Category Archives: Voting Rights Act

“First African-American Elected to Senate by Popular Vote Dies”

January 4, 2015, 7:06 pmcampaigns, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Roll Call: Trailblazing former Sen. Edward W. Brooke has died, the Boston Globe reported Saturday. He was 95. The Massachusetts Republican was the first African-American to serve in the Senate since Reconstruction and the first to be elected by popular… Continue reading

“Depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in ‘Selma’ Raises Hackles”

January 2, 2015, 7:46 amVoting Rights ActRick Hasen

NYT: “The debate isn’t just about L.B.J., but about how American politics works,” said Professor Zelizer, who teaches history at Princeton. “Is it a matter of powerful elected leaders, or average people who put their bodies on the line?”… Continue reading

“Evidence That the Jim Crow Era Endures for Older Black Voters in the South”

December 30, 2014, 5:42 pmThe Voting Wars, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

NYT’s the Upshot reports.

North Carolina Seeks Supreme Court Review in Voting Case

December 30, 2014, 5:13 pmelection administration, The Voting Wars, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Regular ELB readers will recall that there is a major voting rights lawsuit against the State of North Carolina for controversial changes in voting rules passed by the Republican-dominated state legislature last year. Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to block… Continue reading

“NC Supreme Court upholds GOP-drawn legislative, congressional districts”

December 21, 2014, 3:20 pmredistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

News and Observer: Twelve months after hearing arguments in the case, the N.C. Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday upholding the Republican-led redrawing of state congressional and legislative districts in 2011. But the NAACP and other organizations that challenged… Continue reading

“Lawsuit claims racial discrimination in Ferguson voting”

December 18, 2014, 9:48 amVoting Rights ActRick Hasen

MSNBC: School board elections in Ferguson, Missouri use a racially discriminatory system that is helping to keep blacks “all but locked out of the political process,” a new federal lawsuit alleges. The suit, filed Thursday morning by the American… Continue reading

“Texas: Judge in Voting Rights Case Made ‘Winners Out of Clear Losers'”

December 16, 2014, 2:07 pmVoting Rights ActRick Hasen

BLT: “Lawyers for the state of Texas have accused a federal district judge of wrongfully awarding ‘a consolation prize’ of more than $1 million in attorney fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans.”

“What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials”

December 12, 2014, 7:44 amelection administration, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

White, Nathan, and Faller have this draft coming out in APSR. Here is the abstract: Do street-level bureaucrats discriminate in the services they provide to constituents? We use a field experiment to measure differential information provision about voting by local… Continue reading

“If The Supreme Court Reads This Study, It Could End Partisan Gerrymandering Forever”

December 2, 2014, 8:10 amredistricting, Supreme Court, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Ian Millhiser writes. I was surprised to see no mention of Voting Rights Act requirements in drawing these districts.

“Studies Back Up That Few Elections Are Swung by Voter ID Laws”

November 26, 2014, 11:19 amelection administration, The Voting Wars, voter id, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Nate Cohn for NYT’s The UpShot: Last week, I wrote an article arguing that voter ID laws don’t swing many elections. This week, the Brennan Center for Justice says I have it “wrong” on voter ID. Yet,… Continue reading

Democracy NC Claims Up to 50,000 Voters “Silenced” by New Voting Restrictions

November 25, 2014, 8:17 amelection administration, The Voting Wars, voter id, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

See this release from Democracy North Carolina. I’m quite skeptical of the 50,000 figure, based upon how the group explains part of its calculations: How many voters were blocked by the new law? The number easily exceeds 30,000 and likely … Continue reading

“Glendale City Council to discuss scrapping at-large election system”

November 23, 2014, 3:33 pmVoting Rights ActRick Hasen

More fallout from the CVRA.

“Exclusive: new emails reveal efforts to redraw Florida political lines to favor Republicans”

November 23, 2014, 3:23 pmredistricting, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Naples Daily News: More than 500-pages of emails kept secret during an ongoing redistricting legal battle shed light on the behind-the-scene efforts by a handful of GOP political consultants to influence Florida’s political lines, according to documents obtained by the… Continue reading