Oklahoma: GOP Candidate Charges Opponent Is Dead, Represented By A Body Double | Huffington Post

Political opponents accuse each other of lying all the time, but one Oklahoma congressional candidate took his accusation to a new level this week when he claimed his opponent was actually dead and being represented by a body double. KFOR in Oklahoma reports that Timothy Ray Murray believes Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), his opponent in the congressional Republican primary, was executed three years ago and is being represented by a look-alike. Because he believes Lucas is really dead, Murray said he will challenge the results of Tuesday’s Republican primary, in which Murray received 5.2 percent of the vote. Lucas won the primary with 82.8 percent of the vote. “It is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about Jan. 11, 2011,” Murray said in a statement posted on his campaign website. The statement claimed Lucas and “a few other” members of Congress from Oklahoma and other states were shown on television being hanged by “The World Court.”

China: Hong Kong Ends Voting in Referendum, Readies for Rally | VoA News

More than 780,000 votes were cast by Sunday, the final day of an unofficial referendum on how Hong Kong’s next leader should be chosen. The ballot has been branded illegal by local and mainland Chinese authorities. Hong Kong, a free-wheeling, capitalist hub of more than 7 million people, returned to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, with wide-ranging autonomy under a “one country, two systems”  formula, along with an undated promise of universal suffrage. China has promised to let all Hong Kong residents vote for their next leader in 2017. But it said candidates must be approved by a nomination committee.

Ireland: €50k to end 25-year e-voting contract | Irish Examiner

A businessman who received a lucrative 25-year contract to house Ireland’s ill-fated e-voting machines from a close relative in charge of deciding who won the tender has been given a €50,000 pay-off to cancel the deal. The Department of Environment confirmed the controversial move was agreed in recent weeks in a bid to consign the wider e-voting scandal to history. Speaking at the latest Dáil Public Accounts Committee, new Department of Environment secretary general John McCarthy confirmed that a deal was struck with Martin Duffy earlier this year as part of ongoing attempts to address unresolved issues relating to the project.

Editorials: Contrary to Popular Belief, Libya Still Needs Elections | Foreign Policy

This past Wednesday, Libyans went to the polls to choose the members of a new parliament that is supposed to preside over the rest of the country’s transitional phase amid widening political chaos and deteriorating security. Some 45 percent of the 1.5 million eligible voters registered to vote. That’s a significant drop from the 2.8 million who registered to vote for the General National Congress (GNC) elections in 2012. The drop in turnout offers additional evidence, if anyone needed it, that Libyans are deeply frustrated with the democratic process in their country. It’s easy to understand why many might feel that there’s little point to voting: past elections haven’t brought relief from Libya’s festering problems. Indeed, there’s a case to be made that holding elections in a country already beset with widespread violence and deepening polarization can make things worse. In this view, the election results are almost certain to be ignored by parties who didn’t do well at the ballot box and by those who prefer to see an authoritarian regime.

Norway: E-voting experiments end in Norway amid security fears | BBC

Norway is ending trials of e-voting systems used in national and local elections. Experiments with voting via the net were carried out during elections held in 2011 and 2013. But the trials have ended because, said the government, voters’ fears about their votes becoming public could undermine democratic processes. Political controversy and the fact that the trials did not boost turnout also led to the experiment ending. In a statement, Norway’s Office of Modernisation said it was ending the experiments following discussions in the nation’s parliament about efforts to update voting systems.  The statement said although there was “broad political desire” to let people vote via the net, the poor results from the last two experiments had convinced the government to stop spending money on more trials.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for June 23 -29 2014

ohio_260The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on proposed legislation to resuscitate a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago. Some advocates want to translate Bitcoin’s technology into online voting but cyber security experts warn that total security and anonymity online is impossible and both are absolutely crucial to a fair and reliable election. A federal trial began this week in a voting rights lawsuit filed by several Alaska villages, alleging the state has failed to provide accurate, complete translations of voting materials into Native languages. Several right-wing groups formed a “voter integrity project’ in response to the news that Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran had courted black Democratic voters in his runoff with the Tea partier Chris McDaniel. Activists have gathered petitions to place a “Voter’s Bill of Rights” on the ballot in Ohio this November. The Virginia Board of Elections plans to re-evaluate its definition of a valid identification under the state’s new voter ID law after a state lawmaker raised concerns about the rule. Thousands of angry protesters marched on the Afghan president’s palace on Friday in support of candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s allegations that mass fraud had been committed during the presidential election by organizers and state officials. Details of the cyberattack on a recent online referendum on voting rights in Hong Kong reveal that the system was attacked by at least 300 gigabits of data per second – and perhaps as high as 600, a level not before reached in a publicly disclosed hacking attack.

National: A year later, Holder, civil rights groups decry impact of voting rights ruling | McClatchy

On the one-year anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a core provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, Democrats and civil rights groups stepped up their push for a congressional fix. Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black to lead the Justice Department, assailed a Wisconsin voter identification law that he said impaired voting by minorities “without serving any legitimate government interest.” A federal judge struck down the law in April, but Wisconsin’s attorney general has filed an appeal. On Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on bipartisan legislation aimed at updating the nearly half Century-old Voting Rights Act with a new formula for determining which jurisdictions would be required to clear with the Justice Department election changes that might disproportionately impact minority voters.

National: Judiciary Chairman In No Rush To Move On Voting Rights Act Bill | Buzzfeed

One year after the Supreme Court struck down section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, Congress is nowhere near close to moving forward with restoring a federal approval requirement for certain voting process changes. While Democratic leaders rallied this week to urge Congress to pass the Voting Rights Amendment Act — a law to rewrite the section 4 formula — a top House Republican said Thursday the bill wasn’t going to move quickly, if at all. The VRAA, written by Wisconsin Republican Jim Sensenbrenner and Michigan Democrat John Conyers, is viewed in Congress and by outside advocates as the best chance to reinstate some of the provisions. Section 4 was the formula used to determine which states needs pre-clearance from the federal government for changes to their voting laws. The Supreme Court ruled that the formula was outdated and Congress could come up with a new one.

National: Republicans used to unanimously back the Voting Rights Act. Not any more. | The Washington Post

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vermont) proposed Voting Rights Act amendment to commemorate the occasion. “From its inception through several reauthorizations the Voting Rights Act has always been a bipartisan, bilateral effort,” Leahy said, “and it would be a travesty if it became partisan for the very first time in this nation’s history.” What was Leahy talking about? In 2006, when the Voting Rights Act was last reauthorized, no Republican senators voted against it. In 2014, no GOP senators have stepped forward to co-sponsor the amendment to update it.

Editorials: Why the Voting Rights Act Still Matters: The Case of Jasper, Texas | Norm Ornstein/The Atlantic

Fifty years ago last weekend, civil-rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, including a deputy sheriff, in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Next Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the monumental achievements of the 20th century. Three weeks ago, on June 7, we had the 16th anniversary of the murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, after he was chained to a pickup truck by white supremacists and dragged three miles, mostly while conscious, with his headless body thrown in front of an African-American graveyard. And Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder, the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The story of the Civil Rights Act has been told vividly and wonderfully in two new books by journalists Todd Purdum (An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and Clay Risen (The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act). Purdum brought his book to life a week ago in a talk at the Aspen Institute, weaving the remarkable tale of the miraculous passage of the bill—miraculous not so much in the fact that a bill made it through the labyrinth of the legislative process (after all, we had seen a weak and watered-down civil-rights bill pass in 1957), but that it was a strong bill. Many heroes inside and outside government made it happen. Lyndon Johnson was a towering figure, as were Hubert Humphrey, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, and others in the civil-rights movement. Joe Rauh and others in the liberal community were also key players, and labor and the faith community were vital as well.

Alaska: Elections worker ignored mangled Yup’ik translation | Achorage Daily News

The official who oversaw the state Election Division’s Yup’ik language program knew that a mangled translation about absentee balloting was running on radio in Bethel and Dillingham in 2009 but told her bosses to just ignore it. Instead of saying “absentee voting,” the notice on KYUK and KDLG said, “to be voting for a long time.” “We will be criticized by the plaintiffs if they catch it, but what the heck, it’s a similar word and hope that it goes right over their heads! :-)” Dorie Wassilie, the Election Division’s language coordinator in Bethel and a Yup’ik speaker, wrote in Sept. 17, 2009, email to her boss, Shelly Growden. Growden, who doesn’t speak Yup’ik, agreed with Wassilie’s judgment. “I too think it should be fine,” Growden replied.

Colorado: Ballots to be preserved after some were discarded in Larimer County dual elections mix up | 7NEWS

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced Tuesday that he adopted an emergency rule outlining procedures for counting ballots in the Larimer County primary election and the Loveland city election. In a news release, the Secretary of State’s Office said the issue involves the City of Loveland election running in tandem with the county’s primary election. Due to the two elections, affiliated voters in Loveland received two ballots, with one to be returned to the city and one to be returned to the county. Voters must return both ballots by 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Kansas: Voter ID mix-up shows more trouble with new laws | The Hutchinson News

Oops. It turns out that the newfangled voter registration and identification system so lauded and pursued by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach might not work as smoothly as we’ve all been told. It also turns out that one of those Kansans whose voter registration landed on the state’s “suspended” list is none other than the daughter of Kobach primary challenger Scott Morgan. Morgan’s 18-year-old daughter registered to vote online, submitting a digital copy of her U.S. passport as validation of her citizenship status. Nevertheless, the younger Morgan received a letter from the Douglas County Clerk’s Office explaining that her voter registration lacked the needed identification. Although the issue was quickly resolved, candidate Morgan raised a valid point about the potential for the voter registration requirements to interfere with the right to vote. “How it happened to my daughter and then was miraculously resolved … it just makes me wonder how many people out there whose father isn’t running for secretary of state against the incumbent are left in never-never land,” he said this week.

Mississippi: McDaniel’s Amazing New Legal Theory For Why He Was Robbed In Runoff | TPM

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) said he hasn’t conceded to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) yet because 35,000 Democrats crossed over to vote in the runoff election for Cochran and claimed that it is illegal for voters to back one candidate in the primary but another in the general. McDaniel’s comments, which he made in an interview on Mark Levin’s radio show Wednesday night, follow a runoff election on Tuesday in which Cochran defeated McDaniel. McDaniel and his supporters have objected to the vote outcome because of Cochran’s efforts to get African Americans and Democrats to support the incumbent senator in the the Republican runoff. It’s not clear exactly where McDaniel got the 35,000 figure.

Mississippi: McDaniel supporters pore over ballots | Clarion-Ledger

A preliminary examination of ballots cast in Tuesday’s Republican U.S. Senate primary runoff between incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel has found irregularities in at least 800 ballots, tea party officials said. Mississippi Tea Party Chairwoman Laura Van Overschelde said Thursday that the examination of ballots isn’t complete and will continue until all ballots are examined. “Looking at the poll books, we found some evidence we are concerned about,” Overschelde said. “The investigation is still preliminary.”

Missouri: Judge hears challenges to ballot measures | Maryville Daily Forum

With absentee voting already underway for the August election, a Missouri judge is considering whether to strike down the ballot summaries prepared for voters on proposed constitutional amendments addressing gun rights and transportation taxes. Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem heard arguments Thursday on lawsuits claiming that the summaries prepared by the Republican-led Legislature are insufficient because they don’t mention some aspects of the measures. The lawsuit against the transportation sales tax also challenges the official financial summary, which states that it would generate $480 million annually for the state and $54 million for local governments. If Beetem rejects the ballot summaries, he could write new ones, which could invalidate any votes already cast under the current summaries. If he were to strike down the summaries without writing replacements, the measures could effectively be knocked off the ballot because the Legislature is not in session to be able to approve new wording.

Editorials: We should all be watching Wisconsin’s voter ID law fight | Penda D. Hair/The Hill

Alice Weddle was born at home in Mississippi 59 years ago, delivered by a midwife. She was never issued a birth certificate, a common circumstance for African Americans born in the segregated south. Weddle, who moved to Wisconsin with her family when she was three years old, never had a driver’s license and is a regular voter. But without a birth certificate, she is unable to get the photo ID that was required to vote under Wisconsin’s restrictive voter ID law. Weddle’s access to the ballot, along with hundreds of thousands of others in the state, was cleared when a federal judge struck down the law in April. In a lawsuit brought by Advancement Project and pro bono law firm Arnold & Porter, we showed that, in burdening the right to vote for Wisconsin’s African-American and Latino citizens, the measure violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In his decision, the judge also rejected the state’s argument that a voter ID law was needed, stating that allegations of voter fraud have absolutely no merit.

Afghanistan: Ashraf Ghani claims Afghan presidential election victory | The Guardian

Ashraf Ghani believes he has won Afghanistan’s heavily contested presidential election by more than 1.3 million votes, according to data compiled by his campaign team. Ghani said the vocal support of clerics, a higher turnout of women, a series of televised town-hall style meetings and polling day transport for potential voters enabled him to pick up support from more than 2 million extra voters in the second round of the poll. “One of the reasons, the most significant, is that we convened a meeting of more than 3,000 ulema (Islamic scholars) … these, after they endorsed us, carried out a mosque-to-mosque campaign, issued fatwas and [held] Friday prayers where they asked the women to participate,” the former World Bank official told journalists at a news conference in Kabul.

Tunisia: Initial Difficulties in Voter Registration Process | Tunisia Live

Daily reports by the independent election observation NGO, Mourakiboun, have highlighted a number of problems with the voter registration process, including registration centers opening late, a lack of signage, and problems with the registration forms for voters based abroad. Mourakiboun is also concerned about the low turnout for voter registration so far. The report from June 24 complained of a “lack of signage and instructions at some registration centers,” as well as “weak turnout” and “frequent problems with connectivity in many centers.” “There is an absence of facilities at registration centers for the needs of the elderly,” reads the June 25 report, which, like reports from both the previous days, also stated that many centers were still opening late.

National: Senators spar over the need for new voting rights legislation | Los Angeles Times

Republicans and Democrats in the Senate argued bitterly Wednesday about the need for a new law to protect the voting rights of minorities. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on proposed legislation to resuscitate a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago. The court invalidated the system whereby most Southern states were required to clear changes to their voting laws in advance with the Justice Department. The new bill would attempt to get around the court’s objections by creating a new system in which any state with more than five voting rights violations in the previous 15 years would have to seek “pre-clearance.” Currently only Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana would be covered, which provoked outrage from Texas’ two senators, who both sit on the committee. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked why only four states would be covered, and not others such as Minnesota, which is represented on the committee by two Democrats. “Every state is covered by this if they violate the law five times in 15 years,” replied Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn).

Editorials: Bitcoin Voting and the Myth of the Un-Hackable Election | The Daily Signal

Bitcoin, the alternative to currency taking the Internet by storm, now may move to another mission. Some advocates want to translate the technology into online voting. Advocates promise a utopian voting scheme driven by smartphones and apps that can overcome all the inherent vulnerabilities to classic e-voting thanks to Bitcoin’s un-hackable code. But the reality is that total security and anonymity online is a virtual impossibility (pun intended) – and both are absolutely crucial to a fair and reliable election. Bitcoin might be the world’s first viable digital currency; it exists entirely in electronic form, and is regulated by a market of online buyers and sellers, rather than a nation and a central bank. As a currency, it is an intriguing experiment. As the foundation of a democratic election, it quickly loses its luster.

Alaska: Trial opens in lawsuit claiming Alaska denied Native rights in voting material translations | Associated Press

A federal trial began this week in a voting rights lawsuit filed by several Alaska villages, alleging the state has failed to provide accurate, complete translations of voting materials into Native languages. State officials denied voting rights to Alaskans with limited English proficiency because voting information lacked Yup’ik, Cup’ik and Gwich’in translations, according to the lawsuit filed last year on behalf of four Native villages and elders with limited English skills. The state says elections officials have taken all reasonable steps to implement standards for voting materials for non-English speakers that are equivalent to those for English speakers. The state Division of Elections provides several methods of oral language assistance, a trial brief says.

National: GOP senators oppose voting law update | Gannett

The Voting Rights Act, which enjoyed strong bipartisan support for nearly a half-century, divided senators along party lines Wednesday as they debated whether minority voters still face enough threats to warrant updating the landmark law. Democrats, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said attempts to undermine minority voters remain pervasive, even if they’re less blatant than the tactics used when the law first passed in 1965. “Since 2010, 22 states have passed new voting restrictions that make it more difficult to vote,” Leahy said, citing a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. “Of the 11 states with the highest African-American turnout in 2008, seven of those have new restrictions in place.”

Editorials: Where Are the GOP Supporters of Voting Rights? | Ari Berman/The Nation

Last night, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran narrowly defeated Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel, in part by courting black voters. “Voting rights has been an issue of great importance in Mississippi,” Cochran said yesterday. Black turnout increased significantly in yesterday’s runoff election, which helped Cochran win by 6,000 votes. “In Mississippi’s twenty-four counties with a majority black population, turnout increased an average of 40 percent over the primary,” reported The Washington Post. In 2006, Cochran was one of ninety-eight Senate Republicans who voted unanimously to reauthorize the temporary provisions of the Voting Rights Act for another twenty-five years. But last year, Cochran applauded the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder invalidating Section 4 of the VRA, which freed states like Mississippi, with the worst history of voting discrimination, from having to approve their voting changes with the federal government under Section 5 of the act. “I think our state can move forward and continue to ensure that our democratic processes are open and fair for all without being subject to excessive scrutiny by the Justice Department,” Cochran said. Cochran was, in effect, celebrating a decision gutting a law that he supported just a few years earlier.

Editorials: Think we don’t need to update the Voting Rights Act? Check out yesterday’s primaries. | Janai S. Nelson/Reuters

The door is open for Congress to repair the nation’s most transformative election law, which was neutered by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago today. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion for Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, issued Congress a written invitation to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after striking down Section 4 of the act and disabling the strongest safety check against racial discrimination in voting.  The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on the Voting Rights Amendment Act shows that his invitation did not fall on deaf ears or timid hearts. Swift and dauntless action is needed in both houses of Congress, however, to ensure that voting remains an equal opportunity exercise for all Americans, and that Congress remains a relevant force in the defense of voting rights in places like Mississippi, Texas, Georgia and beyond. On Tuesday, conservative groups marshaled poll watchers for the senatorial primary run-off in Mississippi. Though a court blocked their presence inside polling places, their position just outside threatened to intimidate voters who had come to cast their ballots — echoing the power that poll watchers exercised throughout the Jim Crow South.

Editorials: In Defense of a Voting Rights Act Amendment | Heather Gerken/National Journal

It’s rare to see something new on the Hill these days. Congress is all but paralyzed, everyone is wary of proposing legislation, and members of Congress have never been known for thinking outside the box. And yet the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 (VRAA)–Cong. James Sensenbrenner’s bipartisan effort to revive Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which was effectively eviscerated by the Supreme Court last summer–was introduced earlier this year. And it offers a new paradigm for civil rights enforcement. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will open a hearing where activists, legislators, and other interested parties will share ideas about just what sort of Voting Rights Act changes are sorely needed. Whether the VRAA succeeds, or even manages to become law, is anyone’s guess. But provisions of the bill are worth watching closely because they could reproduce some of the magic of the old Section 5. Section 5 used to require certain jurisdictions (mostly states in the Deep South) to ask the federal government’s permission before making a change in the way they ran elections. Until a rule was “precleared,” it could not be implemented. This unusual provision solved the central problem of voting-rights enforcement during the Civil Rights era–keeping up with the increasingly creative strategies recalcitrant localities used to disenfranchise voters. Every time a court deemed one discriminatory practice illegal, local officials would switch to another. Section 5 allowed the Department of Justice to get one step ahead of local official

Editorials: Restoring the ballot | Washington Post

One of the ugliest stains on democracy in this country is the fact that an estimated 2.6 million Americans who have committed a felony are not allowed to vote — even after they have served their sentence. This mass disenfranchisement disproportionately afflicts minority, especially black, communities. Until recently, almost no prominent Republicans cared to address the problem, seeing little political advantage in registering former inmates — especially minorities — whom they regarded as a largely Democratic electorate. In a dozen mostly GOP-tilting states, some or all felons remain barred from voting even after finishing with parole and probation.

Florida: Redistricting trial exposes political dirty laundry | Miami Herald

Every 10 years after a census, political lines are redrawn nationally to reapportion congressional seats based on population. Growing states, like Florida, may pick up a congressional seat or two at a cost to other states. Such was the case in 2012. In Florida, the Legislature draws the lines for its own districts as well as those for the growing congressional delegation. While we would like to believe these lines would be drawn fairly and without regard to protecting incumbents, rewarding favorites and growing representation by the majority party, there’s reason to question the outcomes of previous efforts under both parties. Attempts to move redistricting responsibility from the hands of legislators to independent or bipartisan committees, as in seven other states, haven’t gained traction. Frustrated by what they viewed as an incestuous arrangement, citizens and voting-rights groups, including the League of Women Voters, led the effort to place a pair of constitutional amendments on the ballot for voters to consider.

Editorials: Congress should vote for the right to vote | Miles Rapoport/The Hill

It’s hard to believe. In our sixth year with an African-American president, one-half century after passage of the Civil Rights Act and the bloody “Freedom Summer” of 1964, some Americans are still being denied the right to vote or facing government-erected obstacles to their exercise of the right on account of their race. Some states have adopted voter ID laws imposing unneeded requirements that tens of thousands of qualified voters can’t meet. Some have shortened voting hours or eliminated “early voting” days intended to accommodate people who’ll be out of town or can’t get away from their jobs on Election Day. Some persist in using outmoded, prone-to-malfunction voting machines that force would-be voters to stand in line for hours in order to cast their ballots. Those of us who were around 50 years ago this week, when the landmark civil rights law was passed, knew it wouldn’t be easy for the country to overcome its long, shameful history of discrimination. We were sad, but not surprised, when the hundreds of college kids who went south in that summer of ‘64 to work for civil rights were beaten and spat upon — and in three cases murdered. But we also had plenty of reason for hope, including the presence of a strong, bipartisan coalition in Congress in support of civil rights, and voting rights laws in particular. Where today’s Congress is all but paralyzed by partisanship, Capitol Hill in 1964 was a place where Democrats and Republicans often found ways to compromise on behalf of the public interest. There is a chance this week to advance the difficult work of recapturing that spirit, and a new struggle for voting rights provides it.

Arkansas: ACLU asks judge to halt Arkansas voter ID law | Associated Press

A civil liberties group asked an Arkansas judge Tuesday to block the state from enforcing its voter ID law, saying more than 1,000 people were disenfranchised during last month’s primary election because of the requirement that they show photo identification before casting a ballot. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled last month that the voter ID requirement was unconstitutional but suspended his ruling, allowing the requirement to stay in place during the May 20 primary and June 10 runoff election. The primary was the first statewide test of the law, which took effect in January. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas on Tuesday asked Fox to lift his stay, saying 933 absentee ballots and 131 ballots cast in person during the primary were thrown out because of the new law.