The Palm Beach Post reports here on the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation of Lake Park, Florida, whose at-large town commission has been all-white for 85 years although almost half its citizens are blak. … Continue reading
Dan Tokaji
In this post on my Equal Vote blog, I discuss an under-the-radar issue that flared up in Wisconsin last week, regarding the statewide registration databases required by the Help America Vote Act. … Continue reading
The Washington Post editorializes here on the failure of the presidential candidates, especially Senator Obama, to disclose their bundlers. … Continue reading
The NY Times has this report, speculating that Thursday’s ruling in Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Brunner may hurt Senator McCain’s chances in Ohio. The district court’s order requires that the names of Bob Barr and other Libertarian Party candidates … Continue reading
Following up on yesterday’s post regarding a bill to move election day from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday, the LA Times blog has this post and Politico this one. Both talk about a video on the Why Tuesday? site, in … Continue reading
The Election Assistance Commission will be having a public meeting and workship in Phoenix, AZ on Monday, on “Contingency Planning.” The agenda and other materials may be found here. The EAC’s next meeting, on the subject of statewide voter registration … Continue reading
Steve Rosenfeld has this post on Alternet. … Continue reading
On the Campaign Legal Center blog, Gerry Hebert and Susan Gershon offer these thoughts on shadow redistricting commissions. … Continue reading
Sean Parnell has this post and Bob Bauer this one regarding limits on parties’ coordinated spending for their own candidates. … Continue reading
Newsday reports here on a bill to switch voting in federal elections from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday. … Continue reading
See stories in the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, NY Times, and Washington Post. … Continue reading
The WaPo reports here and the Boston Globe here on Mitt Romney’s reclassification of his $45 million in loans to his campaign as gifts. … Continue reading
U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus, Jr. has issued this order, requiring that the Ohio Secretary of State place on the general election ballot the names of various Libertarian Party candidates, including Bob Barr. The order is based upon the Sixth … Continue reading
The AP has this report on Cuyahoga County’s breach of contract, fraud, and negligence claims against Premier Election Solutions Inc. (part of Diebold), filed in response to Premier’s declaratory relief action last month. … Continue reading
The NYT reports here on a federal lasuit seeking to speed up the processing of citizenship applications so that people can vote in November. … Continue reading
See reports in the SF Chronicle, LA Times, AP and Reuters, on the California Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case challenging Proposition 8, which would prohibit same-sex marriages. Opponents had sought to remove the initiative from the November … Continue reading
Real Clear Politics has this post from Rhodes Cook, regarding changes in party registration in those states that record affiliation by party. … Continue reading
See this report on a bill that would require every municipality to have at least one polling place that would offer same-day registration in 2008, with expansion to all precincts in 2010. … Continue reading
See this AP story and this Politicker post, regarding a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger from prominent members of California’s congressional delegation opposing Proposition 11, the redistricting initiative being supported by the Governor. The letter argues that Proposition 11 “is a … Continue reading
See this press release from the Campaign Finance Institute, updating its analysis last month. … Continue reading
Finally, a summer movie for readers of this blog: Swing Vote follows the story of Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner), an apathetic, beer-slinging, lovable loser, who is coasting through a life that has passed him by. The one bright spot is … Continue reading
A federal district judge in Missouri has issued a preliminary injunction, requiring Missouri’s Department of Social Services to comply with the National Voter Registration Act’s requirement to provide registration opportunities ant public assistance offices. The order may be found here … Continue reading
Dan Lowenstein has posted this paper on SSRN. Here’s the abstract: The drawn-out contest for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 may temporarily mitigate but is not likely permanently to end pressure to halt or reverse the front-loading of presidential … Continue reading
An appeal has been filed in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District, Number One v. Mukasey, which challenges the constitutionality of the reauthorization and extension of Section 5 of the VRA. … Continue reading
The WSJ blog has this story and Politico this one on Senator McCain’s renewed emphasis on his role in campaign finance reform, exemplified by his new slogan “Reform – Prosperity – Peace.” … Continue reading
See this report on the NAACP’s 99th annual convention in Cincinnati this week, the theme of which is “Power, Justice, Freedom, and the Vote.” Senator Obama spoke at the convention Monday, and Senator McCain is speaking today. … Continue reading
The Wall Street Journal reports here that the McCain campaign “gathered most of the money using an unprecedented system that allows it to collect checks as large as $70,000 from an individual by parsing the money between the campaign, the … Continue reading
Politico reports here that “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac … have spent nearly $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions” in the past decade. … Continue reading
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this report which discusses the state’s photo ID law, although it’s not clear whether there’s any causual connection. … Continue reading
See this post. … Continue reading
The Boston Globe reports here on Ralph Nader’s efforts to get on the Rhode Island ballot, and the Columbia State here on his efforts in South Carolina. I would expect to see some litigation on his and Bob Barr’s efforts … Continue reading
Remarking on the presidential candidates’ recent appearances before La Raza, the Christian Science Monitor has … Continue reading
The order denying a TRO in Democratic Party of Georgia v. Perdue, issued by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Tom Campbell on Friday, may be found here. In related news, Fox News has this story on an elderly couple who … Continue reading
Responding to Hans von Spakosky’s recent thoughts on non-citizen voting, Lori Minnite writes the following (excerpted with her permission): Mr. von Spakovsky’s major claims that tens of thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote and that laws prohibiting non-citizen voting … Continue reading
The Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network has released this report, entitled “America Goes to the Polls.” Among its findings are that “an unprecendented 58.7 million voters — more than one in four of all eligible voters — participated in a primary … Continue reading
The Hill reports here on a collaborative effort between FedEx and the Overseas Vote Foundation to ship overseas ballots free or at a heavy discount. … Continue reading
Brad Smith has this post on the CCP blog, commenting on a new ad in which Senator McCain discusses his role in promoting campaign finance reform. … Continue reading
The NYT reports … Continue reading
The Tampa Tribune has this report on Florida’s compliance (or failure to comply) with the NVRA’s requirement that voter registration be provided at public assistance offices. In related news, the Florida Times-Union reports here on Florida’s restrictions on voter registration … Continue reading
See this story on Politico, which begins: “As Barack Obama and John McCain jockey to claim the reformer’s mantle, each has touted his own campaign finance record while impugning that of his opponent, and both have misrepresented aspects of the … Continue reading
The USA Today reports here on the difficulties that members of the armed services and other citizens abroad have in voting, despite the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Last year, the EAC released a set of materials on … Continue reading
Politico reports here on the McCain campaign’s announcement that it will disclose names, addresses, employers, and occupations of bundlers who raise at least $50,000. The NYT has this report. … Continue reading
Governor Matt Blunt yesterday signed legislation repealing the state’s contribution limits, which were enacted by Missouri voters in 1994 and upheld in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri. The AP has this report. For more background, see this post. (Thanks to Rick … Continue reading
Hans von Spakovsky has written this piece for the National Review and a longer memorandum on the same subject that appears on the Heritage Foundation site. Here’s an excerpt from the Heritage memo: Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote … Continue reading
A Fulton County Superior Court judge has rejected an attempt to enjoin Georgia’s photo ID requirement, days before the state’s primary election. The AP has this report. … Continue reading
That’s the question posed by Joshua Douglas in this draft article, to be published in the Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy. From the abstract: The answer, surprisingly, is not always…. This article first identifies the inconsistent approaches to … Continue reading
So argues this op-ed, citing ELJ articles by Derek Muller (Nov. 2007) and Jennifer Hendricks (forthcoming) on the constitutionality of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld has this post, following up on yesterday’s letter from three U.S. Senators. … Continue reading
An African-American employee of the U.S. Department of Justice’s voting rights section has filed a lawsuit alleging employment discrimination, according to this report. Among the allegations in the complaint, filed on behalf of Joi Hyatte by the Georgetown Institute for … Continue reading
The Detroit News has this report on the Advancement Project’s claims that the State of Michigan has violated state and federal election laws by “canceling voter registrations of people who apply for and receive a driver’s license from another state, … Continue reading