The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 22-28 2016

Some key swing states, notably Georgia and Pennsylvania, have declined an offer from the Homeland Security Department to scan voting systems for hackers ahead of the presidential elections. Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism under Reagan, Clinton and Bush, wrote an oped that examines the security threats to our election infrastructure. A legal battle to gain equal voting rights for residents of the U.S. territories was dealt a setback after a federal judge ruled that former Illinois residents who live in the territories, including Guam, do not have the right to cast absentee ballots in Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court  blocked from the fall ballot a proposal that would have asked voters whether to change the state constitution to take much of the politics out of the redrawing of state legislative boundaries. A federal appeals court will decide whether Kansas has the right to ask people who register to vote when they get their driver’s licenses for proof that they’re citizens. A three-judge federal panel ruled that a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s contorted congressional district map on First Amendment grounds has merit and should go forward. Ohio Democrats will appeal a split decision by a panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that eliminated the so-called “Golden Week“,a week during which Ohioans can both register to vote and cast an early ballot in one stop and a federal appeals court declined to soften Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law. The Toronto Star called on the government of Justin Trudeau to extend voting rights to expatriate Canadians and incumbent President Ali Bongo looked to extend his family’s fifty year rule in elections yesterday in Gabon.