The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly – July 22-28 2013

holderIn an aggressive response to last month’s Supreme Court ruling that effectively eliminated the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department announced in intention to challenge election laws in Texas and other States based on other sections of the law. In a rare unanimous decision, the Federal Election Commission ruled that legally married gay couples must be treated in the same manner as opposite-sex couples under election law. Florida’s controversial voter purge will resume in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. The North Carolina legislature sent a bill to the Governor’s desk that would require voters to present certain types of identification to vote, cut the number of early voting days in half, eliminate same-day registration during early voting and along with many other changes. There was a second week of testimony in the trial challenging Pennsylvania’s voter ID law. A group of IT experts announced their intention to attempt a test attack on Estonia’s e-voting software following the release of the source code two weeks ago and Togo’s long-delayed legislative election were marred by technical issues.