Virginia Democrats are urging Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) to veto a pair of voter ID bills after the General Assembly this week stripped out a provision the governor had added to make the measures less stringent. Among the most hotly contested legislation of the session, the bills were touted by Republicans as a way to ensure the integrity of elections but bitterly opposed by Democrats as attempts to suppress the minority vote.
A lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s voter identification law won’t be resolved before this spring’s recall elections. Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan set a schedule Thursday that will extend the case at least several weeks beyond the June 5 general recall election, saying the matter is complex and he wants to give attorneys ample time to document their arguments. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera filed a lawsuit in Madison in December alleging the ID requirements place an unreasonable burden on voters. But state attorneys argue few people lack photo IDs and say concerns about obtaining IDs are overblown.
With less than a week to go until the April 24 primary, elections officials throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are busy getting ready. They are testing voting machines, making sure that ballots are the right size and that they have enough on hand and making sure the voter registration rolls are ready to go. But this year, in addition to all the traditional primary preparations, Pennsylvania elections officials and poll workers are preparing to ask voters to show a photo ID before casting a ballot on Tuesday. On March 14, both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly approved House Bill 934, requiring voters in the Commonwealth to show a photo ID in order to cast a ballot. Gov. Tom Corbett signed the bill into law that night. The law, which officially goes into effect on November 6, requires voters to show a photo ID with an expiration date. Acceptable forms of ID include driver’s license, non-driver’s ID, passport, military ID, college IDs issued by a public or private school in Pennsylvania, employee IDs from county, state, local and federal governments and ID cards issued by a state care facility. County election officials are using the April 24 primary as a test run of the new law for poll workers and voters alike.
The future of a controversial voter ID bill is in serious doubt after a bipartisan group of Virginia lawmakers rejected Gov. Bob McDonnell‘s proposed changes, daring McDonnell to accept their version of the legislation or veto it. In its current form, the bill requires anyone who forgets to bring proper identification to the polls to fill out a provisional ballot, which would not be counted unless the voter returns with proper ID or sends an electronic copy. McDonnell sought to weaken the bill by allowing election officials to compare the signature on the provisional ballot with a voter registration card on file. But both the House and Senate shot down McDonnell’s amendment during Wednesday’s veto session, leaving the Republican governor with a bill that creates an “unduly burden and barriers to your vote,” he said. McDonnell must now weigh whether to veto or sign a bill he considers “unreasonable.”
A lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s voter identification law won’t be resolved before this spring’s recall elections. Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan set a briefing schedule Thursday that will extend the case at least several weeks beyond the general recall election on June 5, saying the matter is complex and he wants to give attorneys ample time to document their arguments. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera filed a lawsuit in Madison in December alleging the ID requirements create an unreasonable burden on voters. But state attorneys argue that few people lack photo IDs and that concerns about obtaining IDs are overblown.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has struck down Arizona’s 2004 voter-approved requirement that residents show proof of citizenship when they register to vote — at least on federal registration forms. The state can still require proof from voters submitting a state registration form, which is typically the form voters get from their county recorder’s offices and through the Motor Vehicle Division’s website. The 11-judge “en banc” appeals-court panel on Tuesday upheld the portion of the law requiring voters to show identification at the polls. Attorney General Tom Horne said he would appeal the portion of the law the panel overturned to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Sandra S. Ikuta, who wrote in the majority opinion, said the Constitution requires the court to “safeguard” certain federal powers, including regulating federal elections. Among its provisions, the National Voter Registration Act creates a standard federal registration form that all states must accept. It requires applicants to sign a statement that they are citizens, but it does not require them to show proof.
Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law requires that, beginning in November of this year, all voters present a photo ID every time they vote (see related story). But you need to plan ahead, especially if you don’t have a current driver’s license. And you may have to spend some money to get the documents you need. So, which photo IDs are considered valid? Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, says photo IDs issued by federal or state governments, and just a few others from approved sources, will be accepted. “That would include Pennsylvania driver’s licenses or non-license photo IDs, a US passport, a US military ID, (or) a photo ID from an accredited Pennsylvania public or private college,” he says.
On Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued two one-sentence orders declining to hear both appeals filed by Republican state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in two different polling place Photo ID cases. In both, judges in lower courts had blocked the controversial voting rights restrictions passed by Republicans last year, finding that the law violated…
Arizona has racially polarized voting and discriminated against Latinos, but a voter identification law did not disenfranchise Hispanics, a Court of Appeals ruled. A 12-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a law that required voters to show ID before casting their ballots, ruling it didn’t give Latinos less opportunity to vote. The court, however, struck down a critical provision of the law, known as Proposition 200, that required that voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The court ruled the federal National Voter Registration Act trumps that section of the Arizona law. MALDEF, a Latino civil rights organization, one of the organizations that challenged the 2004 law, hailed the decision.
An appeals court upheld a requirement in a 2004 Arizona law that voters show identification before they can cast ballots. The court says there wasn’t evidence that the mandate disparately affected Latinos as the challengers of rules had alleged. A 12-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals says in a ruling Tuesday that there was evidence Arizona has racially polarized voting and a history of discrimination against Latinos.
The state Supreme Court refused Monday to immediately take up a pair of cases that struck down the state’s new voter ID law, a decision that will likely mean citizens won’t have to show identification when they cast ballots in recall elections in May and June. The court’s terse orders send the cases back to two different appeals panels, though the cases could eventually return to the Supreme Court. The justices issued their orders just three weeks before the May 8 primary for Democrats to pick a candidate to run against Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the June 5 recall election. Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan in March blocked the voter ID law for the April presidential primary, saying it likely disenfranchised voters, based on testimony that there are more than 220,000 Wisconsin residents who do not have photo IDs but who are otherwise qualified to vote. A trial in that case began Monday, and Flanagan is expected to decide whether to lift his injunction or block the law permanently after it concludes this week. The case was brought by the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider the state’s appeals of two rulings blocking Wisconsin’s new voter ID law from taking effect, leaving the issue to lower courts to decide even with recall elections against the governor and five other Republican officials only weeks away.The court didn’t explain why it wasn’t taking up the state’s appeals in its two single-page orders, which it issued hours after a trial began in one of the cases. The decision means the law, which would require voters to present photo identification at the polls, will remain blocked pending a ruling by one of the appeals courts, which could come before the May 8 primary elections or June 5 general elections. Gov. Scott Walker, the lieutenant governor and three Republican state senators are facing recall elections, and the seat of another GOP senate recall target who recently stepped down is also up for grabs.
A trial began Monday in a case challenging Wisconsin’s law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. Also on Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that it won’t be taking up two cases pertaining to the state’s controversial voter ID law. That means the trial starting Monday in one of the two lawsuits is proceeding. The news came as lawyers made opening arguments in connection to a lawsuit brought by the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP and Voces de la Frontera, an immigrants’ rights group. Both groups argue the law disenfranchises voters. NAACP attorney Richard Saks said testimony will show there are hundreds of thousands of voters who don’t have the required ID necessary to vote. “As such, this law needlessly imposes an onerous and unreasonable burden on otherwise qualified voters from participating in elections in the state of Wisconsin,” Saks said.
Thrust into the partisan hothouse of back-to-back statewide recounts, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie went out of his way to take on a referee persona despite the “D” after his name. But on the voter ID constitutional amendment now headed to the November ballot, he’s openly taken a side. Ritchie has steadily increased his opposition as the proposal advanced, to the point of arguing it will deprive voters of their rights. In the process, he has drawn blowback from Republicans and other supporters of the voting-law change, who accuse the state’s top elections officer of going too far. Ritchie acknowledged that he’s stepped outside of his default “stay out” approach to politics. “I’ve taken a very strong position in general that my job is to run the elections and be a partner with local election officials, and I stay out of other people’s lives and campaigns and their work,” Ritchie said. “But when something is about elections and about our basic election system, then I always take a more active role.”
The political battle is already gearing up over Minnesota’s proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment, which was approved last week by the Legislature. At least three Ballot Question Committees have filed with the state board that tracks political organizations, and more groups are poised for the fight. Some groups are focusing on legal issues, preparing litigation opposing the amendment, which would require voters to show an ID and affect same-day registration and absentee balloting procedures. Others will focus on the political campaign, with both proponents and opponents trying to persuade voters about the Republican-backed initiative that will be on the November general- election ballot.
In March, Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law House Bill 934, also known as the Photo Voter ID bill, which will require Pennsylvanians to show photo identification at their polling place when they vote. “I am signing this bill because it protects a sacred principle, one shared by every citizen of this nation. That principle is: one person, one vote,” Corbett said in a press release last month. “It sets a simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.” The law went into effect immediately, but a photo ID will not be required for the primary election April 24. However, voters will be reminded at that time that a photo ID will be required for November’s general election.
Last year, electionline ran an article entitled, “Debate Over Photo ID at the Polls Shifts to Costs.” Since then, voter ID — the issue of how voters are identified at the polls — has only gotten hotter. Recently, Pennsylvania enacted photo ID legislation, Minnesota’s legislature put aconstitutional amendment about photo ID on the November ballot, and Virginiasent a bill to the governor, which he proposed changes to. See the National Conference of State Legislature’s Voter ID: State Requirements webpage or last week’s Electionline Weekly for the status of voter ID legislation around the country. This year, cost concerns seem to be buried beneath the partisan debate. And yet money always matters, so the question remains: how much does it cost to implement a photo voter ID requirement? No one knows for sure. There are before-the-fact estimates, and after-the-fact “actuals,” but none are cut and dried. The truth is that the cost of voter ID — like the cost of virtually everything election-related — is hard to estimate, or to measure. For now, we can offer a look at legislative estimates and “boots on the ground” details from states that are in the process of implementing last year’s new photo ID laws, and perhaps explain why these numbers are so difficult to pin down.
Even as Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature were advancing a voter ID constitutional amendment on to the November ballot last week, DFLers were predicting court challenges. In 2011 Republicans passed a statutory photo ID requirement in both chambers, but their bill was vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton. This year the GOP-controlled House and Senate regrouped to pass the measure as a ballot question shortly before the Easter/Passover recess. The constitutional route, if successful, carries the twin benefits of bypassing Dayton and codifying the policy in a way that’s very difficult to reverse. Legal challenges are nothing new in states that have advanced voter ID proposals. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a photo ID law in Indiana. In other states — most recently, Wisconsin and Missouri — voter ID has stumbled in the courts for different reasons.
The Missouri House approved a new ballot summary Wednesday for a proposed constitutional amendment that would clear the way for a requirement that voters show photo identification. The move marked the second attempt by House members to write the summary, which would appear before voters as they decide on the voter ID proposal. The measure calling for the amendment cleared the Legislature last year, and lawmakers are working to put it on the ballot this year. The proposal would amend the Missouri Constitution to allow a state law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls and to permit an advanced voting period. Last month, Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce rejected the ballot summary that lawmakers approved for the proposal, calling it insufficient. But Joyce ruled that lawmakers could revise the ballot summary. House members approved the revised summary 102-55, and it now goes to the state Senate. Some have questioned whether the Legislature can use a resolution to change the ballot summary for a proposal that passed the Legislature in the preceding year.
Supporters of a bill requiring photo identification at the ballot box called it a balancing act between a person’s right to vote and a prohibition on those not qualified. Senate Bill 289 would require voters to present a photo identification to vote after Jan. 1, 2013, but no one would be denied the right to vote, officials said at a public hearing Tuesday before the House Election Law Committee. Qualified voters have the value of their votes diminished when unqualified voters caste ballots, said bill co-sponsor Rep. Daniel Itse, R-Fremont. “Rights come with obligations,” he said. However, opponents far outweighed supporters at the hearing. They said far more people will be discouraged from voting or disenfranchised than any amount of voter fraud the bill seeks to stop. “This is a solution in search of a program,” said former Rep. Joel Winter of Manchester. “This will disenfranchise far more people than the cases of voter fraud to be prevented.”
Democrats who conducted a policy committee hearing Wednesday questioned the necessity of the voter identification law enacted last month and the struggles it could present to Pennsylvania voters, as did many of those who testified about the law at the Waverly Community House. State Rep. Sid Michaels Kavulich, D-Taylor, requested the hearing in his home district and served as co-chairman. The law “slams the brakes” on progress made to provide greater access to persons with disabilities, said Keith Williams, Clarks Green Borough Council president, and a community organizer for the Northeast Pennsylvania Center for Independent Living.
It was a ceremonial gesture only, but this morning Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the Voter ID bill approved last week by the Republican-led Legislature. The bill calls for a statewide vote in November on a proposed constitutional amendment that, if approved, will require all voters to show state-approved photo IDs. But the measure will be on the November ballot anyway. The governor’s veto can’t keep amendments passed by the Legislature off the ballot, which is why the Republican majority went that route.
Only days after the Legislature approved a proposed constitutional amendment that will ask voters this November to require that Minnesotans show photo identification at the polls, groups that oppose the measure vowed to fight it in court. “This question is deceptive and misleading to voters and the court should strike it down and reject it,” Mike Dean, executive director of Minnesota Common Cause, said Monday. Dean said his group and the Minnesota chapter of the America Civil Liberties Union are preparing a lawsuit to stop the amendment from getting on the ballot.
A bill to implement Mississippi’s Voter Identification Law passed in the Senate 34-14 today, but not without a lengthy and sometimes fierce debate. House Bill 921 would require voter identification for all elections. The measure heads back to the House for more work. Mississippi voters passed a voter ID initiative by a 62-38 percent margin last November. Justice Department officials have said they are waiting for enabling legislation before determining whether the law complies with the Voting Rights Act. Sens. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, Kenneth Wayne Jones, D-Canton and Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, members of the Legislative Black Caucus, spoke against the bill, saying the measure echoes the Jim Crow era. “Jim Crow laws are coming back again dressed up pretty. I don’t understand how we can do something to suppress some Mississippians,” Jordan said. “All of you are my friends, and I don’t understand how anyone can trust God and do wrongful things to their own brothers.”
With the state Legislature’s recent passage of the voter ID constitutional amendment, the future voting process for college students rests on many factors. And while both sides agree it’s too early to tell what the implications of the law would be if it passes on the November ballot, some worry about its affect on students. If the majority of Minnesota voters vote to mandate valid photo identification at the polls, details of how the amendment will work will be left up to the next Legislature. How it will work will also be dependent upon the makeup of the new Legislature — all 201 state legislators are up for re-election in November. On Wednesday, the Senate re-passed the bill to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. All DFLers voted against the amendment, and all but one Republican voted in favor. Sen. Kari Dziedzic, DFL-Minneapolis, who represents the University of Minnesota’s district, said she worries about the potential impact on students and same-day registration. Although proponents of the amendment say that same-day registration will remain, Dziedzic said it’s unclear how it will work for students and may make voting more of a hassle.
Critics of the month-old voter-identification law are poised to challenge it in the courts and General Assembly. The American Civil Liberties Union says it will file suit over the law’s constitutionality by the end of April, and two Philadelphia Democrats are set to introduce a bill Tuesday that would repeal the controversial measure. “There is no basis for the law in the first place. No clear fraud across the state was ever demonstrated,” said Rep. Dwight Evans, who is to appear with Rep. John Myers at a news conference Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation office at 7121 Ogontz Ave. in West Oak Lane.
“We never should have to fight for our right to vote,” said Martha Miller of Bristol. Miller was among a group of concerned residents who addressed the board of county commissioners on April 4. Miller told the commissioners that fighting for their right to vote is precisely what many elder and low-income Bucks County residents will have to do now that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed the Voter ID Bill in March. When the bill becomes the law in time for November election all voters will be required to present photo identification at the polls. Those who do not produce identification will be allowed to cast provisional ballots and will be required to send in an identification document within six days after the Election Day.
A party-line debate and party-line vote in the Legislature is likely to result in a major change in Minnesota voting rules, but the actual consequences remain in dispute. Democrats predict dire consequences — high costs, new restrictions that will discourage voting by certain groups, an end to Minnesota’s tradition of same-day registration — if voters approve the amendment as expected on Nov. 6. Republicans, who control the Legislature and put the issue on the general election ballot, say Democratic warnings are wildly overblown. The new requirement that voters show a government-issued ID before casting a ballot will boost confidence in elections while not substantially curtailing the right to vote, supporters of the law say. For the people who run local elections, though, the issue goes much beyond the standard partisan debate.
Nothing is sacred about your religion when it comes to getting a state identification card without a photo. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation offers ID cards for those with religious objections to being photographed. The Amish and certain sects of the Mennonite community are among those who object to having their photos taken because of their faith. To get a nonphoto ID for religious reasons, applicants must answer a series of 18 questions that delve deeply into their faiths and other personal information. Now that Pennsylvania has passed one of the nation’s toughest voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud, the scope of the questions is drawing criticism.
Meet Ruthelle Frank an 84 year old woman living in Wisconsin. She is one of millions of people who are at risk of losing their right to vote in November as result of wide-ranging state by state efforts to deny people the access to vote. The good news is that after ten months of advocacy by the American Civil Liberties Union, she was able to vote last Tuesday in Wisconsin, but her fight isn’t over yet. A Wisconsin judge declared a state law requiring people to show photo ID in order to be allowed to vote unconstitutional before the primary, issuing a permanent injunction blocking the state from implementing the measure. “Without question, where it exists, voter fraud corrupts elections and undermines our form of government,” wrote Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess in his decision. “The legislature and governor may certainly take aggressive action to prevent its occurrence. But voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression. Indeed, they are two heads on the monster.”