North Carolina: Author says North Carolina leads in national trend to roll back voting rights | Winston-Salem Journal

North Carolina is emerging as ground-zero for the modern-day voting rights movement, an author of a book about the history of voting rights said in an interview Friday. “North Carolina is a case study in the voting rights fight,” said Ari Berman, author of “Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America” and a writer for The Nation, a left-leaning magazine. Berman spoke Friday during the 72nd annual convention of the N.C. NAACP, which has the theme, “Pursuing Liberty in the Face of Injustice.” The convention started Thursday and ends Sunday. The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, said he expects 800 to 1,000 people to attend.

North Carolina: State wants federal judge to rule on Voter ID before March primaries | Winston-Salem Journal

State attorneys want a federal judge to dismiss the legal challenge to North Carolina’s voter-identification law before the March 2016 presidential primary, according to court documents filed Wednesday. And though the plaintiffs, including the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, said they hoped to settle the matter before a trial, state attorneys said there’s no chance of that. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 23 before U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder. The state NAACP, the U.S. Justice Department and others sued the state and Gov. Pat McCrory over 2013’s Voter Information Verification Act. The law’s most well-known provision is the photo ID requirement, but the law also reduced the number of early-voting days from 17 to 10, eliminated same-day voter registration and got rid of out-of-precinct provisional voting.

Kansas: Davis rejects GOP call to step aside from voting rights case | Lawrence Journal-World

Lawrence attorney and former Democratic Rep. Paul Davis on Tuesday dismissed suggestions by Republicans that he should recuse himself from a federal lawsuit challenging a controversial state voting law. “These guys either need a good lawyer or they’re trying to mislead you,” Davis said in response to a statement from Kansas GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold. Davis is representing two clients who are challenging a law enacted in 2011 that requires voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register. Since that law took effect, more than 30,000 would-be voters have had their registrations placed “in suspense” because they have not provided the required documentation. Davis is also challenging a new administrative regulation that requires county election officers to cancel those applications after 90 days. That new regulation took effect Oct. 2.

Alabama: Democrats say Alabama’s closure of driver’s-license offices could make it harder for black residents to vote | The Washington Post

Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Democratic officials in Alabama in criticizing a decision by state officials to shutter 31 satellite driver’s-license offices, mostly in areas heavily populated by African Americans, a move that could make it harder for those residents to get photo IDs needed to vote. Alabama’s voter-identification law went into effect last year, requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls. A state-issued driver’s license is the most popular form of identification, and critics say the closure of offices that issue them is yet another barrier for poor and minority voters. “It’s a blast from the Jim Crow past,” Clinton said in a statement Friday criticizing the move and calling on state officials to reverse the decision.

Alabama: Voter ID and driver’s license office closures black-out Alabama’s Black Belt | AL.com

I still remember when the lady in the uniform giving me my driver’s test asked me to do a three-point turn. Instead, I gave her a blank stare. I had no idea what a three-point turn was. It was a couple of days after my sixteenth birthday, and I knew right then that I wouldn’t be getting a license that day, but the lady was nice about it. Politely, she explained what I was supposed to do. Next we drove back to the Clarke County courthouse, and she failed me. A couple weeks later, I took the test again. That time, I passed, but my parents weren’t all that happy that we had to make a second trip. And that trip was only 10 miles, each way. When you live in a rural area, 10 miles seems a lot farther there. However, today a lot of folks will have to drive a lot farther just to be able to drive.

Virginia: State pushes to dismiss voter ID suit | Daily Press

Private attorneys defending the state against a lawsuit that targets Virginia’s voter ID laws and long election-day waiting times have asked a federal judge to dismiss the case. In filings this week they argued that the plaintiffs, including the Democratic Party of Virginia, don’t have standing to file the case, and that some arguments against the state amount to “speculative hypothetical.” The suit – one of several in swing states that target voting procedures ahead of the 2016 presidential elections – describes Virginia’s 2013 photo ID law and other state regulations as race-based efforts to curtail voting. Attorneys with Perkins Coie, which has brought challenges in other states as well as two separate redistricting suits here in Virginia, filed the case in June.

Canada: Elections Canada chief hopeful voters won’t be turned away because of new ID rules | CTV

Despite the uproar over the Conservative government’s new election law, the country’s chief electoral officer said Monday he’s confident those who want to vote on Oct. 19 will get a chance to do so. Marc Mayrand said his agency is going to great lengths to inform people, particularly online and in aboriginal communities. New, legislative requirements for identification should not cause problems, as long as voters prepare themselves, he said. “I think we’ll see a good election,” he said. “We have taken various measures to ensure no one is denied the right to vote.” Mayrand downplayed opposition party warnings, which resounded during the divisive debate over Bill C-23, that thousands will be unable to vote because of the new rules. However, he placed the burden of exercising democratic rights on the shoulders of electors. “If anybody is turned away from the polls, or anybody stays home because of concerns, I think there should be no concerns there,” he said. “I think there is a way (to vote). If you’re concerned about your ability to establish your ID and address, please contact us.”

Kansas: Kobach debates voter ID laws with Kansas University law professor / Lawrence Journal World

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach squared off Thursday in a debate with a Kansas University law professor over the pros and cons of restrictive voter identification laws. Kobach, who was the architect of Kansas’ 2011 law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls and to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register, argued that such laws are needed to prevent voter fraud and protect the integrity of Kansas elections. The two men debated before about 100 people, most of them law students, in a lecture auditorium at the KU School of Law in Green Hall. The debate was sponsored by the KU Federalist Society and the Hispanic-American Law Students Association. “Election fraud occurs,” Kobach said. And while the number of such cases may be tiny compared to the total number of ballots cast in any given election, he said it only takes a small number of votes to “steal” an otherwise close election. … But KU law professor Mark Johnson, who teaches courses in elections and campaign finance, argued that the small number of allegedly fraudulent votes does not justify denying other people the right to vote simply because they cannot produce a photo ID or proof of citizensh

North Carolina: A pivotal battleground on fate of voting rights | Charlotte Post

Two pivotal court cases in North Carolina will determine the balance of political power in the state for years to come, and may signal the future of voting rights nationwide. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision in Shelby County vs. Holder that gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina legislators passed H.B. 589, which shortened early voting by a week, eliminated same day registration during the early voting period, prohibited voters from casting out-of-precinct provisional ballots, expanded the ability to challenge voters at the polls, removed the pre-registration program for 16- and 17-year-olds and implemented a strict photo ID requirement. Lawmakers eased the photo ID requirement leading up to N.C. NAACP vs. McCrory. In that case, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that H.B. 589 discriminates against black and other minority voters.

Texas: Voter ID Battle: Texas Seeks Rehearing, DOJ Seeks Injunction | Texas Lawyer

Texas has asked the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rehear civil rights plaintiffs’ case against the state’s voter ID law after a three-judge panel from the same court ruled that the law discriminates. Because the state’s request for a rehearing is pending, and since Texas may also seek a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit in a Sept. 2 order rejected civil rights plaintiffs’ proposals to have the litigation remanded to the trial court, where a judge could have ordered Texas to immediately start changing how it identifies voters. “We will get those decisions pretty quickly,” Rolando Rios, of San Antonio’s Law Office of Rolando L. Rios, said about the rulings on the en banc Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court hearings. Rios represents the Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and County Commissioners, which is an intervening plaintiff in the litigation.

Kansas: Kris Kobach’s proposed voter registration time limit damages rights, speakers say | The Kansas City Star

Voting advocates and others Wednesday spoke out against a new rule proposed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to toss out incomplete voter registrations after 90 days. The rule is unnecessary and would discourage many from even trying to participate in the voting process, they said. One speaker charged that the rule change was politically motivated. But a county election commissioner said the 90-day limit made sense as a matter of efficiency. Kobach didn’t attend the hearing, which was run by state elections director Bryan Caskey. Caskey said there are about 36,000 incomplete registrations on file and about 32,000 of those are missing proof-of-citizenship documents. He said Kobach would consider all public and written testimony before making his decision.

Alabama: Budget Cuts Risk Making It Much Harder To Get Required Voter ID | Huffington Post

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Monday that proposed budget cuts would force it to close all but four driver’s license offices, even though the state requires government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license, to vote in elections. The 45 other locations would be closed in phases, the agency said, if the Republican-controlled state legislature were to pass the kind of “drastic” budget cuts it’s now considering. Lawmakers have proposed $40 million for the agency next year, which would be a $15 million cut from what it received in state funding this year. “We want citizens to know that their state law enforcement services are facing severe cuts which will result in a drastic reduction of public safety in Alabama,” a public information officer for the agency said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post. “We encourage them to contact their state representatives and voice their concerns.”

North Carolina: Judge to decide whether voter ID case can go forward | WRAL

A Wake County judge will have to decide whether changes enacted this summer to soften North Carolina’s voter ID requirement should end a lawsuit that claims the state’s voting law violates the state constitution. Lawyers for the state and plaintiffs in the case, which include the League of Women Voters, squared off before Judge Michael Morgan Monday morning in Wake County Superior Court. “The statute the plaintiffs are challenging is no longer the statute that is on the books,” said Alec Peters, a special deputy attorney general in the North Carolina Attorney General’s office.

North Carolina: Future of voter ID lawsuit heard in state court | Associated Press

A lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s voter identification requirement should be allowed to continue even after the legislature added exceptions this summer easing the mandate that goes into effect next year, lawyers fighting the law told a state judge Monday. But a state attorney said the changes made to the 2013 law have addressed the accusations made in the litigation, giving registered voters who lack a qualifying photo ID a way to cast ballots in person anyway. “There is no question that the General Assembly in what they enacted answered the questions of unconstitutionality that the plaintiffs have raised,” Special Deputy Attorney General Alec Peters told Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan in a Raleigh courtroom. Peters said the lawsuit is moot and should be dismissed.

North Carolina: Challenge to voter ID law set for hearing in state court | News & Observer

If a bill to move up the date of North Carolina’s presidential primary wins approval from both houses and the governor this legislative session, North Carolina voters could go to the polls as soon as March 15 in 2016. As that scheduling uncertainty hangs over the state, so does the constitutionality of a voter ID requirement set to go into effect in 2016. On Monday morning, a Wake County judge is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to dismiss a challenge in state court to the 2013 change in election law that requires voters to show one of seven state-approved forms of photo identification before casting a ballot. Attorneys for state lawmakers and the governor contend that a legislative amendment to the requirement earlier this summer – offering voters without an approved ID the option of using a provisional ballot – made the lawsuit moot. Attorneys for the challengers disagree.

North Carolina: Court documents: Legal challenge to N.C. voter ID could be settled | Winston-Salem Journal

North Carolina’s voter ID law may not go to trial after all, according to court documents filed Monday. The recent federal trial on North Carolina’s Voter Information Verification Act that ended about two weeks ago did not deal with the state’s photo ID requirement that goes into effect in 2016. It only dealt with other provisions of the law, which reduced the early voting period, eliminated same-day voter registration, prohibited county election officials from counting ballots cast in the wrong precinct but correct county, and abolished preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder decided that the legal challenge to the photo ID requirement would be dealt with later. Schroeder’s decision came after state Republican legislators approved an amendment easing the photo ID requirement.

North Carolina: Voter ID law topic of negotiations | News & Observer

North Carolina’s voter ID law will be the topic of discussion this week among attorneys on each side of the lawsuits challenging the 2013 state election law overhaul. Lawyers for the NAACP and others offered that detail in an update to the federal judge presiding over the cases that will determine which rules govern elections in North Carolina next year. They plan to provide a report of their efforts to find common ground in a report to the judge on Sept. 17 as part of a trial could test the breadth of protections for African-Americans with claims of voter disenfranchisement two years after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder presided over arguments during three weeks in July on parts of the challenge that did not include the requirement that N.C. voters show one of six photo identification cards to cast a ballot. The legislature amended that portion of the law on the eve of the trial, setting up a request from the challengers for deeper review of the broader implications of the changes.

North Carolina: Court documents: Legal challenge to voter ID could be settled | Winston-Salem Journal

North Carolina’s voter ID law may not go to trial after all, according to court documents filed Monday. The recent federal trial on North Carolina’s Voter Information Verification Act that ended about two weeks ago did not deal with the state’s photo ID requirement that goes into effect in 2016. It only dealt with other provisions of the law, which reduced the early voting period, eliminated same-day voter registration, prohibited county election officials from counting ballots cast in the wrong precinct but correct county, and abolished preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder decided that the legal challenge to the photo ID requirement would be dealt with later. Schroeder’s decision came after state Republican legislators approved an amendment easing the photo ID requirement. The amendment allows voters without photo ID to sign a declaration saying they had a “reasonable impediment” to getting a photo ID and also enables voters to use a photo ID that has expired as long as it has not been more than four years. State Republican leaders proposed the changes less than a month before the federal trial was to start.

Texas: Lightning strikes more common in Texas than in-person voter fraud, says Cory Booker: True | PolitiFact

The Voting Rights Act turned 50 on Aug. 6, but the anniversary also doubled as an occasion for voting rights advocates to celebrate a new victory: The day before, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’s 2011 photo ID law was unconstitutional, because it violated the rights of minority voters. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., went on ABC’s This Week on Aug. 9 to explain why he supported the decision: “Take Texas for example, where Lyndon Johnson’s obviously from, they passed these voter ID laws. In the decade before it, 10 years, they only prosecute two people for in-person voter ID, only two people. You’re more likely to get struck by lightning in Texas than to find any kind of voter fraud.” We were surprised by the colorful comparison. So we decided to see if we could figure out whether lightning really is more likely to strike in Texas than people trying to cast ballots using fake identities. … An expert from the National Weather Service confirmed to us that the probability of being struck by lightning in Texas is slightly lower than the national average, right around 1 in 1.35 million. So how does this 1 in 1.35 million chance compare to the probability of finding voter fraud?

Texas: Study: Law Discouraged More Than Those Without Voter ID | The Texas Tribune

Texas’ strict voter identification requirements kept many would-be voters in a Hispanic-majority congressional district from going to the polls last November — including many who had proper IDs — a new survey shows. And the state’s voter ID law – coupled with lackluster voter education efforts – might have shaped the outcome of a congressional race, the research suggests. Released on Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the federal Voting Rights Act, the joint Rice University and University of Houston study found that 13 percent of those registered in the 23rd Congressional District and did not vote stayed home, at least partly because they thought they lacked proper ID under a state law considered the strictest in the nation. And nearly 6 percent did not vote primarily because of the requirements.

Kansas: Some say ruling on Texas voter ID law may have implications for Kansas | The Wichita Eagle

Some experts say a federal appeals court decision overturning Texas’ voter identification law could open a new legal front to challenge Kansas requirements, but Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he thinks the voter ID law he wrote will stand up to court scrutiny. Voting-rights organizations are projecting national implications from a decision handed down Wednesday by judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The judges ruled that Texas’ requirement for voters to show photo ID when casting a ballot has the effect of discriminating against minority voters in violation of Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. The judges sent the case back to a lower court for consideration of remedies to fix the discriminatory effect and possibly make further findings on whether Texas intended to infringe on minority voters’ rights when it passed its photo-ID law.

Texas: New study suggests Voter ID altered District 23 race | San Antonio Express-News

The day after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’s Voter ID law has a discriminatory effect on elections, a new study found some evidence in our backyard. A joint study by Rice University and the University of Houston examined Voter ID’s impact on the 2014 District 23 Congressional race between Democratic incumbent Pete Gallego and Republican challenger Will Hurd. District 23 covers 800 miles of Texas borderland, and stretches from San Antonio to El Paso. Bexar County contains 42 percent of the district’s registered voters. Given that the two major critiques of Voter ID — enacted in 2011 with Republican support, and Democratic opposition — are that it has a discriminatory impact on minority voters and that the GOP pushed it in order to help their own political cause, the 2014 election in District 23 provided the research group a perfect test case. “The great thing about CD-23 was that it allowed us to look at both of those things at the same time, because it’s a Latino majority district, but it’s also one that’s politically relevant,” said Mark Jones, the fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Texas: Why A Victory For The Voting Rights Act In Texas Feels More Like A Defeat | Huffington Post

It was trumpeted as a victory for voting rights, but this week’s ruling that Texas’ restrictive voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act — on the eve of the act’s 50th anniversary — was actually something of a defeat. And Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw it all coming. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Texas’ Senate Bill 14, which requires voters to show photo ID when voting in person, had a “discriminatory effect” on minority voters and thus violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But the court rejected the claim that the Texas Legislature had a “discriminatory purpose” when it passed the law, a determination the court said requires more “contemporary evidence” that legislators intended to discriminate against black and Latino voters. Last October, when the same case made a short trip to the Supreme Court to determine if S.B. 14 should go into effect before the 2014 election, Ginsburg had dire words for the law. A majority of the justices decided to let it go into effect, but Ginsburg disagreed. “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law,” Ginsburg wrote, “one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

National: On 50th anniversary of Voting Rights Act, Obama renews call for new legislation | The Washington Post

President Obama, on the 50th anniversary of Voting Rights Act, renewed a call for new, broader legislation and urged people to exercise their hard-won voting rights instead of staying home on election days. Obama said that in the half-century since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act it has become impossible to hear anyone defend the idea of discrimination against certain voters. “That’s huge progress,” he said, “a normative shift in how we think about our democracy.” But he said that initiatives in state legislatures to require drivers licenses and other forms of photo identification and to make it harder to vote early were having the same discriminating effect. He said no matter how reasonable such rules may sound, they all discriminated against the poor, elderly and working-class voters who often work odd shifts or travel by bus or are single parents. Voting rights activists say that 15 states with 162 electoral votes will have new voting restrictions in 2016.

Texas: Federal court says Texas voter ID violates Voting Rights Act | Associated Press

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Texas’ voter ID law has a “discriminatory” effect on minorities in a victory for President Barack Obama, whose administration took the unusual step of bringing the weight of the U.S. Justice Department to fight a wave of new ballot-box restrictions passed in conservative statehouses. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2011 Texas law runs afoul of parts of the federal Voting Rights Act — handing down the decision on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the landmark civil rights law. Texas was allowed to use the voter ID law during the 2014 elections, thereby requiring an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters to have a photo ID to cast a ballot.

Texas: Appellate Panel Says Texas ID Law Violated Voting Rights Act | The New York Times

A federal appeals panel ruled Wednesday that a strict voter identification law in Texas discriminated against blacks and Hispanics and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — a decision that election experts called an important step toward defining the reach of the landmark law. The case is one of a few across the country that are being closely watched in legal circles after a 2013 Supreme Court decision that blocked the voting act’s most potent enforcement tool, federal oversight of election laws in numerous states, including Texas, with histories of racial discrimination. While the federal act still bans laws that suppress minority voting, exactly what kinds of measures cross the legal line has been uncertain since that Supreme Court ruling.

National: US Voting Restrictions Fuel Tensions | VoA News

Among the political and legal fights over U.S. elections, some of the most contentious ones center on voter identification requirements and on the way political districts are drawn. Historically, both sometimes have been misused to suppress minority voting, which the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to correct. As of this spring, 32 states had voter identification laws in place; North Carolina will join them in 2016, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports. Most of the new measures have been introduced and implemented by Republican-led legislatures. While some states permit the use of bank statements, student IDs or other evidence of state residence, stricter ones require approved photo IDs, such as government-issued driver’s licenses and passports. Supporters say voter ID requirements battle fraud and build confidence in election fairness. Critics say that voter impersonation is rare and that the laws disproportionately discourage the poor, minorities, senior citizens and students from voting.

Kansas: Voter ID laws focus of Kansas civil rights committee | Associated Press

The Kansas division of a federal civil rights commission will investigate whether voter identification laws have affected turnout around the state. The Kansas Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission voted Tuesday to hold hearings to determine if turnout in some communities has been suppressed, KCUR-TV reported (http://bit.ly/1SMwZAi ). The committee also agreed to ask Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who strongly advocated for the laws, to testify at its hearings, which are expected to take place early next year. “My office would be happy to appear before the Kansas advisory committee and point out the success of the Kansas photo ID law,” Kobach told The Associated Press late Wednesday afternoon.

Editorials: Kobach gains power to intimidate voters | Michael A. Smith/The Hutchison News

I am a white male, but most Americans are not. For many, even everyday encounters with public authority, law enforcement for example, can be terrifying. This makes me especially alarmed about a new law giving Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach the power to prosecute voter fraud, passed by the Kansas Legislature last month in the frenzy of last-minute legislation. The law is strange. First, because prosecution power is typically vested in federal authorities, state attorneys general, and local county prosecutors and district attorneys, not secretaries of state. Second, even Kobach himself cannot find voter fraud in Kansas. For example, his office publicly named a Wichita voter who they claimed was deceased. Wichita Eagle reporters found the man raking leaves in his yard. … Kobach’s new law may have chilling effects on voting.