The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for December 7-13 2015
On Tuesday, a closely divided Supreme Court on struggled to decide “what kind of democracy people wanted,” as Justice Stephen G. Breyer put it during an argument over the meaning of the constitutional principle of “one person one vote.” The court also weighed a challenge to Arizona’s legislative districts, in which plaintiffs have argued the fact that almost all the state’s Republican-leaning districts are overpopulated, and almost all of the state’s Democratic-leaning districts are underpopulated. Writing for Reuters, Herman Schwartz disputed claims by defenders of voter id requirements that public opinion polls indicate widespread support for their arguments. On the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, Richard Hasen writes about what has changed – and what hasn’t – in America’s elections. Maryland has joined the states considering automatic voter registration. With many states across the country relying on aging voting technology, many jurisdictions are facing the potential of problems like the calibration issues found in Halifax County Virginia. Nearly two months after the pivotal balloting and three weeks before the scheduled Dec. 27 presidential runoff, Haiti remains at an impasse and Britain’s lower house of parliament voted against reducing the voting age for a referendum on EU membership.