Texas: Dallas County thrown out of fed. voter ID lawsuit | KDFW

A federal judge recently ruled that Dallas County has no business being involved in a lawsuit against Texas over its Voter ID Law. The county bankrolled the partisan lawsuit using taxpayers’ money. The Voter ID Law passed in Texas in 2011, and Democratic Congressman Marc Veasey, the U.S. Justice Department and a number of others, including two Texas counties, joined the lawsuit challenging the law. Last summer, Commissioner Mike Cantrell balked over Dallas County voting to join the federal lawsuit and then voting to spend $275,000 to help pay for that lawsuit. “This is not something that our taxpayers should be on the tab for,” said Cantrell. Turns out, Cantrell was right.

Editorials: Virginia Voter ID law sets stage for confusion | Courtney Mills/Roanoke Times

For the third time in recent years, Virginia voters will face new voter ID requirements when they go to the polls this November. Virginia’s new photo ID law, which went in to effect on July 1, was a long time coming. The law, sponsored by Senator Mark Obenshain, was passed in the 2013 legislative session but is only now being fully implemented. Despite over a year of time to plan, one of the largest questions still has to be answered: what IDs will actually serve as voter ID? At a State Board of Elections (SBE) hearing on June 10, board members heard testimony from community groups, voters, and county registrars (the people tasked with enforcing this ID standard at the polls).

Editorials: ‘Monster’ Voting Law Challenged in Federal Court | Ari Berman/The Nation

In March 1965, Carolyn Coleman, a young activist with the Alabama NAACP, marched to Montgomery in support of the Voting Rights Act. After the passage of the VRA, Coleman spent a year registering voters in Mississippi, where her friend Wharlest Jackson, an NAACP leader in Natchez, was killed in early February 1967 by a car bomb after receiving a promotion at the local tire plant. A year later, Coleman was in Memphis organizing striking sanitation workers when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Coleman devoted her life to expanding the franchise for the previously disenfranchised, serving as president of the North Carolina NAACP and Southern voter education director for the national NAACP. For the past twelve years, she’s been a county commissioner in Greensboro’s Guilford County. Nearly fifty years after marching for voting rights in Alabama, Coleman testified in federal court today in Winston-Salem against North Carolina’s new voting restrictions, which have been described as the most onerous in the nation. The law mandates strict voter ID, cuts early voting by a week and eliminates same-day registration, among many other things. After the bill’s passage, “I was devastated,” Coleman testified. “I felt like I was living life over again. Everything that I worked for for the last fifty years was being lost.”

Arkansas: Voter ID law a ‘procedural requirement,’ secretary of state argues in court papers | Associated Press

A Pulaski County judge didn’t follow proper court-mandated guidelines when he found Arkansas’ new voter ID law unconstitutional, attorneys for Secretary of State Mark Martin argued in court papers. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled in May that requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot violated the Arkansas Constitution by creating a new qualification to vote. He also said lawmakers did not properly approve the measure, citing a constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature to change the voter registration process.

North Carolina: Voter law challenged: ‘the worst suppression since Jim Crow’ | The Guardian

North Carolina’s voter identification law, which has been described as the most sweeping attack on African American electoral rights since the Jim Crow era, is being challenged in a legal hearing that opens on Monday. Civil rights lawyers and activists are gathering in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the start of the legal challenge that is expected to last all week. They will be seeking to persuade a federal district judge to impose a preliminary injunction against key aspects of HB 589, the voting law enacted by state Republicans last August. Lawyers for the North Carolina branch of the NAACP and the civil rights group the Advancement Project will argue that the main pillars of the law should be temporarily halted ahead of a full trial next year. Otherwise, they say, tens of thousands of largely poor black voters could find themselves turned away at the polls at the midterm elections in November.

North Carolina: Hearing on voter ID law draws national attention | Winston-Salem Journal

For Rev. John Mendez, longtime activist and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, voting is more than just casting a ballot in a particular election. “I believe that voting is important to the African-American community because it is the only place where powerless people can be powerful,” he said in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of North Carolina as part of a trio of lawsuits challenging the state’s new election law. “It is where individuals who have been excluded and oppressed can find their voice. Voting makes you feel equal to everyone else, which is not the everyday experience for many African-Americans. At its core, voting gives individuals a sense of dignity.” Mendez and others believe that the right to vote, especially for blacks, is under attack in the form of the new election law that Gov. Pat McCrory signed last August.

North Carolina: Fight over voter ID law heads to court | Washington Times

The legal challenge to North Carolina’s voter ID law goes before a federal judge Monday, as the fight over whether the law suppresses minority votes flares up in the state’s U.S. Senate race. Opponents of the law, including Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan, contend that the identification requirement and other new voting laws create an obstacle for blacks, Hispanics and women to reach the ballot box. The support of the same voter blocs are crucial to Mrs. Hagan’s strategy to win in November against Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis. The lawsuit, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others, seeks an injunction against the law for the 2014 election. A hearing is scheduled Monday before U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder in Winston-Salem. Mrs. Hagan, meanwhile, will be angling to use the court hearing to vilify Mr. Tillis and rally Democratic voters.

North Dakota: ACLU, Fargo nonprofit urge Jaeger to expand new voter ID requirements | Jamestown Sun

The American Civil Liberties Union is urging Secretary of State Al Jaeger to expand what it calls his “exceedingly narrow” interpretation of North Dakota’s new voter ID law to allow voters to use more forms of identification, warning the law could disenfranchise Native American and disabled voters, among others. Jaeger said Monday he received the letter from the ACLU — as well as a supporting letter from the Fargo-based nonprofit Freedom Resource Center for Independent Living — on Friday and was still reviewing it to develop a response, adding, “I can just go by what the law allows. As to whether we can do anything or not, that remains to be seen,” he said.

North Dakota: Groups want adjustments to voter ID rules | Bismarck Tribune

Two national groups have sent letters to the North Dakota Secretary of State protesting the application of the state’s new voter identification laws. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom Resources Center for Independent Living claim the new voter ID laws could disenfranchise voters. In its letter, sent on Friday, the ACLU recommends expanding the forms of ID permitted to be used to include items such as passports, game and fish licenses and utility bills. Secretary of State Al Jaeger said Monday his office will review the letters and craft a response. However, he said his office is limited by statute as to what it can do in adopting any recommendations made by the groups.

Australia: Voter ID push: opponents say laws would disenfranchise the disadvantaged | The Guardian

A Liberal party push to roll out voter identification laws across Australia has sparked warnings that the move would make it harder for disadvantaged groups to have their say at the ballot box. Party delegates at the Liberal federal council meeting in Melbourne at the weekend passed a motion calling on Coalition governments at all levels to change the law to ensure people must present identification containing a name and residential address when voting. The resolution, passed resoundingly after it was promoted as a “sensible” way to prevent electoral fraud, indicates a mood for such changes within the Liberal party but is not binding on the federal or state Coalition governments.

Iowa: Secretary of state candidates play down voter ID | Des Moines Register

The loud cry for voter identification and vote fraud investigation is fading to a whimper as Iowa’s top election official prepares to leave and those running to replace him downplay the politically charged issues. Matt Schultz, who recently was defeated in his bid for the Republican Party’s 3rd Congressional District nomination, was elected secretary of state in 2010 after a campaign largely focused on promoting voter ID and fighting what he argued was problematic voter fraud. Once in office, Schultz unsuccessfully lobbied lawmakers for a voter ID law, spent about $250,000 in a two-year investigation of election fraud and tried to pass a voter purge rule for those lacking citizenship proof, which led to a lawsuit.

National: A year later, Holder, civil rights groups decry impact of voting rights ruling | McClatchy

On the one-year anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a core provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, Democrats and civil rights groups stepped up their push for a congressional fix. Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black to lead the Justice Department, assailed a Wisconsin voter identification law that he said impaired voting by minorities “without serving any legitimate government interest.” A federal judge struck down the law in April, but Wisconsin’s attorney general has filed an appeal. On Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on bipartisan legislation aimed at updating the nearly half Century-old Voting Rights Act with a new formula for determining which jurisdictions would be required to clear with the Justice Department election changes that might disproportionately impact minority voters.

Kansas: Voter ID mix-up shows more trouble with new laws | The Hutchinson News

Oops. It turns out that the newfangled voter registration and identification system so lauded and pursued by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach might not work as smoothly as we’ve all been told. It also turns out that one of those Kansans whose voter registration landed on the state’s “suspended” list is none other than the daughter of Kobach primary challenger Scott Morgan. Morgan’s 18-year-old daughter registered to vote online, submitting a digital copy of her U.S. passport as validation of her citizenship status. Nevertheless, the younger Morgan received a letter from the Douglas County Clerk’s Office explaining that her voter registration lacked the needed identification. Although the issue was quickly resolved, candidate Morgan raised a valid point about the potential for the voter registration requirements to interfere with the right to vote. “How it happened to my daughter and then was miraculously resolved … it just makes me wonder how many people out there whose father isn’t running for secretary of state against the incumbent are left in never-never land,” he said this week.

Editorials: We should all be watching Wisconsin’s voter ID law fight | Penda D. Hair/The Hill

Alice Weddle was born at home in Mississippi 59 years ago, delivered by a midwife. She was never issued a birth certificate, a common circumstance for African Americans born in the segregated south. Weddle, who moved to Wisconsin with her family when she was three years old, never had a driver’s license and is a regular voter. But without a birth certificate, she is unable to get the photo ID that was required to vote under Wisconsin’s restrictive voter ID law. Weddle’s access to the ballot, along with hundreds of thousands of others in the state, was cleared when a federal judge struck down the law in April. In a lawsuit brought by Advancement Project and pro bono law firm Arnold & Porter, we showed that, in burdening the right to vote for Wisconsin’s African-American and Latino citizens, the measure violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In his decision, the judge also rejected the state’s argument that a voter ID law was needed, stating that allegations of voter fraud have absolutely no merit.

Editorials: Think we don’t need to update the Voting Rights Act? Check out yesterday’s primaries. | Janai S. Nelson/Reuters

The door is open for Congress to repair the nation’s most transformative election law, which was neutered by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago today. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion for Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, issued Congress a written invitation to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after striking down Section 4 of the act and disabling the strongest safety check against racial discrimination in voting.  The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on the Voting Rights Amendment Act shows that his invitation did not fall on deaf ears or timid hearts. Swift and dauntless action is needed in both houses of Congress, however, to ensure that voting remains an equal opportunity exercise for all Americans, and that Congress remains a relevant force in the defense of voting rights in places like Mississippi, Texas, Georgia and beyond. On Tuesday, conservative groups marshaled poll watchers for the senatorial primary run-off in Mississippi. Though a court blocked their presence inside polling places, their position just outside threatened to intimidate voters who had come to cast their ballots — echoing the power that poll watchers exercised throughout the Jim Crow South.

Editorials: Congress should vote for the right to vote | Miles Rapoport/The Hill

It’s hard to believe. In our sixth year with an African-American president, one-half century after passage of the Civil Rights Act and the bloody “Freedom Summer” of 1964, some Americans are still being denied the right to vote or facing government-erected obstacles to their exercise of the right on account of their race. Some states have adopted voter ID laws imposing unneeded requirements that tens of thousands of qualified voters can’t meet. Some have shortened voting hours or eliminated “early voting” days intended to accommodate people who’ll be out of town or can’t get away from their jobs on Election Day. Some persist in using outmoded, prone-to-malfunction voting machines that force would-be voters to stand in line for hours in order to cast their ballots. Those of us who were around 50 years ago this week, when the landmark civil rights law was passed, knew it wouldn’t be easy for the country to overcome its long, shameful history of discrimination. We were sad, but not surprised, when the hundreds of college kids who went south in that summer of ‘64 to work for civil rights were beaten and spat upon — and in three cases murdered. But we also had plenty of reason for hope, including the presence of a strong, bipartisan coalition in Congress in support of civil rights, and voting rights laws in particular. Where today’s Congress is all but paralyzed by partisanship, Capitol Hill in 1964 was a place where Democrats and Republicans often found ways to compromise on behalf of the public interest. There is a chance this week to advance the difficult work of recapturing that spirit, and a new struggle for voting rights provides it.

Arkansas: ACLU asks judge to halt Arkansas voter ID law | Associated Press

A civil liberties group asked an Arkansas judge Tuesday to block the state from enforcing its voter ID law, saying more than 1,000 people were disenfranchised during last month’s primary election because of the requirement that they show photo identification before casting a ballot. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled last month that the voter ID requirement was unconstitutional but suspended his ruling, allowing the requirement to stay in place during the May 20 primary and June 10 runoff election. The primary was the first statewide test of the law, which took effect in January. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas on Tuesday asked Fox to lift his stay, saying 933 absentee ballots and 131 ballots cast in person during the primary were thrown out because of the new law.

Virginia: State Board of Elections to re-evaluate voter ID rule after lawmaker raises concern | Associated Press

The State Board of Elections plans to re-evaluate its definition of a valid identification under Virginia’s new voter ID law after a state lawmaker raised concerns about the rule. On June 10, the board determined that expired but otherwise valid forms of identification will be accepted at the polls. Board members voted Tuesday to reconsider the regulation and reopen the public comment period for 21 days. The board plans to study whether it has the authority to determine what forms of ID are valid, media outlets reported. “What we are after is to find out if this person representing themselves at the polls is who they say they are,” said Chairman Charles Judd. “Then we have achieved what we need to achieve.”

National: NCSL Launches Elections Administration Research Database | National Conference of State Legislatures

What is the impact of major court rulings on voter ID laws? How are states ensuring voter registration lists are accurate? Which new voting system designs are being developed for the marketplace? Finding these answers and other information about elections policy can quickly eat up the kind of time that a lawmaker, legislative staffer or elections administrator can hardly afford to spend. But that was life before the Elections Administration Research Database, a new tool launched today by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The database brings together more than 1,900 reports that, altogether, address a wide range of elections topics. It is supported by generous funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Virginia: Election Board’s authority on ID statuses in question | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Six days before Virginia’s new voter ID law goes into effect, the State Board of Elections essentially froze one of the law’s key regulations. Earlier this month, the board had determined that expired but otherwise valid forms of identification permitted under Virginia’s new photo voter ID law will be accepted at the polls. But after the sponsor of the photo ID law — Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg — voiced his concern with this regulation, the board in a meeting Tuesday voted to re-open the public comment period for an additional 21 days and explore whether the agency has legal authority to determine what forms of ID are valid. In a June 16 letter to board members, Obenshain wrote that he is concerned that the definition of “valid” that was adopted by the board conflicts with state law.

Editorials: Do people know what Voter ID means? | Charles D. Ellison/Philadelphia Tribune

In recent months, a slew of polls have asked one of the more critical questions in electoral politics: Do you support Voter ID? The answers are as controversial as the topic itself. An ongoing stream of debate over Voter ID laws easily gives the impression of a highly charged polarizing tug of war between competing parties. And the assumption, especially among pundits battling over it, is that the larger public knows what that is. Lawmakers, particularly on the state level, continue to litigate or pass some form of Voter ID law, with Republicans pushing a statistically questionable voter fraud narrative and Democrats pushing back with accusations of voter suppression. National polls from sources such as Fox News, Rasmussen and others suggest the issue, at least in the minds of voters, is resolved. The most eye-raising was an early June Fox News survey, which showed 51 percent of African Americans actually supported Voter ID laws — despite clear campaign trail and advocacy angst to the contrary.

Mississippi: Senate race muddles voter ID debate | CBS News

When Mississippi voters arrive at the polls for Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary runoff, they’ll be required to show a driver’s license or other government issued photo ID – the result of a new state voter ID law that went into effect for the June 3 primaries. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi – a staunch opponent of the voter ID requirement – was ready to spend June 3 fielding complaints from voters turned away at the polls. As it turns out, they received no such complaints, an ACLU employee told CBS News. “99.9% of Mississippians cast their ballot by showing an ID. Only 300 voters out of 400,000 voters failed to return within seven days with a photo ID to verify their affidavit ballot,” commended Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican.

Texas: State Republicans call for repealing the Voting Rights Act | MSNBC

When the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act last year, it allowed Texas to implement what is perhaps the nation’s strictest photo ID law. But according to the state’s Republicans, the federal government still has too much influence on how it runs elections. The Texas GOP platform, released Thursday, calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, the most successful civil-rights law in the nation’s history. It also supports scrapping the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which has helped millions register to vote. And it advocates making voters re-register every four years, among other restrictive policies. In sum, the party wants to get the federal government out of the business of overseeing state elections—returning voting law to where it was before the civil rights movement. “We urge that the Voter [sic] Rights Act of 1965, codified and updated in 1973, be repealed and not reauthorized,” the platform says.

Editorials: Missouri GOP: If Polls Are Open Too Long, Voters Will Commit Fraud | Mother Jones

Missouri Republicans are pushing for a measure to expand early voting in the state. The move seems like a departure from the nationwide, GOP-led effort to shrink the window of time voters have access to the polls, but Democrats say it’s more of the same. The measure from Missouri’s Republicans, who in May failed to amend the state’s constitution to implement stricter voter ID requirements, comes at the same time as a citizen-led ballot measure that would expand early voting significantly. State GOPers say their version, which expands early voting by a much smaller amount and includes restrictions, will combat voter fraud and help voters make up their minds. But critics say the Republican-backed measure excludes days when working families and African American voters are more likely to hit the polls. The hullabaloo started after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when volunteers such as Greg Oelke, a retired pipefitter in Missouri, gathered signatures to place an initiative on the ballot that would give voters six extra weeks to get to the polls at multiple locations and provide time to vote on the weekends. Oelke, who often worked overtime on construction projects both in and out of Missouri, collected signatures around Springfield because he said it was hard for him to make it to the polls on Election Day. “Early voting is an issue that really means a lot to me,” he told Missouri Jobs With Justice, a group that helped organize the petition drive.

Mississippi: Despite Talk, No Way to Prove Voter ID’s Effects | Jackson Free Press

The use of voter ID for the first time in Mississippi has largely been characterized as inconsequential. One conservative news website noted, accurately, “Voter ID Law in Mississippi Did Not Bring On End of the World,” on June 3 in the statewide party primaries. Syndicated columnist Sid Salter wrote: “Despite the predictions of post-apocalyptic turmoil from opponents of adopting a voter identification law in Mississippi, the debut of voter ID in Mississippi in practical application was a non-event. Voters didn’t recoil from the process as predicted, and there is no discernible evidence that voter ID had any impact on voter turnout.” … Despite the rhetoric of Hosemann, Salter and others, it’s not clear whether the voter-ID requirement dampened voter turnout. The critics of such laws contend that the requirements disproportionately affect poor people, African Americans, Latinos, young people and college students, all of whom tend to vote Democratic. On June 3, approximately 400,000 people cast vo

Mississippi: State: 513 voters lacked photo ID on June 3 | Jackson Clarion-Ledger

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said Wednesday that Mississippi’s first election requiring photo identification reinforces his belief that the state no longer needs federal oversight to handle elections and redistricting. The Republican released figures showing 513 Mississippians cast affidavit ballots June 3 because they lacked proper identification, with at least 177 returning later to show ID and get votes counted. Another 298 ballots were rejected because people did not return by the Tuesday deadline, and 13 were rejected for other reasons, such as voters not being registered. Three counties with 25 ballots among them had not reported by Wednesday what happened to those affidavits. A total of 400,000 ballots were cast.

North Dakota: Computers, Ballots & IDs Cause Minor Issues in Primary Voting | Valley News

It is a big night for some key races here in the Valley and across the state of North Dakota. The Cass county Auditor’s office says they’re on track to exceed voter turnout compared to the 2010 primaries, when presidential nominees were not on the ballot. As of 4:00 p.m. they say 8,553 votes have come in. If you factor in early voting and absentee ballots, and that number is 12,348. Despite the turnout, there have been several issues at the polls with computers, ballots and with voter identification. At Bethel Church in south Fargo, space was an issue for voters. The location was forced to use a smaller room because of scheduling conflicts with the election and summer bible school.  Some voters say it was hard to vote in the smaller room. “It would be nice if we had a larger room to go to,” explains voter Donna Bladholm. “Especially for the people in wheel chairs, it is difficult to get around,” she says. Another voter called Valley News Live with the same issue, saying older voters using walkers had a hard time voting because, at times, there wasn’t enough space to sit down.

National: Republicans take photo ID laws beyond voting | MSNBC

For Republicans, requiring photo ID isn’t just for voting anymore. They like the concept so much they’re now expanding it to cover government benefits that low-income Americans rely on. In a growing number of states, and even in Washington, the GOP, citing fraud, is pushing laws that could deny needed benefits to those who are struggling, simply because they lack ID.n Studies suggest around 11% of Americans—including one in four African-Americans—don’t have a photo ID. Among those who receive government benefits, that number is almost certainly higher. North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature—which last year passed a voter ID requirement as part of the nation’s most restrictive voting law— advanced a bill Thursday that would make recipients of jobless benefits also show a photo ID. It’s expected to pass next week.

Arkansas: Hundreds Disenfranchised By America’s Worst Voter ID Law | ThinkProgress

Last April, Arkansas’ Republican-controlled state legislature overrode Gov. Mike Beebe’s (D) veto to enact a strict photo ID law for all voters. But while Arkansas is now one of several states which suppress voting by requiring valid photo identification to vote at the polls, a unique and poorly written provision in the bill caused hundreds of absentee voters to also have their votes rejected in last month’s primary. The Arkansas ID law requires that people who show up to vote in person early or on Election Day show “proof of identity” before casting their ballots. That proof must be a driver’s license, a photo identification card, a concealed handgun carry license, a United States passport, an employee badge or identification document, a United States military identification document, a student identification card issued by an accredited postsecondary educational institution in the State of Arkansas, a public assistance identification card, or a state-issued voter identification photo ID card. Such laws have been shown to have both adiscriminatory intent and effect — and to depress voter participation. Even one of the Arkansas law’s strongest supporters, Republican gubernatorial nominee Asa Hutchinson, was initially turned away from voting in his own primary because he forgot his photo ID last month.

Ohio: New campaign for voter ID in Ohio | MSNBC

Ohio Republicans have already imposed a slew of voting restrictions in the nation’s most pivotal swing state. But now, they may be gearing up for a renewed push on the most contentious tactic of all: voter ID. The Ohio Christian Alliance (OHA), a conservative group, said last week they’re launching a campaign aimed at getting a voter ID measure passed, either by the legislature or by voters themselves. The effort is already giving heart to Republican voter ID supporters. Here’s how the OHA initiative works:  If the group gathers 100,000 signatures by the end of the year, lawmakers would have four months to act on a voter ID bill the group has drawn up.