Florida: Voter Roll screening yields few non-citizens | KEYC

Florida’s attempt to screen voter rolls for non-U.S. citizens is yielding a smaller number than state officials had anticipated. The Florida Department of State announced Wednesday that it used a federal immigration database to verify 207 voters are not citizens. Earlier this year, state officials under Republican Gov. Rick Scott had said they suspected more than 2,600 voters were ineligible and had asked election supervisors to purge those on the list. State officials, however, said the screening process was still a success because it yielded some ineligible voters. Florida’s announcement came the same day that it reached an agreement with voting groups that had challenged the purge, alleging it was discriminatory because they said it mostly targeted Hispanics. The groups that work with immigrants, Haitian-Americans and Puerto Ricans had filed suit in Miami and they are dropping most of their claims “This settlement represents a historic milestone for voting rights in Florida,” said Advancement Project Co-Director Judith Browne Dianis. “It will ensure that naturalized citizens, the majority of whom are Latino, black and Asian, have the same opportunities as all Americans to participate in our political process and exercise the most fundamental right in our democracy – the right to vote.”

Pennsylvania: Supreme Court faces key question on voter ID appeal | Philadelphia Inquirer

Many opponents of the state’s voter ID law, like Bea Bookler of Devon, were shocked when Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. upheld the law in a ruling last month. “My first reaction was unprintable,” Bookler, 94, one of the plaintiffs trying to get the law overturned, said in a telephone interview. “My second reaction was to get in bed and say I don’t want to be alive in a world where people are prevented from voting.” While Simpson turned down a bid to stop the new voter ID requirements from taking effect with the Nov. 6 election, his opinion made clear that the judge was looking over his shoulder to an appeal in the state Supreme Court, however he ruled. Simpson himself teed up what could be the a major point of contention facing the six Supreme Court justices when they hear that appeal Thursday in their Philadelphia courtroom on the fourth floor of City Hall. The issue: What level of judicial scrutiny should be applied to the legislature setting new, more stringent rules for potential voters showing up at their polling places? A relatively flexible standard, deferring to the legislature’s authority to set the rules for running Pennsylvania elections? Or a strict standard, recognizing the right to vote as a fundamental civil right and putting a burden on the state to justify any new laws that might interfere with individuals trying to vote?

Ohio: Federal judge restores early voting in Ohio | Los Angeles Times

A federal judge ordered the battleground state of Ohio to open its polling places three days before the Nov. 6 election, giving a victory to the Obama campaign and marking the sixth ruling in recent weeks to block or void new voting rules set by Republican-dominated state legislatures. Friday’s decision restores early voting on the final weekend and Monday before election day, a time when more than 93,000 Ohio voters cast ballots in 2008. Last week, a three-judge court restored weekend early voting in parts of Florida that are subject to the Voting Rights Act. And on Wednesday, another Florida judge voided part of a state law that would have prevented groups such as the League of Women Voters from registering new voters. A Texas law was dealt two setbacks earlier this week when federal judges in Washington struck down a strict new photo identification requirement and threw out election districts that undercut the voting power of Latinos and blacks. Voting-rights advocates hailed what they saw as a rebuke to those who would curb an essential right.

Pennsylvania: Groups appeal judge’s ruling in voter ID case | Reuters

A coalition of civil rights groups has asked Pennsylvania’s highest court to review a voter identification law that it says will disenfranchise over 1 million voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election in the battleground state. A state judge this week rejected their challenge to the law, which requires voters to present photo identification such as a driver’s license in order to cast a ballot. Republican lawmakers say it will help prevent voter fraud. Critics charge that it is a ploy to keep mainly Democratic voters from casting ballots. Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, a lawyer for the Advancement Project — one of the groups behind the appeal filed on Thursday — said she had requested the top court hear oral arguments in the case during its next session, which runs September 10-14. “Obviously if we wait for the damage to be done, the election will be over,” Culliton-Gonzalez said on Friday.