Photo ID concerns across the pond.
Category Archives: voter id
“[NH] House Kills Citizenship Documentation Requirement for Voting”
An update from the NH Center for Public Interest Journalism on one element of the package of bills Rick noted a few days ago, even as a similar bill waits for the Governor.
California tussles over pockets of election administration
This Politico piece describes a fight that’s probably as much about statewide uniformity v. local control as it is about voter ID and securing data.
“Alabama GOP chair used homemade ID to vote. AG doesn’t seem to care.”
A very weird story about the chair of the Alabama Republican party using a very weird homemade photo ID to vote, in a way that sure seems like it doesn’t meet Ala. Code 17-9-30. (And allowing a one-person exception might well be a violation of federal law – 52 USC 10101(a)(2)(A) – too.)
I’m all for flexibility to allow a wider variety of ways for eligible voters to show that they are who they say they are. But that flexibility should be available to everyone, even if you’re not the state party chair.
“One of the biggest changes ever proposed for Colorado elections is on a journey to this November’s ballot”
Colorado Public Radio with more on the proposed initiative to implement a top-four primary with ranked-choice voting for the general election.
Meanwhile, there’s a signature campaign in Maine to get two initiatives on the ballot: voter ID and a repeal of participation in the national popular vote compact.
And don’t forget Arizona’s ballot measure to make ballot measures impracticable.
“Johnson’s ‘intuition’ clashes with data on illegal voting”
The Hill: The numbers, agreed on by both left- and right-of-center institutes, speak for themselves:
“The Brennan Center study from the 2016 general election showed an estimated 30 incidents of suspected — not confirmed — noncitizen votes out of 23.5 million, which is 0.0001 percent of the votes cast. So the Speaker’s intuition is incorrect,” she told The Hill.
That’s a conclusion that’s also been reached by the libertarian Cato Institute, with one of its experts calling the claims one of the “most frequent and less serious criticisms” relating to migration.”
“Huntington Beach on collision course with California over voter ID requirement”
Huntington Beach voters are poised to adopt a pair of measures pushed by local leaders seeking to remake the Orange County city into a bastion of resistance against liberal California — likely setting up a showdown with the state over voting rights that could further galvanize conservatives.
With tens of thousands of ballots from the March election counted as of Wednesday evening, a charter amendment that would allow the city to require voter identification in municipal elections led 54% to 46%. Another to restrict which flags can fly on city property, effectively banning displays of the rainbow LGBTQ+ Pride flag, was winning with more than 58% of the vote.
Both proposals emerged from a new conservative majority on the city council, elected in 2022, which has spent the past year on a contentious campaign to reverse any past progressive governance that they argue is out of step with the community’s values. The crusade has thrust Huntington Beach into some of the country’s fiercest cultural battles, including over vaccine mandates, transgender athletes and library books.
“This is the direction that the community has been wanting to go,” said Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark, a Republican who led the effort to establish a committee to monitor library books for sexual content. “If they didn’t want this, they wouldn’t have voted and supported this.”
The election will not be the final word, however.
Last fall, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, both Democrats, warned Huntington Beach officials that the voter ID proposal — which would take effect in 2026, and also grant the city authority to add more in-person voting locations and monitor ballot drop-boxes — conflicted with state law. They contend that requiring voter ID violates a provision in the election code that prohibits “mass, indiscriminate, and groundless challenging of voters solely for the purpose of preventing voters from voting.”
Despite a lawsuit from Huntington Beach resident Mark Bixby aiming to block the measure, a judge ruled that its legality could only be considered if it were to pass and allowed it onto the March ballot.
“Indiana Legislature approves bill adding additional verification steps to voter registration”
“After long legal battle, voter ID arrives in NC. But could it be gone again by 2024?”
After a decade of false starts — and millions of dollars spent fighting over the issue at the ballot box and in the courtroom — North Carolina voters are now required to show photo identification to cast a ballot in person.
The new voter ID requirement is a victory for conservatives. They’ve pushed for stricter voting laws, saying rules like voter ID are needed to improve voters’ faith that elections aren’t being rigged. Such concerns have skyrocketed among Republicans in recent years due to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
It’s also a setback for progressives and civil rights activists. They say the law isn’t actually intended to fight voter fraud, which is rare already. Instead, they say, it’s being put in place to make voting harder for poor people, minorities and college students — all of whom tend to support Democrats.
“Five years ago, North Carolinians made it clear that they supported enshrining in our constitution a requirement to show a photo ID to vote,” said Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, a chairman of the state senate’s election law committee. “Since then, far-left activists and their allies in the executive branch have tried everything to stop this commonsense measure from becoming a reality.”
North Carolina’s first attempt at voter ID, in 2013, was ruled unconstitutional — one piece of a broad set of election law changes that federal courts found Republican lawmakers had written to intentionally discriminate against Black voters.
State lawmakers tried again in 2018, as Newton referenced, asking voters to add an ID requirement to the state constitution. Voters agreed, and the voter ID amendment passed in 2018 with 55% support. But it had been held up in court. Then, earlier this year, the North Carolina Supreme Court signed off on voter ID, reversing the court’s own decision from just a few months prior that had found voter ID to be racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.
That judicial flip-flop coincided with the elected Supreme Court’s majority shifting from Democrats to Republicans. It allowed voter ID rules to go into place starting Thursday, when the first city council races of 2023 began….
Although Republicans have now won the main state-level lawsuit against voter ID, there’s still a federal lawsuit moving forward, filed by the NAACP and other civil rights groups. And more could be filed if problems arise now that voter ID is actually being used.
Irving Joyner, a professor at North Carolina Central University’s law school and longtime NAACP attorney, said they’re hoping to see things move faster in their federal lawsuit now that the 2024 elections are imminent. The two sides are currently fighting over what evidence should be allowed at trial, but court records indicate that a ruling should be made soon.
Once that’s settled, the next fight could be over when to hold the trial — a consequential decision. If the NAACP wins and voter ID is ruled unconstitutional yet again, it would matter a great deal whether that ruling comes before or after next November’s presidential election.
“We have sought to provide the judge with a schedule that will get us into trial in the early part of 2024 to give the judge plenty of time to consider the evidence that we are presenting,” Joyner said. “… But you never know. The state is trying to string it along, out until after the 2024 election.”
“‘Lose the courts, lose the war’: The battle over voting in North Carolina”
Center for Public Integrity has this story, part of its series on state high courts, tracing the state’s long-running fights over voting. Spoiler alert: “The North Carolina Supreme Court released its opinions in the redistricting, voter ID and felony disenfranchisement cases on the same day: April 28. In each case, the new majority handed a victory to Republicans in the legislature in a 5-2 ruling split along party lines.”
“Changes to Ohio voter ID law will impact August 8 election. Here’s how”
To get to the ballot box, voters need to keep in mind changes made to voter ID laws last year, in a late-night legislative move approved by Gov. Mike DeWine at the beginning of 2023.
Those changes, made through House Bill 458, mean different identification allowed at the polls, and limits to the absentee ballot dates….
Ironically, HB 458’s original intent was to eliminate most August elections, a GOP-supported measure back when the bill was passed due to the cost of an extra primary and the historically low turnout.
Since then, Republicans have backtracked, re-implementing the August election specifically for the purpose of Issue 1, the measure to require citizen-initiated ballot measures to have signatures in all 88 counties in the state and 60% voter approval.
“Michigan governor signs legislation expanding voting rights”
AP: “The legislation, which resulted from the voter-approved Proposal 2, establishes a website for voters to track when their ballots are received and counted, and requires at least nine days of early voting before each statewide and federal election. Voters can also now fix clerical errors on their ballots and use U.S. passports, tribal photo ID cards, military ID cards or student ID cards to identify themselves when they show up to cast ballots.”
“North Carolina elections at risk of chaos with Legislature’s proposed overhaul”
North Carolina lawmakers are considering not only a spate of new election restrictions but also a major overhaul of state and county-level election boards, alarming advocates who say some of the proposals could grind the state’s democratic apparatus to a halt.
The changes would restrict same-day registration and mail-in voting. They would also give new powers to the state Legislature, where Republican lawmakers have been emboldened by a new veto-proof majority, along with a new Republican majority on the state Supreme Court.
The three bills, which could be considered in House committee hearings as early as this week, come as North Carolina begins to institute new voter ID rules. The state Supreme Court had previously declared the photo ID requirements unconstitutional, but the new Republican majority reversed that decision earlier this year, allowing the law to be enacted.
Injunction Sought in Idaho Voter Registration/Identification Case
From the Idaho Capital Sun: “A new Idaho voter registration law that took effect July 1 requires voters to prove their identity and residency when registering to vote, no matter how they register…. But a Boise-based youth voter advocacy group called Babe Vote announced less than a week after the new law took effect that it was suspending voter registration efforts and filed an injunction in Ada County District Court seeking to halt enforcement of the new law.”