Voting Blogs: Crawford and the Politics of Voter ID | More Soft Money Hard Law

A recent posting here suggested that the constitutional analysis of ID statutes is foundering on the issue of partisan motivation—the politics of ID. The centrality of this motivation is inescapable. it is impressing itself on a prominent jurist like Richard Posner, once dismissive of claims against ID statutes, and it is supported by the evidence considered by political scientists (see here and here). Yet the jurisprudence developed around ID has fared poorly in showing how political motivation can be incorporated into a constitutional test. The Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford is largely at fault here, having accepted the role of partisanship, even the hard, undeniable fact of it, so long as the state could point other reasons in theory for its enactment.  So judges skeptical of ID laws have looked elsewhere for the case against ID. Posner’s recent dissent in the Wisconsin case is an example of what happens. He recognizes the driving force of partisanship: he even locates the Wisconsin law within a trend among states with Republican leadership that have moved toward ID around the same time in circumstances that indicate a common political purpose. But his opinion treats this as the only conclusion to be drawn from other facts–facts about the comparative restrictiveness of the ID laws and the projections about their disenfranchising impact.

Editorials: In Texas voter ID ruling, justices side with more obstacles at the polls | Dallas Morning News

Could it be that the Supreme Court justices overlooked the elegant simplicity of Texas’ traditional election system? We’re talking about the tried-and-true method in place for years, before the Legislature invented a crisis of voter fraud and imposed a photo ID law that places more obstacles before the voting booth. If the justices understood the state’s time-tested system, they wouldn’t have bought the argument that it was too close to Election Day to reinstate it, in favor of the relatively new photo ID requirement. Let’s recall the Texas voting system that was in place before the Republican-controlled Legislature swept it aside in 2011. A registered voter could enter the voting booth by presenting pretty much any ID or document that proved identity, with or without a photo. It might have been a voter registration card or driver’s license. It might have been a library card. It might have been an electric bill, a phone bill or a water bill. The point was to show election workers who you were and where you lived, so long as it coincided with the name on the voter rolls. The beauty of that system was this: If someone stole Grandma’s purse and ID cards, or if — God forbid! — she let her driver’s license expire the year before, she’d still have papers at home she could take to the polls to get a ballot. Grandma would not lose the right to vote on Election Day on a technicality.

National: Voter-ID Actions Push Fight Past November | Wall Street Journal

A last-minute order by the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas to apply its strict voter-identification law for the Nov. 4 midterm elections, but bigger battles over state ID requirements loom ahead of the 2016 presidential race. Voter ID cases from Texas and Wisconsin reached the high court in recent weeks, and they produced opposite results. The justices on Saturday said Texas can use its law for now, a blow to the Obama administration and civil-rights groups that challenged the requirements. On Oct. 9, the high court put Wisconsin’s law on hold, a move that blocked late changes to the state’s midterm election rules. Neither case has been resolved beyond next month’s elections, and the Supreme Court hasn’t decided the legality of either law. The court was acting on emergency requests made as Election Day nears, rather than ruling on the merits. If the high court takes up either case later on, it could provide the justices with an opportunity to clarify which kinds of voter-ID requirements are acceptable across the nation.

Editorials: How the Supreme Court Made a Mess of Our Voting System | Michael Waldman/Politico

Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed in 1835, “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” That certainly describes the grand struggle over voting rights now unfolding in courtrooms across the country. And when it comes to who can vote and when, a clear message is hard to discern. In recent days, rulings, appeals and motions have pinballed around the system, with the U.S. Supreme Court answering emergency pleas, allowing some changes to take effect and temporarily blocking others, while key appeals head their way. The latest lurch: In a decision emailed out at 5 a.m. Saturday morning, the justices let Texas implement its controversial voter ID law, the nation’s strictest, just two days before early voting begins in the state. Amid the confusion, an important new element has emerged. The breakthrough? Facts. Two powerful judicial opinions—one from a Texas trial judge, another from an esteemed appeals court jurist—and a landmark government study have shed new light on the costs and consequences of restrictive voting laws. They answer some key questions: Are these laws malevolent? (In Texas, at least, yes.) Do they provide a benefit that outweighs their cost? (No.) Do they suppress the vote? (Alarmingly, it seems, yes.) And can we prevent fraud without disenfranchising Americans? (Yes, absolutely.) In a zone foggy with legal rhetoric, these three documents will—and should—live on beyond the 2014 election cycle. They might even help shape a new legal regime to protect voters while protecting against fraud. They’re worth a close read.

Texas: The Court won’t interrupt Texas voter ID law | SCOTUSblog

In a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and a number of civil rights groups in a major test case on voters’ rights, a divided Supreme Court told the state of Texas early Saturday morning that it may enforce its strict voter ID law for this year’s general election, with early voting starting next Monday.  Three Justices dissented from the ruling, which was released a few minutes after 5 a.m. folllowing a seemingly lengthy study. This apparently was the first time since 1982 that the Court has allowed a law restricting voters’ rights to be enforced after a federal court had ruled it to be unconstitutional.  A U.S. District Court judge in Corpus Christi struck down the ID law last week after a nine-day trial, but it now awaits review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which temporarily blocked the trial judge’s ruling. The Justice Department has indicated that the case is likely to return to the Supreme Court after the appeals court rules.  Neither the Fifth Circuit’s action so far nor the Supreme Court’s Saturday order dealt with the issue of the law’s constitutionality.  The ultimate validity of the law, described by Saturday’s dissenters as “the strictest regime in the country,” probably depends upon Supreme Court review. The Saturday order, for which a number of news organizations had kept a vigil through the night in anticipation of its release, did not disclose how six of the Justices had voted.  But, because it would have taken the votes of at least five to have reached the result, it was clear that the order had majority support.   The majority gave no explanation for its action.

Texas: High court action on Texas ID law shows mixed record on voting rights | Los Angeles Times

“There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in April. Roberts spoke then for the court’s conservative majority in striking down part of a federal election law so as to allow a wealthy Republican businessman from Alabama to give more money to candidates across the country. The contribution limit restricted the donor’s free speech, Roberts concluded, and the Constitution requires the court to err on the side of safeguarding that cherished 1st Amendment protection. But the right to vote, which is the way most Americans participate in a democracy, has gotten far less protection from the Supreme Court under Roberts. There is no starker example than the high court order early Saturday allowing Texas to enforce a new photo identification law that a federal judge had blocked earlier this month after deciding the law would prevent as many as 5% of the state’s registered voters, or 600,000 people in all, from casting a ballot.

National: Supreme Court leaves its mark on the midterms | Politico

The Supreme Court sure looks like it’s fine-tuning the rules for the 2014 election. Over the past three weeks, the justices gave Ohio the green light to cut early voting by a week, let North Carolina end same-day voter registration and blocked Wisconsin from implementing a new voter ID law. And the justices could soon face another request, one that asks them to step in to block a Texas voter ID law from being enforced in next month’s elections. Despite the flurry of high court rulings, many legal analysts and some judges say the Supreme Court’s actions are less about broad voting rights principles than telling federal judges to butt out, particularly so close to Election Day. In each of the cases where the justices acted, lower federal courts had issued orders that would have changed the rules for elections just weeks away, potentially causing confusion among voters and election officials.

Editorials: Midterms: The Voter ID Mess | Steven H. Wright/The New York Review of Books

One could be forgiven for being confused about where things stand with voter ID laws in this fall’s midterm elections. A slew of federal-court orders, some of them still unresolved, have altered voting practices and procedures in a number of states, just weeks before voters go to the polls. Already, election officials and candidates have vowed to make a special effort to educate voters about what exactly awaits them on November 4. But there is a larger concern that has received much less attention: whether state election authorities can prevent confusion among poll workers themselves—the people who have the de-facto last word in determining whether you are eligible to vote. Consider the conflicting rulings that have been issued in the last few days alone. On Monday, a federal appeals court reversed a decision by a district court and put Wisconsin’s stringent voter-ID requirement back into effect—a ruling that would require voters to show state-approved identification when they vote in November. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court put the Wisconsin law on hold again. Meanwhile, in Texas, it remains unclear whether a law requiring photo identification will apply, following a decision by a federal judge, also on Thursday, that is now being appealed by the Texas state attorney general. Nor are these isolated cases. In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has overturned lower court decisions effecting voting practices in Ohio and North Carolina. In late September, a federal court in Alaska required state election officials to provide bilingual voting materials to Native-American voters. The Kansas Supreme Court, also in late September, ordered the Kansas Secretary of State to remove the Democratic nominee for Senate from the ballot. Litigants in Arkansas await decisions on the state’s contested voter-ID laws.

Arkansas: High Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law | Associated Press

Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election. In a decision that could have major implications in the state’s election, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that determined the law violated the Arkansas Constitution by adding an additional requirement before voting. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox struck down the law in May but suspended his ruling while it was being appealed. Arkansas is among a handful of states where voter ID requirements have been in limbo. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed new restrictions to take effect in North Carolina but blocked Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement.

Texas: Supreme Court Allows Texas to Use Strict Voter ID Law in Coming Election | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Saturday allowed Texas to use its strict voter identification law in the November election. The court’s order, issued just after 5 a.m., was unsigned and contained no reasoning. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a six-page dissent saying the court’s action “risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the dissent. The court’s order was an interim move addressing emergency applications filed Wednesday, and a trial judge’s ruling striking down the law will still be appealed. But the Supreme Court’s action set the ground rules in Texas for the current election. Early voting there starts Monday, which helps explain the court’s rush to issue the order as soon as Justice Ginsburg had finished her dissent. The law, enacted in 2011, requires voters seeking to cast their ballots at the polls to present photo identification like a Texas driver’s or gun license, a military ID or a passport.

National: Just in Time for Early Voting, Whiplash Over Voter ID Laws | Businessweek

Another day, another ruling about who can vote in elections that are just around the corner. Thirty-four states have some form of requirement that voters show identification to be able to cast their vote at the polls, but several of the laws are facing legal challenges by voters who say the rules are unconstitutional. In October alone, five courts issued rulings over laws in three different states. Their findings may seem incongruous but taken together, they maintain each state’s status quo, at least for now. The most recent ruling involves Arkansas. The state legislature overrode a veto by Governor Mike Beebe in 2013 to pass a law requiring voters to provide photo ID at the polls. Four residents, represented by two nonprofit organizations, challenged the rules. This week the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously upheld a circuit court ruling that the ID requirement violates the state constitution, a ruling that immediately prevented the new requirements from taking effect. Because the challenge was to a state law, this is the final word on the matter unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case. Early voting in Arkansas—without mandatory ID—will start on Monday.

Editorials: Voter ID: Confusion on Top of Chaos | Jesse Wegman/New York Times

There are so many things wrong with voter-ID laws — 143 pages’ worth, you might say — that it can be hard to decide where to begin. Still it’s worth trying once again, now that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has, predictably, reversed a federal judge’s takedown of Texas’s strict voter-ID law and allowed it to be enforced for the upcoming election. The law, SB 14, requires prospective voters to show up to the polls with a government-issued photo ID, like a driver’s license or passport. On Oct. 9, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos issued a no-holds-barred ruling that SB 14 violates the Equal Protection Clause, the Voting Rights Act, and the 24th Amendment, which prohibits poll taxes. Judge Ramos found that more than 600,000 Texans, or about 4.5 percent of all registered voters, did not have the required ID; that a disproportionate number of those were poorer and minority voters, who lean Democratic; and that the law itself — passed by a Republican-dominated legislature, as all voter ID laws have been — was intended to make it harder if not impossible for these people to participate in elections.

Arkansas: State Supreme Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law, Saying It Exceeds State Constitution | New York Times

The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s voter identification law on Wednesday, saying that it would set a new requirement for voting beyond those listed in the state’s Constitution. The ruling came less than three weeks before the Nov. 4 election in a state where there are several close contests this year, including for governor and the United States Senate. A day earlier, a federal appeals court ruled that Texas could enforce its voter identification requirements in the November election. The Arkansas ruling found that the law went beyond the four qualifications for voting in the state Constitution. The Constitution says that a voter must be a United States citizen, a resident of the state, at least 18 years old and lawfully registered to vote in the election. “These four qualifications set forth in our state’s Constitution simply do not include any proof-of-identity requirement,” the ruling said.

Kansas: Voter ID Firebrand Takes a Low-Profile Kansas Office Out of the Shadows | New York Times

In almost any other year, it would be hard to get much attention inside Kansas, let alone nationwide, in the race for Kansas secretary of state, by tradition a no-drama job that administers elections, handles business paperwork and publishes directories on government services. Instead, as Supreme Court rulings reignite a national debate over voter ID and fraud, no candidate more defines this moment of politicized voting rules than Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach, who has transformed an obscure office in a place far from the usual political battlegrounds, to become a lightning rod on restrictive voting and illegal immigration. Mr. Kobach has been a major conservative voice on voter issues for years. He has helped states write strict laws requiring proof of citizenship, presided over the “Kansas project” — a national hunt for double registrations — and, most recently, tried to keep a Democratic candidate on the ballot with the potential to help Kansas’ endangered Republican senator, Pat Roberts.

Voting Blogs: Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law goes through the wringer | State of Elections

Like many other states, Wisconsin has recently enacted a voter ID law. After winning both the state legislature and the governor’s office in 2010 (a wave year for Republicans), the Wisconsin GOP quickly acted to restrict voting. Governor Scott Walker quickly signed the bill, claiming it was about the integrity of our electoral process, saying “to me, something as important as a vote is important … whether its one case, 100 cases  or 100,000 cases.” Voting rights groups, on the other hand, pointed out that in-person voter fraud (what the law claims to address) is exceedingly rare. They claimed that the real purpose of the law was to discourage voting among constituencies which tend to vote Democratic. ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho has been at the forefront of the fight against Wisconsin’s law. Ho said that 300,00 or more Wisconsin voters lack the required ID, and that to allow them all to vote 6,000 IDs would have to be issued every day, a practical impossibility. The Advancement Project agreed that getting all the required IDs out would be “mathematically impossible.” While many states are in the midst of litigation over voter ID issues, the Wisconsin case is especially pertinent, since it involves a hotly contested gubernatorial race and could the ID rules in place could sway the election.

Texas: Voter ID case flies up to Supreme Court | McClatchy

The Supreme Court on Wednesday received several last-ditch pleas from opponents of the tough new Texas voter ID law. Acting one day after an appellate court effectively kept the Texas law in place, opponents including the Obama administration filed multiple emergency applications asking the high court to remove the lower court’s stay. “The need to ensure that hundreds of thousands of voters in Texas are able to exercise their right to vote, the need to stamp out intentional racial discrimination, and the need to ensure that elections are administered fairly, efficiently, and equitably, the public interest overwhelmingly favors vacating the stay,” attorneys wrote. The initial emergency application, signed by Houston-based attorney Chad W. Dunn, was submitted to Justice Antonin Scalia, who oversees emergency issues in Texas and other Fifth Circuit states. Scalia has the option of forwarding the application to all nine justices. Scalia gave Texas until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond.

Texas: State stopped issuing voter IDs while pushing to reinstate law | MSNBC

Texas’s strict voter ID law, struck down last week, is now back in place thanks to an appeals court ruling Tuesday. But while the state was pushing to get the law reinstated, it stopped issuing IDs. It said Wednesday morning that it has started again. The on-again-off-again schedule could add to the hurdles and confusion that voters face in obtaining an ID. And it offers a window into the GOP-controlled state’s approach to voting: In a nutshell, critics say, Texas jumped at the chance to stop issuing IDs, even though it was far from clear that a halt was required by law. From the start, voting rights advocates have noted in court and in the media that Texas’s efforts to make the special state IDs it created — known as Election Identification Certificates (EICs) — available to those who need them have been half-hearted at best. Among other things, they’ve charged that the mobile ID offices that the state created for distributing IDs were poorly publicized, and weren’t sent to nearly enough locations. Between June 2012 when the law went back into effect and the end of August, just 279 EICs were issued, the state has said.

Texas: Supreme Court to decide if Texas voter ID law can take effect | Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court is set to decide whether Texas can enforce its new photo-ID rule in time for this year’s midterm election. The case reached the court Wednesday in an emergency appeal. Critics asked justices to block the rule, arguing it discriminates against minorities. Last week, a federal judge decided that the rule could prevent as many as 600,000 registered voters from casting a ballot and that Texas lawmakers who approved the law intended to make it harder for blacks and Latinos to vote. Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott, who is running for governor, quickly appealed. On Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans lifted the judge’s order and said the photo-ID law can be enforced in this year’s election for the first time. It “is virtually unheard of,” civil rights advocates complained, to permit a state to enforce a new election law “in a case where purposeful racial discrimination has been found in a final judgment after a full trial.”

National: What the voter ID court battles could mean for Election Day | CBS

With three weeks left before Election Day, officials and voting rights advocates in Texas are still wrangling in court over the state’s controversial and restrictive new voting law. Any day now, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to say whether the Texas voter ID law should be implemented on Election Day or not. The Supreme Court could step in as well. Should the appeals court — and possibly the Supreme Court — side with the law’s supporters, the law will be reinstated before the midterms, keeping more than 608,000 registered voters that don’t have the required ID from voting. If the courts side with opponents of the voter ID law and put it on hold for the time being, the law’s supporters argue it would inject “doubt where for 15 months, and three statewide elections, there had been certainty.” The Texas case is just one of several ongoing disputes over controversial voting laws that could have an impact at polling places on Nov. 4.

National: Whites are more supportive of voter ID laws when shown photos of black people voting | The Washington Post

Sixty-seven percent of white Americans support voter ID laws, according to a new University of Delaware study of 1,436 U.S. adults. But when the voter ID question was accompanied by a photo of black people using a voting machine, white support for voter ID laws jumped to 73 percent. That six-percentage-point difference is modest but statistically significant. The images made no difference to black and hispanic voters’ preferences, although the authors note the sample sizes for those groups were considerably stronger. Among white voters, “the resulting increase in support for the laws happens independently of — even after controlling for— political ideology and negative attitudes about African Americans,” researcher David C. Wilson said in a release about the study. Many white Americans think racism is basically over, and some believe that racism against whites is actually a bigger problem than racism against blacks. But results like these show that racism is still very much active at the subconscious level.

Editorials: Voter ID Math Finally Adds Up for Judge Posner | Noah Feldman/Bloomberg

Liberal observers are astonished and thrilled that Judge Richard Posner, the most influential judge sitting on the federal bench, has written a scathing condemnation of Wisconsin voter ID laws. Posner was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and his law-and-economics approach with its libertarian overtones can in a certain sense be described as conservative. Notably, Posner wrote a 2007 opinion upholding Indiana’s strict voter ID law — an opinion subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. Now, it would seem from the headlines, Posner has reversed himself. Newsworthy, right? Well, sort of. A close reading of Posner’s opinion indicates that the judge hasn’t so much reversed his earlier view as he has taken seriously data that were unavailable in 2007. The numbers, as Posner now interprets them, do strongly suggest that the purpose of voter ID laws is to make it more difficult for poor people, especially blacks and Latinos, to cast votes. According to Posner, he wasn’t wrong in 2007. It’s just that then, there was no basis to assume that Indiana was trying to exclude minority voters. Now, there’s evidence in favor of that view. A careful look at Posner’s opinion is an object lesson in how a rational person should reconsider initial presumptions in light of new evidence — an approach pioneered by the British statistician Thomas Bayes in the 18th century and now dubbed Bayesianism. When Posner had to analyze the Indiana statute, he made much of the fact that, as he now puts it, “there was no evidence that the Indiana law was likely to disenfranchise more than a handful of voters.”

Editorials: When Duty Doesn’t Call: Voter ID laws bring out the worst in their uncivic-minded opponents | The American Spectator

Americans will cease arguing over the federal Voting Rights Act and its intricacies — oh, I imagine around the time Texas starts exporting ground water to Minnesota, or the Lord returns to judge the quick and the dead. Mandatory voter ID laws passed by Republican legislatures in Texas, Arkansas, and Wisconsin have been under legal assault by Democrats. A lower federal court order expanding statewide early voting and same-day registration in Ohio got overturned by the Supreme Court — which had before it, at the same time, an appeal from North Carolina asking affirmation of its right to eliminate same-day registration and voting, along with out-of-precinct voting. Democrats see in these various state laws an evil Republican attempt to suppress voting by minority group members likely to — duh — vote Democratic. Requirements to present photographic identification draw particular scorn. Republicans say all they want to do is make sure voting procedures are honest and reflective of actual popular will. The point commonly buried in these slanging matches over intent and results is a point little attended to in our current ideological wars. I would call that point the need for rekindled earnestness regarding the duties that come, or ought to, with exercise of the franchise.

Texas: Appeals court reinstates voter ID law; foes vow to go to Supreme Court | Star-Telegram

A federal appeals court on Tuesday evening reinstated Texas’ controversial voter identification law, striking down a lower court’s ruling that blocked it on grounds it would have “an impermissible discriminatory effect” on Hispanics and African-Americans and is unconstitutional. The three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a ruling just five days earlier by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi on grounds that it “substantially disturbs the election process of the state of Texas just nine days before early voting begins.”

Texas: Appeals court reinstates Texas voter ID law | Associated Press

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated Texas’ tough voter ID law for the November election, which the U.S. Justice Department had condemned as the state’s latest means of suppressing minority voter turnout. The ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocks last week’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi, who determined the law unconstitutional and similar to a poll tax designed to dissuade minorities from voting. The 5th Circuit did not rule on the merits of the law; instead, it determined it’s too late to change the rules for the upcoming election. Early voting starts Oct. 20. The law remains under appeal. For now, the ruling is a key victory for Republican-backed photo ID measures that have swept across the U.S. in recent years. The Texas law, considered the toughest of its kind in the nation, requires that an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters will need one of seven kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot.

National: A conservative judge’s devastating take on why voter ID laws are evil | Los Angeles Times

In a rational world, the debate over voter ID laws would be ended by the eloquent, incisive and angry opinion issued late last week by U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner of Chicago in a case concerning Wisconsin. But this isn’t a rational world. So not only will the debate continue, but Posner’s opinion failed even to sway his fellow judges on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court split 5-5 on Posner’s request for an en banc — that is, full court — rehearing of the Wisconsin case, in which a three-judge panel already had cleared the state’s ID law to go into effect for next month’s election. That meant Posner’s request was turned down and his opinion was in the nature of a dissent. As it happens, the Supreme Court has stepped in and suspended the Wisconsin law, probably invalidating it for the upcoming polls. But Posner’s 30-page dissent, laid out in his typical lucid and direct manner, is as exacting an examination as you’re likely to find of why voter ID laws are corrupt and iniquitous, and why their usual rationale — to combat voter fraud — is a lie.

Editorials: The disconnect between voter ID laws and voter fraud – The Washington Post

Almost no one shows up at the polls pretending to be someone else in an effort to throw an election. Almost no one acts as a poll worker on Election Day to try to cast illegal votes for a candidate. And almost no general election race in recent history has been close enough to have been thrown by the largest example of in-person voter fraud on record. That said, there have been examples of fraud, including fraud perpetrated through the use of absentee ballots severe enough to force new elections at the state level. But the slew of new laws passed over the past few years meant to address voter fraud have overwhelmingly focused on the virtually non-existent/unproven type of voter fraud, and not the still-not-common-but-not-non-existent abuse of absentee voting. In August, Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University Law School, detailed for Wonkblog 31 instances of documented, in-person voter fraud that would have been prevented by stricter rules around identification at the polling place. The most severe instance Levitt outlined involved as many as 24 voters in Brooklyn who tried to vote under assumed names.

Texas: Supreme Court ruling could thwart Texas’ appeal in voter ID case | Dallas Morning News

An unexpected U.S. Supreme Court order setting aside a voter ID law in Wisconsin could spell trouble for Texas as it tries to appeal a federal judge’s ruling striking down Texas’ own photo-identification requirement. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was taking steps Friday to appeal the decision overturning the Texas law. But some election law experts pointed to the Supreme Court’s order blocking implementation of Wisconsin’s similar voter ID requirements before the Nov. 4 election. The high court, 6-3, handed down an emergency order in the Wisconsin case over the objections of the panel’s three biggest conservatives — Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The majority, including Chief Justice John Roberts, provided no explanation in the order. Because the Texas and Wisconsin laws are similar — with Texas’ law considered the strictest in the nation — Abbott’s appeal could run into a roadblock even if he is initially successful with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is where he will lodge his appeal of Thursday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi.

Wisconsin: Long term fate of Wisconsin voter ID law up in air | Wisconsin Radio Network

Following a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to block its implementation, voters are not required to show a photo ID to cast a ballot in Wisconsin, but that could change after November. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) criticizes the GOP for trying to make it harder for people to vote. “The Republicans, the last two sessions, have passed restriction after restriction and impediment after impediment to make it harder for people to vote.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that executing Wisconsin’s voter ID law would cause too much confusion this close to Election Day. The high court did not rule on the merits of the law, however. That means photo ID could be implemented after the fall elections. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) is confident it will. He calls this move a “temporary delay.”

National: Supreme Court rulings buy time for action on ID laws | Associated Press

In seemingly contradictory voting rights actions just a month before November’s elections, the Supreme Court has allowed new Republican-inspired restrictions to remain in force in North Carolina and Ohio while blocking Wisconsin’s voter identification law. But there is a thread of consistency: In each case, the court appears to be seeking a short-term outcome that is the least disruptive for the voting process. In Texas on Thursday, a federal district judge struck down the state’s strict voter ID requirement, likening it to a poll tax deliberately meant to suppress minority voter turnout. The Texas ruling came just hours after the US Supreme Court blocked a Wisconsin voter ID law. The twin rulings were surprising setbacks for largely Republican-backed voter identification rules that generally have been upheld in previous rulings nationwide.

Editorials: The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws | New York Times

Election Day is three weeks off, and Republican officials and legislators around the country are battling down to the wire to preserve strict and discriminatory new voting laws that could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans. On Thursday, the Supreme Court — no friend to expansive voting rights — stepped in and blocked one of the worst laws, a Wisconsin statute requiring voters to show a photo ID to cast a ballot. A federal judge had struck it down in April, saying it would disproportionately prevent voting by poorer and minority citizens. Last month, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit allowed it to go into effect, even though thousands of absentee ballots had been sent out under the old rules. There was sure to be chaos if the justices had not stayed that appeals court ruling, and their decision appears to be based on the risk of changing voting rules so close to an election. But they could still vote to uphold the law should they decide to review its constitutionality.