The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for August 11- 17 2014

While many states have established new restrictions on voting, The New York Times reported on 16 States where laws have been passed to make voting easier. The high-altitude town of Montezuma, Colorado has filed suit against every registered voter in the town, claiming that an election held last spring had numerous errors. Voting-rights groups who sued to get Florida’s Congressional district map overturned say the new plan, approved by the legislature on nearly party-line vote, isn’t enough of an improvement. A Federal judge ruled that a case against the state of Maryland will go forward in an effort to determine whether the state should be required to implement an online ballot-marking system in November’s election. Chris McDaniel wants a court to exclude 25,000 Hinds County votes — plus those from several other counties — from the June 24 runoff results and declare him the winner of the U.S. Senate GOP primary. A three-judge federal court in San Antonio is hearing the latest arguments in a case challenging state legislative and congressional redistricting plans favorable to the GOP while another court, in Corpus Christi, will hear a case next month that questions the constitutionality of Texas’ voter identification law. A federal judge has denied a state request for a hold on his decision striking down Wisconsin’s law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. Fresh suggestions of political fraud have emerged as the Afghan vote audit of the disputed presidential election continues and a crucial deadline looms, while the European Court of Human upheld its earlier ruling that the prisoners’ human rights were breached when they were not allowed to vote, but ruled that the prisoners should not be paid compensation.