The WSJ Editorial Board thinks not: Democrats accuse Republicans of suppressing the minority vote with laws to ensure ballot integrity. But then how do they explain record minority turnout last November? If Republicans were trying to stop minorities from voting, … Continue reading
Category Archives: voter id
WRAL: Legislation meant to work around a problem the state has had getting college IDs approved for voting identification was filed Tuesday.Lawmakers had been promising this fix. Most of the state’s universities failed to satisfy legal requirements set out by the General … Continue reading
WRAL: Student IDs from a dozen University of North Carolina schools, including UNC-Chapel Hill, didn’t get the signoff they needed Friday for students to use them at the polls during the 2020 elections.With a deadline in state law passing, it’s … Continue reading
On February 22, Rick noted that a North Carolina state trial court had voided a constitutional amendment pertaining to voter ID, because the amendment had been put on the ballot by a legislature elected pursuant to an unconstitutional gerrymander. Today, … Continue reading
There’s been ongoing litigation over the legality of Wisconsin’s voter ID rule (and other changes to Wisconsin election law). And by “ongoing,” I mean largely “in stasis”: opinions from the trial court were issued in July 2016 (and partially stayed … Continue reading
Release: The Wake County Superior Court today ruled that the illegally gerrymandered North Carolina General Assembly did not have legal authority to place constitutional amendments on the ballot because it did not act with the full will of the people of North … Continue reading
New paper: Strict ID Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008-2016 Enrico Cantoni, Vincent Pons NBER Working Paper No. 25522Issued in February 2019NBER Program(s):Political Economy U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote – an ostensive attempt to … Continue reading
NBER: Effects of Photo ID Laws on Registration and Turnout: Evidence from Rhode IslandFrancesco Maria Esposito, Diego Focanti, Justine S. HastingsNBER Working Paper No. 25503Issued in January 2019NBER Program(s):Law and Economics, Public Economics, Political Economy We study the effect of photo ID laws on voting … Continue reading
The Chronicle: A new voter ID law will require photo identification to cast a ballot in North Carolina. Earlier drafts of the bill disallowed students at private colleges in the state—such as Duke—from using their college ID card to vote, … Continue reading
Indiana Lawyer: Indianapolis attorney Robbin Stewart was raised to value the right to vote. In his home state of Delaware, Stewart watched his mother work as a citizen lobbyist to protect the environment, and he got his first taste of … Continue reading
Editorial: Open access to N.C. polls needs to be part of voter ID script (Capitol Broadcasting) — If there’s one thing state legislative leaders should realize from Monday’s legislative committee meeting, it is that it will take more than … Continue reading
News & Observer editorial. … Continue reading
News & Observer: Boards of elections would provide registration cards with photos, and students at North Carolina’s public universities would be able to use their school IDs to vote under a draft voter ID bill that Republican legislators released Tuesday. … Continue reading
In collaboration with Take Care, Election Law Blog is pleased to present a series of posts offering thoughts on legislation to reform the U.S. electoral process. Election reform is back on Congress’s agenda. Having won control of the U.S. House, Democratic leaders have said that … Continue reading
NYT: The judge, Daniel L. Hovland of the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota, wrote in a brief, two-page order that it was simply too close to Election Day to do so. He noted that “federal courts are … Continue reading
This looks like something good for a journalist to follow up on. A reader writes: “Texas apparently no longer interested in making voter ID available.I’ve been looking at Texas’s voter ID page (http://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/eic/index.htm) and noticed that, as of today, two … Continue reading
Missourian: As the Nov. 6 general election approaches, a new shake-up regarding voter identification laws has election authorities across Missouri — including in Boone County — on their toes. Cole County Judge Richard Callahan on Tuesday blocked provisions of the … Continue reading
AP: Arkansas’ highest court on Thursday upheld a voter ID law that is nearly identical to a restriction struck down by the court four years ago. The 5-2 decision from the Arkansas Supreme Court means the law, which requires voters … Continue reading
The court’s opinion and order is here. … Continue reading
Justices Ginsburg and Kagan (but surprisingly not Justice Sotomayor) dissented, citing the Purcell Principle. Justice Kavanaugh did not participate. Breaking: #SCOTUS allows North Dakota voter ID requirement, which had been enjoined during the primaries, to be enforced during the general … Continue reading
Vox has this interview with Allan Lichtman, discussing what he thinks was the Framers’ biggest mistake. … Continue reading
NPR reports on the work of Spread the Vote, one of the two main national organizations (VoteRiders is the other) helping eligible voters get the IDs they need. … 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
The News & Observer reports. … 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
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
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
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
Howard has it. And see my earlier post on the case, which begins: In what I consider to be a fundamentally disingenuous analysis by 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones, a divided 5th Circuit panel has not only held that Texas’s … Continue reading
Manny Fernandez reports for the NY Times. … Continue reading
Earlier today, Rick noted the 5th Circuit’s opinion on Texas’s voter ID law. I agree with much of his critique of the court’s resolution of the section 3(c) preclearance issue. In my post on the Texas redistricting cases earlier this … Continue reading
You can find a majority opinion by Judge Jones, concurring opinion by Judge Higginbotham, and dissenting opinion by Judge Graves in Veasey v. Abbott at this link. In what I consider to be a fundamentally disingenuous analysis by 5th Circuit … Continue reading
Read the brief and press release. … Continue reading
VOA: An Arkansas resident asked a judge Wednesday to strike down a new state law requiring voters show photo identification before casting a ballot, arguing the measure causes the same problems as a nearly identical state voter ID law struck … Continue reading
Important NYT read: But research, particularly of voter ID laws in Texas, Wisconsin and other states, provides an imprecise picture of how much similar laws suppress turnout. And Eitan Hersh, a Tufts University political scientist who contributed to the analysis … Continue reading
DOJ filing: The United States opposes private plaintiffs-appellees’ motion to lift the stay pending appeal that the motions panel entered on September 5, 2017. The parties’ merits briefs and oral argument before this Court only reinforce the strong likelihood that … Continue reading
Order via Raffi Melkonian. … Continue reading
Back in September, a 5th Circuit’s motions panel, on a 2-1 vote, stayed a trial court order which would have blocked Texas from implementing its revised voter id law pending appeal. The order specifically was not binding on the panel … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: In Texas’ bid to keep its voter identification law intact, it was its legal foes — lawyers representing voting and civil rights groups and individual voters of color — who faced a tougher line of questioning Tuesday before … Continue reading
Oral argument before the 5th Circuit Tuesday in Veasey case on the intentional discrimination question. With Judges Edith Jones and James Graves on the panel, there is likely to be a dissent, given how each voted in the last go … Continue reading
It never ends. On the last voter id law passed by the NC general assembly, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit concluded: “Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has denied a request by opponents of Texas’s strict voter id law to have the state’s appeal of the ruling holding the law illegal and enacted with racially discriminatory purpose … Continue reading
When I’ve spoken about voter ID rules in the past, I’ve consistently been asked why advocates haven’t put time and energy into helping people without the right ID get the right ID. And while it’s next to impossible for direct … Continue reading
Careful new study led by Ken Mayer: A survey of registered voters in Dane and Milwaukee Counties who did not vote in the 2016 presidential election found that 11.2% of eligible nonvoting registrants were deterred by the Wisconsin’s voter ID … Continue reading
Full throated defense of Texas’s current position in this litigation, a 180 from where DOJ was during the Obama administration. … Continue reading
Last week I reported that a 5th Circuit motions panel, on a 2-1 vote, allowed Texas to enforce its revised voter id law pending appeal in the case. The court put this stay in place this even though the trial court found … Continue reading
The other day I reported that a 5th Circuit motions panel, on a 2-1 vote, allowed Texas to enforce its revised voter id law pending appeal in the case. The court did this even though the trial court found Texas … Continue reading
Chuck Lindell with the schedule. … Continue reading