National: ‘An embarrassment’: Trump’s justice department goes quiet on voting rights | Sam Levine/The Guardian

National

The Department of Justice (DoJ), the agency with unmatched power to prevent discrimination at the ballot box, has been glaringly quiet when it comes to enforcing voting rights ahead of the 2020 election, former department attorneys say. Amid concern that the attorney general, William Barr, is using the department to advance Trump’s political interests, observers say the department is failing to protect the voting rights of minority groups. Remarkably, while the department has been involved in a handful of cases since Donald Trump’s inauguration, it has largely defended voting restrictions rather than opposing them. The department’s limited public activity has been striking, particularly as several states have seen voters wait hours in line to vote and jurisdictions are rapidly limiting in-person voting options because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It just seems like there’s nobody home, which is tragic,” said William Yeomans, who worked in the department’s civil rights division, which includes the voting section, for over two decades. “This is especially sad considering the plethora of voting issues crying out for action, from Georgia to Wisconsin.” Until late May, the justice department had not filed a new case under the Voting Rights Act, the powerful 1965 law that prohibits voting discrimination, during Trump’s presidency. (In 2019, it settled a Voting Rights Act case in Michigan that was filed in the final days of the Obama administration.)

National: Election chaos renews focus on gutted Voting Rights Act | Bill Barrow/Associated Press

National

When some Georgia voters endured a pandemic, pouring rain and massive waits earlier this month to cast their ballot, President Donald Trump and other Republicans blamed local Democrats for presiding over chaos. “Make no mistake, the reduction in polling places is a result of a concerted effort by Democrats to push vote-by-mail at the expense of in-person voting,” said Justin Clark, the Trump campaign’s senior counsel. “Nothing more and nothing less.” But the meltdown was also a manifestation of a landmark Supreme Court case that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The 2013 decision — Shelby County v. Holder — was heralded by conservatives at the time for invalidating a longstanding “preclearance” process that required certain states and jurisdictions with high minority populations and a history of discrimination to get federal approval for any changes to voting procedures. Seven years later, the fallout from that decision is colliding with unprecedented changes to the way elections are being conducted. In response to the coronavirus, many states are encouraging mail-in voting. That — combined with a reduction in poll workers — has prompted the consolidation of polling places.

Editorials: This is our last chance to ensure the 2020 election is not rigged | Myrna Pérez/The Guardian

Editorials

On Friday the House of Representatives showed the country that it will not tolerate racial discrimination at the polls. It passed the Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act to its full strength. Our country needs that reform and others to make the 2020 election free and fair for all. Since its founding, America has moved slowly towards granting suffrage to more and more Americans, bringing more people into the electoral process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been instrumental to that progress. But in 2013 the supreme court dramatically weakened that law. In Shelby county v Holder, the court disabled the act’s provision that required states and localities with histories of racial discrimination in voting to “pre-clear” new voting regulations. The pre-clearance system had allowed federal authorities to vet proposed voting rules for racial discrimination before they could cause injury. From 1965 right up until the Shelby decision, this safeguard blocked many restrictions that would have made it more difficult for black and brown people to participate and vote.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act is in tatters. Let’s honor King’s legacy by saving it. | David Gans/The Washington Post

Editorials

Amid all the paeans to the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that will be published today, it’s vital to note that at this moment perhaps his most important legacy — his struggle to ensure the full realization of voting rights for all Americans — is under greater threat than at any time since his death. King, who would have turned 90 this year, was a tireless advocate for freedom, equality and democracy. He urged the nation to revitalize the amendments added to the Constitution after the Civil War — what he called the “full pledge of freedom” — to ensure equal citizenship for all. Even as a teenager, he spoke eloquently for the “13 million black sons and daughters of our forefathers” who “continue the fight for the translation of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments from writing on the printed page to an actuality.” At the center of King’s campaign for freedom was ending racial discrimination in voting. Over the course of his life, he demanded, time and again, “give us the ballot.” The right to vote was a core fundamental right: “To deny a person the right to exercise his political freedom at the polls is no less a dastardly act as to deny a Christian the right to petition God in prayer.”

Texas: Trump administration opposes a return to federal oversight for Texas redistricting, reversing Obama-era stance | The Texas Tribune

Texas

In the latest about-face on voting rights under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice no longer supports efforts to force Texas back under federal oversight of its electoral map drawing. In legal filings this week, the Justice Department indicated it would side against the voters of color, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers…

National: House Democrats seek voting rights fixes. Senate GOP says it’s already dead | McClatchy

National

House Democrats are launching an ambitious effort to repair the landmark voting rights law that was fractured by the Supreme Court in 2013, with leaders eying field hearings in North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Georgia and other states. They are under tremendous pressure from their supporters to deliver. Though Democrats now will run the House next year, the Republican-controlled Senate is not likely to consider any legislation addressing the Voting Rights Act that gets passed in the House. “States run elections. Let’s keep it that way,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, likely the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that would have jurisdiction over the matter. Fresh off their midterm election victories, however, Democrats want to show results — and fast. They are planning as their agenda-setting legislation for 2019, a bill they’ve branded as “HR 1.”

Editorials: It’s Time for a New Voting Rights Act | The New Republic

Editorials

In early 2011, when new census figures showed that Evergreen, Alabama, a small city midway between Montgomery and Mobile, had grown from 53 to 62 percent black over the previous ten years, the white majority on the city council took steps to maintain its political dominance. They redrew precinct lines, pushing almost all the city’s black voters into two city council districts. Then, election administrators used utility information to purge roughly 500 registered black voters from the rolls, all but ensuring that whites would maintain their majority on the council and keep control of Evergreen. That kind of voter suppression is exactly what the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to prevent. For 48 years, its “preclearance” provision barred election officials in states with histories of voter suppression from making changes to election procedures without permission from the federal government. It was far from a perfect system—even with preclearance in place, Evergreen officials were able to purge the rolls—but it did help hundreds of thousands of black Southerners vote. By 1972, black registration rates had reached 50 percent in all but a few Southern states. In 2013, however, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, striking down the provisions of the law that defined which states fell under preclearance.

Editorials: Fix Voting Rights Act, end suppression, upgrade equipment before 2020 | Sherrilyn Ifill/USA Today

Editorials

In many ways, Election Day 2018 was a good one for American democracy. Millions of people turned out to vote. An unprecedented number of women are headed to Congress, including the first Native American women and the first Muslim-American women to serve on Capitol Hill. In Florida, voters restored voting rights to more than a million people who had been disenfranchised for past felony convictions. In Michigan and Maryland, they approved same-day registration. In Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah, they said yes to fair legislative districts. But at the same time, the election provided evidence of what many activists and experts have been saying for years: the machinery of our democracy needs serious maintenance. Together, aging infrastructure and resurgent voter suppression have jeopardized equal voting rights in the United States, turning what should be a source of national pride into cause for alarm.

Editorials: A clarion call to restore protections of the Voting Rights Act | Los Angeles Times

Editorials

Five years after the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a new report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has confirmed predictions that the ruling would hobble enforcement of that landmark law. In addition to prohibiting racial discrimination in voting nationwide, the Voting Rights Act requires states and localities with a history of discrimination —most of them in the South —to “pre-clear” changes in their election procedures with the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court. In its 2013 decision in Shelby County vs. Holder, however, the court declared unconstitutional the formula Congress had established to determine which states would have to submit to pre-clearance, effectively shutting pre-clearance down.

National: Civil Rights Commission Calls for Action on Voting Rights Fix | Roll Call

National

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights urged Congress on Wednesday to update the landmark law that protects voter rights, finding in a new report that a 2013 Supreme Court decision helped lead to elections with voting measures in place that discriminate against minorities. But opposition from Republican lawmakers has stalled legislation to change the Voting Rights Act of 1965 since the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder that struck down a key enforcement mechanism in the law. Current efforts appear stuck for the same reason.

Texas: Supreme Court Upholds Texas Voting Maps That Were Called Discriminatory | The New York Times

Texas

The Supreme Court on Monday largely upheld an array of congressional and state legislative districts in Texas, reversing trial court rulings that said the districts violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against voters on the basis of race. The vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s more conservative members in the majority. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said the trial court had “committed a fundamental legal error” by requiring state officials to justify their use of voting maps that had been largely drawn by the trial court itself. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority opinion represented a dark day for voting rights. The Constitution and the Voting Rights Act “secure for all voters in our country, regardless of race, the right to equal participation in our political processes,” she wrote. “Those guarantees mean little, however, if courts do not remain vigilant in curbing states’ efforts to undermine the ability of minority voters to meaningfully exercise that right.”

Editorials: Minority voter suppression is a legitimate threat for midterms | Sarah Okeson/Salon

Editorials

With crucial midterm elections coming up later this year, Republicans continue to use a landmark Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to clamp down on voting rights and access. John M. Gore, appointed by President Donald Trump as acting head of the Civil Rights division of the U.S. Justice Department, has a history of defending Republican redistricting plans in Virginia, South Carolina, New York and Florida. One of Gore’s first moves in his new role was to drop part of a lawsuit challenging the Texas voter ID requirements that help keep minorities from voting. Such restrictions have become more common since the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. Thirty-four states now have voter ID laws.

National: Virginia, Alabama elections will test gutting of the Voting Rights Act | Business Insider

National

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill didn’t mince words when addressing opponents of his state’s voter ID law, which requires voters show a government-approved photo ID at the polls. “People are entitled to their own opinions. But they’re not entitled to their own facts,” Merrill told Business Insider. “Everybody in Alabama that wants a voter ID has one.” Voting rights activists, who have long dismissed voter ID laws as discriminatory tactics that disenfranchise minority voters, disagree. They say the time it takes people to travel to the office where they need to pick up their IDs and the added cost for the underlying documents required to get the ID in the first place are just too burdensome for many voters. This will discourage many people from voting, civil rights defenders say, in upcoming elections across the country, including the governor’s race in Virginia on Tuesday and the special election for the US Senate seat in Alabama on December 12. Voting rights activists say the landmark 2013 Shelby v. HolderSupreme Court decision — which struck down parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) and helped pave the way for Virginia’s voter ID law — is perhaps the most blameworthy culprit.

Massachusetts: Judge rejects city attempt to dismiss Lowell voting rights suit | Lowell Sun

Massachusetts

A federal judge on Tuesday shut down the city’s attempt to dismiss a voting rights lawsuit, which alleges that Lowell’s at-large election system has shut minority candidates out of local offices for decades and continues to do so. But even as U.S. District Court Judge William Young dismissed the city’s arguments that the case did not have enough merits to proceed toward trial, he expressed a concern with the plaintiffs’ case. Lawyers representing the 13 Asian American and Hispanic residents who brought the suit had argued that if some city councilors and School Committee members were elected by district, at least one district would be majority-minority and therefore increase the chances of a minority candidate gaining office.

Massachusetts: Lowell elections bias suit heading to court | Lowell Sun

Massachusetts

A federal judge will hear arguments Tuesday on the city’s request that he dismiss a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that Lowell’s election system discriminates against minorities. The 13 plaintiffs in the case argue that system, whereby all nine city councilors and six School Committee members are elected at-large, ensures that Lowell’s majority-white population can effectively block minority candidates from gaining office. Only four non-white residents have been elected to the City Council, and none have been elected to the School Committee. Virtually all other cities in Massachusetts have switched to some form of district-based representation. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in May. In September, the city moved to have the case dismissed.

Massachusetts: Minority Residents, Massachusetts City Head to Federal Court | VoA News

Massachusetts

In May, 13 Asian and Hispanic residents of Lowell, Massachusetts, filed a voting rights lawsuit against the city government, alleging the at-large electoral system, in which the winner takes all, dilutes the minority vote and discriminates against the candidates from community of color running for office. The plaintiffs asked the federal court to rule that the city’s electoral system “violates Section 2 the Voting Rights Act” and for “the adoption of at least one district-based seat.” Since 1999, only four Asian and Hispanic candidates have been elected to the Lowell City Council, which is currently all white. The first hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Tuesday before the U.S. District Court in Boston. Lowell’s City Council filed a motion to dismiss in its first response to the residents’ lawsuit on Sept. 15.

Texas: Pasadena to remain under federal oversight of election laws | The Texas Tribune

Texas

In a crucial victory for Hispanic voters in the Houston suburb of Pasadena, the city will remain under federal oversight for any changes to its voting laws until 2023 — the only setup of its kind in Texas. The Pasadena City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved Mayor Jeff Wagner’s proposal to settle a voting rights lawsuit over how it redrew its council districts in 2013, agreeing to pay out about $1 million in legal fees. Approval of that settlement will also dissolve the city’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that Pasadena ran afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act and intentionally discriminated against Hispanic voters in reconfiguring how council members are elected. The local voting rights squabble had caught the attention of voting rights advocates and legal observers nationwide as some looked to it as a possible test case of whether the Voting Rights Act still serves as a safeguard for voters of color.

Texas: Pasadena to pay $1 million to settle voting rights lawsuit | Houston Chronicle

Texas

Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner on Friday asked the City Council to settle a voting rights lawsuit that led to national portrayals of the Houston suburb as an example of efforts to suppress Latino voting rights. The proposed settlement with Latino residents who sued the city in 2014 over a new City Council district system calls for the city to pay $900,000 for the plaintiffs’ legal fees and $197,341 for court costs. The item will be on Tuesday’s City Council agenda. “While I strongly believe that the city did not violate the Voting Rights Act or adopt a discriminatory election system,” Wagner said in a statement, “I think it’s in the best interest of the city to get this suit behind us.”

Alabama: Lawsuit challenging racial makeup of Alabama courts moves forward | AL.com

Alabama

Despite accounting for more than one-quarter of the state’s population, African-Americans rarely get elected to the state’s highest courts – a situation advocacy groups want to change by ending statewide judicial elections. Their argument got a boost this week after a federal judge rejected motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought last fall by the NAACP of Alabama and The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The organizations filed suit against the state of Alabama and Secretary of State John Merrill. The lawsuit alleges that the practice of holding statewide elections for Alabama’s 19 appellate judges disenfranchises black voters. Instead, civil rights groups propose creating districts for elections, increasing the odds for black candidates in majority-black districts.

Editorials: The Civil Rights Division has a proud legacy. Eric Dreiband is unfit to lead it | Mary Frances Berry/The Guardian

Editorials

Over half a century ago, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 in what was a watershed moment for the US. In spite of intense opposition, including Strom Thurmond carrying out the longest spoken filibuster in the history of our country, Congress enacted the first significant African American civil rights measure since the Reconstruction era. The legislation established the US Commission on Civil Rights, on which I was honoured to serve for five presidential administrations, and it created a specific division within the Department of Justice dedicated solely to protecting civil rights. Sixty years later, we are witnessing a painful unravelling of a civil rights legacy that many people devoted their careers to – or even gave their lives for.

Editorials: The Texas Legislature’s persistent discrimination | Ross Ramsey/The Texas Tribune

Editorials

If somebody you know got stopped seven or eight times for driving drunk, would you think they had a problem? Texas lawmakers have now been popped by federal judges seven or eight times in recent years for intentionally discriminating against minority voters in with voter ID and redistricting legislation. Think they’ve got a problem? The federal government has a program for repeat offenders like Texas; it’s called “preclearance,” and it forces states with histories of official racial discrimination to get their new election and voting rights laws checked by the feds — either the Justice Department or the courts — before those laws can go into effect.

Editorials: It’s Time to Restore and Strengthen the Voting Rights Act by Tamara Power-Drutis | Tamara Power-Drutis/Yes Magazine

Editorials

If judging only by the 99 new laws proposed in 2017 to restrict registration and voting access, one might assume that voter fraud is a widespread issue. Yet according to a study in May by the Brennan Center for Justice, of the 23.5 million votes cast in the 2016 general election, only an estimated 30 incidents across 42 jurisdictions were referred to by election officials as suspected noncitizen voting. In a one-year period, America has had more proposed laws prohibiting voting than cases of actual voter fraud incidents. So what makes a statistically nonexistent issue warrant the current level of scrutiny or legislative action? If the proposed cures appear worse than the problem they’re designed to solve, that’s because the problem isn’t voter fraud, but the growing number of women, people of color, young, and low-income voters filling out ballots.

Editorials: Will Move to Purge Ohio Voting Rolls Kickstart Congressional Action? | Mary C. Curtis/Roll Call

Editorials

Fifty-two years ago this week, John Lewis of Georgia was a young activist, not the Democratic congressman he is today. Yet he got a warmer welcome from the then-president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, than from today’s occupant of the White House. On the Twitter feed of the longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, you can see a picture celebrating that time a few decades ago, when, with Democratic and Republican support, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed and then signed. Lewis was one of those who suffered arrests and shed blood to make it so. You might think that at 77 years of age, he has earned the right to relax just a little. But instead of celebrating progress made, he has to ignore occasional insults from President Donald Trump and some of his congressional colleagues, while refighting a version of that same fight for voting rights.

Utah: San Juan County election maps must be redrawn again, U.S. judge rules | Associated Press

Utah

The boundaries of election districts in a southeastern Utah county are unconstitutional and violate the rights of American Indians who make up roughly half the county’s population, a federal judge has ruled for the second time. San Juan County, a roughly 7,800-square-mile county that touches Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, was ordered last year to redraw its county commission and school board election districts after U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled that they were unconstitutional. Last week, Shelby ruled that the county’s new maps are still unconstitutional and primarily drawn on race.

Editorials: Congress should reauthorize modern Voting Rights Act | Sensenbrenner/Milwaukee Jounral-Sentinel

Editorials

I vividly remember a road trip I took as a young man with my father to the Deep South. When we stopped at gas stations, I watched out the window of our vehicle as black attendants pumped gas while white station owners collected the money. I saw first-hand the separation of water fountains and restroom facilities and wondered how communities could allow this practice to continue. Later, as a representative in the Wisconsin Legislature, I again saw racial injustice up close. While attending events and spending time in parts of Milwaukee’s majority black neighborhoods, I listened to constituents as they described unnecessary obstructions that prohibited them from voting. Their personal stories were the inspiration behind my work to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. Ensuring that every eligible American voter has the ability to cast his or her ballot without intimidation, preclusion and prejudice is a constitutional right. Since my earliest days in Congress, I have fought to protect it.

National: Voting Rights Battle Just Getting Underway | Roll Call

National

Even before the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity raised alarms with its sweeping requests for state voter data, House Democrats rolled out legislation they hope will ensure the voting process is fair. One measure, introduced at a news conference on Capitol Hill on June 22, would restore voter protections across 13 mostly Southern states. Sponsored by Alabama’s Terri A. Sewell and Georgia’s John Lewis, a civil rights icon, the measure is a response to the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision. That ruling struck down provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required those states to seek federal approval before changing voter laws and also set a formula for determining which states would be subject to the law.  …Another measure, introduced by Virginia Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., aims to end gerrymandering of House districts by using ranked-choice voting — where voters get to rank candidates rather than just pick one — and creating districts where more than one member represents a diverse group of constituents.

Virginia: Yo Voté: Communities Scramble to Translate Ballots | Stateline

Virginia

In this community center turned polling place, Juan Sanchis stands near an electronic ballot reader with a smile on his face, waiting. Many of the voters filing into the Willston Community Center, in a diverse pocket of Fairfax County, don’t speak English very well. When it seems like the voters don’t understand, Sanchis switches over to Korean or Spanish, or gets a worker who speaks Vietnamese. Around him on the tables and walls, pamphlets and signs are translated into all three of those languages. “If they need help understanding, that’s what I try to do,” Sanchis said earlier this month, as Virginia primary voters went to the polls to choose candidates for a variety of state and local offices. As the country grows more diverse, more local governments like Fairfax County, a Washington, D.C., suburb, are falling under a federal election law that requires them to provide language assistance — including translators and translated election materials — to certain minority groups that are heavily represented in their communities. Dozens of communities were added to the list for the first time in December, sending local officials in those communities scrambling.

Editorials: It’s time to restore full power to the Voting Rights Act | Leah Aden/The Hill

Editorials

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a devastating ruling that immobilized a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that was one of the most effective tools for protecting voters and strengthening our political process. As a result, far too many state and local jurisdictions have unabashedly considered and passed racially discriminatory voting laws; wasted millions of dollars defending them; and cost millions of disproportionately black and Latino Americans their most basic right in our democracy: The right to vote.

National: House Democrats Move to Restore Key Provisions of the Voting Rights Act | US News & World Report

National

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D.-Ga., and Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell Thursday introduced a bill that would restore voting rights protections struck down a year ago by the Supreme Court in an effort to block some states’ efforts to impose tough new voter registration laws. Nearly all of the 193 House Democrats have signed on to the legislation; the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Asian Pacific American Caucus also endorsed the bill. Sewell said no Republicans were willing to support the measure. The Voting Rights Advancement Act is a response to last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder; the court struck down two key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which put 13 states under strict rules not to change their voter laws without federal approval and set a formula for determining which states would be subject to the law.

Texas: House, Senate OK compromise on bill to soften voter ID law | The Texas Tribune

Texas

The Texas House and Senate have approved a deal to relax the state’s voter identification requirements, meaning the closely watched legislation now only awaits Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval. The Republican is expected to sign Senate Bill 5, capping a flurry of late activity that pushed the legislation to the finish line after some state leaders feared its demise — and legal consequences from inaction. The House approved the compromise bill Sunday in a 92-56 vote — one day after the Senate backed the deal along party lines.Sen. Joan Huffman’s bill, which would soften voter ID requirements once considered strictest in the nation, responds to court findings that the current law discriminated against black and Latino voters.