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Two Colorado U.S. Senate candidates who had lost their place on the ballot due to signature-gathering issues got help from a judge last week, who ordered that both of them be added to the ballot (at least temporarily). The fight illuminates how separate aspects of an election official’s job – here, the SoS’ responsibilities for ballot access and ballot preparation – can come into conflict as elections approach.

My good friend and fellow electionline alum Dan Seligson recently was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to report on the EAC’s hearing last week in Boston, MA.

Even as the election cycle heats up, there’s still a good reason to keep learning about elections – and three fantastic organizations (the National Conference of State Legislatures, Future of California Elections and CSG’s Overseas Voting Initiative) are offering four informative webinars over the next week, starting tomorrow.

The Ohio House appears finally to be ready to adopt online voter registration after sustained lobbying by the Secretary of State. But after sitting on the bill for almost a year, legislators feel like there isn’t enough time to implement OVR – so the plan is to wait until 2017.

President Obama has nominated former Nevada State Treasurer and 2014 SoS candidate Kate Marshall to be the fourth member (and second Democrat) at the EAC. The nomination is already stirring partisan rhetoric, which likely means it’s not likely to move – but if it did it would restore the agency to full strength at a time when (controversies aside) it has a large agenda to work through.

Last week, Vermont became the latest state to adopt automatic voter registration. While automatic registration isn’t yet sweeping the nation like OVR has been for the last few years, it is getting enough of a foothold nationally that it will likely be on the radar of election officials and policymakers in other states.

The latest electionlineWeekly takes a look at accessibility upgrades to Washington State’s MyVote portal – changes that not only build upon a recent report offering critiques and techniques, but also took place on an expedited basis to make sure that all Evergreen State voters would have access to the tools and services they need to cast a vote this year.

The California Association of Clerks and Election Officials has a wonderful new resource, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, that tracks county spending on elections over time in several categories. It’s an incredibly important set of data – both in the general sense of illuminating the “white whale” of election costs but also now as the counties seek increased funding for next month’s primary and beyond.

Rokey Suleman has a long track record of work here in the US and internationally on election administration. His latest post is in the relatively new European country of Montenegro, where he is helping the state election commission prepare for its first election as a full-time agency. It’s a nice change from previous – and dangerous! – assignments elsewhere around the globe. He was gracious enough to answer a few questions about his experiences.

North Carolina’s voter ID law and other election changes enacted in 2013 were upheld yesterday by a federal court in a 485-page opinion that is skeptical of the severity of the burden of the law on voters. The race is now on to determine if the law will in fact be in place on Election Day this fall – but the opinion is written in such a way as to limit the freedom of an appeals court (and maybe eventually, the Supreme Court) to make changes.