Civil & Human Rights

National spotlight of shame on Arizona’s ‘broken-on-purpose’ election

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A dedicated group of high school students, Adios Arpaio, ran a successful drive to register new voters in Maricopa County to vote out the anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio. Adios Arpaio registered more than 34,000 new voters, exceeding their goal of 30,000. Well done!

But then those new voters ran into trouble on election day. Many of these newly registered voters were also signed up for the "permanent early voter list" (PEVL) but claim they never received their early mail ballot. Many other newly registered voters somehow did not appear on the voter register at their polling locations. These voters were given either provisional ballots or conditional provisional ballots.

Predictably, election officials and Arizona's GOPropaganda media blamed these voters for all the election day problems. Shorter version: "How dare they register to vote and actually show up to vote!"

Voters who received a conditional provisional ballot have until the close of business on Wednesday to return to their County Recorder's Office with the additional identification required to verify their voter status so that their ballot is counted.

Several voting rights groups, campaigns and the Democratic Party are phone banking these conditional provisional voters and even offering transportation to the their County Recorder's Office to assist them. Help out if you can.

DOJ reviewing election complaints in Arizona

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Talking Points Memo reports that "a representative of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division declined to say Monday whether federal authorities were considering taking action in Maricopa County, Ariz., where Latino voters were allegedly steered towards provisional ballots on election day. DOJ Stays Mum On Arizona Ballot Counting: Civil rights organizations have … Read more

Life and death on the border (video)

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

Loneprotestor has done it again. Check out her poignant video about recent deaths along the US/Mexico– in honor of the Day of the Dead.

Eight days after Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie was killed by friendly fire on the U.S.- Mexican border, a sixteen year-old boy was shot seven times through the border fence by a Border Patrol agent. Yet – in spite of involving the murder of a child across international lines – one incident received national attention for weeks, but the other was largely unknown except in the town where it happened. On November 2, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, both sides of the border in Nogales, Arizona, walked to honor Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez and the sixteen others killed by Border Patrol in the last three years, and called for an end to Border Patrol immunity.

Video after the jump.

Gerrymandering kept Republicans in charge of US House

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by Pamela Powers Hannley We here are Blog for Arizona have been beating the drum for election reform continuously for several weeks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 11)– long before our state was disgraced last week with 600,000+ uncounted ballots. In the election integrity arena, one thing that Arizona has done right– despite the Arizona Legislature– is to … Read more

U.S. Supreme Court to reexamine Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

After witnessing the most overt and blatant GOP voter suppression efforts in this election that we have seen in years, the "Felonious Five" of the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear a legal challenge to Section 5 preclearance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog.com, Court to rule on voting rights law:

Acting three days after the nation’s minority voters showed that they
have increased and still growing power in U.S. elections, the Supreme
Court agreed on Friday to
rule on a challenge to Congress’s power to protect those groups’ rights
at the polls.  The Court said it would hear claims that Congress went
beyond its authority when it extended for another twenty-five years the
nation’s most important civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act,
originally passed in 1965 and renewed four times since then.

Specially at issue is the constitutionality of the law’s Section
5, the most important provision, under which nine states and parts
of seven others with a past history of racial bias in voting must get
official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any
change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small.   The Court
came close to striking down that section three years ago, but
instead sent Congress clear signals that it should update the law so
that it reflects more recent conditions, especially in the South. 
Congress did nothing in reaction.

That would be because the U.S. Supreme Court does not get to legislate policy. The Congress does. The Court only decides whether Congress acted within the scope of its constituional authority, which it clearly did in this case, as the Court has held many times since 1965. [Note: Congress reauthorized the VRA most recently in 2006, by a vote of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate.]

The Court accepted the voting rights case from Shelby County, Ala.