North Carolina: Democrats file ‘voter empowerment act’ to counter GOP’s voter ID push | Port City Daily

House and Senate Democrats recently filed a bill in response to the GOP leadership’s push for voter ID in North Carolina. The Ella Baker Voter Empowerment Act is named after Baker, a black civil rights leader who graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh and was a contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The House version (HB 689) and Senate version (SB 708) both seek to extend early voting, including Sunday voting. The bills also seek to increase poll hours during early voting, create an online voter registration and increase one-stop polling locations, according to The Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Pennsylvania: Online voter registration OK’d by Senate, authorization goes to House | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

You can already shop, take care of your banking or chat with your friends online. Is registering to vote next? A bill that passed the state Senate last week proposes just that. “I think it is a common-sense change that encourages people to participate in the process. It’s hard to argue against that,” said Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster, the legislation’s main sponsor. The bill passed the Senate unanimously; it now moves to the House. Currently, eligible Pennsylvania voters can go online and print out a registration form that they must fill out and mail, but Senate Bill 37 would make the registration process completely available online. It also would allow current voters to switch their address or party affiliation online.

Massachusetts: Reformers: Momentum building behind voting reform bills | Georgetown Record

State election reform advocates are optimistic their longtime efforts to enact early voting, online voter registration and other changes at the polls could gain traction this year. MassVOTE and other voting rights groups said long lines at some polls in last year’s presidential election seem to have sparked renewed interest in such reforms. State Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Election Laws, filed a bill this year that bundles several measures that reformers have long supported. Some of these measures passed the House last year, but died in the Senate at the end of the legislative session, advocates said.

Pennsylvania: Online voter registration and two other government reforms pass Senate | PennLive.com

The Senate passed legislation today that would allow residents aged 18 years and older to register to vote online until 30 days before the election by a 49-0 vote. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster County, now goes to the House for consideration. It is expected to result in significant cost savings being realized as was the case in other states that have made this move. Government reform groups also suggest the online registration will improve the accuracy of registrations and official voter rolls as well as eliminate the chance of anyone intercepting or failing to turn in registration forms to county officials.

Texas: Online voter registration bills see support from House, Senate committees | Houston Chronicle

Texas could become the seventeenth state to allow online voter registration if two bills advancing out of committees receive final approval. House Bill 313, which received praise from committee members in a Monday hearing, and Senate Bill 315, which was voted out of committee Thursday, propose allowing voters to register online and have that application automatically authenticated rather than having to wait on local election officials to reenter the data in their systems and confirm it.

California: Bills seek updates to voting, election systems | San Jose Mercury News

In use for the first time last year, California’s online voter registration system proved so popular that lawmakers want to build on its success this year. Wider promotion of the system and a push toward online voting are among several election-related bills under consideration as the Legislature approaches a midyear bill deadline. Other changes under consideration would shine more light on campaign financing and update how elections are run. About 800,000 Californians used the online registration system to join the state’s voter rolls, according to state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who authored the original bill. An analysis of turnout figures by Political Data Inc. indicated that those who registered online were significantly more likely than other voters to cast a ballot last November. This year, Yee’s SB44 is proposing that all state websites link to the secretary of state’s voter registration page in an effort to publicize the system. Others want the state to move even further online and are pushing for a pilot program to test the casting of ballots over the Internet. Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, has put forward AB19 to review the security of online voting software and eventually create a pilot program for counties.

California: Democrats push voting laws that could broaden their reach | The Sacramento Bee

Fresh off their 2012 wins at the polls, California Democrats are looking to broaden their reach by advancing a new batch of bills aimed at expanding voter access and increasing turnout. Achieving that result would likely benefit Democrats, who historically fare worse in the lower-turnout nonpresidential elections, as they defend supermajorities in the state Legislature and competitive congressional seats won last year in the 2014 election. “We have work to do,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told delegates at the state party’s convention over the weekend in Sacramento. “We just got started.”

Pennsylvania: State considers online registration | Pocono Record

It’s possible in these days of instant connectivity to monitor nearly every financial, physical and social transaction using the Internet — from banking to travel, and from dieting to dinner reservations. So should you also be able to declare yourself a legal voter in the state of Pennsylvania online as well? State Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster, sponsor of a bill to create online voter registration in Pennsylvania, thinks so. “The idea is to give additional options and provide greater convenience, and hopefully increase participation in voting,” Smucker said. Residents would be able to register online up to 30 days before an election. They also would be able to change their party affiliation, address or name on the online form. A similar bill passed last session in the Senate, but the House did not follow up.

National: States vote yes to online registration | Politico.com

A wave of states in recent years have moved to allow residents to register online and the pace is quickening today as many more are debating the issue – a development that is swelling voting rolls, saving taxpayers’ money, and providing a welcome demilitarized zone in the raging partisan wars over ballot access. “It’s red states, blue states, small states, big states,” said Jennie Bowser, an elections expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It’s happening across the board.” Only two states, Arizona and Washington, had online voter registration when Barack Obama won the presidency. Four years later, 13 states had systems up and running by the time Obama won reelection. Now, at least fourteen additional states are considering legislation to enact online registration. (Virginia and New Mexico have already sent bills to the governor.)

Pennsylvania: Lawmaker proposes online registration | Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s possible in these days of instant connectivity to monitor nearly every financial, physical and social transaction using the Internet – from banking to travel, and from dieting to dinner reservations. So should you also be able to declare yourself a legal voter in the state of Pennsylvania online as well? State Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster, sponsor of a bill to create online voter registration in Pennsylvania, thinks so. “The idea is to give additional options and provide greater convenience, and hopefully increase participation in voting,” Smucker said. Smucker said he got the idea from a constituent who wondered why Pennsylvania didn’t have an online system like those used in other states. Residents would be able to register online up to 30 days before an election. They also would be able to change their party affiliation, address or name on the online form.

California: Report shows online registration drive draws broader voter base | UCB News

California’s new online voter-registration system, which premiered last fall, generated some striking results, including that more registrants come from low- and middle-income neighborhoods than expected, says a new University of California, Berkeley, study. Researchers Lisa García Bedolla, a UC Berkeley associate professor of education and of political science, and researcher Véronica N. Velez, a postdoctoral research fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Latino Policy Research, just released their report for the center about California’s entry into online voter registration. California opened up its voter registration process last fall, and UC Berkeley researchers have found some interesting results. “Given voters in California are, on average, significantly more affluent than the general population, this study suggests that online voter registration opened up the … process to a wider range of voters in terms of their socioeconomic status,” García Bedolla and Velez reported.

Pennsylvania: Measure allowing online voter registration advances in Senate | PennLive.com

Legislation to modernize Pennsylvania voter registration is advancing in the Senate. The Senate State Government Committee today passed legislation that would allow citizens 18 years and older to register to vote online until 30 days before the election. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster County, now goes to the full Senate for consideration. Twelve states already allow for online registration, while 13 others are moving in this direction, said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause/PA, a government reform group. “It allows every citizen of voting age increased access to voter registration. This further elevates citizens’ right to vote,” Kauffman said. Plus, it “will dramatically reduce counties’ and the state’s voter registration processing costs, improve the accuracy of registrations and official voter rolls, and improve security of registrations by preventing bad actors from intercepting confidential information or failing to turn in legitimate registrations.”

California: Path toward online voting stymied by fear of hacking | California Forward

While we can do just about everything on the Internet these days, like buy groceries, pay bills, and most importantly, waste hours watching cat videos, we can’t yet cast a ballot online. But the idea of e-Voting, as it’s called, isn’t so far-fetched. Eight years ago the small Baltic country of Estonia became the first country in the world to allow voters to cast ballots over the Internet, and it has actually worked rather well. After the successful launch of online voter registration last year, which allowed roughly 600,000 Californians to register online in the final 45 days before the 2012 election, electronic voting would seem like the logical next step. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to believe that California, home to Silicon Valley and birthplace of the Internet revolution, would lead the charge toward cyberspace voting. Don’t rush out and buy an iPad just yet; it’s unlikely that you’ll be voting for president, governor, or mayor on one anytime soon. In fact, voting security experts like Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to safeguarding elections in the digital age, hope to slow any expansion to Internet voting, for now anyway. Smith warns that online voting is a “dangerous idea” as there is currently no way to guarantee the security, integrity, and privacy of ballots cast over the Internet.

Maryland: Proposed online ballot system called vulnerable to cyberattack | The Washington Post

A controversial change in Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s otherwise popular bill to expand early voting could lead to voter fraud and expose the state’s elections to cybersecurity threats, according to a voting group and election technology experts. The provision, sought for more than a year by Maryland’s State Board of Elections, would allow any Marylander to receive a password by e-mail to download and mark a ballot at home before mailing it back to elections officials. But the problem, critics warn, is that the e-mail system lacks basic protections and there would be no signature verification or other means to ensure that the person for whom the ballot is intended is actually the person who casts it. Experts have also warned that the proposed online ballot delivery system could be hacked on a massive scale because of a second and related vulnerability that still exists with the state’s new online voter registration system. Maryland residents can register to vote online with a driver’s license number. But in Maryland, that number is a formula of a resident’s name and birth date that can be found online.

Ohio: Husted pushing for online voter registration | The Chillicothe Gazette

While in town to honor a longtime Ross County Board of Elections worker for his service, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told the Gazette he plans to ask the General Assembly for the authority to create a process for online voter registration. Voters can change their addresses online at the Secretary of State’s website, but Husted said he hopes to have online registration available in the near future. “It is more inexpensive — more cost-effective, I should say — and more secure if we can register people electronically rather than with the old paper-based system,” Husted said. “We can save between 50 cents and $1 per voter for registration and when you can electronically validate them, you can ensure that only the people that should be legally registered are actually voting.” Husted said he plans to ask the General Assembly for the authority to create the system and, if approved, he anticipates it could be turned around in six months. Husted also said other election-related innovations such as allowing everyone the opportunity to vote early via absentee ballot by mail or in local board of elections offices have proven popular with voters.

National: Online voting: Safe for Oscars, but not yet for elections? | TechHive

For the first time ever, this year’s Oscar winners were selected online. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to let its members vote online, but cybersecurity and elections experts say that casting Internet ballots in public elections is still a long way off. Even picking Best Picture winners led to serious snafus. The voting deadline for the Oscars was extended in early January after some members had issues with account registration (password requests were answered by snail mail rather than email). But in public elections, deadlines can’t be extended. A group of cybersecurity and elections experts last week reiterated the dangers of modeling public elections after private ones. Companies who design online voting systems for award shows or corporate shareholder meetings may suggest these systems can also be used in congressional or presidential races. Those claims should be met with skepticism, said computer scientist David Jefferson, chairman of the nonprofit Verified Voting Foundation. “There are major differences between private and public elections: the degree of security required, the degree of privacy required, the degree of transparency required,” Jefferson said in a telephone press conference Thursday. “In a public election we’re talking about a national security situation.”

National: President’s New Voting Commission Greeted With Skepticism | NPR

One of the more memorable moments in President Obama’s State of the Union address this week was his introduction of an elderly woman sitting in the House gallery. The president said that Desiline Victor had to wait three hours last year to vote in North Miami. “Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line to support her,” Obama said. “[Because] Desiline is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read, ‘I Voted.’ But Obama’s plan to fix the problem — setting up a presidential commission — hasn’t gotten many cheers. Voting-rights advocates are lukewarm at best, while Republicans are dismissive. So far, there are few details about the new commission. Obama said it will be headed by two longtime election lawyers, “who, by the way, recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Gov. [Mitt] Romney’s campaign.”

National: Obama’s proposed voting commission under partisan fire from both sides | The Washington Post

President Obama’s proposed commission on electoral reform, which seeks to improve voting efficiency and reduce long wait times for voters, is producing heated criticism from advocates on both the right and the left. Some conservatives view the initiative as federal overreaching on an issue that is rightly the province of states, while some voting rights advocates say that the president’s proposed commission is a too-timid response to what they see as a huge problem. “Setting up a commission is not a bold step; it is business as usual,” said Elisabeth Mac­Namara, president of the League of Women Voters. Critics of the commission say it doesn’t match the severity of the problem. “The president could have done much better by pointing to real solutions, like that in legislation already introduced on Capitol Hill to require early voting, set limits on waiting times, provide for portable voter registration and set up secure online voter registration.” Conservatives said the commission infringes on local control of the voting process. “I do not support the president’s proposal to appoint yet another national commission to study solutions to the problem of long lines at polling places that seems to be confined to very few states,” Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-Mich.) said in a statement, adding that she is opposed to national mandates.

Illinois: Lawmakers consider online voter registration; some fear fraud | Herald-Review

You can do your banking on your smartphone or buy a refrigerator on the Internet, but you can’t register to vote in Illinois without putting pen to paper. On Wednesday, Gov. Pat Quinn announced he wants to change all that by setting up a system that would allow Illinoisans to register to vote online. “In our Illinois, we embrace the voices, and the votes, of all people. Our democracy is strongest when more voters raise their voices at the ballot box,” the Chicago Democrat said during his annual State of the State speech. “We must move our election process into the 21st century.” Quinn aides say the move could boost turnout and eventually save taxpayer dollars by eliminating the need for personnel and paper to process applications.

New Hampshire: Early voting? Not if Secretary of State Gardner can prevent it | Union Leader

Secretary of State William Gardner takes a dim view of congressional efforts to address with federal legislation the long lines some states saw at polling places during the November election. In his experience, he said, “One-size-fits-all usually fits very few.” The White House and some in Congress are pushing for changes to federal election laws, such as those involving early voting and online voter registration. But if such measures were to pass, Gardner said, “we would first work to get out of it like we did with the National Voter Registration Act.” New Hampshire got an exemption from that 1993 “motor-voter” law by passing same-day voter registration and making it retroactive to the date of the federal legislation. Gardner stressed that different states have very different cultures. “We are who we are because of our history,” he said. And, he said, “the federal government hasn’t had the best of track records when it comes to changing election laws for states. And I would prefer that the federal government stay out of this.”

Montana: Online voter registration bill wins committee support | Montana Standard

Montana could make it more convenient, improve accuracy and save money by allowing people to register to vote online, a senator told a committee Wednesday. “This is simply another mechanism to make sure more people have access,” Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, told the Senate State Administration Committee. His Senate Bill 206 would let people register to vote online, provided they have a valid Montana driver’s license or a Montana identification card. People registering online would have to attest the information they are entering is true, agree to use the signature on their Montana driver’s licenses or ID card on file with the state and submit it electronically.

Montana: Bill to allow online voter registration wins support | Helenair

Montana could make it more convenient, improve accuracy and save money by allowing people to register to vote online, a senator told a committee Wednesday. “This is simply another mechanism to make sure more people have access,” Sen. Dave Wanzenried, D-Missoula, told the Senate State Administration Committee. His Senate Bill 206 would let people register to vote online, provided they have a valid Montana driver’s license or a Montana identification card. People registering online would have to attest the information they are entering is true, agree to use the signature on their Montana driver’s licenses or ID card on file with the state and submit it electronically.

National: Discrepancies in voter waiting times draw scrutiny | The Bulletin

With studies suggesting that long lines at the polls cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes in November, party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier, setting up a likely new conflict with Republicans over a deeply polarizing issue. White House officials have told congressional leaders that President Barack Obama plans to press for action on Capitol Hill. House and Senate Democrats have introduced bills that would require states to provide online voter registration and allow at least 15 days of early voting, among other things. Fourteen states are considering whether to expand early voting, including the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Virginia, according to FairVote, a nonprofit that advocates electoral change. Florida, New York, Texas and Washington are looking at whether to ease registration and establish preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.

National: Voter Waiting Time Disparities Draw Democrats’ Scrutiny | NYTimes.com

With studies suggesting that long lines at the polls cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes in November, party leaders are beginning a push to make voting and voter registration easier, setting up a likely new conflict with Republicans over a deeply polarizing issue. White House officials have told Congressional leaders that the president plans to press for action on Capitol Hill, and Democrats say they expect him to highlight the issue in his State of the Union address next week. Democrats in the House and Senate have already introduced bills that would require states to provide online voter registration and allow at least 15 days of early voting, among other things. Fourteen states are also considering whether to expand early voting, including the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Virginia, according to FairVote, a nonprofit group that advocates electoral change. Florida, New York, Texas and Washington are looking at whether to ease registration and establish preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.

National: Online voter signup gains favor | Washington Times

If Capitol Hill Democrats have their way, every American soon will have the option to grab their laptop, plop down on the couch and register to vote. Yet unlike other hot-button voting rights issues, such as early voting and same-day registration, the idea is gaining momentum among some state-level Republicans. Online voter registration is a central provision of a voting rights bill jointly filed last week by Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, both Democrats. The measure, called the Voter Empowerment Act, collectively so far has 168 cosponsors in both chambers — all Democrats. But at the state level, the issue is largely nonpartisan, as half of all states with online voter-registration programs already in place have Republican-led state legislatures. And of the eight state legislatures with bills this year proposing the idea, five are GOP-controlled, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Idaho: Democrats Launch Push to Improve Voting Access | Times-News

Idaho Democrats want to make voting more accessible. But already, one of their ideas has hit a hurdle. Democrats unveiled a package of five bills Tuesday, Jan. 29, as part of the Voting Opportunity and Trustworthy Elections Initiative. But one of the bills was voted down during its print hearing just minutes before the press conference. Senate Assistant Minority Leader Elliot Werk, D-Boise, said voter feedback during the campaign season spurred the caucus to put together the legislation, aimed at increasing voter accessibility and participation. The five bills in the act address online voter registration, polling places and costs associated with closed primaries.

National: Internet Voting Not the Solution to Long Lines, Machine Breakdowns on Election Day | eNews Park Forest

The long lines, machine breakdowns and disputes over voter identification that marred the 2012 election will not be solved by moves to permit voting on the Internet, through email or by fax, Common Cause warned today. Susannah Goodman, director of Common Cause’s National Voting Integrity Campaign, told a congressional forum that online voting remains too unreliable and too vulnerable to hacker attacks to be implemented. “We are talking about our right to vote – a right we cannot sacrifice for what may be a great new idea, but one that is untested and not ready for prime time,” Goodman asserted. She added that “while many ideas will be fielded to alleviate the problems we saw last Election Day, some measures are just not ready for adoption.”

Editorials: Technology in our electoral process | Leland Yee/Daily Journal

In September, as a result of a law I authored in 2011, California launched online voter registration. Consequently, California set a new record with 18,245,970 registered voters. More than 1 million people used the new registration system in less than a month, with moe than 780,000 citizens added to the voter file. Nearly 62 percent of those who registered online were under age 35 and four out of five registered to vote for the first time. Proudly, these individuals also voted in much higher numbers than those eligible via paper registration from previous elections. … I share this frustration but I have a fundamental optimism that the barriers to online voting can be lifted if enough research and development is devoted to solving the problem. Unfortunately, Internet voting systems are not yet ready for deployment. The National Institutes for Standards and Technology and cyber security experts at the Department of Homeland Security have reviewed the currently commercially available Internet voting systems and found that fundamental security problems have not been resolved and thus should not be used yet in our public elections.

California: More young voters register unaffiliated | SFGate

Young adults in California flexed their muscle in the voting booth in 2012, registering in record numbers and increasingly choosing “no party preference” to the two major political parties, a new study shows. The study by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change and the California Civic Engagement Project also showed that Democrats reaped big numbers this year among voters 18 to 24 with the start of online voter registration – a trend that could shape future elections and campaigns.

National: Experts warn hackers will breach online voting systems | ITProPortal.com

As one of the world’s biggest electoral showdowns nears its conclusion over in the US, fears are growing in IT security that hackers may soon be able to affect the outcome of such a contest by breaching online voter databases. With governing bodies continuing to utilise Internet platforms for voter registration, and hacking collectives growing in sophistication, some experts believe a serious breach of electoral data is inevitable. While Barack Obama and Mitt Romney jostle for power in America, states including Maryland, Washington, Arizona and California have either implemented online voter registration systems already, or have passed bills proposing the move.