VICE reports. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
Travis Crum at Take Care: If you’re a voting rights advocate or a law review editor, you might have noticed something different on Westlaw. After the Supreme Court invalidated the Voting Rights Act’s coverage formula in Shelby County v. Holder, Westlaw … Continue reading
CPI: Between 2008 and 2016, Sioux County averaged a voter turnout rate of 39.5 percent, the lowest among North Dakota’s 53 counties, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from the North Dakota secretary of state’s office. … Continue reading
Release via email: Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and its partners filed a major lawsuit against Secretary of State Brian Kemp over the state of Georgia’s discriminatory and unlawful “exact match” voter suppression scheme. The suit alleges … Continue reading
Read the order. Along the way, the court finds that the plaintiff challenging the constitutionality of the CVRA is unlikely to succeed on the merits, It also finds it is too close to the election to make a change now … Continue reading
ACLU press release. … Continue reading
This is the fifth and final in a series of posts by Travis Crum: As my previous posts have made clear, Texas is eligible for bail-in for its unconstitutional conduct during the 2011 redistricting cycle. But there are strategic risks … Continue reading
This is the fourth in a series of guest posts by Travis Crum: As I discussed in my previous post, Texas’s conduct during the 2011 redistricting cycle qualifies it for bail-in. But as is often true in election law, this … Continue reading
This is third in a series of guest posts by Travis Crum: In my last post, I provided an overview of recent bail-in cases. Now I will argue why Texas qualifies for bail-in under Section 3(c). Given the very long … Continue reading
This could have some very large implications. How many other laws are out there that were never enacted or blocked by Section 5 which someone could now sue to revive? (h/t John Nieman) … Continue reading
The following is the first of five guest posts from Travis Crum on Bailing in Texas to voting rights preclearance: The three-judge district court overseeing the long-running Texas redistricting litigation recently ordered the parties to brief whether the State should … Continue reading
This is a major case, that could go en banc. … Continue reading
Release: Today, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released its report, An Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access in the United States. Based on extensive research and expert and public testimony, the report assesses minority voter access around the country, … Continue reading
Hansi Lo Wang, who’s been all over this issue, chronicles the memory loss. … Continue reading
Think Progress: Kavanaugh, for his part, tried to downplay the significance of Shelby County. “There is still, of course, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” the nominee explained. That provision “allows litigation brought by plaintiffs to challenge voter restrictions that … Continue reading
Here is the order (via Alexa Ura). The district ordered redrawn is the sole district the three-judge court found illegal and that was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Abbott v. Perez. I’m skeptical about the potential for bail-in of … Continue reading
Rewire has this report, with the subhead: “The proposal to close dozens of driver’s license offices across Texas comes less than three months before November’s midterm elections. Texas has a law requiring voters to show some form of ID at … Continue reading
You can read the opinion at this link. … Continue reading
Kira Lerner with a must-read: A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with … Continue reading
AP: Civil rights advocates are objecting to a proposal to close about 75 percent of polling locations in a predominantly black south Georgia county. The Randolph County elections board is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss a proposal that would … Continue reading
HuffPo: Nearly half of Florida’s counties are violating the Voting Rights Act by not offering Spanish-language ballots and other election materials to citizens, a suit filed in federal court Thursday alleges. The lead plaintiff in the suit is Marta Rivera, … Continue reading
Interesting story. … Continue reading
Michael Wines for the NYT: In the national battle over voting rights, the fighting is done in court, state by state, over rules that can seem arcane but have the potential to sway the outcome of elections. The Justice Department’s … Continue reading
KPCC’s Airtalk explores. … Continue reading
WSJ: Santa Monica, Calif., with a “well-being index” to gauge the happiness of its residents and a fleet of city buses powered by natural gas, often lives up to its reputation as a wealthy, liberal enclave on California’s coast But … Continue reading
Common Cause: Today a federal judge struck down a 2015 bill passed by the Michigan legislature and signed by Governor Snyder to ban straight-ticket voting. Common Cause joined the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Democratic Party of Michigan, and Michigan … Continue reading
Order from the 9th Circuit: Filed order and amended memorandum (SUSAN P. GRABER, MILAN D. SMITH, JR. and ALVIN K. HELLERSTEIN). Movants-Appellants petition for panel rehearing filed in case No. 18-55506 is GRANTED in part. The memorandum disposition filed June … Continue reading
Release via email: The Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has issued an Advisory Memorandum examining potential barriers to voting in Texas that may have a discriminatory impact on voters based on race, color, sex, disability … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, William & Mary L. Rev.). Here is the abstract: The Voting Rights Act (VRA) has been an important mechanism for increasing participation by racial minorities in the electoral system. In recent years, … Continue reading
You can read Josh’s opening at this link. … Continue reading
Watch the hearing of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. … Continue reading
The Atlantic: A new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic has uncovered evidence of deep structural barriers to the ballot for black and Latino voters, specifically in the 2016 election. More than that, the survey finds that the deep … Continue reading
NYT op-ed: “The threat of voter disenfranchisement will get worse if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court. His opinion in the South Carolina [voter ID preclearance] case and his record in civil rights matters suggests that he will join … Continue reading
LAT has this op-ed from two members of the city council on a threatened challenge to the city’s at-large election system, arguing that “carving the city into districts will not meaningfully enhance local Latino political representation.” … Continue reading
NPR: “Often, we talk about the big cases that involve gerrymandering, voter identification and redistricting, but a lot of legal action around voting actually happens in small cities and towns. And a growing number of those cases are being brought … Continue reading
The Atlantic: “the Court has established that not only are the legacies of Jim Crow no longer a valid justification for proactive restrictions on states, but the Court doesn’t necessarily have a role in advancing the spirit of the franchise.” … Continue reading
Available on SSRN. From the abstract: Litigants seeking to lift burdens on the right to vote and judges adjudicating these claims have an unremarkable problem—what is the benchmark for measuring the nature of these burdens? Legal theories abound for claims … Continue reading
My thoughts on the Take Care Blog. … Continue reading
Judge Kelly’s opinion in Missouri St. Conf. NAACP v. Ferguson-Florissant Sch. Dist. affirms the district court’s decision that the school district’s at-large elections violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Eighth Circuit concludes that African American voters can make a Section 2 … Continue reading
Just before the holiday, Rick posted a Texas redistricting update: the trial court issued a briefing order asking what’s left of the case after SCOTUS remand. Rick thought “there’s not much left to do.” But while most of the fireworks … Continue reading
Here’s an interview I did on NPR’s Morning Edition. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court last week, was certainly the “swing justice” in key cases on major issues from abortion to gay rights. But when … Continue reading
You can find it here. You can also read my Slate piece on the decision, “Suppression of Minority Voting Rights Is About to Get Way Worse; The Supreme Court has put its thumb on the scales in favor of discriminatory states. … Continue reading
Mark Joseph Stern for Slate: What may be most remarkable about Monday’s decision in Abbott v. Perez, however, is Justice Neil Gorsuch’s effort to position himself as a fierce opponent of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court already gutted a … Continue reading
Great opening quoting Justin Levitt and Rick Pildes in this well-done NPR report by Nina Totenberg on today’s Texas redistricting decision. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: On Monday, five years to the day that the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, a case in which the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act with assurances that other … Continue reading
Almost exactly five years ago I wrote a NY Times oped about the Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County: The Chief Justice’s Long Game. This part held up pretty well: Today’s … Continue reading
Thwarted before, N.C. GOP wants photo ID mandate: North Carolina legislative Republicans on Thursday advanced their goal of permanently requiring voters to show photo identification — a proposal previously thwarted this decade by veto and federal judges who declared a … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
I had thought that the partisan gerrymandering cases were going to end with a whimper rather than a bang, and that’s exactly what happened. With thoughts that Justice Thomas or Alito likely have the opinion in the Texas redistricting cases … Continue reading