Bernard Fraga for the Monkey Cage: But Democrats confront a major challenge: People of color vote at a substantially lower rate than whites. In my new book, “The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America,” I … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Voting Wars
Steven Rosenfeld: According to two now-retired senior North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement (BOE) officials — Gary Bartlett, its former executive director, who served for 20 years in that post, and Marshall Tutor, his top investigator — the federal … Continue reading
Anderson review. Lichtman review. … Continue reading
Here come the field generals for the 2021 redistricting wars. … Continue reading
Guy-Uriel Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer have a new piece forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, on partisan gerrymandering and justiciability: This paper examines the Court’s decision in Gil v. Whitford. It advances two claims. First, it provides a comprehensive account … Continue reading
Carol Anderson NYT oped. … Continue reading
News and Observer reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Federal prosecutors have issued sweeping subpoenas demanding that millions of North Carolina voter records be turned over to immigration authorities by Sept. 25. With just two months to go before the midterms, the subpoenas threatened to sow chaos in … Continue reading
A few weeks back, the DOJ brought charges in North Carolina against 19 people the government said were non-citizens voting in the election. The NYT reported: The Justice Department said the violations were uncovered by a newly created federal task … Continue reading
Rick Perlstein and Livia Gershon deep dive for TPM. … 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
KC Star: Local officials spread across Kansas’ 105 counties will exercise an incredible amount of power this week when they determine whether thousands of ballots should count in the closest primary race for governor in Kansas history. The roughly 9,000 provisional … Continue reading
Dig in, folks. Update: Here is the letter Secretary Dunlap released in connection with the posting of the documents. … Continue reading
After a long hiatus, the ELB Podcast is back in time for the midterm election season with a great first guest! What is the state of voting rights in America? What did the ACLU’s lawsuit against Kris Kobach over the … 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
Gregory Downs for TPM. … Continue reading
Read the order granting a preliminary injunction and a related order. The orders relate to signature matching requirements for absentee ballots, the time to cast such ballots, and voter id requirements. … Continue reading
Myrna Perez NYT oped: In the past decade, attacks on the vote have been treacherous: discriminatory voter ID laws, cutbacks in early voting and other complications that emerged from bad laws or policies formulated weeks, months or even years before … 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
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
Texas Tribune: Two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas lawmakers did not intentionally discriminate when they signed off on congressional and state House maps in 2013, the state is looking to use that victory to wrap up … Continue reading
Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports for Kansas News Service. … 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
NYT: Eight of the tech industry’s most influential companies, in anticipation of a repeat of the Russian meddling that occurred during the 2016 presidential campaign, met with United States intelligence officials last month to discuss preparations for this year’s … 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
Patt Morrison talks to Dan Tokaji about the Husted voter purge case. … 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
Tierney Sneed for TPM: Former Trump voter fraud commissioner J. Christian Adams was in a federal court in Virginia Friday to defend reports his group released in 2016 and 2017 alleging that thousands of non-citizens were illegally registered to vote … Continue reading
Rev. Barber and Rashad Robinson oped in The News & Observer: Apple and Amazon have a clear choice: they can stand by their stated values or they can stay the course of enabling the N.C. General Assembly as they re-enact … Continue reading
KC Star: “While these are serious allegations, it is vitally important to understand that after two years of investigation there is no credible — and I can strike credible and just put evidence — there is no evidence that these … Continue reading
KSNT: In the aftermath of a federal judge’s ruling yesterday voters may be confused about voter registration. The judge ruled it is unconstitutional for Secretary of State Kobach to make voters show proof of citizenship to register. However Secretary Kobach told … Continue reading
Kira Lerner for Think Progress: But with more voters casting ballots from their homes, Arizona is offering fewer opportunities for people to cast ballots in person. That’s a problem for Native Americans, who say they enjoy the communal aspects of voting on … Continue reading
With no fanfare, the mandate issued from the 5th Circuit in the Texas voter ID case yesterday, ending the appeal. As I wrote back in April, the panel issued a “fundamentally disingenuous opinion” by Judge Edith Jones, which was really … Continue reading
This is a very well done look at the first real court case testing the claims of the Fraudulent Fraud Squad, including von Spakovsky and Kobach. Enjoy. … Continue reading
Given how things went at trial (Kobach got held in contempt at one point—though had the fine paid off with a government credit card), this is no surprise. In addition to injunctive and declaratory relief, “the Court imposes sanctions responsive … Continue reading
Chiraag Bains oped for WaPo. … Continue reading
This is a really interesting state lawsuit. To simplify a bit: Missouri had a voter id law, which the state supreme court struck down as unconstitutional under the state constitution. So Missouri legislators put a voter id requirement into the state … Continue reading
Dale Ho NYT oped: States should also be encouraged to adopt Election Day registration programs allowing eligible voters — including those who have been knocked off the rolls — to register at the polls. Fifteen states and the District of … Continue reading
Dan Smith and Michael Herron NYDN oped: More fundamentally, do we have a right not to vote? Should infrequent voters be removed from the rolls merely for not exercising their franchise? Is the right to vote only protected when it is used? … Continue reading
I have written this post for Just Security, which is the second in their series on potential legal gaps exposed by events related to the 2016 election. It begins: By now everyone is familiar with attempts by the Russian government and others … Continue reading
Dahlia Lithwick for Slate. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a controversial Ohio voter purge law which allows the state to begin the process of removing voters from the rolls based upon their failure to vote in … Continue reading
You can find the 5-4 decision, breaking down along party/ideological lines, here. [Update: My thoughts on this case are over at Slate.] … Continue reading
Order: The State of North Dakota moves to stay the district court’s injunction of April 3, 2018, concerning certain subsections of the North Dakota elections statute, N.D.C.C. § 16.1-01- 04.1. Based primarily on the imminent primary election date of June … Continue reading
From the court’s decision preliminarily enjoining Indiana’s purge system as violating the NVRA: Regarding the likelihood of success on the merits, the Court determines that Common Cause has a high likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that … Continue reading
WRAL: House Speaker Tim Moore and other House Republicans a filed a proposed constitutional amendment Thursday afternoon to ensconce a voter ID rule in the state constitution. The bill would ask voters to decide this November whether to add this paragraph to the … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: More than a year after hearing arguments, a federal appeals court has yet to rule on a host of Wisconsin voting laws, including aspects of the state’s voter ID statute. The long delay has left some scratching their heads … Continue reading
Des Moines Register: A civil rights organization and an Iowa State University student is suing Iowa’s secretary of state over a voter ID law they say infringes on Iowans’ ability to fairly cast a ballot. The League of United Latin American … Continue reading
WMUR: An exhaustive review by state election officials, including a first-time comparison of voter information shared with 27 other states, has turned up virtually no evidence of possible voter fraud in New Hampshire, those officials said Tuesday….The key results were: … Continue reading