Editorials: Ohio shows pathway to reform redistricting in North Carolina |Lee Mortimer/NewsObserver.com

The lopsided 2014 election results leave little reason to expect Republicans and Democrats to work together in the upcoming General Assembly session. Republicans are riding high after retaining veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers. Democrats believe that the GOP’s super-majority control is undeserved and that gerrymandered elections unfairly pushed them to the sidelines. Ironically, agreement may be attainable on the very issue that has most divided the parties – redistricting. That is, if they can take a cue from what Republicans and Democrats recently achieved in Ohio.

Ohio: Bipartisan deal to redraw maps becoming reality | Toledo Blade

Lawmakers may actually be nearing a long elusive bipartisan compromise to change the highly partisan way Ohio redraws state legislative districts every 10 years. But don’t look for a solution anytime soon on how legislators redraw congressional districts as the newly strengthened Republican majority in Washington has frowned on changing a system that has worked to its advantage. The Ohio House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a proposed constitutional amendment to increase minority input into maps for 99 state House and 33 state Senate districts and improve the chances that races will be more competitive. The Senate president has introduced his own plan in the upper chamber that is also in position for a potential vote this week, likely the last before lawmakers wrap up the two-year session and head for the Statehouse doors for the holidays.

Alaska: State Presents Election Translation Plan | Alaska Public Media

The state of Alaska is proposing several changes in how they deliver voting information to Alaska Natives whose first language is Yup’ik or Gwich’in. The state is offering the changes after a federal judge issued a decision in a voting rights lawsuit last week. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ordered the state to better help voters who speak Yup’ik and Gwich’in understand their ballots. Elizabeth Bakalar is the lead attorney for the state on the case. She says that the state is focused on three areas: “That voters need better information ahead of the election that language assistance is available, that outreach workers need to be better prepared to provide language assistance voters especially prior to election day and to better address certain dialectical differences. So those are the three areas which the interim remedies we’re proposing are meant to target and certainly any long term remedies would probably target those areas as well.” Bakalar explains, the state is preparing different versions of ballot language to send to tribal councils and outreach workers to reflect different dialects. She says they’re looking for feedback from speakers.

Editorials: Before convicting four Alabama counties of voter fraud, let’s see the evidence | Bob Nicholson/AL.com

If you needed to rotate the tires on your car would you accomplish that task by changing the oil? Silly idea isn’t it? Yet that analogy is on target when you look at the Alabama Legislature’s actions in establishing strong voter ID laws. They claim that they are reacting to fraud allegations and a crowd of onlookers, columnists and pundits, are cheering them onward. Unfortunately, only a brief examination of the “evidence” shows no fraud. I am a Certified Fraud Examiner. The definition of fraud is specific (wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain) and to casually alleging such is irresponsible. In order to prove fraud, not only do you have to show what happened, you have to show intent as well. Lacking a confession admitting intent, fraud is proven in court by ruling out all other possibilities. Let’s look at the latest “evidence” and see if it meets the definition of proving fraud. Four counties in Alabama, Macon, Wilcox, Lowndes and Greene, have more voters on the roll than the US Census Department estimated their adult populations to be in 2012 by a cumulative 2934 people. And, these counties vote with a strong Democratic majority. Not only that, but in 2012 former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis alleged that wholesale voter fraud goes on in parts of the Black Belt. Convinced that there is fraud going on? Don’t convict just yet.

Editorials: Prison-Based Gerrymandering | New York Times

The Census Bureau has steadfastly resisted calls to end the practice of counting inmates as “residents” of their prisons instead of the cities and towns where they lived and to which they typically return. The bureau’s new director, John Thompson, seems at least open to ending this wrongful practice. Counting inmates at their correctional institutions encourages prison-based gerrymandering, by which state lawmakers draw legislative districts that consist partly or even mainly of prison populations, even though inmates are denied the right to vote in all but two states. This enhances the political power of the mainly rural districts where prisons are built and undercuts the influence of the urban districts where many inmates came from.

New York: South Asians await Bengali ballots | TimesLedger

The borough’s South Asian community last week cautiously celebrated the news that the city Board of Elections will provide Bengali-language ballots for this year’s city elections. “By providing translated ballots and language assistance in Bengali, we are ensuring that all voters in Queens have the resources they need to fully exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections,” said state Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Little Neck), whose district stretching from Bellerose to Richmond Hill was redrawn after the 2010 census in a deliberate move to consolidate the electoral power of Queens’ fractured South Asian community. “This is one critical step towards improving voter access and increasing voter participation for all New Yorkers.”

National: How We Register | National Journal

If you’re between the ages of 18 and 24, chances are you registered to vote when you visited the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you’re over the age of 65, you probably registered to vote at some other government office. Those are the findings of a new Census Bureau survey that asked Americans how they registered to vote. As it turns out, younger voters are much more likely to register when they get a driver’s license, at their school or university campus, or online.

National: 2012 Election: A Failure to Mobilize the Youth Vote | Michael P. McDonald/Huffington Post

Among the most dramatic findings reported in the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) is a large decline in turnout rates among young people, particularly those who were first eligible to vote in the 2012 election. In contrast, older persons’ turnout rates remained steady, or even increased. Given the large disparities in support for Obama among younger and older voters, Obama’s smaller margin of victory in 2012 was thus partially a turnout story, as the electorate’s composition was older, and more favorable to Republicans in 2012 compared to 2008.

National: 2012 Turnout: Race, Ethnicity and the Youth Vote | Michael P. McDonald/Huffington Post

An important election survey that reveals patterns in voting and registration is the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey November Voting and Registration Supplement, or CPS for short. The 2012 CPS reveals insights to major stories about the election divined from the exit polls: the changing face of the electorate and the role of young people in determining the outcome of the presidential election. As I suggested previously, the increasing diversity of the 2012 electorate was a partially a turnout story, with non-Hispanic Whites modestly withdrawing from the electorate. The CPS further documents how it is also a story of the inevitable trend of increasing diversity of the country. Perhaps the most revealing new finding is a dramatic decrease in the youth vote, which has important ramifications for future elections.

National: In Voting Rights Arguments, Chief Justice Misconstrued Census Data | NPR

At the voting rights argument in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts tore into Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, grilling him on his knowledge of voting statistics. The point the chief justice was trying to make was that Massachusetts, which is not covered by the preclearance section of the Voting Rights Act, has a far worse record in black voter registration and turnout than Mississippi, which is covered by Section 5 of the act. But a close look at census statistics indicates the chief justice was wrong, or at least that he did not look at the totality of the numbers.

North Carolina: ‘112-year-old voters’ a result of change in data collection, not voter fraud | newsobserver.com

Since early voting started last week in North Carolina, data from the state Board of Elections shows 899 ballots cast by 112-year-old voters. Either a surprising number of people who could have chosen between Calvin Coolidge, John Davis and Robert La Follette in 1924 remain alive and politically-engaged, or something else is going on.  A local conservative political blog was the first to suggest that “massive voter fraud” was taking place, and a bandwagon of similar claims have followed. The Examiner, a conservative website, posted a story that has been shared by several thousand people on Facebook and Twitter. State elections director Gary Bartlett said the story spread quickly enough on social media that his phone started ringing during church Sunday and hasn’t let up since – and a glance at the widely-circulated story shows why: “Of these voters, over 70 percent were slated as Democrats, with a diminutive 25 percent counted as Republicans…Obviously there is a problem, one in which voter ID might clearly provide a solution. A thing that only the Democratic Party swears against.” Just one problem: “It’s not voter fraud at all,” Bartlett said.

National: The controversy over state photo ID laws for voting continues to heat up | Washington Times Communities

I have a dirty little secret: I am legal to vote in two different states. Neither state requires photo identification. I can vote in either or both this year. How cool is that? What a great country! This came about because I moved from one state to another a few years ago, but the voter registration records in my previous location were apparently never updated to reflect my move. The government makes mistakes? There’s something I never would have guessed. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 7 million people move from state to state each year. If other state agencies are as efficient as the one where I used to live, that means up to 7 million people could be registered to vote in more than one state every year. Mix in some illegal aliens who want to be citizens, the illiterate and the clueless, some political corruption – and there goes the liberal theory that current voter registration laws are fine just as they are.

Editorials: Queens Voters Forced to Trek a Mile After Polling-Place Swap | DNAinfo.com

On Tuesday, 59-year-old Ditmars resident Wendy Rodriguez crossed the street with the help of a crossing guard outside of P.S. 2 on 21st Avenue. The two began chatting, and the guard asked Rodriguez, a school administrator, if she had received a letter earlier this year from the Board of Elections, explaining that the polling site at the school would be closed for November’s election. The crossing guard explained that voting would now be done about a mile away, at P.S. 84, on 41st Street near 23rd Avenue. “That’s ridiculous,” said Rodriguez, who lives in the neighborhood. “You know what’s going to happen? People aren’t going to vote.” Rodriguez’s situation has become a familiar one. With redistricting after the 2010 census, concerns have risen across the city that new districts formed earlier this year would cause mass confusion on Election Day in November.

National: Presidential campaigns target new citizen voters | The Associated Press

From Florida to Virginia, Massachusetts to California, candidates and political parties seeking to squeeze every vote from a divided electorate are targeting America’s newest citizens. It’s a relatively small bloc but one that can be substantial enough to make a difference in razor-close presidential swing states and competitive congressional races.In Florida, which President Barack Obama won by less than 5 percentage points four years ago, a new analysis of U.S. Census data shows people who naturalized as Americans since 2000 make up 6 percent of the population of voting-age citizens. For months, the Obama campaign has been sending volunteers to citizenship ceremonies to register people and canvassing Miami-area neighborhoods where immigrant families live. In California, where new citizens comprise nearly 9 percent of potential voters, Republicans hope House candidates Ricky Gill and Abel Maldonado can reach that group by highlighting their families’ journeys from India and Mexico, respectively, in search of the American Dream.

Pakistan: What is an error-free voters’ list? | Naeem Sadiq

Pakistan is rapidly heading for another electoral disaster. It continues to retain its archaic and unnecessary electoral list-making process that can do no better than what it did last time. While it ended up manufacturing 37 million fake voters in 2008, the results will not be much different this time around. There are at least four types of flaws that call for immediate attention. Based on the 1998 census, Pakistan’s current population should be around 190 million people. Fifty-one percent of our population is above 18 years. This means there are 97 million Pakistanis who are eligible to vote. The voters’ list released by the Election Commission of Pakistan shows only 84.4 million voters. It simply means that there are 12.6 million eligible voters who are not included in the current voters’ list. Organisations such as the Free and Fair Elections Network consider the gap to be much higher.

Editorials: Beginning of the end for ‘prison-based gerrymandering’ | The Washington Post

Sandwiched between its controversial immigration, campaign finance and health-care rulings last month, the Supreme Court issued a little-noticed decision in a Maryland case that gave the green light to states to eliminate the repugnant practice of “prison-based gerrymandering.” States are now unquestionably free to correct for an ancient flaw in the U.S. Census that counts incarcerated people as residents not of their homes but of the places where their prisons are located. When the prison population was small, the problem was little more than statistical trivia. Today, however, the census counts more than 2 million people as though they were residents of places where they have no community ties.

Maryland: Supreme Court rules Maryland can count inmates at their home addresses | Washington Times

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling Monday that allows Maryland to count prison inmates at their last known addresses – rather than their prison addresses – for redistricting purposes, and upholds the map approved by the General Assembly last year. Activists had sued the state, saying that the newly drawn congressional districting map violated the U.S. Constitution. The map was developed by a committee appointed by Gov. Martin O’Malley and based on census data and statewide input. It was also drawn to reflect a 2010 Maryland law that counts prisoners at their last known addresses, which differs from the U.S. Census Bureau’s policy of counting inmates at their prison addresses, used by most states.

Alaska: Attorney General Challenges Voting Rights Act ‘Preclearance’ | Alaska Dispatch

In a Thursday press reelase, the state of Alaska has expressed its opposition to the federal requirement that Alaska obtain federal pre-clearance for changes the state makes to its election process. The announcement comes more than a week after a U.S. District court judge ruled in Anchorage that preparations for the next Alaska election can proceed, pending federal approval of a revised plan to redraw the state’s election districts based on data from the 2010 Census. The judge didn’t rule on the merits of the plan, but did pave the way for a three-judge panel to consider on June 28 whether election planning can proceed pending final approval from the U.S. Department of Justice under Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

Kansas: Judges will now draw Kansas political districts | KansasCity.com

Now it’s federal judges who are racing the clock. With the Aug. 7 primary election looming, a panel of federal judges will try to do in a few weeks what the Kansas Legislature couldn’t in three months: draw new election districts. The three judges — Kathryn Vratil, Mary Beck Briscoe and John Lungstrom of U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., — on Wednesday concluded a two-day hearing that examined the Legislature’s unsuccessful efforts to redraw election districts for Congress, the state House and Senate, and the Board of Education. The Legislature met for 99 days and couldn’t come up with district maps to account for population shifts reflected in the latest census. As a result, the court is doing the job.

Kansas: Judges seem poised to draw their own district maps | Wichita Eagle

Federal judges deciding the fate of Kansas’ legislative districts sent strong signals Wednesday that they might jettison plans that didn’t make it through the Legislature and draw their own district maps. On the second day of hearings in the Kansas City courthouse, the three-judge panel spent significant time pressing Corey Carnahan – the Legislature’s go-to guy on maps – for details of how redistricting is done and how they could take advantage of his services. The hearings had begun Tuesday with Carnahan, an analyst in the Department of Legislative Services, giving the court a primer on the use of mapping software to develop legislative districts. Wednesday, the judges put him back in the witness box for a more lengthy and detailed tutorial on producing redistricting maps.  “Could you tell us how we could do that?” asked John Lungstrom, senior judge in the Kansas City federal District Court. “How would we as the court do that?” As to helping the judges draw maps, Carnahan said, “That would be a request we could accommodate.”

Missouri: High court upholds new congressional districts | Southeast Missourian

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the state’s new congressional districts Friday, solidifying a Democratic primary fight between two St. Louis congressmen and providing certainty for candidates who weren’t sure which neighborhoods would be in their territories for the August primary elections. A divided high court ruled Friday that Missouri’s eight new U.S. House districts comply with a constitutional requirement to be “as compact … as may be.” The ruling affirms boundaries enacted last year when the Republican-led legislature — with the help of a few Democrats — overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. Although some Supreme Court judges dissented, a majority determined that the Missouri Constitution “does not require absolute precision in compactness.” The Supreme Court ultimately deferred to a February decision by Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green, declaring that it was not going to substitute its own judgment for the trial court’s when it came to disputed factual issues about the boundaries.

Texas: Hispanic boom may not shift Texas’ diversity in Congress | The Dallas Morning News

One is a black real estate agent and the other a white millionaire. For two new districts created to reflect Texas’ soaring Hispanic population, they might be the representatives elected to Congress. That’s not exactly what Hispanic leaders pictured, and some are disheartened. The number of Hispanics in Texas grew by 2.8 million in the last decade – second only to California – and drove a population boom that rewarded the state with a total of four new U.S. House seats. Yet in Tuesday’s primaries, Texas voters may put no more Hispanics on the path to Congress than the six the state has sent since 1997. The reasons illustrate why more population doesn’t necessarily mean more political power in an ethnically diverse state. In this case, the way the new districts were mapped by a Republican-controlled legislature, combined with the natural advantages enjoyed by political veterans who already are well established, has left a group of eager Hispanic candidates facing formidable opponents from other races.

Mississippi: Lawmakers close to redistricting votes | SunHerald.com

Mississippi lawmakers soon will be asked to vote on new configurations for their own House and Senate districts. It’s a politically sensitive task that could shape their own re-election prospects — and the prospects of their colleagues and their political parties — for the coming decade. The redistricting chairmen, Sen. Merle Flowers of Southaven and Rep. Bill Denny of Jackson, told The Associated Press that proposed new maps will be released within the next two weeks and should quickly come up for a vote in each chamber. Flowers and Denny, both Republicans, said they’ve been meeting privately the past couple of months with demographers, attorneys and other lawmakers, both individually and in groups, to try to draw districts that would make most lawmakers happy.

Arizona: Congressional district map clears U.S. review | Arizona Republic

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday approved a new congressional-district map for Arizona, erasing any lingering questions about which geographic areas candidates will run this fall. The OK comes as candidates have already largely embraced the map, which the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission created in January. It reconfigures congressional-district lines to reflect population changes documented by the 2010 census. It also adds a ninth district, the result of population growth over the last decade. The approval means the redistricting commission met its goal to get federal approval the first time it submitted a map. Arizona needs Justice Department pre-clearance for any election-law changes because of past problems with the federal Voting Rights Act, which is designed to protect minority voting rights. “One down, one to go,” said Ray Bladine, the commission’s executive director.

Michigan: Federal court dismisses redistricting case | The Detroit News

A federal court has tossed out a challenge to Michigan’s redistricting plans for the state Legislature. An order last week from a three-judge panel says the legal opposition to the new districts was “too factually underdeveloped” to proceed. The new boundaries are based on Census counts and begin with this year’s elections. Civil rights groups and Democrats sued late last year to challenge new boundaries for Detroit seats in the state House.

Wyoming: Lawsuit challenges redistricting plan | trib.com

Wyoming’s newly adopted legislative redistricting plan is under fire from a group of citizens who filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming it fails to give the state’s less-populous counties fair representation. The lawsuit, filed in state District Court in Laramie, charges that state lawmakers were careful in the legislative session that ended last month to make sure that incumbents didn’t have to run against each other. But it claims the Legislature only gave lip service to the notion of making sure the less-populated counties got a fair voice. Gillette lawyer Nick Carter filed the lawsuit Thursday in Laramie County District Court. It seeks a court order to block Gov. Matt Mead and the other four statewide elected officials from implementing the redistricting plan.

Pennsylvania: Legal experts debate impact of new voter ID law | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Six months before Pennsylvania’s new voter identification bill became law, Denise Lieberman helped file an open records request with the state asking for a list of Pennsylvanians who already have the proper identification card. The law — signed in March by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett — requires voters to present government-issued photo identification before being allowed to vote in elections. A civil rights lawyer with the advocacy group Advancement Project, Ms. Lieberman planned to compare a list of Pennsylvania voters with the state’s record of those with proper identification. The comparison would show exactly how many voters wouldn’t be allowed to vote under the new law. The request was denied. The state doesn’t have to provide the record, the denial letter says, because the record doesn’t exist. “How can a legislator have any idea what they’re voting on if they have no idea how many people are being affected?” Ms. Lieberman said. “If we’re talking about imposing rigorous restrictions on voting, then there’s legitimate value in having a sense of who stands to be affected and how.”

Ghana: Electoral Commission uncertain about proxy, transfer voting | Ghana Business News

Alhaji Amadu Sule, Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Electoral Commission (EC), has said the EC had not yet taken a decision on voting by proxy or transfer of voting. He said the new voters’ registration system had not made any provision for such voting systems. Alhaji Sule explained that both the proxy and transfer voting requires another voter to vote on behalf of the individual and that “with the biometric system, the person who had registered must be present and vote by person, a situation which makes it quite difficult for proxy and transfer voting.”

Editorials: Redistricting Not a Big Story in 2012 | Michael Barone/National Review

The 2012 congressional-redistricting cycle following the 2010 census is just about over and done with. And it seems likely to make much less difference than many of us expected. Redistricting is when state legislatures, governors, and commissions draw new lines for congressional districts, after the 435 seats in the U.S. House are reapportioned according to a statutory formula into which are plugged the figures from the 2010 census. I predicted that this cycle, like the 2002 cycle, would produce significant gains for Republicans. Their success in electing governors and legislators in 2010 gave them control in big states like Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina. And voters in Democratic California approved a ballot measure turning redistricting over to a nonpartisan commission. But the Republican gain turns out to be modest to nonexistent. Charlie Cook’s Cook Political Report estimates the net Republican gain from redistricting at exactly one state. My own estimates track with Cook’s in just about every state and come up with a one-seat Republican gain.

Pennsylvania: Hearing set for today on motion that would delay Pennsylvania primary election | The Times Leader

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa and House Minority Leader Frank Dermody said Sunday that they would oppose a GOP lawsuit to be heard Monday in federal court in Philadelphia. The GOP is seeking an injunction to halt use of out-of-date election maps in the primary for the state’s 203 state House districts and 50 Senate districts. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated a new redistricting plan, calling it unconstitutional, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, a Delaware County Republican, floated the possibility of moving the primary so a commission could create new redistricting maps.