Nigeria: Jega promises improved 2015 elections as senator rules out electronic voting | Premium Times Nigeria

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Attahiru Jega, on Tuesday assured that the Commission will improve on its performance in the 2015 general elections. Mr. Jega stated this during the public presentation of INEC Strategic Plan (2012-2016) in Abuja where the Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, Alkali Jajere, ruled out electronic voting in the 2015 polls. Mr. Jega, who was responding to the suggestions made by the leaders of some of the political parties that INEC should sit up in order to ensure smooth and successful polls, come 2015, said the Commission would be transparent and accountable to retain the confidence stakeholders have in it.

Russia: Vote monitoring group suspended under ‘foreign agent’ law | Reuters

Russia suspended an independent election monitoring group for six months on Wednesday, for failing to register as a “foreign agent” under a law that President Vladimir Putin’s critics say is part of a crackdown on dissent. The Moscow-based group, Golos, angered the government by publicizing evidence of fraud in a 2011 parliamentary vote that sparked opposition protests, and at the presidential election that returned Putin to the Kremlin for a third term last year. It is the first non-governmental organization (NGO) to have its operations suspended under the law Putin signed last July as part of a drive to decrease what he has said were efforts by Western countries to meddle in Russian politics. Golos denies it falls under the law, which obliges NGOs that receive any foreign funding and are deemed to be involved in political activity to register as “foreign agents”.

National: High court voids key part of Voting Rights Act | Associated Press

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced unless Congress comes up with a new way of determining which states and localities require federal monitoring of elections. The justices said in 5-4 vote that the law Congress most recently renewed in 2006 relies on 40-year-old data that does not reflect racial progress and changes in U.S. society. The court did not strike down the advance approval requirement of the law that has been used, mainly in the South, to open up polling places to minority voters in the nearly half century since it was first enacted in 1965. But the justices did say lawmakers must update the formula for determining which parts of the country must seek Washington’s approval, in advance, for election changes. Chief Justice John Roberts said for the conservative majority that Congress “may draft another formula based on current conditions.”

National: Supreme Court limits federal oversight of Voting Rights Act | CNN.com

A deeply divided Supreme Court has limited use of a key provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating the key enforcement provision that applies to all or parts of 15 states with past history of voter discrimination. The case involved Section 5, which gives federal authorities open-ended oversight of states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered areas — which include all or parts of 16 states — must be “pre-cleared” with Washington.

National: Supreme Court strikes down part of Voting Rights Act | NBC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the map that determines which states must get federal permission before they change their voting laws. Civil rights activists called the decision devastating, and a dissenting justice said it amounted to the “demolition” of the law, widely considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation in American history. The ruling, a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, leaves the future of the law deeply uncertain because it will be up to a sharply divided Congress to redraw the map, if it can agree on one at all. “In practice, in reality, it’s probably the death knell of this provision,” said Tom Goldstein, the publisher of SCOTUSblog and a Supreme Court analyst for NBC News. … Roberts cited census data showing that black voter turnout now exceeds white turnout in five of the six states originally covered by the law. “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote for the court.

National: After Supreme Court ruling, states see green light for voter ID laws | CNN

With the Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday on the Voting Rights Act, Mississippi and Texas announced they’re ready to move forward with their controversial voter identification laws. Eleven states in the past two years have approved laws that would require voters to show identification at voting booths. But Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required some of those states with a history of voter discrimination to get “precleared” by the federal government before making any changes to voting laws. A separate part of the law known as Section 4 relies on a federal formula to determine which states would be covered under that “preclearance” regime. Requests by Texas and Mississippi for clearance in their voter ID laws were pending with the federal government when the high court struck down the constitutionality of the act’s Section 4 on Tuesday, which also appears to have nullified Section 5.

National: Minority lawmakers call Voting Rights Act ruling a huge setback | Politico.com

Black and Hispanic lawmakers are infuriated by Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision striking down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, calling it a huge setback for the political rights — and influence — of minority voters. These minority lawmakers believe there eventually could be an effort by Republican-controlled legislatures in some Southern states to challenge majority-minority congressional districts, threatening the power of African-Americans, Hispanic and minority lawmakers. Democratic leaders and rank-and-file members also see little chance that the current Congress — with its deep partisan divisions and GOP-controlled House — will do anything to address the high court’s ruling or the concerns of minority groups nationwide. “Today, an activist Supreme Court cynically legislating from the bench in Jim Crow style, engaged in an historic overreach, ignoring their own precedents and disregarding clear and convincing evidence of ongoing discrimination at the polls,” declared Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).

National: The Best Lines From Ginsburg’s Dissent on the Voting Rights Act Decision | Mother Jones

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a fiery dissent to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision Tuesday striking down the part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that determines which cities and states need to seek approval from the Department of Justice before changing their voting laws. The provision was designed to focus attention on areas with a history of discrimination. “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA,” Ginsburg wrote. Here are five key excerpts from her dissent:

“When confronting the most constitutionally invidious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system, Congress’ power to act is at its height.”

“Demand for a record of violations equivalent to the one earlier made would expose Congress to a catch-22. If the statute was working, there would be less evidence of discrimination, so opponents might argue that Congress should not be allowed to renew the statute. In contrast, if the statute was not working, there would be plenty of evidence of discrimination, but scant reason to renew a failed regulatory regime.”

“Just as buildings in California have a greater need to be earthquake­ proofed, places where there is greater racial polarization in voting have a greater need for prophylactic measures to prevent purposeful race discrimination.”

Editorials: The Chief Justice’s Long Game | Rick Hasen/New York Times

In an opinion brimming with a self-confidence that he hides behind a cloak of judicial minimalism, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for a conservative Supreme Court majority in Shelby County v. Holder, cripples Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The court pretends it is not striking down the act but merely sending the law back to Congress for tweaking; it imagines that Congress forced its hand; and it fantasizes that voting discrimination in the South is a thing of the past. None of this is true. In the Shelby decision, we see a somewhat more open version of a pattern that is characteristic of the Roberts court, in which the conservative justices tee up major constitutional issues for dramatic reversal. First the court wrecked campaign finance law in Citizens United. On Tuesday it took away a crown jewel of the civil rights movement. And as we saw in Monday’s Fisher case, affirmative action is next in line, even if the court wants to wait another year or two to pull the trigger. Imagine striking down affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act in the same week!

Editorials: Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act: Goodbye to Section 5 | Heather Gerken/Slate Magazine

The Supreme Court struck down the crown jewel of the Civil Rights movement today. Section 5 was the most powerful tool in the movement’s arsenal. Although I’m a law professor and thus supposed to be opining on the court’s decision and Congress’ potential response, I want to spend a little time mourning Section 5’s passing before hashing out the consequences. To understand why Section 5 was special, you have to know a bit about its history. The brutal attacks on civil rights marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge provided the push needed to pass the Voting Rights Act. When the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, almost no African-Americans were registered to vote in the Deep South due to brutal repression and sickening legal chicanery.  Civil rights litigators and the Department of Justice were doing their best to help. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit to make it possible for blacks to register. But every time a court deemed one discriminatory practice illegal, local officials would switch to another. Literacy tests, poll taxes, burdensome registration requirements—these techniques were all used to prevent African-Americans from voting. Southern voting registrars would even resign from their positions as soon as a lawsuit was on the cusp of succeeding, thereby sending the case back to square one. The Voting Rights Act aimed to change all of this.

Editorials: Shelby Commentary: What does the Court’s decision mean? | Richard Pildes/SCOTUSblog

I have called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) a “sacred symbol” of American democracy.  For that reason, the Supreme Court’s momentous decision holding unconstitutional a part of the Act – Section 4, for short — that had continued to apply, nearly fifty years later, uniquely to the South, is itself laden with deep symbolic meaning.  But what is that meaning? In truth, the decision will express such radically different meanings to different people that we will not be able to forge common ground regarding even the threshold question of what the decision is “about.”  Starting from such irreconcilable symbolic places, any discussion of the actual opinions themselves will be almost beside the point.

Voting Blogs: My Initial Thoughts on the Shelby County Voting Rights Act Case | SpencerOverton.com

The preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act required that all or part of 15 states submit their election changes to federal officials for approval.  Today, five members of the Court ruled that the Section 4 coverage formula of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and can no longer be used to require that areas preclear their election rules with federal officials.  The Court invalidated the coverage formula because the Justices believed the formula was based on outdated election data from the 1960s and 1970s. Today’s Supreme Court decision is a setback for democracy. Unfortunately, today’s decision gives politicians even more power to unfairly manipulate election rules and target Americans based on how they look or talk.  There is overwhelming evidence that unfair voting rules remain a very real threat—too many political operatives currently manipulate rules to diminish the voices of growing minority communities.

Mississippi: Voter ID law expected to be used by 2014 | The Sun Herald

Mississippi voters could have to start showing photo identification at the polls by the June 2014 federal primaries, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled certain state and local governments no longer need federal approval to change their own election laws or procedures. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has required Mississippi and other areas with a history of racial discrimination, mainly in the South, to get clearance for changes as large as implementing a voter ID law to as small as relocating a precinct. Justices said the Voting Rights Act does not reflect racial progress made in the United States over the past 48 years, even after it was last renewed in 2006. They said the preclearance portion of the law can’t be enforced unless Congress comes up with a new formula to determine which state or local governments should be covered, based on what Chief Justice John Roberts called “current conditions” in the United States.

New Jersey: Legislation To Allow In-Person Early Voting During Special Election Advances | Politicker NJ

Legislation sponsored by Senator Nia H. Gill to improve access to the polls and maximize turnout in the fall elections by giving voters the opportunity to vote early during the Special Election called by Governor Christie, at the same polling place, for the November General Election was advanced today by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. The measure is scheduled to be considered today by the full Assembly. “The governor has created a confusing election schedule for New Jersey voters by calling a Special Election in mid-October, and in the process is wasting $12 million in taxpayer money,” said Senator Gill (D-Essex and Passaic). “His decision will mean two elections will be held just weeks apart, which may lead to decreased voter participation. The least we can do is provide voters the opportunity to cast their ballots for the General Election on the same day, which will ensure a more convenient alternative for voters and improved access to the polls.”

North Carolina: State Senator: Voter ID bill moving ahead with ruling | News 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 key 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’s 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 now be rolled out in the Senate next week. The ruling essentially means a voter ID or other election legislation approved in this year’s session probably won’t have to receive advance approval by U.S. Justice Department attorneys or a federal court before such measures can be carried out. “I guess we’re safe in saying this decision was what we were expecting,” Apodaca said in an interview.

Texas: Texas rushes ahead with voter ID law after supreme court decision | guardian.co.uk

Officials in Texas said they would rush ahead with a controversial voter ID law that critics say will make it more difficult for ethnic minority citizens to vote, hours after the US supreme court released them from anti-discrimination constraints that have been in place for almost half a century. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, declared that in the light of the supreme court’s judgment striking down a key element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act he was implementing instantly the voter ID law that had previously blocked by the Obama administration. “With today’s decision, the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately. Photo identification will now be required when voting in elections in Texas.” The provocative speed with which Texas has raced to embrace its new freedoms underlines the high-stakes nature of the supreme court ruling. Civil rights leaders declared the judgment to be a major setback to the fight against race discrimination in the south that has been a running sore in the US since the civil war. “This is devastating,” the reverend Al Sharpton told MSNBC. Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, called the outcome “outrageous. The court’s majority put politics over decades of precedent and the rights of voters. We are more vulnerable to the flood of attacks we have seen in recent years.”

Albania: EU urges Albania to adhere to election standards | Europe Online

The European Union on Tuesday congratulated Albania for its “overall orderly” parliamentary election despite violent incidents, but urged the Balkan country to complete the process in accordance with international norms. “We condemn the reported cases of violence and expect that these incidents will be fully investigated and perpetrators brought to justice,” the EU‘s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said. “Now it is important that the remaining stages of the election process are conducted in line with EU and international standards,” they said.

Mongolia: Mongolians go to the polls in presidential election | Deutsche Welle

Polls have opened for the Mongolian presidential election, with surveys suggesting incumbent Tsakhia Elbegdorj will win a second term. All three candidates are promising fairer wealth distribution from a mining boom. Voters in Mongolia went to the polls on Wednesday morning with election campaigning dominated by a national debate over mineral rights. Recent polls indicate that President Elbegdorj will retain the presidency, campaigning on a policy of using foreign cash to drive development. Since he was elected for a first term in 2009, Elbegdorj has also led a drive against corruption.Elbegdorj’s main challenger is likely to be Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) candidate Baterdene Badmaanyambuu, a former champion wrestler. Baterdene – who is particularly popular among rural voters – has portrayed himself as being committed to upholding national unity and has helped to draw up a new environmental protection law amid concern about the ravages of the recent mining boom.

Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Wants Poll Date Proclamation Nullified | allAfrica.com

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday filed an application at the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe seeking to nullify the proclamation by President Mugabe setting July 31 as the date for the harmonised elections. The application came as MDC-T delegates from the country’s 10 provinces gathered in Harare to sign Mr Tsvangirai’s nomination papers ahead of the sitting of the Nomination Court at Mapondera Building on Thursday. It also followed a recent meeting the MDC-T convened in the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights boardroom earlier this month to brainstorm on what it called “Strategic Election Litigation” designed to increase the workload of the Constitutional Court to prevent it from dealing with cases on time.

National: Justices to rule soon on divisive voting rights case | CNN.com

Shelby County is booming. The Birmingham suburb is lined with strip malls, subdivisions, and small factories, in what was once sleepy farmland. The population has grown fivefold since 1970 to about 200,000. Change is afoot in this bedroom community, at least on the surface. But the federal government thinks an underlying threat of discrimination remains throughout Alabama and other parts of the country in perhaps the most hard-fought franchise in the Constitution: the right to vote. Competing voices in this county, echoes of decades-long debates over equal access to the polls, now spill out in a 21st century fight, one that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

National: Anticipation builds for Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act | The Post and Courier

Joyce Ladner was a senior at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., in the early 1960s when she failed the voter registration literacy test for the third time. But she said she already knew the registrar would not pass her because she was black. And aside from questions like, “How many grains of salt are in a quart jar,” one stood out to her and she knew her answer would not sit well with the registrar. “What are the characteristics of a good citizen?” she read. Her response: “One who follows just laws and disobeys unjust laws.”  Ladner later registered under a court order and helped others exercise that same right by working as a field organizer with her sister Dorrie Ladner and South Carolina native Cleveland Sellers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On Aug. 6, 1965, after years of tumultuous violence and lives lost, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

National: Documents show IRS also screened liberal groups | Associated Press

The Internal Revenue Service’s screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency acknowledged Monday. Terms including ‘‘Israel,’’ ‘’Progressive’’ and ‘‘Occupy’’ were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination, according to an internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press. The IRS has been under fire since last month after admitting it targeted tea party and other conservative groups that wanted the tax-exempt designation for tough examinations. While investigators have said that agency screening for those groups had stopped in May 2012, Monday’s revelations made it clear that screening for other kinds of organizations continued until earlier this month, when the agency’s new chief, Danny Werfel, says he discovered it and ordered it halted.

National: Eliminating problems at polls goal of presidential commission | The Clarion-Ledger

A presidential commission set up to address long lines and other problems at the polls will turn to voters, local officials and researchers in crafting a plan to improve election systems. The Presidential Commission on Election Administration, created by President Barack Obama early this year, will hold a public hearing Friday in Miami followed by hearings in Denver on Aug. 8, Philadelphia, Pa., on Sept. 4 and an unspecified city in Ohio on Sept. 20. The commission held its first public meeting Friday in Washington. “Our goal… is to keep attention very active on this issue,” said Robert Bauer, co-chairman of the commission and general counsel to Obama’s 2012 campaign. “Please help us ferret out the information that we need.” The hearings come as public attention turns to major voting issues.

Editorials: Turning the political map into a partisan weapon – The GOP’s national effort to control redistricting has cemented its grip on the House | Boston Globe

In the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains, protests and rallies erupt in this city’s downtown square on any given night. Aging hippies and veterans gather at the foot of a granite obelisk known as the monument to tolerance and wave cardboard signs asking motorists to honk against drone warfare and in support of universal health care. Several Asheville preachers openly advocate for gay marriage, a rarity in the South; it is enough to move one GOP state lawmaker to label the entire community a “cesspool of sin.” Asheville has long carried the distinction of being an island of Democratic blue in a sea of Republican red. For six years, the largest city in western North Carolina was represented in the US House by a moderate Democrat who embodied the party’s playbook for the conservative region: a former NFL quarterback named Heath Shuler. But Shuler decided against seeking reelection last year after the playing field shifted beneath him. A state Legislature controlled by Republicans redrew his district — splitting liberal Asheville in two and diluting the city’s voting power. Shuler stood little chance of winning another term under the redrawn map.

Voting Blogs: Reflections of a Prodigal Election Administrator | Election Administration Theories and Praxis

After nearly two months back in California and back in the society of Election Officials, I have made many observations about the art and profession of administering elections.  Most of these observations are not new but I am seeing them anew and from a slightly different perspective of a scholar and a returning “prodigal”.  I know that after a few more months, I will probably re-assimilate and will lose the perspectives I presently enjoy. I am always struck and am somewhat in awe of the dedication and hard work of election staffs which are repeatedly demonstrated and which have become central features of a powerful professional culture.  The ability, and even the willingness, to do more of the impossible with even less is the hallmark of dedicated election officials.  Hard work, long hours and working weekends never discourage election officials; in fact, they are a badge of honor of sorts.  As a result of the enormity of the work, the intense public scrutiny and the under-appreciation of their efforts, election officials celebrate their underdog status.  It is understandable if, during this celebration of their resilience and ability to perform the impossible, a sense of fatalism, victimhood and martyrdom creep into the way the business of elections is conceived, planned and conducted.

Voting Blogs: Presidential Commission’s Task: Focus on the Little Things | Election Academy

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration convened for the first time last Friday in preparation for its first public hearing this week in Miami. Much of the coverage of the Commission has focused on the unlikelihood that its deliberations will yield any kind of federal legislative activity, leading some to wonder what the body will be able to accomplish. But in many ways, that lack of legislative urgency should be an asset to the Commission, especially since the topics the group has been tasked with covering lie outside the “hot button” issues that have consumed the debate over the last several years.

Arizona: Foes vow to fight new ballot qualification requirements | AZ Central

Libertarian Barry Hess said he’s determined to run for governor next year, even though he’ll face a 4,380 percent increase in the number of signatures he’ll need to qualify for the ballot. For Democrats, it’s a 9.8 percent increase. Meanwhile, any Republican seeking the seat will have a 5.8 percent decrease in the signature requirement. The shifting numbers are due to a late addition to a wide-ranging election bill that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law last week. The measure was favored by Republicans, who flexed some local and national muscle to revive House Bill 2305 in the waning hours of the recently completed legislative session.

Kansas: One-third of Kansas voter registration applications held up | Kansas City Star

Roughly one-third of all voter registration applications submitted in Kansas since Jan. 1 are in “suspense” because applicants could not provide proof of citizenship, but some say a flawed computer upgrade is responsible for most of the problem. Six months after the state started requiring new voters to prove their citizenship, 11,101 people who attempted to register were considered unqualified to vote because of lack of proof of citizenship, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. During that period, 20,780 have been added to the voter rolls, according to figures provided by the Kansas secretary of state’s office. When people show proof of U.S. citizenship to get a driver’s license in Kansas, the documentation is not making it to election officials for voter registration purposes, said Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew. “There are quite a few in suspense across the state, and we (in Douglas County) are no different than that,” Shew said.

New Jersey: Assembly passes two Democrat-sponsored special election bills | NorthJersey.com

Democrats continued their fight today against the October special election Governor Christie ordered to fill the late Frank Lautenberg’s U.S. Senate seat. One bill that passed a Senate committee and the full Assembly would combine the general and special elections, moving the general from Nov. 5 to Oct. 16. Another, somewhat contradictory bill, would allow New Jerseyans to cast their general election ballot when they vote in the special election. That legislation also passed the full Assembly and the Senate Budget Committee. The two bills passed mostly along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republican against. Democrats said the legislation would make it easier for voters to participate in both elections, while Republicans argued the proposals were unnecessary.

Pennsylvania: Battle looms at voter ID trial | Associated Press

Pennsylvania’s long-sidelined voter identification law is about to go on trial. Civil libertarians who contend that the statute violates voters’ rights persuaded a state judge to bar enforcement of the photo ID requirement during the 2012 presidential election and the May primary. But those were temporary orders based on a narrower context; the trial set to begin July 15 in Commonwealth Court will explore the more complicated constitutional questions. It could be the beginning of a long process. Lawyers in the case say a panel of Commonwealth Court judges may weigh in following the trial, before what both sides expect will be an appeal by the loser to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.