Category Archives: voter registration

Ninth Circuit tosses part of Arizona voter registration election case in broad standing decision, citing FDA v. AHM

election law and constitutional law, voter registration

In June, I noted that the Supreme Court’s decision in FDA v. AHM might result in an uptick in election law cases where plaintiffs would lose cases for lack of standing for plaintiffs who claimed a “diversion of resources” theory of injury, often citing a case called Havens Realty. In July, I noted this happened quickly in some courts. Last week, a Ninth Circuit panel in Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans v. Mayes tossed one claim under FDA v. AHM, with a divided panel questioning the future of FDA v. AHM for standing doctrine. (The panel also found against the plaintiffs on the merits of another claim unanimously.) The claim related to an Arizona law, which is, as the majority put it, “a provision that allows the cancellation of a voter’s registration if a county receives ‘confirmation from another county’ that the voter has moved and is registered in that new county (‘Cancellation Provision’).” If it stands, it could have significant consequences, in election law cases and beyond, in a large part of the federal judiciary.

Judge Lee, joined by Judge Collins, wrote (lightly edited):

Continue reading Ninth Circuit tosses part of Arizona voter registration election case in broad standing decision, citing FDA v. AHM →
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“Justice Department Sues Alabama for Violating Federal Law’s Prohibition on Systematic Efforts to Remove Voters Within 90 Days of an Election”

Department of Justice, voter registration

DOJ press release:

On Aug. 13, the Secretary of State announced the launch of a “process to remove noncitizens registered to vote in Alabama.” This was 84 days before the Nov. 5 general election. The Justice Department’s review found that both native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens have received letters stating that their voter record has been made inactive and that they have been placed on a path for removal from Alabama’s statewide voter registration list. The letter directs recipients who are in fact U.S. citizens and eligible to vote to complete and submit an attached State of Alabama Voter Registration Form. In turn, that form instructs that people may not register to vote in the 14 days before an election. This systematic voter removal program, which the State is conducting within 90 days of the upcoming federal election, violates the Quiet Period Provision.

The Justice Department seeks injunctive relief that would restore the ability of impacted eligible voters to vote unimpeded on Election Day and would prohibit future Quiet Period violations. The department also seeks remedial mailings to educate eligible voters concerning the restoration of their rights and adequate training of local officials and poll workers to address confusion and distrust among eligible voters accused of being noncitizens.

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“Florida Law Strikes ‘Deathblow’ to Outside Groups Trying to Register New Voters “

The Voting Wars, voter registration

Bolts:

The effects of SB 7050 have been felt around the state. In a state that already sees lower voter registration rates across the board, particularly for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and other communities of color outside organizations have long stepped in to fill a void left by state actors. But that work is now stalling. When the law came into effect, Poder Latinx, an organization promoting civic engagement in Latinx communities, paused their programs as there were “no clear guidelines on how to move forward.” Carolina Wassmer, Poder Latinx’s Florida State Director, mentioned that the organization had to work closely with their legal counsel to understand the law’s implications and ways to ensure compliance before resuming voter outreach.

Advocates see SB 7050 as the latest in a wave of voter suppression laws to come out of the state legislature. It was preceded by other laws such as SB 90 and SB 524 which restricted vote-by-mail and increased fines on these groups, respectively. 

“7050 was sort of the deathblow to third-party voter registration,” said Genesis Robinson, interim executive director of Equal Ground Education Fund and Action Fund, a Black-led voter rights organization. “It was really a compounding effect with other voter suppression bills that had passed in previous legislative sessions.”

The requirement of re-registering with the state each election cycle, combined with the possibility of burdensome fines, has “radically changed” how the League of Women Voters of Florida registers voters. “We come prepared with voter registration applications, but we just no longer take them away and turn them in,” Cecile Scoon, co-president of the Florida League, told Bolts. 

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Colorado: “On Native Land, a New Push to Expand Voting Meets the Long Tail of State Violence”

voter registration, Voting Rights Act

Bolts:


Lorelei Cloud was born in 1967, three years before Native Americans living on tribal lands in Colorado were guaranteed the right to vote. Even once she turned 18, and for many years thereafter, she did not vote. Her polling place was in Durango, miles from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Reservation, where she lived, and she had no car with which to access registration services or to cast a ballot. Politicians seldom visited her area, and hardly seemed to represent her interests, anyway.

Cloud is now vice chair of the Southern Ute tribal council, and from the tribe’s headquarters early this summer, she reflected on how much has changed. Since 2019, when Democrats gained a legislative trifecta in the state, Colorado has established a polling place on the reservation and placed a drop box there for mail ballots. The state has also hired special liaisons to promote and facilitate turnout among Native voters. “I don’t want future generations to have to deal with any of what we’ve had to, to get to vote,” Cloud told me. “We should have access to the vote, to shape our own region, our own country.”

Colorado officials are now proposing to go further. In 2023, the state adopted legislation to try something that’s never been done in this country: automatically register tribal members to vote in U.S. elections. 

The program, if implemented, would enable tribes to share their membership lists with Colorado elections officials, who’d then use that information to register every eligible person to vote, while giving them a chance to opt out. Since Colorado already mails ballots to every registered voter, this would necessarily mean getting ballots into the hands of more Native people. “We’ve made real steps forward, and we’re going to continue,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told me recently. “We always try to push the envelope.”

Cloud, like Griswold, sees immense promise in this plan. When she testified in favor of the law last year, she said Colorado “serves as a model for other states to increase voting among tribal members.” And advocates living in those other states are watching. Several told me Colorado’s reform could be transformative if it spreads nationwide: Roughly one third of the more than six million Native Americans who are eligible to vote across the country are not registered, a share far greater than that of white Americans who are unregistered.

And yet, Cloud is also keenly concerned that the program could make her community more vulnerable. For U.S. election officials to automatically register tribal members to vote, the tribes would need to share certain vital information about their members, such as full name, address, and date of birth. Cloud is hesitant to hand this data over to a state that has, over a long history that she knows too well, been an agent of violence…

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RNC Filed Reply Brief after Midnight Last Night in SCOTUS Emergency Election Case from Arizona; Expect an Order within a Couple of Days

Supreme Court, voter registration

With this filing, briefing is now complete. The administrative deadline suggested to the Justices was July 22.

I expect the Justices are not going to grant the relief given the closeness to the election and its application of Purcell. But it’s also possible they will do something unusual and set this case for briefing and argument on the substance of some of these issues. (The better course would be to let the litigation play out in the district court and Ninth Circuit and then consider taking the case on the merits.)

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“How Texas election officials are dealing with a flood of challenges to voter registrations”

chicanery, fraudulent fraud squad, voter registration

Votebeat:

County election departments across Texas are trying to reassure voters amid a flood of formal challenges questioning whether their registrations are valid.

The challenges, filed by conservative groups and individual activists, seek to remove tens of thousands of voters from the rolls on the grounds that they don’t live in the county, are not citizens, or have died.

Election officials say the challenges are complicating the work they’re already doing to keep their voter rolls updated. They want voters to know that they’re following state and federal laws that protect voters from being improperly removed from the rolls if someone questions their eligibility.

Multiple election officials told Votebeat that the majority of the challenges they’ve received are against voters whose status their offices had already flagged through their daily voter list maintenance. In a few cases, the challenges start a process that could lead to careful removal of voters after the November election….

The large-scale challenge effort is being led by Houston-based right-wing group True the Vote, which has been working for years to purge the rolls of voters it perceives as ineligible ahead of the November presidential election. It’s part of a wave of challenges aimed at voters in several states, including such battlegrounds as Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The group is using an online tool called IV3 that matches voter data with change-of-address records from the U.S. Postal Service. Activists relying on that tool have been delivering stacks of challenges to election offices, or emailing election administrators with spreadsheets listing voters’ names. True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht did not respond to Votebeat’s request for comment.

The effort has drawn criticism from election officials, courts and voting-rights advocates. For one thing, they say, the postal database that True the Vote relies on is outdated and not a reliable source for determining voter eligibility. For another, they say, the effort gives credence to false claims that large numbers of people are voting illegally by exploiting deficiencies in registration records.

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Impressive new vote.gov redesign

election administration, voter registration

On today’s anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, the Vice President name-checked vote.gov. And it looks like the site recently got a facelift that’s a giant improvement over its effectively 8-bit predecessor (which wasn’t all that different from the OG version).

With an 8-character URL, the site has some impressive new content, too — not just easy access voter registration almost anywhere in the country (c’mon, New Hampshire) or ways to check your voter registration status, but basic info about how to vote, including info tailored to a few different groups with special considerations (students, servicemembers, new citizens, voters with disabilities, voters who are unhoused, voters with convictions, etc.). All with substance ratified by the EAC, all designed for accessibility, and all in 17 different languages (so far). And the site is designed to get users into the hands of state/local election officials for the most localized, most up-to-date info as quickly as possible: it’s a smart, reliable, universal portal that’s not trying to become a substitute.

The single best way to ameliorate inaccurate information — intentional or otherwise — is to flood the zone with paths to accurate information. This is a great step forward.

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Ground Game 2024

voter initiatives, voter registration,

Harris just picked up a big endorsement. The AP reports that UNITE HERE has endorsed Harris, promising “to have its members knock on more than 3.3 million doors for Harris in swing states that include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina.” The union was the engine behind Harry Reid’s success in turning Nevada Blue.

Trump, meanwhile, having put an end to the RNC’s planned ground game strategy, is planning to use three super PACs (America First Works, America PAC, and Turning Point Action) to orchestrate his voter turnout efforts. This strategy was made possible after the FEC issued new guidance that allows campaigns and outside groups to coordinate and share information related to turnout. The Trump campaign is also maintaining its reliance on committed volunteers (using a model similar to Obama’s).

The FEC’s deregulatory choice is something I have long supported. Spending money on voter turnout is what we should be doing. The RNC’s decision to retreat from a plan that involved opening 12 offices and hiring 88 staff members, on the other hand, seems a step in the wrong direction–although it appears only ever to have been a short-term presidential cycle plan (also shortsighted).

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“Elon Musk PAC being investigated by Michigan secretary of state for potential violations”

voter registration, ,

New development in the story Spencer Overton posted about how Musk’s pro-Trump PAC is funding efforts to redirect voters in swing states away from official voter registration sites, while leaving them with the false impression that they have registered to vote. The effort also collects a host of private information.

Michigan’s Secretary of State has now launched an investigation, according to Brian Schwartz at CNBC. It is not entirely clear whether state law currently prohibits such misdirection and voter suppression.

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“Federal judge finds no Colorado voter intimidation by ‘election integrity’ organizers”

voter registration

Colorado Politics:

A federal judge on Thursday concluded three civic organizations failed to provide evidence that the leaders of an “election integrity” effort illegally intimidated Colorado voters through a door-to-door canvassing project to search for election fraud in the wake of the 2020 presidential race.

After three days of testimony, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney granted the motion to end the case after noting both sides seemingly wanted to litigate matters beyond the narrow question she had to decide….

The plaintiff groups — the Colorado Montana Wyoming State Area Conference of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Colorado, and Mi Familia Vota — sued the founders of U.S. Election Integrity Plan (USEIP), which was an organized effort following the 2020 election to visit voters at more than 9,400 homes to inquire about their registrations and past voting behavior.

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“Ohio voter advocates warn group is making troubling challenges, ask Sec. of State to guide counties”

voter registration

Ohio Capital Journal:

Voting rights advocacy organizations are calling on the Ohio Secretary of State to create consistency within the county boards of elections when it comes to voter registration challenges.

The urgency comes in particular because of one group, the Ohio Election Integrity Network, which advocates say has been approaching multiple Ohio counties with lists of hundreds of voters they say are ineligible to vote in Ohio and should be removed from rolls. The way in which they are approaching county boards goes against the existing process of maintaining voting rolls, elections advocates say.

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Wilkinson on GOP Voter Fraud Claims

fraudulent fraud squad, voter registration

Francis Wilkinson in Bloomberg: “[A]rguably the most pervasive evidence of the GOP assault on democracy remains the party’s multi-front war on the franchise. The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that makes noncitizen voting illegal and requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. Since noncitizen voting is already illegal, and the Senate is well aware of that fact, the legislation will not go far. It’s what’s known as a messaging bill. The message: Do not trust democracy.“

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