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North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger was served with a lawsuit Thursday by seven members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who claim that recent changes to the state’s voter identification laws infringe on their right to vote. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bismarck asks the court to find that voter ID requirements passed by state lawmakers in 2013 and 2015 “disproportionately burden and disenfranchise Native Americans,” and to declare them unconstitutional and stop Jaeger from enforcing them. “I think we just want to go back to the way it was before, because I think that was working out well,” said Matthew Campbell, an attorney with the Boulder, Colo.-based nonprofit Native American Rights Fund, which is representing the plaintiffs along with Bismarck attorney Thomas Dickson and attorney Richard de Bodo of Santa Monica, Calif.

Virginia: Election Officials Urge Supreme Court to Let Redistricting Plan Stand | Roll Call

Virginia’s election officials urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to keep in place a new, judge-selected redistricting plan for this year’s congressional elections, putting the officials at odds with 10 current and former members of the state's Republican delegation in Congress. Halting the plan, put in place Jan. 7, would again allow “racial packing" to taint elections following the redistricting that occurred after the 2010 census, the Virginia State Board of Elections said in a brief. The redistricting plan was put in place by a panel of three federal judges. At issue are the lines drawn for the majority-black district held by Virginia Democrat Rep. Robert C. Scott. A lower court in 2014 found that to be an unconstitutional gerrymander.

Bulgaria: Parliament backs introduction of electronic voting | The Sofia Globe

Bulgaria’s MPs approved on January 21 a resolution on the introduction of electronic voting in elections, with 136 votes in favour and 56 against. Parliament was required to debate the issue after a referendum on electoral rules reform, held in October 2015, passed the turnout threshold of 20 per cent, but it was not bound by the outcome of the plebiscite, which had 69.5 per cent of respondents in favour of introducing electronic voting. On the House floor, the resolution to introduce electronic voting was backed by GERB, the senior partner in the ruling coalition, and two of its junior partners, centre-right Reformist Bloc and socialist splinter ABC, as well as two opposition parties, the predominantly ethnic Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms and populist Bulgarian Democratic Centre. Opposition socialists and ultra-nationalist Ataka, as well as the nationalist Patriotic Front, which is part of the government coalition, voted against the resolution.

Haiti: U.S. Presses for Haiti Runoff Vote Amid Fears of Violence and Fraud | The New York Times

After spending more than $33 million on a widely discredited election in Haiti, the United States has been pressing the country’s leaders to go ahead with a presidential runoff election this Sunday, despite a growing chorus of warnings that the vote could lead to an explosion of violence. Haitian leaders, political parties and others have denounced the first round of voting in October as a fraud-riddled fiasco and protested in the streets to stop the runoff. One of the two remaining candidates says he is boycotting, effectively making it a one-person race. President Michel J. Martelly took to the airwaves on Thursday to warn that protests on Election Day would not be tolerated. Civic, business and religious leaders are engaged in tense back-room negotiations to broker a deal in an effort to avoid violence and put off the race. Eight election observer organizations have pulled out over the fraud accusations and chaos, including a Haitian group funded by the United States.

National: Democrats stand as Obama calls for redistricting reform | The Hill

President Obama called Tuesday for an end to partisan redistricting, creating one of the biggest applause lines from fellow Democrats in his State of the Union address. "We have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around. Let a bipartisan group do it," Obama said. Democrats in the chamber stood in response, while Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Republicans remained in their seats.
Obama's party lost control of the House in his first midterm election, and the Democratic Party's chances of getting it back are dim in large part because of redistricting. More votes were cast for Democratic House candidates in the 2012 election, for example, but it didn't help put Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) back into the Speakership.

Editorials: The Future of Campaign Finance Rests with the Next Supreme Court Appointments | Lawrence Norden/The Atlantic

For the last 10 years, the Supreme Court has engaged in a systematic effort to transform American democracy. Steered by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court loosened restrictions on political advertising by corporations and unions, gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, upheld the rights of states to enact restrictive voting laws, and, in the words of Justice Stephen Breyer, “eviscerate[d] our Nation’s campaign-finance laws.” This year, the Court will decide a voting and redistricting case that could change the lines of virtually every state legislative district in the country. There is no area of the law the Roberts Court has more thoroughly transformed. Almost all of the Court’s major election cases were decided by a 5-4 vote. Of course, on the Court, the majority rules. But it would not take a constitutional amendment or a revolution in legal scholarship to bring this string of decisions to an end. It is extremely likely that the next president will have the opportunity to replace at least one (and very likely more than one) Supreme Court justice, as the previous five presidents have done. One new justice on the Court might be enough to push the law in the opposite direction.

Arizona: Small parties can be left off voter forms | Arizona Daily Star

Republicans and Democrats are going to keep their preferred — and exclusive — spots on Arizona voter registration forms. Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to disturb lower court rulings which upheld a 2011 Arizona law that only the two parties with the highest number of adherents get to be listed on the forms. The justices rebuffed contentions of the Arizona Libertarian Party that the practice is both unfair and illegal. Monday’s ruling is a victory for Republicans who approved the law in what GOP lawmakers admitted was a bid to slow the tide of people not registering with their party. It also exhausts all avenues of appeal for the Libertarians. Until 2011, those registering to vote were given a blank line to insert their preferred party choice.

Kansas: Judge rules Kris Kobach can’t operate two-tier election system in Kansas | The Kansas City Star

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach can’t operate a two-tier voting system that allows him to count only votes cast in federal races for voters who registered using a federal form, a state judge ruled Friday. “There’s just no authority for the way the secretary of state has handled federal form registrants,” said Doug Bonney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, which represented plaintiffs in the case. Kobach championed a 2013 Kansas law that requires those registering to vote to provide proof-of-citizenship documents, typically a birth certificate or passport. But the federal registration form only requires a sworn statement from the voter as proof of citizenship. So Kobach decided that for those who use the federal form to register rather than the state form, only their votes for national offices — for president and members of Congress — would be counted. Votes in other races wouldn’t be counted.

North Carolina: Judge denies state NAACP’s request to delay Voter ID trial | Winston-Salem Journal

A federal judge ruled Friday that North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voting will be in effect for the March 15 primary election. U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder denied a motion filed by the North Carolina NAACP for a preliminary injunction, saying that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the photo ID would place an undue burdens on blacks and Hispanics and had failed to prove they would likely prevail on the merits of their case in a trial set for Jan. 25. The changes that Republican state legislators made to the photo ID requirement last year, particularly allowing voters without an ID to sign a “reasonable impediment declaration” and then cast a provisional ballot, played a key role in Schroeder’s decision. “When the State did not have a reasonable impediment exception, NAACP Plaintiffs claimed the burden imposed on the socioeconomically disadvantaged was too severe,” he wrote in his decision. “Now that the State has sought to accommodate these voters with the reasonable impediment exception, Plaintiffs claim the exception swallows the rule and that the State need not have a photo ID requirement.”

Virginia: Judge denies preliminary injunction to block oath in March 1 GOP primary | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A federal judge in Richmond on Thursday denied a motion by supporters of Donald Trump for a preliminary injunction to block the so-called statement of affiliation in Virginia’s March 1 Republican presidential primary. Later Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency motion, filed by the three black pastors who brought the suit, seeking an injunction. The rulings mean that unless the plaintiffs win a reprieve in court, or state GOP officials reverse course, anyone who wants to vote in the Republican primary must sign a statement that says: “My signature below indicates that I am a Republican.”

Haiti: Only 1 presidential candidate campaigning in Haiti | The Washington Post

Campaigning for Haiti’s presidential runoff election kicked off Friday, but it appears there is only one candidate who will actively participate. Government-backed contender Jovenel Moise, a little-known agricultural entrepreneur who led a crowded field of 54 candidates with nearly 33 percent of the vote in the Oct. 25 first round, planned his first rally late Friday afternoon. But the campaign team of the second-place finisher, Jude Celestin, has said he will take part in the Jan. 24 runoff only if sweeping changes recently recommended by a special commission are adopted to improve Haiti’s much-criticized electoral machinery. Celestin told The Miami Herald on Thursday that outgoing President Michel Martelly “will have to do an election with just one candidate.” His phone consistently goes unanswered and his campaign team did not respond to calls Friday. While the Provisional Electoral Council has pledged to improve transparency for the final round, special commission spokesman Rosny Desroches has said he has seen very little progress to improve the process and ease tensions since the panel’s recommendations were released last weekend.

Taiwan: Nationalists suffer historic defeat with election of first female president | Los Angeles Times

Taiwan’s voters handed the long-ruling Nationalists a historic defeat on Saturday, kicking the party of Chiang Kai-shek out of the presidential palace and stripping it and its allies of a parliamentary majority for the first time since the island’s modern political period began in 1949. But even as President-elect Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party proclaimed that a “new era” was dawning on the island of 23 million, the biggest question mark hanging over the incoming administration and legislature was how it would deal with the sensitive subject of relations with mainland China. Tsai, a 59-year-old lawyer-turned-politician with advanced degrees from U.S. and British universities, was elected with 56% of the vote, becoming Taiwan’s first female president and trouncing the Nationalist Party’s Eric Chu, who got just 31%.

National: Man behind gutting of Voting Rights Act: states may have ‘gone too far’ since decision | The Guardian

To his detractors, Edward Blum is one of the most dangerous men in America, a human wrecking ball on a mission to destroy the landmark achievements of the civil rights era and send the country back to a dark age of discrimination and harassment of minorities – in the workplace, in higher education and at the ballot box. That’s some reputation for a slightly built former stockbroker who answers his own phone, sounds nothing like the bullying demagogues who once held sway over the deep south, and even has some misgivings about the consequences of his actions. If anything, his soft-spoken, self-deprecating, consciously neurotic manner is reminiscent of Woody Allen from his early days in standup. Blum’s impact, though, is beyond question. For more than 20 years, working largely on his own, he has orchestrated lawsuits to challenge and, in some instances, dramatically reverse once sacrosanct legal principles. Case after case that he’s filed – on voting rights, on the drawing of electoral districts, on affirmative action – has made its way to the supreme court, often against the predictions of legal scholars, and found a sympathetic reception from the conservative majority.

Editorials: The Next Big Voting-Rights Fight | Emily Bazelon & Jim Rutenberg/The New York Times

Over the past year, The New York Times Magazine has chronicled the long campaign that led to the Supreme Court’s 2013 nullification of the Voting Rights Act’s most powerful provision — its Section 5 — and the consequences that decision has had for minority voters. As I’ve written in our Disenfranchised series, the gutting of Section 5 facilitated an onslaught of restrictive new laws that made voting disproportionately harder for minorities across the country, marking the biggest setback to minority voting rights in the half-century since President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard a new case, Evenwel v. Abbott, that could also have a significant effect on minority political power — specifically, Hispanic voting power. Evenwel stems from a case first instigated in Texas by the same conservative group — the Project on Fair Representation — that helped bring about the decision gutting Section 5 in 2013. Like all of these big election cases, the issues involved are complicated, which may explain why Evenwel has drawn less media attention than it deserves; it does not reduce easily into sound bites. But the Court’s decision in Evenwel could be among the most important developments in politics in 2016, and well beyond. This series would not be complete for 2015 without a review of the case. My colleague Emily Bazelon and I have done our best to break it down as simply as possible, trading off segments to explain the main legal questions at play, the potential consequences and the likely outcomes. A decision is expected by June of 2016.

California: The Consequences of California’s Top-Two Primary | The Atlantic

In 2009, Abel Maldonado, then a state senator, brought the top-two open primary to California. The change allowed the two leading finishers in a primary to proceed to the general election regardless of party affiliation. It set into motion a system that would reshape the state’s politics. Today, Maldonado is as much vilified as lauded in the state, but he is supremely satisfied with what he did. “You know what, you get a little lazy sometimes, and with a closed primary system, where you keep independents from voting, let me tell you something, you can be lazy,” he told me. “With this open primary, you have to work for the taxpayers.” In an open primary, people vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation. But in California, a top-two primary system paved the way for two candidates of the same party to confront one another in the general election. As a result, political parties are no longer guaranteed a spot in the general, nor can they dispense with moderates within their own party in a primary election. Louisiana and Washington are the only two other states that have adopted such a system.

Michigan: Senate GOP faces pressure from Governor, SOS on no-reason absentee | MLive.com

The Michigan Senate in December broke a pair of bills apart to avoid passing no-reason absentee voting, but now they're facing calls to pass that bill from Gov. Rick Snyder and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. HB 4724 would allow voters to go to their local clerk's office and either vote in person there or take an absentee ballot home without having a reason to vote absentee. Current Michigan law only allows absentee voting if a person falls into one of six categories, including being over age 60 or expecting to be out of town on election day. The bill was introduced in June, but gained traction when it was tie-barred to a bill that banned straight-ticket voting. That action would have meant that neither bill made it into law unless the other one did. However, the Senate broke that tie-bar in a late night session and the House agreed to it.

North Carolina: Voter ID case will go to trial in January | Winston-Salem Journal

North Carolina’s photo ID requirement will go on trial late this month in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem, a federal judge said in court papers filed Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder signed an order modifying the deadlines for discovery in the case so a trial on the photo ID requirement can begin Jan. 25. The N.C. NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others sued North Carolina in 2013 after state Republican legislators passed a sweeping elections law known as the Voter Information Verification Act. The law eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced the days of early voting from 17 to 10 and prohibited county elections officials from counting ballots that were cast in the wrong precinct but right county. The law also included a photo ID requirement.

Virginia: Judges impose new congressional map, redrawing 3rd, 4th Districts | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A three-judge panel in Richmond on Thursday imposed a new Virginia congressional map that could give blacks a chance to elect candidates of their choice in two districts, not just one. Unless the U.S. Supreme Court halts implementation, the reconfiguration will lower the black voting age population in the 3rd District, represented by Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Democrat, from 56.3 percent to 45.3 percent. It will raise the black voting age population in the 4th District, represented by Rep. J. Randy Forbes, a Republican, from 31.3 percent to 40.9 percent. Scott’s district, which meandered from the Richmond area to Newport News, will now be centered in Hampton Roads.

Haiti: It’s official: Haiti presidential runoff in 17 days | Miami Herald

Haiti President Michel Martelly issued a presidential order Wednesday officially scheduling the country’s postponed presidential and partial legislative runoffs for Jan. 24. Martelly’s late night order came a day after the head of the Provisional Electoral Council reversed himself on the impossibility of staging the vote in time for Martelly’s Feb. 7 departure from office, and on the day that two top U.S. envoys arrived in Port-au-Prince to address an unraveling political crisis triggered by the Oct. 25 presidential and legislative elections. This [order] makes sense only if Célestin has agreed to participate in the second round. Robert Fatton, Haiti analyst Ambassador Thomas Shannon, counselor of the Department of State, and Haiti Special Coordinator Kenneth Merten, spent the first of two days meeting with key political actors including opposition candidate Jude Célestin. They had hope to convince Célestin to participate in the runoff. “This [order] makes sense only if Célestin has agreed to participate in the second round,” said Robert Fatton, a Haiti analyst and political science professor at the University of Virginia.

Spain: Failed Catalan government makes another Spanish election more likely | Reuters

Catalan far-left party CUP said on Sunday it would not support acting regional head Artur Mas in his bid for another term, forcing new local elections and increasing the likelihood all Spaniards may have to return to the ballot box this year. The drawn-out process of forming a government in Catalonia echoes the political stalemate gripping Spain at a national level following an inconclusive general election two weeks ago. The prospect of new elections in Catalonia, most likely in March, increases the likelihood of a second general election this year as the receding threat of a strong Catalan government seeking a split from Spain will reduce pressure on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's centre-right People's Party (PP) and the opposition Socialists to form a grand coalition to stand up to a separatist Catalan administration.

National: Millions of Voter Records Posted, and Some Fear Hacker Field Day | The New York Times

First and last names. Recent addresses and phone numbers. Party affiliation. Voting history and demographics. A database containing this information from 191 million voter records was mysteriously published over the last week, the latest example of personal voter data becoming freely available, alarming privacy experts who say the information can be used for phishing attacks, identity theft and extortion. No one knows who built the database, or precisely where all the data came from, and whether its disclosure resulted from an inadvertent release or from hacks. The disclosure was discovered by an information technology specialist, Chris Vickery, who quickly alerted the authorities and published his findings on Databreaches.net. NationBuilder, a nonpartisan political data firm, has said it may have been the source of some of the data, although the actual database that was released was not the company’s.

Editorials: 2015: The year in recalls | Joshua Spivak/The Week

The stunning success of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race suggests that American voters are very restless, and very displeased with the political status quo. That's certainly true. But it's also nothing new. And perhaps no statistic shows this better than the continuing popularity of recall elections. For the fifth year in a row, more than 100 officials across the U.S. have either faced an actual recall vote or resigned in the face of such a threat. The use of the recall may in some ways be seen as a product of an empowered, technologically connected, and occasionally enraged electorate. After all, for the better part of the 20th century, the recall was an almost forgotten relic of the Progressive Era. But no more. As we saw in Wisconsin in 2011 and 2012, and Colorado in 2013, recalls have become a major part of the political landscape. And when they get on the ballot, they work. This year, 108 recalls got on the ballot or led to a resignation. Of those 108, 65 officials were ousted, and 15 resigned. Only 28 survived the voters' wrath.

Colorado: New voting-machine mandates irk cash-strapped counties | The Colorado Independent

Voting equipment across Colorado’s 64 counties will have to be replaced in the next two years in order to comply with requirements of a 2009 state law. And Secretary of State Wayne Williams just designated one company, Dominion Voting Systems, as the sole vendor for all the needed gear. The transition is going to be expensive, especially for rural counties that haven’t seen the economic boom experienced across the Front Range. County officials argue forcing them to use one vendor — and not the cheapest — may violate the law and sane fiscal management.

Florida: Judge approves voting rights’ groups map of Senate districts | Tampa Bay Times

A state judge on Wednesday approved an entirely new map of Florida's 40 Senate districts that was recommended by a coalition of voting rights groups. The decision is yet another political and legal setback for the Republican-controlled Legislature and adds much more political uncertainty with the next session less than two weeks away and at the dawn of a presidential election year. "This is another great result for our clients but also a great result for every voter in the state of Florida," said David King, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. King said voters will elect senators and members of Congress from constitutional districts in the 2016 election, and added: "I'm confident that there are a substantial number of more competitive districts in this map." The Senate had no immediate comment on Circuit Judge George Reynolds' order, in which he accepted a map recommended by the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other plaintiffs. Reynolds' 73-page ruling orders the Senate to randomly assign district numbers to all 40 districts within three days of a final judgment being entered.

Iowa: A Tech Boost for the Aging Iowa Caucus | The Atlantic

Caucus Night 2012 was not exactly a banner evening for the Republican Party of Iowa. Reporting problems plagued the vote-counting during the crucial first-in-the-nation presidential contest. The initial headlines credited frontrunner Mitt Romney with the narrowest of victories over Rick Santorum, by a mere eight votes out of more than 100,000 cast. When the state party certified the results of the election more than two weeks later, however, it declared Santorum the official winner by 34 votes. Yet Republican officials had already acknowledged the embarrassing truth: Because of inaccuracies in dozens of precincts and missing results from eight of them, the real victor of the Iowa caucus would never be known for certain. Needless to say, the Iowa GOP would like to have a smoother—and more accurate—election on February 1. So would Iowa Democrats, who are running their first competitive caucus in the state since 2008 and whose process for nominating a presidential candidate is even more complicated than the one Republicans use.

Virginia: Voter ID lawsuit is part of national push by Democrats | The Washington Post

Virginia’s strict voter-identification law will go on trial in a federal court in Richmond in February, part of a national strategy by Democrats to remove what they say are barriers to voting by African American, Latino and poor voters. Although Virginia’s Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, is sympathetic to the core issue in the lawsuit brought by two activists and the state Democratic Party, the state must defend its voter-ID law. A statute requiring photo ID was passed in 2013 and signed into law by McAuliffe’s Republican predecessor, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell. To defend against the lawsuit, Attorney General Mark Herring (D) appointed an independent counsel, Mark F. “Thor” Hearne II, who represented the 2004 reelection campaign of then-President George W. Bush.

Canada: Federal Liberals rule out referendum on electoral reform — despite recent precedent | National Post

Justin Trudeau and his party swept into power in October’s election on a series of big promises, including a pledge 2015 would mark the last election under first-past-the-post. Since the Liberals have formed government, enacting some of those plans — whether it’s a pledge to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees or withdraw fighter jets from the battle against Syria — is turning out to be harder than expected. Now, the sunny plan to create a more democratic democracy is casting a shadow over those lofty ambitions. Despite calls from both the left and right that any changes to how Canadians elect their government require the direct input of the people, Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc said Sunday that’s not in the cards. “Our plan is not to have a national referendum, our plan is to use parliament to consult Canadians,” Leblanc said during an interview on CTV’s Question Period. “That’s always been our plan and I don’t have any reason to think that’s been changed.”

Central African Republic: Long Delayed, Central African Republic Elections Are Peaceful | The New York Times