Virginia: McAuliffe says he has broken U.S. record for restoring voting rights | The Washington Post

Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Thursday that he had broken the record for restoring voting rights to convicted felons, calling it his “proudest achievement” as governor. McAuliffe (D) said he had individually restored rights to 156,221 Virginians, surpassing the previous record-holder by a nose. As governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011, Charlie Crist restored voting rights to 155,315 felons, according to figures that McAuliffe’s office obtained from Florida. Today Crist, who has evolved from Republican to Independent to Democrat, is a freshman member of Congress. His spokeswoman, Erin Moffet, said Crist would not mind seeing his record fall. “I know my boss would congratulate Governor McAuliffe on the work he’s doing in his state, as well,” she said.

France: Russian Hackers Who Targeted Clinton Appear to Attack France’s Macron | The New York Times

The campaign of the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been targeted by what appear to be the same Russian operatives responsible for hacks of Democratic campaign officials before last year’s American presidential election, a cybersecurity firm warns in a new report. The report has heightened concerns that Russia may turn its playbook on France in an effort to harm Mr. Macron’s candidacy and bolster that of Mr. Macron’s rival, the National Front leader Marine Le Pen, in the final weeks of the French presidential campaign. Security researchers at the cybersecurity firm, Trend Micro, said that on March 15 they spotted a hacking group they believe to be a Russian intelligence unit turn its weapons on Mr. Macron’s campaign — sending emails to campaign officials and others with links to fake websites designed to bait them into turning over passwords. The group began registering several decoy internet addresses last month and as recently as April 15, naming one onedrive-en-marche.fr and another mail-en-marche.fr to mimic the name of Mr. Macron’s political party, En Marche.

India: Give Us Full Access to Electronic Voting Machines, Experts Tell Election Commission | The Wire

A group of trained engineers and scientists, from India and abroad (drawn primarily from IITs and other premier science institutes), have, in response to the Election Commission’s EVM challenge, urged chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi to allow them an opportunity participate in the exercise fully and fairly to assess the security strengths and weaknesses in the security of the electronic voter machines. However, the 27-member group has said that for a truly objective and fair assessment of the machines and “to understand what kind of tampering is possible, actions that might be performed by an insider in the process, or a criminal, should be allowed during the challenge.” In this regard, the group noted that the EC had in 2009 prevented some type of access – when it disallowed physical tampering – and therefore “it should explain why an insider or a criminal would not have that kind of access”. … Poorvi L. Vora, professor of computer science at the George Washington University and a member of the group, wrote in an article that “the Election Commission should allow experts a reasonable amount of time to examine machines whose entire design has been secret for so many years. The experts should be able to work in a laboratory space of their choosing, with the freedom to fully explore the system and its vulnerabilities, including physical tampering, as any attacker with some access to a single storage locker might have.”

Turkey: Opposition party to challenge referendum on expanding presidential powers at European Court | Los Angeles Times

The question now is whether Europe can and will step in to keep Turkey’s leader from expanding his powers. Turkey’s main opposition party announced Wednesday it will challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s April 16 referendum victory to replace the country’s parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful “presidential system.” The opposition will ask the European Court of Human Rights to render judgment, a day after Turkey’s top administrative court ruled it lacked jurisdiction over the electoral body whose oversight of the voting has sparked daily nationwide protests. “We faced illegal referendum results after seeing an unverified election,” Selin Sayek Boke, a spokeswoman for the Republican People’s Party told journalists in Ankara. “Our priority is standing up for the legal rights of all citizens. Thus, we would like to announce that we will soon apply to the ECHR.”

National: Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 U.S. election – documents | Reuters

A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters. They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election. The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin’s office. The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals. It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.

National: Gerrymandering Is Illegal, But Only Mathematicians Can Prove It | WIRED

Partisan Gerrymandering – the practice of drawing voting districts to give one political party an unfair edge—is one of the few political issues that voters of all stripes find common cause in condemning. Voters should choose their elected officials, the thinking goes, rather than elected officials choosing their voters. The Supreme Court agrees, at least in theory: In 1986 it ruled that partisan gerrymandering, if extreme enough, is unconstitutional. Yet in that same ruling, the court declined to strike down two Indiana maps under consideration, even though both “used every trick in the book,” according to a paper in theUniversity of Chicago Law Review. And in the decades since then, the court has failed to throw out a single map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. “If you’re never going to declare a partisan gerrymander, what is it that’s unconstitutional?” said Wendy K. Tam Cho, a political scientist and statistician at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Alabama: Governor moves U.S. Senate election to this year | AL.com

Gov. Kay Ivey has changed the date for the election to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Jeff Sessions. Ivey scheduled the election for this year. Former Gov. Robert Bentley had scheduled it for next year. Under a proclamation Ivey signed today, the primary will be August 15, the runoff, if necessary, will be Sept. 26 and the general election will be Dec. 12. “I promised to steady our ship of state,” Ivey said in a press release today. “This means following the law, which clearly states the people should vote for a replacement U.S. Senator as soon as possible.”

Georgia: Group files voting rights suit on hot Georgia run-off election | CNN

Civil rights and voting organizations filed a suit Thursday challenging a Georgia law that affects voting in a hotly contested special election runoff in June. The lawsuit alleges that a Georgia law prohibiting voters who weren’t registered in time for the special election from voting in the runoff violates federal voting law. The case could affect the heated race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel, who are running to replace former Republican Rep. Tom Price, who joined the Trump administration. Ossoff finished in an election this week just shy of the 50% threshold against a crowded field of Republicans, meaning he and second-place vote-getter Handel advanced to a runoff election on June 20.

Nevada: Investigation finds that 3 non-citizens voted in Nevada’s 2016 election | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, responding to requests Wednesday for details on allegations of Nevada voter fraud, said her office obtained evidence that three non-citizens voted in Clark County in last year’s election. Her pronouncement comes after the Republican secretary of state on Friday sent a letter to the head of the Department of Motor Vehicles, claiming voter registration procedures at the DMV led to non-citizens being allowed to register illegally to vote. At an event in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Cegavske declined to say if her office would attempt to prosecute the three voters. “As things roll out, we’ll keep everyone abreast,” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Cegavske said the DMV should “cease” providing registration applications to people who do not have paperwork proving citizenship. That drew pushback from DMV Director Terri Albertson, as well as Gov. Brian Sandoval.

Texas: Minority votes intentionally diluted by GOP-led Texas House redistricting, federal court says | Dallas Morning News

Texas statehouse districts drawn by the Republican-led legislature in 2011 intentionally diluted the votes of minorities, violating the U.S. Constitution and parts of the Voting Rights Act, a federal court ruled Thursday. In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel in San Antonio found that the maps gave Republicans an advantage in elections and weakened the voting strength of minority voters. House Districts in Dallas and Tarrant counties were among those in which the judges ruled minority voters had seen their clout weakened. The ruling is yet another blow to the state in its six-year legal battle over the redrawing of the maps. Last month, the same court found that the state’s congressional maps were drawn with intent to discriminate against minority voters and invalidated three congressional districts. And last week, a federal judge ruled that the state’s voter ID law was written with intent to discriminate.

France: It’s France’s Turn to Worry About Election Meddling by Russia | The New York Times

The flagging, scandal-plagued presidential campaign of François Fillon — a former prime minister of France much liked by the Kremlin but not so much, it seems, by French voters — received a surprise lift late last month with a report that he had staged a remarkable recovery in opinion polls and was now leading the pack ahead of voting this Sunday. “The Return of Fillon to the Head of Opinion Polls,” declared the bold headline, contradicting other French polls suggesting that the onetime favorite had fallen to third or even fourth place as he battled corruption charges. As it happens, Mr. Fillon’s lead in the polls existed only in a world of alternative facts shared by the French-language service of Sputnik, a state-funded Russian news operation with the motto “Telling the Untold.

Turkey: Election board rejects calls to annul referendum result | The Guardian

Turkey’s high election board has rejected formal calls by the country’s main opposition parties to annul the result of a referendum that will grant Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sweeping new powers as president. Voters narrowly approved a set of constitutional reforms that will transform the country from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential republic, concentrating power in the hands of Erdoğan, who will be able to run for two more terms and potentially govern until 2029. The Turkish president has been handed the chance to declare himself as the only fit protector of a besieged state and its vulnerable people The two main opposition parties – the Republican People’s party (CHP) and the People’s Democratic party (HDP) – had lodged formal complaints calling for the annulment of the result, citing a controversial last-minute decision by the board to allow the counting of possibly hundreds of thousands of unstamped ballots. The constitutional amendments passed with a margin of just over a million votes. International observers had said the decision to count the ballots “contradicted the law” and removed a safeguard against fraud.

United Kingdom: Parliament Approves Theresa May’s General Election Call | The New York Times

Less than 12 months after deciding to quit the European Union, Britons will vote on many of the same questions again, after lawmakers on Wednesday agreed to call an early general election, the outcome of which could shape Britain’s relations with its closest neighbors for decades to come. By an overwhelming vote of 522 to 13, British lawmakers agreed to hold elections on June 8 at the request of Prime Minister Theresa May, who hopes to strengthen her parliamentary support and gain a freer hand to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc. The outcome of Wednesday’s vote in Parliament was never in doubt, even with the requirement of a two-thirds threshold to call a snap election that, until Tuesday morning, Mrs. May and her aides had insisted would not happen.

National: British spies were first to spot Trump team’s links with Russia | The Guardian

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told. GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added. Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.

National: Global Cyber Norms Insufficient to Prevent Future Election Hacks | MeriTalk

As the State Department works to gain international support for its cybersecurity framework, experts said that global norms and deterrence won’t be enough to convince state actors not to influence elections through cyber means in the future. Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the study of human understanding at the University of Michigan, compared the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacks to Watergate. Both incidents involved the theft of information. The difference is that in Watergate, the incident was handled by domestic law enforcement and the president resigned. In the DNC hacks the incident was handled by international powers and there was “minor retaliation,” according to Axelrod. … “I think we’re going to see a lot more attacks like them in future campaigns,” said J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan. Halderman said that most people think that the United States’ voting machines are secure because they are different in each county and they aren’t connected to the Internet. “In fact, many of these things break down,” said Halderman.

Iowa: Contentious voter ID bill gets final OK; heads to Branstad | Des Moines Register

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.

Montana: Judge won’t halt special election ballots for appeal | The Missoulian

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request to delay the printing and mailing of ballots for Montana’s special congressional election for three minor party and independent candidates who are suing to be in the race. The request by Thomas Breck of the Green Party and independents Steve Kelly and Doug Campbell was made after U.S. District Judge Brian Morris said he would not unilaterally add them to the ballot in the May 25 election. The three men appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked Morris to prevent state election officials from printing and mailing ballots to military and overseas voters while the case is pending. Morris said in his order that he would halt the lawsuit in his court until the appeal is resolved, but he won’t prevent the election from proceeding because the three men haven’t shown that they are likely to win their case.

North Carolina: Republican Lawmakers Dilute Democratic Governor’s Powers | Associated Press

After being rebuffed once by judges who determined lawmakers went too far, Republican legislators on Tuesday tried a second time to dilute the power of North Carolina’s new Democratic governor to run elections. In separate votes, the state House and Senate voted along party lines to trim the power governors have had for more than a century to oversee elections by appointing the state and county elections boards that settle disputes and enforce ballot laws. The state elections board has had five members appointed by the governor, with the majority being members of the governor’s party, since 1901, according to state records. Gov. Roy Cooper has promised to veto the new legislation, which lets the governor appoint all eight members of an expanded elections board — but from lists provided by the two major political parties.

Texas: Judge: voting rights law intentionally discriminates | Houston Chronicle

For a second time, a judge ruled Monday that state lawmakers violated federal voting rights protections by intentionally discriminating against minority voters when they approved a strict law requiring an approved photo ID to cast a ballot.
In a 10-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos wrote that the state “has not met its burden” to prove that Texas legislators could have enforced the 2011 voter ID law “without its discriminatory purpose.” At issue is Senate Bill 14, signed by former Gov. Rick Perry, which requires Texans to show one of a handful of acceptable government-issues photo IDs before they vote, including a drivers’ license, state handgun permit or U.S. passport. The measure, among the strictest in the nation, has for years gone through the federal court system for years. “After appropriate reconsideration and review of the record … the court holds that plaintiffs have sustained their burden of proof to show that SB 14 was passed, at least in part, with a discriminatory intent in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the judge wrote. “Racial discrimination need not be the primary purpose as long as it is one purpose.”

U.S. Territories: Territorial Voting Rights Brief Filed in Seventh Circuit | Virgin Islands Consortium

Earlier today Plaintiffs from Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico filed their opening brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit challenging discriminatory overseas voting laws and making the case that where you live shouldn’t impact your right to vote for president. The brief comes just days after the Harvard Law Review published a special feature, “Developments in the Law: U.S. Territories,” addressing the unequal status facing the over 4 million citizens who live in the territories. “We are optimistic that the Seventh Circuit will recognize that the right to vote is ‘fundamental’ for all Americans, including those in U.S. territories,” said Neil Weare, President and Founder of We the People Project, a non-profit that advocates for equal rights and representation in U.S. territories. “We are pleased the Harvard Law Review is giving attention to how the courts and Congress have historically treated citizens in U.S. territories with a second-class status. This case represents an important opportunity for the Seventh Circuit to change that narrative.”

Ecuador: Electoral Council to recount 1.3 million election votes as opposition leader alleges fraud | Associated Press

Ecuador election officials have agreed to recount nearly 1.3 million votes as opposition leader Guillermo Lasso continues to allege fraud in the presidential election. The National Electoral Council announced late Thursday it would recount all ballots contested in complaints filed by both parties, about 10 per cent of the total vote. Official results from the small Andean nation’s April 2 election showed former banker Lasso lost by less than 3 percentage points to Rafael Correa’s hand-picked successor, Lenin Moreno. International observers including the Organization of American States have said they found no irregularities, though Lasso claims his campaign found numerous inconsistencies and has refused to accept the official results.

India: Come, prove electronic voting machines can be tampered with, EC challenges sceptics | Times of India

With Congress, Left, AAP and others claiming that electronic voting machines were manipulated to favour BJP, the Election Commission on Wednesday threw a challenge to political parties, scientists and technical experts to prove that EVMs could be tampered with. The open challenge, which will be on the lines of a similar exercise undertaken in 2009, follows doubts raised by several opposition parties which met the EC and have also petitioned the President. These also include BSP, SP and RJD. The allegations have been raised in the context of BJP’s landslide win in the UP assembly elections.

Turkey: Voters Go the Polls After Erdogan Campaign | The New York Times

Turks have begun voting on Sunday on a referendum that would substantially reconfigure the political system and grant sweeping powers to the office of the presidency. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes Turks at home and abroad will vote “yes” to his demand for the reconfiguration, but his critics fear the vote may add the weight of the constitution to his de facto one-man rule. If passed, the proposed changes would have a profound impact on a country that is a leading player in the Syrian civil war, a major way station along the migration routes to Europe and a crucial Middle Eastern partner of the United States and Russia. The latest polls suggest the vote could be close, despite the government’s prolonged intimidation of “no” campaigners, several of whom have been shot at and beaten while on the stump by persons unknown.

National: Questions, concerns continue to swirl around election security | GCN

At an April 4 Election Assistance Commission public hearing, a senior Department of Homeland Security official sought to stress one thing: The designation of election systems as critical infrastructure doesn’t cut into states’ autonomy. Concerns over DHS control have simmered since then-Secretary Jeh Johnson first suggested the critical infrastructure designation last summer. Yet Neil Jenkins, DHS’ director of the Enterprise Performance Management Office, said at the EAC hearing that his agency sees the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Election Cybersecurity Task Force as the main point of contact for deciding when DHS system-scanning tools are needed. Jenkins also said he sees the EAC as a critical point of contact for local officials who may be interested in utilizing DHS scanning and security products.

National: Devin Nunes steps aside from House intelligence committee’s Russia inquiry | The Guardian

Devin Nunes, Donald Trump’s chief ally on the congressional committees investigating the president’s connections to Russia, has stepped aside from the inquiry, as he faces his own ethics investigation. Less than two weeks after the Democrats on the House intelligence committee called for Nunes to recuse himself, the committee chairman said he would “temporarily” leave the inquiry in the hands of other rightwing Republicans, leaving it unclear how much Nunes’ absence would transform an investigation stalled by deep partisan infighting. Nunes, a member of Trump’s national security transition team and the head of the House intelligence committee, is now the subject of an inquiry from the House ethics panel. … Nunes’ decision makes him the second Trump ally to remove himself from the varied Russia investigations. The first, attorney general Jeff Sessions, stepped aside on 3 March after revelations that he had meetings with the Russian ambassador while part of the Trump campaign.

Georgia: KSU data breach investigation has concluded in Georgia | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Federal investigators say a “security researcher” was behind a data breach at Kennesaw State University’s Center for Election Systems, and his probing of the system broke no federal law. University officials announced the finding Friday after being briefed by investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ending a monthlong probe over a potential hacking case that had raised alarms over the security of the state’s election system. In a statement, university officials acknowledged what they called “unauthorized access” to a server used by the center, which helps the state prepare elections information and has access to millions of Georgia voter records. No student data were involved in the case. They said the incident has prompted a review of the university’s digital security efforts.

Kansas: Judge orders Kobach to produce documents shared with Trump | The Wichita Eagle

A federal magistrate judge has ordered Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to hand over for review the documents that he took to a meeting with President Trump outlining a strategic plan for the Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., will determine whether the documents are relevant to two federal lawsuits seeking to overturn a Kansas law that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when they register to vote. Kobach, who served on the president’s transition team and was rumored to be under consideration for a role in the administration, met with Trump in November in Bedminster, N.J., and was photographed carrying a stack of papers with headings “DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY” and “KOBACH STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE FIRST 365 DAYS.”

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.

North Carolina: Governor threatens veto as legislature tries again to combine ethics, elections boards | News & Observer

The state House on Thursday approved a bill wresting control of elections boards from the political party of the governor. Earlier in the day Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he would veto the bill if it comes to his desk and sue to block it if necessary. The House vote was 68-42. The proposal is on a fast track, having just been made public Tuesday afternoon – inserted into an unrelated bill so that it could move directly to the full Senate rather than work its way through Senate committees. Senate Bill 68 would merge the State Ethics Board and the State Board of Elections, and evenly divide membership of the new board between Republicans and Democrats. The bill would let the governor appoint all eight members, choosing from lists provided by the each of the major parties.