Virginia: Restoring Voting Rights to Convicted Felons | whsv.com

Once a convicted felon, many civil rights are taken away, including the right to vote. Those rights are not automatically restored in Virginia. Beverly Thompson, a volunteer with the Augusta County Corrections Center says she and others want to help change that. Virginia is one of only four states that strips a person’s civil rights, after being convicted of a felony. “They can’t get it back unless they do a lot of paperwork,” said Thompson who tries to help inmates regain their voting rights. Thompson says that paperwork is inside a 30 page booklet called, ‘Virginia Civil Rights Restoration Guide.’

National: AFL-CIO to fight voter ID laws in six battleground states | The Hill

The nation’s largest labor federation plans to mount an aggressive campaign against voter identification laws in a half-dozen battleground states that will be key in the presidential election. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told reporters on Tuesday that the labor federation will have boots on the ground registering and helping voters in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in coordination with the group’s political program.  Labor is pushing back against voter ID laws, which they say suppress voting by minorities, the elderly, the poor and students. Supporters of the measures say showing identification to vote is needed to crack down on fraud and protect the integrity of elections.

Florida: Statistics show voter fraud is a rare occurrence in Florida | OrlandoSentinel.com

Gov. Rick Scott and his Department of State have been talking about voter fraud in Florida since 2011, shortly after Scott took office. “We need to have fair elections,” Scott said Monday, justifying the identification of more than 2,600 “noncitizens” that the state recently urged county supervisors of elections to purge from the voter rolls. That followed a 2011 legislative rewrite of the election law, again in the name of preventing fraud. “When you go out to vote, you want to make sure that the other individuals that are voting have a right to vote,” Scott added. But notwithstanding the concerns of Scott and Republican legislators, state records show that voter fraud simply hasn’t been a problem for the past decade.

Florida: Florida GOP Takes Voter Suppression to a Brazen New Extreme | Rolling Stone

Imagine this: a Republican governor in a crucial battleground state instructs his secretary of state to purge the voting rolls of hundreds of thousands of allegedly ineligible voters. The move disenfranchises thousands of legally registered voters, who happen to be overwhelmingly black and Hispanic Democrats. The number of voters prevented from casting a ballot exceeds the margin of victory in the razor-thin election, which ends up determining the next President of the United States. If this scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it happened in Florida in 2000. And twelve years later, just months before another presidential election, history is repeating itself. Back in 2000, 12,000 eligible voters – a number twenty-two times larger than George W. Bush’s 537 vote triumph over Al Gore – were wrongly identified as convicted felons and purged from the voting rolls in Florida, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. African Americans, who favored Gore over Bush by 86 points, accounted for 11 percent of the state’s electorate but 41 percent of those purged. Jeb Bush attempted a repeat performance in 2004 to help his brother win reelection but was forced to back off in the face of a public outcry. Yet with another close election looming, Florida Republicans have returned to their voter-scrubbing ways.

National: Voting rights gains of ‘60s in jeopardy, Attorney General Eric Holder says | The Sacramento Bee

Attorney General Eric Holder told African-American clergy leaders Wednesday that a wave of new state laws on voting and legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may jeopardize rights they helped fight for in the civil rights era. “Despite our nation’s long tradition of extending voting rights . . . a growing number of our fellow citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions and problems that – nearly five decades ago – so many fought to address,” Holder told a meeting of the Conference of National Black Churches convened by the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss the laws. “In my travels across the country, I’ve heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens, who – often for the first time in their lives – now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation’s most noble ideals. And some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance.” Holder spoke in response to an array of new voting measures enacted by several mostly Republican state governments that proponents say are needed to protect against voter fraud and to prevent illegal immigrants from voting. However, the mostly Democratic black caucus – along with several civil rights, voting rights and civil liberties groups – contends that the laws are really efforts to suppress the votes of minorities and others.

Editorials: Prisoner voting rights: David Cameron’s chance to deliver for Britain | Daily Mail

With a single word yesterday, David Cameron seized an opportunity that could work wonders to restore his battered fortunes. That word was: ‘Yes.’ He had been asked if he would give an undertaking not to succumb to the diktat from the European Court of Human Rights, demanding that prisoners should be given the right to vote. Further, would he stand up for the sovereignty of Parliament and the British people by upholding the huge Commons vote in support of the blanket ban?

Canada: Tories ask court to toss election challenge | Ottawa Citizen

The Conservative party has asked a court to toss out a series of legal challenges that are attempting to overturn the results from seven ridings in the last federal election, saying the litigation offers no solid evidence that anyone was denied the right to vote. The Conservative candidates who won the seats also claim in motions that the legal action, brought by the citizen advocacy group Council of Canadians, was filed well beyond the 30-day time limit. Citing a pattern of misleading telephone calls made before the May 2 vote, the council in March asked the Federal Court of Canada to set aside the results in seven ridings across the country, a move that would trigger a series of by-elections. Under the Elections Act, any voter can challenge a result by bringing evidence to court showing that electoral fraud or other improprieties affected the result in a riding.

National: Ex-offenders find a reason to reclaim the vote | The Washington Post

Should American citizens who have been convicted of crimes and served their time have their right to vote restored? The question is a political issue, part of a voting-rights debate that is being fought in the states and among political candidates. To ex-felons, it can be a personal challenge, as well: Will their votes matter, and why should they care? The rapper 2 Chainz, made the case for the vote at a pre-show stop at the Urban League of Central Carolinas in Charlotte on Saturday. He told his story for 40 young people, a few with criminal records. The 35-year-old Atlanta-based performer said he was first arrested at age 15 for cocaine possession. When it came to voting, he thought he was “counted out” and didn’t know he was eligible until he picked up a brochure at a registration drive at an Atlanta mall. Along with 10 friends, he recruited from his recording studio, “I walked around with a sticker the whole day” they voted. “I felt rejuvenated,” he said. “I felt like a citizen again.”

Canada: Law stripping voting rights from Canadian ex-pats unconstitutional, legal challenge argues | National Post

A law stripping voting rights from more than a million expatriate Canadians who have lived abroad for more than five years should be struck down as unconstitutional, according to a legal challenge served on the federal government Tuesday. The new application, filed in Ontario Superior Court on behalf of two Canadians living in the United States, argues the five-year rule in the Canada Elections Act is arbitrary and unreasonable. “I was very surprised to learn that I have no voting rights, that I have no capacity to interact with my government formally, that there’s no one representing me,” said Gillian Frank, 33, who works in Brooklyn, N.Y. “My sense of being disenfranchised and the fundamental unfairness of it all motivated me (to file the suit).”

United Kingdom: European Court Rules British Prisoners Must Be Granted Voting Rights | International Business Times

Some British MPs are outraged by a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that prisoners must be given the right to vote in political elections. The Court supported a prior ruling that a blanket prohibition on inmates in England and Wales voting was unlawful. British prisoners have been barred from voting for 140 years. However, the court suggested that the British government could have the right to extend voting rights only to certain prisoners, that is, by withholding enfranchisement to the worst criminals, including murderers and rapists. London now has six months to comply with the court’s ruling, or face the risk of court challenges and incurring large legal costs, including possibly paying compensation to 2,500 prisoners who have filed suit to overturn the ban. However, UK MPs, who last year overwhelmingly voted to continue the prohibition on prisoners voting, may be irked by European court dictating policy to them.

National: House Democrats push to make voting easier | TheHill.com

House Democratic leaders on Thursday introduced legislation to streamline Americans’ trips to the polls. The bill is a response to a slew of recent state legislation – some proposed, some already law – setting stricter standards for voters to register or cast a ballot. Supporters of those state efforts — including new picture ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements – say they’re necessary to weed out ineligible voters and maintain the integrity of elections. But critics contend they’re designed to suppress eligible voters, particularly minorities and low-income Americans who tend to vote Democratic.

Florida: 58 percent of voters targeted in Florida noncitizen hunt are Hispanic. Whites, GOP least likely to face purge | Miami Herald

Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida’s voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found. Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal, the analysis of a list of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens shows. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then The Herald. The numbers change by the day. The state’s Division of Elections says it initially identified roughly 180,000 potential noncitizens by performing a search of a computer database that doesn’t have the most-updated information.

Florida: Despite state oversight, vote-counting errors abound in Florida | Palm Beach Post

Harri Hursti may be the best-known hacker you’ve never heard of. Largely unknown to the voting public, the Finnish computer programmer gained national notoriety among elections officials in 2005 when he broke into voting equipment in Leon County – at the supervisor of elections’ invitation – just to show it could be done. Hursti has since gone on to examine voting systems for other states. His conclusion: “Some systems are better than others, but none is nearly good enough.” In fact, a decade’s worth of Florida vote counting has been tripped up by technology of all makes and models, despite a state certification process designed to guard against such problems. Nationally, studies of the secret code underpinning election software have uncovered an array of troubles.

Ohio: GOP, Democrats close to election-law deal | The Columbus Dispatch

A potential last-minute agreement between House Republicans and Democrats could end a bitter fight over the repeal of a GOP-crafted election-law overhaul. Just minutes before voting to repeal House Bill 194 — and as House Democrats bombed away on the GOP in floor speeches — House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, and Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, worked out a deal to suspend the vote. Republicans had planned to repeal House Bill 194 and end the November referendum effort. But Fair Elections Ohio, the coalition of Democrats and progressive groups that worked closely with President Barack Obama’s re-election team to challenge the law, resisted the repeal. The group argued that it would deny people the right to vote against the law and would have blocked early voting in the three days before Election Day. The group and other Democrats had promised to fight the GOP repeal effort in court. Republicans argued that the opposition simply was a political effort to keep the referendum to help drive up voter turnout.

Editorials: States Shouldn’t Tamper with Voting Rights Act | New America Media

Since the beginning of 2011, states across the country have passed new laws restricting the right to vote. From voter ID to curbs on early voting and registration drives, these controversial measures could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote this year, including a disproportionate number of minority, young, and elderly voters. The photo ID law passed by Texas, for example, could prevent hundreds of thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot, including a disproportionate number of minorities, as the data shows. Voting rights advocates are fighting these laws in the courts, but in addition to these direct attacks on the franchise, opponents are now threatening a cornerstone of American civil rights law — the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Decades ago, our nation passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to combat discrimination in voting. It has successfully protected voters against decades of discriminatory measures that had disenfranchised African Americans, Latinos, and many other Americans. The VRA was even reauthorized in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, and it was signed by President George W. Bush. Elected officials in both parties recognized the VRA is still needed because discrimination against minority voters continues to this day. For example, in recent years, the Justice Department forced Texas to stop discriminatory actions against voters at historically black colleges and universities.

National: Corporations Donate to Groups on Both Sides of Voter-ID | Businessweek

Companies giving at least $2 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation — nearly half of its reported 2010 donations — also backed an organization championing voter identification laws that caucus members say “suppress” minorities’ right to vote. The group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, lists 22 corporate and trade association members on its private enterprise board. Thirteen of those firms also contributed to the black caucus foundation in 2010, according to Internal Revenue Service records and the latest available data on the websites of both organizations. The dual support puts companies, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) (WMT), AT&T Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, in the position of financing both sides in a political dispute over state laws that the U.S. Justice Department said in some cases are biased against minority voters. “Corporations should be conscious of how their advocacy money is being spent by organizations that they contribute to,” said U.S. Representative Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat and a member of the black caucus. “This is a wakeup call for corporate interests to be more responsible for how they spend their money.” A spokeswoman for the black caucus foundation, Traci Hughes, didn’t respond to phone calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Colorado: Lawmakers battle over inactive voters | Aurora Sentinel

Senate Democrats moved to take down what they say is a roadblock that makes it more difficult for more than 100,000 voters to participate in the November elections, resurrecting a proposal Monday that House Republicans previously rejected. The legislative action would send mail-in ballots to so-called inactive voters who otherwise would have to cast ballots in person. And the implications are huge. About 37 percent of the affected voters are Democrats. Around 23 percent are Republicans. The remaining 40 percent are unaffiliated — a bloc both parties think they can use to pick up support. Democrats say they are pressing the issue to make voting easier, adding that the issue is more urgent with important state issues and the White House on the line. “I would think that we would want every possible soul who’s eligible to vote, to be able to vote in that election,” said Sen. Rollie Heath, the chair of the committee that brought back the plan.

Pennsylvania: Voter ID bill causes concern among Bucks County’s senior citizens | Bucks News

“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.

National: Voter ID laws spark heated debate before U.S. election | Reuters

Liberal activists on Wednesday criticized new voter registration requirements in dozens of states, saying millions of people could be deterred from voting in the November U.S. presidential election – a claim their opponents disputed. The Center for American Progress issued a report that said new barriers to voting have been enacted by conservative state legislatures with the aim of disenfranchising voters from among certain groups such as low-income voters, minorities and college students. Those constituencies have tended to favor Democrats. “The right to vote is under attack all across our country,” the group said in a report that launched the latest salvo in the growing war of racially tinged rhetoric over new voter ID requirements.

Voting Blogs: State Constitutions: A New Battleground in Voting Rights | JURIST

An emerging storyline in this year’s election season is the increased implementation of voter ID laws around the country. From Wisconsin to Texas to Virginia, state legislatures are enacting new laws requiring voters to show some form of photo identification at the polls. Just as quickly, opponents are filing suit in both state and federal courts to challenge the laws on various grounds. While none of this is particularly novel, the added twist is the prominence of state constitutions in these disputes. In fact, given the current US Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of voting protections, state constitutional recognition of the right to vote may have a tremendous impact in limiting some states from requiring voters to show identification this Election Day. Proponents of voter ID laws posit that they are necessary to protect the integrity of the election process. Those who oppose the laws, by contrast, explain that they do not root out any documented fraud and that they actually disenfranchise certain groups of voters, particularly minorities, the indigent and students. There is also a partisan bent to the disputes: Republicans tend to favor voter ID laws and Democrats oppose them because groups that more often vote Democratic are, as a general matter, less likely to possess the required form of identification and therefore will be unable to vote.

National: Santorum: ‘The Only Reason You Don’t Have A Voter ID Is You Want To Continue To Perpetrate Fraud’ | ThinkProgress

To Rick Santorum, the more than 23 million American voters who don’t have a government-issued photo ID aren’t potential victims of disenfranchisement. The presidential hopeful uses a different name: perpetrators of fraud. ThinkProgress spoke with the Republican presidential hopeful about voter ID laws — which require that citizens present a certain form of photo identification or they are barred from voting — during a campaign stop in Milwaukee last weekend. Santorum said that he supports such laws because, as he states it, “the only reason you don’t have a voter ID is you want to continue to perpetrate fraud.” He went on to dismiss the notion that anyone might not have access to a voter ID, saying that “it’s not a problem.” Santorum’s claim falls somewhere in the murky world between audacity and lunacy. More than one in ten Americans lack a government-issued photo ID. These people are not committing voter fraud — indeed, voter fraud is rarer than getting struck by lightning — they are potentially having their right to vote stripped away. Santorum appears to have confused the disenfranchisees with the disenfranchisers.

Nebraska: Filibuster kills voter ID measure | Fremont Tribune

A bill that would have required Nebraska voters to show government identification at the polls was squashed Wednesday by a legislative filibuster, but the senator who introduced the measure said he’ll likely introduce it again next year. Lawmakers who backed the bill fell three votes short of the support they needed to stop debate on the measure. As a result, the matter is essentially dead for this legislative session. The vote to end the eight-hour debate was 30-16. Bill supporters needed 33 votes. The divide in the officially nonpartisan Legislature fell mostly along party lines. “That was unfortunate,” said the measure’s sponsor, Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen, who wants to bring the bill back next year. “It wasn’t put forward as a partisan issue. It was never intended to be a partisan issue, but in the end I think that’s what happened. I think people closed their ears and didn’t want to compromise, which was evident when we were trying to reach out to them.”

Nebraska: Lawmakers tangle over Nebraska voter ID proposal | necn.com

A measure that would require Nebraska voters to show government-issued identification at the polls drew fierce criticism Tuesday from opponents in the Legislature, with one lawmaker calling it a “Jim Crow light” bill. Lawmakers argued over the measure into the evening, but were not expected to reach a vote until Wednesday. The bill’s sponsor, Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen, told lawmakers that his bill seeks to fight the threat of voter fraud. Critics say the problem doesn’t exist and have mounted a filibuster on the bill to delay a vote. Janssen, a former U.S. Navy rescue swimmer, said he cast his first ballot as an absentee voter from a combat zone in the Persian Gulf. “I took great pride in casting that ballot, and I’d hate to think it was canceled out by somebody voting illegally,” he said. Opponents say the bill disproportionately affects poor and young voters. Between 50,000 and 100,000 Nebraskans do not have identification that would qualify as valid for voting purposes, according to the group Nebraskans for Civic Reform.

Editorials: Ending Discriminatory Voter ID: Let’s Affirm The Right To Vote | AlterNet

The time has come for a national conversation about guaranteeing the right to vote—based on one’s legal eligibility, and not the form of ID in their wallet. On March 14, Pennsylvania became the eighth state to toughen voter ID requirements in the past year, following Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. While these voter ID laws take many forms, the most restrictive require voters to obtain a government-issued photo ID to get a ballot on Election Day, which voting rights advocates say could deter several million people who lack birth certificates and other documentation from obtaining the ID and voting. To date, the conversation on voter ID has followed well-worn contours. Legislative advocates for these laws, almost all Republicans, claim that they uphold election “integrity” by curbing voter impersonation fraud. Opponents say the laws are policing a problem that barely exists and that current law enforcement aptly addresses. In addition, the laws intentionally place unfair requirements on specific demographic sectors that lean Democratic, which can ultimately lead to disenfranchisement.

Voting Blogs: The War for Wisconsin: As Photo ID Restrictions Hit Constitutional Roadblock, Hard Right Files 29 ‘Ethics Complaints’ | BradBlog

In Wisconsin, two Dane County Circuit Court judges, David Flanagan and Richard Niess both issued injunctions against the state GOP’s polling place photo ID restriction (“Act 23”) — Flanagan’s temporary, Niess’ permanent — after finding that the law was in direct violation of the WI state constitution’s guaranteed right to vote. Immediately after the first of those two injunctions, issued by Judge Flanagan in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker, the WI GOP filed an ethics complaint with the WI Judicial Commission, alleging that the judge had violated the WI Code of Judicial Conduct because he had signed a petition to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R) and failed to disclose that fact before issuing his ruling. However, when Flanagan’s temporary injunction was promptly followed not only by Neiss’ permanent injunction one week later, but by a subsequent refusal by an intermediate WI appellate court to stay the temporary injunction, the hard-right, operating under another right-wing billionaire front group, the Landmark Legal Foundation, filed ethics complaints against 29 WI judges who also signed recall petitions. If you can’t beat ’em, hit ’em with ethics violations complaints…

Northern Mariana Islands: Judge dismisses Davis’ lawsuit vs Election Commission | Saipan Tribune

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has dismissed the lawsuit filed by John H. Davis Jr., a U.S. citizen who wants to stop the Commonwealth Election Commission from denying U.S. citizens who are not of Northern Marianas descent the right to vote on any issue regarding Article 12 of the CNMI Constitution or on any other issues. In an order issued Thursday, Manglona, however, allowed Davis 14 days to file a second amended complaint redressing deficiencies in his lawsuit. Manglona cited that it is expressly the province of Congress to “enforce.by appropriate legislation” the provisions of the 14th and 15th Amendments.

Editorials: The GOP Assault on the Voting Rights Act | Ben Adler/The Nation

Last week the Department of Justice denied preclearance to Texas’s law requiring voters to present photo identification under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires states and jurisdictions with a demonstrated history of passing discriminatory election laws to get approval from the DOJ for any change to laws governing the time, place or manner in which an election is conducted. Within days Texas filed a challenge in federal court arguing that Section 5 is unconstitutional. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott maintains that the federal government exceeded its authority and violated the Tenth Amendment when it passed the measure. Conservative opponents of civil rights are eager to see that challenge succeed. Writing in National Review—which opposed the civil rights movement—vice chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights and conservative scholar Abigail Thernstrom argues that Section 5 is outdated. National Review’s evolution on the subject is the standard conservative slither on civil rights. First you oppose it. Then, when society has evolved and you look like a bigot, you accept it. Then, as soon as humanly possible, you argue it was necessary at the time but no longer is.

Editorials: Pennsylvania voter ID law will make voting difficult for many seniors | Rep. Bob Freeman/mcall.com

Paul Carpenter‘s column of March 14 supporting the new photo voter identification law failed to recognize the hardship this new requirement will place on many voters, particularly senior citizens who don’t have a valid driver’s license. Carpenter stated that under the new legislation “there is no way a legitimate voter can be prevented from obtaining identification or from otherwise verifying that he or she is qualified to vote.” Not true. According to the SeniorLAW Center, 18 percent of senior citizens in Pennsylvania do not have a valid photo ID. Although a free one can now be obtained from a state Transportation Department photo center, many centers are either not served or are poorly served by public transportation. In addition to overcoming the hurdle of not being able to drive to the photo center, these senior citizens will have to present a Social Security card, birth certificate and two documents with their current address to get a photo ID. If they show up at their polling place but do not have a valid, unexpired photo ID, they will not be permitted to vote, despite the fact that they are legitimately registered voters and are known to election workers on sight. They will be offered a provisional ballot but must then obtain the photo ID and present it to the county elections office within six days for their vote to be counted. Doing all of this without a car will be difficult. If they don’t have a copy of their birth certificate or can’t find it, they won’t be able to get the photo ID, in which case their vote won’t be counted. It takes two to four months to process a birth certificate application.

Voting Blogs: Two Voter ID Cases Demonstrate the Need for the Right to Vote in the U.S. Constitution | State of Elections

On March 6th, the Wisconsin Circuit Court in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker, granted a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing a voter ID law in the upcoming primary election. Then, on March 13, a second Circuit Court judge struck down the same voter ID law in League of Women Voters v. Walker. The courts proceeded with similar, yet differentiated, analyses of the law in finding that Act 23, Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law, was unconstitutional based on the Wisconsin Constitution’s affirmative right to vote – a right unfortunately not found in the U.S. Constitution.