Editorials: Electronic voting is the wrong answer to the right question | Chris Duckett/ZDNet

It’s nice to see that Australia’s new digital minister is looking to technology to solve the issues plaguing the nation, but moving towards a system of electronic voting is a needless and expensive solution to a problem in process. On ABC News Breakfast this morning, Malcolm Turnbull floated the idea of electronic voting machines to reduce the number of informal votes cast at last weekend’s election. “About 6 percent of Australians voted informally in the House of Representatives,” Turnbull said. “The overwhelming majority of them, what scrutineers have told me over the years is 90 percent plus, have voted informal either because they have just marked ‘1’ against a candidate who they favour and not filled in the other boxes, or they have filled in the other boxes incorrectly. “I think this is a very big issue, and one of the ways that can be dealt with is if we consider electronic voting.” Oh, dear. For a man who Prime Minister-Elect Abbott claimed “virtually invented the internet” in Australia, I would have expected a longer memory on the issue of electronic voting.

Editorials: Say no to e-voting: defending the pencils of democracy | Crikey

Another election is winding up, so it’s time for the compulsory round of people complaining that the system is flawed and that technology would magically fix some of the problems. Quite a few are troubled by the pencils, including Clive Palmer, who listed pencils as part of his comprehensive spray against Australia’s “corrupt system”. He told AAP:

“There’s absolutely no way I will win based [on] voting irregularities and the security of the ballots. We think it’s a corrupt system. Until that’s sorted out Abbott won’t be getting any legislation through the Senate with our support.”

But the Australian Electoral Commission has good reasons for using pencils.

“The AEC has found from experience that pencils are the most reliable implements for marking ballot papers. Pencils are practical because they don’t run out and the polling staff check and sharpen pencils as necessary throughout election day. Pencils can be stored between elections, and they work better in tropical areas.”

Besides, if someone intent on defrauding the election broke into the room where the ballots were stored overnight, do you think the best mode of attack would be to erase votes one by one, in a way that couldn’t be detected?

Editorials: Latest Florida voter purge scheme threatens immigrants’ voting rights | Facing South

It seems Florida just can’t resist the urge to purge. Last year, Gov. Rick Scott (R) went toe to toe with the federal government and civil rights groups for the power to needle thousands of Floridians — mostly Latinos — about their citizenship under the threat of voter roll expulsion. Scott lost that battle thanks in part to the Voting Rights Act. But not long after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelby v. Holder that the VRA coverage formula was unconstitutional, Scott began planning how to reinstate his purge program. This week, Floridians of color are speaking out against those purge plans as a class of people who are most likely to be challenged by the Florida government about their citizenship. The Florida organizations LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Florida New Majority and the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, along with the national civil rights organization Advancement Project*, are speaking out against Scott’s plans and calling for county elections supervisors to reject the call to interrogate those the state has determined as possible “non-citizens.” The groups fear that Scott’s revived list maintenance scheme may unduly burden new naturalized citizens, most of whom are Latino and Haitians.

Editorials: How to reform Australian Senate voting in one easy step | The Age

The grabbing of Senate seats by micro-party candidates with a handful of primary votes and a manipulated preference flow, while other party candidates with hundreds of thousands of votes are bypassed, is a matter demanding reform. The problem is that neither Labor nor the Coalition want to give up their own potential to manipulate the system by hijacking preference flows. Maybe now they will. As leader of the Greens, after the 2010 election I took a simple reform to the Gillard government. It was rejected. Perhaps the Abbott government will take it up. As everyone will remember from voting last Saturday, in the Senate we are required to either put ”1” in the box of the party of our choice above the line, or number all the candidates in the order of our own preference below the line. Fewer than one in 10 voters bother with the second choice. As the number of Senate candidates has grown, the second choice has become less and less attractive. The problem with the easier option of just voting ”1” for a party above the line is that the voter cedes control of her or his flow of preferences to the backroom operators of that party. Across Australia millions of votes cascade to other parties in an order the voters would not select themselves. The law requiring parties to lodge, pre-election, their choice of preference flow has led to the dark art of manipulation of preferences for unwarranted electoral advantage.

Editorials: Florida leaders wasted time on phantom voter fraud | Orlando Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: There’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it did exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would’ve been able to find it. Late last month, the law-enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. Only one arrest was made. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud hyped by Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers in advance of the 2012 presidential election. They played on fears at the time to pass a law that reduced early voting days from 14 to eight and restricted voter-registration drives. Both changes made voting harder — especially on groups likely to back Democrats. After Florida was embarrassed by hours-long lines on Election Day, some of those “reforms” were undone in last spring’s legislative session.

Editorials: Independent Cambodian Election Inquiry Needed | Thomsen-Reuters

The Cambodian government-controlled National Election Committee (NEC) has failed to address credible allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities or systematic unfairness in the election process. The NEC announced official election results on September 8, 2013. The NEC results give the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) 68 seats and the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), led by Sam Rainsy, 55 seats. Earlier the ruling party-dominated Constitutional Council dismissed all meaningful complaints about the conduct of the July 28 election.

Editorials: What voting fraud problem? | South Florida Sun Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: there’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it does exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have been unable to find it. Late last month, the law enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. The first case involved a group called Florida New Majority Education Fund, which sought to sign up voters in under-represented groups that tend to vote for Democrats. In this case, no arrests were made. The second case involved Strategic Allied Consulting, a vendor for the Republican Party of Florida. In this case, one arrest was made. A man admitted to stealing the identify of a former girlfriend’s ex-husband and filling out two false registration forms. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud trumpeted by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

Editorials: Democracy wins for ECSU student, but what about the rest of North Carolina? | Charlotte News Observer

The North Carolina Republican Party and its elected legislators haven’t been subtle about their aim to suppress voting. The GOP majority in the General Assembly and the Republican governor approved a Voter ID law, ended straight-ticket voting and pre-registration by 16- and 17-year-olds and cut back on opportunities to vote early. When it comes to weighing the public’s will through elections, they’re like a butcher with his thumb down on the scale. Now that they’re in charge, Republicans mean to hold on to power any way they can, even if it means bending, challenging or just changing the rules. But last week, a young man named Montraviaus King, a student at Elizabeth City State University in northeastern North Carolina, won a right that never should have been challenged. He can run for the city council there using his campus address as his official address, his voting address. So says the State Board of Elections, reversing a decision by the Pasquotank County Board of Elections.

Editorials: History Repeats Itself: Why Is South Dakota Denying American Indians an Equal Opportunity to Vote? | Eunice Hyon Min Rho/Huffington Post

Every election, South Dakota voters have 46 days when they can vote early, which makes it easier for people to take part in our democracy. But the rules appear to be different for American Indian voters living on reservations in the state–at least according to recent actions by the South Dakota’s Secretary of State, who is stonewalling a request for early voting sites in three American Indian communities. Officials in Shannon County, which is home to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and has a population that is 92 percent American Indian, planned to offer only six days of early voting. For the other 40 days, voters would have to travel up to three hours for the nearest early voting location. This created a significant hurdle for voters for whom arranging and paying for transportation would be no small feat–you see, Shannon County is one of the poorest areas in the country where over half of the residents live below the poverty line. After county residents sued over this clear disparity in voting opportunities, Secretary of State Jason Gant relented. Until 2019, South Dakota will use federal Help America Vote Act funds – designed, as you might imagine, to help Americans vote – to set up early voting locations within Shannon County for the full early voting period.

Editorials: The pulpit should be free of politics | Los Angeles Times

Churches and other nonprofits long have been forbidden from endorsing political candidates. But erratic enforcement of the law has emboldened supporters of legislation in Congress that would end the restriction. Far from needing to be repealed, the ban on politics in the pulpit ought to be enforced more aggressively. A bill sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) would repeal a 1954 amendment to the tax code sponsored by then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson. The amendment says that churches and other so-called 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations may not “participate in, or intervene in … any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

Editorials: Equal voting rights still a dream in North Carolina? | Al Jazeera America

For Noah Read, Mondays have become a day set aside for civil disobedience. For months, the 42-year-old from Burlington, N.C., has rearranged his work schedule as a restoration contractor so he can participate in weekly protests. The Moral Monday rallies, launched by the North Carolina NAACP outside the state’s general assembly in late April, continue to attract thousands to Raleigh to voice opposition to a spate of Republican-led legislation that critics pan as socially regressive. The issues range from an education budget devoid of teacher raises to the state’s decision to end federal unemployment benefits. “There’s one issue that affects all of the constituents that are gathering at Moral Mondays, and that is voting rights and voting access,” Read said. Now, 50 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington, the state that was the site of the Greensboro sit-ins protesting segregation in 1960 is again a flash point in the debate over voting rights — proving for many that the struggle for racial equality is not over.

Editorials: The Supreme Court and Ed Corsi’s Life of Political Crime | Bradley Smith/Wall Street Journal

In the winter of 2008, Ed Corsi decided that he was tired of stewing about the politics in his home of Geauga County, Ohio, and the country at large. He started a website, put Thomas Jefferson’s quote, “The price of freedom . . . constant vigilance” at the top, dubbed the site “Geauga Constitutional Council,” and set about blogging his thoughts on local and national politics. So began his life of political crime. Over the next two years, Mr. Corsi and a few friends would sometimes gather to talk politics. He occasionally sponsored meetings featuring speakers (not political candidates) on public policy issues (not elections), and charged a nominal fee for seating to offset his costs. He and two friends passed out political pamphlets they made at the Geauga County Fair. Mr. Corsi spent $40 a month to maintain his website, and perhaps a couple hundred dollars a year in other expenses. According to the state of Ohio, however, these activities are illegal under campaign-finance laws because Mr. Corsi did not first register with the state, report to the state on his activities, and subject himself to the regulations governing the operation of a state political action committee.

Editorials: Creating barriers to voting | San Francisco Chronicle

A recent panel discussion on the Latino vote at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, moderated by actress Eva Longoria, took a couple of unexpected turns. One was the claim of a Republican strategist who said he was blacklisted on the orders of panelist John Pérez, the state Assembly speaker, a flap that drew the most media attention. The other, and more consequential, takeaway was the content of the session itself. The focus was not on immigration reform, education, high unemployment rates or even the Republican Party’s inability to connect with an emerging demographic force in American politics. The main topic of the day? Vote suppression. “This is the No. 1 issue that Latinos and other communities should be worried about,” Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, told the gathered journalists. Sanchez knows a little something about vote-chilling tactics. In 2006, a mailer was sent to 14,000 registered voters with Latino surnames and foreign birthplaces telling them it was a crime for immigrants to vote in a federal election. Her Republican opponent was convicted of obstruction of justice in connection with the scheme.

Editorials: Plan B for Voting Rights | New York Times

Voting-rights advocates generally don’t look to Justice Antonin Scalia for comfort. During oral arguments earlier this year in Shelby County v. Holder, the case in which the Supreme Court struck down a central part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Justice Scalia called the act a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” But a growing circle of legal scholars is focusing on a lower-profile ruling — issued one week before the Shelby County decision and written by Justice Scalia — that may point the way to a new approach to protecting voting rights. The 7-to-2 decision, in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, struck down an Arizona law requiring anyone who wanted to vote to provide proof of citizenship. It said the state could not impose a rule that was more restrictive than the federal “motor voter” law, which requires only a sworn statement of citizenship by the voter.

Editorials: North Carolina’s Student Voting Battle Is Not Over | Penda D. Hair/Huffington Post

Apparently, it wasn’t enough for the state of North Carolina to pass the most far-reaching and extreme voting law in the nation. The radical rollback of voting rights, signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory a few weeks ago, cuts a week from early voting, eliminates same-day voter registration, creates a strict photo ID requirement (which specifically prohibits college IDs from being accepted for voting), bans the pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds, and expands the ability to challenge voters, among other sweeping provisions. Collectively, these changes make it harder to vote for people of color, students, seniors, people with disabilities and low-income North Carolinians. Yet the state did not stop there. Now two county election boards have employed a top-down approach to take over the voting process at the local level. They are specifically taking aim at student voting. Just days after the state’s restrictive voting law took hold, election officials in Watauga and Pasquotank counties announced policies to drastically curb student voting. First, the local elections board of Watauga County, home to Appalachian State University, voted to eliminate an early voting and general election polling place on campus. Now students seeking to cast a ballot will have to travel to an off-campus voting site that is absurdly difficult to reach: inaccessible by public transportation, and over a mile from campus, alongside a 45 mph road with no sidewalk. Worse still, in the Watauga County election board’s decision to condense what used to be three county polling places into one, this single precinct — which was designed for 1,500 voters and only has 35 parking spaces — will have to serve 9,300 voters.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act decision as a clear example of judicial activism | Constitution Daily

Last week, Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would sue Texas over its new voting ID law and redistricting plan. Vowing that the U.S. wouldn’t allow the recent Supreme Court decision gutting Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act to invite states to suppress minority voting rights, Holder promised that the Obama administration would sue under a different provision of the Voting Rights Act—Section 2—which the Court didn’t address in the case. As Molly Redden has reported, the lawsuits face an uphill battle because courts have interpreted Section 2 of the voting rights act to ban only voting practices that are intentionally discriminatory and have established a high burden of proof for intentional discrimination. There is, however, another, deeper reason that the Section 2 suits are unlikely to succeed: several of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have expressed deep skepticism about the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act itself.

Editorials: The Stranglehold on Our Politics | Elizabeth Drew/The New York Review of Books

Most of the electorate can’t be bothered with midterm elections, and this has had large consequences—none of them good—for our political system and our country. Voting for a president might be exciting or dutiful, worth troubling ourselves for. But the midterms, in which a varying number of governorships are up for election, as well as the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate, just don’t seem worth as much effort. Such inaction is a political act in itself, with major effects. In the past ten elections, voter turnout for presidential contests—which requires a tremendous and expensive effort by the campaigns—has ranged from 51.7 to 61.6 percent, while for the midterms it’s been in the high thirties. Turnout was highest for the two midterms in which the Republicans made their greatest gains: in 1994, when Clinton was president, it was 41.1 percent and in 2010 it was 41.6 percent. In 2006, when Bush was president, the Democrats took over the House and Senate and won most of the governorships, turnout was the next highest, 40.4 percent. The quality of the candidates, the economy, and many unexpected issues of course determine the atmosphere of an election; but in the end turnout is almost always decisive.

Editorials: Block Texas voter ID in time for fall election | San Antonio Express-News

Equal access to the polls is a concept all Texans can hold dear. Which is why all Texans should welcome a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block voter ID, which a previous panel of judges already found adversely affected minority voters. Our only complaint with the Justice Department complaint is that it does not seek injunctive relief, though this might come later. At the moment, voter ID is still in effect for the Nov. 5 election, early voting for which begins Oct. 21. The Justice Department might reason that federal judges in San Antonio will rule quickly on a separate case involving Texas’ 2011 redistricting maps. But, these judges are being asked to rule on a seldom-used portion of the Voting Rights Act — Section 3(c). A decision might not come quickly enough. Such a ruling would mean that Texas would have to get its voter ID law precleared by a panel of federal judges or the Justice Department. The state would surely appeal.

Editorials: In a victory for voting rights, NC elections board OKs student bid for local office | Facing South

The Republican-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Tuesday to overturn a county election board’s ruling barring a student at a historically black college from running for local office because he’s registered to vote on campus. “Justice has prevailed,” Montravias King said after the board’s vote. Back in July, the senior at Elizabeth City State University filed to run for a local council seat. Local Republican Party official Richard “Pete” Gilbert challenged King’s candidacy last month, arguing that because his dorm address was only temporary he did not meet the residency requirements to run for city office. Voting rights advocates pointed out that North Carolina’s residency requirements for running for office and voting are the same. “This is a case about whether college students across the state can be denied the right to vote,” said King’s attorney, Clare Barnett with the Durham, N.C.-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

Editorials: Obama Electoral Commission Omission: Our Voting System Needs Real Reform | The Daily Beast

Our democracy is in disrepair. The Supreme Court recently crippled the pre-clearance remedy of the Voting Rights Act. Efforts are underway in a number of states, north and south, to limit voting by imposing stringent identification standards. The 40 percent of Americans who are independents are barred from participating in primary elections in most states, unless one of the major parties invites them. Our rigged system of redistricting is manifestly partisan. There is unprecedented gridlock in Washington and alarming levels of corruption in State legislatures. This sorry state of affairs has not gone entirely unnoticed. Recently, President Obama appointed a Presidential Commission on Election Administration, in response to breakdown and conflict in the electoral arena. Its mandate is to “promote the efficient administration of elections,” an understatement of the problem if there ever was one. Unfortunately, the Commission appears to be the usual status quo defending effort, bipartisan by Washington standards. It’s led by co-chairs Robert F. Bauer, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, who served as national counsel to the Romney presidential campaign and is now counsel to the Republican Governors Association. The gap between the magnitude of the problem and the narrowness of the Commission’s mandate is ridiculously wide, like opening an umbrella in the middle of a hurricane. This fact has drawn comments by a range of democracy reform advocates in the context of the Commission’s poorly attended hearings.

Editorials: Sensenbrenner an unlikely GOP champion of the Voting Rights Act | The Hill

The big surprise at the Republican National Committee’s lunch celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was the loud ovation for an elderly white conservative. The tall, 70-year-old Congressman hobbled to the front of the room with a cane. He had to be helped up the stairs to the stage. But once he reached the microphone, his call for Congress to restore the full power of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) had the crowd scrambling to get to their feet and applaud him. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) defied political stereotypes and several other Republicans when he announced an end-of-the-year deadline for reviving the pre-clearance provision of the VRA. “I am committed to restoring the Voting Rights Act as an effective tool to prevent discrimination,” said Sensenbrenner to repeated cheers. He was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when a bipartisan group approved reauthorization of the VRA in 2006. “This is something that has to be done by the end of the year so that a revised and constitutional Voting Rights Act is in place by the 2014 elections — both the primaries and general election,” Sensenbrenner told his largely black Republican audience.

Editorials: Colorado Secretray of State Gessler repeals controversial email/internet voting rules | Marilyn Marks/Colorado Statesman

On Thursday, Secretary of State Scott Gessler repealed the controversial email/internet voting rules that had been promulgated for the two recall elections for use by absentee voters. The rules were the subject of much controversy and were challenged in the Libertarian Party’s lawsuit concerning a variety of recall election procedures. While the Denver District Court found some of the recall rules in violation of statutes, Judge McGahey seemed willing to allow the use of email ballots, “for this election.” He ordered that absentee ballots must be made available to everyone without requiring an “excuse.” That ruling was anticipated, as Colorado has been a “no-excuse” state for many years. The use of email rather than mail or hand delivery for absentee ballots would proliferate, and the Secretary quickly decided that this was unworkable and repealed the rule. We applaud his quick decision to provide more security to the recall election processes. The Libertarians (and Citizen Center) had fought the introduction of email ballots for any use other than military overseas with no safer option (that is current law), and true medical emergencies. The original SOS rules issued August 16 allowed email transmission and return of all absentee ballots. After considerable public input, revised rules were issued to decrease the return of ballots by email, but still allow the email delivery of ballots to voters to be returned by U.S. Mail.

Editorials: Election 2013 Essays: The state of Australian democracy | The Conversation

Given that Australian voters will do their democratic duty by heading to the polls this Saturday, now seems a perfect time to pause and ask: what does the 2013 federal election tell us about the health of Australian democracy? With politicians increasingly prone to meddle with laws surrounding the electoral roll and the power of money in our political campaigns, the pulse of Australia’s democracy may not be as strong as we had once thought.

At the beginning of the 20th century there was no doubt about Australia’s democratic leadership. In 1903, through a massive nation-wide effort, Australia enrolled more of its population to vote in the forthcoming election than any country had done before. Commonwealth electoral officials estimated that 96% of the adult population, including both women and men, were now on the roll. The cause was further advanced in 1911 when enrolment was made compulsory, largely at the urging of the Chief Electoral Officer. Australia pioneered the creation of professional electoral administrators with a professional interest in the achievement of an electoral roll that was comprehensive as well as accurate. How does Australia compare in 2013?

Editorials: Students’ voting rights should not be suppressed | Arizona Daily Wildcat

When students choose to attend college in another city, they become a part of that town. Students living on campus are impacted by the decisions of elected officials in the surrounding community. In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled in Symm v. United States that students have a right to vote in their college town, yet Richard “Pete” Gilbert, Republican Party chairman of Pasquotank County in North Carolina, apparently hasn’t gotten the memo. Montravias King, a student at Elizabeth City State University in Pasquotank County, had been registered to vote at his campus address since 2009. But when he filed the paperwork to run for city council, Gilbert successfully challenged his eligibility before the County Board of Elections, arguing that a college dorm is a temporary residence and therefore insufficient for residency requirements. In North Carolina, the requirements to run for office are the same as those to vote, and Gilbert plans to file additional challenges against other ECSU students’ eligibility.

Editorials: What Today’s Journalists Can Learn From MLK Coverage | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

The golden anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech have appropriately fostered among a great many people unalloyed feelings of pride and nostalgia. Here was a moment of peaceful assembly, a mass redress of elemental grievances of the people, by the people, and for the people, that was capped off by one of the most memorable speeches in American history — one that has eerie relevance 50 years later. That day the meek raised their voices, sounding in the name of justice, and the rest of the nation listened. Soon there was a Civil Rights Act and, a year later, the Voting Rights Act. But as we look back closely on the events of late August 1963, we are reminded, too, of how those events were (or were not) covered by the journalists of that day. It’s easy to look back and glorify the events of August 28, 1963 — to see in speaker John Lewis, for example, a portrait of the hero he would become, 559 days later, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But that’s not necessarily how the March and the Speech were covered in real time. There was in 1963 a level of “false equivalence” in reporting on civil rights that, in the name of “objectivity,” equated black demands for racial equality with white concerns about getting there.

Editorials: State’s defense of sorry voter ID law drags on | The Dallas Morning News

Now facing a Department of Justice lawsuit, the state of Texas has a familiar adversary in its effort to defend a voter ID law that represents the height of expensive political grandstanding. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he is joining other court challenges to the law, which was struck down as discriminatory by one federal court but then cleared to go under a broader Supreme Court ruling this summer on the Voting Rights Act. This newspaper hopes the new challenges to the ill-conceived law prevail. Reactions from top elected Texas officials to Holder’s lawsuit reek of irony. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst complained that there is “no end to the tricks the Obama administration will play to undermine Texas.” Actually, it was the GOP-dominated Legislature in 2011 that undermined years of Texas tradition honoring the county-issued voter certificate at the polls. In substituting five different types of government photo IDs, lawmakers used the pretext that they were fighting rampant voter fraud, a lame excuse then and now for passing what federal judges called the strictest voter ID provisions in the nation. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott decried Holder’s political motivations in siding with Democratic groups, and we aren’t blind to those bedfellows. But neither were we blind to the utter failure by Republicans in the Legislature to prove their contention that long-standing Texas election laws were widely exploited by voter impersonators at the polls.

Editorials: The Fight for Voting Rights, 50 Years Later | New York Times

On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the country can take pride in progress made toward the guarantee of equal rights for all. Yet it is disheartening to watch the continuing battles over the right to vote, a core goal of the civil rights movement and the foundation of any functioning democracy. The latest fights, over harsh new voting restrictions in Texas and North Carolina, have only made the need for comprehensive and lasting protection of voting rights that much clearer. In June, the Supreme Court hobbled the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most effective civil rights laws in American history. A central element of that law required certain states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making changes to their election laws. Finding that “things have changed dramatically,” the court struck down that part of the act.

Editorials: North Carolina Restricts Voting Access in the Name of Reform | Jurist

In the final hours of the North Carolina General Assembly’s 2013 session, the Republican-controlled legislature passed House Bill 589 [PDF] (HB 589), an omnibus package of election law “reforms” aimed at further “securing the vote.” A few weeks later HB 589 was signed into law by Republican Governor Pat McCrory, despite the Governor’s initial admission that he “doesn’t know enough” about certain provisions of the legislation and in the face of growing opposition from the public. The legislation’s expected effect of diminishing the ability of North Carolina voters from casting their ballots seems incongruous with the legislation’s preamble stating in part: “[a]n act to restore confidence in government.” In effect, this legislative effort appears to be a not-so-veiled attack on voting which will make the registration process and actual act of casting a vote more onerous, particularly for the poor, minority, college-age youth and elderly voters. Until recently, 40 of North Carolina’s 100 counties were covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Prior to the US Supreme Court ruling on Shelby County v. Holder in June, election law changes impacting any of these counties (and many others nationally) required preclearance review by the US Department of Justice. The Shelby County holding invalidated Section 4 (which set forth the formula for determining those jurisdictions subject to preclearance) and effectively voided Section 5 (the preclearance provision) of the VRA. It now appears that the Court’s June decision prompted Republican members of the General Assembly to revisit previously filed legislation [PDF] intent on further restricting ballot access and scaling back current election laws knowing that the sometimes long and arduous road of preclearance would likely not need to be traveled.

Editorials: U.S. v. Texas and the Strident Language of the Voting Rights Fight | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

Ballot integrity measure. That’s what Republican officials in Texas call SB 14, the voter identification measure designed to make it measurably harder for people there to vote. Not all people, mind you. Just people who don’t own or drive cars, and people who can’t afford to take time off from work to travel long distances to state offices that are not open at convenient times for working people, and elderly people who are ill and young people who cannot afford to pay the cost of new IDs they have never before needed. People, everyone acknowledges, who are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican even in the still Red State of Texas. So the headline alone — United States v. Texas — tells you a great deal about what you need to know about the new civil rights lawsuit filed by the Justice Department last Thursday in federal court in Corpus Christi. It tells you that the battle over voting rights in the wake of Shelby County v. Holder, the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in late June that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, has become the latest keynote in the nasty national debate between the Obama Administration and its most ardent conservative critics. And it suggests that things are likely going to get worse before they get better.

Editorials: How Gerrymandering Has Created a Segregated House | Garance Franke-Ruta/The Atlantic

Reading Robert Penn Warren’s 1964 interview with Martin Luther King Jr. along with Beth Reinhard’s piece on how African-Americans still lack clout in Congress makes clear a conundrum at the heart of the unfinished revolution King helped lead. Namely, the minority-vote protections locked in by Section 2 the Voting Rights Act of 1965 worked best to ensure minorities had a voice in their own self-government at the federal level in an environment in which the party that elected African-Americans also controlled the House of Representatives, as Democrats did from 1955 to 1995 and again from 2007 to 2011. King spoke about how inequality is fostered by physical segregation, which leads to segregated conversational communities. “Our society must come to see that this whole question of, of integration is not merely a matter of quantity — having the same this and that in terms of a building or a desk or this — but it’s a matter of quality. It’s, if I can’t communicate with a man, I’m not equal to him. It’s not only a matter of mathematics; it’s a matter of psychology and philosophy,” he told Penn Warren. It’s an important point, and one we consider too infrequently these days, in which a more numbers-based approach to questions of equality often reigns supreme.