Following Friday’s ruling by a U.S. District Court judge requiring Ohio legislators to withdraw their lawsuit against a federal consent decree regarding provisional ballots, Secretary of State Husted “remains concerned about the conflict between state law and the federal order.”

The Tampa Bay Times reports:  Amid an increasingly partisan dogfight, Florida elections officials say
the number of potential noncitizens they’re examining on the state voter
rolls is 180,000, a figure far higher than what was initially reported.

The immediate concern is the large number of potential non-citizens on the rolls and the fact that the Obama Department of Homeland Security is dragging its feet in cooperation with the states.

…By the end of the process, the state could send counties as many as
22,000 names to check, one election source indicated, in a state with
more than 12 million total voters.  Right now, local supervisors
have been sent nearly 2,700 names, about 2,000 of which are in
Miami-Dade, Florida’s most-populous and most-immigrant heavy county.

Some
Democrats accuse Republican-appointed Secretary of State Ken Detzner of
engaging in a type of “voter suppression.” But Detzner’s office said
he’s trying to make sure no unlawful votes are cast — and it indicated
that President Barack Obama’s administration is stonewalling the effort
by refusing to share Department of Homeland Security databases that
could more easily show who’s a citizen and who’s not.

But Democrats don’t want to cooperate.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, said in a written statement that DHS shouldn’t cooperate.  “The
Florida Republicans’ desire to use Department of Homeland Security
information — which is for the purpose of thwarting terrorists and not
to engage in yet another round of voter suppression — would set a
dangerous precedent,” she said, “by not only taking away citizens’
constitutional right to vote but by giving state governments free rein
to invade innocent Americans’ privacy.”

The legislative dance continues in New Hampshire where the state House passed a law that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls to confirm their identity with an immediate start date to prepare for the 2012 Presidential Election.  The House bill would also require voters without ID to have their picture taken and attached to an affidavit from the person swearing to their identity.  The Senate would also require a photo ID but allow voters to vote with an affidavit if the voter did not bring the ID the polls.  However, the bill does not appear to require that a photograph of the voter be taken and would not go into effect until 2013.  Local election clerks and officials don’t believe implementation is possible for the 2012 election.

Yes, that is after the 2012 election, contrary to the implementation date Secretary of State Kobach believed prudent before the General Presidential Election.  The lead RINO (Republican In Name Only) in the Kansas Senate (Senate President Steve Morris) has killed a proposed earlier enactment in June 2012.  Apparently, even Kobach has conceded that legislation pushing for earlier implementation is dead.

Kobach, a conservative Republican, disputes those claims and contends
that the rule will prevent illegal immigrants and other non-citizens
from registering to vote. He said there’s little sense in delaying the
proof-of-citizenship requirement until after the busiest registration
period every four years.

“It’s outrageous,” Kobach told The
Associated Press. “Because of his action today, it is very likely that
dozens of aliens -illegal or not illegal – will get on the Kansas voter
rolls.”

…Kobach said Morris and his allies want to avoid an election-year vote against a popular measure.

“His actions go against the state’s interests to protect a small number of liberal Republicans from their constituents,” Koback said.

Link is here and discussion of named DOJ radicals starts at minute 13.

Story at PJ Media.

There’s a shock.  All this announcement accomplishes is make it more likely the Mississippi Voter ID law will end up in federal court.

I figured out how to add a salesbar widget to Election Law Center.  Earlier I promised sales rank data periodically for the new election law books by John Fund/Hans von Spakovsky, and Tova Wang and Rick Hasen.  Rather than take the time to periodically update the sales rankings at Amazon, Novelrank has a way to do it automatically with widgets.

Important note – think of American Top 40 when you look at the rankings.  Lower is better.  Injustice reached #23 at Amazon and #13 at Barnes and Noble, then slowly “fell” from there, even though the numbers went “up.”

Scroll way down to the bottom of this page on the left to see sales rankings.  These three books all launch in August 2012, so the rankings will offer comparable data along the natural sales arc of a book.  Injustice launched in October of last year so it will be on a different arc, but  I included Injustice also in the sidebar.

Novel rank confesses that their “units sold” model underestimates.  They have no way to know actual sales by unit.  So they show a single book sold every time the ranking goes up.

One final note, as of now, nobody has bought Tova Wang’s book at Amazon so there is no sales ranking. Amazon won’t rank you until after your first sale.  So someone needs to make a purchase of her book and lift it out of hibernation.

The Union Leader is right: “Replacing the Senate’s text with the proposed House Election Law Committee amendment would be to kill our best shot at getting a solid voter ID law in place in time for the upcoming elections. The House should not do it. It should instead pass SB 289 to protect the integrity of the upcoming elections and revisit the issue next year if any improvements are needed.”

 Overseas, not military.  The rub:

“Mr. Carey said he had changed the wording in response to requests from state election officials. Voters from some states, he said, receive federal, state and local ballots only if they indicate an intention to return — no matter when — while those who express no intention to return receive only federal ballots.”

Exactly.  Overseas voters shouldn’t be participating in state elections if they never intend to return to the United States.  Good call by Bob Carey.