The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for September 15 – 21 2014

Al Jazeera reports that existing voting machines in the US are reaching the end of their operational life spans, jurisdictions often lack the funds to replace them, and those with funds find market offerings limited because several constraints have made manufacturing new machines difficult. Facing South observes that while there has been a flurry of state election legislation, little has been done to alleviate the long lines that plagued some parts of the country in 2012.  Investigators in Georgia backed away from allegations a Democratic-backed group may have organized voter registration fraud, saying they can confirm irregularities in only 25 applications of more than 85,000 submitted to the Secretary of State’s office. The Kansas Supreme Court ordered Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach Thursday to strike Democratic candidate Chad Taylor’s name from the Nov. 4 ballot. rejecting Kobach’s contention that Taylor’s Sept. 3 withdrawal letter failed to meet the standard set in state law. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted Secretary of State Jon Husted issued an order to county elections boards to prepare for voting a week earlier than he’d planned and during the two weekends before Election Day while at the same time pushing for a higher court to overturn the lower-court ruling that added the extra days of early voting. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel criticized last week’s federal appeals court ruling reinstating the state’s voter ID requirement for this November’s election. As the Afghanistan Electoral Commission prepared to announce the results of a comprehensive audit of June’s presidential election, the two rival candidates agreed to a power-sharing arrangement and voters rejected a referendum that would have dissolved Scotland’s 307-year-old union with England.