Pennsylvania: Voter ID Law Goes to Court | The Nation

Tomorrow the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania will hear a challenge to the state’s new voter ID law from the ACLU and other voting rights groups. The lead plaintiff is Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old great-great grandmother who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Applewhite worked as a hotel housekeeper and never had a driver’s license. Four years ago, her purse was stolen and she lost her Social Security card. Because she was adopted and married twice, she cannot obtain the documents needed to comply with the state’s voter ID law. After voting in every election for the past fifty years, she will lose the right to vote this November. The ACLU will argue that Pennsylvania’s voter ID law needlessly disenfranchises voters like Applewhite and violates Article I, Section 5, of the state constitution, which states: “Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” As in Wisconsin, where two federal judges have blocked that state’s voter ID law, the Pennsylvania Constitution affords strong protections to the right to vote. (The Justice Department is also investigating whether the law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.)

Pennsylvania: Justice Department investigating voter ID law | Politico.com

The Justice Department is investigating Pennsylvania’s new voter identification law, a letter sent to the state government Monday indicates. The letter from Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez seeks a variety of records related to the implementation of the voter ID, which was passed in March and is set to take effect before the November election. Among the items Perez is requesting are databases of Pennsylvania voters and holders of drivers’ licenses and similar state IDs. It’s not clear precisely what triggered the letter but it refers to an estimate Secretary of State Carol Aichele issued earlier this month indicating that 9.2 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters don’t have a state-issued photo ID. However, a state-issued ID is not the only form of acceptable voting ID, which includes passports, military ID and some student IDs.

Pennsylvania: Justice Department opens probe of voter-ID law | Philadelphia Inquirer

The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation of Pennsylvania’s new voter-ID law, asking the Corbett administration to document its repeated claims that 99 percent of the state’s voters have the photo identification they will need to vote in November. In a letter delivered Monday to Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele, the Justice Department sought a series of databases and other records that have raised questions about the number of registered voters with proper ID, and left county election boards and the public bewildered about the impact of the new voting requirements. The Justice Department said it needed the information “so that we may properly evaluate Pennsylvania’s compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting-rights laws.” That section of federal law prohibits laws or practices that discriminate against any citizen because of race, color, or language.

National: Voting Rights Act Section 5 challenges reach Supreme Court | SCOTUSblog

Attorneys for challengers to the constitutionality of the 1965 voting rights law’s key provision for federal regulation of state and local election laws urged the Supreme Court on Friday to settle the issue in the next Term, starting October 1.  One new case arrived from the town of Kinston in North Carolina and a second came from Shelby County in Alabama.  The D.C. Circuit Court has upheld the provision at issue — Section 5 — although the Supreme Court itself three years ago raised significant questions about its validity. The Kinston case reached the Court this morning.  The petition is here, and the appendix (a large file) is here.  The Shelby County case was filed in early afternoon; the petition ishere, and the D.C. Circuit Court ruling in that case is here.   Not only has the time come to examine the constitutional questions the Court has raised, the Kinston petition argued, but the Justice Department’s “overzealous manner” of enforcement of Section 5 has put heavy new burdens on state and local governments covered by that provision.   The Shelby County petition argued that the renewed law puts states into “federal receivership,” raising “fundamental questions of state sovereignty,” while denying equality only to designated states – predominantly in the South.  Shelby County also assailed the Justice Department’s “needlessly aggressive exercise” of its veto powers over state and local election laws.

National: Voting Rights Act petitions reach Supreme Court | chicagotribune.com

Two legal challenges to the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law adopted in 1965 that barred racial discrimination in voting practices, reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday. The appeals target a part of the law, known as pre-clearance, that says that states with a history of discrimination must get permission from the federal government before changing election procedures. The first challenge was filed by supporters of a 2008 Kinston, North Carolina, measure that would omit candidates’ party affiliations from ballots.

Alabama: Shelby County files Voting Rights Act appeal with U.S. Supreme Court | al.com

Shelby County took its challenge of the Voting Rights Act to the U.S. Supreme Court today, asking the justices to declare part of the 1965 law an unfair burden on states such as Alabama where the federal government still oversees elections for evidence of racial discrimination. Shelby County is appealing two lower court decisions that upheld the constitutionality of the landmark civil rights-era law. If the Supreme Court justices agree to accept the case, they’ll schedule it for oral arguments sometime after they return in October, and it would be one of the highest-profile cases of the court’s 2012-13 term.

Florida: Voter purge fight isn’t over | The Washington Post

The federal government is letting Florida use a Department of Homeland Security database of noncitizens to help purge voters from the state’s rolls. But voting rights activists say the fight over Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial purge is far from over. Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) listens during the 2011 Governors Summit of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on June 20 in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)The agreement, a victory for Republicans, comes after months of back-and-forth between Scott’s administration and the federal government over access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, which is designed to determine eligibility for benefits — not voting. Republican administrations across the country are cracking down on potential voter fraud, mostly through more restrictive voter ID laws. The Department of Justice has been fighting many of these efforts, with the support of Democrats who argue that the real goal is to disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Florida is being closely watched by both sides because the attempt to proactively remove ineligible voters from the rolls goes a step beyond other states’ efforts.

Texas: Officials sort out how to handle Harris County Department of Education district line election mix-up | abc13.com

Hundreds of Harris County voters who went to the polls in May not have had their voices heard during the primary election, all because of a big mix-up. An emergency meeting was held discussing the problem and how to move forward. There was a lot of finger pointing during the meeting over the election screw-up. Now the Department of Education and the County Attorney’s offices are trying to figure out how to fix it. “It’s the Harris County Department of Education’s responsibility to send the right lines up,” said Jared Woodfill, Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. “They didn’t. It didn’t get caught. So a mistake was made.” Gerry Birnberg, the former chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, said, “I hate to use this term, but incompetence by the Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office means that the elections which have taken place are invalid.”

Texas: Harris County school election in limbo after districting error | Houston Chronicle

Harris County officials are scrambling to resolve a mistake involving the May primary election for trustees of the Harris County Department of Education, less than a week before early voting begins for a runoff election. The county relied on outdated district boundaries when it distributed ballots for the school trustee primary elections in May, which means some voters could have cast ballots in the wrong district and others who should have had a chance to vote were excluded. The mistake only affected the school trustee elections, said Doug Ray, an assistant Harris County attorney. John Sawyer, the appointed superintendent of the department, said he expects that a judge ultimately will void the elections. He said his agency, which provides educational services to local school districts, would contest the election if no one else does. “I will tell you that ultimately we would contest them because I don’t think they (the boundaries) were legally drawn, and I’m not going to be responsible for swearing in candidates that may not be elected legally,” Sawyer said. “I just can’t do that.”

Editorials: Political scientist makes case against Texas voter ID law | The Statesman

The process of electing representatives in the U.S. has always been a contentious one. At its core there are political parties and candidates vying for power. However, the politics of setting election procedures and policy is perhaps even more contentious than the elections themselves. The debate about the integrity of the election process and how to balance it against the basic democratic principle of expanding voter participation is not new; the Founders deliberated over the same concerns we discuss today. The question is, what trade-offs do we consent to in order to protect the integrity of the election process while expanding suffrage? The basis for integrity is honesty and fairness. If we believe that our election processes are fair and honest, we can trust their results. However, if we perceive these processes to be fraught with fraudulent practices or participants we conclude that the results are wrong and an affront to our democratic ideals. Some pundits and elected officials have focused on voter fraud as a real threat, pointing out that thousands of Americans have lost faith in the election process as a result. In this context, voter fraud usually refers to registering voters who are ineligible such as noncitizens, voting “from the grave,” or one person voting multiple times or in multiple jurisdictions (sometimes through absentee ballots).

National: Texas Voter ID trial: closing arguments | Dallas Morning News

A 3-judge panel will now decide whether to let Texas implement its controversial voter ID law. In closing arguments at federal court, a lawyer for the state, John Hughes, insisted that even if non-white Texans lack an acceptable photo ID under the law, the “ultimate question” for the judges to consider is whether that disparity translates into people being turned away from the polls. The requirement enacted by the Legislature in May 2011, Hughes argued, “deters almost no one,” and even people eligible to vote in Texas who lack one of the acceptable forms of photo ID – a drivers license, concealed gun permit, passport, or citizenship card – should be able to easily obtain an alternative voter ID card provided for by the law. “People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily obtain it,” he insisted repeatedly. He noted that the Justice Department – which refused to let the state implement the law, prompting the state to turn to the federal courts – claims that 1.5 million Texas voters lack an acceptable photo ID. “If that were remotely true, the courtroom would be filled with such people,” he said, citing survey evidence that black and Hispanic Texas voters say they have ID in rough proportion to whites. The judges seemed deeply skeptical. “The record does tell us that there is a substantial number of registered voters that lack photo ID,” said U.S. Circuit Court Judge David Tatel. And District Court Judge Robert Wilkins noted that there was uncontested evidence that some Texans would have to travel 120 miles one way to the nearest state office where they could obtain a voter ID card – and that federal court rules bar subpoenas for anyone more than 100 miles from a courthouse on grounds that would be “unduly burdensome.”

Voting Blogs: Judges Seem Ready To Mess With Texas’ Voter ID Law | TPM

A panel of three federal judges in D.C. posed skeptical questions on Friday about Texas’ voter ID law during closing arguments in a trial about whether the measure is discriminatory. The panel of federal judges — George W. Bush appointee Rosemary M. Collyer, Clinton appointee David S. Tatel and Obama appointee Robert L. Wilkins — hopes to issue a ruling on the case in “quick order,” according to Collyer, who expressed doubts about the findings of Texas’ experts in the case. John Hughes, a lawyer for Texas, argued in his closing arguments that people who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it. Hughes argued that if the state’s voter ID law really disenfranchised anyone the D.C. “courtroom would be filled” with Texans who couldn’t obtain voter ID. In one of the more awkward exchanges, Hughes offered a semi-defense of literacy tests after one judge said that the reason literacy tests were racist years ago was because of inequalities in the education system. The judge asked if it was Texas’ theory that there would be a problem with literacy tests today. Setting aside other laws banning literacy tests and poll taxes, Hughes said he did not believe a literacy test would violate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Editorials: Voter IDs on Trial in Texas | NYTimes.com

Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, the chairman of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus in the Texas House of Representatives, flew to Washington this week to persuade a panel of federal judges to invalidate a requirement that voters must have an ID card. His trip was less arduous than the one some residents would have to endure to get a government-issued photo ID. “In West Texas, some people would have a 200-mile round-trip drive” to the nearest state office to get a card, he testified, according to The Dallas Morning News. More than a quarter of the state’s counties don’t even have an office to get a driver’s license or voter card. Lines at the San Antonio motor vehicles offices are often more than two hours long, he said. Texas is one of 10 Republican-controlled states that have imposed a government ID requirement to vote, purportedly to reduce fraud but actually to dissuade poor and minority voters who tend to vote Democratic. (Seven other states have passed slightly less-restrictive rules.) In most cases the federal government can do little to resist this incursion on voting rights, because the Supreme Court upheld ID requirements in 2008. But Texas is different. It is covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allows the Justice Department to disapprove of any change in voting procedures in areas with a history of discrimination.

Texas: Texas Voter ID Law Met with Skepticism At Trial | WSJ

A panel of federal judges on Friday peppered lawyers for Texas with skeptical questions about the state’s new voter identification requirement and whether it runs afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws. At the end of a week-long trial in Washington, D.C.’s District Court, the three judges questioned whether requiring voters to present government issued photo identification – such as a driver’s license or passport – was too onerous, and may disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters. “People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get one,’’ said John Hughes, one of the lawyers representing Texas. Among election lawyers, the case is seen as an early legal test for a number of voter ID laws recently passed or under consideration by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Texas passed its law in 2011, saying it would help prevent voter fraud. In March the Justice Department moved to block it, saying it discriminated against minorities by making it more difficult for them to vote. The Obama administration has also moved to block a voter ID law in South Carolina, a case that will be heard next month.

Editorials: Texas’s Road To Victory in Its Decades-Long Fight Against Voting Rights | The Nation

Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder declared in his address to the NAACP national convention in Houston what many voting rights advocates had been saying for months: that the photo voter ID law passed in Texas is a poll tax. Determining whether voter ID laws are as unconstitutional as poll taxes won’t be up to him, though. That honor goes to the US Supreme Court justices who lately have been signaling they may be ready to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act. What this means is that a legal challenge to a voter ID law in Texas could be the trigger for the demise of the constitutional act that made it possible for people of color to vote in much of the country. Right-wing pundits have all but conceded this week’s US District Court hearing over Texas’s voter ID law to the Department of Justice. There’s agreement on the left and the right that Texas didn’t do a good enough job proving that the law has no discriminatory purpose nor effect. Experts have testified that almost 1.4 million Texans could be disenfranchised due to lacking ID. The state’s argument wasn’t helped by Texas state Senator Tommy Williams, an author of the voter ID law, who said, “I think people who live in west Texas are accustomed to driving long distances for routine tasks,” when confronted with the fact that the closest DMV for some low-income Texans could be dozens of miles away.

Editorials: Election confusion looms in Florida | Tampa Bay Times

Most Florida voters don’t know it, but come the Aug. 14 primary election, the majority of them won’t have the same opportunities to cast a ballot as Floridians in five counties because the state is enforcing two different sets of rules. That’s the basis of the latest lawsuit seeking to halt Gov. Rick Scott’s assault on voting rights. And it shows how determined the governor is to ignore law and precedent in order to manipulate the election process. On June 29, the American Civil liberties Union of Florida, the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization, and state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, filed an administrative petition challenging the state’s policy that has created an illegal, dual system of elections. Five Florida counties (Hendry, Hardee, Collier, Monroe and Hillsborough) operate under rules that were the law before 2011. These counties are “covered jurisdictions” under the Voting Rights Act. Consequently, any change in voting law or procedure must be approved (“precleared”) by the U.S. Justice Department or the federal court in Washington before it can be implemented. The remaining 62 Florida counties are operating under rules approved by the 2011 Legislature and immediately implemented by the Scott administration.

Texas: Witness backs voter ID discrimination claims | San Antonio Express-News

Four days of testimony ended Thursday in a federal trial on the legality of a new Texas voter ID law that was rejected by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act. The case is being watched closely by other states that have recently passed restrictive voter laws. “It’s over. The trial has ended. It’s a tough set of issues, it’s a tough case,” said U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, one of three federal judges hearing the case. Closing arguments are scheduled today, and a decision by the judges on the lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott could come this month. At issue is a voter ID law that the government and experts have said will disproportionately affect more than 1 million minorities in Texas. Attorneys for the state reject the claim and argue that the law is designed to combat voter fraud.

Texas: Judges Will Rule on Voter ID | Roll Call

The war over this election’s voting rules is heating up, drawing crowds this week to a closely watched federal court trial in Washington, D.C., where a three-judge panel is hearing arguments for and against a contested Texas voter ID law. “This is certainly something that is going to have broad reverberations beyond Texas,” said Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. The center is on the legal team representing Latino and civil rights leaders who have intervened in the case. Immediately at issue is whether the Texas law discriminates against minority voters by requiring a photo ID at the polls. But the case could reverberate all the way up to the Supreme Court. Texas has also challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires states with a history of discrimination to obtain Justice Department approval before changing their voting rules.

Texas: Fewer blacks will vote under Texas voter ID law, witness says | Chicago Tribune

A Texas law requiring voters to show photo identification will lead to fewer African Americans voting, a community leader testified during the third day of a landmark trial on Wednesday. Rev. Peter Johnson, a Southern civil rights leader who has worked for decades to help black Americans access polls, said the voter ID law passed in 2011 reflects a state still rife with racism. “The brutality and ugliness of racism exists from the governor’s office down to the mainstream of Texas,” Johnson, who lives in Texas, told the court. “It’s dishonest and naive to deny this.” A three-judge panel on the District Court for the District of Columbia will not allow the law to take effect if it finds the state hoped the law would harm minority voters.

Alabama: Conflict arises over how to treat Mobile County voters whose addresses don’t match registration | al.com

Some 20,000 registered voters in Mobile County do not live where they signed up to vote, and Probate Judge Don Davis’ efforts to deal with that in the primary election this year has drawn complaints from critics. Davis points to three different state statutes indicating that it is illegal for voters to cast ballots in a precinct where they do not live. The Mobile County Board of Registrars, backed by an administrative rule issued by the state Secretary of State’s Office in 1994, contends that people should be allowed to vote in whichever precinct they are registered. Davis said that he is waiting for a response to a request he made in April for an attorney general’s opinion, which carries the force of law absent a court order. He said he wants to make sure to get it right. “We pride ourselves on having proper, correct elections in Mobile County,” he said.

National: Texas case puts voter ID laws to test | The Washington Post

Voter ID laws face a high-profile test this week as the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC hears arguments about Texas’ controversial new regulations. The case pits Texas against Attorney General Eric Holder, who has earned the ire of Republicans across the country for challenging new voting restrictions. Republicans say the Justice Department should be more concerned about fraud; the DOJ counters that these laws suppress minority turnout. Gov. Rick Perry (R) signed Texas’ voter ID law in May 2011. The state already required an ID to vote; the new law requires a photo ID. Those who don’t have a valid photo ID can apply for a new “election identification certificate.” As a state with a history of voter discrimination, Texas must get preclearance from the Department of Justice for changes in election law. The DOJ blocked Texas’ law under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, declaring that it would disproportionately affect Hispanic voters.

Texas: Voter ID Case Begins, Stirs Debate | Fox News

Texas and the Justice Department began their federal court fight on Monday in a trial over Texas’ new voter ID law, which requires all voters to show a government-issued photo ID in order to vote. Back in March, the Justice Department blocked the law on the grounds that they felt it might discriminate against minority voters. As a result, Texas fired back with a lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder. At issue is a 2011 law passed by Texas’ GOP-dominated Legislature that requires voters to show photo identification when they head to the polls. The state argued Monday that the law represents the will of the people and does not run afoul of the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965 to ensure minorities’ right to vote. The opening statements from both sides of the argument have set the stage for a legal battle over the federal Voting Rights Act.

National: Texas to test 1965 voting rights law in U.S. court | Reuters

The Voting Rights Act – a cherished safeguard for minority voters since 1965 – has been under siege for two years and this week faces one of its toughest test on an apparent path to the U.S. Supreme Court. Twenty-five hours of argument, starting on Monday and spread over five days, will help the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decide whether Texas can require voters to present a photo identification at the polls. Formulated at a time of racial turmoil, the Voting Rights Act passed 77-19 in the U.S. Senate and 333-85 in the House of Representatives. The votes transcended party lines to protect black voters of all political ideals. Ever since, it has served as the U.S. government’s chief check on the fairness of election rules imposed by local governments. While it passed with bipartisan support more than 45 years ago, a shift in political preferences along racial lines has turned the landmark piece of civil rights era legislation into a highly charged political issue. In the 1960s, Democrats held a monopoly of voters in the Southern states. But since then, most white Southern voters have shifted allegiances to the Republican Party, while black and Hispanic voters moved further toward the left.

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.”

National: US Supreme Court expected to hear Shelby County’s challenge to the Voting Rights Act | al.com

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its term with a flurry of decisions in cases with strong Alabama connections, and there are signs that trend will continue this fall as Shelby County prepares to send the justices its challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the next few weeks. The Shelby County case has been a contender for Supreme Court review ever since it was filed two years ago, and the likelihood has increased as other similar voting cases have slowed down and Shelby County’s has speeded up. It’s had two hearings in federal court and two decisions, both of which upheld the constitutionality of key sections of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court is the next and last stop for the county, which is trying to dismantle the 47-year-old law that puts elections in all or part of 16 states under strict federal supervision. “We are proceeding with our plan to file a petition with the Supreme Court,” said Shelby County’s attorney, Frank “Butch” Ellis of Columbiana.

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.”

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.

New Hampshire: Photo ID still has federal hurdle | NEWS0604

Lawmakers and others were celebrating the override of Gov. John Lynch’s veto of the photo identification bill, but the celebration may have come a little too early. The pending law must be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice because any significant changes in state election laws — and requiring photo identification is a significant change — have to be reviewed. New Hampshire — the only Northern state affected — and 15 other states are subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which seeks to eliminate discriminatory voting practices that bar or hinder voting by minorities. New Hampshire was snagged in the 1968 presidential election when 10 towns were identified with less than 50 percent of adults voting in the a presidential election, a violation of the act.

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.”