The Pacific News Center has this story.  Here is the pleading filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

President Obama stated in his 2013 State of the Union that he is creating a new “non-partisan” commission with “voting experts” to solve the nations’ voting line issue: 

We must all do our part to make sure our God-given rights are protected here at home. That includes one of the most fundamental right of a democracy: the right to vote. When any American, no matter where they live or what their party, are denied that right because they can’t afford to wait for five or six or seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals.  So tonight, I’m announcing a nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And it definitely needs improvement. I’m asking two long-time experts in the field — who, by the way, recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney’s campaign — to lead it. We can fix this, and we will. The American people demand it, and so does our democracy.

Who does the fact-checking for the President?  First, the lines averaged about 15 minutes across the country.  Second, based on the selection of its leadership, the Commission can only be considered highly partisan.

While not sure how Democrats view Mr. Ginsberg, Republicans view Mr. Bauer with deep suspicion as a hyper partisan lawyer due to his partisan flame-throwing and cutthroat tactics.  Indeed, both Democrat Robert Bauer and Republican Ben Ginsberg are campaign finance specialists.  However, campaign attorneys have a different role than that of experts in the field of election administration or voting. 

Their job is keep their clients out of trouble with the byzantine laws of campaign finance and ethics, not to make the voting experience for Americans a more comfortable experience. 

Both attorneys have furthered the partisan interest of those political parties, committees, and candidates and that has been their primary focus for decades.  Bauer even served as the President’s counsel in the White House.  Also, I am fairly certain that Bauer did not spent his career figuring out ways to solve the nations voting problems; instead it was more focused on fighting the latest wars money after Citizens United.  Similarly, Ginsberg represented Bush-Cheney to make sure Bush won Bush v. Gore not to pick up the pieces of the elections process in Florida.   

The President could have sought out two or more former Secretaries of States with partisan credentials but some real experience in the field.  However, it appears he is simply expecting “the lawyers” to negotiate on behalf of the political parties (RNC and DNC) and wander toward some grand political solution on what is essentially a local election administration problem. 

Perhaps these leading lawyers for the two political camps will bring in the experts to offer solutions to the issues presented, but that remains to be seen. 

The Foundry:

“And in fact, we already have a federal bipartisan election commission. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission was established in 2002 by the Help America Vote Act. It was tasked with recommending “best practices” in election administration to the states. But it is, in essence, a non-functioning agency: The seats of the four commissioners who run the agency have sat empty for a long time (they are supposed to be filled by the President), and the top two career slots, the general counsel and the staff director, also sit empty. So now President Obama wants to establish yet another election commission, bypassing the one we already have that has been idle—due to a lack of staffing that he is largely responsible for.”

It appears that many of the slowest longest lines to vote in November were at early voting sites.  This was especially true in Florida.  In the State of the Union speech the President talked about Desaline Victor from Miami.  For reasons not in the speech, and not in any press accounts, Ms. Victor waited in a long line for early voting.  Lines on election day tended to be much shorter than early voting lines. 

It was a confounding choice.  Why would voters choose to stand in long lines for early voting when election day lines were quicker and shorter?

One possibility is a lack of information, namely the risk adverse voter assumed that election day lines would be longer than early voting lines.  That, of course, wasn’t the case.  So insufficient information might explain the choice to stand in a 7 hour line instead of standing in a much shorter one on election day.

But now there is more information – early voting is slow while election day voting tends to be faster.

In the New Hampshire Union Leader, Secretary of State William Gardner tells the paper he is not happy with “one-size fits all” federal legislation to require mandatory early voting periods based on previous bad experiences with other federal involvement in different parts of the electoral process. He also states that the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) passed a bipartisan resolution advising against the attempted federalization of state election functions.  It sounds like a bipartisan group of state election officials don’t like the nationalization of elections in America and are speaking out against the overreach.

Two weeks ago, Gardner was in Washington,
D.C., for the winter conference of the National Association of
Secretaries of State, where he and other top state election officials
voiced concern about possible federal legislation.

A year ago,
the NASS passed a resolution urging Congress to “respect our country’s
legal and historical distinctions in federal and state sovereignty and
avoid pre-emptions of state authority when drafting federal
legislation.”

The 2012 resolution also states, “Federal
legislation should not curtail state innovation and authority solely for
the sake of creating uniform methods among the states; all legislation
should grant states maximum flexibility in determining methodologies for
properly and effectively carrying out the duties of secretaries of
state, including the protection of voting rights.”

 National Review Online.

“He announced a “nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America.” However, he is not putting election officials who have actual experience in election administration in charge of the commission. Instead, he is putting two campaign attorneys in charge, one from his campaign (former White House counsel Bob Bauer) and another from Governor Romney’s campaign (Ben Ginsburg). That is quite revealing of what Obama considers to be “nonpartisan.”

While there may have been a small number of Americans who had to wait for long periods to vote in 2012, the vast majority did not. A recent study of the 2012 election reported that the average wait time nationally was only 14 minutes. The longest times were in Florida (45 minutes), and one of the shortest was in California (6 minutes). In 2008, when we had the highest turnout in a presidential election since 1960, we had similarly short wait times. The Pew Center released a study in December reporting that “blacks voted at a higher rate this year than other minority groups and for the first time in history may also have voted at a higher rate than whites,” so it is pretty clear that there were no real problems in the 2012 election that kept the President’s base out of the polls. Methinks all the talk of long lines in the last month is designed to justify a federal takeover of elections that would do a lot of other mischief.

Why? As Secretary Kobach testified on behalf of SB 63, voter fraud is a real problem but is rarely prosecuted because locals focus on other crime… Kobach also lamented a lack of appetite for handing down serious penalties for voting crimes.  He noted that of the 11 double-voting violations his office has referred for prosecution, only two have been adjudicated and those resulted in diversion — essentially a warning that keeps an offender’s criminal record clean.

I will be speaking at St. Mary’s University law school in San Antonio (TX) on Ash Wednesday at noon.  Topic: Voting Rights Act, Shelby and Texas Voter ID. 

Indiana aims to fix a growing problem - out of state students pretending they live in state.  The Indiana legislation make a pretty reasonable assumption – if a student pays out of state tuition, then they aren’t a resident for voting purposes. 

“The bills would include elections for sheriff, district attorney, coroner, solicitor general, tax commissioner and clerk of superior court. Not included are races for county commissioner.” Link.