Editorials: Courts call voting laws what they are, racist | Miami Herald

Federal courts across the country have finally recognized that legislative maneuvers designed to limit access to the ballot box violate federal law against discrimination. In effect, the courts agreed with critics who have been saying for years that such efforts are racist. Since mid-July, federal courts have used the Voting Rights Act to strike down voter ID laws in Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin and North Dakota. Specifically, the courts have focused on the protection afforded by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That provision outlaws any voting procedure that “results in a denial or abridgment” of the right to vote based on race. One of the most significant rulings was issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. A three-judge panel denounced a blatantly racist effort by North Carolina legislators to impose new voter ID requirements and to end voting procedures favored by blacks, including voter registration on Election Day and early voting. The law also blocked out-of-precinct voting. Florida also has a voter ID law, but it allows 12 different forms of identification. This is deemed ample and flexible enough to allow most voters to pass legal muster.

Ohio: Voting laws put to test in Ohio, other states | Dayton Daily News

In Ohio, Secretary of State Jon Husted likes to say, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. But Ohio’s voting laws — like several others throughout the country — are being put to a test with legal challenges that strike at a bedrock of American democracy: free and fair elections. On Thursday the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati heard arguments on a federal lawsuit filed by civil rights groups seeking to invalidate two voter laws passed by the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature in 2014. The laws, both addressing absentee voting, make it difficult for some voters — particularly African-Americans and low-income Ohioans who tend to favor Democrats — to cast ballots, according to attorney Subodh Chandra. “The pattern is unmistakable, and the result is unconstitutional,” said Chandra, a former federal prosecutor.

Editorials: Turning the Tide on Voting Rights | Rick Hasen/The New York Times

Has the tide against restrictive voting laws turned? In the last few weeks, voting rights groups, in some instances working with the Department of Justice, have posted a series of victories that seemed unlikely when their cases against these laws were first brought. The rights of hundreds of thousands of voters are at stake. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, perhaps the most conservative federal appeals court, ruled 9-6 last month that Texas’ strict voter identification law had a racially discriminatory effect on African-American and Latino voters. Not only did the Fifth Circuit send the case back to the trial court to establish a procedure to make it easier for those who lacked one of the narrow forms of identification to be able to vote, but also to decide if Texas had acted with racially discriminatory intent. Such a finding could lead the courts to put Texas back under direct federal supervision. Last Friday, a Fourth Circuit panel ruled that a North Carolina voting law, possibly the largest rollback of voting rights since the 1965 Voting Rights Act, was enacted with racially discriminatory intent. The court threw out not only the state’s strict voter ID law, but also other voting restrictions that could make it especially hard for minorities to vote.

Voting Blogs: Fate of Democracy in Hands Of the Electorate Following Recent Election Law Victories | Brad Blog

The good news is that over the past week two federal courts struck down multiple provisions of GOP-enacted voter suppression laws in Wisconsin and North Carolina. The cautionary news is that the rejection of 21st century Jim Crow-style disenfranchisement at the polls, and, indeed, the fate of democracy itself, may well now hinge on the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. … In the first voting rights case to see a ruling come down last Friday, North Carolina NAACP v. McCrory, the good news is that a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeal struck down as unconstitutional a comprehensive GOP voter suppression scheme that the court determined had been deliberately designed to have a retrogressive impact on the right of African-Americans to participate in electoral democracy. The state Republican legislature’s scheme, the court held, was specifically designed to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

National: Courts Derail Voting Limits Pushed by GOP in 3 States | Fortune

Courts have dealt setbacks in three states to Republican efforts that critics contend restrict voting rights—blocking a North Carolina law requiring photo identification, loosening a similar measure in Wisconsin, and halting strict citizenship requirements in Kansas. The rulings Friday came as the 2016 election moves into its final phase, with Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton locked in a high-stakes presidential race and control of the U.S. Senate possibly hanging in the balance. North Carolina is one of about a dozen swing states in the presidential race, while Wisconsin has voted Democratic in recent presidential elections and Kansas has been solidly Republican. The decisions followed a similar blow earlier this month to what critics said was one of the nation’s most restrictive voting laws in Texas. The New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Texas’ voter ID law is discriminatory and must be weakened before the November election.

National: Voting rights rulings could deal blow to Republicans in 2016 elections | The Guardian

Shortly after Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election, the former chair of the North Carolina Republican party wrote an anxious postmortem saying something had to be done about the students and black voters whose unprecedented turnout had turned the state blue for the first time in 32 years. The alternative, the former state chair Jack Hawke wrote, was that the country would “continue to slide toward socialism”. That “something” turned out to be a notorious omnibus law – better known to its detractors as the “monster law” – passed by a Republican-majority state legislature in 2013. The legislation gutted many of the progressive voting rules that had contributed to Obama’s razor-thin margin in the state: same-day registration, a lengthy early voting period and out-of-precinct voting by provisional ballot – all favored disproportionately by African American voters and students. The law also introduced a strict voter ID requirement, with the anticipated effect of suppressing Democratic votes even further.

Arkansas: Old Felon Data Could Keep Voters From Casting Ballots | NWA

An error sent out to county clerks across Arkansas could keep some who are eligible to vote from casting a ballot this November because they’re believed to be felons. The Secretary of State’s office got a list of felons from the Arkansas Crime Information Center. In the past, the office has received that information from the Department of Corrections, but according to law, the SOS must go through ACIC. That’s what happened this year, but on this first go-around, there’s a major issue. Larry Crane, the Pulaski County Clerk, says with months to go before the general election it’s busy. “My office and all of the clerks are going to work our way through this the best we can,” said Crane.

Editorials: Restoring Voting Rights to the Disenfranchised | Hill Harper/NBC News

As the Republican National Convention comes to a close and the Democrats gear up for next week, there is one looming question about the focus each party will place on voting rights—an issue that was not front and center during the presidential debates but should be at the forefront of national discussion as we approach the general election. If and when they do turn to voting rights, there is much to address—most especially concerning the restoration of voting rights for returning citizens. Our democracy is strengthened when as many eligible citizens as possible are able to freely participate in elections. However, in 2016, many states are holding firm to laws that deny Americans the right to vote because of a prior criminal conviction from their past. So-called “felony disenfranchisement” laws hurt people with criminal histories and their home communities. Publicly available data demonstrates that an estimated 5.85 million Americans are currently disenfranchised as a result of these arcane laws.

National: Voting Rights Advocates Concerned As Election Observers Dwindle | Huffington Post

Federal election observers can only be sent to five states in this year’s U.S. presidential election, among the smallest deployments since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to end racial discrimination at the ballot box. The plan, confirmed in a U.S. Department of Justice fact sheet seen by Reuters, reflects changes brought about by the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down parts of the Act, a signature legislative achievement of the 1960s civil rights movement. Voting rights advocates told Reuters they were concerned that the scaling-back of observers would make it harder to detect and counter efforts to intimidate or hinder voters, especially in southern states with a history of racial discrimination at the ballot box.

Ohio: Democrats promote voting rights just blocks from GOP convention | Jackson Clarion-Ledger

Just blocks from the arena where Republicans kicked off their presidential nominating convention here Monday, Democrats held an event of their own — on voting rights. “A lot of us are fiercely protective of voting rights,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told a packed room, reminding attendees that “a lot of blood was spilled,” in the battle to win voting rights for blacks. He and other speakers at the two-hour town hall urged pastors, community leaders and others to rally voters to go to the polls this fall. “We have to be clear — it’s about who you’re for, but it’s also who your against,’’ he said. “And somewhere in the middle ought to be the energy for you to go vote. For whatever reason, you need to go.’’ Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio, former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, hosted the “United State of Voting’’ event at Cleveland State University. A few blocks away, thousands of Republicans, including a delegation from Mississippi, began their four-day convention.

Michigan: House Democrats seek to amend constitution, add ‘voter bill of rights’ | MLive

A constitutional amendment proposed by two representatives would alleviate long lines at polls by allowing no-reason absentee and early voting, they said Wednesday. Rep. Gretchen Driskell, D-Saline, and Rep. Jon Hoadley, D-Kalamazoo, introduced a “voter bill of rights” on Wednesday. The resolution would amend the constitution to allow no-reason absentee voting, early voting and automatic registration when a voter gets a driver’s license or state ID card. It would also automatically send ballots to Michiganders serving in the armed forces overseas. “To ensure that our voices are heard, and that our votes count, we need to update and modernize our elections so that they work for everyone who is eligible and exercises the right to vote. That’s why a voter bill of rights is so important,” Driskell said.

Utah: Judge denies motions to throw out claims in Navajo voting suit | The Salt Lake Tribune

A federal judge has denied motions to throw out some claims in a lawsuit that alleges vote-by-mail procedures adopted by San Juan County hinder the ability of Navajo citizens to participate in elections on equal terms with white citizens. U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish on Monday rejected defendants’ arguments that claims in the suit against San Juan County commissioners in their official capacity are redundant and should be dismissed because the county is also a named defendant. Two other motions, one to dismiss claims brought by the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and the other to throw out claims brought by one of the seven tribal members who are plaintiffs, also were denied.

Louisiana: Attorney General reviewing lawsuit over voting rights for ex-offenders | Louisiana Record

In the wake of a lawsuit filed against the state to restore voting rights to ex-offenders, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office said voting restrictions on those on parole or probation is constitutional. Voice of the Offender (VOTE) filed a lawsuit against the state, the governor, and the secretary of state on July 1 requesting that individuals on probation and parole be granted the right to vote. “Although we are not a named defendant in the case, our office is reviewing the case,” Ruth Wisher, spokeswoman with the AG’s office told the Louisiana Record. “We do believe that restrictions on voting rights are constitutional.”

Editorials: Voting Rights / Lawrence Journal World

There is nothing more important to American democracy than the participation of its citizens through voting. Voting in local, state and federal elections is a precious right that unfortunately is the subject of considerable confusion in Kansas these days. With the primary election less than a month away, Kansas remains mired in a number of court battles over which registered voters are allowed to vote and in which contests. Last week, a federal judge refused to block a decision by the executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to require voters in Kansas, Georgia and Alabama to present proof of citizenship to complete their registrations using a federal form. In other states, the federal voter registration form requires voters to swear under penalty of perjury that they are citizens but doesn’t require citizenship proof such as a birth certificate or passport. Legal action challenging the EAC decision still is active, but the judge said the decision should stand until the case is decided at trial.

National: Adverse Court Rulings Could Threaten Voting Rights This Fall | NBC

Three separate court rulings issued Wednesday and Thursday to uphold voting restrictions are likely to increase the number of voters disenfranchised this fall. In Ohio, likely the nation’s most important swing state, a federal judge on Wednesday upheld a controversial method for purging the voter rolls, which is likely to lead to eligible voters being removed. Around the same time, a federal judge based in Washington, D.C., approved — for now — a change to the federal voter registration form that will allow some red states to require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote. Then Thursday morning, Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled to maintain the state’s strict ban on voting by ex-felons.

Arizona: Voting rights advocates condemn March voting process | Cronkite News

Voting rights advocates Wednesday said the March presidential preference election amounted to voter suppression and proposed renewing federal election standards to protect voters. Community leaders representing numerous advocacy groups, along with Democratic Congressional representatives, said at a forum at the Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church in south Phoenix that the long wait times at Maricopa County election sites prevented many people from voting. “Let’s just make clear what happened. There was voter suppression,” Congressman Ruben Gallego said. Maricopa County had only 60 polling places, including one serving all of south Phoenix for the March 22 election, said Gallego, a Democrat who represents the area.

Ohio: Conflicting court rulings put Ohio’s voting rules in limbo | Associated Press

Ohio voter Keith Dehmann failed to list his birthdate when casting his absentee ballot in the 2014 general election and later tried to remedy the mistake. That same year, Linda and Gunther Lahm mixed up the envelopes for their absentee ballots and then overlooked birthdate errors when fixing the problem. All three eligible voters in the key swing state had their ballots tossed under laws one federal judge has ruled unconstitutional, and another found otherwise. The conflicting decisions for absentee and provisional ballots have put the state’s rules — and its voters — in legal limbo ahead of the presidential election as the issue is appealed.

Arizona: Groups to form commission on Arizona election accountability | KTAR

Several community groups will come together Thursday to try to improve Arizona elections. They’ll be trying to correct some problems they say were created by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Samantha Pstross of the Arizona Advocacy Network and Foundation said things were different back then. “The county recorders would have to ask permission from the Department of Justice before they could change polling places,” she said. Pstross referred to that as “pre-clearance.”

National: New Report Says Voter Suppression Threatens 2016 Elections | The Seattle Medium

Since the US Supreme Court invalidated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, states that were once required to get permission from the US Department of Justice to enact voting laws have been free to implement limits to voting that activists say could have a negative impact on the 2016 presidential elections. The high court ruling against the federal government in the Holder v Shelby case in 2013, was followed closely by several primarily southern states, enacting a series of draconian laws that have made it increasingly more difficult for African-Americans, Latinos, students and the elderly to cast their ballots. The Republican legislators supporting these bills claim that the measures are an effort to block voter fraud. Their critics contend that the laws are a way to disenfranchise voters who are more likely to vote Democratic. But, a national coalition of voters, advocacy groups and voting rights activists as well as in the Department of Justice, have been fighting back in the courts, statehouses and city council chambers. These advocates have now released a new report, showing the adverse impact of the Shelby case.

American Samoa: U.S. Supreme Court rejects American Samoan birthright citizenship bid | Reuters

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower-court ruling preserving American Samoa’s status as the only overseas U.S. territory without birthright U.S. citizenship, rejecting a legal challenge aimed at making people born there automatic citizens. The justices declined to hear an appeal of a 2015 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that went against five American Samoans led by Leneuoti Tuaua arguing for birthright citizenship. The Obama administration and the U.S. South Pacific territory’s government favor keeping the status quo. The people of American Samoa are considered noncitizen U.S. nationals, a status that denies them the full rights of American citizenship. The territory has a population of roughly 55,000.

Editorials: Another victory for voting rights in Kansas | Topeka Capital-Journal

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson ruled that 18,000 Kansans had been wrongfully disenfranchised for failing to produce proof-of-citizenship documents when they registered to vote. Robinson’s temporary injunction was upheld when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block it last week, meaning Kansas must register all 18,000 voters for federal elections this year. This is another defeat for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whose attempts to combat an imagined epidemic of voter fraud have resulted in no more than four misdemeanor convictions for double voting. Kobach hasn’t prosecuted a single non-citizen for voter fraud, and it’s unlikely that he will (only three such cases were recorded in Kansas between 1995 and 2013). But these paltry numbers haven’t prevented him from scaremongering about the logistics of registering voters for upcoming elections.

Editorials: District of Columbia’s Democratic Primary Highlights Their Statehood Blunder | Pat Garofalo /US News & World Report

Tuesday is officially the last election day of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary campaign. Not that it matters much, of course: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is already the presumptive nominee. But going 57th in the primary order and having their votes rendered largely meaningless by the previous contests is nothing new to Tuesday’s set of voters – after all, we’re casting our ballots in the District of Columbia. Yes, adding a lot of insult to plenty of injury, the voters of Washington, D.C. – myself included – were stuck at the end of the presidential politics playlist, relegated to a footnote in the campaign, after already being largely disenfranchised at the national level. But it doesn’t have to be this way: That D.C. is still stuck in representative purgatory highlights one of the biggest mistakes Democrats made during the Obama era.

District of Columbia: Dead last — again — among U.S. primaries, D.C. Democrats chafe at a trivial vote | The Washington Post

Democrats heading to the polls Tuesday for the District’s presidential primary will participate in an odd ritual: They’ll vote, but the results won’t matter. The party’s intensely fought battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is over — decided last week, when Clinton racked up enough victories across the country to secure her party’s nomination. The city’s inconsequential status is largely a function of its dead-last place on the primary calendar, something Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) says she wants to change for future presidential contests. But that feeling of futility and sense of invisibility go beyond presidential primaries: They underscore the civic experience in the District, residents say.

District of Columbia: New Columbia? Washington DC sees new hope in fight for statehood | The Guardian

The leading contender is New Columbia, but that has associations with Christopher Columbus some would question. Other options include Anacostia or Potomac. Or how about Douglass Commonwealth – conveniently DC – after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass? The debate over what to call America’s hypothetical 51st state is just one of the thorny issues facing campaigners as they strive to correct what they claim is a long historical injustice unique among capital cities around the world. The effort to gain statehood for Washington, District of Columbia, received a boost on Thursday when the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders reaffirmed his support. “I hope that the next time I’m back we’re going to be talking about the state of Washington DC,” he said to cheers at a rally ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton has also endorsed the plan, although the fact that Washington’s Democratic primary is the last in the country, and a “dead rubber” now that Clinton is certain of victory, could be seen as symbolic of how one city deeply underrepresented in Washington politics is Washington itself. It was not until 1964 that residents of DC could even vote for president.

Montana: Costs of Indian voting rights legal counsel released | Great Falls Tribune

Money spent by counties defending a 2012 lawsuit on Indian voting rights could have gone toward setting up satellite voting and alternative voting areas on reservations for years, Indian voting activists said. Blaine County paid $119,071 and Rosebud County paid $116,000 for outside legal counsel in the 2012 Wandering Medicine lawsuit, which was settled in 2014, a figure that could reach about $460,000 when combined with Bighorn County, which was also involved in the lawsuit, and the $100,000 paid to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, activists said. However, attorneys involved in the litigation say that is not the case. The $119,071 figure was released in a May 13 public records request to William “Snuffy” Main, a member of the Gros Ventre Tribe on the Fort Belknap Reservation, said attorney Sara Frankenstein of the South Dakota law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, who represented Blaine County in the lawsuit.

Kansas: 10th Circuit: Kansas Can’t Block Voters From Casting Ballots | Associated Press

Kansas cannot prevent thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots in the November federal election because they didn’t prove they were U.S. citizens when registering to vote at motor vehicle offices, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling temporarily upholds a court order that required Kansas to allow those individuals to vote in federal elections even though they didn’t provide citizenship documentation when applying or renewing their driver’s licenses, as required under Kansas law. The state has said as many as 50,000 people could be affected. The appeals court judges said Kansas had not made the necessary showing for a stay pending appeal, but agreed to hear the appeal quickly.

American Samoa: American Samoans demand Supreme Court finally grant them full citizenship | Los Angeles Times

Claiming they have been relegated to second-class status, some American Samoans are asking the Supreme Court to correct a historic wrong and overturn a century-old law that denies them the right to be U.S. citizens at birth. Unlike children born in all the states and the other U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the newborns of American Samoans do not become automatic U.S. citizens. They are instead deemed as “nationals” who owe their allegiance to the United States, but lack the rights as citizens to vote, to serve as officers in the military or hold top government posts. The Carson-based Samoan Federation of America is asking the justices to take up its claim that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment promises citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil. “We’re proud of the United States, and we want to be recognized as part of it,” said federation President Loa Pele Faletogo, 71, a military veteran living in Carson. “I see young men and women who go to war to fight for the United States. They are willing to die for a country that is not fully theirs and for a nation that doesn’t fully accept them as citizens.”

Voting Blogs: Voting day in D.C. Jail| electionlineWeekly

Despite the chaos around them — loud voices, clanging metal doors, carts being rolled here and there across cement floors, a line of seven voters stood patiently waiting their turn to cast their ballot in Washington, D.C.’s primary. “John” was first in line to vote and after receiving his ballot he studied it carefully and began to fill it out. Before he had even completed the process, he wanted to know about getting his “I Voted” sticker. Could he have two? After he completed his ballot and put it in the secrecy envelope, “John” carefully peeled the sticker off the paper backing and proudly slapped it on his chest. The red, white and blue “I Voted” “Yo vote” sticker was in stark contrast to the orange prison jumpsuit “John” and his fellow voters were wearing. This week, two teams from the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE) headed to the D.C. Jail and to the Correctional Treatment Facility to allow eligible inmates to cast an absentee ballot for D.C.’s June 14 primary.

Editorials: Are American Samoans American? | Christina Duffy Ponsa/The New York Times

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear an appeal in Tuaua v. United States, which poses the question of whether the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment applies to American Samoa. That this is a question at all is puzzling, and not just because it’s called American Samoa. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The United States annexed the eastern half of a group of Pacific islands known as the Samoas at the end of the 19th century. As a result, those islands became American Samoa. Surely, people born in American Samoa are legally speaking born in the United States and therefore citizens by birth. Easy, right? Not so easy. The answer is that no one knows for sure. How is it possible that a question as basic as who is a citizen at birth under our Constitution remains unresolved in a place subject to the sovereignty of the United States? To understand, you have to dive into the muck that is the law of the United States territories.

Kansas: Kris Kobach predicts massive voter confusion in November in seeking stay of voter ID injunction | Topeka Capital-Journal

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach contends massive voter confusion will occur if an appeals court doesn’t block a lower court’s order to register thousands of state residents for November’s presidential election. Kobach made the prediction in a document he filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The dispute centers on residents who submit voter registration forms at Division of Motor Vehicles offices and don’t provide proof of citizenship. A 2011 state law requires newly registering voters to provide proof of citizenship. A preliminary injunction issued May 17 by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson prohibits election officials from enforcing the proof of citizenship requirement for residents who register at DMV offices.