National: Ten Weeks Out From Election Day, Outside Spending Exceeds 2008 Total | OpenSecrets With the end of the Democratic convention today, we’ve only just now reached the beginning of the traditional presidential election season, but that hasn’t stopped outside groups from unleashing a torrent of advertising on the political landscape early on in this…
If you’ve only got 30 seconds to make your case in the debate over photo ID laws — which require voters to show up at the polls with a government-issued photo ID — it’s much easier to argue in favor of the laws.“You need a photo ID to get on an airplane or rent a movie from Blockbuster. Get over it!” While investigating voting in America for the documentary film “Electoral Dysfunction,” I heard versions of this line over and over from the laws’ backers. The message is clear: “If you’re too lazy to get a government-issued photo ID, then you probably don’t deserve to vote. And please, let’s not forget 9/11.” (The airplane reference is a handy conversation-stopper.) But voting rights are worth at least 60 seconds of our attention. So here’s why these laws hurt more than they help: The only crime these laws address is voter impersonation — someone showing up at the polls and claiming to be someone else in order to cast a fraudulent vote. (I know, sounds almost delightfully madcap.)
Half of all U.S. military bases around the world lack legally required facilities where troops can register to vote and get absentee ballots, according to a report from the Pentagon’s inspector general. Advocacy groups said the report shows the military has let down its service members by failing to implement the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act. “It’s disappointing. This was the will of Congress,” said Eric Eversole, founder of the Military Voter Protection Project. “Here you have an agency [the Pentagon] that basically said to Congress, ‘We’re not going to do what you told us to do. We think we know more about voter registration than you do and we’re not going to do it.’?”
Many military installations across the globe lack offices where troops can register to vote and obtain absentee ballots, the Defense Department’s inspector general concludes in a newly released report. Investigators attempted to contact 229 voting-assistance offices and were able to reach just 114 — about 50 percent. Under the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, all military installations are required to have such offices. The report could inflame tensions between the Obama administration and House Republicans, who have accused the White House of moving too slowly to implement the law, which also requires states to mail absentee ballots to service members at least 45 days before an election.
With the end of the Democratic convention today, we’ve only just now reached the beginning of the traditional presidential election season, but that hasn’t stopped outside groups from unleashing a torrent of advertising on the political landscape early on in this election cycle. The amount spent by super PACs, political non profit groups and other non-political party entities on the presidential and congressional races, about $306.2 million as of Sept. 5, is already more than such groups spent during the entirety of the last presidential election cycle, about $301.6 million. And such estimates are surely conservative, as Center for Responsive Politics research only accounts for spending released by the Federal Election Commission, which doesn’t track so-called issue ads spent by political non-profit groups outside of 60 days of a general election or 30 days outside of a primary. Such groups are dropping tens of millions of dollars this cycle, hammering the airwaves with under the radar spending.
Some organizations are turning to sophisticated data mining, direct mail, the Internet and other strategies to register voters typically underrepresented on the rolls, including young people and ethnic minorities. Others are simply targeting those who favor their political goals, such as conservative Christians. The shift away from more traditional voter registration drives – like volunteers with clipboards in front of a supermarket – is driven as much by restrictive state laws as it is better technology. Several states including Florida have recently passed legislation setting tight deadlines for groups to turn in voter applications, so groups like the NAACP were looking for ways to get the applications directly into the hands of voters. And they also have to rely on voters to turn in the applications themselves. “This is a new effort since the 2000 election,” said University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith. “Technology has made it more cost-effective. … When you have upwards of 40 percent of eligible populations not registered, there is a market for this kind of work.”
Poll workers across the country have a new task: asking for ID. Thirty-three states now have voter ID laws. Fifteen were passed or strengthened since President Obama took office. “It’s an unfortunate and cynical attempt to undermine the voting rights of students, of elderly, of poor,” said Newark Mayor Cory Booker. The rush of new requirements was a topic of conversation at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. “If you want every American to vote and you think it is wrong to change voting procedures, just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama,” former President Bill Clinton said in his convention speech.
Three years after the enactment of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act of 2009, a new report by the Department of Defense’s inspector general found that MOVE’s requirement of installation voting assistance offices (IVAO) on all non-warzone facilities is not being implemented across the globe. More specifically, IG researchers attempted to call every IVAO identified by the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The report says the “results were clear,” with about half of IVAOs unreachable. Those findings have touched off an interesting debate in Washington. One of the IG’s recommendations is to amend MOVE to make IVAOs discretionary, not mandatory.
The election ballot system used by Boulder County is at the center of a standoff between Secretary of State Scott Gessler and several of Colorado’s county clerks. And someone has to blink soon, since the deadline for printing ballots is fast approaching. In addition to Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall, the players include Marilyn Marks, an Aspen activist who has filed suit against Gessler and a number of counties for using ballots printed with information that can be used to trace the identity of voters, contrary to state law. After being confronted with the outcome of Marks’ investigation, in which she and others demonstrated how to track ballots from a June primary election in Chaffee County to the individuals who cast them, Gessler recently issued an emergency rule saying counties could no longer use the serial numbers or bar codes in question. The rule also requires clerks to black out that information when releasing past voted ballots under the state’s open records act, in an attempt to mitigate the damage done and prevent any further tracing.
Almost 90 percent of a group of Colorado voters identified as noncitizens may be legal voters. According to an analysis by the Secretary of State’s Office, about 87.5 percent of the 3,903 people identified through a voter-roll comparison to state Department of Motor Vehicle records may be legal voters. Those identified as noncitizens had presented a noncitizen document to obtain a Colorado driver’s license or identification card. They were sent letters asking them to voluntarily withdraw their voter registration. Rich Coolidge, communications director in the Secretary of State’s Office, said 643 of them had Jefferson and Adams county addresses. The Secretary of State’s analysis showed that about 25.9 percent of the addressees had moved with no forwarding address. An additional 482 voters affirmed their citizenship, while only 16 voluntarily withdrew their voter registration. As of Aug. 31, the remaining 2,394 voters had not responded to the letters.
A spokesperson for Governor Rick Snyder says the state will not help offset the cost of Wednesday’s special primary election held to fill former Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter’s seat in Washington. “This was absolutely something that the governor hoped to avoid and that was the special election that was needed. That said, the constitution and the state election law are pretty clear and it compelled the governor to act,” said Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel. “And currently there is nothing that allows reimbursement to Oakland County or any local government for that matter.”
On the afternoon of September 7, U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borman issued this25-page opinion in Libertarian Party of Michigan v Ruth Johnson, eastern district, 12-cv-12782. He had ruled the day before that the Libertarian Party has lost this case, but only on September 7 did his opinion explain why. The decision implies on page 17 that the precedent set in 1980 by John B. Anderson, who ran in Michigan’s presidential primary and also ran as a minor party nominee, doesn’t apply because Anderson’s name wasn’t on the Republican primary ballot in Michigan. But, that implication is mistaken. Anderson’s name did appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in 1980 and his votes were counted. The decision says that the Michigan Supreme Court had removed Anderson’s name from the 1980 presidential primary ballot. Because this writer is on vacation, and has no access to his home files or a law library, this assertion must remain a mystery for a few days, unless someone else has more information.
Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday rescinded his directive forbidding Ohio counties to set their own voting hours for the weekend before the Nov. 6 election, pending a legal appeal. But Husted asked a federal court to issue a legal stay that would effectively accomplish the same thing. His court motion was the fourth development in eight days regarding “final-weekend” voting. *U.S. District Judge Peter Economus in Columbus ruled Aug. 31 that Ohio laws prohibiting final-weekend voting were unconstitutional, adding that he “anticipated” Husted would set a “specific, consistent schedule on those three days.” *Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine appealed the ruling, and Husted issued a directive prohibiting counties from setting their own hours while the appeal was pending, saying he was trying to prevent more confusing changes. *When the Obama campaign objected to that directive, Economus quickly set a hearing for next Thursday, demanding that Husted attend in person.
As widely reported, last week a federal court rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo identification to election officials before being allowed to vote. This decision comes on the heels of another federal court decision that found the Republican-controlled Texas legislature had intentionally discriminated against Hispanics in drawing new legislative districts. The Texas voter ID law was signed into law last year. However, the law has never gone into effect because Texas is a covered jurisdiction under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and must receive either administrative preclearance from the Department of Justice or judicial preclearance from a federal court that a proposed change in its election laws (such as a requirement to present a photo ID) will not have the effect of diminishing minority voters’ rights, and was not enacted with a specific intent to discriminate against such voters. The Justice Department earlier objected to the new Texas law concluding it would have a disparate negative impact on minority voters. The court last week reached a similar conclusion that the legislation would impose unlawful burdens on poor minority voters.
Iran will hold presidential elections on June 14 next year, the Interior Ministry said on Friday, the first such vote since a violent crackdown on protests over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009. The 2013 presidential vote is expected to be a contest between candidates representing Ahmadinejad’s allies and his more conservative opponents. Ahmadinejad himself cannot run for a third term due to a constitutional limit.
The Ukrainian nationalist party UNA-UNSO, known for sending armed volunteers to fight on the post-Soviet space, has announced in its elections program that Ukraine needs nuclear weapons. “In order to do something we need leverage as a state. We need to demand the restoration of the nuclear status of our country,” said Valery Bobrovich, chief of the headquarters of the Ukrainian Nationalist Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense. The politician added that Ukraine has no future without nuclear weapons. In addition, a return to nuclear status would boost the Ukrainian economy, Bobrovich said. “The military industrial complex is not just cannons, but also tens of thousands of jobs,” he told reporters. At the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Ukraine possessed the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. However, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for recognition of its independence and security guarantees by leading nuclear powers.
The agreement was sealed in 1994 in the Budapest Memorandum and the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukrainian territory was fully completed in 1996 (the warheads were sent to Russia, where they were dismantled and reutilized).
Blogs: Voting rights cases: Made simple | SCOTUSblog Nearly a half-century ago, Congress decided that the government could not end racial discrimination in voting simply by suing one state, county, or city at a time, because officials who were determined to keep minorities away from the polls were quickly shifting to new tactics. The only way…
Nearly a half-century ago, Congress decided that the government could not end racial discrimination in voting simply by suing one state, county, or city at a time, because officials who were determined to keep minorities away from the polls were quickly shifting to new tactics. The only way to keep ahead of those tactics, Congress decided, was to bar the worst offenders among state and local governments from adopting any new election laws until they had first proved they would not discriminate. That was a massive shift in policy, and it worked: the law that Congress passed in 1965, the Voting Rights Act, is now widely credited as the most effective civil rights law in American history; even the Supreme Court has said so. But the Supreme Court has grown to be one of the skeptics about the constitutionality of the law, partly because of the very fact that the law has been so successful. ”Things have changed in the South,” the Court commented three years ago. And, at that time, it pondered striking down the key part of the 1965 law — Section 5 — on the theory that “the evil that Section 5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated” in the states, counties, and cities that must obey that section. There are nine of those states, plus local governments in seven other states, that must get permission in Washington before they may change any law dealing with voting — no matter how trivial the change. The Court chose in 2009 to leave the law as is, but hinted that Congress should update it.
If you hate the current state of campaign finance, in which corporations and non-profits exert influence through trade associations, political action committees and so-called “Super PACs,” you can’t lay all of the blame at the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that corporations and labor unions have the same First Amendment rights to free speech as individuals. Nor can you say that the root of the problem was the court’s 2007 ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life that corporations and labor unions are permitted to spend money on election ads as long those ads do not contain “express advocacy” for or against a candidate. Instead, you have to look back to 1976, when the Supreme Court decided in Buckley v. Valeo that the constitution permits limits on direct campaign contributions to candidates by corporations. Such restrictions, the Buckley court held, do not violate the First Amendment. That bar on direct contributions to candidates, reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in FEC v. Beaumont, has remained in place despite repeated assaults in recent years. As Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law wrote Wednesday at his Election Law Blog, the current justices may well overturn Beaumont’s holding on direct corporate contributions to candidates if they decide to take up the issue, but so far they haven’t.
Pushing constitutional amendments tends to be the province of Republican presidents: to mandate balanced budgets, for instance, or to make abortion illegal. But President Obama has been both speaking privately and flirting openly with the notion of amending the Constitution. His goal would be to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and get the biggest-money checks out of politics. Obama advisers have been edging up to this for months. In February, urging donors to open their checkbooks to Obama-supporting super PACs, campaign manager Jim Messina said that “the president favors action — by constitutional amendment, if necessary — to place reasonable limits on all such spending.”
State Rep. Hudson Hallum (D-Marion) today resigned his House seat and withdrew as a candidate in the 2012 election after entering a guilty plea on a federal charge related to his 2011 special election. Hudson, 29, was mired in some controversy after winning a high number of absentee ballots in his 2011 special election race. In February 2012, Talk Business blogger Jason Tolbert reported that the FBI had subpoenaed election officials from Crittenden County to appear before a grand jury. At the time, Hallum said he had no knowledge of the investigation. Hallum’s resignation from the House District 54 seat coincided with an appearance today in U.S. District Court where he entered a plea of guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit election fraud. His father, Kent Hallum, West Memphis City Council member Phillip Carter, and Crittenden County quorum court member Sam Malone also plead guilty to charges.
States using a federal immigration database to purge noncitizens from voter lists are starting to get results, which so far include few illegal voters. In Florida, which was first to gain access to the database after fighting the federal government in court, an initial run of roughly 2,600 names has turned up “several” violators, according to a spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “We are seeing that there are definitely noncitizens on the voter rolls, but we’re still very early in this review process,” says Chris Cate. A much larger list of suspected noncitizens soon will be fed through the database, Cate says. The list will be an updated version culled from cross-checking voter rolls and driver’s license data, a method that produced about 180,000 names last year. Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status. “For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder agreed Wednesday to accept Florida’s revised early-voting plan for five counties covered by the federal Voting Rights Act. Holder filed his response with a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. Last month, the panel ruled that a new Florida election law that reduced early voting to 8 days from as many as 14 violated the federal law in the designated counties because they could discourage minority voting. The judges, though, indicated they’d approve a plan that still provided 96 hours of early voting – the same as under Florida’s previous law. The state plan submitted by Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s administration meets that criteria with eight 12-hour days including 12 on a Sunday that weren’t previously offered.
A Polk County judge heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by two civil rights organizations challenging new rules enacted by Iowa’s Republican secretary of state that would purge certain voters from Iowa’s voter registration list and make it easier to report fraud. The American Civil Liberties Union and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a lawsuit last month to block Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz from enacting the rules he quietly issued on July 20. Schultz bypassed the normal state rulemaking process claiming he didn’t have enough time before November’s general election to allow for a public hearing and comment period. Assistant Attorney General Jeff Thompson argued that the new rules are intended to provide protection to all voters by ensuring that people who are not citizens are not voting. But lawyers for the civil rights groups allege Schultz intentionally waited to pass the rules knowing it would limit time for challenges. “This is a very critical public issue affecting potentially thousands of Iowans’ right to vote in this election,” attorney Joseph Glazebrook said in asking Judge Mary Pat Gunderson to declare the rules invalid and block Schultz from enforcing them.
A judge heard arguments Thursday over whether Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz exceeded his authority in a search for thousands of possible ineligible voters before November’s election. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and a Latino advocacy group, League of United Latin American Citizens, argued for an injunction to halt an effort to check identities against a federal immigration database to determine citizenship. The move is unnecessary and improper because no evidence of voter fraud exists and the rule creates fear and confusion for eligible voters, an attorney for the advocacy groups said. State attorneys, however, said the rule would expand due process because it creates an appeals process and the federal database reduces the risk of mistakes. Schultz’s plans to investigate 3,582 possible non-U.S. citizens registered to vote in Iowa has thrust the state into a contentious national debate. Critics say a state-by-state voter suppression effort by Republicans disproportionately affects poor and minority voters, who tend to vote for Democrats.
Nevada’s “none of the above” voting option will be on the November ballot following an emergency stay sought by the secretary of state’s office and granted by a federal appeals court. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked the injunction Tuesday and had strong words for U.S. District Judge Robert Jones, who last month declared the voting option unconstitutional and struck it from the ballot. One appellate judge accused Jones, chief judge in Nevada, of deliberate foot-dragging by delaying hearings in the case and not issuing a written order in time for state lawyers to appeal before ballots must be printed. “His dilatory tactics appear to serve no purpose other than to seek to prevent the state from taking an appeal of his decision before it must print the ballots,” 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote. He concluded, “Such arrogance and assumption of power by one individual is not acceptable in our judicial system.”
Local election officials are bracing for an expected increase in work load if Minnesota voters approve a constitutional amendment requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. There are still many unknowns about how the new requirements would be carried out. But county auditors say it’s clear there would be added duties, changes in the ballot-counting process and possibly the need to purchase electronic equipment for all polling places to verify voters’ eligibility. Most county officials have steered clear of the political debate over whether the proposed amendment is good public policy. But they are vocal about the costs and complications they expect if it passes. “There’s going to be a lot of political denial that this thing is expensive,” said Jeff Spartz, executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday rescinded a directive that blocked boards of election from setting in-person early voting hours over the final three days leading up to Election Day. The Republican secretary’s decision was in response to a federal judge who this week ordered Husted to appear in his court on Sept. 13 because the directive appears to not adhere to a recent U.S. District Court ruling. On Aug. 30, Judge Peter C. Economus, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, ruled that a new state law – which would have shut down early voting after 6 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2, until the polls opened on Tuesday, Nov. 6 – is unconstitutional. His written opinion added: “This court anticipates that defendant Secretary of State will direct all Ohio elections boards to maintain a specific, consistent schedule on those three days.”
Nevadans can pick “none of the above” on Election Day, the 9th Circuit ruled while blasting a federal judge who tried to delay the appeal. The ruling marks a setback for Republicans who hoped to remove the unique option so that dissatisfied voters would pick Mitt Romney if forced to make a choice. Eleven voters from all parties, including former Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury and the state’s Republican Party Secretary James DeGraffenreid, sued Nevada and its secretary of state in June. The Republican National Committee sought to remove the option that has been on all Nevada ballots since 1976. Nevada is the only state to offer such an option. U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled in August that the state’s “none of these candidates” ballot option is unconstitutional and must be removed. But a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit entered an immediate stay late Tuesday. On Wednesday, the court amended the three-page order and the lengthy concurring opinion from Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
A federal judge ordered the battleground state of Ohio to open its polling places three days before the Nov. 6 election, giving a victory to the Obama campaign and marking the sixth ruling in recent weeks to block or void new voting rules set by Republican-dominated state legislatures. Friday’s decision restores early voting on the final weekend and Monday before election day, a time when more than 93,000 Ohio voters cast ballots in 2008. Last week, a three-judge court restored weekend early voting in parts of Florida that are subject to the Voting Rights Act. And on Wednesday, another Florida judge voided part of a state law that would have prevented groups such as the League of Women Voters from registering new voters. A Texas law was dealt two setbacks earlier this week when federal judges in Washington struck down a strict new photo identification requirement and threw out election districts that undercut the voting power of Latinos and blacks. Voting-rights advocates hailed what they saw as a rebuke to those who would curb an essential right.