commission. The 9-3 vote by aldermen this week came after a debate about what authority the city has, the legality of the city’s resolution and just what is or is not voter suppression. In the end, those aldermen supporting the resolution said it simply endorses putting the question on the ballot, giving the voters a chance to vote for or against, without telling them how to vote. “We urge that the voters be able to put the question on the ballot,” said Ald. Robert O’Connor, at large. “The law provided that the voters establish (the commission), and the law provides that the voters must change it, if they want to change it.”

Kentucky: Fired staffer launches allegations at Secretary of State Grimes | Lexington Herald Leader

The recently fired assistant to the director of the State Board of Elections alleged in a letter to some members of the board that the office of Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes improperly gathered voter information from the state’s voter registration system during campaigns. In the letter, Matthew Selph, who was fired by the Board of Elections on Tuesday along with director Maryellen Allen, recalled a conversation with a staffer in the Secretary of State’s Office who said he was directed by the office to gather information “probably 3 or 4 times. . . every time they were running.” He did not specify what information was gathered. Selph has reported the conversation to the Executive Branch Ethics Commission. “Data that is released is documented, recorded and tracked through every step of the system to ensure that everything was done properly,” Selph, a Republican, wrote. “When the data was taken out of this building on a thumb drive, that trust was broken. We have no way to know what was on it, where it went or what it was used for.”

California: State audit probes Santa Clara County election mistakes | San Jose Mercury News

A state audit of Santa Clara County’s elections office — which has been plagued with an inordinate amount of mistakes over the years — found that it lacks detailed policies employed in other counties to prevent errors and analyze them fully when they do occur. The audit — called for by a frustrated Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, who previously chaired the assembly’s elections committee — reviewed 26 errors that have happened from 2010 to 2016. In addition to the lack of procedural guidelines, the audit found that the county doesn’t have a clear plan or process to alert voters potentially affected by an error in ballot materials. And while “in most in most cases, it identified and took action to notify voters of the errors before the relevant elections,” auditors found that there’s no concrete system of recording these mistakes.

Kentucky: Board of Elections fires director and assistant director | Lexington Herald Leader

The State Board of Elections fired its executive director and assistant to the director on Tuesday. The board did not explain why Executive Director Maryellen Allen, a Democrat, and Assistant to the Director Matthew Selph, a Republican, were dismissed. “This was a bipartisan decision of the state board of elections, both non-merit employees, that their services were no longer needed,” said Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who serves as the chairwoman of the board. When pressed for the reason, Grimes just repeated her earlier statement. “Their services were no longer needed,” she said. Both Allen and Selph said they were not given a reason they were fired, but Selph said he felt it was because he raised questions about the operation of the board.

Liberia: Voting, Counting Going on Simultaneously in Liberia Elections | Front Page Africa

Polls are closed at some centers across Liberia while other centers are still overcrowded with many registered voters who are yet to cast their votes standing in queues. Poll agents at the Unification Town Hall at the Fair Ground in Grand Bassa County have expressed fear that voting may continue until midnight or tomorrow morning due to hundreds of voters who are still in the polling center wanting to cast their votes. The Electoral supervisors at the Fair Ground in Bassa say the situation is due to disarrangement of voters ID in the voters roll which has made it difficult for poll workers to identify the precincts people with valid voters IDs are to vote. 

Liberia: Ballot Boxes Reportedly Held Hostage by Campaign Traffic Ahead of Liberia Elections | Front Page Africa

Officials in Liberia are raising fears that some ballot boxes making their way to rural parts of the country may not get to some parts of the country by voting day Tuesday. A senior security official confirmed to FrontPageAfrica Saturday that a back line of traffic in the capital has left cars stranded for several hours. The opposition Alternative National Congress held its rally Saturday at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium while the ruling Unity Party also held a closing rally at its headquarters in Congo Town. Earlier in the day supporters of the ANC braved massive rains to storm the ATS in its launch in the nation’s capitol.

Texas: Election workers spied on black voters and backed white candidate in Cedar Hill, complaints say | Dallas Morning News

When Texans vote, their choices are supposed to be secret. But that wasn’t true during a racially charged City Council election in this Dallas suburb last June, according to allegations under investigation by the district attorney’s office. Workers at one polling place here openly supported a white incumbent over a black challenger, according to complaints filed with the county and state. One of the workers looked at ballots and discussed with the others how black residents had voted. The poll workers also improperly used their cellphones to urge supporters of the white candidate to come vote, according to a statement submitted to the county elections board by another poll worker, a Hispanic woman.

North Carolina: While Cooper and lawmakers struggle in court, local elections can proceed | News & Observer

Elections boards in 16 counties received relief late Friday from the state Supreme Court that allows them to prepare for local elections without all their members. The boards in Pitt, Carteret, Chowan, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Jones, Lincoln, Perquimans, Transylvania, Vance and other counties affected had been stymied from preparing for county and municipal elections this year because of a power struggle between Republican lawmakers and Gov. Roy Cooper that ended up in state court.

Ohio: Dennis Kucinich finds Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building unlocked, no one in building | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich found a public back door to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building unlocked Saturday afternoon. Kucinich said he was on his way to vote around 2:15 p.m. since the Board of Elections, which is at Euclid Avenue and East 30th Street, is typically open on a Saturday, he said. “I went to the back entrance and I entered and then the alarm went off and I said, ‘That’s odd,'” Kucinich said. He took the elevators up to the second floor and then to the third floor to tell someone that the alarm was going off, he said. “There was no one in the building,” Kucinich said. “The rear door of the Board of Elections was unlocked.”

North Carolina: State Supreme Court weighs GOP lawmakers stripping Cooper’s powers | Associated Press

North Carolina’s highest court on Monday tackled the question of how far the Republican-led legislature can go to minimize new Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s ability to pursue goals that helped him get elected last year by reshaping state government. The state Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by Cooper that claims legislators violated North Carolina’s constitution this spring by passing a law diminishing the governor’s role in managing elections.

Utah: County Clerk: Waiting several days for election results may be the new norm | Daily Herald

Vote-by-mail has put a whole new spin on determining election results. Though the Associated Press declared Provo Mayor John Curtis the winner Tuesday night in a three-way Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District, his opponent Chris Herrod has still not conceded, and thousands of votes wait to be counted in Utah County alone. Dozens of mayoral and city council candidates also await final results to see if they advanced to the general election Nov. 7. Utah County Clerk/Auditor Bryan Thompson says he has had multiple candidates and city officials express frustration with the delay, but more results will likely not be released until Friday.

Arizona: Secretary of State vows to maintain voter notification records | Arizona Daily Star

On Feb. 22, Laura Sue Cates registered to vote in Sullivan County, Tennessee. Previously, she had been registered to vote in Arizona’s Coconino County, so the Sullivan County Election Commission sent Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan a formal notice to ensure that Cates’ voter registration would be removed from Arizona’s rolls. Every day, the thousands of voting jurisdictions in the U.S. share information about current voter registrations to guard against people being registered in multiple places. The Arizona secretary of state receives hundreds each week and forwards them to the appropriate county recorder, as voter rolls in Arizona are maintained at the county level. A sample of a week’s worth of these notices, received between March 1 and March 7, obtained under the state’s public records law, shows 240 voters were identified by out-of-state voting jurisdictions.

Senegal: Electoral commission confirms Senegal ruling coalition landslide | The Guardian Nigeria

Senegal’s ruling coalition will take 125 of 165 seats in parliament, the body counting votes said Saturday, confirming an expected landslide for supporters of President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 re-election bid. The results of the July 30 legislative elections were published by the National Vote Counting Commission (CNRV) through the public APS news agency, and though official still need to be validated by the country’s constitutional council. The presidential coalition Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) took 49.48 percent of votes in Senegal’s list system, while the coalitions of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade and Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall trailed massively, delivering them 19 seats and seven seats respectively.

Washington: County auditors want the State to pay its ‘fair share’ on the price of elections | KOMO

It’s a fact few people, even politicians know: Every jurisdiction, whether it be a city, town, fire district, school district or water district, must pay its county’s election department to get their races and measures on a ballot. There’s one exception- the State of Washington. State laws says the state is exempt from reimbursing counties the costs of putting state and federal races on ballots during years ending in an even number. State auditors and election officials say those costs are being place on the backs of counties and jurisdictions — some that can barely afford to put on an election. “The state is getting a free ride in even years when it’s the most expensive,” says Julie Anderson, Pierce County Auditor who is heading up a legislative effort of state auditors to change the law.

Kenya: Activists demand justice for murdered election official | Deutsche Welle

Rights activists marched through the streets of Nairobi to protest against the murder of election commission official Christopher Msando just days ahead of the polls. Dozens of Kenyans came together on Tuesday to protest the murder of Christopher Msando, a top election official who was tasked with overseeing the country’s crucial electronic voting system. He was found dead with signs of torture in a forest on the outskirts of Nairobi over the weekend. “We want to ensure that all Kenyans will be able to feel they are secure. Come election day, Kenyans have to be confident when they are going out there to cast their ballot,” said one protester in Nairobi. “As a democratic nation we want to ensure that everyone exercises their civic duty to go out there and vote,” she added.  “The foul murder of Chris Msando is politically instigated,” said another protester marching along the streets of Nairobi.

Kansas: Kobach had duty to publicize new voting schedule; it appears that he didn’t | Lawrence Journal World

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach does not appear to have conducted any public information campaign, as required by law, to publicize the fact that the state recently shifted the election cycle for municipal elections from the spring to the fall of odd-numbered years. Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew cited that as one possible explanation for why voter turnout in the county was lower than expected on Tuesday, when the first municipal elections took place in Kansas under the new cycle. “We tried to get what word out that we could,” he said during a phone interview Tuesday. “I think there was an anticipation that there would be kind of a statewide push getting information out. We’ll kind of evaluate it for us, how we increase that push locally.”

Kenya: How Kenya will announce presidential election results | The Star Kenya

The IEBC has outlined the votes tallying process right from polling stations to the final announcement of presidential results. Jubilee Party leader Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA principal Raila Odinga are the main opponents in the elections that is 12 days away. After results are tallied and announced at polling stations, chairman Wafula Chebukati said, Presiding Officers will type them, as captured in Form 34A, into KIEMS tablets. The POs will then scan the forms using the tablet and confirm that the typed results and those on the scanned form are accurate. They will then transmit the results electronically to the constituency tallying centre and the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. Form 34A will then be made available on the IEBC’s online portal, Chebukati said in a statement to the media on Wednesday.