Alaska: Kansas official takes active interest in Alaska elections | Anchorage Daily News

Why has Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach taken such an active interest in Alaska’s elections? The Kansan, an adviser to Mitt Romney last year on immigration policies and a national figure in the Republican party’s conservative wing, testified before the Alaska Legislature in support of a voter photo ID bill. He also recommended that Alaska join the “Kansas Project,” a multi-state effort to look for duplicate voter registrations. Alaska Natives say a photo ID rule would be a roadblock to voting in the Bush. A decline in turnout there, with its traditionally heavy Democratic vote, could affect the 2014 reelection hopes of U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat running in a Republican-leaning state. One of his potential rivals is Alaska’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell. Treadwell says he doesn’t support the voter ID bill, but Kobach says Treadwell was instrumental in getting him involved in promoting the Alaska legislation.

Pennsylvania: High court refuses to hear Post-Gazette appeal – Pennsylvania can continue to restrict poll access | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Journalists have no right to report and photograph inside Pennsylvania polling places, and the U.S. Supreme Court is letting that state restriction stand. Without comment, the court Monday refused to hear a case brought on appeal by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when its staffers were barred from voting sites in Allegheny and Beaver counties in the fall. State law bars anyone except voters, election workers and registered poll watchers from coming within 10 feet of entrances to polling places on Election Day. The denial means the Pennsylvania law can stay in effect unless the Legislature decides to change it.

Wisconsin: Recount spurs voting reforms | Journal Times

Weekend absentee voting would end and voter identification requirements would return under a sweeping new election law package partially inspired by issues in Racine. The bill from Greendale Republican Rep. Jeff Stone covers a wide swath of election-related territory, including numerous procedural changes for how electoral recounts are run. Those changes are partially the product of last summer’s recall recount in Racine, where tensions ran high and allegations of election fraud repeatedly surfaced, according to Stone’s office. Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said his office helped shape the final bill, bringing together what he called “a bunch of different ideas regarding elections to make them hopefully easier and more fair.” The result is the wide-ranging proposal planned for committee debate Tuesday.

Editorials: Striking down voting law will set back civil rights | Raul A. Reyes/NBC

Could a county in Alabama affect your ability to vote? Absolutely. Any day now, the Supreme Court will issue its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires states with a history of discrimination to get approval from the federal government before they change their voting laws. Most of these states are in the South. Shelby County, Alabama says this is unfair and wants Section 5 struck down. Section 5 is not just one part of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 is the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Getting rid of it would be a setback to civil rights. It would negatively impact Hispanic voters. And it would represent a troubling overreach by the Supreme Court into Congressional jurisdiction. The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution states that no citizen should be denied his right to vote on account of race or color. But Southern states for years found ways to prevent African Americans from voting. So in 1965 Congress passed Section 5, to ensure an end to poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means of obstructing access to the ballot box.

Wisconsin: Appeals court ruling doesn’t enact voter ID law | The Cap Times

A state appeals court overturned a Dane County Circuit Court ruling Thursday morning, handing proponents of the state’s controversial voter ID law a minor legal victory. The ruling from the 4th District Court of Appeals came in a case brought by the Wisconsin League of Women Voters. The league argued the law passed in 2011 violated a provision of the Wisconsin Constitution that guarantees every person the right to vote. Thursday’s ruling, however, will not result in the voter ID law being enacted. Three other lawsuits are still pending that challenge the legality of the law. In the other case brought in state courts, Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant rights group, and the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP won a permanent injunction against the voter ID law in Dane County Circuit Court. The state Department of Justice has asked for an appeals court review of the ruling.

National: Future of voting rights at stake before Supreme Court | NBC

Before the current U.S. Supreme Court term ends in late June, the justices will decide the fate of the most potent part of a law widely considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress ― the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If the court were to strike down part of the law, which it has signaled a willingness to do in the past, it would dramatically reduce the federal government’s role in overseeing voter discrimination in a wide swath of the nation. The U.S. Supreme Court prepares to enter June with the term’s biggest cases yet to be decided.  NBC’s Pete Williams looks at what’s left on the docket. Signed by President Lyndon Johnson and renewed by Congress four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making adjustments to their election procedures.

Wisconsin: Voter ID law constitutional, appeals court rules | Reuters

A Wisconsin appeals court on Thursday ruled the state’s controversial voter ID law is constitutional, a victory for supporters who say the measure limits fraud at the ballot box. The Fourth District Court of Appeals overturned a March 2012 decision by Dane County judge Richard Niess, who ruled in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which claimed that the law is too burdensome, denying potential voters the right to vote. The organization “makes no effective argument that, on its face, the requirement makes voting so difficult and inconvenient as to amount to a denial of the right to vote,” the appeals court wrote in its decision.

Wisconsin: GOP proposes sweeping election reforms | San Francisco Chronicle

One of the chief authors of Wisconsin’s voter photo identification plan is shopping around a new bill designed to allay legal concerns that the requirements are too burdensome by letting poor people opt out. Republican lawmakers passed voter photo ID requirements two years ago, saying the move was needed to combat election fraud. But a pair of Dane County judges struck the requirements down in separate lawsuits last year. One ruled the requirements were unconstitutional because some people entitled to vote might lack the resources to obtain an ID. The other said the law substantially impairs the right to vote for poor people, noting birth certificates are required to obtain the IDs and voters who lack them must pay for them. The state Justice Department has appealed both decisions. Two federal lawsuits challenging the requirements are still pending.

Wisconsin: Bill Would Enact Voter ID, End Disclosure, Limit Early Voting, Expand Lobbyist Influence | PR Watch

A Wisconsin legislator has managed to bundle nearly all of the excesses associated with dirty elections into a single bill that good government advocates are describing as a “sweeping assault on democracy:” the legislation would try reinstating restrictive voter ID requirements, make it easier for donors to secretly influence elections, expand lobbyist influence, restrict early voting, and make it harder to register, among other measures. The legislation is “so huge, covers so much ground, and has so many independently controversial parts of it,” that it appears “intended to cut-out any public input or to render [that input] meaningless,” says Andrea Kaminski, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. Announced on the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend, and in the midst of the budget-writing process that consumes most state news coverage, the bill from Rep. Jeff Stone (R) seems designed to be rushed-through before the public has a chance to respond.

Wyoming: Legislative committee strikes voter ID proposal | Star Tribune

A group of lawmakers tasked with studying and potentially proposing a bill to require Wyoming voters to show identification at polling places decided not to pursue the matter Tuesday. A trio of county clerks told members of the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee that they didn’t believe a lot of people purposely voted fraudulently in Wyoming. The clerks believed a bigger problem was people voting in the wrong precinct — some purposely and some inadvertently.

Wisconsin: Voter ID, shorter absentee balloting proposed | Chippewa Herald

A Republican lawmaker is proposing numerous changes to the state’s voting, election and campaign finance laws, including reinstating the requirement that voters show a photo ID to cast a ballot and shortening the time for in-person absentee voting. The voter ID requirement, passed in 2011, has been tied up in the courts and currently is not in effect. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has repeatedly called on the Legislature to reinstate photo ID, which surveys have shown is supported by a majority of Wisconsin residents. Opponents of photo ID have argued that many voters — including the poor, elderly and disabled — are disenfranchised because they lack driver’s licenses or the ability to get photo identification. Two Dane County judges have found the provision to be an unconstitutional impairment of the right to vote. The state is appealing those rulings.

Wisconsin: GOP lawmaker pushes new voter ID legislation to address court concerns | Green Bay Press Gazette

One of the chief authors of Wisconsin’s voter photo identification plan is shopping around a new bill designed to allay legal concerns that the requirements are too burdensome by letting poor people opt out. Republican lawmakers passed voter photo ID requirements two years ago, saying the move was needed to combat election fraud. But a pair of Dane County judges struck the requirements down in separate lawsuits last year. One ruled the requirements were unconstitutional because some people entitled to vote might lack the resources to obtain an ID. The other said the law substantially impairs the right to vote for poor people, noting birth certificates are required to obtain the IDs and voters who lack them must pay for them. The state Justice Department has appealed both decisions. Two federal lawsuits challenging the requirements are still pending.

Editorials: Cleaning up Indiana state registration offers confidence at polls | Fort Wayne News Sentinel

It’s not a lot of money in the big scheme of things, but the $2 million designated in the recent session of the General Assembly will begin the messy but necessary process of cleaning up Indiana’s voter registration rolls. Bloated voters rolls in every one of the state’s 92 counties contain the names of people who have moved away, are in prison or have died. Their presence on the registration lists make elections vulnerable to the type of shenanigans that can truly affect the outcome of elections. Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson is in charge of the state’s elections and led the charge to obtain the funds for the statewide project. She knows the importance of cleaning up the voter rolls in maintaining the integrity of the elections and meeting requirements of state and federal laws.

Wisconsin: Appeals court rules state voter ID law constitutional | Journal Sentinel

A state appeals court on Thursday overturned a Dane County judge’s decision that found Wisconsin’s voter ID law violated the state constitution, but the ID requirement remains blocked because of a ruling in a separate case. The 4th District Court of Appeals in Madison unanimously ruled the voter ID law did not violate a provision of the state constitution that limits what restrictions the Legislature can impose on who can vote. The case was brought by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. The group’s attorney, Lester Pines, said the league would decide over the next couple of weeks whether to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. “Voter ID is not the law in Wisconsin and is unlikely to be the law in Wisconsin” because of a raft of litigation, Pines said. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, in a written statement acknowledged the other outstanding legal actions.

New Hampshire: Senate removes student IDs as indisputable ID for voting | NEWS06

The state Senate Thursday passed with strict party line votes legislation that changes the current state voter identification law by removing its clear statutory reference to student IDs as an acceptable form of voter ID. The Senate, also along party lines, changed the House-passed voter registration bill by restoring reference to motor vehicle laws that had been removed by the House. The current voter ID law allowed for the 2012 election a list of seven forms of identification acceptable at a polling place, including a student ID, and absent any of those, verification of the person’s identity by a local election official. If a voter was challenged, the voter would fill out a “challenged voter affidavit.”

National: Election Officials Biased Against Latinos, Says Harvard University Study | The Latin Times

A Latino-sounding name could be detrimental to voters seeking election information. Harvard University political science graduates Julie Faller, Noah Nathan and Ariel White found in a study that election officials are less likely to give accurate, friendly information to Latinos as opposed to those who sound white, the Huffington Post reported Wednesday. The students conducted the study by ” . . . [contacting] every local official or election commission responsible for overseeing elections for each county or municipality at which elections are administered in 48 states.” Minnesota, Alaska, Maine and Virginia were dropped from the study due to irregularities that prevented gathering accurate data.

National: Congressmen Seek Constitutional Guarantee of the Right to Vote | The Nation

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made a point of emphasizing during the Bush v. Gore arguments in December 2000 that there is no federal constitutional guarantee of a right to vote for president. Scalia was right. Indeed, as the reform group FairVote reminds us, “Because there is no right to vote in the U.S. Constitution, individual states set their own electoral policies and procedures. This leads to confusing and sometimes contradictory policies regarding ballot design, polling hours, voting equipment, voter registration requirements, and ex-felon voting rights. As a result, our electoral system is divided into 50 states, more than 3,000 counties and approximately 13,000 voting districts, all separate and unequal.” Mark Pocan and Keith Ellison want to do something about that. The two congressmen, both former state legislators with long histories of engagement with voting-rights issues, on Monday unveiled a proposal to explicitly guarantee the right to vote in the Constitution.

Editorials: Colorado Passed Broad Election Reform, Other States Should Follow | Myrna Pérez/Huffington Post

State legislatures across the country are hard at work expanding the right to vote. Already, more than 200 bills to improve voting access have been introduced in 45 states in 2013. Friday in Denver, Gov. John Hickenlooper made Colorado the latest to expand rights, joining Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Virginia, and West Virginia. More legislation is awaiting signature in Florida. To be sure, some states continue to push needless restrictions on the ability of citizens to participate in elections, and voters and their advocates must remain vigilant against any such efforts. Still, the trend is unmistakable: After years of backsliding, states are embracing free, fair, and accessible elections. In many cases, the bills have enjoyed broad bipartisan support, another encouraging trend. Legislators are expanding access to the ballot in a variety of ways, from reducing the burden of voter identification requirements, to modernizing voter registration, to expanding early voting.

New Hampshire: Lawmakers divided over Voter ID Law | Eagle Tribune

A split is shaping up between the House and Senate over how — or whether — to proceed with the next phase in the state’s controversial voter photo ID law. The House refused to repeal the law, but wants to stop the next phase that would force election workers to photograph voters without an acceptable ID. A Senate committee, meanwhile, is recommending the state delay requiring election workers to take photos until 2015 to see how the law works in the 2014 election. The Senate panel would reduce the number of acceptable IDs voters could use at the polls. Opponents maintain eliminating a specific reference to student IDs could compromise the rights of student voters.

National: After Wins for Voter ID and Other Restrictive Measures, Democrats Fight Back on Elections | Stateline

Republicans several years ago seized the upper hand in the so-called “voting wars” by pushing voter ID and other measures that created new voting restrictions. But now Democrats across the country are fighting back. This week, Colorado lawmakers sent Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, a bill that allows voters in that state to register at the polls on Election Day; creates an all-mail ballot system; and ensures that voters who move within Colorado don’t have to re-register at their new address. The Colorado law is especially broad, but it is only the latest in a series of victories for those who want to streamline registration and reduce long lines at the polls. The governor is expected to sign the measure, which has overwhelming support among Democrats. During the last legislative session, Maryland expanded early voting, eased absentee voting and approved same-day registration during early voting periods. West Virginia implemented a new system to register residents using state records already on file. Delaware removed the waiting period for nonviolent felons to regain their voting rights, and made re-establishing them automatic. And this week, the Minnesota House approved a measure making absentee balloting easier.

New Hampshire: Party line votes on Senate panel to change voter ID, registration laws | NEWS06

Along party lines, a Senate committee on Wednesday supported on a 3-2 vote changing the current state voter identification law by removing its clear statutory reference to student IDs as an acceptable form of voter ID. Also Wednesday, the Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee voted — again along partisan lines — to recommend passage of legislation that addresses the requirements that one needs to meet to register to vote. Committee Chairman David Boutin, R-Hooksett, said although the specific reference to a student ID is removed under his voter ID amendment, it would allow state university system student IDs to be used under a broad requirement that the would-be voters produce “a nondriver’s identification card issued by” a “department, agency or office of any state.”

Canada: Elections BC now allowing prescription bottles for voter ID | Canada Politics | Yahoo!

Elections BC has introduced a new initiative that they’re hoping will make voting easier for residents of one of Canada’s poorest neighbourhoods. For the first time, voters throughout the province will officially be allowed to present prescription bottles as a secondary piece of ID at the polls for next week’s provincial election. According to Don Main of Elections BC, the initiative was borne out of community consultations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside — sometimes referred to as ‘Canada’s poorest postal code.’

National: Joe Biden: ‘Immoral’ to restrict voting | Politico

Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday bashed voting rights requirements – calling them “immoral, callous” – and warned of political consequences for those who try to impose barriers to casting a ballot. “To me it is the most immoral, callous thing that can be done, the idea of making it more difficult to vote,” Biden said at the annual gala dinner of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a minority-focused public policy organization. The vice president pointed to data indicating that in 2011 and 2012 at least 180 bills in 41 states were introduced that aimed to stiffen requirements for voting — voter identification measures, for example.

Iowa: Senate rejects voter ID proposal | Des Moines Register

The Iowa Senate Tuesday night rejected a Republican-sponsored amendment to require Iowa voters to show a photo identification when they are voting. The effort failed on a 26-24 vote with Democrats against and Republicans in support. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Red Oak, proposed the amendment to the so-called standings bill, one of the final appropriations bills usually approved as adjournment nears. She suggested that if someone doesn’t have a voter ID, her measure would allow another voter with a photo ID to vouch for them at the polls.

Texas: Texas has much at stake in voting rights ruling | Houston Chronicle

Nearly four decades ago, Pearsall watermelon farmer Modesto Rodriguez testified before Congress that discrimination against Latino voters was rampant in Texas. He urged the federal government to continue to oversee the state’s electoral process, saying that law enforcement officers in Frio County walked around polling places “brandishing guns and billy clubs” to find reasons to arrest Latino voters. His activism nearly cost him his life. When he got back home, Rodriguez went into the Buenos Aires bar in Pearsall in an effort to recruit Latinos to talk with Justice Department investigators about voting-rights violations. He was severely beaten by agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Department of Public Safety officers, court records show. “He got beat to a pulp,” said George Korbel, a San Antonio lawyer who was then working with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Chicago on civil rights legislation.

South Carolina: House throws its vote behind limited voting | Times and Democrat

South Carolinians on both sides of the voter-identification battle claimed victory in a federal court ruling in 2012. The statute requiring voters to present state-approved photo identification in order to cast ballots in elections and primaries was upheld by a panel of three federal judges. Enforcement was delayed until after the 2012 election. Republicans were happy because the GOP-dominated Legislature had its efforts vindicated, with the judges finding no discriminatory intent behind the law. Democrats were happy because the law challenged by the U.S. Justice Department as discriminatory to minorities and the elderly did not impact Election Day 2012. Important now is how the new law is being applied in the state. No one is screaming because the court diluted the ID requirement. In virtually any instance, a voter is able to cast a ballot. Judges made clear that ensuring just that was integral to their decision.

North Carolina: Voter ID one step closer to become state law | Smithfield Herald

The state House last Wednesday passed a bill requiring voters to show a photo ID when they go to the polls in 2016.
House Republicans pushed through the measure, saying the public demanded more stringent ballot security at polling places – that voter fraud was more prevalent than thought and that in a modern, mobile society, fewer election officials personally know voters. “Our system of government depends upon open and honest elections,” said Rep. David Lewis, a farm-equipment dealer from Dunn and a Republican. “Having people prove who they say they are as a condition of voting makes sense and guarantees that each vote is weighted equally and cumulatively determines the outcome of elections.”

Pennsylvania: Judge in voter ID case demands database info | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The judge hearing a challenge to Pennsylvania’s voter ID law has ordered the state to turn over information from its databases of voters and drivers. The number of Pennsylvania voters without acceptable identification was a central question last year in a hearing on whether the law would remain in effect for the November 2012 elections. That proceeding resulted in the extension — now through the May primary elections — of a phase-in period in which voters were asked, but not required, to show photo identification.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Did the Devil Go Down to Georgia in a Smart ID Card? | EurasiaNet.org

Everyone can sigh with relief. Georgia’s justice officials say they are not in league with the devil and have no plans to assist the Antichrist to take over the world. In a bizarre public-service announcement, Georgia’s Justice Ministry on April 20 announced that new, biometric ID cards for Georgian citizens are not a satanic creation. “The assumption that the new ID card is the seal of the Antichrist and that it contains the sign of the beast is not correct,” explained an earnest young man in a video produced by the ministry.

Editorials: How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics | The Nation

As the 2012 election approached, Republican governors and legislators in battleground states across the country rushed to enact restrictive Voter ID laws, to eliminate election-day registration and to limit early voting. Those were just some of the initiatives that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People identified as “an onslaught of restrictive measures across the country designed to stem electoral strength among communities of color.” Why did so much energy go into the effort? John Payton, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, explained, “These block the vote efforts are a carefully targeted response to the remarkable growth of the minority electorate, and threaten to disproportionally diminish the voting strength of African-Americans and Latinos.” Civil rights groups pushed back, working with the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other organizations to mount legal and legislative challenges. But the most dramatic pushback may well have been the determined voter registration and mobilization drives organized on the ground in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other battleground states.