National: Foes of Voter ID Laws Find Ways to Mute Their Impact | NationalJournal.com

As most legislative work around the country came to a standstill over the July 4th holiday, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder made headlines last week when he broke with the Republican Party to veto a law that would have tightened Michigan’s current “voter ID” law, just a few months ahead of Election Day. The move is an indication that despite the intense anxiety about the wave of voter ID laws, which place new restrictions on voters before they can cast a ballot, the legislation is facing tough challenges even before being enacted. Opponents have found a variety of means to mute the impact of such legislation. Republicans backing the laws, which have passed in 11 states in the past two years alone, insist that the measures are meant to curb voter fraud and are commonsense requirements that shouldn’t prove to be too onerous for any legitimately eligible voter. But Democrats see a more sinister design in the measures — as part of a broader GOP effort to rig elections in its favor by suppressing constituencies that tend to vote Democratic: minorities, low-income voters, students, and even women. That impression was fueled recently when Republican Mike Turzai, majority leader of the Pennsylvania House, highlighted the partisan impact of the state’s new voting restrictions. “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,” Turzai said to applause at a Republican State Committee meeting.

Editorials: Walking a fine line on voter ID issue – the Minnesota Secretary of State and the voter ID amendment | StarTribune.com

The much-debated voter ID amendment is a potential minefield for Minnesota’s top elections official. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s opposition to the proposed changes in election law has been well-known for years. Yet now that the Legislature has put the issue on the ballot for voters, his office must be sure that the referendum is carried out fairly and impartially. Some supporters of the amendment contend that Ritchie already has failed that test. The Minnesota Majority, a citizen’s group, says it is considering filing a complaint against the secretary with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Amendment supporters raise legitimate questions. Ritchie and his staff are the go-to government officials for information on voting practices, and now a major elections change is on a ballot they must administer. Despite the Star Tribune Editorial Board’s opposition to the amendment, it is the board’s hope that Ritchie’s office will strive to remain as neutral as possible between now and the election.

New Hampshire: Voter ID law takes effect | NEWS06

Town and city clerks should have an easier time complying with the state’s new Voter ID law after Gov. John Lynch let Senate Bill 1354 become law Friday without his signature. The new law requires voters to present a valid photo ID to vote at the polls or be photographed and sign an affidavit saying they are who they say they are. The bill lets election officials use an existing form called a challenged voter affidavit instead of a new form to be called a qualified voter affidavit in an earlier version of the law. “The challenged form is something we’re familiar with; we’ve been using it a long time,” Nashua City Clerk Paul Bergeron said Friday. “I think it’s just a small way of helping to simply the implementation of the new process,” he said.

Texas: Voter ID fight returning to federal court | Houston Chronicle

The decades-old legal battle between states’ rights and civil rights returns to a familiar venue – a federal courtroom – on Monday as lawyers for the state of Texas try to convince a panel of judges that the U.S. Justice Department has no legal authority to block the state from immediately implementing a voter ID law. Civil rights groups contend that Texas’ 2011 law requiring voters to provide identification with a photo issued by the state or the military discriminates against minority citizens and violates the federal Voting Rights Act. They say it harkens back to state laws designed to disenfranchise minorities, such as poll taxes and literacy tests. “The effort to suppress the vote is not a new thing,” said Leon W. Russell, vice chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors. “What we’ve seen in the last two years, though, is the most egregious effort to compound and collect every single method that anybody could think of that would discourage a person to vote and put it in a piece of legislation and inflict it on our community.”

Mississippi: State Facing Voter ID Hurdles | Jackson Free Press

State officials are running into problems with the new voter-identification law even before the federal government has approved or rejected it. Voters without a photo ID are facing a circular problem: They need a certified birth certificate to get the voter ID, and they need a photo ID to get the birth certificate. Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman of the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, today confirmed the catch-22 problem, which the Jackson Free Press learned about from a complaint posted on Facebook. One of the requirements to get the free voter ID cards is a birth certificate, but in order to receive a certified copy of your birth certificate in Mississippi, you must have a photo ID. Not having the photo ID is why most people need the voter ID in the first place.

Pennsylvania: Groups appeal for delay on voter ID; Corbett refuses | Philadelphia Inquirer

Spurred by the disclosure that 758,000 registered voters do not have Pennsylvania drivers’ licenses, six civic groups called on Gov. Corbett Friday to delay implementation of a new voter ID requirement for at least a year. The Corbett administration immediately rejected the request. “Our goal since the law was signed is to reach out to all voters to make them aware of the law so all eligible voters are able to get ID if needed, and cast ballots in November,” said Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, in charge of the state election machinery. Ruman said Corbett did not have authority on his own to delay the photo ID requirement, and would not ask the Republican-controlled legislature to change the law, passed and signed by the governor last March. “The administration supports the law,” Ruman said in an email, “because it protects the integrity of every vote and voter by giving Pennsylvania for the first time a reliable way to verify the identity of each voter at the polls. This will help detect and deter any illegal voting.”

Texas: Voter ID Law, Which Accepts Gun Licenses But Not Student IDs, Challenged In Court | ThinkProgress

On Monday, the Department of Justice and the Texas Legislature will square off in court over Texas’ contentious voter ID law. A three-judge U.S. District Court panel will hear the case, which could challenge the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Texas is one of nine states that must get any changes to their election law cleared by the DOJ under the Voting Rights Act due to a history of discrimination. Texas flunked the test; as Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote in his letter to the Director of Elections, “According to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification.” The law, SB 14, requires voters to show one of a very narrow list of government-issued documents, excluding Social Security, Medicaid, or student ID cards. Gun licenses, however, are acceptable. The DOJ found that Texas’s SB 14 will “disenfranchise at least 600,000 voters who currently lack necessary photo identification and that minority registered voters will be disproportionately affected by the law.”

Editorials: A Crack in the GOP’s Support for Voter-ID Laws | The American Prospect

There’s little question what the political calculus behind voter-ID laws is. Advocates argue that the laws, which require government photo identification to vote, are necessary to prevent voter fraud—despite there being virtually no evidence that such fraud is a problem. In practice, the laws will disproportionately have an impact on poor people and those of color, two Democratic-leaning groups that are less likely to have such IDs. Predictably, Republicans have been pushing for these laws, while Democrats generally oppose them. That is, until earlier this week, when Michigan Governor Rick Snyder shot down his own party and vetoed a state voter-ID law. He also vetoed laws that would have made it harder to conduct voter-registration drives and to confirm U.S. citizenship for voters. All three—pushed by Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and sponsored by Republican lawmakers—would likely have dampened turnout, particularly among disadvantaged communities.

Editorials: UFO sightings are 3,615 times more common than instances of voter fraud | msnbc

Reported UFO sightings happen far more than voter fraud, Mother Jones reports. Republicans legislatures are quick to legislate against supposedly rampant voter fraud, but a new report finds that UFO sightings are far more likely than actual voter fraud.  3,615 times more likely, to be exact. “Voter laws are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton said on Thursday. In 2000 to 2010, just 13 cases of credible, in-person voter fraud were found in the 649 million votes cast in general elections, but the legislative efforts to curb the supposed fraud are huge: in the last ten years, nearly 1,000 bills have been introduced in 46 different states to tighten voting laws. 24 voting restrictions have passed in 17 states in the last year and a half and five important battleground states—Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—will have tighter voter restrictions than they did in 2008.

Editorials: Fight back against restrictive voting laws | Lawrence Norden/CNN.com

Amid our vacations, fireworks and barbecues Wednesday, it’s easy to forget that we are actually commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The most famous phrase from that document is one of our nation’s founding values: “All men are created equal.” As it happens, this July Fourth week brings two significant victories for that value that are worth celebrating. Most Americans are probably not aware that since 2011, more than two dozen measures have passed that will make it more difficult for some eligible citizens to vote, denying them the opportunity to participate equally in our democracy. Too often, it appears that politicians are trying to manipulate voting laws to save their jobs and pick their voters, rather than allowing all voters to choose their politicians. The good news is that the public, the courts and some elected officials have fought these new restrictions in several states, including Ohio, Maine, Missouri and, just Tuesday, Michigan. To the surprise of many — at the urging of good government and voting rights groups, several editorial pages and many of Michigan’s citizens — Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a package of restrictive voting laws in that state. One of the bills would have restricted voter registration drives.

Editorials: A Case Study in How Kris Kobach’s Cabal Aims to Remake Election Law | The Nation

 “Some 1,500 people voted under dead people’s and prisoners’ names from 2008-11, according to Michigan’s auditor general. Many might be clerical errors, but this illustrates the need to ensure accurate voter rolls.” Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson wrote this in a July 2 Times-Herald column, and she lied. Johnson is a member of a fifteen-state consortium of right-wing elections officials that’s hellbent on purging voters. And her dishonest jousting in Michigan this week offers a window into how that consortium works—playing fast and loose with facts in order to create the impression of a problem that would justify their hardline solutions, and flouting the law themselves when necessary. Johnson’s Monday column was a last-ditch effort to persuade Governor Rick Snyder to sign into law herSecure and Fair Elections (SAFE) initiative, including the bills HB 5061 and SB 803, which respectively would force voters to reaffirm their citizenship before receiving a ballot and would require photo ID for absentee voting. Another bill, SB 754, would put onerous restrictions on third-party registration organizations, much like a Florida law that was recently blocked by a federal judge. On Tuesday, Governor Snyder vetoed those three bills, but preserved the rest of Johnson’s SAFE package. Despite Johnson’s constant refrain on dead people voting, her own Bureau of Elections has already established that there was no actual voter fraud in the auditor general’s report she referenced in her July 2 column.

Michigan: Snyder vetoes controversial voter ID, registration bills | The Detroit News

Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday vetoed three election law bills pushed by Republican legislators seeking to require a ballot box affirmation of citizenship, restrict voter registration drives and require photo ID for obtaining an absentee ballot. Snyder said he vetoed the absentee ballot bill, House Bill 5061, because it would not let an absentee ballot count if the person did not affirm their citizenship by the close of the polls on an Election Day. “I am concerned (the bill) could create voter confusion among absentee voters,” Snyder wrote in a veto letter to legislators. The Republican governor’s use of his veto pen won rare praise from Democrats, labor unions and other liberal special interest groups.

Pennsylvania: Voter ID law assurances fail to quell fears of disenfranchisement | TribLIVE

The contentious state voter ID law should pose no problem for most Pennsylvania voters, according to the Department of State and PennDOT, but local opponents of the law say the state’s numbers show almost one in 10 voters could be disenfranchised. The two agencies compared data and found that 91 percent of the state’s registered voters have a PennDOT ID number on identification that qualifies them to vote. Supporters say the law is needed to prevent voter fraud. Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele said in a news release on Tuesday that the comparison “confirms that most Pennsylvanians have acceptable photo ID for voting this November.” Officials at the department and PennDOT could not be reached for further comment. “What’s truly scary about this report is that it makes my case,” Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner said. “About 10 percent of otherwise eligible Pennsylvanians are disenfranchised by the Voter ID law. That’s not an acceptable number of people to tell that they can’t vote.” Disenfranchised groups, Wagner said, include older residents, students and the poor.

National: Will ID laws lower college student vote? | KansasCity.com

It’s a group that can score respectably on the SAT, find its way to classes most days and survive most midterms. But, the young campus crowd is often new to independence and to record-keeping. So how will college students do at democracy? Tougher voter identification laws, some advocacy groups contend, might present new challenges for thousands of college students who want to cast ballots this fall. “There are more obstacles (for student voters),” said Jon Sherman, an attorney with the Atlanta-based Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. “For a demographic that sometimes struggles to get out to the polls, it’s much more challenging.” The size of that challenge will vary from state to state this year. In Tennessee, for example, voters must present a photo ID to vote, but student IDs aren’t considered valid for that purpose. A Texas law — now facing a legal challenge — allows use of a concealed weapons permit as a voter ID, but not a student ID card.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Voter ID Law May Bar 9% – Over 750,000 – From Presidential Election | Businessweek

Three-quarters of a million Pennsylvanians may be denied a chance to vote in November unless they can come up with an acceptable form of identification, a tally released by the state suggests. In a move lawmakers said would deter fraud at the polls, the Republican-led Legislature passed a law in March requiring voters to have a photo ID to obtain a ballot. A comparison of registration lists and state Transportation Department records showed 758,939 people don’t have either a driver’s license or an alternative state ID, the secretary of the commonwealth said.

South Carolina: Court schedule tightens window for new voter ID | TheState.com

A revised timetable for a federal lawsuit over South Carolina’s voter ID law would make it harder for the new state requirements to impact the Nov. 6 general election. On Tuesday, the judges who will consider the case rescheduled oral arguments for September 24. That’s nearly two months later than originally planned – and is also more than a week after the deadline by which state officials have said they would need a decision in order to prepare to implement the law this year. The three-judge panel doesn’t forecast when it might rule in the case. But state prosecutors say they’ll need a determination by September 15 in order to have enough time to make sure people understand the requirements. In December, the federal government blocked South Carolina’s photo ID requirement in December, saying it could keep tens of thousands of the state’s minorities from casting ballots and failed to meet requirements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires approval from that agency for changes to South Carolina’s election laws because of the state’s past failure to protect blacks’ voting rights.

Pennsylvania: Voter ID law may hit more in Pennsylvania than originally estimated | philly.com

More than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk in the November election, according to data released Tuesday by state election officials. The figures – representing 9.2 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters – are significantly higher than prior estimates by the Corbett administration. Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele has repeatedly said that 99 percent of Pennsylvania’s voters already had the photo ID they will need at the polls in November. The new numbers, based on a comparison of voter registration rolls with PennDot ID databases, shows the potential problem is much bigger, particularly in Philadelphia, where 186,830 registered voters – 18 percent of the city’s total registration – do not have PennDot ID.

Michigan: Michigan Governor Snyder vetoes election bills | Michigan Radio

MPRN’s Rick Pluta reports that reactions to Gov. Snyder’s vetoes today were divided across party lines: Republicans – including Secretary of State Ruth Johnson – said the bills were reasonable ways to ensure only people who are supposed to vote cast ballots. She says the veto will not stop her from including a box on voter registration forms affirming their U.S. citizenship. The governor did sign 11 other bills in the package. But GOP leaders in the Legislature expressed disappointment in their Republican governor’s decision to veto some of their work. House Speaker Jase Bolger quickly issued a statement expressing his disappointment in the vetoes. Democrats, on the other hand, praised the decision as “courageous.”

Minnesota: Missouri offers tutorial for Minnesota in photo ID battle | StarTribune.com

The “Show Me State” of Missouri has a lot to show Minnesota about the travails of trying to require voters to show a photo ID before casting ballots. Short version: It won’t be easy. Six years after the law first passed in Missouri, the state’s voter-friendly courts have kept photo ID and related election-law changes off the books and even off the ballot. Minnesota advocates on both sides have taken notice. “It does show a path to success,” said Mike Dean of Common Cause Minnesota, which opposes the election law changes and hopes to duplicate Missouri’s record of blocking them in court. “The Missouri legislature really screwed up,” responds Dan McGrath of Minnesota Majority, which supports the photo ID requirements. “The Minnesota Legislature didn’t make the same mistake.”

New Hampshire: Attorney General Holder could block Voter ID | New Hampshire Watchdog

U.S Attorney General Eric Holder could be the last hurdle between New Hampshire and its new Voter ID law. Granite State lawmakers may have overcome the objection of Governor John Lynch to the state’s new Voter ID law, but they may still have to get Holder’s permission. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Department of Justice must “pre-clear” any changes in election laws affecting ten New Hampshire communities. The House and Senate overrode Lynch’s veto to a new Voter ID law on Wednesday, meaning voters will have to show photo identification at the polls this fall, or sign an affidavit that they are who they claim to be. New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Matt Mavrogeorge tells New Hampshire Watchdog that his office has let Washington know that the new law is on the books. “We’ve been in contact with the lawyers in Washington to let them know about the law,” Mavrogeorge says. “We don’t anticipate any problems.”

South Carolina: Justice Department again nixes voter ID law | Rock Hill Herald

The U.S. Justice Department has turned down South Carolina’s voter identification law for a second time as the state’s lawsuit against the federal government moves forward. “I remain unable to conclude that the State of South Carolina has carried its burden of showing that the submitted change in Section 5 of Act R54 neither has a discriminatory purpose nor will have a discriminatory effect,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez wrote in a letter Friday to an attorney representing South Carolina in its lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sued Holder after the federal government blocked South Carolina’s photo ID requirement in December, saying it could keep tens of thousands of the state’s minorities from casting ballots. It was the first such law to be refused by the federal agency in nearly 20 years. The Justice Department has said the law failed to meet requirements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires approval from that agency for changes to South Carolina’s election laws because of the state’s past failure to protect blacks’ voting rights.

Tennessee: Shelby County elections facing changes in August | Action News 5

After the Shelby County Election Commission purged more than 30,000 inactive voter records, voters are concerned about whether their votes will count this August. “Why all of a sudden that thirty two thousand voters records are purged from Shelby County in the last five months,” asked concerned voter Kermit Moore. At the main library in Memphis Saturday, State Representative G.A. Hardaway hosted a voter’s right’s forum.   Richard Holden Administrator of Elections explained voters who haven’t been to the polls in 8 years were removed from their system.  “We want every vote to be counted and not to be lost,” said Holden, “even those that have been purged, if they’re still alive and still in Shelby County can re register by simply submitting an application by Tuesday.”

Editorials: Some truth about voter ID rules | Philadelphia Inquirer

In the ongoing controversy over Pennsylvania’s move to require voter identification at the polls starting in November, a Republican leader’s moment of campaign swagger has given opponents new ammunition. State House Majority Leader Mike Turzai of Allegheny County last weekend stood before a political gathering in Hershey, ticking off victories for the Republican-run state legislature and Gov. Corbett. Voter ID, said Turzai, “is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” Big surprise, said his political foes. State Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) said Turzai’s comments confirmed what Democrats have suspected all along: that voter ID is “part of a national effort by the Republican Party to pass laws disenfranchising large numbers of voters who tend to vote Democratic.”

Minnesota: GOP lawyers: Photo ID details are not necessary | StarTribune.com

Details of proposed constitutional amendments are rarely included in the ballot question voters see and the photo ID amendment should be no exception to that rule, lawyers for the Legislature have told the Minnesota Supreme Court. In defending a ballot question asking if voters should be required to show a photo ID, lawyers for the House and Senate said in a brief filed this week that the Legislature “adhered to long-standing tradition by generally describing the proposed amendment” rather than listing every detail. “There is no requirement that the Minnesota Legislature provides voters with a ‘Cliffs Notes’ summary of the proposed amendment in the ballot questions,” the lawyers wrote in their brief. “Indeed, of the 213 proposed ballot questions in Minnesota’s history, at least 42 of the questions have contained either no suggestion as to the nature of the amendment, or such limited detail that one would not know what changes the proposed amendment would make by simply viewing the ballot question,” argued the lawyers, Robert Weinstine, Thomas Boyd and Kristopher Lee.

Pennsylvania: State GOP Leader: Voter ID Will Help Romney Win State | TPM

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R) said that the voter ID law passed by the legislature would help deliver the state for Mitt Romney in November.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,” Turzai said at this weekend’s Republican State Committee meeting , according toPoliticsPA.com.

A spokesman for Turzai confirmed the accuracy of the quote for TPM but argued that people were reading too much into it. “The fact is that while Pennsylvania Democrats don’t like it to be talked about, there is election fraud,” Turzai spokesman Stephen Miskin told TPM. “Protecting the integrity of an individual vote is the purpose of any election reform. So was Turzai suggesting that Democrats had won previous elections through voter fraud?

Minnesota: Secretary of State asks for Supreme Court decision on voter ID by Aug. 27 | StarTribune.com

The state officials charged with preparing ballots for the Nov. 6 general election need to know whether the proposed photo ID amendment will be on the ballot, and in what form. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, in response to a query from the state Supreme Court, told Chief Justice Lorie Gildea that the state needs a final decision in the photo ID case by Aug 27. He added that it “would be ideal” to have the ruling by Aug. 21. The Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the language of the proposed photo ID constitutional amendment, which is scheduled to go to voters for a decision in November. The League of Women Voters argues that the ballot question voters will see is misleading and does not fully describe the changes proposed for the constitution. Amendment supporters say the language is a fair description, and that the Legislature has wide latitude to write such ballot questions.

New Hampshire: Legislature overrides Lynch veto on voter ID | Union Leader

In another significant accomplishment for the Republican-controlled Legislature, the Senate and House on Wednesday passed a law requiring people to present photo identification when voting, while adopting a last-minute amendment meant to ease concerns expressed by voting officials ahead of the November elections. The Senate voted 18-5 to override the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 289, which will require voters this November to show a photo ID or sign an affidavit. The House passed the bill 231-112. Both votes exceeded the two-thirds margin necessary for a veto override. The last-minute change concerned the kind of affidavit required of voters who do not have acceptable identification in this year’s elections. The Senate voted to reintroduce a bill it had tabled earlier in the session, House Bill 1354, and amend it to change all references to a “qualified voter affidavit” in SB 289 to “challenged voter affidavit.”

New Hampshire: Voter ID law passes by wide margin | NEWS06

The Legislature has passed a law requiring people to present photo identification when voting, while adopting a last-minute amendment meant to ease concerns expressed by voting officials ahead of the November elections. The Senate voted 18-5 on Wednesday to override the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 289, which will require voters this November to show a photo ID or sign an affidavit. The House passed the bill 231 -112. Both votes exceeded the two-thirds margin necessary for a veto override.

New Hampshire: Voter ID law passes by wide margin | NEWS06

The Legislature has passed a law requiring people to present photo identification when voting, while adopting a last-minute amendment meant to ease concerns expressed by voting officials ahead of the November elections. The Senate voted 18-5 on Wednesday to override the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 289, which will require voters this November to show a photo ID or sign an affidavit. The House passed the bill 231 -112. Both votes exceeded the two-thirds margin necessary for a veto override.