The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 27 – July 3 2016

A federal judge in Washington rejected a request by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP in Georgia and other civil rights groups that would have blocked Kansas, Alabama and Georgia from enforcing proof-of-citizenship requirements for people using a federal form to register to vote. Voting Groups have promised to appeal the decision. In a Guardian editorial, David Van Reybrouck considered the Brexit referendum and the ramifications for the future of democracy. California is still counting the last ballots cast in the June 7th primary election. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled against a wide expansion of voting rights for convicted criminals on Thursday, finding that all felonies are “infamous crimes” resulting in disenfranchisement under the state constitution. A federal judge has ruled that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted is not illegally removing voters from voter registration rolls, while a federal judge noted that there are few clear guidelines for how to rule on parts of a challenge to Wisconsin’s voting rules and questioned how much of an effect the state’s voter ID law has had on elections. Australians awoke Sunday to a government plagued in uncertainty after a stunningly close national election failed to deliver a clear victor, raising the prospect of a hung parliament and Austria’s Freedom party will get another go at providing the first far-right president in the European Union, after the country’s constitutional court annulled the result of May’s presidential election.