Delaware: A Small State Taking Big Steps to Improve its Democracy | Brennan Center for Justice

Last month, distracted by Super Tuesday, March Madness, and “The Hunger Games,” you may have missed the news from Delaware. Here’s the exciting update: Governor Jack Markell introduced two proposals to strengthen the state’s democratic processes — one to make lobbying more transparent; the other to shine light on money in politics. Together, these reforms would represent a big step for this small state. The first proposal is simple. Senate Bill 185 would require lobbyists to file reports online about their lobbying activity within five days of contacting a state official to discuss a bill, resolution, or regulation. Basically, the law would eliminate back-door meetings; when a lobbyist decides to use her clout to try to influence the legislative process, she must come through the front door and leave her calling card.

Editorials: New curbs on voter registration could hurt Obama | Reuters

New state laws designed to fight voter fraud could reduce the number of Americans signing up to vote in this year’s presidential election by hundreds of thousands, a potential problem for President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. Voting laws passed by Republican-led legislatures in a dozen states during the past year have sharply restricted voter-registration drives that typically target young, low-income, African-American and Hispanic voters – groups that have backed the Democratic president by wide margins. A further 16 states are considering bills that would end voter registration on election days, impose a range of limits on groups that register voters and make it more difficult for people to sign up, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. The new laws – many of which include measures requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls – could carve into Obama’s potential support in Florida, Ohio and a few other politically divided states likely to be crucial in the November 6 election, analysts say.

National: Voter ID Laws Take Center Stage at House Judiciary Hearing | Main Justice

The controversial video showing a man almost fraudulently accepting a ballot as Attorney General Eric Holder got more airtime Wednesday at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Justice Department’s voting rights enforcement track record. The video, made by conservative activist James O’Keefe, prompted some committee members to question the attorney general’s handling of voting cases. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said he is “shocked the attorney general hasn’t offered a meaningful response to this.” On hand for the Republican-led House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution hearing was former Voting Section lawyerJ. Christian Adams, who has been a vocal critic of Holder since his dramatic departure from theJustice Department in 2010. Adams was critical of Holder’s decision to partially dismiss a voter intimidation civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and members — a racially charged case Adams helped initiate. But many veterans of the Civil Rights Division said the George W. Bush administration’s Voting Section took on a highly politicized agenda in choosing cases.

Voting Blogs: DISCLOSE Act Will Make Mandatory Disclosure Mandatory | Brennan Center for Justice

For decades, the one piece of campaign finance reform that Democrats and Republicans agreedabout was the importance of disclosure. For example, in 2000, House Republican Amo Houghton explained that “[w]e need disclosure by section 527 organizations, but when 501(c) groups intervene in the political process, they should disclose what they are doing and who is paying for it as well.” Lately, though, the GOP has changed its mind about political transparency, and the current debate over increased disclosure requirements for independent election spending has sharply divided on partisan lines. Given the huge volumes of money being spent to swing the 2012 election — with millions being spent by non-profit 501(c) groups with secret donors — it’s long past time for a new bipartisan consensus in favor of transparency. Democrats like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who recently introduced the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 in the Senate, are leading the way, but they need a new generation of Republican leaders to join them.

Editorials: How to Expand the Voter Rolls | NYTimes.com

A country that should be encouraging more people to vote is still using an archaic voter registration system that creates barriers to getting a ballot. In 2008, 75 million eligible people did not vote in the presidential election, and 80 percent of them were not registered. The vast majority of states rely on a 19th-century registration method: requiring people to fill out a paper form when they become eligible to vote, often at a government office, and to repeat the process every time they move. This is a significant reason why the United States has a low voter participation rate. The persistence of the paper system is all the more frustrating because a growing number of states have shown that technology can get more people on voter rolls. There’s no reason why every state cannot automatically register eligible voters when they have contact with a government agency. The most common method, now used in 17 states, electronically sends data from motor vehicle departments to election offices.

Voting Blogs: Peeling Back the Layers of Super PACs | Brennan Center for Justice

Russian dolls are an attractive toy for children — peel back the layers of wooden figurines until the smallest doll is revealed. But imagine a campaign finance system in which the identity of political donors is shielded from public knowledge. Peel back the layers of this doll and rather than learning who is financing a political advertisement, all you get is the name of a benign-sounding group. Such is the state of disclosure laws today, which were made worse after the influx of new money allowed by Citizens United. The DISCLOSE Act of 2012, being considered today by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, goes a long way to remedy this problem — as Brennan Center testimony illustrates.

Voting Blogs: 200 Years of the Gerrymander | Brennan Center for Justice

Today is the 200th Anniversary of the first Gerrymander.  The cartoon-map first appeared in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812 when Jeffersonian Republicans forced a bill through the Massachusetts legislature rearranging district lines to assure them an advantage in the upcoming senatorial elections. Although Governor Elbridge Gerry had only reluctantly signed the law, a Federalist editor is said to have exclaimed upon seeing the new district lines, “Salamander! Call it a Gerrymander.” So here we are in 2012.  As noted by Professor Justin Levitt of Loyola School of Law in California, “every 10 years, redistricting litigation joins death and taxes as one of life’s certainties.”  Although redistricting is nearly complete in almost every state, there is no shortage of controversy.  Professor Levitt notes 113 cases impacting federal or statewide redistricting have been filed so far this cycle, in 31 different states — with 26 new cases in November and December alone.

Editorials: Minnesota’s War on Voting | The Nation

Last year, Republicans introduced legislation in thirty-four states to mandate government-issued photo IDs to cast a ballot. Nine GOP states have passed voter ID laws since the 2010 election, including Pennsylvania earlier last month. Minnesota, another important battleground state, could be next. Last year, Minnesota Democratic Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a bill from the GOP legislature that would have given the state the strictest voter ID law in the nation, prohibiting passports, military IDs and student IDs as valid documentation. Now the legislature is bypassing the governor by approving a constitutional amendment for voter ID that will go on the November ballot. The House and Senate have each passed their own versions of the legislation; once agreed upon, the measure will go on the 2012 ballot. If approved by voters, the 2013 legislature will implement the particulars of the law.

Voting Blogs: Analyzing Minority Turnout After Voter ID | Brennan Center for Justice

I had the pleasure of speaking with Kerry Miller of the Daily Circuit on Minnesota Public Radio on the subject of Voter ID laws. Minnesota currently has a proposed constitutional amendment moving through its legislature to impose strict photo ID restrictions on voters and possibly eliminate Election Day registration. I take great pride in the fact that my home state of Minnesota consistently has the highest turnout in the country, and I’m pained by this legislation that is sure to reduce opportunities for voter participation across the state. I want to correct a common misperception that came up during show, suggesting that voter turnout among Hispanic voters in Georgia has increased since the passage of its restrictive no-photo, no-vote photo ID law.

Editorials: The two-fold voter fraud fraud | Al Jazeera

Last week, thousands of people participated in a re-enactment of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights, which was directly responsible for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The recent march culminated with a rally at the state capitol. “We didn’t come to commemorate what happened 47 years ago. We came to continue what happened 47 years ago,” said Reverend Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network was a principal organiser of the march. Martin Luther King III told the crowd his father would have opposed voter photo-ID laws being passed or considered in many states. “I think my father would be greatly disappointed in our nation,” he said. Republicans allege that in-person voter fraud is on the up and up. Yet there’s simply no evidence – or plausible motive – for suspecting that individual voters pose a threat to our democracy. In fact, many of these new measures contribute to the further disenfranchisement of minority groups, while leaving the door open to the potential abuse of electronic vote counts.

Editorials: GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Rolling Stone

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous “Bloody Sunday” march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today’s civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls “the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation.” Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Voting Blogs: Pew Study Shows Need for Modern Voting System | Brennan Center for Justice

Today, the Pew Center on the States released a report detailing some of the serious flaws in our voter registration systems, the lynchpin of election administration. Their study reaffirms what election administrators and voter advocates have known for a long time — that the voter rolls are filled with errors, and an unconscionable percentage (almost a quarter, according to Pew) of American citizens who are eligible to vote are not registered. The flaws identified in the Pew study are the result of an outdated, paper- based voter registration system that is not only inefficient and costly, but prone to inaccuracy. Worse, the clunky system leaves off millions of eligible voters or contains errors in their records that could prevent them from voting effectively. The question is no longer whether we should upgrade the system, but how we should do so. Recent technological innovations point the way to the solution: modernizing the system.

Voting Blogs: Super PAC Disclosure Statements Disclose Little | Brennan Center for Justice

One might guess that groups with names like Restore Our Future, Priorities USA, and Winning Our Future would all be campaigning for the same thing — but that could not be further from the truth. These similarly named groups are the Super PACs who are fighting each other in the presidential election. Their confusing names are paltry in comparison to the biggest concern: many of their real donors remain hidden from the public eye. With unlimited contributions made possible by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and subsequent court decisions, the groups have already raised millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, corporations, unions, and nonprofits. While President Obama is not immune from the Super PAC trend, the Republican nominees have raised more money in much larger amounts. Twelve billionaires donated to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, with contributions ranging from $50,000 to $1 million.

Editorials: Keeping Virginians from voting | The Washington Post

For decades Virginia has allowed residents who lack proof of identification or whose IDs have been lost or stolen to vote, provided they are listed in the voting rolls and sign sworn statements attesting to their identities. Now, in response to no known problem, Republicans are backing a change already approved by the House of Delegates that would allow such citizens to cast only provisional ballots, which would be counted only if their identities were subsequently verified with IDs. Given that 11 percent of voting-age citizens nationally lack photo IDs, that would place unmanageable burdens on thousands of would-be voters in the commonwealth. The bill’s chief sponsor is Del. Mark R. Cole (R-Fredericksburg), whose previous claim to fame was a bill in 2010 banning employers from planting microchips in their workers, on the grounds that doing so might enable a surreptitious incursion by the antichrist. Yes, really.

National: ID bills target college-aged voters | The Temple News

New voting laws requiring identification and eliminating absentee ballots disenfranchise young and low-income voters in various states. Students who move out-of-state to attend college normally shrug a slew of stresses on their shoulders. From a potentially higher tuition to possible travel expenses, most college students think they have enough to worry about. A new wave of laws, however, could be adding to that list. Throughout the country, voting laws are being pursued that will affect a wide range of voting issues including voter IDs, proof of citizenship, strict registration, reduction in absentee balloting and disenfranchisement of voters with a felony conviction.

Massachusetts: Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown Spending Pact Faces Challenges in Post-Citizens United World | International Business Times

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass, and Elizabeth Warren, his main Democratic challenger, will have difficulty enforcing a pledge to limit third party spending in what is likely to be a closely watched and bruising Senate race. Brown and Warren have agreed to donate to charity 50 percent of the cost of any television or radio advertising purchased by outside groups. The pact is an attempt to curb the influence of outside organizations that have begun pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision eliminated some restrictions on campaign finance.

Editorials: Voter ID legislation, not fraud, is the real problem | Michael Paul Williams/Richmond Times-Dispatch

The legislative drive against voter fraud is a solution in search of a problem. Proposed General Assembly legislation would scratch the current provision that allows voters to sign a sworn statement that they are who they claim to be if they’re unable to produce a required form of identification. Instead, they would cast a provisional ballot. For lack of an ID, a potentially eligible vote would not be counted on election night, and possibly not at all, if the would-be voter doesn’t provide the information. At the least, this measure would leave registrars sitting on more uncounted ballots after Election Day, potentially causing confusion for voters and candidates.

Voting Blogs: Facts, Darn Facts, and Super PACs | Brennan Center for Justice

Recently, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on corporate independent expenditures. This is a direct rebuke of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down a federal ban on corporate independent expenditures, largely based on the assumption that such spending inherently cannot corrupt elected officials.

The majority opinion in Citizens United, authored by Justice Kennedy, concluded that “independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption” and that “there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate.” But, thanks to a procedural quirk, the case shot up to the Supreme Court before anyone in the case could engage in any real fact-finding. So, Kennedy’s conclusion was little more than an untested hypothesis, not supported by any hard evidence.

When presented with evidence of corruption in a similar case, Justice Kennedy came to a totally different conclusion. Caperton v. Massey dealt with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice who failed to recuse himself from a case involving a CEO who spent nearly $3 million on independent expenditures in support of the justice’s election. Because the independent expenditures constituted the vast majority of spending in the judicial election, Justice Kennedy concluded that the justice should have recused himself because “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, [and] similar fears of bias can arise when…a man chooses the judge in his own cause.”

National: Impact of South Carolina voter ID law rejection limited | USAToday.com

The Justice Department’s rejection of South Carolina’s voter ID law probably won’t prevent other states from adopting similar measures, analysts say. “Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to have a significant chilling effect,” said Wendy Weiser, a voter ID opponent and lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University law school.

The South Carolina law would have required voters to show one of five government-issued IDs — such as a drivers license or passport — before casting a ballot. Justice officials said the state didn’t show the law complied with the 1965 Voter Rights Act and didn’t justify the need for the law or prove widespread voter impersonation, which tougher ID laws are designed to prevent. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has promised to appeal.

Florida: Florida Citizens Groups Take Voting Rights Battle to Court | bet.com

The GOP’s efforts to narrow voting rights in Florida have now engendered legal resistance. The League of Women Voters and other civic groups, claiming that a new state law unconstitutionally “burdens their efforts” to simply register voters, filed suit in state court last week seeking to dismantle the new legislation.

Attorneys for the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote and the Florida Public Interest Research Group argue that Florida’s new law 40 requires so-called “third party voter registration” organizations such as theirs to pre-register with the state and satisfy a number of cumbersome disclosure requirements before engaging in any voter registration activities. Under the law, they are now also required to continually submit updates about their organization’s status, an act the groups call “burdensome.”

“There is no indication that Florida’s existing law was inadequate in addressing the state’s interest in preventing voter registration fraud and ensuring the integrity of the registration process,” the complaint reads. “Furthermore, even if the state had discovered shortcomings in the existing law, the new law burdens far more speech and associated activity than is necessary to accomplish any legitimate government interest.”

Editorials: Vote suppression tactics all too familiar | baltimoresun.com

Paul Schurick’s recent conviction for voter fraud is a sad coda to the 2010 Martin O’Malley-Bob Ehrlich gubernatorial rematch: Sad because Mr. Schurick tainted his reputation as one of the state’s best political strategists, and sadder because Governor O’Malley almost certainly would have been re-elected no matter what late-campaign shenanigans Mr. Schurick pulled.

But the saddest thing about Schurick’s conviction is that his actions are merely one small part of a larger and more systematic attempt by conservative strategists to find ways to suppress voter turnout in service to Republican partisan advantage. Unlike in the Schurick case, most such efforts are perfectly legal (though certainly unsavory).

Let’s take a quick tour of the voter-suppression activities under way across the nation. In the past year, 19 new laws and two executive orders were issued in 14 states to create stricter voter identification requirements. These measures were supported and passed largely by Republicans after gaining control of state legislatures and governors’ offices in 2010. Their aim is to constrict the electorate for 2012 and beyond.

New York: Study Finds Voters Erred Often in Using New Machines | NYTimes.com

As many as 60,000 of the votes cast in New York State elections last year were voided because people unintentionally cast their ballots for more than one candidate, according to a study being released this week. The excess-voting was highest in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including two Bronx election districts where 40 percent of the votes for governor were disqualified.

The study, by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, blamed software used with new electronic optical-scan voting machines as well as ambiguous instructions for disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. The old mechanical lever-operated machines did not allow votes for more than one candidate for the same office.

The study, by Lawrence Norden, acting director of Brennan’s Democracy Program, and Sundeep Iyer, a fellow with the program, estimated that 20,000 of the more than four million votes cast for governor were not counted and that as many as 40,000 votes were voided in other contests in New York State.

National: The GOP’s War on Voting Comes to Washington | Mother Jones

Republicans in state legislatures across the country have spent the past year mounting an all-out assault on voting rights, pushing a slew of voter ID and redistricting measures that are widely expected to dilute the power of minority and low-income voters in next November’s elections. Now that effort has come to Capitol Hill, where a congressional committee will vote Thursday on a GOP-backed bill to eviscerate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC)—the last line of defense against fraud and tampering in electronic voting systems around the country.

The EAC was created in the wake of 2000’s controversial presidential election as a means of improving the quality standards for electronic voting systems. Its four commissioners (two Republicans and two Democrats) are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The commission tests voting equipment for states and localities, distributes grants to help improve voting standards, and offers helpful guidance on proofing ballots to some 4,600 local election jurisdictions. It also collects information on overseas and military voters and tracks the return rate for absentee ballots sent to these voters.

On Friday, a House subcommittee on elections will vote on Rep. Gregg Harper’s (R-Miss.) bill eliminating the EAC along with the longstanding public financing system for presidential campaigns. Republicans claim that the commission has already achieved its aim of cleaning up elections. Its responsibilities, they argue, can be reabsorbed by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which oversaw voting machine certification prior to the EAC’s creation in 2002. Ending the EAC, Republicans estimate, will save $33 million over the next five years.

National: Advocates Urge Congress to Fight State Voting Changes | governing.com

Five million. That’s the number of eligible voters that could find it harder to cast their ballot in the 2012 elections. It’s also the figure that advocates against state voting law changes repeatedly echoed during a Capitol Hill forum on new state voting laws that several House Democrats, including Representatives John Conyers, Steny Hoyer, Robert Brady, Jerrold Nadler, and Keith Ellison called Monday.

The NAACP, ACLU and League of Women Voters, among other research and advocacy organizations asked lawmakers to pass legislation to protect voters’ rights. They also wanted Congress to pressure the Department of Justice to deny approval to the states that need it for their new laws to take effect. So far, this includes Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, which are among the nine states that need federal approval for any changes to voting laws under the Voting Rights Act.

National: Voter ID legislation faces opposition in Congress | Post Gazette

Voters’ rights advocates are asking congressional liberals to stymie state voter ID requirements, which they contend are part of a political effort to disenfranchise poor and minority voters, who tend to be Democrats.

Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, urged lawmakers to support a bill introduced last week that would prohibit poll workers from requiring photo identification. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the legislation could prevent enforcement of legislation now under consideration in Pennsylvania and 26 other states. Mr. Shelton’s comments came during a hearing convened Monday by a contingent of congressional Democrats.

Editorials: Controversy over voting rules and security | CNN

About a year from now, Americans will cast votes for the candidates of their choice. Or at least they will think that’s what they’ve done, having little awareness of concerns about the security of electronic voting machines, a “national security issue” in the view of scientists who easily hacked a widely-used device.

Others, even before they get the chance to vote, will discover that the rules for registering and voting itself have changed in their state; changes so controversial that the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School recently proclaimed that a “War on Voting Rages Nationwide.”

There is debate over the extent of voter fraud, arguments about whether there is a greater problem with accurately registering people than in people actually voting who should not. Nonetheless, 13 states last year amended their voting rules and another two dozen are at various stages of doing likewise. Chief among the changes are photo identification requirements, reduced opportunities to vote early and restrictions on how and when voter registration is conducted.

Editorials: Mississippi Has A New Voter ID Law. Does Voter Fraud Exist? | The New Republic

Lost amidst the streaming confetti that followed Tuesday’s big liberal victories in Mississippi and Ohio were two potentially disastrous voter referendum results. One was Ohio’s decision to “block” the American Care Act’s individual mandate, which my esteemed colleague explicated in great detail earlier this week. The other was Mississippi’s strict voter ID law, now the eighth of its kind in the country. The new law is simple: Except for some religious objectors and residents of state-run care facilities, voters will henceforth need to present government-issued photo IDs to place ballots. (Interesting side note: Because IDs will now be dispensed free of charge, the state estimates it will lose $1.5 million in yearly revenue.) Every time such an ID law is proposed, proponents justify its merits by citing the dangers of voter fraud. Opponents counter that the laws are nothing more than brazen attempts to disenfranchise young and minority voters. Who’s right?

National: Millions denied voting rights | newsday.com

In 52 weeks, we’ll hit the polls in the next national election — but more than 3.2 million may not make it past the check-in table. By then, new laws may go into effect requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at polling stations in Kansas, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Most other states — including, for the time being, New York — still accept signatures or utility bills, making it easier for would-be voters to verify their identities.

According to data from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, an estimated 3.2 million potential voters don’t have state-issued IDs in Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Add in the other two states, and the number is sure to be higher.

Maine: Voting Rights Restored in Maine, Restricted in Mississippi | The Nation

Last night marked the first time that voters themselves could weigh in on the GOP’s war on voting. The results were mixed, as Maine voted to reinstate Election Day voter registration while Mississippi voted to mandate government-issued IDs in order to cast a ballot.

First, Maine. By an overwhelming twenty point margin, Mainers overruled the GOP governor and legislature and voted to restore Election Day registration, which had been on the books since 1973 before Republicans scrapped it this year. The Protect Maine Votes coalition gathered 70,000 signatures in less than a month, according to the Bangor Daily News, in order to place the issue on the ballot. Sixty-thousand Mainers registered on Election Day in 2008, and the convenience of same day registration helped explain why Maine consistently had one of the highest voter turnouts in the nation.

Maine: Voters restore Election Day registration | seattlepi.com

A law requiring voters to enroll at least two days before an election was repealed Tuesday, restoring a four-decade policy of allowing registrations up to and including Election Day. Unofficial results showed the proposal to repeal the newly enacted requirement passed with 60 percent of the vote.

“This is a big day for the voters of Maine,” said David Farmer, spokesman for the Yes on One campaign. “They stood up for their rights to be heard. This tells us that Maine people won’t stand for people messing with their elections.”

The referendum was put on the ballot through a people’s veto initiative after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law in June requiring voters to register at least two business days before an election is held. That set aside a state law passed in 1973 that allows Election Day, or same-day, registrations.