Ohio: Could the 2000 election debacle in Florida happen in Ohio? | Columbus Dispatch

“We don’t want to be another Florida.” Those words from Delaware County Elections Director Karla Herron are being echoed across Ohio — indeed, throughout much of the country — as elections officials grow increasingly worried about the growing necessity to replace aging voting equipment. Virtually no one disagrees with the need. Problem is, virtually no one wants to pay for a new voting setup. The statewide tab could top $200 million, judging by central Ohio cost estimates. Tim Ward has a ready retort for such reluctance: “You think having a good election is expensive? Try having a bad one.” The president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials and Madison County elections director said, “We don’t want to be sitting there saying I told you so.”

Wisconsin: Election Officials Approve Electronic Poll Books | Associated Press

Poll workers would be able to trade their paper and pens for laptops and printers by next year’s fall elections under a plan Wisconsin election officials approved Tuesday to develop electronic poll books. The state Elections Commission voted unanimously to have its staff develop e-poll book software and offer it to local election clerks on a pilot basis beginning in February. The commission plans to offer the software to clerks statewide by the August 2018 primaries. The project is expected to cost about $124,865 in staff time. Municipalities that decide to use the system would have to purchase hardware such as laptops and printers at a rate of $475 to $970 per voter check-in station at the polls.

California: Assembly Bill Would Allow Voting System Upgrades | Techwire

The last time voting technology was updated in California was 2002. That’s four presidential elections with the same voting machines each time. In Sacramento County, vote-counting machines have paths worn into the trays that hold ballots to be scanned, often causing ballots to fray as they pass through machines. Counties normally administer most election activities and cover the costs associated with them. States have specific requirements about elections, costing about $30 million a year. However, the state and federal governments do not regularly pay for elections, leaving counties with large modernization bills. Assembly Bill 668, the Voting Modernization Bond Act of 2018, would change all that. The bill would allow the state to sell $450 million in bonds that would be spent upgrading voting technology after a two-thirds vote in both houses and passage as a proposition by direct vote of the people.

Pennsylvania: Senators, experts gather for “overview hearing” on election reform | PennLive

Imagine it’s the first Tuesday of November. Rather than voting at your local precinct in your municipality, you would drive to the county “polling center” to cast your ballot. In a Senate hearing on Tuesday, legislators and elections experts discussed this “polling center” concept and other possibilities to amend Pennsylvania’s current election practices, many of which have been in place since 1937.

Minnesota: Secretary’s push to replace aging election equipment signed into law | Faribault Daily News

Secretary of State Steve Simon is praising a new law that will help replace Minnesota’s aging election equipment, calling it a “critical and necessary investment” to ensure voting equipment works properly and consistently in precincts all around the state. Replacing aging equipment has been a major priority of Secretary Simon’s since taking office and was signed into law May 30. The bill creates a $7 million grant fund to replace Minnesota’s aging election equipment by 2018. It provides up to a 50 percent match between the state and counties for mandatory equipment and up to a 75 percent match for electronic poll books.

California: Here’s why California officials want $450 million to upgrade elections technology | Press Enterprise

Imagine using a dial-up modem for Internet and VHS for entertainment in 2017. California elections officials say they face a similar situation with the technology used for a bedrock function of democracy. It’s why Secretary of State Alex Padilla supports a bill to raise $450 million through bonds to upgrade elections technology in California’s 58 counties. The bill, AB 668, passed the Assembly 56-19 on Wednesday, May 31. If it passes the Senate and is signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, California voters will decide whether to authorize the bonds in June 2018. Republicans argue the bill, known as the Voting Modernization Bond Act of 2018, is a costly and wrong-headed approach to upgrading elections systems. “The right to vote is our most important right,” said the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego. “But local election officials have to rely on equipment that is rapidly becoming outdated or obsolete.”

Nevada: Bill would replace Nevada voting machines | Nevada Appeal

A bill that would pay to replace all of Nevada’s electronic voting machines was introduced in the Assembly on Thursday. Assembly Bill 519 would provide a total of $8 million to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division. County elections officials have repeatedly told lawmakers the Sequoia machines are now so old they’re failing, causing numerous problems for poll workers in early voting as well as on election day. Those machines are now more than a decade old and were the state’s first electronic voting system, replacing the old punch card voting machines.

Illinois: Election officials: Funding needed for registration bill | Bloomington Pantagraph

Local election officials hope the state will budget enough money to do automatic voter registration properly. “Have they figured out how they’re going to pay for it and implement it? That will be key for its success,” said McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael. “It would be a good thing if it worked perfectly, but we’re awaiting further details on it.” The state House and Senate sent Gov. Bruce Rauner legislation that would automatically add residents to the voter rolls when they visit state offices, including those of the secretary of state, who oversees driver’s licenses and vehicle registration. Residents would be able to opt out at the beginning of the registration process. … Logan County Clerk Sally Turner, however, said, “Most county clerks have resigned to the fact that (automatic voter registration) will be the law, but we are all apprehensive in the way it will occur.”

Michigan: Senate OKs election recount fee hike | Associated Press

Michigan’s fee to recount election votes would double if a losing candidate is down by more than 5 percentage points under legislation approved Tuesday by the state Senate in response to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s recount bid last fall. The bill would increase the fee from $125 per precinct to $250. It would stay at $125 if the margin is 5 points or less and remain at $25 if it is under half of a point. Stein sought the recount despite winning 1 percent of the vote, questioning the accuracy of the vote and suggesting, without evidence, that votes were susceptible to hacking.

Minnesota: Simon urges funding for voting equipment | Advocate Tribune

Last week Secretary of State Steve Simon undertook a tour of all 87 counties. He wanted to learn about the local government’s experiences during the 2016 election. His goal was to get the State to give some kind of grant or match to help with the cost of replacing aging voting machines. In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which was a one time federal fund to help purchase equipment. Minnesota purchased most of its equipment between 2004-2007. According to the vendors, the machines are good for 10 years, and can be pushed to 15 years max. In 2017, the max is getting dangerously close. It costs roughly $10,000 per polling location to upgrade. Simon’s case for State funding is that upgrading the machines is a mandatory cost that can’t be deferred. The previous generation of machines was purchased with help from federal funding for all 50 states. 43 states are in need of upgrades.

Michigan: Stein recount sparks vote to double fees | The Detroit News

Michigan would double fees for long-shot election recounts under legislation approved Tuesday by the state Senate following a partial hand recount of 2016 presidential votes prompted by Green Party nominee Jill Stein. Stein petitioned for a Michigan recount despite receiving less than two percent of the vote in the state’s Nov. 7 election that saw Republican President Donald Trump officially defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes. Michigan law required Stein to pay $973,250 for the massive hand recount — $125 per physical and absentee ballot precinct — but Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office estimated the actual cost for the state and local clerks could approach $2 million.

Montana: Special election costs counties big money | NBC

It’s not often the state has a massive election just six months after deciding the president. Montanans know how high the stakes are. “It’s one of the basic requirements of citizenship is to go out and take part and vote,” Flathead County voter Rod Ayres said. But Montana’s special election, scheduled to take place Thursday between Democrat Rob Quist, Republican Greg Gianforte and Libertarian Mark Wicks, is costing local election offices big money. Montana’s lone U.S. House seat is vacant following Ryan Zinke’s appointment to Secretary of the Interior. We made calls around the region to find out how much this election costs.

Montana: Special election means additional costs for counties | KRTV

The May federal election brought unexpected expenses for Montana counties. The election to replace Ryan Zinke comes just months after the statewide 2016 general election. There was a big push by county elections officials statewide to bring down that cost by having the option to conduct the election by all-mail ballots. “There was 169 out of 174 commissioners and probably 70% of them were republicans that supported this, all 56 clerk and recorders supported this and we just could not get them to take action on it,” said Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore.

Wisconsin: 5 Elections staff approved despite Walker recommendation | Associated Press

The Legislature’s budget committee on Tuesday approved state funding for five of six Elections Commission staff positions that have been supported by federal grant that’s set to run out, dismissing Gov. Scott Walker’s recommendation to cut all six of them. The governor argued that the commission can handle its workload without the positions that had been supported by the federal Help America Vote Act passed in 2002. But state and local elections officials disagreed, arguing that the jobs were critically important to ensuring that Wisconsin’s elections are properly run.

Washington: Ballot box bill could raise cost of local elections, officials say | Kitsap Sun

A state Senate bill that would require counties to increase the number of ballot drop boxes could bump the cost of elections in Kitsap County by more than $50,000, election officials say. The bill, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, would force counties to add one drop box for every 15,000 voters, one in every city and in each census-designated place with a post office. Sen. Kirk Pearson, R- Monroe, the bill’s lone sponsor, argued in testimony that adding more ballot boxes would increase access to voting in smaller, less-populated areas. The cost of postage should be considered a barrier that discourages people from voting, he said. But county election officials say the parameters of the measure are too restrictive and would force taxpayers to bear the brunt of the cost.

Montana: Aging voting machines pose challenges for disabled, counties | Associated Press

Elections clerks across Montana could find themselves increasingly challenged to serve voters with severe physical disabilities because of a dwindling supply of polling equipment designed especially for people who cannot use traditional voting machines. Existing inventories of voting machines for disabled voters are antiquated, some nearly two decades old. Many units are in disrepair and elections officials have been unable to replace the aging machines with newer, modern equipment because of state law. In 2008, a disabled voter sued Missoula County for not being in full compliance with federal law when it did not have a backup unit for a malfunctioning machine specially designed for people who do not have full function of their limbs.

California: Election officials support $450 million voting-equipment bond | The Sacramento Bee

California elections officials want state lawmakers to place a $450 million voting-equipment borrowing measure on the June 2018 ballot, saying that many counties’ voting machines rely on outdated equipment that make them vulnerable to breakdowns and hacking. The bond measure in Assembly Bill 668 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales Fletcher, D-San Diego, would be more than double the size of the last voting machine borrowing proposal to go on the ballot. In March 2002, voters approved Proposition 41, a $200 million bond prompted by disputed Florida presidential vote in 2000 that highlighted hanging chads and other voting equipment problems. Some of the machines purchased with Proposition 41 money later were decertified after state officials imposed new paper-trail requirements and other rules. Counties either retrofitted machines to bring them into compliance, or pulled older equipment back into use.

Montana: House speaker kills mail-ballot bill with parliamentary power | KXLH

Republican House Speaker Austin Knudsen is using his parliamentary power to kill a measure allowing counties to hold an all-mail ballot in Montana’s May 25 special congressional election. Knudsen has refused to schedule a floor vote on House Bill 83, which Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock sent back to the House on April 7, with amendments giving counties the option to conduct an all-mail ballot. Without a floor vote, the bill is dead – unless at least 60 House members vote to overrule Knudsen’s decision, which is unlikely. In a statement Tuesday, Bullock said Knudsen is “playing procedural games to prevent this (bill) from reaching the House floor.”

Iowa: Democrats question GOP’s spending on voter ID | The Gazette

After debating a voter ID bill for more than five hours Monday, Rep. Bruce Hunter wasn’t about to ignore its $700,000 cost. Hunter, D-Des Moines, challenged the line item in the Secretary of State’s budget during a meeting Tuesday of the Administration and Regulation Appropriations Subcommittee. He challenged any committee member to explain why the money was needed to implement House File 516, which is awaiting final approval in the Senate. Hunter and fellow Democrats repeatedly asked majority Republicans what problem they were trying to solve. There have been few problems with voter fraud and impersonation, “but we give them $700,000 to chase Don Quixote,” Hunter said. “Given the cuts in other departments, it is unconscionable to put in $700,000 for a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Iowa: Budget includes funding for voter ID initiative, cuts for other programs | Des Moines Register

Legislative Republicans unveiled a budget proposal Tuesday that includes nearly $650,000 to implement a new voter ID initiative but makes $1.4 million in cuts to other departments and programs. Republicans said they were glad to support the Secretary of State’s voter identification plan, but Democrats were immediately critical that it would come at the expense of other programs such as the Iowa Public Information Board and the Child Advocacy Board. “Given the cuts of every other department, this is unconscionable that we would put $700,000 into a problem that doesn’t exist when we have other problems that do exist and we’re cutting those departments,” said Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines. The proposal would provide about $47.4 million in funding to administration and regulation services. It’s part of the state’s overall $7.245 billion spending plan, which includes cuts to nearly every area of the state budget.

Michigan: Detroit getting new voting machines, bound statewide | Detroit Free Press

Using state-of-the-art voting machines wouldn’t have changed the controversial results of Michigan’s presidential election last fall, according to Detroit and state election officials. But new digital machines unveiled Saturday — to about 1,200 volunteer supervisors of Detroit’s polling sites — won’t suffer the frequent breakdowns of the old machines, causing lines to back up with impatient voters, and soon will be used statewide, officials said. “At the end of the day, we all have one goal, right? To ensure that every person that wants to vote gets to vote and we count that vote accurately,” Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey told the poll workers. In an event billed as an equipment fair, Winfrey and her staff showed off the new, $4,000 voting tabulators to noisy, curious crowds of election volunteers who gathered — one group in the morning, another in the afternoon — at Wayne County Community College in downtown Detroit.

Montana: Governor Uses Veto Pen to Push Mail-Only Voting | Associated Press

Gov. Steve Bullock revived debate over mail-only voting on Friday when he used his veto power to rewrite a routine bill to allow counties to conduct the May 25 congressional election by mail. The governor’s action caught Secretary of State Corey Stapleton off guard. His fellow Republicans in the House, who had killed the bill last month, were scrambling to see if there was a way to prevent the governor’s changes from being debated and getting a floor vote. They could run down the clock — because they can choose to take up the matter any time during the remaining days of the session. The 11th-hour political maneuver might be too late for some counties, who are already planning to print ballots, arrange polling sites and assemble thousands of poll workers.

Montana: Counties dealing with challenges posed by special election | Bozeman Daily Chronicle

County election officials are securing polling places, hiring election judges and bracing for higher costs for this spring’s special election now that any hope that votes will only be cast by mail has been quashed. A bill to give counties the option of making Montana’s May 25 special election a mail-ballot only contest has been all but buried at the Montana Legislature despite support from many county governments. Those counties said the bill would save them money, but some Republican leaders opposed the measure because they said it would give Democrats an edge in the race to fill Montana’s one U.S. House seat. A final effort to move the bill forward failed last Friday, and now that the bill appears dead, county officials are plugging ahead and dealing with the challenges of organizing an election in a hurry.

Ohio: Butler County leaders don’t like state rules on electronic voting | Hamilton Journal News

New electronic poll books for elections are supposed to make voting faster, more accurate and more secure, but Butler County commissioners don’t like the state’s “use it or lose it” policy regarding money to pay for them. County elections officials presented a plan Monday to spend $524,900 on the new technology. The state will pick up the lion’s share, $394,465, for the equipment, but county leaders said the catch is the elections board must be under contract with the vendor by May 31 or the money will vanish. “I don’t like the state saying you have to use it or lose,” Commissioner Don Dixon said. “I think if they are going to allocate that money, then if we have a plan to bundle that with something else, and it may be a year before we’re there, we should be allowed to do that.”

California: Here’s why California counties can ignore a half-dozen election laws | Los Angeles Times

In the partnership between state and county governments that underwrites California’s elections every two years, one of the partners has racked up a sizable IOU. Yes, it’s the state. And the running tab is almost $76 million. Whether that tab gets paid off, or keeps growing, is an open question. In the meantime, the unpaid bill means local officials can legally refuse to follow a half-dozen election laws. Small ones? Hardly. They could refuse to provide absentee ballots to anyone who wants one. Or perhaps even more provocative in the current election-integrity climate, they could refuse to use long-standing legal rules when asked to verify a voter’s signature on a provisional ballot. No money, no mandated services.

Ohio: Online Voter Registration In Place, Ohio Looks To Save Money And Time | WOSU

Monday is the final day that Franklin County residents can register for the May primary. Voters will weigh in on 16 different issues, including for members of City Council and the Board of Education. In 2017, Ohio became the 38th state to implement online voter registration. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, this minor modernization has a number of benefits. According the Pew report, online registration is more accessible, especially for young adults who tend to move more frequently. And because it’s instantly cross checked by records at the BMV, it’s more accurate than the standard paper system.

Montana: Attempt to revive mail-ballots effort fails in the House; bill is dead | The Missoulian

A last-ditch effort to hold the May special election to fill Montana’s vacant seat in Congress by mail failed Friday. Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth, tried to “blast” a bill that would let counties choose to use mail ballots onto the House floor. A blast motion is an attempt to revive a bill that has stalled in committee. The motion needed 60 votes out of 100 House members, but only got 51. Senate Bill 305 was carried by Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls. The bill would have allowed counties to choose to conduct the May 25 election to replace former U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who resigned to become Secretary of the Interior, by mail. Voting still would be available at county courthouses before the election and on Election Day, a Thursday, as well as at satellite offices.

Montana: Effort to use mail ballots in special election killed | The Missoulian

Following a move that killed — at least for Wednesday — a bill that would allow counties to choose a money-saving mail vote for the May special election to fill Montana’s empty seat in Congress, some Democrats are claiming the legislation was doomed to fail because of “partisan hijinks.” On Wednesday Rep. Virginia Court, a Democrat from Billings, tried to force a legislative committee to vote to advance Senate Bill 305, carried by Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls. The bill would allow counties to choose to conduct the May 25 election to replace former U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who resigned to become Secretary of the Interior, by mail. The bill had not been scheduled for a vote by House Judiciary Committee Chair Alan Doane, R-Bloomfield.

California: Report: State Still Short-Changing Counties for Election Costs | KQED

California’s state government should pick up the tab for more local election costs, according to a report released Thursday by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. California’s 58 counties currently shoulder the costs for federal and state elections, but don’t receive reliable payments to cover those costs. Towns, cities and school districts typically reimburse counties for carrying out their local elections. “The state has a clear interest in secure, timely, and uniform elections,” the LAO report says. “While the state reaps regular benefits from county elections administration, it only sporadically provides funding to counties for election activities.”

Wisconsin: Elections Commission warns of significant staff cuts | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

With federal funds about to run out, the Wisconsin Elections Commission asked lawmakers Tuesday to stave off what would be a 28% staffing cut in just over two years. A federal grant is running out for the agency, which relies on that stream of money to fund 22 of its 32 positions. GOP Gov. Scott Walker has set aside $2.5 million in new state tax dollars in his two-year budget to retain 16 of those positions. But six positions would still disappear, amounting to a 28% staffing cut in an agency that has already seen job losses since 2015. “We are concerned that such a significant staffing reduction will mean that the agency will not be able to adequately carry out the duties and responsibilities assigned to it under federal and state laws,” said Jodi Jensen, a Republican who sits on the commission.