Alabama: N.A.A.C.P. President Arrested During Sit-In at Office of Jeff Sessions | The New York Times

Protesters from the N.A.A.C.P., including its national president, were arrested on Tuesday after an hourslong sit-in at the Mobile, Ala., office of Senator Jeff Sessions, where they demanded that he withdraw his name from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general. Almost two dozen civil rights activists occupied the office around 11 a.m. to denounce what they called the senator’s “hostile” attitude toward civil rights and the Voting Rights Act, which was weakened by a Supreme Court decision in 2013. The sit-in ended shortly after 6:30 p.m. when the protesters refused an order from the building’s management to leave the premises. It was not immediately clear how many people had been arrested, but a live-stream broadcast on Facebook by Lee Hedgepeth, a local journalist, showed at least six people agreeing to be arrested and kneeling before the police in prayer.

Alabama: Department of Transportation: Alabama to expand driver’s license office hours after probe | AL.com

U.S. Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday that Alabama has agreed to expand driver's license office hours after determining that black residents in the state were disproportionately hurt by a slate of closures and reductions in 2015. The federal agency launched an investigation last year after Alabama, citing budget concerns, shuttered 31 part-time offices where examiners gave driving tests about once per week. The state said the closures were aimed at the offices that issued the fewest licenses each year, but the closures also came down hard on rural and heavily minority communities. It left more than a third of Alabama's 67 counties without a license office, including eight of the state's 11 counties with a majority African-American population.

Alabama: Suit over 2012 redistricting still unresolved | Associated Press

Over a year-and-a-half ago, the nation's high court said Senate Minority Leader Quinton Ross' Montgomery district might have to be redrawn. Ross, along with other legislators, is still waiting for a final decision. "There hasn't been a final decision made, but we're hopeful they'll decide on a remedy for the issue," Ross, a Democrat, said in a recent interview. The case -- which could affect other districts and shake up the 2018 elections for the Alabama Legislature -- remains in the hands of a three-judge panel. "We didn't expect it to take this long," said James Blacksher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in a recent interview. "We don't know why it has taken so long. Hopefully, we'll have a decision soon." The Republican-controlled Legislature passed new legislative district maps in 2012 after a contentious special session, using a strict standard not allowing House and Senate districts to go above or below 1 percent of their ideal population. Many GOP-controlled legislatures in the South used a similarly strict standard, which tended to separate black and white voters.

Alabama: 1985 civil rights voting-fraud case may follow Sessions during confirmation hearing | AL.com

A failed voting-fraud prosecution from more than 30 years ago could re-emerge as a contentious issue during Sen. Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing for attorney general. Sessions was dogged by his handling of the case as U.S. attorney during his 1986 confirmation hearing for a federal judgeship, when he tried to fend off complaints of a wrongful prosecution. He devoted more space to that case than any other in a questionnaire he submitted this month to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the attorney general post, suggesting the matter is likely to come up again during his Jan. 10-11 confirmation hearing before the panel. The 1985 prosecution involved three black civil rights activists, including a former adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., who were accused of illegally tampering with large numbers of absentee ballots in rural Perry County, Alabama. The defendants argued that they were assisting voters who were poor, uneducated and in some cases illiterate, and marked the ballots with the voters' permission. A jury acquitted the three after just a few hours of deliberation. Howard Moore Jr., a member of the defense team, said he didn't think it was a legitimate prosecution. "That's why we defended the case so vigorously," he said in an interview. "We felt that it would have had a chilling effect, if they had been convicted, throughout the south."

Alabama: Secretary of State: Reprinted ballots cost $459,690 | The News Courier

An error that forced the reprinting of 2,917,201 general election ballots will cost the state of Alabama $459,690.80, according to Secretary of State John Merrill. The ballot had to be reprinted to add the complete required language to the ballot in order to capture the entire statement that had been prepared in the original legislation. Once the error was discovered, Merrill immediately contacted the service provider and instructed them to stop printing the ballots. All required ballot styles had not yet been printed. Merrill then directed his staff to make the required, corrected changes and recertify the corrected ballot language to the vendor so printing could be completed.

Alabama: Mobile County Still Working to Recount Results After Error | WKRG

The ballots are being recounted, but it’s not for the presidential election. This time it’s for Mobile County’s pay as you go measure. It was the last measure on the ballot last Tuesday. And according to Election Systems and Software, the company that runs the ballot machines, a wrong test pattern was used to program the machines. That resulted in 99.7 percent of votes favoring the measure. While many voters called in with concerns and filed complaints, it took a few days to figure out exactly what happened. The company has since taken accountability. “We obviously made a mistake originally for election day, we regret that. We’ve gone back in we’ve corrected the error there in the personal program, we’ve marked ballots we’ve double checked, we’ve triple checked, we’ve run test we’re confident today is 100 percent accurate,” said Mark Kelley with Election Systems and Software.

Alabama: Mobile County Officials Admit Election Counting Error | WKRG

The Mobile County Probate Court website still shows that the County’s “pay as you go” construction measure passed with 99.7 percent of the vote. “This was like the perfect storm,” said Judge Don Davis, Mobile Probate Court. But as we’ve learned that’s incorrect. Judge Davis had to wait to figure it all out before he could say there was a problem. … At least 12 complaints were filed with the State Secretary’s Office over these results, leaving Judge Davis in the hot seat. But this Monday a representative for the voting machine is taking the blame. “This issue an issue Election Systems & Software performed, it’s a human issue. The machines counted as they were told to count and the oval was not in the right place,” said Kathy Rogers, Election Systems & Software. Essentially the wrong test ballot was used for the machines to count up the votes.

Alabama: Voters report broken voting machines, untrained staff, other problems | AL.com

Election Day 2016 is finally here, and many thousands of people across the state have already cast their ballots in one of the most divisive presidential contests of our time. The chance for Alabama voters to make their voices heard and finally decide between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and to weigh in on a host of local races and state constitutional amendments is finally here. Proud voters from Gulf Shores to Gadsden are posting photos of their "I Voted" stickers on all manner of social media, and candidates at all levels of government are biting their nails, glued to news reports on their TV screens and Twitter feeds.

Alabama: 25 counties will test iPad-based voter list in November | AL.com

Voters at selected polling places in 25 Alabama counties will check in via an iPad-based system this November. The system is part of a pilot program backed by Alabama Secretary of state John Merrill, in which an electronic system replaces the paper printouts of voter rolls that poll workers use to check off qualified voters as they prepare to cast their ballots. It applies only to that part of the process, not the creation of the voter rolls or the actual voting. Voters still will cast their votes on the same machines they've been using. … John Bennett, deputy chief of staff for Merrill, said that each participating county will have enough of KNOWiNK's Poll Pad setups to deploy them at a few polling places, meaning that even in those counties most voters may not see them. But for those who do use the affected polling places, things will work a little differently. Instead of going to a specific line based on the first letter of his or her last name, a voter will simply go to whichever line is shortest. If the voter presents a driver license, the system will be able to scan it; if they're using a different form of approved ID, the poll worker will look up the voter by name.

Alabama: Counties to take up cost of voting machines designed aid visual and hearing impaired voters | WAAY

Voting machines designed to help visual and hearing impaired have been in place for years, but the cost of maintaining them will soon fall back from the state to the counties. According to the Alabama Secretary of State's office, the state received about $45 million in 2002 from the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) fund. That money was put toward updating old voting machines and creating an online voter registration system. During this summer's meeting of the Alabama Probate Judge's Association, Secretary John Merrill talked about the fact that the funds are all but gone at this point and that counties will need to take up the cost of running and maintaining these machines.

Alabama: Suit Accuses Alabama of Bias in Law That Bars Some Felons From Voting | The New York Times

Constance Todd, 70 years old and a diligent voter in elections local and national, did not know what to make of the letter she got from the local registrar this month. “You have been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude,” it read, apparently referring to a conviction for a series of bad checks from 20 years ago, “which disqualifies you from voting under Amendment 579 of the Constitution of Alabama.” A puzzled Ms. Todd gathered the official documents she keeps on hand, including the photo ID she had been required to obtain for voting in Alabama, and called her son, Timothy Lanier. He knew exactly what this was about. He knew, from a similar letter he had received himself. He also knew from his long days at the prison library learning about state laws by poring over the State Constitution. And, as it just so happened, Mr. Lanier is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court in Alabama, claiming that the state law stripping the vote from any person “convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude” — a law that has left more than 250,000 adults in the state ineligible to vote — is racially discriminatory, indefensibly vague and flagrantly unconstitutional.

Alabama: Ban on felon voting rights target of lawsuit: Law called unconstitutional, racist | AL.com

Alabama's policy of stripping convicted felons' of their right to vote is unconstitutional and steeped in a history of racial injustice, a group of plaintiffs say in federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. The Greater Birmingham Ministries and 10 Alabamians who are not allowed to vote because of a past felony conviction filed the lawsuit Monday in Montgomery federal court. They argue that the blanket ban is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote, unfairly punishes people long after their sentences are complete and disproportionately impacts minority communities. "It is inextricably tied to Alabama's long history of denying black citizens voting rights and equal access to the polls, using the criminal justice system to achieve those goals," lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the suit. The lawsuit quoted 2014 statistics from the Sentencing Project that estimated more than 260,000 people were blocked from voting in Alabama. Nearly half of those were African-American and equated to 15 percent of the adult black population. Ten individual plaintiffs are named in the suit but they are asking the court to declare it a class action.

Alabama: Lawsuit seeks to overturn Alabama’s felon voting rights ban | Associated Press

Alabama's policy of stripping convicted felons' of their right to vote is unconstitutional and steeped in a history of racial injustice, a group of plaintiffs say in federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. The Greater Birmingham Ministries and 10 Alabamians who are not allowed to vote because of a past felony conviction filed the lawsuit Monday in Montgomery federal court. They argue that the blanket ban is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote, unfairly punishes people long after their sentences are complete and disproportionately impacts minority communities. "It is inextricably tied to Alabama's long history of denying black citizens voting rights and equal access to the polls, using the criminal justice system to achieve those goals," lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the suit. The lawsuit quoted 2014 statistics from the Sentencing Project that estimated more than 260,000 people were blocked from voting in Alabama. Nearly half of those were African-American and equated to 15 percent of the adult black population. Ten individual plaintiffs are named in the suit but they are asking the court to declare it a class action.

Alabama: Lawsuit filed over how Alabama elects judges | Birmingham Business Journal

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit today on behalf of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and four individual black voters alleging that the method of electing Alabama’s most powerful judges violates the Voting Rights Act. The suit claims Alabama’s statewide method of electing members of the Alabama Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals and Court of Civil Appeals deprives the African-American community of the ability to elect any judges of their choice. The suit alleges, since only one fourth of the state's population is black, a statewide election for these judges prevents the black voters from having any judicial representation. Currently, all 19 of Alabama’s appellate judges are white.

Alabama: This November, some Alabama voters will sign in on iPad-based system | AL.com

There might be no way to soften the polarizing nature of this year's presidential candidates, but some Alabama election officials have high hopes that new technology will smooth the way for voters this November. The Alabama Secretary of State's office is backing a trial program that will deploy an iPad-based system at some polling places throughout the state. The tablets won't take the place of conventional voting machines, but they will be used to check voters in, replacing the conventional bulky printouts of voter lists – and, proponents say, taking some human error out of the equation. It's a pilot program, so most voters won't see it. According to the secretary of state's office, indications are that more than half the state's 67 counties will opt to take part, with each using it at a limited number of polling places. Early adopters include Barbour, Hale, Houston, Jackson, Jefferson, Madison, Morgan and Shelby counties.

Alabama: Voter ID rulings could impact Alabama | Montgomery Advertiser

A lawsuit challenging Alabama’s voter ID law is set for trial next year, but a wave of court decisions is giving hope to voting rights activists who say the Alabama law should be tossed because it makes it harder for people, especially minorities, to cast ballots. Federal judges in North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin have ruled that certain state election laws – intended to guard against voter fraud – have gone too far and are unfairly denying people their rightful chance to vote. None of those court decisions are binding on Alabama. But a lawyer for Alabama residents who were unable to vote in the March presidential primary because they couldn’t get the proper identification say they intend to use the rulings in arguments to the Alabama judge.

Alabama: Merrill initiates program to increase voter registration | Alabama Today

More Alabamians will be voting in the upcoming municipal elections and the general election in November if Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has anything to do with it. Merrill announced Thursday approximately 1.2 million eligible Alabamians who either are not registered to vote or in need of updating voter registration information will receive a Mail-In Voter Registration Application thanks to the state’s new partnership with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC — whose sole mission is assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens — will identify eligible citizens who are not yet registered to vote using a combination of public and private data to more accurately identify voters who have moved or died allowing voter rolls to be appropriately updated. Current, unregistered Alabama residents will receive a voter registration application in the mail from the secretary of state’s office following identification by ERIC.

Alabama: Bill would require driver’s license offices to be open 2 days a week | AL.com

On the last day of the legislative session last week, Alabama lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state to operate a driver's license office in every county at least two days a week. The bill, by Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 99-1 on Wednesday. It had earlier passed the Senate by a vote of 24-3.There was no immediate word from Gov. Robert Bentley's office on whether he will sign it into law. Bentley could let the bill die without his signature.

Alabama: Merrill can’t come up with proof of fraud in documentary on voter ID law | AL.com

In a newly released short documentary on Alabama's controversial voter ID law, Secretary of State John Merrill could not provide documented proof of voter fraud while explaining the rationale for the provision. "In Alabama, we want to make it real easy to vote and real hard to cheat," Merrill says in the 11-minute documentary produced by First Look Media, titled "The Black Belt." "People who have come into our state and said that Alabama's a backward state and this is a racial issue on closing the DMVs -- that's certainly not the case at all." Gov. Robert Bentley's decision to close 31 driver's licenses offices last year, which opponents said disproportionately affected minorities, the disabled and the poor, was made as the state faced a budget crunch. Driver's licenses are the most commonly used form of identification used at polling places, and only an accepted photo ID can be used to cast a ballot in Alabama. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton weighed in on the controversy during a visit to Hoover in October, calling the closures "a blast from the Jim Crow past."

Alabama: Runoffs consume time, money for low turnout | Times Daily

Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, said the simple fact is people aren’t interested runoff elections. “People don’t take them seriously,” said Ball. “Look at the participation — that tells you what people think of runoffs.” He referred to the lack of interest in the state’s April 12 runoff elections. According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s website, there are 1.35 million registered voters, but during Tuesday’s runoff elections just over 65,000 people voted. “It’s sad that this happens, but people forget about runoff elections,” said political science expert Bill Stewart, professor emeritus at the University of Alabama. Stewart said most states don’t have runoff elections anymore because they draw a small percentage of voters. That was evident in the Shoals. Out of 108,168 registered voters in Colbert, Franklin and Lauderdale counties, only 5,711 people voted in Tuesday’s runoff election.

Alabama: DOJ asked to investigate for possible voting rights violations | Alabama Today

The Washington, D.C.-based Voting Rights Institute (VRI) has called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Daphne, Alabama’s City Council’s March 21 decision to reduce the number of polling places in the city from five to two. VRI, a project of the American Constitution Society, Campaign Legal Center and Georgetown University Law Center, sent a letter Wednesday to the DOJ after receiving a complaint from African American leader and voter in Daphne, Willie Williams.

Alabama: Republicans Want to Limit Spending, Fundraising, Free Speech | Alabama Political Reporter

Twin bills in the Alabama House and Senate would severely limit the First Amendment and the spirit of Citizens United, by limiting funds raised or spent on campaigns and issues. SB356 and HB404 Sponsored respectively by Sen. Arthur Orr and Rep. Mike Jones would, “regulate the disclosure, raising, and spending of money to influence elections and governmental actions.” Alabama’s own Shaun McCutcheon, a hero to many in the State and nation, fought the FEC over campaign giving and won in the 2014 US Supreme Court ruling “McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission,” believes full disclosure is right, but to limit how much money can be raised or spent is unacceptable.

Alabama: Irregularity prompts Dale County to change voting machine process | Dothan Eagle

Cities and towns in Dale County that believed they rented voting machines from the Dale County Commission for past elections were actually renting those machines from a former county employee, Dale County Commission Chairman Mark Blankenship said Tuesday. Blankenship said he will send letters to municipalities in the county addressing changes on how to obtain voting machines for upcoming elections after confusion over how the process was handled before. For the municipal elections this summer, Blankenship said the municipalities will be able to rent the machines from Election Systems & Software (ES & S). The county obtains its machines from ES&S as well. Blankenship said the decision came after discovering that in years past, a former county employee who had access to the county's voting machines would take vacation from the county job in order to operate a company called Voting Machines Technology, in which municipalities were billed between $200 and $500 for use of the county’s voting machines.

Alabama: GOP: Keep Democrats out of our primary elections | AL.com

Imagine if Alabama football coach Nick Saban chose the players for the Auburn football team. Or vice versa with Auburn coach Gus Malzahn choosing the Alabama football team. That's the analogy Terri Lathan, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, made Monday in explaining why state GOP leaders want a closed primary in the future. A closed primary, of course, would allow only registered Republicans to vote in Republican primaries. In short, no Democrats allowed. And the same in the Democratic primary -- no Republicans allowed.

Alabama: You can vote without ID in Alabama if you know some election officials | Times Free Press

It helps to know someone at the polls for Alabama voters with no photo identification. Or maybe it's the other way around. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange announced Friday that a ruling last week in a lawsuit against the state challenging voter ID provisions will still allow anyone without a valid photo ID to cast a ballot as long as at least two election officials can positively identify them as a qualified voter. The suit, filed by Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, alleges Alabama violated the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in enacting the photo ID requirement to vote. The group calls Alabama's photo ID law suppressive and contends it "imposes significant and disproportionate burdens on African-American and Latino voters in the state," states a case update posted in December on the NAACP website.

Alabama: Judge will not block Alabama voter ID law | Associated Press

A federal judge Wednesday deciding against effectively suspending Alabama's law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler refused a preliminary injunction request to allow alternate means of identification for voters in the upcoming 2016 elections. Currently, a person without photo identification can vote if two poll workers sign affidavits saying they recognize and "positively identify" the voter. Greater Birmingham Ministries and the NAACP asked Coogler to expand that provision so people can vote if they provide certain identification documents without photos or information to identify themselves to poll workers.

Alabama: Popularity of online voter registration a headache for some local officials | Decatur Daily

The state’s new online voter registration system appears well on its way to becoming the preferred option for Alabamians looking to register or update their voter information. But the influx of new applications this election season also has meant long hours for local officials who must process the documents. Announced last week by the Alabama Secretary of State, the system allows residents to register to vote or update their voter information online. According to the office of the secretary of state, the system is designed to increase the accuracy of voter rolls and provide a more convenient alternative to the existing paper forms.

Alabama: State: Voter ID law provision expands ballot access | Montgomery Advertiser

A provision of Alabama’s voter identification law under fire expands access to the ballot and does not restrict it, the state argued in a filing last week. The measure in question, known as the “positively identify” provision, allows two election officials to give a person without proper identification the chance to vote, if the officials sign an affidavit swearing to the person’s identity. The provision forms the basis of a request to a federal judge from Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama NAACP to suspend the state’s photo ID law for the March 1 primary. In a brief filed Jan. 8, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the measure resembled Jim Crow-era voucher provisions “used for decades to discriminate against voters of color by subjecting their right to vote to ‘the passing whim or impulse’ of individual election officials.”

Alabama: High Court Rejects Alabama County’s Appeal Over Legal Fees | Associated Press

The Supreme Court said Monday that it won't hear an appeal from lawyers representing Shelby County, Alabama, who tried to recover $2 million in attorney fees from the U.S. government in a case that nullified a key part of the Voting Rights Act. Shelby County prevailed in 2013 when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to eliminate the Justice Department's ability to stop potentially discriminatory voting laws before they take effect. The county had challenged the constitutionality of a section of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices to get preclearance from the federal government before changing local voting protocol.