Miles Parks for NPR: When a WWE wrestler, especially one known for his demonic antics and a move calledthe “tombstone piledriver,” runs for mayor of your county, you know your election is going to get more attention than usual. But in Knox County, … Continue reading
Category Archives: election administration
Mark Caputo for Politico: The elections supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke state and federal law by unlawfully destroying ballots cast in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 2016 Democratic primary, a judge ruled Friday in a case brought by the congresswoman’s … Continue reading
WaPo: Last year’s race for state delegate in Newport News went down in Virginia history for its razor-thin margin. Republican David E. Yancey won on Election Day by 10 votes; Democrat Shelly Simonds beat him by a single vote in … Continue reading
You can find the 83-page opinion at this link. Near the end of the opinion, the court rejects treating race as party proxy argument: Based on the totality of the circumstances, Plaintiffs have not shown that the legislature enacted H.B. … Continue reading
NYT: Russia was preparing to undermine confidence in the United States’ voting process when its hackers surveilled around 20 state election systems in the run-up to the 2016 elections, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a brief report released on Tuesday. … Continue reading
Who. What. Why. reports. … Continue reading
MPR News: How secure are our voting systems? Elections expert Doug Chapin talks about what we know has happened, how we know, and what’s next in the fight to secure American democracy. … Continue reading
Steve Rosenfeld reports. … Continue reading
Orlando Sentinel: State and local investigators said they used fingerprints and DNA from saliva found on five mail-in ballots to track down a Casselberry man and charge him with voter fraud. Bret Warren, 36, was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Seminole County Jail … Continue reading
Sam Levine for HuffPo: Officials in Knox County, Tennessee, are trying to gather more information about a cyberattack that crashed a government website that displayed election results to the public during its primary election for local offices on Tuesday. Dick Moran, … Continue reading
First it was Wyoming, now Louisiana: With calls for his resignation increasing, Louisiana’s secretary of state announced Tuesday that he is leaving his position as state elections chief amid allegations he sexually harassed one of his employees. Secretary of State … Continue reading
This looks like a great lineup (use the link to rsvp): In January 2017, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson designated election infrastructure as critical infrastructure – thereby making it a priority for cybersecurity assistance and protections that the federal … Continue reading
Earlier today, Rick noted the 5th Circuit’s opinion on Texas’s voter ID law. I agree with much of his critique of the court’s resolution of the section 3(c) preclearance issue. In my post on the Texas redistricting cases earlier this … Continue reading
Release: Fewer Americans waited in long lines to vote during 2016’s presidential election compared with 2012, but a significant number of polling places still experienced average wait times over 30 minutes, according to a new Bipartisan Policy Center report published … Continue reading
Indiana Lawyer: A federal judge Wednesday ordered Marion County to establish at least two early satellite voting precincts in time for the November general election, though the court refrained from requiring them in time for the May 8 primary election. … Continue reading
This looks very good: Making Elections Work KEYWORDS: PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON ELECTION ADMINISTRATION, VOTER REGISTRATION, LIVE NOW WHEN: Friday, April 27, 2018 9:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. ET WHERE: Bipartisan Policy Center, 1225 Eye St NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC, 20005 ➤ REGISTER NOW The … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Emory Law Journal). Here is the abstract: Our electoral system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other calamities that can render polling places inaccessible, trigger mass evacuations, or disrupt … Continue reading
Arizona Republic: Roughly 140,000 Maricopa County voters have not received ID cards, potentially leaving eligible voters in Tuesday’s special congressional election unaware that they can cast a ballot. County election officials said they haven’t sent cards out since December, blaming a … Continue reading
Axios: Multiple states lack the ability to guarantee the accuracy of election outcomes in the event of a suspected breach. The big picture: Five states — Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey and Delaware — have no paper trails of votes. The … Continue reading
Sue Halpern for the New Yorker. … Continue reading
Over at Electionline. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report. … Continue reading
Journal-Sentinel: Attorney General Brad Schimel this week suggested Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 because the state had its voter ID law in place. His comments drew a rebuke from liberals, who said they saw it as an admission by … Continue reading
BuzzFeed reports. … Continue reading
Reuters: The tiniest discrepancy on a registration form places them on a “pending” voter list. A Reuters analysis of Georgia’s pending voter list, obtained through a public records request, found that black voters landed on the list at a far … Continue reading
ADN reports. … Continue reading
WMUR: Secretary of State Bill Gardner has been saying for several weeks now that he intends to release new information about potential voter fraud later this spring, when his comprehensive review of registration and voting lists, using the Interstate Voter … Continue reading
Bloomberg BNA: One of the federal government’s smallest agencies is taking on one of the country’s most pressing problems: foreign meddling in U.S. elections. The Election Assistance Commission, which has an annual budget of less than $10 million and about … Continue reading
NHPR: Not long after Gardner made those statements, I asked him if I could see the cases he was talking about. With all of the talk about people’s perceptions of voting fraud in New Hampshire, I wanted to know more … Continue reading
Ciara Torres Spelliscy has written this post, with the subhead: “Congress is reluctant to use its power under the Elections Clause to set standards for the states. This could be an area where the diversity of federalism is a disadvantage.” … Continue reading
Adam Ambrogi oped in The Hill: The issue came to a head in 2016 with various reports and claims of hacks, data breaches and leaks. While the intelligence community and experts are confident that no votes were changed in 2016, … Continue reading
Dan Wallach oped in the Star-Telegram: Election winners are always happy to take the win, but the losers — and often the voters — require evidence, and that evidence needs strong backing. Modern voting systems must engender confidence that the … Continue reading
Smart move by DHS to hire @mastersonmv to work with election officials on cyber security as his term on Election Assistance Commission ends. Sign of how seriously some in administration take this issue. https://t.co/evFkreAqxG — pam fessler (@pamelafessler) March 26, … Continue reading
NPR’s All Things Considered reports. … Continue reading
Doug Chapin: Translating: The EAC will get $380 million to disburse to states 45 days after the enactment of the bill; States will get a minimum of $3 million (territories $600,000) with the rest allocated by population (like in HAVA); … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Thousands of Milwaukee voters have been dropped from voter rolls — including some erroneously — through the state’s registration system, city officials said Wednesday. Some 44,000 voters were removed from city rolls after the state started using a … Continue reading
News and Observer: The four Democrats and four Republicans on the new state elections board went ’round and ’round Wednesday, casting tie vote after tie vote, as they looked for the board’s ninth member. But then they fell into an … Continue reading
NYT: A day after urging elections officials to shore up their systems ahead of the midterm voting, the Senate Intelligence Committee planned to call top federal and state elections security officials to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to explain how they are trying … Continue reading
Stateline: Laws in 39 states and Washington, D.C., allow judges to strip voting rights from people with mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia to Down syndrome who are deemed “incapacitated” or “incompetent.” Some of those states use archaic language like “idiots” … Continue reading
Kira Lerner: Georgia Republicans are advancing a bill through the state legislature that would suppress African-American turnout by eliminating Sunday voting and cutting the hours that polls are open in Atlanta. The bill, SB 363, would force polls in the majority African American … Continue reading
AP: Minnesota should develop a report that helps county election officials identify people who aren’t eligible to vote, the legislative auditor’s office recommended Friday. The auditor’s office examined the state’s election system and voter registration practices for months, interviewing county election officials and county … Continue reading
Upcoming event: Election Security War Game: Testing Critical Infrastructure Designation Election Law Program William & Mary Law School April 12, 2018 3:30-6:00, Room 119 Free and Open to the Public Virginia CLE Credit available On April 12, 2018, … Continue reading
NHPR: New Hampshire’s Secretary of State is elected every two years, not by voters but by the Legislature – meaning that to win, Van Ostern will have to persuade enough state lawmakers that he’s better suited for the job than the man … Continue reading
The district court had dismissed Common Cause’s claim that Georgia’s voter purge law violated the NVRA and the First Amendment. Today, the Eleventh Circuit, in a brief, unpublished opinion, sent the case back and told the trial court to reconsider … Continue reading
Philly.com: In a highly-watched special election in western Pennsylvania, Democrat Conor Lamb is currently maintaining a slim lead over Republican Rick Saccone Wednesday morning. With all precincts fully reporting and absentee ballots counted, Lamb holds a 627-vote lead over Saccone … Continue reading
TPM: The chair of the Republican Party in Chicago last year passed on allegations of voter fraud to a member of President Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission, using a top Justice Department official as intermediary, newly released emails reveal. The emails, … Continue reading
Atlanta-Journal Constitution: Voters in Atlanta would have one less hour to cast their ballots under a bill that cleared a subcommittee Thursday. The legislation, Senate Bill 363, would force the city of Atlanta to close its polls at 7 p.m. like … Continue reading
Boston Globe: President Trump would be able to dispatch Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide during a federal election, a vast expansion of executive authority, if a provision in a Homeland Security reauthorization bill remains intact. The rider has … Continue reading
Brennan Center: By a number of key metrics, the country has failed to make significant progress securing voting machines, despite increasing warnings about system vulnerabilities from election officials and national security experts. An analysis released today by the Brennan Center for Justice … Continue reading