Editorials: The Mysterious Number of American Citizens | Nathaniel Persily/Politico

Many Americans believe that someone, somewhere in Washington, must be in charge of tracking who is and who isn’t a citizen of the United States. Apparently, so does the U.S. Supreme Court, which just accepted a voting rights case that turns on the government’s ability to count the number of citizens in each voting district. But despite all the talk these days about government and Big Data, the justices, like the rest of us, might be surprised to learn that the most basic information as to who is an American citizen cannot actually be found in any publicly available government data set — anywhere. The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, poses a question: whether the Constitution’s long-standing “one person, one vote” principle requires equal numbers of voters per district instead of equal numbers of people, as is current practice. Most commentary on the case has focused on its implications for political parties and racial groups. But focusing on the politics, or even on the merits of the constitutional argument, ultimately distracts from a much bigger problem: The data necessary to draw districts with equal numbers of eligible voters does not exist. We have no national citizen database that tells us how many citizens live in each district around the country.

Editorials: The Costs of Partisan Redistricting | NewsAdvance

Partisan, legislative redistricting, since the dawn of the Republic, has been the bane good-government advocates. Districts drawn to benefit incumbents and the party in power are a disservice to citizens and voters and undermine confidence in the political process. We’ve long advocated Virginia should adopt a nonpartisan — or at least bipartisan — redistricting process, giving the job of redrawing districts for the Virginia Senate, House of Delegates and the U.S. House of Representatives to an independent commission.

The costs of partisan redistricting are high, as we alluded to earlier. Few races are competitive in the general election. Oftentimes, the incumbent faces only token opposition, if he faces any opponent at all. With no robust discussion of the issues pertinent to the particular race, voter turnout is usually on the low side. The public’s cynicism toward politics only increases, leading to a further downward spiral of confidence and indifference. But then there are also the very real monetary costs of partisan redistricting gone bad. And those are costs the taxpayers usually wind up shouldering.

Editorials: The Most Important Redistricting Case in 50 Years | Sean Trende/RealClearPolitics

In a pair of cases decided in 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States famously established the “one person, one vote” test, which held that all congressional districts must have the same number of people, as must all state legislative districts. The consequences of those decisions were both immediate and far-reaching. A wave of mid-decade redistricting swept the country, as virtually every congressional and legislative district had to be, at a minimum, tweaked to account for population discrepancies. Rural districts in particular lost representation, while the depopulation of urban centers helped usher in the rise of the suburbs in Congress. Last week, the Supreme Court shocked watchers by agreeing to hear a case that could have consequences of a similar magnitude. In 1966, in a follow-up to the Reynolds v. Sims decision, the court had held that states did not necessarily need to use persons as the basis for their representation schemes. Since then the court has at times been asked to adopt various different metrics. It generally resisted these entreaties, although Justice Clarence Thomas has, at times, urged the court to take up these cases.

Editorials: Evenwel v. Abbott and the Future of One Person, One Vote | Gareth Epps/The Atlantic

“Equality of representation in the legislature is a first principle of liberty,”John Adams wrote in 1776. Most Americans would agree. But does “equality of representation” mean equal numbers of people—or equal numbers of voters? That question is raised by the Court’s decision Monday to hear the case of Evenwel v. Abbott. Evenwel is a challenge to the Texas Legislature’s plan for state Senate districts. The appellants are registered voters from Senate districts that have significantly more eligible voters than some others. The legislature’s districts vary from each other in raw population by less than 10 percent; but in their “citizen voting-age population,” or CVAP, the variation can be as high as 50 percent.

Editorials: In Supreme Court redistricting case, it’s the ‘whole number of persons’ | Bruce Ackerman, Ian Ayres/Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court agreed to take a case this week that will shape the future of American politics. Although the Warren court’s famous “one person, one vote” mandate requires states to draw up election districts with roughly equal populations, the court is only now going to determine the relevant population that must be counted. It has two basic options. It can stick with what most states do now and require each district to contain an equal number of inhabitants: This will favor urban Democratic areas with many immigrants and children. Or it can instead insist that districts include an equal number of eligible voters, and thereby favor rural Republican regions. While the new case, Evenwel vs. Abbott, deals with state and local districting, its logic will predictably control reapportionment for the House of Representatives in 2020, with major consequences for states such as California, New York and Texas.

Editorials: A Bad Voting Ban in Maryland | New York Times

What is the logic behind state laws that deny the vote to people who have been convicted of a felony, even after they are released from prison? The short and easy answer is: there isn’t any. For a longer, nonsensical answer, ask Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, who on May 22 thwarted strong majorities in both houses of the state legislature to veto a bill that would have restored voting rights to about 40,000 Maryland residents currently on probation or parole.

Editorials: South Carolina’s new voting system must be secure | Walt McLeod/The State

When I cast my first ballot, I voted on a paper ballot for Daniel R. McLeod, who was elected attorney general and served for the next 24 years. At that time, voting machines in South Carolina were limited to several urban counties. As I recall, election security consisted of a padlocked plywood ballot box, the key to which was attached to a modest chain connected to the padlock. I did not give much thought to the mechanics of elections, or how the poll managers tabulated the election results from the paper ballots cast. Though no election is perfectly conducted, most of us engage in faith-based voting, meaning that we as voters have faith that, for the most part, our election procedures work properly. We have faith that when we cast our ballots, our votes are recorded as intended. Sometimes, we must stop to examine that faith. Recently, I viewed a documentary film titled “I Voted?” by filmmaker Jason Grant Smith. His film opened my eyes to our systemic voting challenges.

Editorials: Lowering the voting age to 16 would be good for Australian democracy | Sydney Morning Herald

Momentum is building around the world to lower the voting age to 16 years. A similar shift occurred in the 1970s when the age was reduced from 21 to 18. Some nations have already made the shift, with voting in national or local elections occurring at age 16 in Austria, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the Philippines, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil and Ecuador. Others are in the process of debating this. At the recent British election, the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats committed to lowering the voting age to 16. This followed the successful experiment of granting 16-year-olds the right to vote in the referendum on Scottish independence. It is expected that the vote will soon be extended to them generally for elections to the Scottish Parliament.

Editorials: ‘One person, one vote’ should stay that way | Los Angeles Times

Five decades after the Supreme Court ruled that legislative districts must be drawn on the basis of “one person, one vote,” the justices have agreed to consider a claim that representation should reflect the number of eligible voters in a district, not the overall population. They should reject such a radical interpretation, which would undermine the principle that legislators must be attentive to the needs of all of the people living in the areas they represent. That includes children and the noncitizens who in many parts of this country — including Southern California — form a significant and productive part of the population.

Editorials: Two Supreme Court cases threaten to unravel California election reforms | Contra Costa Times

For more than two decades, Californians have struggled to reform the state’s electoral process, to make it less partisan and public officials more responsive. After fits and starts beginning in 1990, state voters approved an independent redistricting commission, open primaries and term limits that now allow state legislators to serve up to 12 years. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court could significantly undermine the reform effort with its review of two redistricting cases, one out of Arizona, the other out of Texas, and both with profound implications for California and the nation.

Editorials: How the Money Primary Is Undermining Voting Rights | Ari Berman/The Nation

In November 1963, Evelyn Butts, a seamstress and mother of three from Norfolk, Virginia,filed the first lawsuit in federal court challenging her state’s $1.50 poll tax. Annie Harper, a retired domestic worker from Fairfax County, filed a companion suit five months later. In March 1966, the Supreme Court overruled two previous decisions and overturned Virginia’s poll tax, stating that economic status could not be an obstacle to casting a ballot. “Fee payments or wealth, like race, creed, or color, are unrelated to the citizen’s ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process,” wrote Justice William Douglas in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. “We conclude that a State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard.”

Editorials: Only Voters Count? Conservatives ask the Supreme Court to restrict states’ rights and overturn precedent. | Richard Hasen/Slate

For the second time in a year, the Supreme Court has agreed to wade into an election case at the urging of conservatives. In both cases it has done so despite the issue appearing to be settled by long-standing precedent. In a case expected to be decided next month, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, conservatives asked the court to bar states from using independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional lines. In a case the court agreed to hear Tuesday, Evenwel v. Abbott, conservatives asked the court to require states to draw their legislative district lines in a particular way: Rather than considering the total population in each district, conservatives argue, the lines should instead divide districts according to the number of people registered or eligible to vote. Most states use total population for drawing districts, which includes noncitizens, children, felons, and others ineligible to vote. In both Supreme Court cases, there is great irony in the fact that they are being brought by conservatives, who usually claim to respect precedents and states’ rights. The challengers are not only asking the court to revisit issues that seemed to be settled by decades-old precedent. If successful, these cases will undermine federalism by limiting states’ rights to design their own political systems.

Editorials: What if congressional districts were drawn based on voters, not total population? | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

A case before the Supreme Court raises an esoteric but important question: Who do politicians represent? Our Amber Phillips has a thorough explanation of the ins-and-outs of the case. But the essential question is whether political districts should be drawn based on the number of people that live in the district, or based on the number of people in that district that can vote. The idea is that in districts where there are a lot of people but not a lot of eligible voters, those voters are more powerful given that they can have a larger effect on the outcome of any given election. It doesn’t take long to see all sorts of questions that the distinction draws. Should we count people who can vote or people who do vote? How does that shift the priorities of the official who wins the right to represent the district?

Editorials: ‘One Man, One Vote’ Keeps Changing | Noah Feldman/Bloomberg View

Does the Constitution guarantee one person, one vote? Or is it one citizen, one vote? This deceptively simple question is actually profound — and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide it in the term that will begin in October. The answer will define the nature of American democracy for generations to come. The legal nature of the question can be stated simply. In the 1961 case Reynolds v. Sims, the Supreme Court announced a principle that was then referred to as “one man, one vote.” Until then it had been up to state legislatures to allocate congressional districts according to whatever principle they wanted. There was no requirement that districts have roughly equal numbers of residents, which meant that some districts might have many fewer residents and voters than others. The court said this imbalance violated equal protection of laws because it diluted the votes of those who lived in relatively overpopulated districts.

Editorials: Rejection of presidential age referendum shows ageism at heart of Irish society | Ireland Times

What happened on Friday was truly odd. In the same breath, the Irish electorate triumphantly extended equality to same-sex couples, and resoundingly denied it to young people. The result sent an unequivocal message: adults under the age of 35 are not held in equal esteem to those above that age. No matter how exceptional, competent or popular the individual, the idea of a person younger than 35 even presenting themselves to the electorate as a candidate for the highest office of State is apparently so preposterous as to require constitutional prohibition. To paraphrase three-quarters of the electorate: “It’s not just that we won’t vote for you. We won’t even let you run”. Granted, the mere representation of marginalised groups in political office does not necessarily translate to improved conditions – but their unqualified exclusion is symbolic of broader structural problems.

Editorials: Voter Turnout in U.S. Mayoral Elections Is Pathetic, But It Wasn’t Always This Way | CityLab

As far as recent history is concerned, voter turnout in most major U.S. city elections can accurately be described as anemic. On Tuesday in Philadelphia, just about 27 percent of registered voters went to the polls to give Jim Kenney a landslide victory in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. In Los Angeles, 23 percent bothered to show up in 2013 for the sleepy election that Mayor Eric Garcetti won. Even New York’s high-profile 2013 election, which brought Mayor Bill de Blasio to power, attracted just 26 percent of registered voters to cast a ballot, the lowest turnout in that city since at least 1953. For many observers, that election signaled a historic repudiation of the aggressive police tactics and warm embrace of the super-rich that characterized the Michael Bloomberg era. But in a larger sense, it also proved that most New Yorkers didn’t care either way.

Editorials: Veto of felon voting bill disenfranchised 40,000 Marylanders | Cory McCray/Baltimore Sun

After the death of Freddie Gray, leaders from Annapolis came into our neighborhoods, shot some hoops, attended church services and gave lip service about change. But those leaders have never endured the high levels of poverty, lack of access to fresh food, dilapidated housing or high levels of joblessness that plague those neighborhoods. That is why many community members were not convinced by their words. On Friday, Gov. Larry Hogan gave them more reason to be skeptical. At 2 p.m. on the Friday before a holiday weekend, when many people were already away on vacation, he vetoed House Bill 980, which restored voting rights to ex-felons upon their release from prison, rather than waiting until they’re off parole or probation.

Editorials: 2016 presidential campaigns chase money, with no cop on the beat | USAToday

Money has always been the dark force of politics, but it’s reaching a tipping point in the 2016 presidential election. Whoever wins will be more beholden than any recent predecessor to megadonors who write huge checks. Campaigns are skating up to, or over, ethical and legal lines to maximize the dollars. There’s little worry about prosecution, though. The agency set up to enforce campaign laws after the Watergate scandals in 1974 — the Federal Election Commission — is mired in partisan stalemate on major issues, meaning there’s effectively no cop on the beat. That leaves no one (except the news media) to police the flood of big money set loose by court decisions in 2010 that made it legal for corporations, labor unions and rich people to give unlimited amounts to “super PACs,” which can support candidates as long as they remain independent from them.

Editorials: Editorial: Voter hammer | Lawrence Journal World

A bill that takes away local control of voter fraud prosecutions and allows people who violate state voting laws out of confusion or a simple misunderstanding to be convicted of a felony and sentenced to jail is now on its way to Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk. The measure, which already had been approved by the Senate, passed the House on a narrow 67-55 vote on Thursday. A key provision of the bill would give the Kansas secretary of state authority to prosecute voter fraud cases, something that has been advocated by Secretary of State Kris Kobach for several years.

Editorials: How Money Runs Our Politics | Elizabeth Drew/New York Review of Books

With each election come innovations in ways that the very rich donate and the candidates collect and spend increasingly large amounts of money on campaigns. And with each decision on campaign financing the current Supreme Court’s conservative majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts in the lead, removes some restrictions on money in politics. We are now at the point where, practically speaking, there are no limits on how much money an individual, a corporation, or a labor union can give to a candidate for federal office (though the unions can hardly compete). Today a presidential candidate has to have two things and maybe three before making a serious run: at least one billionaire willing to spend limitless amounts on his or her campaign and a “Super PAC”—a supposedly independent political action committee that accepts large donations that have to be disclosed. The third useful asset is an organization that under the tax code is supposedly “operated exclusively to promote social welfare.” The relevant section of the tax code, 501(c)(4), would appear to be intended for the Sierra Club and the like, not political money. But the IRS rules give the political groups the same protection.

Editorials: How the Money Primary Is Undermining Voting Rights | Ari Berman/The Nation

In November 1963, Evelyn Butts, a seamstress and mother of three from Norfolk, Virginia,filed the first lawsuit in federal court challenging her state’s $1.50 poll tax. Annie Harper, a retired domestic worker from Fairfax County, filed a companion suit five months later. In March 1966, the Supreme Court overruled two previous decisions and overturned Virginia’s poll tax, stating that economic status could not be an obstacle to casting a ballot. “Fee payments or wealth, like race, creed, or color, are unrelated to the citizen’s ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process,” wrote Justice William Douglas in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. “We conclude that a State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard.”

Editorials: Why Poland’s presidential election may shake up the European Union | Ola Cichowlas/Reuters

On Sunday, Poland votes on a president. Warsaw has long been as island of stability in an increasingly volatile Central and Eastern Europe. But this presidential race is exposing the cracks in the country’s ruling elite and paving the way for what could likely be more unexpected results in the autumn parliamentary elections. The results of the first round of the presidential election came as a shock for the country’s ruling elite — and for all Europe. President Bronislaw Komorowski had been expected to win going away but he was suddenly confronting a tougher-than expected runoff. He had a week to persuade Poles to re-elect him as his party — and the European Union — begin to worry. The results suggested growing fatigue with Civic Platform, the party that has ruled Poland for almost a decade. The problem, however, is that there is no sensible alternative to it.

Editorials: Why Citizens United Just Scratches the Surface | American Prospect

Hillary Clinton told supporters on Thursday that if elected she will appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Citizens United, according to a Washington Post report. This is good news for our democracy—but the Court’s role in helping wealthy interests dominate politics goes far deeper than one bad case. In fact, justices appointed by the next president—whoever that is—should look to transform the Supreme Court’s entire approach to money in politics going back to cases starting in the 1970s, just as the Court has reversed course on New Deal economic protections, racial segregation, LGBT rights, and more.

Editorials: South Dakota’s Last Stand—Ballot Boxes, Red Herrings and Custer Envy | Stephanie Woodard/ICTMN.com

Jackson County, South Dakota, has dug in for a fight against Oglala Sioux plaintiffs who sued for a full-service satellite voting office on the portion of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that overlaps the county. On May 11, Jackson County filed an answer to the Oglalas’ complaint. The document mostly reiterated legal arguments that had been rebuffed by U.S. District Court Judge Karen Schreier 10 days earlier, when she refused to dismiss the lawsuit, Poor Bear v. The County of Jackson. In her opinion, the judge wrote that the plaintiffs might be able to prove “intentional discrimination,” a Fourteenth Amendment violation. Judge Schreier presided over another Oglala voting-rights suit, Brooks v. Gant, which in 2012 resulted in satellite voting for another part of Pine Ridge.

Editorials: A note from the British election: Has the electoral system failed voters? | Syahrul Hidayat/The Jakarta Post

Despite all the overnight drama in the latest British election when the Conservative Party defied all pollsters’ predictions of a tight race with Labour, the composition of seats in parliament (the Commons) contradicts the share of votes among political parties. The winner, the Conservative Party, can form its own government without forging a coalition even though it only garnered 37 percent of the vote. Is it a fair result for voters? For the UK Independent Party (UKIP) and the Green Party (which both won one seat despite the overall share of votes of 12.6 and nearly 4 percent respectively) as well as their supporters the answer is surely yes.

Editorials: The Cost of Democracy | Shelby Fenster/NBC Nebraska

Putting pen to paper and signing a check for $40,000. The thought may almost make your squirm. But it’s decisions like that our counties, cities and school districts make every year. And in making those decisions, they have to weigh costs. When is one thing worth more than another? From 9th Street to school bonds, over the last couple of years, Central Nebraska has seen several special elections. But those elections don’t come without a price tag. And if the money is going to ballots and polling places– there’s something else that’s not getting it. So, we reached out to your city’s leaders, and to the people who run your children’s schools, to find out. “We live in an interesting community right now because I think the question of, what is the extent that we have voter input, is being questioned,” said Hastings Public Schools Superintendent Craig Kautz. But for schools, voter input isn’t a question– it’s a law.

Editorials: Campaign finance reformers should remain depressed | Jessica A. Levinson/The Sacramento Bee

It is time to rain on the parade of anyone who is vigorously celebrating the latest U.S. Supreme Court campaign-finance decision. In Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for himself and the four liberal members of the court, blessed the ability of states to prohibit judicial candidates from directly soliciting campaign contributions. Campaign-finance reformers celebrated the outcome and Roberts’ decision to side with the liberal wing of the court. Some let themselves wonder if this decision might represent the end of the high court’s march to deregulate our nation’s campaign-finance laws. But those revelers are wrong. The chief justice is nobody’s liberal, or even moderate. And the decision does not represent a sea change in the high court’s otherwise dismal campaign-finance jurisprudence.

Editorials: Manual count for credible, transparent elections in the Phillipines | Inquirer

As generally known, to achieve clean, honest, fair, accurate and transparent elections, the electoral process must demonstrate: Secrecy and sanctity of the ballot; transparency; credibility; and fast and accurate results that reflect the people’s will. Elections, excluding campaigns, have the following distinct processes: Voter’s registration; casting of ballot; counting of votes at precincts; canvassing of votes; and declaration of winners. Of the five processes, only counting and canvassing may be automated or electronically tallied. Prior to the advent of Smartmatic, everything was manual, with counting of votes taking several hours or more, and canvassing, several weeks or more, before national candidates were declared winners.

Editorials: Democrats embrace the logic of ‘Citizens United’ | Lawrence Lessig/The Washington Post

Since the Supreme Court cleared the way for unlimited independent political expenditures by individuals, unions and corporations, there has been a fierce debate among academics and activists about what the term “corruption” means. For five justices on the court, “corruption” means “quid pro quo” — a bribe, or an exchange of a favor for influence. But an almost unanimous view, certainly among Democrats, and even among many Republicans, has emerged that this is a hopelessly stunted perspective of a much richer disease. Certainly, quid pro quo is corruption. But equally certainly, it is not the only form of corruption.