Voting Rights Act of 1965

What went wrong in Arizona’s election

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Arizona — OK, the state of Maricopa — was a national disgrace last week with an epic failure on election day for the Presidential Preference Election.  Some voters stood in line for over five hours to vote (which reminds me of the determined souls who stood in the cold for over ten hours in Ohio in 2004, No One Should Have to Stand in Line for 10 Hours to Vote, and the voters who stood in line for over seven hours in Florida in 2012. No One in America Should Have to Wait 7 Hours to Vote; Florida Voting Lines Discouraged 201,000 Voters Statewide).

Screenshot from 2016-03-28 13:33:22

A special Arizona House Elections Committee hearing today will take testimony from Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, and Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan will announce the results of her preliminary review before the hearing. Arizona House panel to review election foul-ups. You can bet that the Secretary of State will not name everyone responsible for this epic failure.

John Roberts and the Conservative Activist Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court

Chief Justice John Roberts spent his entire legal career seeking to undermine the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He achieved his life’s goal in 2013 with Shelby County v. Holder. The Election in Arizona Was a Mess:

Arizona has a long history of problems at the ballot box. Until 2013, the Grand Canyon State was one of 16 states required to clear all changes to voting law and procedures with the U.S. Department of Justice, under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, because of its history of discriminatory and racist election practices.

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Voter ID trial in North Carolina concludes today

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Closing arguments are set to begin this afternoon in the closely watched federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement. Closing arguments to begin in voter ID trial:

WillimaBarberJanet Thornton, a labor economist at Economic Research Services in Florida, was the last witness that state attorneys called. Plaintiffs, including the N.C. NAACP, rested their case Thursday.

The photo ID requirement was passed in 2013 as part of a sweeping elections law that state Republican legislators pushed soon after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That section required mostly southern states and 40 counties in North Carolina to seek federal approval of major changes in elections laws.

Voting rights activists consider North Carolina’s election law, known as the Voter Information Verification Act, to be one of the most restrictive in the country. The photo ID requirement didn’t take effect until this year and was amended last year just weeks before a federal trial on other provisions of the law.

The N.C. NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others filed a federal lawsuit in 2013, alleging that the elections law places undue burdens on blacks and Hispanics, is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Voter ID trial in North Carolina

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WillimaBarberThe voter I.D. trial in North Carolina got underway on Monday. This is Part II to the Voting Rights Act trial from last July, a decision in which is still pending and is likely to decided together with the voter I.D. trial.

On Tuesday, the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and leader of the Moral Mondays Movement testified at trial. State NAACP president takes stand in photo ID trial:

The Rev. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP, took the stand Tuesday on the second day of the federal trial on North Carolina’s photo ID requirement.

Barber reiterated the organization’s opposition to the photo ID requirement and, under cross-examination, defended the state NAACP’s efforts to educate people, not only about the photo ID requirement but also about options they have under the law if they don’t have a photo ID.

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Voter ID trial opens in North Carolina

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WillimaBarberA two-week trial of North Carolina’s election law — one of the most sweeping changes in voting practices in the country since the U.S. Supreme Court dealt what critics consider a blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — came to a close at the end of July last year, and a decision on whether the law discriminates against racial minorities was left to U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder. Closing arguments in North Carolina Voting Rights Act trial.

Most court observers believed that Judge Schroeder would issue a ruling before the end of the year, which did not happen.

A separate voter ID trial is scheduled to begin today. NC voter ID trial set for Jan. 25:

On the eve of [the Voting Rights Act] trial, the legislature amended the voter ID portion of the overhaul to allow voters to cast provisional ballots without one of six specified photo identification cards. Because the change came so close to the start of the summer trial, the judge told the parties he would wait to hear arguments on that portion of the case.

It now appears that the Court may join these two cases into one opinion. North Carolina’s primary election is in March 15, so time is of the essence.NC voter ID trial opens in Winston-Salem:

The trial over North Carolina’s voter ID law is set to begin Monday in front of U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, a federal judge who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2008.

The legal battle is one of several being watched across the nation as courts address questions of the fairness and lasting impacts ID laws have on voting rights.

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Oral argument in Evenwel v. Abbott

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SupremeCourtThe U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Evenwel v. Abbott on Tuesday, the Texas “one person, one vote” case. The transcript of the oral argument is here (.pdf).

There has been some very good analysis of the oral argument, which I have collected at length below.

Let’s begin with Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog, Argument analysis: The choice — be bold or practical:

The argument in Evenwel v. Abbott involves as fundamental an issue for a democracy as can be imagined:  is everyone represented in elected governments, or are those eligible to vote entitled to special influence and the political power making that possible?  The reason that such a choice is just now arising is that it is controlled by the half-century-old constitutional principle of “one person, one vote,” but the Supreme Court has never specified how to measure that equality.

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