Alabama: Montgomery to be testing ground for new technology at polls | WSFA

Montgomery will be the first spot in the state where a new pilot program will be tested out at the polls in the upcoming municipal election. Secretary of State John Merrill discussed the plan for electronic poll books with Montgomery council members during their work session Tuesday afternoon, saying it will modernize the election process by speeding up check-in. ID’s will be scanned when voters arrive at their polling place, making things more efficient and helping to eliminate lines.

Alabama: Divisive absentee voter legislation set to come before Alabama House | AL.com

The Alabama Secretary of State’s Office is attempting to take its contentious voter ID law – enacted in 2011 – one step further by requiring a photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot. Why? Republicans, by and large, say it’s an extra measure to prevent voter fraud – something that is hard to track and very hard to prove. Democrats, however, aren’t convinced. Rep. Darrio Melton, D-Selma, said continuing to file bills to combat voter fraud is “playing to the politics of fear.” He filed a bill to let any registered voter cast an absentee ballot for any reason.

Alabama: House lists crimes that forfeit voting rights | Associated Press

The Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday listed which felony convictions will cause a person to lose voting rights, an issue that’s been the subject of debate, disagreement and at least one lawsuit. The Alabama Constitution dictates that people convicted of felonies involving “moral turpitude” are not able to vote. However, courts and state officials have wrestled with exactly what crimes are crimes of moral turpitude. House members voted 99-1 for the bill that lists 40 offenses that will strip a person of their right to vote. The disqualifying offenses range from capital murder to second-degree theft. A person would not lose voting rights for drug possession.

Alabama: House passes bill allowing voters over 70, disabled skip line at polling places | AL.com

A piece of legislation that would allow voters over the age of 70 and the disabled to avoid waiting in line at polling places passed in the Alabama House today after little discussion. Rep. David Standridge, R-Hayden, said he sponsored the bill after witnessing elderly citizens standing in long lines waiting to cast their votes. “This would just merely allow them to move up in line if they so request it,” he said today on the House floor.

Alabama: Redistricting case may take years to resolve | Montgomery Advertiser

The Alabama Legislature will probably get another chance to draw the state’s House and Senate maps if a lower court rules against the current one, and special elections in at least a handful of districts are at least possible. But how many elections; when they will take place and what the final map will look like will largely depend on how the legal and political processes play out, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday that reversed a lower court decision upholding the state’s 2012 redistricting plan. At least a handful of districts will likely need new boundaries. “It creates a domino effect, because you can’t change the boundaries of one district without changing boundaries of a another district,” said Michael Li, redistricting counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, in a phone interview Thursday. “The normal pattern would be to give the Legislature the chance to fix it themselves.”

Alabama: Supreme Court hands win to opponents of Alabama redistricting plan | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court sided with black challengers Wednesday and told a lower court to reconsider whether a redistricting plan drawn by Alabama’s Republican-led legislature packed minority voters into districts in order to dilute their influence. The court voted 5 to 4 to send the plan back for further judicial review. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the opinion, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy sided with the court’s liberals to make up the majority. The challenge was brought by black officeholders and Democrats who argued that the state’s Republican leadership packed minority voters into districts that allowed the election of African American officials but reduced their influence elsewhere.

Alabama: Supreme Court Rules Against Alabama in Redistricting Case | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the State Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. The vote was 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s four more liberal members to form a majority. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, said a lower court had erred in considering the case on a statewide basis rather than district by district. He added that the lower court had placed too much emphasis on making sure that districts had equal populations and had been “too mechanical” in maintaining existing percentages of black voters.

Alabama: Legislation that would move up voter registration deadline by 16 days dies in committee | AL.com

A piece of legislation that would prohibit registering to vote within 30 days of an election died in an Alabama House committee today. Under current law adopted law year, a voter can register to vote within 14 days of an election. Rep. Jack Williams, R-Birmingham, said he sponsored the bill this session after speaking with the Jefferson County registrar who said it is difficult to get a poll list ready in 14 days due to small staffs.

Alabama: House committee tables voter registration bill | Montgomery Advertiser

A House commitee Wednesday morning tabled a bill that would have pushed back the deadline to register and vote in an election from 14 days prior to the election to 30 days. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Jack Williams, R-Vestavia Hills, would also have moved out the maximum distance a candidate can campaign outside a polling place from 30 feet to 150 feet. Williams said afterward he believed the committee move effectively killed the legislation for the session.

Alabama: North of Selma, black leaders ‘fighting the same battle’ | The Washington Post

There will be no party here this weekend. While thousands are gathering just an hour or so south in Selma to remember one of the high marks of the civil rights movement, black leaders say there is nothing to celebrate. Political leaders, including President Obama, and foot soldiers of the movement are in Selma to observe the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march that helped to propel the passage of the Voting Rights Act. But this is Shelby County, a rural cluster of small towns, modest homes and farmland. It was here in 2013 that local officials won a major victory when the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the federal law that resulted from those historic marches in Selma, especially the first, on March 7, 1965, when peaceful protesters at the Edmund Pettus Bridge were beaten and tear-gassed.

Alabama: Bill would push back Alabama voter registration deadline | Montgomery Advertiser

A bill scheduled to appear in an Alabama House committee next Wednesday would move the registration cut-off date for an election from 14 days prior to the election to 30 days. The legislation follows a law passed last year that moved the cut-off date from 10 days before an election to 14 days. Supporters of that proposal said the state’s registrars needed the additional time to complete all the paperwork necessary for an election, but critics said the goal of the bill was to limit access to the ballot for poor and minority voters. Those arguments will return in the current debate.

Alabama: Run-off Election Timing Disenfranchises Overseas Military Voters | Courthouse News Service

Alabama’s mandate that runoff elections be held 42 days after an inconclusive federal primary pre-empts the right of overseas military personnel to participate via absentee ballots, the 11th Circuit ruled. “In our nation’s recent history, active military personnel and their families have faced severe difficulties exercising their fundamental right to vote,” said U.S. Circuit judge Stanley Marcus, writing for the three-judge panel. “For affected service members, the decision to serve their country was the very act that frequently deprived them of a voice in selecting its government,” Marcus added. To remedy the problem, Congress in 1986 passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which provides that a state must send absentee voters a ballot 45 days before a federal election.

Alabama: One of last vestiges of gutted immigration law, Alabama pushes voters for citizenship proof | AL.com

One of Alabama Secretary of State Jim Bennett’s last acts will be to try to implement one of the last provisions of the state’s controversial immigration law that has not already been resolved – a requirement that voters show proof of citizenship to register. Under that provision of the 2011 law, known as HB 56, people must show a driver’s license or some other valid form of identification in order to register to vote. But the state never implemented it while lawyers fought over the legality of the law’s broader measures, which sought to crack down on illegal immigration. The federal courts invalidated most of that law, and the state last year reached a permanent settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, agreeing to permanently black enforcement of seven provisions. Bennett announced last week, though, that the state will press ahead with the citizenship requirement now that the U.S. Senate has confirmed nominees to fill long-vacant seats on the Election Assistance Commission. That is the organization that must agree to change the federal voter registration form to comply with the state requirements.

Alabama: Case shows redistricting damage | Montgomery Advertiser

There are many things about this country that make us great: our economy, our military and our people, to name a few. But perhaps our greatest accomplishment has been democracy. Democracy is our most precious and cherished blessing, and it is the foundation of our freedom. As Americans, we have a fundamental birthright to control our government and determine who serves as our leaders. For more than two centuries, men and women have risked and sacrificed their lives to protect that right. But in one House district, District 89, more than 200 Alabamians were denied this basic right. Not intentionally or maliciously, but because of the convoluted manner in which our new legislative districts were drawn. Our districts, which are now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court because of the questionable manner in which they were gerrymandered, have no shortage of faults. But there are two main arguments that have fueled the debate: the “packing” of black voters into certain districts and the division of “communities of interests.”

Alabama: Photo voter ID law declared a success; not everyone agrees | AL.com

Secretary of State Jim Bennett said today that Alabama’s new photo voter ID law caused only a few inquiries to his office during the Nov. 4 election. The general election was the biggest test yet of the law, with 1.2 million people voting. It was in effect for the first time during the primaries in June. “We feel very good about the results of the implementation of that program,” Bennett said. The Republican-led Legislature passed the law in 2011, saying it would help prevent voter fraud. Voters were already required to show an ID, but could use those with no photo, like a Social Security card or utility bill. Many Democrats opposed the law, saying it was intended to suppress the vote by making it harder on the elderly and people with no driver’s license. Opponents also said there was little evidence of voter impersonation fraud.

Alabama: Justices Hear Black Lawmakers’ Challenge to Alabama Redistricting | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with the role race may play in drawing legislative maps. The issue was an old one, but the case had a novel twist: Wednesday’s challenge came from black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the state Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts. Justice Antonin Scalia said things have changed in how voting rights cases are litigated. “You realize, I assume, that you’re making the argument that the opponents of black plaintiffs used to make here,” he told Richard Pildes, a lawyer for one set of challengers. The problem with the Alabama districts, Mr. Pildes said, was that the Republican-controlled Legislature had used “rigid racial quotas” in drawing district lines. “Racial quotas in the context of districting are a dangerous business,” he said. “They can be a way of giving minorities faced with racially polarized voting a fair opportunity to elect, but they can also be a way of unnecessarily packing voters by race in ways that further polarize and isolate us by race.”

Alabama: Minority redistricting case seems to divide Supreme Court | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court seemed divided Wednesday over and perhaps even stumped by a request that Alabama redo its state legislative redistricting plan that challengers said was drawn with too much emphasis on the race of voters. The challenge was brought by black officeholders and Democrats who argued that the state’s Republican leadership packed minority voters into districts that allowed the election of African American officials but reduced their influence elsewhere. The court’s jurisprudence on when race can be used in drawing legislative districts, however, is complex and at times contradictory. And more than one justice pointed out during oral arguments that minority voters used to come to the court to demand that legislatures specifically use race in order to ensure that blacks and Hispanics be represented in government.

Alabama: Justices review racial makeup of Alabama districts | Associated Press

In last week’s elections, Alabama Republicans shrank their once-powerful Democratic opponents to just eight seats in the state Senate, all of them from districts in which African-Americans are a majority. Black Democrats say the GOP did it by misusing a landmark voting-rights law, intended to ensure the right to vote for southern blacks, to instead limit their voting strength. Republicans, they argue, relied too heavily on race to draw new electoral maps following the 2010 census. The case goes before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Last year a conservative majority on the court effectively blocked a key component of the Voting Rights Act, and this case will be watched closely for signs that the rest of the law could be in peril. Like other Southern states, Alabama has undergone a decades-long change in its electorate. White voters now overwhelmingly back Republicans, leaving black voters as the Democrats’ only reliable voting bloc.

Alabama: Justices to hear Alabama redistricting case | Montgomery Advertiser

Alabama’s complicated history of race and politics will be Exhibit A when the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in a case that could change how state lawmakers decide legislative boundaries. The justices will hear 70 minutes of argument about whether the Republicans in charge of Alabama’s legislature relied too heavily on race when they redrew state legislative maps after the 2010 census. Black Democrats allege that the GOP, which gained control of the legislature in the 2010 elections for the first time in more than a century, intentionally packed more black voters into already majority-black districts in order to make the other districts more friendly for Republicans.

Alabama: Race again at heart of voting- rights debate — but with twist | The Washington Post

Alongside the andouille gumbo, the crab-and-shrimp bisque and a succulent smoked pork shoulder, there was an endangered species featured at this town’s recent Taste of the South picnic. Her name is Susan Smith, and she is a white Democrat seeking election to the Alabama Senate. Such creatures used to rule the state, but only four remain among Alabama’s 35 senators. Two of them decided not to compete in Tuesday’s election after the Republican super-majority in the legislature redrew boundaries to make their districts more hospitable to GOP candidates. It’s a familiar story in the increasingly Republican South. But the Supreme Court has decided to step into this one and will hear arguments in the matter next week. The justices are being asked to find that, as has happened many times in Alabama’s history, race played an improper role in how the state was reapportioned. But the essence of the allegation is not that Republicans made it too hard for African American candidates to be elected. It’s that they made it too easy.

Alabama: Voter ID law changes absentee ballot process for elderly, disabled voters | AL.com

Voters who will be unable to go to the polling place on Nov. 4 must request an absentee ballot by today. “If a voter will be out of the county on the day of the election, has a physical illness, is in the military or is a student, is working as a poll worker or works a shift of over 10 hours or more, that voter may request and vote an absentee ballot,” Secretary of State Jim Bennett said. Absentee ballot applications can be downloaded from www.alabamavotes.gov and mailed to the Absentee Election Manager in the county where the voter is registered. (You can see that list here). A voter may also request an application by phone or receive an application from their Absentee Election Manager in person.

Alabama: Voter ID law blamed for at least 282 ballots uncounted in primary | AL.com

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is alleging that at least 282 ballots in the state’s June 3 primary election were not counted due to Alabama’s law requiring voters to show a valid photo identification card. In a letter dated today to Jean W. Brown, the Alabama Secretary of State’s chief legal adviser, the group raised concerns about disenfranchisement associated with the identification law during the primary election — the first statewide contest with the requirement. The organization obtained the figure after trying to contact election officials in each of Alabama’s 67 counties. Of the 49 counties that provided full or partial responses, the group determined that at least 282 voters “went uncounted solely due to the failure of otherwise eligible voters to provide ID,” according to the letter. The group’s figures included six in-person provisional ballots uncounted due to no photo identification and another 276 that were labeled as uncounted absentee ballots lacking an ID card.

Alabama: Court to weigh use of race in drawing political lines | USA Today

Democrat Quinton Ross has represented a pretty safe district in the Alabama state Senate since 2002, when 72% of its voting-age population was black. In his last two elections, he ran unopposed. When it came time to redraw the state’s political lines in 2012, however, Republicans who had won control of the state Legislature made it even safer for Ross, an African American. To replace voters who had moved away, they added 14,806 blacks and 36 whites to District 26, resulting in a 75% black majority. The Legislature’s artistry had the intended effect throughout the state, racially and politically. It solidified the ability of black voters to elect their favored candidates, as mandated by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And it made adjacent suburban and rural districts even more white – and more friendly to Republicans. “The district was already at a point where you had quite a few blacks,” Ross says. “Sometimes, you can just go overboard.”

Alabama: Black groups tell Supreme Court Alabama districts biased | Montgomery Advertiser

The Alabama Legislature will be further racially polarized by new district boundaries that pack more black voters into certain districts than the law requires, state black political groups told the Supreme Court last week. The justices agreed in June to hear the complaint from Alabama that the Republican majority went too far in using race to redistrict itself in 2012. The result, according to black Democratic legislators, is unusually high black majorities in districts surrounded by districts that are even more white. “The Constitution does not permit states to stumble into such excessively segregated election districts, whether through good faith or bad,” wrote lawyers for the Alabama Democratic Conference, one of the groups involved in the case.

Alabama: Ban on openly carrying gun at polls isn’t legal in Alabama | New York Times

When Jimmy Allen walked into the polling station at the Lakeview Volunteer Fire Department on June 3 to cast his ballot in Alabama’s primary election, he had no idea that the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson M&P Pro Series CORE pistol strapped to his side — a gun that fires 15 rounds from a magazine, plus the one already in the chamber — would raise eyebrows. Allen votes regularly, and no one had given his gun so much as a second glance before. But on this day, a polling official — his Aunt Rita, actually — took issue. “She threw her hands in the air and said, ‘No guns allowed!’  ” Allen recalled last week. “I laughed, because I thought she was being funny.”

Alabama: State spends $3 million on runoff | Gadsden Times

Alabama taxpayers will spend $3 million on a runoff election Tuesday that most citizens will skip. Alabama’s chief election official, Secretary of State Jim Bennett, said he expects about 5 percent of Alabama’ 2.85 million active voters to participate because of a lack of races that draw voters. “You have no extremely high profile elections,” Bennett said. His forecast is less than one-fourth of the 22 percent who turned out in the primary June 3. No party has a runoff for governor or U.S. Senate. The Republican Party has runoffs for secretary of state, state auditor and Public Service Commission Place 2, the 6th Congressional District, and six legislative seats. The Democratic runoff has no statewide races, no congressional contests, and only one legislative runoff. Only 20 of Alabama’s 67 counties have a Democratic runoff Tuesday.

Alabama: Ballots and bullets: Counties cannot issue blanket ban of firearms at polling places | AL.com

Counties do not have the authority to prohibit voters from carrying firearms at all polling place, Attorney General Luther Strange said in an opinion issued Monday. The issue was raised during primary elections in June as voters carrying holstered guns were stopped by law enforcement officers at the doors of some polling places across the state. Shelby County officials reported three such encounters, and though no arrests were made, deputies did not allow voters visibly carrying weapons to take them into polling places.

Alabama: Shelby County won’t have to pay fees in voting rights case | Montgomery Advertiser

An Alabama county won’t have to pay a $2 million legal bill for winning a case that led the Supreme Court to throw out part of the Voting Rights Act, according to the man who spearheaded the lawsuit. “Shelby County owes nothing,” Edward Blum of the Project on Fair Representation said in an email. Blum, whose legal defense fund partnered with Shelby County to challenge portions of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional, said he has raised money from private donors to pay part of the legal costs. If he doesn’t raise more, the Wiley Rein law firm in Washington, which handled the case for the Project on Fair Representation, will absorb the costs, Blum said. Wiley Rein also is working to convince a federal court that the Justice Department, which lost the Supreme Court case, should have to pay the fees. A federal judge ruled that the Justice Department doesn’t have to pay, but the firm has appealed that ruling.

Alabama: Voter fraud? 92-year-old great-grandmother’s expired driver’s license unacceptable for voter ID | AL.com

A Huntsville woman, 92, who has lived in the same house in Huntsville for 57 years and voted in every election since she was eligible, was turned away from the polls today because her driver’s license expired nine months ago. The voter, a great-grandmother to five, was deeply embarrassed by the whole incident and declined to talk directly with AL.com, but she gave her go-ahead for her neighbor, who took her to the polls, to relay the incident, with the provision that her name not be used. The woman had the license with her when she came to vote at the precinct at First Baptist Church a little before noon today, June 3, 2014, said Libba Nicholson, a neighbor who often drives her elderly friend on errands. The license had expired in August 2013. She had not renewed it because her eyesight is failing and she has made the tough decision to quit driving. But she thought since it was so recent, it would work. She uses it to cash checks and in other rare incidences when she is asked for an ID.

Alabama: Justices Enter Into Dispute Over Districts Alabama Set | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider challenges from Democratic lawmakers who say the Alabama Legislature packed minority voters into a few districts, diluting their voting power. In another case from Alabama last year, the Supreme Court effectively struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which has required permission from the federal authorities before states may change their voting procedures. In a supporting brief, Alabama had urged the court to rule that way. In the new case, the state argues that Section 5 partly justified the legislative maps, which were drawn using data from the 2010 census at a time when Section 5 still stood.