Nevada: Judge hears challenges to Nevada voter ID measure | Las Vegas Sun News

Critics of a proposal pushed by conservative activist Sharron Angle to require photo identification to vote in Nevada argued Wednesday that the measure fails to inform voters of possible costs and doesn’t specify the types of identification that would be necessary. Marc Elias, a Washington, D.C., attorney, told Carson City District Judge James Russell that the description of the proposed constitutional amendment on the initiative “is extremely misleading” and falls short of legal mandates. The measure supported by Angle’s political action committee, Our Vote Nevada, would require voters to have photo identification to cast a ballot. It also would require the Legislature to direct government agencies to issue free cards to anyone who does not have valid, government-issued photo identification. After losing Nevada’s 2010 U.S. Senate race to Harry Reid, Angle said she was working on a documentary film to expose nationwide voter fraud. State election officials have said there is no evidence to support the allegations.

National: As States Vote In Primaries, Voter ID Laws Come Under Scrutiny | NPR

Three states are holding primaries Tuesday, and voters might understandably be confused over what kind of identification they need to show at the polls. In Indiana, it has to be a government-issued photo ID. In Ohio, you can get by with a utility bill. In North Carolina, you won’t need a photo ID until 2016. But that law, along with ID laws in many other states, faces an uncertain future. “We have Florida, Georgia, Indiana,” says Wendy Underhill, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. She’s ticking off the names of some of the states that required voters to show a photo ID back in 2012.  When it comes to state voting laws, Underhill has an important job: She’s the keeper of a frequently consulted list of ID requirements, which seems to change almost daily. (The NCSL has this online resource of voter ID requirements.) This year, Underhill says, there are 16 states that require voters to show a photo ID, eight of which have what are called strict photo ID rules. That means without the credential, you basically can’t vote. “But one of those is Arkansas, and so in Arkansas we don’t know whether that will be in place or not,” Underhill says.

Pennsylvania: Corbett says he won’t appeal voter ID law decision | Associated Press

Gov. Tom Corbett put another nail in the coffin of Pennsylvania’s voter identification law on Thursday, announcing he would not appeal a judge’s decision that the law violated the fundamental right to vote. The Republican governor issued a statement that defended the law, but he also said it needed changes and that he hoped to work with the Legislature on them. “It is clear that the requirement of photo identification is constitutionally permissible,” he said. “However, the court also made clear that in order for a voter identification law to be found constitutional, changes must be made to address accessibility to photo identifications.” The centerpiece of the law — a requirement that nearly all of the state’s 8.2 million voters show photo ID at the polls — was declared unconstitutional in January by a Commonwealth Court judge who said it imposed an unreasonable burden on the right to vote and that supporters had failed to demonstrate a need for it.

Nevada: Judge rewrites description of Nevada voter measure | Las Vegas Review-Journal

A state judge Wednesday rewrote a description that details the effect of a voter photo identification initiative backed by conservative activist Sharron Angle. After two separate hearings on challenges to the initiative’s wording, Carson City District Court Judge James Russell came up with his own language describing what the proposed constitutional amendment would do. Russell added words clarifying acceptable forms of identity to include state of Nevada or federal government documents, as opposed to “certain government-issued documents” included in the original petition that critics said was vague. The judge also tweaked language pertaining to “free” cards that would be issued to people without photo identification and added that the provision carries “a financial cost to the state.” All sides seemed pleased with the outcome. “We don’t think they are really significant changes,” Angle said afterward. Her group will refile the Voter ID Initiative adopting the judge’s language.

International: Is it easier to vote in the United States or Ukraine? | Washington Post

States around the country have been in the news quite a bit the past few years for passing new voting laws. The supporters of these laws contend they will stop fraud, while opponents say charges of voter fraud are overblown and that the laws will instead disenfranchise voters. It’s an ongoing battle that’s only going to grow more contentious as the November election nears, but it got us wondering. How do the United States’ voting regulations compare to other countries? Thankfully, a team at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — a project of the Center for Public Integrity — has made a handy map. You can look at voter restrictions, voter ID requirements and different voter registration practices across the world (click here.)  The more red a country on the map, the more restrictive its voting practices. A deep hue of green equals an A+. According to ICIJ’s metrics, the United States gets good marks on having few specific voter restrictions, bad marks on voter ID, and is a wash when it comes to voter registration, since voters need to take the initiative, but are actively encouraged.

National: Is the Voting Rights Act making a comeback? | MSNBC

The chances of Congress acting to fix the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was weakened by the Supreme Court last summer, appear slimmer by the week. But lately, it looks like the landmark civil rights law might end up being strengthened in a different way: by being used. Last Tuesday, a federal judge in Wisconsin struck down the state’s voter ID law, ruling that it violates the VRA’s Section 2, which bars racial discrimination in voting. The state has said it will appeal the ruling. Two days later, voting rights advocates filed suit against Ohio’s recent cuts to early voting, again alleging a violation of Section 2. “I think it’s exactly what the federal courts should be doing,” said Daniel Tokaji, an election law professor at Ohio State University, referring to the Wisconsin ruling, and the potential for a similar verdict in Ohio. “When partisan politicians go too far to restrict the right to vote in an effort to serve their own ends, courts aren’t likely to look on that kindly.”

Wisconsin: Assembly backers of voter ID vow to reintroduce bill next session | Wisconsin State Journal

The Republican authors of a new voter ID bill that passed the state Assembly, but not the Senate, said Tuesday they plan to reintroduce the legislation after the November elections. Reps. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Michael Schraa, R-Oshkosh, wrote in a column they believe their bill is constitutional because it’s based on an Indiana law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Born and Schraa also responded to a criticism of their bill by state Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, who is running for Congress and authored the state’s current voter ID law that passed in 2011. Leibham said last week, after a federal judge struck down the law, that he believes the current law is constitutional and the new bill would create “such a big loophole in the voter ID requirement” that the system would be “substantially similar to the one we have now.”

Editorials: New voter ID laws: Nothing like it ‘since Reconstruction’ | Los Angeles Times

A federal judge recently struck down a Wisconsin law that would have required voters to present a photo ID in order to vote, one in a series of judicial rulings addressing how states can control who gets to cast a ballot. A slew of voter ID laws were passed after the 2010 election gave Republicans control of both branches of legislature in many states. Supporters say the laws prevent fraud at the polls. But studies indicate that fraud is virtually nonexistent, and that states that saw higher minority turnout were more likely to pass voter ID laws, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We haven’t seen a legislative movement like this since Reconstruction,” she said.

Editorials: Wisconsin voter ID ruling a ‘blueprint’ for similar challenges in North Carolina, Texas | Facing South

In a major victory for voting rights, a federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law last week, ruling that requiring voters to show a state-issued photo ID at the polls discriminates against low-income and minority voters. Legal experts say the decision in a state that’s been called the “Selma of the North” for its history of racial conflict has important implications for legal challenges to similar laws passed in North Carolina and Texas. The ruling is “absolutely a blueprint” for the courts considering those other challenges, Katherine Culliton-González of the Advancement Project, a national civil rights group that challenged the Wisconsin law, said last week during a press call about the decision. “This case is very symbolic of turning the tide toward democracy,” Culliton-González added. Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the photo ID requirement in 2011. The law was in force only for the 2012 primary before it was temporarily blocked.

Canada: Federal lawyers tell Supreme Court that existing voter ID laws are effective | The Globe and Mail

A previous round of Conservative voter identification rules enacted in 2007 effectively met Parliament’s need for electoral integrity without being too strict, federal lawyers argue in a brief to the Supreme Court. The attorney general’s submission to the country’s top court comes as the Harper government moves to further tighten voting restrictions under its controversial Fair Elections Act. The legislation – also known as Bill C-23 – marks the second time the Conservatives have moved on what they perceive to be an issue of voter fraud, and it comes while their first round of reforms is still being legally contested.

Arkansas: Voter ID law in Arkansas again found unconstitutional | Associated Press

An Arkansas judge on Friday again found the state’s new voter ID law to be unconstitutional but said there wasn’t enough time to prohibit officials from enforcing it during this month’s primary election. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled that the law requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot violates the Arkansas Constitution. But Fox stayed his order, saying he did not believe there was time to stop the state from using the law for the May 20 primary because early voting is set to begin Monday. “I’m not going to throw thousands of precincts into turmoil,” Fox told attorneys at the end of an hour-long hearing. Fox struck down the law in a separate case last week, but the state Supreme Court stayed that ruling while it considers an appeal of the decision. A spokesman for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s office said he planned to appeal Fox’s latest ruling against the law as well.

Arkansas: Judge again strikes down voter ID law; stay keeps law in effect | Arkansas News

For the second time in eight days, a Pulaski County circuit judge ruled Friday that an Arkansas law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls is unconstitutional. Judge Tim Fox also stayed his order, leaving the law in effect. He noted that the state Supreme Court has stayed his April 24 ruling striking down Act 595 pending an appeal. The judge said he stayed his latest ruling for the sake of consistency because an appeal is “inevitable” and there is no time for the Supreme Court to decide whether to issue a new stay before early voting in the May 20 primary election begins Monday. “I’m not going to throw thousands of precincts into turmoil,” Fox said. Fox issued his latest ruling in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Arkansas Law Center on behalf of four Arkansas voters. He agreed with the plaintiffs that Act 595 imposes qualifications to vote in Arkansas that improperly go beyond the qualifications set forth in the Arkansas Constitution.

Oklahoma: Voter ID rulings give heart to plaintiff challenging Oklahoma law | Tulsa World

Recent court decisions in Wisconsin and Arkansas may not have direct application to Oklahoma’s voter ID law, but they do give heart to those challenging it, University of Tulsa law professor Jim Thomas said last week. “When I saw the Wisconsin decision, saw it was 91 pages, I was excited,” said Thomas. “It shows the attention the court gave to this case. It increased my confidence that Oklahoma’s law will be struck down.” Thomas represents Tulsan Delilah Christine Gentges in a case now before an Oklahoma County District Court. The lawsuit has followed a winding trail that has taken it from Tulsa County District Court to the Oklahoma Supreme Court and now to Oklahoma County.

National: Opponents of voter ID laws see time to fight running out | The Hill

Critics of tough voter ID laws are running out of time and options in their efforts to knock down those barriers ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Opponents got good news last week, when a state judge struck down Arkansas’s law, and another jolt Tuesday, when a federal judge ruled Wisconsin’s law, which wasn’t yet in effect, was unconstitutional. But their enthusiasm could be short-lived. At least eight states are still slated to have strict photo ID requirements in place in November, leading voting rights advocates to send dire warnings about potential disenfranchisement at the polls this year. Yet on Capitol Hill, the voter ID issue remains as partisan as ever, forcing even the sponsors of bills softening those rules to concede that their legislation has no chance of moving through a divided Congress in 2014. “My bill probably doesn’t have a lot of hope to it right now,” said Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), who’s pushing a proposal essentially nullifying many of the state-based ID requirements enacted in recent years, mostly by GOP legislatures, in the name of tackling election fraud. Instead, Democrats, advocates and other voter ID critics see their best hope in passing an update to the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the 1965 civil rights law that the Supreme Court gutted last summer.

Editorials: Exorcising the voter fraud ghost | Richard Hasen/Reuters

When it comes to the fight about voter fraud and voter suppression, how do you prove a negative? One key question in the battle over the legality of voter identification laws is whether such laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and whether they suppress a lot of votes from eligible voters. Though the answer to the second question remains in considerable dispute, after Tuesday’s federal court decision striking down Wisconsin’s voter ID law, it is time for voter ID supporters to throw in the towel and admit state voter ID laws don’t prevent the kind of fraud they are supposedly targeted for. Federal Judge Lynn Adelman looked at the evidence from Wisconsin and reached a conclusion unsurprising to those of us who study how elections are run.  “Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin,” Adelman wrote, “and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.” Wisconsin is not alone in lacking such evidence. When the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008, the state conceded there was no evidence, ever, of impersonation fraud in the entire state.

Editorials: Welcome to the beginning of the end of the GOP’s voter-imposter performance | Arvina Martin/The Guardian

After Tuesday’s court ruling that the Republican-sponsored voter ID law in Wisconsin was going to prevent more real votes than fraudulent votes from being cast, Republicans who insist on pushing more states to adopt these overreaching laws are going to have to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince anyone that voter impersonation is a real issue, let alone a big enough problem to affect any election. US District Court Judge Lynn Adelman ruled that the law, passed by the state’s Republican legislature and signed by Governor Scott Walker in May 2011, places an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote and violates the Voting Rights Act because of its disproportionate effects on black and Latino voters. Judge Adelman agreed with the main point that voter ID opponents have long argued: there is virtually no voter impersonation – despite claims like that of State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who told the Green Bay Press Gazette “We continue to see these isolated incidents of people trying to vote five, six times a day; people voting based on some sort of fraudulent documentation that’s offered.” Additionally, Adelman ruled that whatever voter impersonation does occur does not justify the potential infringement on citizens’ voting rights. “It is,” Adelman wrote, “absolutely clear that Act 23 will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes.” He added: The evidence at trial established that virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin. The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past.

Georgia: After Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling, What’s Next For Georgia? | WABE

Could a recent ruling on the constitutionality of voter ID requirements affect Georgia’s law? That’s the question after a federal judge in Wisconsin earlier this week struck down a law requiring voters to show a state photo ID at polls, a policy in place in about half the U.S. states, including Georgia. In his ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman said Wisconsin’s voter ID law violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, adding the law disproportionately affects minority and low-income individuals. Laughlin McDonald, director emeritus of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said the future implications of the Wisconsin ruling are unclear, but called it “significant.”

Wisconsin: Little chance to fix voter ID law under court decision, Walker says | Pioneer Press

Gov. Scott Walker and a top lawmaker said Wednesday they see little chance they could pass a voter ID law that would overcome Tuesday’s decision by a Milwaukee federal court judge overturning the requirement. Any new law would have to be approved by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who not only struck down the voter ID law but also enjoined the state from enacting any similar requirement, said John Ulin, an attorney who represented civil-rights groups and individuals challenging the law. Senate President Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, said he doesn’t expect the Legislature to be convened before the November elections. “It would be an exercise in futility,” Ellis said. “Based on what Adelman wrote, it seems whatever we do, he’s going to rule unconstitutional.” Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, has taken a wait-and-see approach on the possibility of bringing lawmakers back to the Capitol, spokeswoman Myranda Tanck said. But Walker held out little hope the state could overcome the complete rejection of the law by Adelman, a former Democratic state senator who sits on the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee.

Arkansas: Supreme Court stays portion of Voter ID ruling | Arkansas Times

The Arkansas Supreme Court today issued a split ruling on staying Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s ruling last week invalidating the state’s new Voter ID law. The effect seems to mean that, barring an uncommonly fast ruling, early voting could begin next week with the Voter ID law in effect. The court granted an expedited appea. Briefs are due by noon Friday and no motions for extension will be granted. The court granted a temporary stay of the portion of Fox’s ruling declaring Act 595 unconstitutional. Thus, a photo ID will be required of in-person early voters until and unless the Supreme Court upholds Fox. Early voting begins Monday. But the Supreme Court denied a stay of the part of the order also declaring rules promulgated by the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners unconstitutional and. These rules were adopted to fix a flaw in the law that didn’t give absentee voters an equal ability with in-person voters to produce identification to qualify a provisional ballot if the ID wasn’t submitted with the absentee ballot. In-person voters have a week to take an ID to a county clerk. Absentee voters who fail to include a valid ID in a mailed ballot don’t have that option.

Editorials: Judges dismantle voter ID laws while voting rights ‘advocates’ dither | Michael Hiltzik/Los Angeles Times

The saddest spectacle on the voting rights front lately has been the sight of progressive voting rights “reformers” giving up the fight against photo ID laws. In the front ranks of these sunshine patriots (to cadge a phrase from Thomas Paine) have been former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young and former President Bill Clinton, who recently came out in favor of forcing the Social Security Administration to issue photo IDs to citizens who request them. The argument is that Republican-sponsored voter ID laws are here to stay, so we might as well just make it easier for people to get photo IDs so they can exercise their right to vote. (The argument is also advanced by political scientist Norman Ornstein, co-founder of a voting rights group called WhyTuesday, which is chaired by Young.) We’ve described the numerous drawbacks of this sort of capitulation here and here. We called the Social Security photo ID thing “a terrible idea,” which got Young’s troupe of loyal supporters all upset.  Now it turns out that photo ID laws may not, indeed, be here to stay. Over the last week, judges in three states have tossed them out, two of them on grounds that there’s no evidence that voter impersonation, the problem they supposedly address, even exists, and they’re plainly designed by the GOP to discourage voting by minorities and the poor. In other words, likely Democratic voters.

Wisconsin: Voter ID law a burden to poor, minority voters, federal judge rules | Associated Press

A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law on Tuesday, declaring that a requirement that voters show a state-issued photo ID at the polls imposes an unfair burden on poor and minority voters. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman sided with opponents of the law, who argued that low-income and minority voters aren’t as likely to have photo IDs or the documents needed to get them. Adelman said the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. He said the law appeared too flawed to fix with legislative amendments. Adelman’s decision invalidates Wisconsin’s law and means voter ID likely won’t be in place for the fall elections, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker runs for re-election.

Wisconsin: Legislature cannot fix voter ID law before November election, leader says | Wisconsin State Journal

The leader of the state Senate said Wednesday that the Legislature will not go back into session to fix Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which was struck down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in an interview that although he supports the planned appeal of Adelman’s decision, Tuesday’s rejection of the law left little room for lawmakers to act. “I don’t see it (Legislature) coming back,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s not going to be resolved for the November election.” Senate President Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, echoed that sentiment, saying that calling lawmakers back to Madison would be “an exercise in futility.” Any new law would have to be approved by Adelman, who not only struck down the voter ID law but also blocked the state from enacting any similar requirement, said John Ulin, an attorney who represented civil-rights groups and individuals challenging the law. “This pretty much ends the idea that we could come in and do something through a legislative effort that would make sense at this point,” Fitzgerald said.

Editorials: Voter ID – Judge gets it right: strikes down voter ID law | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Wisconsin’s voter ID law suffered another welcome blow Tuesday when a federal judge struck it down, ruling that it violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. The law, ruled Judge Lynn Adelman, “results in the denial or abridgment of the right of black and Latino citizens to vote on account of race or color.” As we’ve argued for years, Adelman found that there really isn’t any voter fraud in Wisconsin that a voter photo ID could address — one of the key arguments of supporters of the law. Instead, a photo ID law places an undue burden on low-income people. A “substantial number” of the 300,000 eligible voters in the state who lack an ID are low income, the judge found, concluding that many of them “will be deterred from voting. Detecting and preventing in-person voter-impersonation fraud is a legitimate state interest,” he wrote. “However…because virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future, this particular state interest has very little weight.”

National: Wisconsin threw out voter ID Tuesday. It’s a fight still playing out in 12 other states. | Washington Post

A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter ID law Tuesday, less than a week after a Circuit Court judge found Arkansas’ voter ID law unconstitutional. At least one more court decision should come down before November, but voting rights cases and legislation are brewing in plenty of other places worth keeping an eye on this year. Here’s a guide of what to watch — and where.

Arizona

A federal judge ruled in March that Arizona’s 2004 law requiring new voters who register by mail to prove documentation of U.S. citizenship was valid. The Supreme Court had invalidated part of Arizona’s law last year, after which the state joined up with Kansas, which passed its own proof-of-citizenship voter requirements last year. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the the 1993 National Voter Registration Act had mandated that states use the federal voter registration form, so Arizona’s more complicated form — which opponents say targeted the state’s large Latino community — is not valid. Voting expert Richard Pildes told NPR at the time, “What Justice Scalia has essentially said here for a substantial majority of the court is if you want modifications to these federal forms that have been required up till now, you have to go to this commission to get those modifications.” The decision in Arizona and Kansas’ case last month requires that Election Assistance Commission to modify the federal registration form to include Kansas and Arizona’s requirements, saying that the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections. The case is heading to the 10th Circuit of Appeals later this year.

Alabama: Voter ID law takes effect with June primary | Tuscaloosa News

The Voter Photo Identification Act, approved during the 2011 legislative session, will go into effect in all 67 Alabama counties beginning with the June 3, 2014, statewide primary election. Voters who do not have proper photo identification must obtain a free voter photo ID card or will not be allowed to vote, but there are some exceptions. The League of Women Voters of Greater Tuscaloosa held a meeting Wednesday of community leaders at the Tuscaloosa Public Library to discuss the new law and ways to educate voters on how to obtain the voter photo ID card. Hattie Kaufman, a league board member, said many people don’t understand the new law and will be confused as to whether or not they need the card to vote.

Wisconsin: Federal judge strikes down voter ID; Van Hollen to appeal | Associated Press

A federal judge in Milwaukee struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law Tuesday, declaring that a requirement that voters show a state-issued photo ID at the polls imposes an unfair burden on poor and minority voters. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman sided with opponents of the law, who argued that low-income and minority voters aren’t as likely to have photo IDs or the documents needed to get them. Adelman said the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The decision invalidates Wisconsin’s law and means voter ID likely won’t be in place for the fall elections, when Republican Gov. Scott Walker faces re-election. Walker said last month that he would call lawmakers into special session if the courts ruled against the law; Walker’s spokeswoman did not immediately return an email seeking reaction Tuesday. Nor did Republican legislative leaders, who have agreed a special session would be warranted to pass a revised version of the law. Tuesday’s decision could set a precedent for similar legal challenges in Texas, North Carolina and elsewhere. There are 31 states with laws in effect requiring voters to show some form of identification, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Seven states have strict photo ID requirements similar to the one a state judge struck down in Arkansas last week; that decision has been appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Pennsylvania’s voter ID law has been put on hold because of court challenges.

Pennsylvania: Judge denies Commonwealth’s motion in voter ID case | Philadelphia Inquirer

A Commonwealth Court judge on Monday denied the Corbett administration’s motion to reconsider his ruling overturning the state’s two-year-old voter identification law. In his 29-page decision, Judge Bernard L. McGinley said the law requiring voters to produce photo ID at the polls failed “to provide liberal access to compliant photo ID” and as a result voters were disenfranchised. “The evidence showed the voter ID provisions at issue deprive numerous electors of their fundamental right to vote, so vital to our democracy,” wrote McGinley, who struck down the law in January. The Corbett administation has 30 days to file an appeal to the state Supreme Court. Joshua Maus, spokesman for the governor’s Office of General Counsel. said he had no comment beyond that the office was reviewing the ruling.

Wisconsin: Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Law Requiring Photo ID at Polls | New York Times

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down Wisconsin’s law requiring voters to produce state-approved photo identification cards at polling places, advancing a new legal basis — the Voting Rights Act — for similar challenges playing out around the nation. Judge Lynn Adelman, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, found that the state’s 2011 law violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution as well as the Voting Rights Act, which bars states from imposing rules that abridge a citizen’s right to vote based on race or color. “I find that the plaintiffs have shown that the disproportionate impact of the photo ID requirement results from the interaction of the requirement with the effects of past or present discrimination,” Judge Adelman wrote in the decision. “Blacks and Latinos in Wisconsin are disproportionately likely to live in poverty. Individuals who live in poverty are less likely to drive or participate in other activities for which a photo ID may be required (such as banking, air travel, and international travel) and so they obtain fewer benefits from possession of a photo ID than do individuals who can afford to participate in these activities.”

Arkansas: Election board asks Arkansas Supreme Court for stay of ruling that threw out voter ID law | Associated Press

With early voting for the May primary set to begin next week, the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners and the state’s Republican Party asked the Arkansas Supreme Court on Monday for an emergency stay of a judge’s ruling that found the state’s new voter ID requirement unconstitutional. The board filed a request Monday asking justices for an emergency stay to allow the voter identication requirement to remain in place for the upcoming primary election. Last week, Pulaski County Judge Tim Fox issued a ruling that threw out the voter ID law, which the Legislature passed last year. Fox made the ruling in a case filed by the Pulaski County Election Commission that focused on absentee ballots. “The decision below grants relief well beyond what plaintiffs had requested,” the Republican Party of Arkansas wrote in a filing. “It has the potential for causing irreparable harm and confusion not only among voters but election officials. It was issued at the eleventh hour with early voting scheduled to begin in the state of Arkansas in a matter of days.”

Editorials: Parties Eye Boost From Voter ID Debate | Andrew DeMillo/Arkansas Business News

A Pulaski County judge’s decision to strike down Arkansas’ voter ID law complicates planning for a primary that would have been the first statewide test of new voting restrictions, and reopens a debate that Democrats and Republicans both see as having an upside in this fall’s election. Ruling in a case that had focused on a narrow portion of the law, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox declared the requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls “void and unenforceable” after saying it violates Arkansas’ constitution. His ruling was issued just a week and a half before early voting begins for Arkansas’ May 20 primary. It’s a case that will ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. In the meantime, he provided fodder for Democrats and Republicans alike to revive their arguments over the voter ID law that was approved last year. Just how much of a boost both parties hope to see from the ruling was immediately clear. Within an hour of Fox’s decision, state Democrats were fundraising off of his ruling.