South Carolina: Voter ID gets judges’ scrutiny | The Associated Press

Recognizing this year’s elections are just a few weeks away, a panel of three federal judges questioned on Monday whether South Carolina should wait until 2014 to put its voter identification law into effect. The judges raised the question as an attorney for South Carolina delivered closing arguments in the trial over whether the state’s law discriminates against minorities. Last December, the Justice Department refused to “preclear” — find it complies with the Voting Rights Act — the law so it could go into effect. A decision in the case is expected in early October.

Editorials: Voting Wrongs | Elizabeth Drew/New York Review of Books

The Republicans’ plan is that if they can’t buy the 2012 election they will steal it. The plan, long in the making and now well into its execution, is to raise great gobs of money—in newly limitless amounts—so that they and their allies could outspend the president’s forces; and they would also place obstacles in the way of large swaths of citizens who traditionally support the Democrats and want to exercise their right to vote. The plan would disproportionately affect blacks, who were guaranteed the right to vote in 1870 by the Fifteenth Amendment; but then that right was negated by southern state legislatures; and after people marched, were beaten, and died in the civil rights movement, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Now various state legislatures are coming up with new ways to try once again to nullify that right. In a close election, the Republican plan could call into question the legitimacy of the next president. An election conducted on this basis could lead to turbulence on election day and possibly an extended period of lawsuits contesting the outcome in various states. Bush v. Gore would seem to have been a pleasant summer afternoon. The fact that their party’s nominee is currently stumbling about, his candidacy widely deemed to be in crisis mode, hasn’t lessened their determination to prevent as many Democratic supporters as they can from voting in November.

Michigan: Court Challenge Filed Over Ballot Citizenship Checkbox | Huffington Post

A voting rights coalition is taking Michigan’s Secretary of State to court over a controversial citizenship checkboxthat appeared on primary ballots across the state this past August. The group filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Ruth Johnson Monday in federal court. The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, UAW International, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development (LA SED), Ingham County Clerk Michael Bryanton, and registered voters from East Lansing, Shelby Township, and Buena Vista Township. “The Secretary of State may be the chief election officer in the state, but she is not above the law,” Kary L. Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, said in a release. “By ignoring the administrative rule-making and legislative processes, she has thumbed her nose at the electorate and flouted the very laws she was elected to uphold. We can all agree that it should be easier to vote and harder to cheat, but cynical voter suppression tactics should not be tolerated.”

Ohio: Secretary Of State Talks About Need To ‘Streamline’ Voter ID Requirements | Huffington Post

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who has been fighting a lawsuit from the Obama campaign trying to restore early voting, said voter identification requirements needed to be streamlined, and that the General Assembly would take up a “more strict” version of Ohio’s voter ID requirements. “I was listening to a show one night where they talked about these onerous rules, these onerous photo ID rules and the onerous rules in Ohio on photo ID,” he said at a Tea Party event in Cincinnati, according to audio circulated by the Ohio Democratic Party. “Well, the photo ID law in Ohio is not onerous. As a matter of fact, I suspect the General Assembly will take up a more strict version of what we have after what we’ve been through with this election process.”

Michigan: Rights groups sue over citizenship checkboxes for voters | Detroit Free Press

A federal judge will likely decide whether Michigan voters will have to check off whether they are U.S. citizens when they go to the polls in November. A coalition of voting rights groups filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Detroit challenging Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s decision to require U.S. citizenship checkboxes on applications to vote, saying the boxes are unconstitutional and violate federal and state law. Mary Ellen Gurewitz, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the group will head to court within a day or two to request a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. “This is a matter that has to be addressed quickly because the forms are being ordered and printed and money is being spent,” she said.

National: Voting Rights for Blacks in ’65 Law Face Court Challenge | Bloomberg

In 2008 the majority-black town of Kinston, North Carolina, voted almost 2-to-1 to make its local elections nonpartisan. Nine months later, as the measure was set to kick in, the U.S. Justice Department blocked it.
The department’s reason: The plan would reduce the power of black voters. The dispute in the town of 22,000 spawned a lawsuit that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court as a potential test case for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The landmark law was enacted to combat the discrimination that had kept blacks away from Southern polling booths for generations and has been used in this year’s elections to challenge Republican-backed voter- identification laws. The suit takes aim at one of the 1965 law’s core provisions: the power it gives the federal government to block changes in local election rules, like the one in Kinston, in 16 states.

Texas: Voter ID, district maps battles continue | Amarillo Globe-News

Despite two recent setbacks for the state of Texas in separate federal court rulings, the hard-fought voting battles continue. But, at least for now, those prolonged fights have nothing to do with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s decision to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse both lower court rulings. For some of you who missed it, in late August two judicial panels in Washington ruled the state’s redistricting maps and the voter ID law — both approved by the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature last year — are unconstitutional because they violate the federal Voting Rights Act. The 1965 landmark legislation protects the voting rights of racial minorities.

Editorials: Think Voter ID is Bad? Meet the Poll-Watchers | Care2 Causes

The Republican fight against voter rights has garnered the lions share of press attention, but as The Nation reports, the fight for voting rights extends well beyond the fight over Voter ID and includes the fight over who gets to raise the question over who is eligible to vote. In at least twenty-four states any random person is authorized, if they feel so inclined, to question individual voters and ask them to “prove” their eligibility to vote. As restrictive and complicated Voter ID laws have passed state-by-state, conservative groups have realized there’s good leveraging in voter registration challenges and poll watcher trainings.Tea Party loyalists have created True the Vote, an advocacy group which pushes Voter ID laws and training “patriots” to protect the polls. But as a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice, “Voter Challengers” spells out, these groups rely on American’s historical amnesia when it comes to race in order to promote their activities. Poll-watching can’t be divorced from its racially motivated roots, and groups like True the Vote understand that, even if they won’t acknowledge it.

National: Backlash Swells Against Voter Laws | The Daily Beast

Another symbol of just how quickly the political calculus can change ahead of Election Day: crucial swing states Ohio and Florida, along with Texas, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, have won significant—albeit possibly temporary—victories against restrictive voting laws over a span of mere weeks. Voting laws, including the requirement that people carry photo IDs to the ballot box, have became a major source of controversy as the presidential race remains close less than two months ahead of the election.  “The tide has clearly turned,” says Diana Kasdan, counsel for the Democracy Program of Brennan Center, a public policy institute affiliated with New York University. “The results are coming in, court after court is rejecting these restrictive laws.” The next crucial decision will come out of Pennsylvania. The state’s law requiring all voters to show identification is currently being debated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; a decision is forthcoming.

Editorials: Pennsylvania’s Bad Election Law | NYTimes.com

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments about the state’s strict new photo ID law, which is allegedly intended to prevent voter fraud. A voter must present a government-issued or other approved photo ID at a polling place to vote or can file a provisional ballot, which must be validated later by a submission of a photo ID or proof that the voter is indigent. The state has offered no evidence of voter identity fraud to justify this law. There is no legitimate government interest that justifies the burden the law imposes on voters. If the court does not block the law, it will cause irreparable harm. In Philadelphia, for instance, almost one-fifth of the registered voters may not have an acceptable form of identification to vote on Election Day. Statewide, almost one-tenth may not. When he signed the law in March, Gov. Tom Corbett claimed that it “sets a simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections.” But, at a meeting of the Republican State Committee in June, the House majority leader, Mike Turzai, boasted that it would “allow Governor Romney to win the State of Pennsylvania.”

Editorials: ‘Nightmare’ Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Revisited in Court | Ari Berman/The Nation

A wave of new voting restrictions have been struck down by the courts in recent weeks. A major exception is Pennsylvania, where Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, a Republican, declined to issue a preliminary injunction against the state’s controversial voter ID law on August 15. Today in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court convened in a packed, standing-room-only courtroom to revisit the law. A decision is expected in the next few weeks to determine whether Pennsylvania will be the largest swing state with a new, restrictive voter ID law on the books for the 2012 election. David Gersch, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs (which include voting rights groups such as the ACLU and the Advancement Project), argued that Judge Simpson erred in failing to conclude that Pennsylvania’s voter ID law “impermissibly violates the right to vote.” Gersch noted the significance of holding the hearing in Philadelphia, “the birthplace of American democracy,” in a state whose constitution explicitly protects the right to vote. Gersch asked, once again, for an injunction against the law based on three major points: (a) “the right to vote is a fundamental right” harmed by the law; (b) the voter ID law was not a mere election regulation but something far more significant and burdensome; and (c) the law was not narrowly tailored toward its legislative goal of stopping voter fraud.

National: Study Shows Voter ID Laws Could Disenfranchise 1 Million Young Minority Voters | Huffington Post

An estimated 700,000 young minority voters could be barred from voting in November because of photo ID laws passed across the country in recent years, according to a new study. The number of minority voters under the age of 30 likely to be disenfranchised by these new voting laws — passed overwhelmingly by Republican-led legislatures across the country — is a conservative estimate, according to the study’s authors. The actual number of voters in that category who could be disenfranchised is probably closer to 1 million, they said. The projections include African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. “It’s a reminder that our voting rights have always been under attack and probably always will be,” said Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who co-authored the report, Turning Back the Clock on Voting Rights: The Impact of New Photo Identification Requirements on Young People of Color.

Michigan: Secretary of State keeping citizen check-off box | The Detroit News

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson vows that a check-off box asking voters to confirm their U.S. citizenship will once again appear on November ballot applications, raising concerns among voting rights advocates who argue it’s unnecessary, intimidating and could suppress voting. Johnson defends her decision to keep the box she ordered in the February and August primary elections as a legal and appropriate extra step to ensure only citizens participate in elections — even after fellow Republican Gov. Rick Snyder recently vetoed a bill that included a requirement for voters to check a similar citizenship box. “The secretary of state has the authority under state law to prescribe forms, including the ballot application form,” said department spokesman Fred Woodhams, who added this past week she’s pressing forward after a coalition led by the nonpartisan Michigan Election Coalition said it sent her a letter urging her to “immediately halt” using the citizenship check-off.

Pennsylvania: Native Nations’ IDs and Voting Rights Cases | New America Media

Native Nations’ IDs are both evidence and exercise of sovereignty, and they should stand on their own as validators of tribal citizens’ rights to vote in tribal, federal or state elections and to travel and return home unimpeded. This should be so for those Native Nations that issue passports to their citizens and those that issue other IDs. Whether Native people consider themselves as citizens solely of their Native Nations or as having dual citizenship, first in their Native Nations and then in the U.S., they should be on the same side as those who are opposed to overly stringent voter ID requirements by states. The Republican-led state initiatives, however nicely self-described, will most likely keep from voting the non-white, elderly, young and poor, who tend to vote for the Democrats. Or, as Mike Turzai, the Pennsylvania House Majority Leader, infamously bragged in June about the Republican checklist: “Voter ID—which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania—done!” The Pennsylvania law requires voters to produce state-approved photo identification. This can impose a substantial if not complete burden on people who do not drive or who no longer have a driver’s license; have changed residences and/or last names, but haven’t updated their Social Security card or other IDs; have misplaced or do not have a birth certificate; or who have identification from other states. What about the unlucky person who lost all required papers in a fire, burglary or flight from abuse, or who lacks the means to obtain the necessary backup documents?

National: Voter ID Wars | NYTimes.com

If you’ve only got 30 seconds to make your case in the debate over photo ID laws — which require voters to show up at the polls with a government-issued photo ID — it’s much easier to argue in favor of the laws.“You need a photo ID to get on an airplane or rent a movie from Blockbuster. Get over it!” While investigating voting in America for the documentary film “Electoral Dysfunction,” I heard versions of this line over and over from the laws’ backers. The message is clear: “If you’re too lazy to get a government-issued photo ID, then you probably don’t deserve to vote. And please, let’s not forget 9/11.” (The airplane reference is a handy conversation-stopper.) But voting rights are worth at least 60 seconds of our attention. So here’s why these laws hurt more than they help: The only crime these laws address is voter impersonation — someone showing up at the polls and claiming to be someone else in order to cast a fraudulent vote. (I know, sounds almost delightfully madcap.)

Editorials: Voting Rights: This Is What a Strong Party Platform Would Look Like | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

In tone and tenor, the Democratic and Republican voting-rights planks could not be more different. But there’s clearly room for a third way. The most elemental civil right, the one from which all other rights ultimately flow, is the right to vote. Can we all at least agree on that? This election year, to a degree unimaginable even in the wake of the Florida recount and Bush v. Gore, the issue of voting rights and election procedures is a key part of the political debate leading up to the first Tuesday in November. It’s as if some great lock has been turned, some vast door has been opened, and all the primal grievances from those furious days in November and December 2000 have come pouring out again. Add to the mix strident white fear about America’s changing demographics over the interceding decade, and you have a combustible brew indeed.

Editorials: A Ballot Box Tactic With Deep Historical Roots | The Root

In states from Florida to Pennsylvania, Republican Party efforts to diminish minority voting strength for this year’s presidential election are a sobering reminder that the struggle for full civil rights is not over. But it’s not only black voters who should be concerned about Republican voter-suppression tactics. The GOP’s war on voting is a serious attack on the fundamental workings of our democracy. It is, at its core, an attempt to negate the important victories of the early 1960s that laid the foundation of our modern representative democracy. To understand the breadth of the threat represented by voter-ID laws and other new practices designed to suppress votes in Democratic districts, it’s important to realize that the effort to dismantle obstacles to voting rights for black voters in the South during the early 1960s did more than just enfranchise African Americans. It exposed the myriad ways in which key aspects of the American electoral system were fundamentally unfair for all voters. In particular, the disproportionate power afforded to underpopulated rural jurisdictions over the more populous cities was corrected by the Supreme Court in a series of cases that dismantled the framework of unequal voting power that had existed in the South since the turn of the 20th century.

National: Gloves come off as general election approaches – State and local election officials butt heads over variety of issues | electionlineWeekly

With only 75 days until the November 6, 2012 General Election, more and more news stories are focusing on the increasingly contentious nature of the administration of that election — especially between state and local officials. From voter purges to early voting to a general lack of confidence, state election officials seem to be clashing with local elections administrators on a more frequent basis as summer turns to fall. Interestingly enough — or not — most of these state/local clashes have occurred in swing states. One of the more high profile instances has been in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott recently threated to remove from office Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Harry Sawyer for Sawyer’s failure to agree with the state’s early voting law. Scott and several elections supervisor butted heads over the state’s plans to review information from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security and purge voter rolls of potential non-citizens, but it never reached the height that it has over early voting.

Iowa: Republicans Plot Assault On Iowa Caucuses On Military Voter Issue | BuzzFeed

The Republican party is on the brink of dealing a major blow to Iowa’s traditional caucus system, with the process’ critics pointing to recent battles over military voting rights to make the case for ending traditional nominating contest. Chris Brown, Chairman of the Young Republican Federation of Alabama and a member of the Republican Convention’s Rules Committee, is expected introduce a measure tomorrow requiring states to use “every means practicable” to ensure that military voters can cast ballots in any process used in the Republican presidential nominating process, according to a person involved in the effort. The measure will be seconded by influential Ohio GOP chair Bob Bennett, who has been a member of the RNC for more than two decades, the source said. Caucuses — by definition in-person voting systems — would not satisfy the proposed rule, requiring dramatic changes to the process in Iowa and other caucus states, if not their outright abandonment. “The Rule will simply guarantee the right of military voters and wounded warriors to vote in the process of selecting the delegates who will choose our party’s presidential nominee,” wrote former RNC Chairman and former VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in an email to members of the Rules Committee, which was obtained by BuzzFeed, asking that they end “the inexcusable practice of disenfranchising military voters in our party’s presidential delegate selection process.”

Washington: A.C.L.U. announces Voting Rights lawsuit against City of Yakima | Examiner.com

The American Civil Liberties Union announces voting rights suit in Yakima on Wednesday August 22. As previously mentioned in this column, more than 40% of Yakima’s Hispanic population have no Hispanic city council representative. Thirty years of immigration have changed the ethnic mix of Yakima but political representation in city council does not reflect that change. There are several contributing factors but an odd “at large” election system is seen as a significant barrier to realization of equal representation. Only three of seven council seats are chosen from districts the candidates reside in. Four seats are voted in “at large” which means majority populations can decide who represents minority districts. The result of this at large system is that some districts have no council person living in that district. Three council districts have all seven council person in residence. That isn’t equal representation it’s majority oppression.

National: Voting Rights Advocates Gear Up For 2012 Election | TPM

Two blocks from the White House, in a conference room on the fourth floor of a nondescript office building, voting rights advocates are fighting on the front line of the voting wars. Welcome to the headquarters of Election Protection, a program run by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and a multitude of civil rights organizations that seeks to combat the wave of restrictive voting laws that have swept state legislatures in the past few years. “I was here in 2000 when the debacle happened in Florida. That really led to civil rights groups coming together and saying we have to have a paradigm shift in the way that we view elections,” Barbara R. Arnwine, President & Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law told TPM in an interview at their office, which doubles as headquarters for the Election Protection’s hotline number.

Colorado: Colorado elections chief withholds names of suspected non-citizens; cites investigation | AP

Citing an ongoing investigation, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said Tuesday he would not allow public inspection of the list of nearly 4,000 registered voters he suspects are ineligible to vote because they’re not citizens. Gessler was responding to an open record request from The Associated Press seeking to review the list to determine who the secretary mailed letters to last week, asking them to verify their citizenship or voluntarily withdraw from the rolls. “Obviously our intent is to improve the integrity of the voting rolls. It’s not to draw attention to specific individuals,” Gessler spokesman Rich Coolidge said. Coolidge said Gessler doesn’t want people who voluntarily withdraw from the voter rolls to be prosecuted. But it’s unclear what will happen to people who don’t withdraw from the list if they’re ineligible to vote. “We’re still trying to identify a path forward with that,” Coolidge said.

Pennsylvania: Testy defense: If the state’s voter ID law is fair, what’s the worry? | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Corbett administration must subscribe to the theory that a strong offense is the best defense. Its response to a request from the U.S. Justice Department for information concerning Pennsylvania’s compliance with the Voting Rights Act starts out with sarcasm and goes on to accuse its Civil Rights Division of engaging in a political stunt. This from a Republican administration that oversaw the passage of a new voter identification law that could keep an untold number of citizens from exercising their right to cast ballots in the upcoming presidential election. By the Corbett administration’s various tellings, the voter ID law will negatively impact a scant 1 percent of the state’s eligible voters (says the governor’s office) and nearly 759,000 registered voters lack appropriate ID from the state Department of Transportation (says the secretary of the commonwealth who oversees the election department). That discrepancy alone justifies the interest of the Civil Rights Division, which sought, among other items, records supporting those assertions, along with the complete state voter registry and PennDOT’s lists of licensed drivers and those holding PennDOT-issued non-driver ID cards.

Washington: ACLU to file voting rights lawsuit against city of Yakima WA | Yakima Herald-Republic

The American Civil Liberties Union today will announce details of what it calls a major voting rights lawsuit against the city of Yakima. “It’s something we’ve been looking at for a while,” said Seattle-based ACLU spokesman Doug Honig, who otherwise declined to release any details of the lawsuit prior to today’s announcement. Since 2010, the ACLU has made several threats to sue the city under the federal Voting Rights Act, most recently after voters rejected an August 2011 proposition that would have forced City Council elections to be voted on by district.  The council members are currently elected under a hybrid system of at-large voting for three seats and district-based voting for four seats. District selections only occur in the primary, but all seven seats are voted on at-large in citywide general elections. Voting rights advocates have argued there’s enough evidence to prove the city has a history of racially polarized voting that is suppressing candidates who represent minority interests. “It’s very likely,” ACLU legal director Sarah Dunne said about the possibility of a lawsuit in August 2011 when voters turned thumbs down on district only voting.

Ohio: Protesters defend voting rights and embattled Ohio election officials | Examiner.com

“Our vote is our passport to democracy and freedom,” said Charles Holmes, a retired pastor from the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dayton, Ohio. He was speaking this morning to a group of 180 protesters in front of the offices of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in downtown Columbus. “In Ohio and all across the nation, there is an effort to take away your vote, by tricks like photo ID and reducing the number of early voting hours,” Reverend Holmes said. “This is reprehensible.” As the November election nears, the controversy over voting rights and voter suppression has been heating up in Ohio and other key battleground states. On Friday, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted suspended two Democrats on the Montgomery County Board of Elections for refusing to back down on a proposal to allow weekend early voting. Husted had issued a directive on Wednesday that all 88 Ohio counties would allow some weekday evening early voting hours, but no early voting on weekends. “Secretary Husted is wrong to punish Dennis Lieberman and Tom Ritchie for voting to extend weekend voting hours,” Reverend Holmes said. “We owe these two men the debt of our gratitude for standing up for all voters, not just some. Jon Husted is supposed to be an impartial referee. But he’s working in partisan ways to reduce the total vote count, just as his mentor, Ken Blackwell, did in 2004.”

Virginia: Justice Department upholds Virginia voter ID law | The Washington Post

The Justice Department has signed off on Virginia’s new voter ID law, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) said Monday night, in a decision that clears the way for the bitterly contested measure to take effect in time for Election Day. “The legislation I signed into law is a practical and reasonable step to make our elections more secure while also ensuring access to the ballot box for all qualified voters,” McDonnell said. “It is welcome news that DOJ has recognized the compliance of this legislation with the Voting Rights Act.” The Justice Department review was needed because Virginia has a history of voter discrimination. It is is one of 16 states that must receive federal approval before changing voting laws. The states must prove to the federal government that any new statutes would not discriminate against minorities.

Argentina: Argentina proposes giving noncitizens and 16-year-olds voting rights in national elections | The Washington Post

Argentina is rethinking what it means to be a citizen, proposing radical changes that would have both foreigners and 16-year-olds vote to determine who should run the country. President Cristina Fernandez’s legislative powerbrokers say the proposed electoral laws will enhance democracy and challenge the world to treat voting as a universal human right. Opponents call it a naked attempt to prolong the power of a decade-old government that has showered public money on migrants and young people. With approval likely in a Congress controlled by the president’s allies, the laws would expand Argentina’s electorate by 3 million voters, or roughly 10 percent, and make it among the world’s most permissive countries in terms of voting rights, allowing foreigners with two years of permanent residency to cast ballots.

Texas: Texas Attorney General is positioned to become point man on historic challenge to voting law | The Statesman

With his signature on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, outlawed discriminatory election practices that had been adopted in many southern states including Texas. Now, almost half a century later, another Texan, Attorney General Greg Abbott, could find himself in a position to dismantle a key section of the historic act that he thinks is unfair. For the past several weeks, a panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C., has been pondering what to do with Texas’ 2011 voter identification law — one of the nation’s strictest laws requiring voters to show one of a few forms of ID to cast ballots. If Texas loses in federal court, as many observers believe is likely, Abbott will be in a position to challenge the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — arguably the most significant provision in the law that says Texas and several other jurisdictions with discriminatory histories must get the blessing of the federal government before they make any changes to election laws.

Florida: Scott must figure out what to do with early voting | StAugustine.com

Twelve years after Florida decided the 2000 presidential election, one of the nation’s biggest swing states is confronting a legal and political quandary over its voting standards. A federal court in Washington D.C., ruled late Thursday that new restrictions on early voting passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature cannot take effect in five counties covered by federal voting laws. The ruling — which said the changes could hurt participation by blacks — raises the prospect of having longer early-voting periods in places such Tampa than in urban areas such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. Some voting groups — and Democratic politicians — called on Republican Gov. Rick Scott to immediately force all counties to impose the same time period for early voting. The law passed last year kept the maximum total hours of early voting hours the same, but it reduced the days in which early voting was available. The Scott administration on Friday was still reviewing the 119-page ruling.

Ohio: Voting hours order doesn’t end debate | Cincinnati.com

Dissatisfied that a statewide plan for early absentee voting includes no weekend hours, Democrats, labor leaders and voting rights groups on Thursday pressed for expansion of that schedule – and warned that the issue may ultimately be resolved in court. The day after Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted ordered all 88 county boards of elections to stay open for limited extra evening hours in October, about 150 people rallied outside the Hamilton County Board of Elections and later jammed a meeting room to demand even more hours, particularly on weekends. “What he did was equally disenfranchise voters,” senior citizen Patricia Youngblood said, drawing murmurs of approval from the impassioned, frustrated crowd.