Editorials: Exorcising the voter fraud ghost | Richard Hasen/Reuters

When it comes to the fight about voter fraud and voter suppression, how do you prove a negative? One key question in the battle over the legality of voter identification laws is whether such laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and whether they suppress a lot of votes from eligible voters. Though the answer to the second question remains in considerable dispute, after Tuesday’s federal court decision striking down Wisconsin’s voter ID law, it is time for voter ID supporters to throw in the towel and admit state voter ID laws don’t prevent the kind of fraud they are supposedly targeted for. Federal Judge Lynn Adelman looked at the evidence from Wisconsin and reached a conclusion unsurprising to those of us who study how elections are run.  “Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin,” Adelman wrote, “and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.” Wisconsin is not alone in lacking such evidence. When the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008, the state conceded there was no evidence, ever, of impersonation fraud in the entire state.

Georgia: After Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling, What’s Next For Georgia? | WABE

Could a recent ruling on the constitutionality of voter ID requirements affect Georgia’s law? That’s the question after a federal judge in Wisconsin earlier this week struck down a law requiring voters to show a state photo ID at polls, a policy in place in about half the U.S. states, including Georgia. In his ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman said Wisconsin’s voter ID law violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, adding the law disproportionately affects minority and low-income individuals. Laughlin McDonald, director emeritus of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said the future implications of the Wisconsin ruling are unclear, but called it “significant.”

India: Election ‘well-managed’ despite alleged voter fraud | The Globe and Mail

As marathon national elections in the world’s most populous democracy head into their final phase, the Election Commission and local media are reporting dozens of cases of alleged vote fraud, and tens of thousands of names missing from voter lists in the country’s biggest city. But officials say that over all, with more than 815 million eligible voters casting ballots over a five-week period that began April 7, the elections are remarkably trouble free. “Certain questionable practices and people are expected to show up during elections,” said T. S. Krishna Murthy, former chief election commissioner who was in charge of the 2004 parliamentary elections. “But the Election Commission has managed to deal with them well. By and large, the elections are well-managed.” Still there have been complaints of proxy voting and of political parties using money and muscle to rig the outcome of elections, as well as regular reports that thousands of names are missing from the voters’ lists.

Editorials: A Federal Judge Searches for Voter Fraud in Wisconsin and Finds None | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

A long and bitter Wisconsin trial ended Tuesday afternoon with a sweeping defeat for supporters of a voter-ID law designed to make it more difficult for citizens to cast ballots. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman declared in a 90-page order that the state’s new voting restrictions violate both the equal-protection clause of the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The law unduly burdens minority voters, he ruled, without sufficient justification for doing so. Adelman’s ruling will be appealed by the Republican officials who enacted it in 2011. It is far from certain that the ruling will withstand review by the very conservative 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the even more conservative Supreme Court, which in 2008’s Crawford v. Marion County declared that state voter-ID laws could be constitutional. In the meantime, the law—which required all voters to present photo identification to vote—is enjoined from enforcement.

Editorials: Voter ID – Judge gets it right: strikes down voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Wisconsin’s voter ID law suffered another welcome blow Tuesday when a federal judge struck it down, ruling that it violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. The law, ruled Judge Lynn Adelman, “results in the denial or abridgment of the right of black and Latino citizens to vote on account of race or color.” As we’ve argued for years, Adelman found that there really isn’t any voter fraud in Wisconsin that a voter photo ID could address — one of the key arguments of supporters of the law. Instead, a photo ID law places an undue burden on low-income people. A “substantial number” of the 300,000 eligible voters in the state who lack an ID are low income, the judge found, concluding that many of them “will be deterred from voting. Detecting and preventing in-person voter-impersonation fraud is a legitimate state interest,” he wrote. “However…because virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future, this particular state interest has very little weight.”

Editorials: Before convicting four Alabama counties of voter fraud, let’s see the evidence | Bob Nicholson/AL.com

If you needed to rotate the tires on your car would you accomplish that task by changing the oil? Silly idea isn’t it? Yet that analogy is on target when you look at the Alabama Legislature’s actions in establishing strong voter ID laws. They claim that they are reacting to fraud allegations and a crowd of onlookers, columnists and pundits, are cheering them onward. Unfortunately, only a brief examination of the “evidence” shows no fraud. I am a Certified Fraud Examiner. The definition of fraud is specific (wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain) and to casually alleging such is irresponsible. In order to prove fraud, not only do you have to show what happened, you have to show intent as well. Lacking a confession admitting intent, fraud is proven in court by ruling out all other possibilities. Let’s look at the latest “evidence” and see if it meets the definition of proving fraud. Four counties in Alabama, Macon, Wilcox, Lowndes and Greene, have more voters on the roll than the US Census Department estimated their adult populations to be in 2012 by a cumulative 2934 people. And, these counties vote with a strong Democratic majority. Not only that, but in 2012 former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis alleged that wholesale voter fraud goes on in parts of the Black Belt. Convinced that there is fraud going on? Don’t convict just yet.

Arkansas: Judge voids Arkansas voter ID law | Associated Press

An Arkansas judge struck down the state’s new voter ID law on Thursday, saying it violates the state constitution by adding a requirement that voters must meet before casting a ballot. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox voided the measure in a lawsuit over the way absentee ballots are handled under the law. A separate lawsuit had been filed last week directly challenging the law, which requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. The law “is declared void and unenforceable,” Fox wrote in the ruling. The Republican-led Legislature approved the law last year, overriding a veto by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe with a simple majority vote in the House and Senate. Backers of the measure said it was aimed at reducing voter fraud, while opponents said it would disenfranchise voters. A spokesman for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, says the state Board of Election Commissioners has asked McDaniel’s office to appeal Thursday’s ruling, and it will do so.

National: Rand Paul calls out GOP over voter fraud claims | MSNBC

Sen. Rand Paul thinks the GOP might be over-hyping instances of voter fraud, and that Republicans shouldn’t scrap early voting. “There is still some fraud, and so we should stop that,” the Kentucky senator, considered a leading potential contender for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, told former Obama adviser David Axelrod during a sit-down Tuesday at the University of Chicago. “Although the incidence of fraud is relatively small,” Axelrod said. “It probably is, and I think Republicans may have over-emphasized this. I don’t know,” replied Paul, who made clear that, like most of his party, he supports voter ID requirements.

Kansas: Program run by Kobach checks voter registration records of more than 100 million people | Lawrence Journal-World

A little-known program run by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach goes through more than 100 million voter records from states across the nation. Called Interstate Crosscheck, or “The Kansas Project,” the program compares voter registration records from one state with 27 other participating states to check for duplicate voter registrations and possible double voting. The goal of the program is to clear up registration rolls, Kobach said. Nearly all double registrations are unintentional, resulting from a person moving from one state to another and re-registering to vote, Kobach says. But the computer program drills down further to try to find voters who may have voted in two separate states, he said. It’s a program that Kobach’s office provides for free. “It’s a state-run program that Kansas has developed and it’s a service for the whole country,” Kobach said. The project has generated some controversy. Earlier this month, Republican officials in North Carolina, a key battleground state, said the Interstate Crosscheck uncovered proof of widespread voter fraud. But after those initial reports, officials have walked back those assertions and were focusing on investigating a much smaller number of potential cases.

Arkansas: Lawsuit challenges Arkansas voter ID law | Arkansas News

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Arkansas Law Center filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging Arkansas’ law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. The suit, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court on behalf of four Arkansas voters, alleges that Act 595 of 2103 violates the Arkansas Constitution by imposing requirements on voting that go beyond the requirements established in the constitution and impairing the rights of Arkansans to vote. “People who have been qualified to vote their entire adult lives are now being blocked from doing so by this unnecessary and unconstitutional law,” Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said in a statement. “The Arkansas Constitution specifically outlines the qualifications needed to vote. The state should be ashamed of making it harder for eligible voters from exercising this most fundamental right than our own constitution requires.” State Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, who sponsored Act 595, said the law addresses voter fraud.  “Requiring someone to present a photo ID is not shameful,” he said. “You have to do it to get on an airplane. You have to do it at a lot of basic functions that we operate in everyday life. Is it shameful that we have do require this for people that get on an airplane? That’s ridiculous.”

Florida: Florida no longer part of controversial national voter data project | Miami Herald

For those following the issue of voter fraud nationwide, this fact-check by PunditFact of a claim by Fox News commentator Dick Morris is a must-read. Morris said that “probably over a million people” voted twice in the 2012 general election nationwide. PunditFact rated that False — and you can read the full report here. Morris was referring to data from a project dubbed Interstate Crosscheck run by Republican Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. As of 2013, 28 states sent voter information to Kansas where the record of each of their voters is run against the records in all the other participating states. They are matched on first name, last name, date of birth and Social Security number. Interstate Crosscheck’s own guide for states includes an important caveat that tends to get overlooked: “a significant number of apparent double votes are false positives and not double votes. Many are the result of errors — voters sign the wrong line in the poll book, election clerks scan the wrong line with a barcode scanner.”

North Carolina: State joined controversial voter cross-check program as other states were leaving | Facing South

On April 2, 2014, leaders of North Carolina’s state election board announced they had participated in a national program to verify voters run by Kansas’ controversial secretary of state, Kris Kobach. The results ignited a firestorm: Media outlets and Republican lawmakers quickly declared that plugging North Carolina’s voter data into Kobach’s Interstate Crosscheck program had revealed proof of “widespread voter fraud” and justified a host of voter restrictions passed in 2013. But Interstate Crosscheck has been hounded by controversy since it launched in Kobach’s office in 2005. Despite initial hysteria about alleged fraud — as happened this month in North Carolina — few actual cases of fraud have been referred for prosecution, as presumed cases of double voting in multiple states turn out to be clerical and other errors. Amidst the controversy, at least two states have dropped out of the program, just as North Carolina was joining it.

North Carolina: After initial hysteria, back-pedaling over North Carolina voter fraud claims | Facing South

Last week, top staff of the N.C. State Board of Elections made a presentation to legislators about the state of voter registration in North Carolina. Out of the board’s 58-page PowerPoint presentation [pdf], only two of the slides (34 and 35) related to the Interstate Crosscheck, a project run by the Kansas secretary of state to root out suspected voter fraud. But the findings of North Carolina’s involvement in Crosscheck quickly ignited a media firestorm, especially in the conservative media: “N.C. State Board Finds More than 35K Incidents of ‘Double Voting’ in 2012” trumpeted National Review. “Oh My: Audit Finds Evidence of Widespread Voter Fraud in North Carolina” blared Townhall.com. Dick Morris, the conservative comentator and former political operative, made even more wild claims, claiming in an editorial for The Hill that North Carolina’s findings offered “concrete proof that massive voter fraud might have taken place in the 2012 election, sufficiently widespread to have tainted more than 1 million votes nationwide.” As Facing South was one of the first to report, however, the North Carolina election board’s data offered little proof of rampant fraud. The 35,750 figure represented people who, when plugged into Crosscheck’s database of voter files from 28 states, had the same first name, last name and date as birth of people who had voted in other states in 2012. But many of those can be explain by clerical errors and the fact that a surprisingly large number of people in different states share the same names and birthday.

North Carolina: Who’s driving North Carolina’s latest voter fraud hysteria? | Facing South

This week, officials at the North Carolina State Board of Elections announced they had discovered possible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the battleground state. By cross-checking North Carolina voter rolls with those in 28 other states, leaders of the board told state lawmakers they had found 35,750 records of people who voted in North Carolina and whose first name, last name and date of birth matched people who had voted in other states. More surprisingly, it also revealed 765 North Carolina voters in 2012 whose last four Social Security digits also matched those of people who voted in other states that year. The announcement fueled news headlines and outrage from North Carolina politicians, including legislators on an elections oversight committee who said the findings affirmed the need for voting restrictions passed by the General Assembly in 2013. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate Leader Phil Berger issued a joint statement hailing the “newly discovered, alarming evidence of voter error, fraud.”

North Carolina: Election officials identify hundreds of cases of potential voter fraud | Charlotte News Observer

North Carolina elections officials told state lawmakers Wednesday that they have identified hundreds, and potentially thousands, of voters who may have cast ballots in two states in the 2012 general election. Republican legislators on an elections oversight committee quickly reacted, calling the number of possible voter fraud cases “shocking,” “outrageous” and “proof positive” that fraud is occurring in North Carolina elections. They called on elections officials to investigate all possible fraud and refer potential criminal cases for prosecution. Double voting is a felony. “That is outrageous. That is criminal. That is wrong, and it shouldn’t be allowed to go any further without substantial investigations from our local district attorneys who are the ones charged with enforcing these laws,” said Sen. Thom Goolsby, a Wilmington Republican. Others urged caution until more information about the numbers comes to light.

Ukraine: Reports cast doubt on results of Crimea referendum | McClatchy

On March 16, as Crimeans voted in a referendum on joining Russia, a convoy of Russian minibuses and cars drew up to the center of Lytvynenkove, a village about 15 miles northeast of the peninsular capital. Members of the local self-defense committee of Crimean Tatars, the Muslim minority group who were exiled under Stalin but returned here when Communist rule collapsed, watched with trepidation as about 50 men, some in track suits and others in military uniform, got out of the vehicles. But the passengers hadn’t come to bully the local Tatar population, which had announced a boycott. Instead, they headed into the local polling station. The two white vans and the several cars were registered in Krasnodar, Russia. The men’s accents were Russian, and so from their appearance were they – those in uniform were Don Cossacks, a famed fighting force that served the czars and now, experts say, has become a sort of Pretorian guard for Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Political tourists” traveling by the van-load from one polling station to the next have been a feature of Ukrainian elections going back more than a decade – locals call it “carousel voting” – but this was the first time that anyone had heard of foreigners getting into the act, a Tatar organizer said.

Iowa: Anderson: Use fed money for poll book expansion, not investigations | Quad City Times

Iowa Secretary of State candidate Brad Anderson said Tuesday he plans to stop the use of federal funds to pay for investigations into alleged voter fraud and instead use the money, as well as other funds, to expand the use of electronic poll books. He also said he plans to clean up a flawed list of ineligible voters. Anderson, a Democrat, was campaigning Tuesday in Clinton, and he released a plan he said represents a clean break from the policies of Republican Matt Schultz, the current Secretary of State who is leaving the office to run for Congress. “Iowa has a history of clean, fair elections, and I believe we should have a chief elections official who recognizes that fact,” Anderson said.

Canada: No irregular activity or vote stealing says Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer | Global News

The elections office in Quebec is throwing cold water on a theory put forward by the Parti Quebecois on Sunday that students from elsewhere in Canada could be trying to steal the provincial election. The PQ expressed concern about media reports that an influx of English-speakers and other non-francophones from outside the province were trying to vote in the April 7 election. By late afternoon, however, the province’s chief electoral officer brought forward numbers showing there were no signs of an irregular increase in voter registration.

Canada: Director General debunks Parti Quebecois complaint, says voter registration requests are down | CTV

Quebec election officials are debunking the notion that voter registration requests are up since the 2012 election, as Denis Dion, a spokesman for the electoral office, told CTV Montreal that only one of five ridings cited by the Parti Quebecois has seen a rise in demands to vote. One of the five ridings had 56 more requests over this time in the last election, while the others were significantly down. The Parti Quebecois had asked the Director General of Elections to take action concerning reports of unusual voter registration requests in three Montreal-area ridings and two others in the Eastern Townships. Justice Minister Bertrand Saint-Arnaud, MNA Leo Bureau-Blouin and Families Minister Nicole Leger demanded stricter supervision and training for election officials determining voter eligibility, daily reports on voter registration and a post-revision report.

Editorials: Former drug offender acquitted at rare voter fraud trial in a rebuke to Iowa crackdown | Associated Press

A former drug offender who believed her voting rights had been restored when she cast a ballot last year was acquitted of perjury Thursday, a public rebuke of Iowa’s two-year investigation into voter fraud. The 12-member jury took less than 40 minutes to reject the prosecution’s argument that Kelli Jo Griffin intentionally lied on a voter registration form she filled out for a municipal election in the southeastern Iowa town of Montrose. It was the first trial stemming from the state’s voter fraud investigation championed by Republican Secretary of State Matt Schultz. And it highlighted Iowa’s status as one of just four states in which ex-offenders have to apply to the governor to regain their voting rights, under a 2011 order that has created confusion. Griffin, a 40-year-old mother of three young children and one stepdaughter, would have faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted since she was charged as a habitual offender. “I’m glad that I can go back to being a mother,” she told reporters afterward. Griffin had lost her voting rights following a 2008 felony conviction for delivery of less than 100 grams of cocaine. She testified that she believed her right to vote had been restored when she left probation last year, which had been the state’s policy until it was rescinded three years ago by Republican Gov. Terry Branstad.

Iowa: Jury acquits ex-felon in Iowa voter fraud case | The Des Moines Register

A former drug offender who voted in a municipal election despite having lost her right to cast a ballot was acquitted of perjury Thursday, in the first trial stemming from Iowa’s two-year investigation into voter fraud. Jurors rejected the prosecution’s argument that Kelli Jo Griffin intentionally lied on a voter registration form before casting a ballot in an uncontested mayoral and council election in the southeastern Iowa town of Montrose. Griffin, a 40-year-old mother of young children, would have faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Griffin had lost her voting rights following a 2008 felony conviction for delivery of cocaine. She testified that she believed her right to vote had been restored when she left probation last year, which had been the state’s policy until 2011. Lee County Attorney Michael Short argued that Griffin deliberately left blank a question on the form asking whether she was a convicted felon, saying she was trying to hide her past as a drug dealer. Iowa is now one of four states in which ex-offenders have to apply to the governor to regain their voting rights.

National: Long lines, disputed counts: Why U.S. elections stumble | Detroit Free Press

In the 2012 election, Robert Bauer was President Obama’s campaign counsel and Benjamin Ginsberg was the top lawyer for Republican opponent Mitt Romney. Now they have joined forces to co-chair the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, studying the problems elections face. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. Q: Long lines, unreliable voting machines, disputed ballots: Why don’t elections in the United States work better?

Ginsberg:There are 8,000 different jurisdictions that are responsible for putting on some part of our elections. It is a process largely fueled by volunteers. They don’t have adequate training in most cases. So uniformity among our elections because of the way our system has been for 200 years is proving pretty difficult.

Bauer:We don’t commit nearly the resources that we need to, to the election administration process. Our administrators, who are generally overlooked when things go well and harshly criticized when they don’t, by and large have to deal with very tight budgets in which the priority is never very high for the work they have to do.

Wisconsin: Dale Schultz: ‘I am not willing to defend them anymore’ | Capitol Times

Wisconsin state Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, will not ride off quietly into the sunset. In an appearance on the Devil’s Advocate radio show (The Mic/92.1 FM) last week, Schultz told hosts Mike Crute and Dominic Salvia that his party’s support for a series of election law changes was indefensible. “I am not willing to defend them anymore,” he explained when Salvia asked why Republicans sought to limit the number of voting hours a municipality could offer. “I’m just not and I’m embarrassed by this.” Since announcing his retirement in the face of a tough primary challenge from conservative state Rep. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, the Republican iconoclast has become more strident in criticizing the party in which he has made a political career. Schultz has served as a legislator from southwestern Wisconsin since 1983, including two stints as Senate majority leader in 2003 and 2005. Last week, Schultz argued that there were no legitimate justifications for some of the election reforms pushed by Republicans. “It’s all predicated on some belief there is a massive fraud or irregularities, something my colleagues have been hot on the trail for three years and have failed miserably at demonstrating,” he said.

Colombia: Congressional elections saw ‘unprecedented voter fraud and vote buying’: Electoral Observers | Colombia Reports

Colombia’s Sunday congressional elections saw an unprecedented amount of voter fraud and vote buying, though violent pressure on voters from armed illegal groups largely abated, according to electoral observers. As the dust cleared approaching midweek after Colombia’s congressional elections, candidates were crying fraud and corruption. Former President and senator elect Alvaro Uribe called the Sunday’s elections “illegitimate” in an interview with Blu Radio; defeated presidential primary candidate Camilo Romero insisted on Twitter that ballots were missing across the country; and presidential candidate Aida Avella told Colombia Reports that “money,” not votes, guaranteed candidates congressional seats this past weekend. MOE spokesperson Fabian Hernandez told Colombia Reports subsequently that “we have never received this many complaints about election fraud” since the organization’s foundation in 2007.

Iowa: Poll: Access to voting trumps voter fraud concerns | The Des Moines Register

A wide majority of Iowans believe it’s more important to ensure ballot access for eligible voters than to guard against voting by those who are ineligible. That result, captured in The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll, casts new light on a debate that has been raging in the state and across the nation for years over the appropriate balance between ballot access and security. Seventy-one percent of poll respondents say it’s more important that every eligible, registered voter is able to vote, compared with 25 percent who say it’s more important that no ineligible person “slips through the cracks” to cast a vote. “Americans care about preventing voter fraud, but they care more about making voting free, fair and accessible,” said Myrna Perez, an expert on voting rights and elections at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Editorials: Why Ohio’s GOP is strangling voters’ access to the polls | Toledo Blade

Voter fraud is minuscule. No massive voting irregularities have been uncovered in Ohio. Ballot stuffing, perpetrated by individuals who scheme to skew elections in the state, is a myth. So the new Republican-backed voting restrictions adopted recently in Ohio are not really about preventing deceit at the polls. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted launched a comprehensive investigation of voting in the state after the last presidential election in 2012. It produced almost no evidence of voting irregularities worthy of prosecution. Out of more than 5.5 million Ohio votes cast in November, 2012, just 135 were referred to law enforcement agencies for review. Mr. Husted, a Republican, concluded that while voter fraud exists, “it’s not an epidemic.” So if large-scale voter fraud is virtually nonexistent in Ohio, we can rule out aggressive policing as the motivation behind GOP efforts to chip away at established voting practices in the state.

Canada: Author of elections report cited by Poilievre contradicts minister on voter fraud | CBC

The author of a report cited repeatedly to justify cracking down on potential voter fraud says the Harper government is misrepresenting his report and ignoring his recommendations. Indeed, Harry Neufeld says there’s not a shred of evidence that there have been more than “a handful” of cases of deliberate voter fraud in either federal or provincial elections. “I never said there was voter fraud,” Neufeld said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “Nor did the Supreme Court, who looked at this extremely carefully.” Neufeld said the government’s efforts to prevent voter fraud are aimed at a non-existent problem. And he predicted they’ll wind up disenfranchising thousands of voters and resulting in a rash of court challenges.

Colombia: Observers report 150 allegations of voter fraud amid relatively calm elections | Colombia Reports

With only a few reported rebel attacks, less than 20 arrests and little more than 160 fraud allegations, Colombia’s congressional elections that began at 8AM this morning are proceeding in relative calm. Police did arrest five suspects for allegedly trying to influence voters on their way to the polling stations in the southern Putumayo state, said Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon who called this year’s elections the “most secure” in Colombia’s history. Twelve more suspects were arrested at polls throughout the country, reported Colombian news agency El Tiempo.  Some of the arrested were arrested for crimes related to voter fraud while others were reportedly arrested because of pre-existing warrants. Rebel groups like the FARC and ELN refrained from high-profile attacks; According to local police, FARC rebels did attack an army unit, but away from a polling station.  A front of the FARC also has been blamed for preventing some residents from voting in a municipality in the state of Putumayo said El Tiempo.

Ohio: Lawsuit challenging voting bills would force GOP to prove fraud | Vindicator

Republican Gov. John Kasich has signed into law three bills that change the procedures for voting in Ohio. The measures were rammed through the GOP- controlled General Assembly, with proponents arguing, among other things, that they are designed to combat voter fraud. Not surprisingly, Democrats have been quick to respond, accusing the Republicans who control every statewide administrative office and six of the seven Supreme Court seats of attempting to restrict voting. The arguments from both sides should ring familiar. They have been used in previous battles over voting in Ohio. The GOP contends that unrestricted access to the polls is a recipe for disaster; the Democratic Party counters that voter suppression is at the heart of the Republican campaign. It notes that urban areas are hardest hit by the changes in voting procedures, with black voters, who mostly support Democratic candidates, being dissuaded from going to the polls.

Iowa: Voter fraud investigation concludes; 80 additional cases referred to prosecutors | The Des Moines Register

A controversial investigation into alleged voter fraud has concluded, the investigator leading the effort said Monday. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Adam DeCamp said Monday that the probe aimed at identifying and prosecuting fraudulent Iowa voters ended Feb. 13, roughly 20 months after it began. Since September, when DeCamp took over as the lead investigator, the effort has scrutinized 245 individual voters. Of those, more than 80 have been referred to county attorneys for possible prosecution. It will be up to prosecutors on whether to bring charges based on the evidence provided by the DCI.