New Hampshire: Voter ID Compromise Approved in New Hampshire | Valley News

Compromise legislation to reform New Hampshire’s year-old voter ID law passed the Republican-led Senate and the Democratic-led House yesterday, as a last-ditch effort by conservative Republicans to block the bill fell short. The bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, who indicated she will sign it into law. “The governor continues to believe that the voter identification law enacted by the previous Legislature was misguided and should be fully repealed, but she appreciates that the compromise reached by the Legislature will save local communities the burden of costs for cameras, prevent long lines at the polls and alleviate confusion about permissible forms of identification,” said spokesman Marc Goldberg in a statement.  The voter ID law enacted in 2012 included several changes that were to effect this September, including a shorter list of acceptable forms of ID and a requirement that voters without an ID, who already must fill out an affidavit, be photographed by election workers as well. But under a compromise worked out last week by negotiators from the House and Senate, student IDs will remain valid forms of identification at the polls, voters 65 and over will be able to use expired driver’s licenses to vote and the photo-taking requirement will be delayed until 2015.

New Mexico: N.M. was affected by Voting Rights Act | Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico is no stranger to the federal government requirement to seek approval from Washington before making changes to state legislative districts. The practice, which the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended Tuesday, was required in New Mexico by the U.S. Department of Justice during redistricting conducted in 1991. The requirement came after New Mexico redistricting efforts in the early ’80s sparked legal action claiming the process was discriminatory. “A three-judge panel concluded that a history of discrimination did exist in New Mexico,” said longtime New Mexico redistricting consultant Brian Sanderoff. “New Mexico was a pre-clearance state because of the alleged sins of the early ’80s.”

North Carolina: State expected to move forward on voter ID bill following Supreme Court ruling | Fay Observer

Voter identification legislation in North Carolina will pick up steam again now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, a General Assembly leader said Tuesday. A bill requiring voters to present one of several forms of state-issued photo ID starting in 2016 cleared the House two months ago, but it has been sitting since in the Senate Rules Committee to wait for a ruling by the justices in an Alabama case, according to Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, the committee chairman. He said a bill will be rolled out in the Senate next week. The ruling essentially means that voter ID or other election legislation approved in this year’s session probably will not have to receive advance approval by U.S. Justice Department lawyers or a federal court before such measures can be carried out.

Rhode Island: House Speaker: No changes to voter ID law this session | The Providence Journal

Revising the state’s voter identification law will have to wait another year, after House Speaker Gordon D. Fox called off a scheduled House vote on proposed legislation Wednesday. The bill that had been before the House proposed eliminating a new requirement set to take effect for the 2014 election: showing a valid picture identification before voting. Currently, Rhode Islanders must show an ID at the polls, but, starting next year, that ID must have a picture on it.

Texas: Congressman files suit to stop Texas voter ID law | Associated Press

A Democratic congressman joined seven others Wednesday in filing a federal lawsuit to keep Texas from enforcing its voter ID law. U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth filed the papers in Corpus Christi federal court, calling the requirement to show a state-issued photo ID card at the ballot box unconstitutional. The law “would have the effect of denying thousands of Texas voters the ability to vote in person, a large number of whom would be disenfranchised entirely since absentee voting in Texas is available to only certain specified categories of voters,” according to the lawsuit.

Texas: Perry signs redistricting maps | The Statesman

The special session that ended Tuesday wasn’t a total loss. On Wednesday, Gov. Rick Perry signed all three redistricting bills that lawmakers sent to him. With his signature, Perry set the district boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, the state Senate and the Texas House, his office confirmed. Capitol gossipers had been whispering that the governor might try to find a way to shove state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, into a Republican district as punishment for her filibuster that led to the death of a strict abortion measure in the Senate early Wednesday. But by signing off on the redistricting maps, Perry silenced the rumors that he might veto the new state Senate map and seek to put into place the more Republican-friendly maps passed by the Legislature in 2011.

Egypt: Egypt electoral commission recuses itself in Shafiq appeal | Ahram Online

Egypt’s Supreme Presidential Elections Commission (SPEC) has made a unanimous decision to recuse itself from overseeing an appeal by Ahmed Shafiq against last year’s presidential election result. The commission said it felt “unease” at overseeing the appeal but failed to give further details for the decision. A new commission will be formed on 1 July after the retirement of Judge Maher El-Beheiry, the head of the SPEC and the High Constitutional Court (HCC), and a number of other commission members, at the end of the judicial year on 30 June. The appeal will be heard after a new commission is formed.

Madagascar: Three candidates may face sanctions | News24

The European Union, the United States and the African Union proposed on Wednesday imposing sanctions such as travel bans on Madagascar’s president and two other presidential candidates unless they withdrew from a planned election. The former French colony has been in crisis since 2009 when President Andry Rajoelina seized power with military support, ousting former President Marc Ravalomanana and triggering turmoil that scared off investors and tourists. Rajoelina and Ravalomanana had reached a deal with regional states not to run in this year’s poll. But when Ravalomanana’s wife, Lalao Ravalomanana, chose to run, Rajoelina said the pact had broken down and put his name forward. As a result, foreign donors suspended election financing and the government had to postpone the vote by a month to 23 August.

Malaysia: Election Commission says it will use indelible ink again in Kuala Besut by-election | The Malaysia Insider

Even as Nurul Izzah Anwar of the opposition yesterday threatened to take legal action against the Election Commission (EC) for the indelible ink fiasco, the EC says it will use that ink again for the coming by-election in Terengganu. “Yes, the indelible ink will be used,” said vice-chairman of the Election Commission Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar (pic) when contacted by The Malaysian Insider yesterday. “We’ll discuss next week if we’re using the same ink as the one used during the 13th general elections,” said Wan Ahmad, referring to the EC meeting next week on the by-election. The state seat for Kuala Besut is vacant, following the death of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) elected representative, Dr. A. Rahman Mokhtar, 55, yesterday morning from lung cancer. Meanwhile, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has threatened legal action to get the entire EC sacked.

Mongolia: Elbegdorj Re-elected as Mongolia’s President | VoA News

Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia has won a second term, in an election dominated by a debate over the country’s vast mining wealth. Preliminary results Thursday show President Elbegdorj took 50.2 percent of the previous day’s vote, narrowly clearing the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off. His main challenger, opposition lawmaker and former pro-wrestler Baterdene Badmaanyambuu, received nearly 42 percent. The country’s first female presidential candidate, Health Minister Natsag Udval, came in a distant third place. Elbegdorj is a Harvard-educated former journalist who campaigned on promises of fighting corruption and continuing his policy of using foreign cash to power Mongolia’s rapidly growing economy.

National: Supreme Court kills Voting Rights Act federal oversight provision | Los Angeles Times

sharply divided Supreme Court has struck down a key part of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, freeing the Southern states from federal oversight of their election laws and setting off a fierce reaction from civil rights advocates and Democratic leaders. The court’s conservative majority moved boldly Tuesday to rein in a law revered by civil rights groups that is credited with transforming the South by ensuring blacks could register and vote. In doing so, the court eliminated a tool that the Justice Department used hundreds of times to prevent cities, counties and states from adopting allegedly discriminatory voting rules. The court left open the possibility that Congress could fix the law, but the partisan gridlock that has dominated the legislative branch in recent years appears to make that unlikely.

National: Supreme Court decision on voting rights may leave law in limbo | The Washington Post

In calling for a rewrite of one of the nation’s most significant civil rights laws , the Supreme Court has demanded that the other two branches of government design a guarantee of racial equality that reflects the realities of the 21st century. But the real question is whether the political system, broken and polarized as it is, still has the capacity to take on such a challenge. The ruling, which said Congress must update the Voting Rights Act of 1965, noted that much has changed for the better since the original formulas were written requiring federal approval of even minor ­changes in election procedure for some states and jurisdictions. But the court also acknowledged that discrimination still exists and that rectifying it demands vigilance from Washington. Traditionally, voting rights is an area where presidents and lawmakers, mindful of history’s judgment, have proven capable of working together across party lines. The most recent reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act were signed by Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In 2006, not a single senator voted against the current version, while fewer than three dozen members of the House did.

National: States promise quick action after court voting ruling | ABC

Across the South, Republicans are working to take advantage of a new political landscape after a divided U.S. Supreme Court freed all or part of 15 states, many of them in the old Confederacy, from having to ask Washington’s permission before changing election procedures in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination. After the high court announced its momentous ruling Tuesday, officials in Texas and Mississippi pledged to immediately implement laws requiring voters to show photo identification before getting a ballot. North Carolina Republicans promised they would quickly try to adopt a similar law. Florida now appears free to set its early voting hours however Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP Legislature please. And Georgia’s most populous county likely will use county commission districts that Republican state legislators drew over the objections of local Democrats.

National: IRS delayed action on progressive groups, too | Associated Press

Leaders of progressive groups say they, too, faced long delays in getting the Internal Revenue Service to approve their applications for tax-exempt status but were not subjected to the same level of scrutiny that tea party groups complained about. Several progressive groups said it took more than a year for the IRS to approve their status while others are still waiting as IRS agents press for details about their activities. The delays have made it difficult for the groups to raise money — just as it has for tea party groups that were singled out for extra scrutiny. But even with the delays, leaders of some progressive groups said they didn’t feel like they were being targeted. “This is kind of what you expect. You expect it to take a year or more to get your status because that’s just what the IRS goes through to do it,” said Maryann Martindale, executive director of Alliance for a Better Utah, a small non-profit that advocates for progressive causes. “So I don’t know that we feel particularly targeted.”

National: Rep. Jackson Lee looks to limit state redistricting after voting rights ruling | The Hill

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) is introducing legislation that would block states from rearranging their congressional districts until after a 10-year Census takes place, a reaction to the Supreme Court ruling striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. “We cannot afford to sit back and watch our country move backwards — as legislators we must act,” Jackson Lee said Wednesday. “[B]ased on the Shelby case and its rationale, it is clear that Voting Rights Act is needed more than ever.” The high court on Tuesday struck down language in the act that establishes the criteria for determining which state and local governments must clear voting rules changes with the federal government, based on their history of having an under-representation of minority voters.

National: Lawmakers likely to push voting rights | The Hill

A House Republican who led the last push to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act exhorted lawmakers Wednesday to join him in bringing the law back to life. The day after the Supreme Court quashed the anti-discrimination statute, Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) urged lawmakers to cast aside their differences and restore the rejected provisions for the sake of voter protection. “The Voting Rights Act is vital to America’s commitment to never again permit racial prejudices in the electoral process,” Sensenbrenner, the second-ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday in a statement.  “This is going to take time, and will require members from both sides of the aisle to put partisan politics aside and ensure Americans’ most sacred right is protected.” Republican Reps. Steve Chabot (Ohio) and Sean Duffy (Wis.) also expressed support Wednesday for congressional action in response to the high court’s ruling.

National: Supreme Court ruling sets stage for voter ID battle | Politico.com

The Supreme Court decision Tuesday striking down a key plank of the Voting Rights Act dramatically eases the way for states to push through stricter voting laws — and the flurry of action could reverberate into 2014 and beyond. Some states such as Texas moved within hours of the landmark ruling to implement so-called voter ID laws — requiring voters to show valid identification before they can cast ballots — that had been on hold. Others, such as swing state North Carolina, are expected to pass legislation this year that could complicate Democrats’ chances in 2014 midterm elections. Democrats hope to use the issue to galvanize minority voters by accusing the conservative-leaning Supreme Court and Republican statehouses of turning back the clock on hard-won voting rights. But the effect of the actual statutes, in terms of preventing people from voting who show up to the polls without proper ID, could be “devastating and immediate,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the voting rights group Advancement Project.

National: Congress unlikely to act on voting rights ruling | USAToday

A divided Congress has no clear path to heed the call of Chief Justice John Roberts and President Obama to legislate in response to Tuesday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision that invalidated a portion of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. Reaction on Capitol Hill largely mirrored the court’s ideological divide: Democrats called for legislation to establish new formulas to determine whether states must get federal permission before instituting changes in voting practices, while Republicans were more reticent on the necessity to pass a new law. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he would convene hearings next month to see what legislative recourse Congress can take. Leahy made clear his displeasure with the Supreme Court’s action to invalidate a law most recently reauthorized in 2006 with broad bipartisan support.

National: Court ruling clears way for election changes in South | USAToday

Mississippi’s top election official outlined plans on Tuesday to implement the state’s voter ID law, just hours after the Supreme Court struck down a Voting Rights Act provision that might have blocked the law. Until Tuesday’s court ruling, officials in Mississippi and other states with a history of discrimination were required under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to get “pre-clearance” from the Justice Department or a federal court before making any change to their voting procedures. But that ended when the court ruled that Section 4 of the 1965 law, which consisted of the formula used to determine which states and other jurisdictions should be subject to Section 5, is outdated and therefore unconstitutional. The 5-4 decision clears the way for more than a dozen states and jurisdictions to move ahead with tougher voter ID laws and other changes that before Tuesday would have been subject to the pre-clearance requirement.

National: Obama to nominate Democratic, Republican members to Federal Election Commission | The Washington Post

President Barack Obama intends to nominate two lawyers with government experience to become commissioners on the Federal Election Commission, the agency that oversees and enforces campaign finance laws. One of the nominees would fill a Democratic vacancy on the commission and the other would replace the Republican vice chairman, the White House said. Obama’s nominee to replace Republican Donald F. McGahn is Lee Goodman, who served as a top aide to former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore of Virginia. Obama’s Democratic nominee is Ann Ravel, the chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. She would fill the seat vacated earlier this year by Cynthia Bauerly. If confirmed by the Senate, the FEC would have all of its six commissioners — three Democrats and three Republicans. The even partisan split on the FEC has at times contributed to gridlock on the commission with votes breaking along party lines.

Editorials: Current Conditions | Linda Greenhouse/New York Times

“While any racial discrimination in voting is too much,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told us in Tuesday’s decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, “Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Well, here’s a current condition: the ink was barely dry on the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder when Attorney General Greg Abbott of Texas announced that his state’s voter-ID law, blocked by a federal court last summer, “will take effect immediately.” The Texas statute has the most stringent requirements of any voter-ID law in the country. The three-judge federal panel, pointing out in a 56-page opinion the several less onerous versions that the Legislature had rejected, found that the state had failed to meet its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to show that the law wouldn’t have the effect of suppressing the minority vote. With his precipitous in-your-face move, the Texas attorney general may be doing us a favor, making clear that the court’s decision has real and immediate consequences. Welcome to the Roberts court’s brave new post-Voting Rights Act world.

National: President’s election commission heads to four states | Yahoo! News

A White House commission tasked with making voting improvements after lengthy wait times were reported in the 2012 election is hitting the road. The president’s Commission on Election Administration, which met for the first time on Friday, announced it will hold upcoming hearings in four states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Ohio. Co-chair Bob Bauer, President Barack Obama’s former counsel, said they will hold “a public meetings process around the country that enables us to hear from election officials, from experts and from citizens in affected communities about the voting experience and their perspective on the issues they should be covering.” Bauer and co-chair Ben Ginsberg, former counsel for Mitt Romney, invited election experts and members of the public to participate. “Please help us to ferret out the information we need,” Bauer said. Hearing specifics are still slim. Known so far: They are scheduled for June 28 at the University of Miami, Aug. 8 in Denver, Sept. 4 in Philadelphia and Sept. 20 somewhere in Ohio.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act: An End to Racism by Judicial Order | The New Yorker

Among the many things that can be gleaned from Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision eviscerating the Voting Rights Act is this: we live in an era of American history which is, if not actually post-racial, then officially post-racism. Race may still exist as a social reality—and so may racism—but no amalgamation of facts, studies, or disparities is sufficient to the cause of proving that there exists a system which produces inequality. In short: we have overcome whether the data agrees with us or not. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion:

In 1965, the States could be divided into those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout and those without those characteristics. Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the Nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.

Americans tend to imagine that the racial history of their nation is a steady line sloping upward; in truth, it looks more like an EKG. In that context, it’s unsurprising that a decision hobbling the Voting Rights Act could come in such close proximity to the first Presidential election in which the percentage of eligible voters who went to the polls was higher among blacks than among whites. Peaks in racial progress tend to come in concert with valleys of backlash.

Editorials: The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Hypocrisy | Ari Berman/The Nation

In his dissent in the Defense of Marriage Act case today, Justice Scalia wrote: “We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.” Justice Roberts wrote in his concurrence: “I agree with Justice Scalia that this Court lacks jurisdiction to review the decisions of the courts below… I also agree with Justice Scalia that Congress acted constitutionally in passing the Defense of Marriage Act.” Yet that reasoning didn’t stop Justices Roberts and Scalia from striking down the centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act yesterday, a hugely important civil rights law that has been passed by Congress five times with overwhelming bipartisan approval. Why didn’t the court defer to Congress on the VRA, which has a far more robust Congressional history/mandate than DOMA? And how did Roberts and Scalia reach such contradictory conclusions in the different cases?

Editorials: Justice Scalia Hates Judicial Review, Except When He Doesn’t | Dashiell Bennett/The Atlantic

Earlier today, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing dissent to the decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, saying “we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.” So why was it okay to take apart the democratically adopted Voting Rights Act just one day earlier? Scalia’s DOMA dissent was a blistering and angry on most of his fellow justices and their “legalistic argle-bargle.” He even went after Samuel Alito, who voted on his side. The crux of his argument was that the law — which passed in 1996 — was a legitimate act of Congress, and it’s not the job of the Supreme Court to tell everyone what every single law means. That’s a mistake that “spring[s] forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

Editorials: Voting Rights Act Decision Poses a Crucial Test for Republicans | The Daily Beast

If you’ve read a magazine at any point in the last decade, then you’ve probably heard of the Stanford marshmallow test. A young child is placed at a table with a marshmallow and told that she can eat it now or wait a while and get an even better treat. The experiment is supposed to measure a child’s capacity for delayed gratification. The longer she can wait, the more likely it is she has good impulse control, and that is associated with better life outcomes, as measured by health and educational attainment. In overturning Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act—which sets down a formula for identifying which state and local governments have to preclear changes to voting law with the federal government—the Supreme Court has all but placed a huge marshmallow in front of the Republican Party. But instead of a sugary treat, it’s an opportunity to pursue harsh new restrictions on voting—the kinds of policies that would have been blocked under the Voting Rights Act before the court’s ruling.

Kansas: Lawsuit challenges state photo ID election law | Topeka Capital-Journal

A lawsuit challenging Kansas’ law requiring voters to present a picture identification when casting ballots Wednesday was submitted to Shawnee County District Court on behalf of two Osage County men who were blocked last year from having their votes counted. Wichita attorney Jim Lawing filed the case for retirees Arthur Spry and Charles Hamner, both of Overbrook, to contest constitutionality of the voting mandate included in the Secure and Fair Elections Act of 2011, which was written by Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The suit names Kobach as the lone defendant. Hamner and Spry, who didn’t have a government-issued identity card with a photograph proving they were Kansans in good standing, voted with provisional ballots in November 2012. Their ballots weren’t counted because neither subsequently provided sufficient proof of their identity.

Mississippi: Supreme Court decision gives Mississippi voter ID go-ahead | The Clarion-Ledger

A Supreme Court ruling Tuesday strips power over voting and election rules from the federal government and returns it to states such as Mississippi with discriminatory pasts. The court, in a 5-4 ruling, effectively eliminated the federal advanced-approval power over voting laws from the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Justice Department had used this “preclearance” power to shoot down the literacy tests, poll taxes, gerrymandering and more subtle measures that were used to inhibit minority voting. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said the ruling will allow him to “start today” on implementing a state voter ID law that had been awaiting federal approval. He said the new requirements should be in place for the June 2014 primaries.

New Jersey: For Special Election, Some New Jersey Residents Can Vote This Week | Wall Street Journal

The special election for U.S. Senate in New Jersey was called just three weeks ago, but some state residents can  already begin voting later this week. County election offices must begin sending out vote-by-mail ballots on Saturday, according to a timetable established by the state Division of Elections for the race to fill the seat held by the late Frank Lautenberg. But several county offices said Tuesday that they weren’t wasting time and will begin sending out the thousands of ballots as early as Wednesday—meaning the sprint of six candidates running in the primary is officially beginning. “We start stuffing and we start mailing right away,” said an election official at the Essex County Clerk’s Office, about the vote by mail ballots. “Once we get them, we rock right away.”

New York: Supreme Court Ruling Ensures Lever Machines a Go in NYC Elections | The Epoch Times

The safety net for reinstating lever voting machines in New York City elections has officially been cut. When the New York State Legislature passed a law allowing lever voting machines this election, opponents had one final avenue to continue their fight. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) required the state to get permission from the Department of Justice for any changes in voting procedure. Advocates have submitted arguments against the use of the antiquated machines, citing many of the same issues submitted to the state, such as limited disability access and small type for foreign languages. That law was struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States on Tuesday, leaving the door open for the continued use of lever machines in local elections as long as the state continues to pass legislation allowing the archaic machines.