Voting Blogs: West Virginia’s Relentless March to Expand Voter Registration | State of Elections

West Virginia is undergoing what appears to be a voter registration revolution as the state legislature continues to make strides to simplify access to the ballot box.  The following post aims to discuss these advancements in an effort to summarize the current state of voter registration in the Mountain State. In 2013, former-Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, signed into law SB 477, which amended the state constitution to allow for online voter registration (OVR).  The state was not quick to implement the OVR system, as the Secretary of State’s Office did not unveil an official program until the latter half of 2015.  In essence, the now-implemented OVR application requires a registrant to supply the same information required on the paper registration cards: full name, birthdate, location, citizenship status, last four digits of the registrant’s social security number, and the registrant’s driver’s license/state-issued ID number.  If a registrant does not have a state-issued ID or driver’s license, they must instead complete and submit a standard paper form.  As a result,  while OVR streamlines the process for certain registrants, it does so only for those who would likely have already taken advantage of the “motor voter” provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 or the state’s newer electronic voter registration system at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

National: How cities are bypassing states to explore registering hundreds of thousands to vote | Mic

States govern American elections. Officials there certify election results. They decide when and how people can vote. They influence who can cast a ballot. Since Republicans in 2010 began their march toward control of the legislature and governor’s office in 26 states, voting rights advocates and Democrats say the state-by-state election system has led voter suppression efforts to run rampant. Since 2010, 23 states have passed laws that make it more difficult to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Nevada: DMV chief criticizes alleged voter fraud investigation | Las Vegas Review-Journal

DMV Director Terri Albertson said a letter sent to her office late Friday by Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske came “as a complete surprise.” In a written response to Cegavske, Albertson said, “you and your office have reviewed, contributed to, and approved the processes you are expressing concerns about.” The Republican secretary of state late Friday announced an investigation into alleged voter fraud, saying her office has uncovered evidence that noncitizens had cast ballots in the November election. Non-U.S. citizens who are in the country legally and live in Nevada can obtain a state driver’s license. Those without legal status can obtain a driver authorization card, which cannot be used as formal identification. Neither are eligible to vote.

Alabama: Roy Moore Criticizes Effort To Make Sure All Eligible Voters Can Vote In Alabama | HuffPost

Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat, accused Democrats on Tuesday of attempting to register felons in order to sway the special election to his Democratic opponent. What he failed to acknowledge is that the new voters are all people who have done their time or are in the process of paying their debt to society, and now have had their right to vote restored by the Alabama Legislature. At the turn of the 20th century, Alabama passed a law blocking anyone convicted of a crime of moral turpitude from casting a ballot, a measure that was used largely to keep African-Americans off the voting rolls. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the lawin 1985, the state narrowed its scope to felonies of moral turpitude and reinserted it in the state constitution.

Alabama: Secretary of state says some voters wrongly told they are not registered | AL.com

The Alabama Secretary of State’s office said today it has learned that some voters are receiving erroneous messages telling them that they are not registered to vote when, in fact, they are registered. Two organizations that are contacting voters said they are not sending erroneous message. Secretary of State John Merrill’s office sent out a press release about the erroneous messages today. Some erroneous messages are coming from people who claim to be members of the NAACP and of Open Progress, the secretary of state’s office said.

Missouri: Mailing Quirk Has Missouri Residents With Iowa Addresses | Associated Press

For decades, an idiosyncrasy in the mail delivery system has forced some rural northern Missouri residents to have Iowa mailing addresses, which has created roadblocks and red tape for residents when they vote or pay taxes — even when they die. Local officials have been asking for help for years from local politicians and postal officials to no avail. U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill recently learned about the quirk, calling it “one of the dumbest things I’ve come across.” McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, sent a letter this week to Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan, asking that the U.S. Postal Service “take immediate action” on behalf of Missouri residents who have Iowa mailing addresses. Brennan’s spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement this week that his agency is “working with the senator to address this issue and will respond directly to her office.” He declined further comment.

Rhode Island: Rule Change In The Works For Voter Registration | RIPR

The Rhode Island Board of Elections has started the process of changing one of its rules in response to a complaint filed by a former GOP gubernatorial candidate, Ken Block, who has testified before President Trump’s commission on voting irregularities. Block filed a complaint in September with the U.S. Justice Department, alleging the state was violating a federal voting regulation by failing to collect Social Security or driver’s license numbers from new voters.

Rhode Island: Elections board moves to close voter registration loophole | Providence Journal

Despite the denunciations hurled Ken Block’s way when he filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice alleging Rhode Island was violating federal election law, the state Board of Elections took a first step Monday toward fixing what is now acknowledged to be a problem. The board gave its lawyer, Raymond Marcaccio, the go-ahead to draft potential replacements for a regulation adopted in 2008 that excludes people registering in person from a federal requirement that voters registering for the first time provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Marcaccio recommended the board remove any “ambiguity″ by removing the exclusion for these would-be voters.

National: Lawmakers debate how states should maintain voter registration rolls | WJLA

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, lawmakers held a hearing to evaluate how states maintain accurate and up-to-date voter registration rolls.
Chairman of the House Administration Committee Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., said it is paramount for elections to be conducted in a fair and open manner. “Ensuring the accuracy of voter registration lists is the foundation to a successful election. Having accurate lists increases voter confidence, it eases the administration of elections, reduces wait times, and certainly helps prevent voter fraud and irregularity,” Harper said. The hearing also questioned crosscheck programs and automatic voter registration practices. … Hearing witness and Director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union Dale Ho claimed that the interstate crosscheck program struggles with accuracy.

Georgia: Civil Rights Lawyers Cheer Settlement in Georgia Voting Rights Case | Daily Report

A federal judge signed a consent order Tuesday concluding a voting rights challenge in Georgia that has drawn national attention because of a proposed earlier registration deadline before a hotly contested congressional election runoff. In the end, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp agreed not to impose voting registration deadlines earlier than those set by federal law 30 days before an election, according to an order signed by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr. of the Northern District of Georgia. Civil rights advocates filed the lawsuit in April after the secretary of state tried to impose a voter registration deadline for the special election for the Sixth District runoff. That would have cut off registration two months earlier than the 30 days the federal law allows. But Batten issued a preliminary injunction opening up registration. Batten’s order also said the secretary will also have to pay “reasonable attorney fees and costs” for the plaintiffs, which include: the Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta Inc., Third Sector Development Inc. (parent of the New Georgia Project) and ProGeorgia State Table Inc.

Illinois: Voter advocates push Illinois to exit multistate voter database | Associated Press

Voter rights advocates are pushing Illinois election officials to withdraw from a longtime multistate voter registration database over questions of accuracy, security and voter suppression. The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program is aimed at cleaning voter records and preventing voter fraud. States voluntarily provide their voter lists, and the program searches for duplicates. While a…

Rhode Island: Block’s ‘voter analysis’ debated before elections board | Providence Journal

With no one actually disputing the possibility that Rhode Island has for close to a decade violated a federal law requiring a driver’s license or Social Security number from people registering to vote for the first time, a battle of wills broke out Wednesday night at the state Board of Elections. The battle pitted elections board member Stephen Erickson, a one-time state lawmaker and retired District Court judge, against 2014 Republican candidate for governor Ken Block, who did a recent — and highly controversial — voter analysis for a nonprofit co-founded by President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Before a live audience at the election board’s Branch Avenue headquarters, Erickson and Block essentially acted out their running Twitter dispute over the complaint that Block filed with the U.S. Department of Justice late last month alleging violations by Rhode Island of the “Help America Vote Act (HAVA).”

New Hampshire: State Says ‘Miscommunication’ to Blame for Notice Telling Towns to Remove Voters from Checklists | NHPR

The Secretary of State’s office says “miscommunication” is to blame for a message that appeared to direct local officials to strike the names of some voters from checklists without notifying them first. “It was miscommunication, pure and simple,” Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan said. “What should have been a very quiet summer for us has actually been incredibly busy. There are a number of groups that have filed lawsuits against the election laws, and they file those against our office — so we’re dealing with that. We’re dealing with numerous right-to-know requests. We’re trying to train election officials. There’s only so many of us that can go around. You can understand how a miscommunication can take place,” Scanlan added, “and we just have to work harder at it, that’s all.”

National: Group led by Dolphins owner wants to see every professional athlete registered to vote | The Washington Post

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills had an innovative idea last year. Having recently become interested both in politics and working as a voice for social change, the 25-year-old decided it was time for his team to think about getting more involved, too. So one day early in the 2016 NFL season, he printed out dozens of voter registration forms and stuck them in each of his 52 teammates’ lockers. “I was already registered, but I thought it would be cool for the team, to get everyone involved,” he said of the personal campaign he began a couple months before the 2016 presidential election. His effort didn’t exactly go as planned, however. “I didn’t get too many responses,” he said.

Ohio: New Cuyahoga County initiative will encourage voting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Cuyahoga County announced Tuesday – National Voter Registration Day – that it will hiring a voting-rights coordinator as part of a new initiative to promote the right and need to vote. The county plans to lead efforts in voter engagement, support a voter awareness summit for youth  and partner with libraries to promote online voter registration options for residents. “The right to vote is critical to our democracy,” County Executive Armond Budish said in a statement. “At a time when some are trying to make it harder to vote, we need to do more to help people get registered. Cuyahoga County is dedicated to making voting as accessible as possible for all of our residents.”

Kansas: Kobach criticizes New Hampshire election law, but Kansas officials say our law is much the same | Lawrence Journal World

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has used national media to allege that New Hampshire’s voting law left that state susceptible to voter fraud. Now, Kansas election officials are quietly acknowledging the same issue that riled Kobach in New Hampshire also exists in Kansas. What caught Kobach’s eye in New Hampshire is that New Hampshire voters were using out-of-state driver’s licenses to prove their identity at New Hampshire polling places, and that many of those voters still hadn’t applied to receive a New Hampshire driver’s license more than 10 months after the election. Kobach said in a column published on the conservative website Breitbart that the driver’s license issue was evidence of nonresidents of the state committing voter fraud. However, Kansas election officials told the Journal-World that same scenario is legal under Kansas law.

Georgia: Elections Board closes New Georgia Project investigation | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fifty-three allegedly forged voter applications are being referred to the state Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution, a decision by the State Elections Board that effectively closes the Secretary of State Office’s 2014 fraud investigation involving an attention-grabbing registration drive by the New Georgia Project. The unanimous vote Wednesday came as the case’s lead investigator said he found no wrongdoing by the group, which was founded by then-state House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams to increase the number of minorities on voting rolls. It allows Attorney General Chris Carr to decide whether to prosecute those involved: 14 people that investigator Russell Lewis said essentially acted as independent contractors registering new voters.

Colorado: Only 531 of the 6,648 Colorado voters who unregistered since June have come back on the rolls | The Colorado Independent

Colorado voters have been in for a ride this summer, making national news for un-registering to vote by the thousands and switching their status to “confidential.” Between June 29 and Sept. 17 of this year, 6,648 Coloradans, most of them Democrats, unregistered according to numbers provided by the Secretary of State’s office. The kicker: Only 531 of them have re-registered, the office said today. That revelation drew rebuke from elections watchdogs in Colorado. “This is a direct result of a presidential commission whose creation was predicated on a false narrative,” said Denise Maes, the public policy director for the ACLU of Colorado. “I do hope all of these eligible voters eventually do re-register in time for the next election.”

Texas: Report: Few high schools in Texas comply with voter registration law | Austin American-Statesman

No private high schools and just 14 percent of public high schools in Texas requested voter registration forms for their students from the Secretary of State, according to a report released Wednesday by the Texas Civil Rights Project. The organization as well as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law found that 198 out of 1,428 public high schools requested the forms. In total, the organizations said, six percent of high schools in Texas requested forms. Schools can receive the forms from other organizations, such as the county, but the Texas Civil Rights Project argued during a press conference Wednesday that the state’s low youth voter registration and turnout rates prove that’s not effective even if that’s the case.

Iraq: Kurdistan electoral commission vows to fix online register for referendum following complaints | Kurdistan24

People of the Kurdistan Region currently living abroad or traveling on Sep. 25, the day of the referendum on independence, have expressed complaints regarding the list of the requirements needed to register online to vote. The people of the Kurdistan Region are heading toward a historic day, to decide whether to remain a part of Iraq or secede from the rest of the country as a newly-born independent state. Last week, the Independent High Elections and Referendum Commission (IHERC) in the Kurdistan Region launched the website(www.khec17.net) for Diaspora Kurdistanis to register to vote in the referendum. Registration will be open for seven days, starting from September 1 until September 7. The list of the requirements, however, has concerned many Diaspora Kurdistanis as they are asked to register their ration card number, Iraqi national ID card, Citizenship card, and passport as well as sending in proof for some of the documents.

New Hampshire: Election-law lawsuit by Democratic party to become federal case | Union Leader

A lawsuit by the N.H. Democratic party to block implementation of a new election law is about to become a federal case. Lawyers for the defendants — Secretary of State William Gardner and Attorney General Gordon MacDonald — filed court motions on Thursday to have the lawsuit removed from Superior Court in Nashua and transferred to U.S. District Court in Concord. On the same day, the Democratic Party filed motions to have its lawsuit married to a virtually identical action filed by the League of Women Voters, increasing the likelihood that the lawsuits will be combined and heard in federal court.

New Hampshire: Voters, advocates sue to block new law toughening voter registration | The Boston Globe

The League of Women Voters of New Hampshire and three New Hampshire voters are suing state officials to block a new law that toughens voter registration requirements, rules that civil rights advocates say amount to intimidation designed to discourage thousands of young residents from voting. The lawsuit, which was filed in state court Wednesday morning, challenges a measure New Hampshire’s GOP Governor Chris Sununu signed in July tightening the requirements for registering to vote in the state. Specifically, would-be voters must provide documentary evidence, such as a driver’s license or utility bill, that New Hampshire is their place of domicile — or their primary home — and that they plan to stay for longer than a temporary stint.

Alabama: Groups Asks Alabama to Restore Voters to ‘Active’ Status | Associated Press

A civil rights organization is asking Alabama’s secretary of state to restore hundreds of thousands of people to active voter status after what the group described as widespread confusion in election day. In a Friday letter to Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it believes large numbers of people were incorrectly moved to inactive voting status during an update of rolls. Merrill responded that his office followed the law. The secretary of state’s office said 340,162 people were put on inactive voter status in the required update of voting rolls.

California: Knowing who is (and isn’t) legally registered to vote in California | Los Angeles Times

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from President Trump’s unproven allegations about the security of elections is that he’s managed to blur the difference between voting records and the act of voting. Or put another way, it’s a distraction from resolving the challenges in keeping voter registration data accurate and up to date. Trump awkwardly waded into the topic last fall when he insisted millions of fraudulent votes had been cast in California and two other states. No evidence of widespread chicanery existed then, nor has any been brought forward since. At times, it seemed the president was wrongly conflating fraud with a 2012 nonpartisan study that warned of problems with some states’ voter registration lists. Fast forward to last week, when a conservative legal organization insisted that 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens. The group refused to share its methodology, and partly based its conclusions on the counties’ lists of “inactive” voters — people who haven’t cast ballots in the past two statewide elections.

California: More voters than eligible adults? Group makes dubious claim about California | McClatchy

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla has twice rebuffed demands for voter data from a commission created by President Donald Trump to investigate unproven claims of voter fraud last fall. Now a conservative Washington, D.C.-based legal group has threatened to sue the state over what it contends are California counties’ failure to properly maintain lists of inactive voters. The Aug. 1 letter from Judicial Watch to Padilla alleges that 11 California counties have more registered voters than their estimated populations of citizens eligible to vote. The claim was picked up Breitbart and other news sites and prompted Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, to post on Twitter, “11 counties in California have more total registered voters than citizens over the age of 18. How is this possible?” Short answer: It’s not. California voter registration stood at 19.4 million as of February. No California county is anywhere close to having more voters than its estimated number of citizens deemed eligible to vote.

Arizona: Secretary of State vows to maintain voter notification records | Arizona Daily Star

On Feb. 22, Laura Sue Cates registered to vote in Sullivan County, Tennessee. Previously, she had been registered to vote in Arizona’s Coconino County, so the Sullivan County Election Commission sent Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan a formal notice to ensure that Cates’ voter registration would be removed from Arizona’s rolls. Every day, the thousands of voting jurisdictions in the U.S. share information about current voter registrations to guard against people being registered in multiple places. The Arizona secretary of state receives hundreds each week and forwards them to the appropriate county recorder, as voter rolls in Arizona are maintained at the county level. A sample of a week’s worth of these notices, received between March 1 and March 7, obtained under the state’s public records law, shows 240 voters were identified by out-of-state voting jurisdictions.

Florida: Is Trump’s Fraud Commission to Blame for Rise in Florida Voter Cancellations? | Tampa Bay Times

During a recent 20-day period, 1,715 Florida voters took themselves off the registration rolls. The 117 percent spike in cancellations over the same period last year came as news spread of President Donald Trump’s fraud commission and its request for voter data from all 50 states. Did the request for voter information trigger the cancellations? While the increase suggests a correlation, regular maintenance of the voting rolls, a routine required by state law and unrelated to the federal commission, might also explain the increase. Here’s what we do know: On June 28, Trump’s official request for voter information, made by the commission’s vice chairman, Kris Kobach, sought the names, addresses, birth dates, political parties, electoral participation histories and last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number of every registered voter in the country.

Colorado: State sends voter roll information over to Trump fraud commission | The Denver Channel

Colorado finally sent its voter roll information over to President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission on Tuesday, a day after the transfer was delayed due to “user error” in the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The office had been set to send the information over to the controversial commission on Monday, but a spokeswoman for the office said a system lockout stopped the transfer. Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert told the Denver Post Monday night it was due to “user error.” The sending of the information had already been delayed while a lawsuit over the commission and its request was cleared up in federal court.

Colorado: No evidence 5,000 Colorado voters who unregistered were ineligible to vote, secretary of state says |

There is no evidence any of the more than 5,000 Colorado voters who have withdrawn their registrations following the Trump administration’s request for voter information were ineligible to participate in elections, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday. “It’s my hope that citizens who withdrew their registration will re-register, particularly once they realize that no confidential information will be provided and that the parties and presidential candidates already have the same publicly available information from the 2016 election cycle,” Williams said in a written statement. “Clearly we wouldn’t be asking them to re-register if we didn’t believe they were eligible.” Williams’ remarks come as his office prepares in the coming days to send publicly available voter data — including names, addresses, party affiliations and birth years — to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Julia Sunny, a spokeswoman for Williams, said the information is slated to be submitted by Monday night.