Tag Archives: tvnw

A settlement has been reached between the state and Alaska Native plaintiffs who sued in federal court over the translation of voting materials for voters with limited English proficiency. The proposed settlement filed Tuesday calls for the Alaska lieutenant governor’s office to hire a full-time employee to administer language assistance. Another significant provision in the agreement calls for the official state election pamphlet to include translations, plaintiffs’ attorney Natalie Landreth with the Native American Rights Funds said Thursday. It took the two sides about nine months to work out a settlement, she said. Landreth read a brief letter from one of the plaintiffs, Mike Toyukak of the village of Manokotak, thanking officials for working on resolving the case. “This is really a big deal for us, and we’re very happy that those who did not understand before will now be able to understand the voting ballots,” Landreth quoted Toyukak as writing.

California: Senate OKs automatic voter registration plan | Los Angeles Times

In response to the record-low turnout in the last election, the state Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would automatically register to vote any eligible Californian who gets a driver’s license unless they opt out. The measure was prompted by the 42% turnout in the November election, as well as the turnout for March election in Los Angeles, in which only about 10% of eligible voters went to the polls. Nearly 7 million Californians, mostly young people, are eligible but not registered to vote. In an effort to boost the number, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) introduced a bill modeled on a new law in Oregon to get more people to the polls.

Florida: Judge sets Monday deadline for submitting Florida redistricting maps | Miami Herald

Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis gave the Florida House and Senate, and the two groups of redistricting challengers, until the end of the day on Monday to submit their proposals for him to choose from when he recommends Florida’s final congressional districts map. At a 30-minute hearing, the Tallahassee judge approved in concept a proposal that would also require that anyone who submits a map to disclose who drew it, why they drew the lines they choose and how it comports to the constitutional guidelines in Florida’s Fair Districts law. He is likely to receive four maps — one each from the House and Senate and one each from the two plaintiffs groups, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause and the coalition of Democrat-leaning voters known as the Romo plaintiffs. The Florida Supreme Court last week ordered Lewis to choose between the maps after the Legislature ended its special session in August without an agreement on a map. The court said that Lewis must accept proposals from the parties and choose among them to recommend which of them most adheres to the July 9 ruling that set guidelines for lawmakers to follow when redrawing the map.

Kansas: Kris Kobach’s dual voter registration system is illegal and should be dumped, ACLU says | The Kansas City Star

An odd repercussion has arisen over Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship requirement for residents who register to vote. So odd that the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas has asked a state court to put an end to the two-tiered voter registration system that Secretary of State Kris Kobach has created, a system that critics call the law’s “unintended consequence” or, less kindly, “collateral damage.” Kansas now requires residents to produce citizenship documents, typically a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote. That law, championed by Kobach, took effect in 2013. But citizens have long been allowed to use a federal form to register. That form requires registrants to sign a statement, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens. No documents needed. So what to do about Kansas residents who complete the federal form, which courts have said must be accepted by states?

Morocco: Election results brings hope to the region | Middle East Monitor

In the context of the struggle between the waves of revolution and counter-revolution in the MENA region Morocco witnessed local and regional elections this week, the first after the constitution amendments of 2011. The elections, held on 4 September, are also the first since 2011 in which political actors agreed on a final version of the regionalisation project, whereby each of the country’s 12 regions will be led by an elected council with wide economic, human, infrastructural, environmental and cultural development capacities. In a sense, the 2015 elections mark another step in the post-Arab spring Morocco and another opportunity to examine the outcome of the country’s “reform under stability” paradigm. The lesson for Morocco is that the potential failure of the paradigm will immediately tarnish the whole diplomatic, political and reform effort that started in 2011. In the run up to the elections, Morocco feared that foreign pressure would restrict the participation of Islamists in a free and fair way. That pressure was eventually diminished through a tandem of internal and external factors; while the former manifested itself in governmental reforms, the latter included the change in the Saudi leadership, the eruption of the war in Yemen and the signing of the Iran nuclear deal. These events pushed local actors to shift the focus away from curbing the outcome of the Arab Spring, especially since attempts to smother the post-Arab Spring nascent democracies has generated chaos across the region. The difficult lesson of the past four years has been that it is despotism that threatens stability in the region, not respecting public will.

National: Social media ready to cash in on 2016 election | The Hill

Tech firms are courting campaigns ahead of the 2016 presidential election, where budgets for digital advertising are expected to reach new highs. The election will be tweeted, googled, snapped, liked on Facebook, and shared on numerous other social media platforms. And Silicon Valley is hoping to turn that engagement into big profits. While billions will be spent on political advertising over the next year, television remains the prime mover and budgets for digital ads trail traditional media. But even by one recent estimate from Borrell Associates, 9.5 percent of political media budgets could go towards digital media — a total of $1 billion.

New Zealand: Security fears end plans for online voting trial in Christchurch | The Press

Fears of voter fraud and security breaches have led the Christchurch City Council to ditch plans to participate in an online voting trial. The council had provisionally registered its interest in being part of an online voting trial the Government is proposing to run at next year’s local body elections, but councillors on Thursday decided they wanted no part of it. Their decision followed a deputation from a group of IT experts who told them the security risks with online voting were too high and could open the election up to fraud. … Group spokesman Jonathan Hunt, who has more than 25 years experience in the IT field, said online voting brought inherent risks compared with postal voting, such as hacking and phishing, and the risks to democracy were too great to attempt it. Overseas experiences with online voting had generally been disastrous and many of the countries that had trialled it had subsequently abandoned it. “Secure online voting is a tantalising mirage,” said Hunt.

National: Court Cases Leave States Stuck in Redistricting Limbo | Stateline

The drawing of legislative districts is supposed to be a once-a-decade process, completed shortly after the U.S. Census Bureau provides updated population numbers. But in some states, the map-drawing based on the 2010 count—the most litigious in recent memory—is still dragging on. Courts will likely draw maps for Florida and Virginia after legislators in those states failed to agree on new maps to replace earlier ones thrown out by judges. Alabama may need to redraw its district lines after the Legislative Black Caucus went to court arguing that Republican state legislators drew them to reduce the voice of minority voters. Democrats in Wisconsin are arguing that GOP lawmakers did the same to their voters. And a case in Texas could change the “one man, one vote” standard. Though in some states commissions are responsible for drawing U.S. congressional and state legislative maps, in most it is up to state legislators to do the job.

Alabama: Court: Obama Administration Doesn’t Owe Shelby County Legal Fees | Wall Street Journal

To the winner goes the attorneys’ fees. That’s often how federal civil litigation works, with hundreds of statutes in the books entitling prevailing plaintiffs fee awards. But not for Shelby County. A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the Alabama county isn’t owed any legal fees from the federal government despite winning its challenge against a core provision of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling comes two years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the formula in the act used to identify jurisdictions that historically suppressed minority voters. Those states and voting districts, mostly in the South, were required to seek Washington’s approval before changing election practices. In a 5-4 vote, the high court agreed with the Shelby County that the formula isn’t constitutionally valid because it’s based on decades-old voter-participation data that may not reflect more recent progress. After its Supreme Court victory, Shelby County sought more than $2 million in attorneys’ fees and costs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, affirming a lower court, ruled that the federal government had no obligation to pay up.

Kansas: Kris Kobach’s plan to delete more than 30,000 voter registration applications in Kansas draws dissent, praise | Topeka Capital-Journal

The Shawnee County election commissioner and representatives of advocacy groups clashed Wednesday over merits of the Kansas secretary of state’s plan to purge more than 32,000 voter registration applications for failure to document citizenship. Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who championed the 2011 law mandating new registrants document citizenship, has been saddled with oversight responsibility of applications held “in suspense” specifically because individuals had yet to provide evidence they were a U.S. citizen. A total of 36,000 applications are in limbo, but nine in 10 are tied to the citizenship requirement. Kobach proposed an administrative rule — not a state law — ordering county election officers to shred all registration applications if not completed within 90 days. Currently, Kansas sets no time limit on the process. … Former Topeka Democratic Rep. Ann Mah, as well as representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, Topeka branch of the NAACP, Kansas League of Women Voters and Topeka National Organization for Women, expressed opposition to the policy sought by Kobach. Mah said cancellation of registrations pending in the Election Voter Information System after three months was improper because time required to obtain a birth certificate from another state could take much longer. She said applicants who failed to present citizenship documents could meet requirements to participate in federal — not state — elections, and those individuals shouldn’t be cut off.

Nevada: Appeals court revives lawsuit over voter registration at Nevada welfare, food stamp offices | Associated Press

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit saying Nevada public assistance offices weren’t doing enough to help low-income clients register to vote. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday overturned a lower court’s move to dismiss the lawsuit over technical issues. The case, which was originally filed by NAACP branches in Reno and Las Vegas and the National Council of La Raza, will be reassigned to a new judge. “We applaud the decision, and we think it’s an important victory for civil rights groups who know how important the vote is,” said National Council of La Raza Vice President Eric Rodriguez, who added that the move was especially important in Nevada, with its growing Hispanic voter bloc and much-watched Senate race. “Efforts to restrict registration and suppress it really run counter to American values.”

North Carolina: Voting maps back before State Supreme Court | WRAL

Eight months after the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of congressional and legislative voting maps drawn by the Republican-led General Assembly in 2011, the maps were back before the court on Monday. The U.S. Supreme Court in April ordered the state court to take another look at the maps in light of a decision on an Alabama redistricting case where the justices found lawmakers in that state relied too much on “mechanical” numerical percentages while drawing legislative districts in which blacks comprised a majority of the population. Those who sued over North Carolina’s maps in 2011 believe the ruling in the Alabama matter is spot on with the boundaries drawn by the General Assembly. They argue that it confirms two dozen legislative districts, along with the majority-black 1st and 12th congressional districts, should be struck down and maps redrawn quickly by the legislature for the 2016 elections.

Editorials: Texas Two-Steps All Over Voting Rights | Richard Hasen/Slate

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation in U.S. history. It contained key protections for minority voters, especially blacks, who had been effectively disenfranchised in the South. The act was a remarkable success, increasing minority voter registration and turnout rates within a few years. In 1982, an important amendment made it much easier for minority voters to elect candidates of their choice. Then, following the contested 2000 elections, states started passing new voting rules along partisan lines. As part of these voting wars, conservative states began passing laws making it harder to register and vote, restrictions that seemed to fall most on poor and minority voters. In the midst of all of this, the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key component of the Voting Rights Act. It had required states and jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get permission from the federal government before making a voting change by proving that the proposed change would not make it harder for minority voters to vote and to elect their preferred candidates. Don’t worry, Chief Justice John Roberts assured the American public in that 2013 case, Shelby County v. Holder. Although states with a history of racial discrimination would no longer be subject to federal “preclearance” of voting changes because preclearance offends the “equal sovereignty” of states such as Texas, there’s always Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That provision, Roberts explained, is available “in appropriate cases to block voting laws from going into effect. … Section 2 is permanent, applies nationwide, and is not at issue in this case.”

Virginia: U.S. court moves ahead with plan to redraw Virginia congressional maps | The Washington Post

Two days after Virginia lawmakers blew their court-imposed deadline for redrawing the state’s congressional election maps, federal judges on Thursday began to take matters into their own hands. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia set an ambitious schedule for naming an expert to help judges set new district boundaries and accepting suggested maps from legislators. Last year,the court declared Virginia’s congressional map unconstitutional, saying it packs African American voters into a single district at the expense of their influence elsewhere. The court later ordered the General Assembly to adopt a new map by Sept. 1. Congressional Republicans appealed the decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to say if whether it will hear the case.

Switzerland: Hacking fears jeopardise e-voting rollout | SWI

A recent government decision to deny nine cantons the ability to offer e-voting for the upcoming federal elections has come under fire. Critics say it threatens the broader use of electronic voting in the future. In a press release last month, the government said an audit of the electronic voting system developed by American company Unisys revealed major security flaws in the protection of voting secrecy. The machine was proposed by a consortium of nine cantons to be used in the upcoming elections. The government’s decision means that despite significant progress in introducing e-voting to Switzerland in recent years, just four of 13 cantons that applied to offer e-voting during the October parliamentary elections have been authorised to do so. Critics of the decision say that a large majority of the 142,000 Swiss abroad registered to vote will now not be able to do so by electronic means. “The government’s decision is not only incomprehensible, but it is also likely to call into question the people’s confidence in the credibility of e-voting,” says Peter Grünenfelder, chancellor of Aargau and president of the consortium of nine cantons based in the Zurich region that were refused access to electronic voting. Grünenfelder believes that by rejecting the use of the American-developed technology, the government is hoping to support publicly developed e-voting systems, such as the one used by Geneva, rather than private ones. However, government spokesman André Simonazzi rejects this hypothesis and says the cantons have had 18 months to ensure the electronic voting system met the required security conditions. “In the area of protecting voting secrecy in particular, some serious deficiencies were noted,” Simonazzi said. “In the case of a cyber-attack, hackers would have been able to reveal the electors’ vote, which is not tolerable in a democracy.”

United Kingdom: Labour members complain about missing leadership ballot papers | The Guardian

Labour members and supporters have begun protesting to the party about their lack of ballot papers with less than a week to go before the leadership election closes. The party initially promised that 99.9% of its electorate would have received ballot papers by 28 August, but it is now refusing to disclose how many of the 554,000 have been sent out. A initial batch of 340,000 was dispatched on 14 August, and a second batch of 170,000 voters should have received their ballots between 21-26 August. That would have left a final batch to receive their voting instructions by email by Friday 28 August. However, with just four and a half working days until the ballot closes at midday next Thursday, many have taken to social media to complain to the party about worries that they could be disenfranchised in the contest.

International: From the U.S. to Saudi Arabia, Women Had to Fight to Vote | National Geographic

Wednesday marks the 95th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. At the same time, one of the last countries to deny women the vote is preparing to open its polls: this December, women will vote in Saudi Arabia for the first time. This achievement, like the ones that came before it, wasn’t handed to Saudi women, who have been pressuring their government for years. Around the world, women have only won suffrage because they’ve demanded it. “There’s no other movement for women’s rights that’s as international as votes for women,” says Ellen DuBois, distinguished professor of history and gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. A century ago, American women were deep into their own chapter of the movement—and closing in on victory. The first international votes for women came sporadically during the 19th century. Women in Sweden and Scotland won some local voting rights, and Great Britain opened local elections—but only to unmarried women who also owned property. Then, in 1893, women in New Zealand won the full right to vote.

National: Election Assistance Commission says state’s can use federal election grants to pay for voter fraud investigation | Associated Press

States are free to use federal grant money intended to improve how elections are run in order to pay for criminal investigations of potential voter fraud, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has ruled. The commission’s opinion is a relief to election officials in Iowa, who will not have to pay back $240,000 in federal money that was used for a voter fraud investigation that ended last year. But critics of Iowa’s investigation said they were surprised that the commission found that Help America Vote Act funding could be used for such a purpose, and worried that other states could follow suit. “It seems like a real stretch,” said Tom Courtney, an Iowa Democratic state senator who asked the commission’s inspector general to investigate the spending nearly three years ago. “But now with this ruling in their pocket, Iowa and other states might say, ‘all right.’ ” Months before the 2012 presidential election, then-Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz reached an agreement to pay the salary and expenses of a full-time Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent for two years to look into “instances of potential criminal activity” related to voting and elections. The investigation led to charges against 10 non-U.S. citizens and 16 ex-felons accused of casting ballots despite not having voting rights.

Alabama: Federal court asks plaintiffs to draw Alabama legislative district plan | AL.com

A three-judge federal court today asked plaintiffs who claim Alabama’s legislative districts are racially gerrymandered if they could draw a new plan that would strike the delicate balance of protecting majority black districts while not using race as the main factor. Presiding Judge Bill Pryor called that the “$64,000 question” during today’s hearing in the technical, complex case sent back to the three-judge court by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case concerns Alabama’s 140 legislative districts, redrawn by a Republican-led Legislature in 2012, as is done after after 10-year census. The plan was used in last year’s elections.

Florida: Judge Doesn’t Settle Bitter Dispute Over Florida’s Redistricting Plan | The New York Times

A Leon County judge on Tuesday postponed a decision about Florida’s still incomplete congressional redistricting map after Republican legislative leaders failed to agree on how to redraw the boundaries. During a hearing, Judge Terry P. Lewis of Florida’s Second Circuit Court said he did not have the authority to resolve the map dispute without the approval of the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in July that the current redistricting map was unconstitutional. The judge said he would send a request for guidance to the State Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Kansas: Topeka judge: Kris Kobach exceeded election authority | Wichita Eagle

A Topeka judge has denied a move by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to quash a lawsuit challenging the state’s two-tier voter registration system and said Kobach has exceeded his authority with the way he runs elections. Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Kansas and Missouri, called the ruling a “great day for voting rights and a great day for Kansas.” The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of voters who have been frozen out of state and local elections because they registered to vote using federal registration forms and didn’t provide proof-of-citizenship documents required by Kansas law.

Pennsylvania: State Launches Online Voter Registration | PoliticsPA

On Thursday, Gov. Wolf and Secretary of State Pedro Cortés announced that PA has become the latest state to launch an online voter registration application. Hosted by the Department of State, the form is now available for use by eligible citizens at register.votesPA.com. “Online Voter Registration is about making the voting experience more convenient and more accessible,” Governor Wolf said in a statement on Thursday. “It is about giving citizens an easier way to exercise their right to vote and establishing a clearer connection between the political system and the citizens. Online voter registration is secure, it improves accuracy and will reduce costs for counties by cutting down on time-consuming data entry.” Online voter registration is available in 22 other states. In five additional states and the District of Columbia, OVR has been approved and is awaiting implementation. According to Secretary Cortés, the trend towards OVR is only natural in an increasingly digital world.

Canada: Fair Elections Act will bring big changes on voting day | Toronto Star

The marathon election campaign will be a test of more than voters’ patience and attention span. It will be a test of the Fair Elections Act, the controversial and sweeping legislation that has introduced changes to how Canadians prove they are eligible to vote, the way elections are financed and how voting shenanigans are investigated. It puts more money in the pockets of political parties for a longer campaign, while capping how much third parties can spend on election advertising. To its boosters, the changes are a necessary update, motivated in part by the need to guard against voting fraud. … However, critics of the legislation fear some of the changes will leave people in some particular groups — such as students, the homeless and First Nations — unable to vote. Critics argue that many of the changes were deliberately designed to skew the advantage in favour of the Conservatives on Election Day. “There’s no question it will have an impact in the current election,” said Garry Neil, executive director of the Council of Canadians.

Russia: Can Russia’s only independent election monitor survive Kremlin pressure? | Christian Science Monitor

Golos, Russia’s only grassroots election-monitoring organization, has been fighting an exhausting battle to prove it does not receive foreign funding. Otherwise, it would have to self-describe as a “foreign agent” – a term that connotes “spy” in Russian. But even though the organization has won some significant court victories, including a Constitutional Court order to lift the onerous label they were saddled with, Golos seems no closer to fielding its usual teams of observers when Russia’s next cycle of elections kicks off, with regional polls in October. Now, members of Golos and other nongovernmental organizations in similar conflict with the government are asking: Are there any terms under which the Kremlin will allow such a group to do its appointed job? “The basic problem is that authorities are not happy with what Golos does,” says Andrei Buzin, an analyst with Golos. “It’s this type of activity, making conclusions, publishing results, that they just don’t like.”

National: Billionaires crowd out the bundlers in White House race | USA Today

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Montana lumber company owner Sherm Anderson found it “fairly easy” to help raise $2 million from his fellow Republicans to boost Mitt Romney’s presidential hopes. Anderson expects a far tougher road in 2016, given the growing dominance of super PACs and other outside groups that are amassing millions in political contributions from a small cluster of the nation’s richest individuals. “It turns small contributors off,” Anderson said. “They say, ‘Gee whiz, I thought I was helping by giving $100 or $1,000, but how can I help when someone else is giving $100,000?’ These super PACs are definitely changing the dynamic,” he said.

Editorials: The battle for voting rights continues | E.J. Dionne/The Washington Post

Many find politics frustrating because problems that seemed to be solved in one generation crop up again years or decades later. The good thing about democracy is that there are no permanent defeats. The hard part is that some victories have to be won over and over. And so it is with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a monument to what can be achieved when grass-roots activism is harnessed to presidential and legislative leadership. Ending discrimination at the ballot box was a way of underwriting the achievements of the Civil Rights Act passed a year earlier by granting African Americans new and real power to which they had always been constitutionally entitled. “The results were almost unimaginable in 1965,” writes Ari Berman in “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America,” his timely book published this month. … In fact, Obama’s election called forth a far more sophisticated approach to restricting voting. Republicans closely examined how Obama’s political organization had turned out large numbers of young African Americans who had not voted before. Their participation was facilitated by early voting, and particularly Sunday voting.

Florida: Judge To Redraw Florida’s Congressional Maps After Legislature Fails To Reach Deal | NPR

A Florida judge will draw up new maps for the state’s 27 congressional districts. After meeting in a two-week special session, Florida’s House and Senate adjourned without agreeing on what the maps, ordered by the State Supreme Court, should look like. This was the Florida Legislature’s third attempt to draw congressional maps that comply with the state Constitution. Under an amendment adopted by voters in 2010, Florida’s Legislature must compile maps for congressional and legislative districts that don’t protect incumbents or political parties. But although Florida’s House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans, the two bodies were unable to come to an agreement. They adjourned amid acrimony between House and Senate leaders. It was an atmosphere similar to that when the regular session ended in April with an impasse over whether to expand Medicaid. Republican leaders denied that feud carried over into this special session.

Kentucky: Rand Paul Purchases a Path Around an Inconvenient Kentucky Law | The Atlantic

Rand Paul is giving new meaning to the term “buying an election.” Over the weekend, the Kentucky senator said he gave $250,000 to his state’s Republican Party for the explicit purpose of funding its presidential caucus in March. He promised to pony up another $200,000 in the fall, enough to cover the entire cost of the nominating event. Put another way: Paul is paying the party to hold an election in which he is running. He’s doing it neither to ensure a victory nor out of the simple goodness of his heart. No, Paul is making a rather blatant end-run around state law, and he’s compensating the Kentucky GOP for going along with him. The law forbids someone from appearing on the same ballot as a candidate for two different offices, and Paul, who is up for reelection next year, doesn’t want to give up his Senate seat to make his rather long-shot bid for the presidency.

North Carolina: Two sides negotiate voter ID provision | News & Observer

Attorneys on both sides of the lawsuits challenging the 2013 state election law overhaul are trying to find common ground on North Carolina’s voter ID law and plan to report the results of their efforts to a judge next month. Lawyers for the NAACP and others offered that detail in an update to the federal judge presiding over the cases that will determine which rules govern elections in North Carolina next year. They plan to report to the judge on Sept. 17 as part of a trial that could test the breadth of protections for African-Americans with claims of voter disenfranchisement two years after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder presided over three weeks of arguments in July on parts of the challenge that did not include the requirement that N.C. voters show one of six photo identification cards to cast a ballot. The legislature amended that portion of the law on the eve of the trial, setting up a request from the challengers for deeper review of the broader implications of the changes.

Texas: Federal Appeals Court Orders Texas to Pay $1M in Legal Fees in Voting Rights Case | National Law Journal