Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

Texas Sec of State gives DOJ more info on voter ID

This doesn’t look to end well for Texas.  The Texas Secretary of States has provided a response to the DOJ’s “more information” request.  More information requests are one of the early signs that an objection may be forthcoming.  If Texas wants to see voter ID become law, it would be well advised to consider pulling the submission immediately and filing in United States District Court for approval by a fair and impartial federal judge.  It may well be cheaper, and if an objection is imminent as many suspect, it will also be quicker. 

With “Dems poised for gains in Ariz. remap”, bipartisan = Red to Blue

Politico has the story of Christmas in October for Arizona Democrats.  It is an outrage. 

Overwhelming Republican majority state + (so-called) bipartisan redistricting commission = Democratic majority map. 

One would suppose it would not be such a radical belief to expect a fully red Arizona (two Republican senators, 2/3rds majority of Republicans in both legislative bodies, an Republican attorney general and Republican Governor) to actually have a Republican majority in the Congress.  Despite not one Democrat able to be elected statewide (that I can find), Democrats are giving thanks to the deceitful bipartisan redistricting committee for balancing the scales unilaterally and feeding some scraps to the Democrats.  The reality is that this is like giving alcohol to the homeless and will likely backfire.  Here is the lead of the story:


A newly proposed Arizona redistricting plan has the potential to drastically alter the state’s congressional landscape, positioning Democrats to compete for the majority of the state’s nine seats and possibly instigating a primary between two GOP freshmen.  The map, released by the state’s new bipartisan redistricting commission, crafts safe seats for two of Arizona’s Hispanic Democrats, Rep. Raul Grijalva and Ed Pastor. It also places freshman Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from a January assassination attempt and has not indicated whether she will run for reelection, in a Democratic-oriented, Tucson-area seat.

So Arizona bipartisan line-drawing is protecting three Democratic seats but sending two popular Republican incumbents into primary battles and somehow precisely reducing the margins of the most vulnerable Republican seat.  This is exactly how Democrats wish they could use the Voting Rights Act and so-called bipartisan commissions across America – as a weapon to carve Republicans out of work. 

Gerrymandering against the will of the public by the political class results in such inequities. 

Sides trade volleys over Tennessee’s voter ID law

Claims of ‘barriers,’ ‘misinformation’ fly… at the link.  Is it 2012 already?


Opponents of a new law requiring voters to show identification at the polls launched a petition drive urging legislators to reconsider, but state officials fired back, accusing foes of spreading misinformation about the law’s impact…


But state election coordinator Mark Goins told a Senate committee that it is opponents who are disserving voters by implying that their right to vote will be taken away. Most voters who lack a state driver’s license have other forms of identification that qualify, and many others qualify to vote by mail under existing state laws, he said.


“Misinformation is disenfranchisement,” he said. “At this point, I’m more concerned about misinformation and fear disenfranchising voters than the law.”

New law to curb illegal voting: Tenn. to purge any noncitizen residents from election rolls

AP reports

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A new law designed to curb illegal voting by noncitizen residents has gone largely unnoticed, overshadowed by Tennessee’s new voter identification law.


But the state elections office will soon compare the names of more than 20,000 noncitizens who hold Tennessee driver’s licenses with voter registration records. Anyone listed as a noncitizen and registered to vote will be given 30 days to present proof of citizenship or be purged from the rolls.


“As far as potentially taking ineligible voters off the rolls, it’s potentially one of the most important things the Legislature did this year,” State Elections Coordinator Mark Goins said. “Because of the photo ID law, it just slid under the radar.”


The Department of Safety must provide a list of all noncitizens holding Tennessee driver’s licenses or certificates to Goins by Jan. 1.


Goins told the Knoxville News Sentinel that he is aware of at least two cases of noncitizens voting in Tennessee — one in Houston County and another in Putnam County. But he said that without this cross-checking of the rolls, there is no way to know how pervasive the practice is.


“I hope for four, or five. It could be 10,000,” he said. “It’s a shot in the dark.”

“What The Justice Department Can Actually Do About Voter ID Laws” – stop administratively what you couldn’t stop in court

Here is the link at TPM describing why DOJ is limited to fighting the voter ID wars on the little Pacific island called Section 5.  Experts have argued that Section 5’s constitutionality is already hanging tenously.  Why not politicize it some more.

But for all the other states that passed voter ID laws that aren’t subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, federal intervention is a long shot. The only other option for opposing a voter ID law is an argument under Section 2 of the VRA, where the burden of proof is pretty high.

The article quotes a recently departed DOJ political hire as to why DOJ’s ability to totally hijack voter identification laws is limited to alot of background noise and accusations of racism.

“In order to bring a Section 2 case, you’d have to as a practical matter show two things. One, that there’s a significant racial disparity and two, that the burden of getting an ID is significant enough for us to care about,” Samuel Bagenstos, who was until recently the number two official in the Civil Rights Division, told TPM. The Supreme Court’s decision in the Indiana voter ID case also suggests the court would be skeptical of a Section 2 case. And regardless of how the courts would find, any Section 2 case would almost certainly have to wait until after the 2012 election, since the evidence that the laws were discriminatory “can only be gathered during an election that takes place when the law is enacted,” Bagenstos said.”

Herein lies the problem with the way Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is being exercised by the Holder DOJ.  The Voting Section is inappropriately inserting themselves into a political question much like partisan gerrymandering.  The actual analysis under Section 5 should be much more circumspect and targeted because the executive branch is actually using the full power of the federal government in the most invasive manner possible on state power under the Constitution – stopping a state law from being enacted on the subjective analysis (not endorsed by a Court) that it may be racially discriminatory.  Remember, DOJ requires the states to prove to them that the law is not discriminatory, not a federal court.  And DOJ is ignoring the Crawford case.  Section 2 is always available to fight these laws if the opponents truly believed they could prove the law is discriminatory.  However, they fear such a review because the Supreme Court has clearly articulated that they don’t believe Voter ID is discriminatory.

Joel Pollack on DOJ

Attorney Joel Pollack on DOJ at the BIGS:


“If the Department of Justice was ‘politicized’ under George W. Bush, as critics alleged, at least it never embraced a double standard as a philosophy of law. And if Americans’ trust in government is at an all-time low, that is partly because there is seen to be one law for the political elite and the rich, and another law for everyone else.


In the administration of justice, a double standard anywhere corrodes the rule of law everywhere. That, more than race, is why the New Black Panther Party case matters.”