Editorials: Alabama’s DMV Closures Disfranchises Black Voters | Lauren Carasik/Al Jazeera

On Sept. 30, Alabama announced plans to shutter nearly half its driver’s license offices, citing budget constraints. The decision came a year after the state implemented a new ID requirement to vote, purportedly to protect against voter fraud. At least half a million Alabamans, or 20 percent of the state’s registered voters, lack a driver’s license or alternative DMV-issued ID. As with the restrictive ID law, civil rights advocates say the closure of 31 DMV offices — disproportionately affecting poor, rural communities where black people make up a large share of the population — narrows access to IDs and, as a result, will disfranchise black voters. State officials insist that their decision was not race based. Irrespective of intent, the move will suppress black votes. The closures target communities that lack easy access to public transportation. Nearly 14 percent of black families do not own a vehicle, while only 4 percent of families are without private transportation. Of the 10 counties with the highest percentages of black residents, only two will have DMV offices. Unsurprisingly, the DMV closures affect 53 percent of the 15 counties that voted for President Barack Obama in 2012 and the five counties that voted most heavily Democratic in that election. Meanwhile, 40 offices will remain open in the 55 counties that are predominantly white.

Editorials: Process of redrawing 3rd Congressional District evidence of Virginia’s need for reform | Daily Press

Considering Virginia's checkered approach to issues of openness and transparency, we probably should have expected that redrawing the 3rd Congressional District would be a process shrouded in secrecy. But the requirements included in a federal court order governing the participants in that effort, even by the commonwealth's standards, are astounding. As readers know, the 3rd District has been the subject to a lengthy court battle over whether Republican lawmakers illegally packed it with minority voters in an effort to diminish their strength and limit their influence in neighboring districts. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has twice ruled the boundaries invalid, and ordered the General Assembly to redraw the district. However, a bit of deft legislative maneuvering in August threw the issue back to the courts. The District Court then selected Bernard Grofman, a professor of political science at the University of California Irvine, as a "special master" to draw new district boundaries. He is being assisted by three members of the General Assembly's Division of Legislative Services.

Editorials: What Alabama Can Learn From California on Voting Rights | Ari Berman/The Nation

In recent weeks Alabama has been in the news for passing a strict voter-ID law and then closing 31 DMV locations, particularly in majority-black counties where civil rights activists like Jimmie Lee Jackson and Jonathan Daniels died fighting for voting rights. This from the state that was the birthplace of the Voting Rights Act and currently ranks last in the nation in voter access. Over the weekend California moved in a dramatically different direction, becoming the second state–following Oregon–to automatically register citizens who request a driver’s license or state ID from the DMV unless they opt out. The law could add 6 million unregistered voters to the rolls, which would be the largest voter-registration drive in state history. Unlike Alabama, California is using the power of the government to bring millions of new voters into the political process– treating the vote as a fundamental right, rather than a special privilege.

Editorials: No matter its reasons, state should reverse course on voter ID moves | AL.com

A state with Alabama's ugly racial history and vote suppression legacy should try hard to act like it's better than that now. But our state government has made Alabama appear to the world as if we aren't even trying. Looking at the implications of closing driver's license offices in the Black Belt, we don't buy the promises to mitigate the ill effects with other governmental remedy. We don't buy the claims that race and poverty have nothing to do with this. But even if they were valid, the damage to Alabama's image and reputation is as undeniable as it was foreseeable and avoidable. What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong, and this is wrong on the facts. It's also wrong because the economic damage done to Alabama — tourists who will bypass us, investors and job creators who will go elsewhere to avoid the taint — more than offsets the claimed benefit, the dubious economic argument that lies behind these decisions.

Editorials: Is redistricting reform necessary or possible? | Kirill Reznik/Maryland Reporter

Maryland’s process for redistricting both at the State and Federal levels has been difficult for many to understand. If it is determined by the Governor's Redistricting Reform Commission that reform is necessary, then I hope that the following suggestions prove useful to you in your deliberations. The last sentence above is a critical first step. I believe that you must first determine whether reform is necessary or possible. Many would argue, on both sides of the political aisle, the system is broken beyond repair and reform is a foregone conclusion. That may very well be, but I would challenge you to actually make such a determination through careful analysis, and a review of the potential solutions.

Editorials: Virginia redistricting should take less-partisan tone | Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

Election season is in full swing. This year, it is not a presidential election to which I am referring, of course—both parties’ candidates and the initial GOP debates to the contrary—but on Nov. 3, registered voters 18 and older can go to the polls to elect Virginia Senate and House of Delegates seats throughout our commonwealth. Of course, not all of the eligible registered voters will participate in what is perhaps our most holy of democratic traditions. Some may be turned away for not having the correct photo ID—a potential impediment not required in recent decades in Virginia, before last year’s elections. Virginia legislators, it seems, must spend much of their time away from Richmond looking under their beds for practically nonexistent fraudulent voters, thereby disenfranchising many of whom they perceive as the “wrong” voters.

Editorials: Alabama Puts Up More Hurdles for Voters | The New York Times

Barely one year after Alabama’s voter-ID law went into effect, officials are planning to close 31 driver’s license offices across the state, including those in every county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters. It’s ostensibly a cost-cutting effort, but coupled with the voter-ID law, these closings will make it even more difficult for many of the state’s most vulnerable voters to get one of the most common forms of identification now required to cast a vote. Like voter-ID laws elsewhere, Alabama’s version requires voters to bring a government-issued photo ID to the polls. The rationale is that these laws are necessary to stop voter fraud. The problem is that in-person fraud — the only kind that voter-ID laws could conceivably prevent — almost never happens. Still, these laws have proliferated around the country, nearly always enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures at the expense of minorities, the poor and other groups who tend to vote Democratic.

Editorials: The coming voting machine crisis | Rokey Suleman and R. Doug Lewis/The Hill

To promote democracy around the world, the United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually in developing nations. But when it comes to the mechanics of democracy itself in the United States, some don’t even want to pony up $9.6 million. That’s the budget for the obscure, 25-employee Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Created by Congress in 2002, the bipartisan EAC is meant to be a resource for states and localities on election administration. That means everything from designing ballots, to procedures and manuals on election administration, to maintaining voting machines. And lest anyone believe that this is the big hand of the federal government reaching down to something controlled by states and counties, all the EAC does is set guidelines and advise. It does not enforce laws.

Editorials: Jeb Bush Is Completely Wrong About the Voting Rights Act | Ari Berman/The Nation

t an event in Iowa today, Jeb Bush was asked whether he believed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) should be reauthorized by the Congress following the gutting of one of its most important provisions by the Supreme Court in 2013. Bush responded: “If it’s to reauthorize it to continue to provide regulations on top of states as though we’re living in 1960, because those were basically when many of those rules were put in place, I don’t believe we should do that. There’s been dramatic improvement in access to voting, exponentially better improvement, and I don’t think there’s a role for the federal government to play in most places.” Bush is wrong on multiple counts.

Editorials: America’s voting machines are in need of a serious upgrade | The Washington Post

Americans tend to replace their smartphones every two or three years. By contrast, most Americans use voting machines that are at least a decade old and based on engineering and designs from the 1990s. The perils of ignoring the latter may not be apparent until the electoral system is suddenly wracked by mishaps — think of Florida, circa 2000. Unfortunately, the likelihood of major dysfunction grows as voting machines age. It’s fair to blame Washington for a portion of the mess and assume it won’t play a critical role in the solution. Determined to avoid a reprise of the Florida mishap, Congress allocated funds and mandated the purchase of new equipment in 2002. Then, with the mandates still in place, lawmakers turned off the funding spigot, leaving state and local governments to take up the slack. In next year’s presidential election, some voting machines in 43 states will be at least a decade old and dangerously close to the end of their expected lifespan, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. In 14 states, some voters will encounter machines that are 15 or more years old, meaning they pre-date Facebook and the widespread use of flat-screen televisions.

Editorials: Africa – ‘Decisive Moment for Democracy’ | John Kerry/allAfrica.com

Last May, I shared in an extraordinary moment. I had the privilege, together with many leaders from across Africa, of bearing witness to the first peaceful, democratic transition of power between two parties in Nigeria. I traveled to Lagos earlier this year to emphasize that for the United States, Nigeria is an increasingly important strategic partner with a critical role to play in the security and prosperity of the region. I also said that it was imperative that these elections set a new standard for democracy across the continent. There is no question that this is a decisive moment for democracy in Africa. Later this month, four countries - Guinea, Tanzania, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Central African Republic - are scheduled to hold presidential elections, and soon after we hope to see elections in Burkina Faso. People across Africa must seize this opportunity to make their voices heard; and leaders across the continent must listen. The challenges are real. For decades, poverty, famine, war, and authoritarian leadership have held back an era of African prosperity and stability. These and other challenges should not be underestimated, but neither should we ignore the gains that are being made.

Editorials: Restore the right to vote for all Iowa felons | Des Moines Register

A year ago the Iowa Supreme Court issued a splintered decision on Iowans’ constitutional voting rights that left an important question for a future case. Such a case appears headed to the court, and it could restore this fundamental right to thousands of Iowans. Iowa is one of just three states — including Kentucky and Florida — that permanently disenfranchise otherwise eligible voters with a record of a felony conviction. Convicted felons in Iowa must apply to the governor for restoration of voting rights after completing their sentences. Few go to the trouble, however, which is understandable given the intimidating bureaucratic process. As a result, these Iowans are forever denied a right that is fundamental in a free society even after they have paid their debt to that society. That is wrong, but a fix will not be easy.

Editorials: The Biggest Questions Awaiting the Supreme Court | The New York Times

The court’s new term, which starts Monday, will jump right back into high-profile constitutional battles like voting rights, affirmative action and the death penalty, as well as a new attack on public-sector labor unions. And the justices may well agree to take up issues of abortion and contraception again, in cases that could further strip away reproductive rights. The decisions last term showed a court willing to take into account the effects of the law on individual lives. This term, the justices have many opportunities to show that same type of awareness. The legal principle of “one person, one vote” got its fullest expression in the 1964 case Reynolds v. Sims, which ruled that state legislative districts must contain roughly equal numbers of people. Before then, district populations varied widely, an intentional practice that gave more power to rural white voters than those in the more diverse cities. While the court has never defined who counts as a person, the vast majority of states count all people who live in a district, even if they are not eligible to vote.

Editorials: Republicans simply out for revenge on Government Accountability Board | Ernst-Ulrich Franzen/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

This is the week that state legislators are expected to start wreaking their revenge on the Government Accountability Board. Plans to replace the agency are in place. A suggested compromise reportedly has fallen on deaf ears. Deals reportedly have been made to move swiftly on legislation, the effect of which most likely would be to pull any semblance of teeth from this watchdog. Of course, Republican legislators pushing this effort say that wouldn't be the case; that a new agency (perhaps two new agencies) is needed because this one has been too partisan in its oversight of ethics and elections, and that a replacement would be "fair, transparent and accountable to Wisconsinites," in the words of a spokeswoman for Gov. Scott Walker. Forgive me if I'm skeptical. And let me add that I have little doubt that more than a few Democrats quietly support this measure simply because no politician really likes a watchdog agency that is doing its job in a truly nonpartisan fashion.

Editorials: The true cost of Voter ID: Everything you need to know about the monumental cost of voter suppression | Sean McElwee/Salon

In my recent report, “Why Voting Matters,” I show the dramatic differences in opinion between voters and nonvoters, and argue that more voter turnout would lead to more progressive policies. One of the most dramatic gaps in opinion is between white voters and non-white nonvoters (shown below). As 2016 approaches, the question of how to mobilize the political power of people of color is increasingly being discussed with the rise of groups like Black Lives Matter. Though it’s clear that voter turnout will not be enough to fully realize political equality, it can have a dramatic influence on policy. In a study released last year, political scientist Jon Rogowski and Sophie Schuit of the Brennan Center for Justice find that members of Congress representing districts covered by the preclearance provision (which was struck down by the Roberts court when it gutted the Voting Rights Act) were more supportive of civil rights legislation.

Editorials: Will Americans Vote Differently on a Touchscreen? | Shlomo Benartzi/The Daily Beast

One of the basic insights of behavioral science is that the format of a choice set—how the options are arranged on a page—can significantly shape our decisions. This is true when ordering a meal at a restaurant, but also at the ballot box, as the design of a paper ballot can influence which candidates we end up voting for. For example, studies led by Jon Krosnick at Stanford University have shown that candidates at the top of the ballot get, on average, about 2 percentage points more votes than they would have if listed farther down. This primacy effect even holds in national elections, when voters are more familiar with the candidates. When the name order of candidates was randomized on the California state ballot in the 2000 election, George W. Bush’s vote total was 9 percentage points higher in districts where his name appeared first versus last, Krosnick says. To deal with this bias, many states have begun randomizing the order of candidates, taking steps to ensure that a cognitive quirk doesn’t determine the winner of the election.

Editorials: Voter ID: What Oregon gets right and Alabama gets wrong | Kyle Whitmire/AL.com

A year after Alabama’s Voter ID took effect, the state announced that Wednesday that it would close 31 drivers license offices, leaving 28 counties without a place to get a license. In Alabama’s Black Belt — disproportionately poor and disproportionately African-American — either 12 or 15 counties (depending on which counties you count in the Black Belt) will no longer have a place to obtain the most common form of identification used at the polls. State officials were quick to assure voters that they could still obtain special Voter ID cards through their probate offices. But let’s face it — why are we doing this at all? The old arguments are worth revisiting.

Editorials: Should Voting Be Compulsory? | William Galston & E.J. Dionne/Newsweek

When we receive a summons for jury duty, we are required to present ourselves at the court. Should we treat showing up at the polls in elections the same way? Although the idea seems vaguely un-American, it is neither unusual, nor undemocratic, nor unconstitutional. And it would ease the intense partisan polarization that weakens both our capacity for self-government and public trust in our governing institutions. It is easy to dismiss this idea as rooted in a form of coercion that is incompatible with our individualistic and often libertarian political culture. But consider Australia, whose political culture may be as similar to that of the United States as the culture of any other democracy in the world. Alarmed by a decline in voter turnout to less than 60 percent in the early 1920s, Australia adopted a law in 1924 requiring all citizens to present themselves at the polling place on Election Day. (This is often referred to as mandatory voting, although Australian voters are not required to cast marked ballots.)

Editorials: Too Many Parties on the Ballot in New York | The New York Times

New York State has two big political parties — Democratic and Republican — on its ballot as well as an assortment of smaller parties. That might seem harmless, but in the strange, convoluted netherworld of New York politics, a lot of the minor parties are useless and mysterious. They clog the ballot, warp the debate and confuse the voters. What makes this system especially confounding is that a candidate’s name can appear on two or more ballot lines. Last year, New Yorkers could vote for Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the Democratic, Working Families, Independence or Women’s Equality Party. Now, New York Republicans are trying to get rid of the Women’s Equality Party, which favors Democrats.

Editorials: Alaska will gain by providing voter registration with PFD application | Alaska Dispatch News

We live in the digital age. With a few clicks of the mouse or finger taps on a smartphone we have access to a wealth of information that was unimaginable just a few years ago. An entire generation has grown up with the Internet, and it seems like there is an app for everything. You may even be reading this on your smartphone right now. But there is one aspect of our lives that has not embraced the digital transition. And it relates to the most important aspect of our democracy: voting. For some reason, we Alaskans cannot register to vote without printing out a piece of paper and mailing it to the State Division of Elections. It is hard to believe we are still dealing with such an anachronism, especially when we have been able to apply for our annual Permanent Fund dividend (PFD) online, through a secure platform, for a decade (something over 83 percent of Alaskans now do). Fortunately, we can change this.

Editorials: In Virginia’s sham democracy, voters are robbed at the ballot box | The Washington Post

In Virginia, the incumbent protection racket known as redistricting has ensured that another all-but-meaningless season of state legislative elections has arrived, and with it the predictable response — namely, apathy and wan turnout. That’s fine by the lawmakers who drew the commonwealth’s electoral map, and who evidently prefer that voters ratify the status quo than enjoy a genuine choice at the ballot. In legislative elections in November, a Republican faces a Democrat in just 29 of the 100 races for the House of Delegates. As for those 29, most feature underfunded challengers mounting quixotic races against entrenched incumbents; they are contests in name only. The picture for the state Senate isn’t much better. A Republican faces a Democrat in just 20 of the 40 seats; perhaps a half-dozen races will wind up being genuinely competitive. (In one nominal contest, state Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-Williamsburg), a darling of corporate lobbyists, has a war chest approaching $2 million; his Democratic opponent has less than $10,000.) Taking the two chambers together, well over half of incumbents are running unopposed.

Editorials: VW scandal and cheating software | Bruce Schneier/CNN

For the past six years, Volkswagen has been cheating on the emissions testing for its diesel cars. The cars' computers were able to detect when they were being tested, and temporarily alter how their engines worked so they looked much cleaner than they actually were. When they weren't being tested, they belched out 40 times the pollutants. Their CEO has resigned, and the company will face an expensive recall, enormous fines and worse. Cheating on regulatory testing has a long history in corporate America. It happens regularly in automobile emissions control and elsewhere. What's important in the VW case is that the cheating was preprogrammed into the algorithm that controlled cars' emissions. Computers allow people to cheat in ways that are new. Because the cheating is encapsulated in software, the malicious actions can happen at a far remove from the testing itself. Because the software is "smart" in ways that normal objects are not, the cheating can be subtler and harder to detect. We've already had examples of smartphone manufacturers cheating on processor benchmark testing: detecting when they're being tested and artificially increasing their performance. We're going to see this in other industries.

Editorials: Doubts about new redistricting case | Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon told lawyers involved in a new case on the constitutionality of a congressional election district in Virginia to file new briefs on whether the case can go forward in the Court. In a one-paragraph order issued along with two other procedural orders after the first Conference in advance of the new Term, the Court questioned whether current and former members of the House had a legal right to pursue their appeal. The Court has not yet agreed to hear the case, but it is in a form that would require the Court to act on it if it were properly filed. At the core of the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah is whether a sprawling District 3 was designed unconstitutionally because of the role that race played in drawing its boundaries. The only House district in Virginia with a majority of minority population, it starts north of Richmond and skips various cities on its way southward into the area around Norfolk and Newport News. It is now represented by a black Democrat, Rep. Bobby Scott. Its form has been described as resembling a “grasping claw.”

Editorials: All-In for the Primaries | Bobbie Brinegar/Huffington Post

Poll after poll shows Americans are dissatisfied with government. Last year, Congress's job approval rating was at a near-record low of just 15 percent. In fact, dissatisfaction with government was named as the most important problem facing the country. And partisan gridlock was the number-one reason why. All this displeasure led to the lowest voter turnout in 72 years for the 2014 midterm election. It may also be why more and more Americans are calling themselves Independents.

Editorials: Volkswagen and the Era of Cheating Software | The New York Times

For the past six years, Volkswagen has been advertising a lie: “top-notch clean diesel” cars — fuel efficient, powerful and compliant with emissions standards for pollutants. It turns out the cars weren’t so clean. They were cheating. The vehicles used software that cleverly put a lid on emissions during testing, but only then. The rest of the time, the cars spewed up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide emissions. The federal government even paid up to $51 million in tax subsidies to some car owners on the false assumption of environmental friendliness. … Computational devices that are vulnerable to cheating are not limited to cars. Consider, for example, voting machines. Just a few months ago, the Virginia State Board of Elections finally decertified the use of a touch-screen voting machine called “AVS WinVote.” It turned out that the password was hard-wired to “admin” — a default password so common that it would be among the first three terms any hacker would try. There were no controls on changes that could be made to the database tallying the votes. If the software fraudulently altered election results, there would be virtually no way of detecting the fraud since everything, including the evidence of the tampering, could be erased.

Editorials: The Many Sins of ‘Citizens United’ | Sheldon Whitehouse/The Nation

Our politics is awash in cash. Super PACs supporting presidential candidates have banked more than $250 million through June 30—nearly 10 times more than at this point in the 2012 cycle. “Dark money” from anonymous donors is also surging (dark to us, of course; you can bet the candidates know). The political network of Charles and David Koch has said that it plans to spend as much as $900 million in the 2016 election cycle, raised mostly from undisclosed donors. “For that kind of money, you could buy yourself a president,” said Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. “Oh, right,” he added. “That’s the point.” This pollution of our democracy is the product of the Supreme Court’s appalling 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Despite decades of warnings by the elected branches of government about the dangers of corporate political corruption, and despite more than 100 years of settled law, the conservative majority made the fateful finding that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Not stopping there, the justices went on to find that “the appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

Editorials: John Roberts Dismantled the ‘Crown Jewel’ of the Civil-Rights Movement | Theodore M. Shaw/The Nation

ne of the martyrs of the civil-rights movement, Vernon Dahmer, lies in a cemetery in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. A voting-rights activist and president of the local NAACP chapter, Dahmer was killed when his home was firebombed by Klansmen five months after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) into law. Dahmer’s tombstone bears his famous words: “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” Like every step along the path to racial justice, including the recent removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s state Capitol, the VRA was bought and paid for with blood. Those who fought for it, like Dahmer, understood that it meant a new beginning for democracy, not an end of the need for vigilance.

Editorials: How Automatic Voter Registration Can Transform American Politics | Ari Berman/The Nation

n July 1976, while appearing with civil-rights icon John Lewis, Jimmy Carter proposed automatically registering to vote every eligible American once they turned 18, which he said would “transform, in a beneficial way, the politics of our country.” Carter’s ambitious plan never became law, but 39 years later, states like Oregon and California are embracing automatic voter registration as a bold new voting reform, potentially adding millions of new voters to the rolls. It’s a trend that warrants more attention, especially as the country celebrates National Voter Registration Day today. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and National Voter Registration Act of 1993 enfranchised millions of new voters. After passage of the VRA, for example, the number of black registered voters in the South increased from 31 percent to 73 percent. Despite these landmark laws, 51 million Americans—1 in 4 eligible voters—are still not registered to vote. “Among eligible voters, some 30 percent of African Americans, 40 percent of Hispanics, 45 percent of Asian Americans, and 41 percent of young adults (age 18-24), were not registered to vote in the historic 2008 election,” according to Demos.

Editorials: Making voting rights automatic | The Boston Globe

This Year could serve as a turning point for the strengthening of voting rights in the modern era. And it’s not only because 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which is in need of protection more than ever as some of its key provisions have come under attack. One piece of good news is that Governor Jerry Brown of California is poised to sign into law a measure that automatically registers all eligible residents to vote when they obtain their driver’s licenses. Earlier this year, Oregon became the first state to enact an automatic voter registration law, and New Jersey’s legislature recently passed a similar bill, which now awaits Governor Chris Christie’s signature. This policy has the potential to drive civic participation to higher levels. Other states should follow their lead.

Editorials: A strange reticence on redistricting | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is right. So is the State Board of Elections, which his office represents. And so are Virginia’s Republican congressmen, who are co-defendants in a suit against the state. All of them either have asked federal judges to post redistricting proposals that might replace the state’s current congressional map, or have signified their assent to the request. Three U.S. District judges will redraw the state’s congressional districts after the General Assembly failed to come up with its own plan by a court-imposed deadline. A number of other interested parties, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe and various good-government groups, who are not litigants in the suit have submitted their own maps.