Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission will slow process to prevent ballot problems | The Commercial Appeal

In an effort to make sure all voters receive the proper ballot, the Shelby County Election Commission has added an extra step that chairman Robert Meyers said could slow the voting process for everyone in Thursday’s elections. The ballots will feature state and federal primaries, Shelby County general elections and suburban referendums related to the creation of municipal school districts. Ballot problems following redistricting of state House and Senate and U.S. House voting boundaries led to more than 3,000 voters appearing to cast ballots in incorrect races during the early voting period. The majority of the incorrect ballots involved state House party primaries, although some of those are uncontested. Problems related to the referendums on municipal school districts in six suburban towns were corrected in the first week of early voting, but problems continued in state and federal primaries. Those voters most likely affected by the problems will be on a list at every precinct, and when someone shows up to vote who has been identified as a potential victim of the computer glitch, poll workers will attempt to ensure the proper ballot is issued and voted upon.

Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission hopes for smoother vote on Thursday | The Commercial Appeal

With a troubled early-voting period now behind it, the Shelby County Election Commission is working to insure voters receive correct ballots on Thursday’s Election Day. But the commission and its staff continue to ask voters to be sure when they go to the polls that they know which state and federal districts they should be voting in, and to ask poll workers for clarification if there is any question of whether they are voting in the correct districts. “We continue to work to try to make sure we will be as successful as possible on Election Day,” said commission chairman Robert Meyers. “We’re doing all we can to make it through this election, and then post election we’ll be taking some serious looks at what happened and why it happened.” The state said last week it will conduct a performance audit after the election, and Meyers said Monday he hopes that will help identify core problems that have affected previous elections as well.

Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission Admits Ballot Problems | Memphis Daily News

Challenges to the conduct of the Aug. 2 election may have reached a peak Tuesday, July 24. The Shelby County Election Commission admitted a “limited number” of voters in some precincts got early voting ballots that included the wrong district races. Their work on their voter database to include the new boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts approved in Nashville in February began just four days before the end of the early voting period in advance of the Aug. 2 election day. And sometime during the day Tuesday, City Attorney Herman Morris filed a lawsuit in Nashville Federal Court challenging state election officials on their decision not to honor photo library cards as a legal form of photo identification required by state law to vote. The lawsuit alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution including the equal protection clause.

Tennessee: 1,000 ballots incorrect, but still count, Shelby County election official says | The Commercial Appeal

The chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission conceded Tuesday that nearly 1,000 voters received the wrong ballots during early voting for state and federal primary races in the Aug. 2 elections. But voters who received the wrong ballots won’t get to vote again with the right ballots, said commission chairman Robert Meyers. Meyers, a Republican, publicly thanked the Democratic nominee for a Shelby County Commission seat, Steve Ross, for identifying the glitch that caused the problem. Saying that the information Ross released on his popular progressive blog Monday was “a correct report,” Meyers at a late afternoon news conference Tuesday tried to assure voters that proper “corrective action” had been taken. The mistakes appear to be related to a late rush by the Election Commission to update voter files based on redistricting in state and federal races. The votes that were cast for the wrong race will still count, and those voters will not get a chance to cast ballots in the correct race, Meyers said, citing the one-man, one-vote principle. The wrong ballots appear to be dispersed across several races, with the vast majority in state House contests.

Tennessee: Shelby County Candidate Says 1,019 Wrong Ballots Given Out So Far | Memphis Flyer

The much-beleaguered Shelby County Election Commission is about to get another big shock, which will also further shake the already weakened confidence of Shelby County voters in the accuracy of the August 2 election process. If the calculations of Steve Ross are correct, no fewer than 1,019 Shelby County voters have been presented with erroneous ballots so far in the early-voting process. Ross, the Democratic nominee for a District 1 County Commission seat, has been a determined all-purpose political activist for years (somewhere between a gadfly and an ombudsman), and being a candidate for office hasn’t halted his efforts. If anything it’s whetted them.

National: Voting Rights Act Section 5 challenges reach Supreme Court | SCOTUSblog

Attorneys for challengers to the constitutionality of the 1965 voting rights law’s key provision for federal regulation of state and local election laws urged the Supreme Court on Friday to settle the issue in the next Term, starting October 1.  One new case arrived from the town of Kinston in North Carolina and a second came from Shelby County in Alabama.  The D.C. Circuit Court has upheld the provision at issue — Section 5 — although the Supreme Court itself three years ago raised significant questions about its validity. The Kinston case reached the Court this morning.  The petition is here, and the appendix (a large file) is here.  The Shelby County case was filed in early afternoon; the petition ishere, and the D.C. Circuit Court ruling in that case is here.   Not only has the time come to examine the constitutional questions the Court has raised, the Kinston petition argued, but the Justice Department’s “overzealous manner” of enforcement of Section 5 has put heavy new burdens on state and local governments covered by that provision.   The Shelby County petition argued that the renewed law puts states into “federal receivership,” raising “fundamental questions of state sovereignty,” while denying equality only to designated states – predominantly in the South.  Shelby County also assailed the Justice Department’s “needlessly aggressive exercise” of its veto powers over state and local election laws.

National: Voting Rights Act petitions reach Supreme Court | chicagotribune.com

Two legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law adopted in 1965 that barred racial discrimination in voting practices, reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday. The appeals target a part of the law, known as pre-clearance, that says that states with a history of discrimination must get permission from the federal government before changing election procedures. The first challenge was filed by supporters of a 2008 Kinston, North Carolina, measure that would omit candidates’ party affiliations from ballots.

Alabama: Shelby County files Voting Rights Act appeal with U.S. Supreme Court | al.com

Shelby County took its challenge of the Voting Rights Act to the U.S. Supreme Court today, asking the justices to declare part of the 1965 law an unfair burden on states such as Alabama where the federal government still oversees elections for evidence of racial discrimination. Shelby County is appealing two lower court decisions that upheld the constitutionality of the landmark civil rights-era law. If the Supreme Court justices agree to accept the case, they’ll schedule it for oral arguments sometime after they return in October, and it would be one of the highest-profile cases of the court’s 2012-13 term.

National: US Supreme Court expected to hear Shelby County’s challenge to the Voting Rights Act | al.com

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its term with a flurry of decisions in cases with strong Alabama connections, and there are signs that trend will continue this fall as Shelby County prepares to send the justices its challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the next few weeks. The Shelby County case has been a contender for Supreme Court review ever since it was filed two years ago, and the likelihood has increased as other similar voting cases have slowed down and Shelby County’s has speeded up. It’s had two hearings in federal court and two decisions, both of which upheld the constitutionality of key sections of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court is the next and last stop for the county, which is trying to dismantle the 47-year-old law that puts elections in all or part of 16 states under strict federal supervision. “We are proceeding with our plan to file a petition with the Supreme Court,” said Shelby County’s attorney, Frank “Butch” Ellis of Columbiana.

National: From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights | Reuters

Four years ago, in Calera, asmall city of gentle hills, tall oaks and nine stoplights, an invisible line was drawn a few miles north of the center of town. It stretched up beyond Highway 22 and looped west across Interstate 65, sweeping in recent housing developments, the brown-brick Concord Baptist Church and a new Wal-Mart. The narrow five-square-mile rectangle enlarged Voting District 2. It also radically changed the district’s racial mix. The expansion brought in hundreds of white voters, cutting the proportion of black registered voters to one-third from more than two-thirds. The city, which said it had to redraw its district map to account for a population increase and land annexations, contended the new boundaries would not discriminate against blacks. The U.S. Department of Justice was not persuaded. In a tersely worded, three-page letter emailed to the Calera city attorney on August 25, 2008, it voided the new map.

Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission reclassifies 180,000 voters | The Commercial Appeal

In the 2008 presidential election, when Shelby County counted a record 401,081 votes cast on the Nov. 4 ballot, the final turnout of 66.9 percent was considered strong but still meant some 33 percent of the nearly 600,000 people on the county’s voter rolls chose not to participate. Was it apathy? Or, as recent aggressive moves by the county Election Commission suggest, was it something more simple — absence. A spring cleaning of the county’s voter rolls, based on identifying names of people who had not cast ballots in any federal election since 2006, has resulted in voting rolls that as recently as March showed 611,937 voters now listing just 431,054 names. The commission says there is a simple explanation for how some 180,000 names vanished from the publicly available voting rolls. The most substantial change involved moving 151,826 people who have not voted in any of the two most recent federal election cycles to “inactive” status. Those voters remain eligible to vote, but since they have not voted in any federal election over a four-year stretch, they are no longer considered “active” voters, and the commission, under the control of county Republicans since 2010, has decided to include only the “active” voters on its registered voting statistics.

Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission Denies Deleting Voting Records | WREG.com

The Shelby County Election Commission is accused of deleting the voting records of 488 people who are mostly African-American and Democrat. Congressman Steve Cohen is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate the matter, all while the Elections Commission says there’s no problem at all. Administrator Richard Holden volunteered to show us the database. He said all the names and voting records are there. A blogger accused the commission of deleting the records of 488 voters, to perhaps, prevent them from voting. “I don`t have any records of ever providing data to anyone who lives in Seattle,” said Holden.

Tennessee: 40,000 Memphis Voter Records Erased? | Fox 13 News

Norma Lester with the Shelby County Election Commission says the commission chair requested an investigation into recent allegations of thousands of county voter histories being purged, according to a letter FOX 13 obtained. Blogger Bev Harris with Black Box Voting originally said her research showed that 488 lifelong voters, mainly African American and democratic voters, were missing in the Shelby County registry. People on this list include political figures like Darrick Harris and Edmund Ford. “There’s 600,000 voters on the Shelby County voter list and for it just to happen to African Americans in one particular district who vote democrat is certainly not just random chance,” says Harris. Harris says after continuing her research, she found that not just 488 but 13,000 voter histories have been erased from the Shelby County voter registry. … Congressman Steve Cohen says the missing records go even deeper. The Congressman announced on Sunday that he’s contacted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about 40,000 missing voter histories, which Cohen says is the precursor to purging. He says he noticed the discrepancy in Dec. 2011 when he pulled records from Aug. 2010 for his election mailings.

Tennessee: “Erased Voters’ Gaffe May Force Changes by Shelby County Election Commission | Memphis Flyer

Whether it’s a case of a blind squirrel finding real acorns or a maligned activist coming into her own with important revelations, new questions raised about the Shelby County Election Commission by controversial Seattle-area voting-rights activist Bev Harris may well cause serious investigations and important procedural changes.
Allegations from Harris last week that hundreds of Shelby County voters — almost all black Democrats — have had their voting history erased have put Election Commission officials on the defensive and prompted a demand from 9th District congressman Steve Cohen Sunday that the U.S. Department of Justice and Tennessee State Election Coordinator Mark Goins look into her charges. “The ballot must remain free and open to all,” said Cohen, who had made similar requests for DOJ scrutiny following a glitch in the August 2010 countywide election that caused several hundred voters to be turned away, at least temporarily, after an erroneous early-voting list had been fed into the county’s electronic voting log.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act survives court test, but how long will it last? | Facing South

Last week, in a case closely watched around the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was constitutional. But it also exposed the fault lines that will likely push the case to the Supreme Court, posing one of the gravest threats to a provision in the Act that has been used most recently to force court review of voter ID laws in Southern states. In a 2-1 decision in the case of Shelby County v Holder, the justices upheld Section 5 of the Act, an embattled component of the landmark civil rights measure which requires all or part of 16 states — nine in the South — to get federal approval before making major changes to elections.

Tennessee: Voter History of 488 Black, Democrat Erased from Shelby County records | WREG.com

The Shelby County Election Commission is investigating claims by a blogger that they have erased the voting history of 488 voters in Shelby County. The blog, blackboxvoting.org claims in an article published two weeks ago, that the Election Commission was “caught red-handed” erasing the voting history of the nearly 500 voters that the blog says are mostly African-American Democrats from the 9th Congressional District. Election Commissioner George Monger said Friday he looked into the claims and they are true. “What I looked at was the names on the list and I simply took those voter ids and compared them to the most recent data I got at the last Election Commission meeting and with that I did see that the voter histories were not in the particular report,” said Monger. Robert Myers Chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission said they began looking into the issue Thursday.

Editorials: The Growing Debate Over the Voting Rights Act | Colorlines

Articles on the Voting Rights Act are increasingly being filed in the “obituary” section, even though it’s less than 50 years old. Last week, a U.S. Court of Appeals decisionruled against Shelby County, Ala., which challenged the constitutionality of VRA’s Section 5. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that it was still constitutional, but the dissenting judge, Senior Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams, asked some tough questions that will need to be resolved before the Supreme Court inevitably looks at it again (In 2009, SCOTUS punted on this issue, but expressed serious skepticism about Section 5’s vitality.) Wrote Judge Williams in his dissent:

*Why should voter ID laws from South Carolina and Texas be judged by different criteria … from those governing Indiana? A glimpse at the charts shows that Indiana ranks “worse” than South Carolina and Texas in registration and voting rates, as well as in black elected officials. This distinction in evaluating the different states’ policies is rational? *

South Carolina and Texas are “covered jurisdictions” under Section 5, while Indiana, which has a worse voting record, is not. As Williams pointed out, none of those three states are among the top ten worst offenders on voting rights. So the coverage formula needs to be reconsidered, Williams concluded. The coverage formula of Section 5 is the ankle bracelet for Southern states and counties (and a few Northern counties) that have been placed on house arrest for repeated voting rights violations, mostly throughout America’s Jim Crow era. States like Alabama, Texas and South Carolina want courts to take that ankle bracelet off.

Editorials: Do We Still Need the Voting Rights Act? | The New Yorker

The chances to remake American law—and maybe American society—are stacking up for the Supreme Court. Next month, the Justices will render their verdicts on the Affordable Care Act and on the Arizona immigration law. The fate of affirmative action in university admissions will likely be determined by the Roberts Court in its next term, and now another blockbuster appears headed for the Justices as well. The future of the Voting Rights Act—probably the Great Society’s greatest landmark—will almost certainly be in the Court’s hands next year. The heart of the Voting Rights Act is its famous Section 5, which essentially put the South on perpetual probation. In rough terms, the law requires the states of the old Confederacy (as well as a few smaller areas outside the South) to submit any changes in their electoral law to the Justice Department for what’s known as “pre-clearance”—to make sure that the changes don’t infringe on minority voting rights. Before Section 5, states and municipalities could simply change their rules—about everything from the location of polling places to the borders of district lines—and dare civil-rights activists to sue to stop them. It was a maddening, and very high-stakes, game of whack-a-mole. As a result of Section 5, though, the Justice Department monitored these moves and made sure there would be no backsliding on voting rights.

Editorials: In Defense of Voting Rights | NYTimes.com

Racial discrimination in voting is “one of the gravest evils that Congress can seek to redress,” Judge David Tatel wrote in a crucial ruling on Friday upholding the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. In extending the law in 2006, Congress did just that, after reviewing racial bias in the nine states and parts of several others that have deep histories of discrimination. These “covered jurisdictions” had long been required by Section 5 of the law to get permission from the Justice Department or a federal court before making any changes to their voting rules. Congress found that discriminatory practices were still persistent and pervasive in those jurisdictions, and that the preclearance requirement remained necessary. In his 2-to-1 majority opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Judge Tatel explained that Congress’s judgment, supported by a legislative record of more than 15,000 pages and 22 hearings, “deserves judicial deference” because of the weight of the evidence. The ruling upheld a forceful decision by a federal district judge that reached the same conclusion in 2011.

National: Court upholds key provision of Voting Rights Act; Supreme Court review likely | The Washington Post

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a signature portion of the Voting Rights Act, setting the stage for consideration by a Supreme Court whose majority is skeptical about the law’s continued viability. On a 2 to 1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit turned down a challenge to Section 5 of the historic civil rights act, which requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to get federal approval of any changes in their voting laws. First passed in 1965, the act was most recently extended in 2006. Conservative critics have said that despite lopsided votes in both houses and the approval of President George W. Bush, lawmakers did not do enough to justify extending the Section 5 restrictions on nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others. But U.S. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel said the judicial branch had no reason to second-guess Congress in reauthorizing the law.

Alabama: Justice Department move might propel Shelby County, Alabama voting case to U.S. Supreme Court | al.com

The chances that Shelby County’s challenge to the Voting Rights Act will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court have improved since the Justice Department announced it is rethinking its position in a similar North Carolina case. In a Jan. 30 letter to a lawyer for a group of voters in Kinston, NC., the assistant attorney general for civil rights said the agency has new information and will reconsider its 2009 objection to the city’s switch to nonpartisan elections. Assuming the Justice Department formally withdraws that objection, Kinston’s related lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act goes away.

Alabama: One-man Washington nonprofit helps steer Shelby County voting case | al.com

Shelby County’s name is on the case, but a one-man Washington, D.C., legal defense fund with pri­vate donors is the driving force be­hind one of the most important constitutional challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Project on Fair Representa­tion is the nonprofit run by Ed­ward Blum, a one-time congres­sional candidate in Texas with two decades of experience in litigation over affirmative action, redistrict­ing and voting rights. After the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 expressed some reservations about the constitutionality of Sec­tion 5 of the Voting Rights Act but no official ruling, Blum found in Shelby County a potential litigant to try again: a local government that had grown weary of the bur­dens of the Voting Rights Act and a willingness to take that complaint all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. So the Shelby County Commission agreed to let Blum’s Project on Fair Representation hire the lawyers and file the case that alleges two key parts of the landmark civil rights law are outdated and no longer necessary.

Voting Blogs: Constitutional Showdown over the Voting Rights Act: D.C. Circuit Hears Shelby County v. Holder | Test & History

On January 19, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit debated the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance requirement, one of Act’s most important and successful provisions, which was renewed by a near unanimous Congress in 2006 and signed into law by President George W. Bush.  In 2009, in NAMUDNO v. Holder, the Supreme Court came dangerously close to striking down that 2006 renewal, raising a host of constitutional concerns about the requirement that jurisdictions that have a history of engaging in racial discrimination in voting obtain federal permission before altering their voting laws and regulations, but ultimately avoiding the constitutional question.  During yesterday’s argument, the panel — Judges David S. Tatel, Thomas B. Griffith and Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams — grappled with the constitutional questions raised by Chief Justice Roberts in NAMUDNO.  All three members of the panel were very active during the argument, posing numerous questions to the parties, often in rapid-fire succession.

Alabama: Appeals Court Examines Constitutionality Of Voting Rights Act Provision | The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

A federal appeals court in Washington is reviewing the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires certain local and state governments to get permission from the U.S. Justice Department before implementing electoral changes. Bert Rein, representing Shelby County, Alabama in the suit against the federal government, today urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down Section 5 of the 1965 law as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled for DOJ last September.

Alabama: Key provision of voting rights law under court scrutiny | NBC

A central part of election law dating back to the historic civil rights struggles of the 1960s could be scrapped or curtailed in the coming months as a critical case makes its way through the courts. The fate of a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is now being decided by the federal appeals court in Washington, as a three-judge panel weighs an appeal from Shelby County, Ala. asking the court to find that Congress exceeded its power when it renewed section 5 of the law in 2006.

Alabama: Appeals Court Hears Challenge To Voting Rights Act | Fox News

Appeals court judges expressed concern Thursday about whether to overrule Congress’ determination that some southern states and other jurisdictions still must have federal election monitoring to protect minority voting rights. Alabama’s Shelby County is challenging a requirement under the Voting Rights Act that governments with a history of discrimination obtain federal approval to change even minor election procedures. An attorney for the county argued in federal appeals court in Washington that the South has changed and that extraordinary oversight is no longer needed. But two of three judges on the panel hearing the case pointed out Congress renewed the provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2006 after finding that discrimination still exists. A lower court endorsed that finding.

Texas: Supreme Court Argument in Texas Redistricting Cases Highlights Importance of Shelby County Voting Rights Act Case | Text & History

Yesterday, in an unusual afternoon session, the Justices of the Supreme Court jumped right into the political thicket, debating the authority of a federal court in Texas to draw election districts for the state’s  upcoming primaries.  Texas currently has no legally enforceable district lines.  Its current districts are now badly out of step with the constitutional requirements of one person, one vote, and its new district lines have yet to be precleared, as required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, one of our Nation’s most iconic and important federal civil rights statutes.  During yesterday’s 70-minute argument in Perry v. Perez, the Justices sought to figure out a solution that would permit the upcoming primary elections to go forward, consistent with the requirement of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.  Hovering over oral argument in Perry v. Perez was the question of the constitutionality of the Act’s preclearance requirement.  In 2009, in NAMUDNO v. Holder, the Roberts Court came dangerously close to striking down this bedrock provision of the Voting Rights Act, but yesterday, at least, the Justices showed little interest in debating the Act’s constitutionality. As Chief Justice Roberts specifically observed, “the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act is not at issue here.”

Voting Blogs: How urgent is the Section 5 issue? | SCOTUSblog

While much of the rest of the nation was diverted for the holidays, a group of lawyers in Washington pressed on to prepare new legal papers in hopes of getting a speedy decision — perhaps in time for the 2012 elections — on the constitutionality of the federal law that many consider history’s most important guarantee of minorities’ voting rights.  Having barely missed the chance in 2009 to get the Supreme Court to strike down Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, challengers are seeking to set up a new test case as quickly as they can.  They may get their wish, at least in lower federal courts.

Three days after Christmas, attorneys for a group of opponents of Section 5, who live in the small community of Kinston in eastern North Carolina (population about 24,000), urged the D.C. Circuit to take unusual steps to decide their case in close tandem with an already pending challenge there from Shelby County, Alabama.   The Kinston lawyers even offered to forfeit the usual opportunity for an oral argument, if that would move the case along.

“The public has a compelling interest in a prompt and definitive resolution of Section 5′s facial constitutionality during the upcoming election year,” the attorneys said in a motion to expedite their appeal, and to assign it to the same three-judge panel that is reviewing the Shelby County case.  “Section 5 will have a sweeping effect on the 2012 elections, because it will affect redistricting, voter-identification laws, polling-place locations, early-voting hours, and any other voting change” in all or parts of 16 states that are subject to Section 5. The Justice Department, the attorneys told the Court, does not object to those requests.

Alabama: D.C. Circuit To Hear Voting Rights Act Case In January | The Blog of Legal Times

Lawyers for an Alabama county that is challenging a controversial section of the Voting Rights Act have asked a federal appeals court in Washington to strike down a judge’s ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the law. Judge John Bates of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in September ruled for the Justice Department in its defense of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The section requires some states and localities to get permission before implementing election-related changes.

Section 5, according to the Justice Department, was set up to ensure that changes do not harm minority voting rights. Congress extended the Voting Rights Act in 2006 another 25 years. Shelby County, Ala., sued the Justice Department last year.

Alabama: Federal appeals court will hear Shelby County voting rights case in January | al.com

A panel of three federal appellate judges will hear oral arguments Jan. 19 in an Alabama-based case about the constitutionality of key sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Shelby County case is a likely contender for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit whether certain parts of the country should continue to have their elections supervised by the U.S. Justice Department for signs of racial discrimination. All or part of 16 states, including Alabama, have to submit their election-related changes for approval.

U.S. District Judge John Bates last month sided with the Justice Department and upheld the landmark voting rights law that Congress in 2006 agreed to extend for another 25 years. It is Shelby County’s appeal of that decision that is going before the three-judge panel, which is one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.