Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

R.I. voter ID law hailed at U.S. Senate hearing

Here is link


Rhode Island’s controversial voter-identification legislation was among those hailed by conservatives in testimony last Thursday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee examining new voter laws passed by state legislatures this year.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, quoted from Governor Chafee’s defense of the law, saying “requiring identification at the polling place is a reasonable request to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our elections.”

He also cited a quote from state Sen. Harold Metts, a Providence Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation. He defended the law this way: “[A]s a minority citizen and senior citizen I would not support anything that I thought would represent obstacles or limit protections.

DOJ leaks they will object to Texas Redistricting plan

Link. “The State of Texas will be filing a motion for summary judgment in the case by Wednesday and the Justice Department is expected to set forth its objections to the maps next Monday, September 19.”   Apparently, someone already knows DoJ will be objecting to the Texas plan.  It must have slipped out at one of the meetings the Voting Section held recently with the parade of plaintiffs intervening in the preclearance process.  So much for the internal and confidential administrative review process of the DoJ Voting Section, a process that is supposed to conduct its analysis without leaks to the media or the interest groups.  Instead we see evidence of Miller v. Johnson violations where Voting Section attorneys maintain a much-too-cozy relationship with these groups and essentially cut and paste from their memorandums to justify DoJ objections.  All the signs and glee of interest groups point to opposition by DoJ.

What is even more remarkable is that it appears that the DoJ Voting Section will focus its attention on coalition districts and rescuing the partisan target of Texas Republicans, Representative Lloyd Doggett.  Doggett is the Anglo Democrat from the Austin area, a seat where there is not even enough of a minority population to create a majority minority seat.  Despite language by the Supreme Court in Bartlett that expressed skepticism with coalition districts in the context of Section 2, the Democrats assert that Austin and eastern Trav­is County together constitutes a “coalition district” where Hispanics and blacks don’t reside in sufficient numbers to elect candidates of their choice on their own, but with crossover white voting, may be able to create an coalition that would elect an Anglo Democrat. 

Will DoJ Voting actually risk the constitutionality of Section 5 over a potential coalition (or crossover) district that is protecting the most partisan white Democrat in Texas?    

Dems urge DOJ Voting to defy Supreme Court in “last line of defense against voter ID”

It was just 2008 when the Supreme Court made its mark on the legal debate over voter ID by upholding the relatively stringent Indiana voter ID law by a safe and solid 6-3 majority authored by then Justice Stevens.  However, it is increasingly apparent that opponents of voter ID, including many exercised Senate Democrats, are counting on the hard lefties in the Voting Section to fight to the last man and defy the Supreme Court ruling in Crawford. Interested observers noted in a panic:

“The last line of defense against voter identification laws is the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which enforces Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act”

Certainly, the Supreme Court believed they would have the final say on the matter and did not desire to delegate that authority to the new political hires in the Voting Section.  As if on cue, DoJ has put implementation of voter ID in South Carolina on hold for at least 60 days in requesting additional information to meet some unquantifiable burden as to why the voter ID process is not racially discriminatory. Of course, there is nothing unusual about the voter ID legislation in South Carolina other than they go above and beyond that of the 14 or so other states (including Indiana) that utilize voter identification, in accomodating citizens to more easily access voter identification.  

The Supreme Court decision in Crawford was momentous in deciding that the election administration practice of voter identification served the vital state interests of preventing fraud, modernizing elections, and safeguarding voter confidence and was not discriminatory or unconstitutional as a poll tax or unduly burdensome.  In fact, the Supreme Court ruling pulled extensive language from the Baker-Carter Commission bipartisan recommendations that included voter photo identification.  The Court was sending the message that the voter ID requirement is a legitimate reform and now a political question for legislatures to decide on the merits, not to battle in the halls of the Voting Section.  The Court was not sending a green light to diehard racialists at DoJ to make a last stand on the small Pacific Island of VoterID.

Despite steps taken by South Carolina to make photo identification even more accessible by driving registrants to local DMV’s if needed, it seems that DoJ remains entrenched in their default opposition and needs more information, more questions answered, and yet more time to analyze all the data…. that apparently wasn’t considered by the Supreme Court. Experts will tell you that this request for more information is just a prelude to more 60-day delays, more requests for information, and ultimately an outright objection will be forthcoming.  Memory is short with certain institutions in South Carolina and they failed to recall that the Palmetto State was where Obama staked his claim to the Democratic nomination and that their only true chance at objectivity in the preclearance process would be at the DC District Court.

After the 60-day smack in the face and a bunch of “I told you so” recriminations of not exercising the right to go to court, the light bulb finally went on and South Carolina hired former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement to represent them in taking this issue to the Supreme Court. As one of the lawyers who successfully argued for voter ID in Crawford, Clement will have the credibility to argue to the Supreme Court that DoJ is misusing the invasive power of Section 5 on voter ID on what is essentially now a political issue (as political gerrymandering) that has already been resolved by the highest court.  Clement may not have the most intimate knowledge of the shenanigans of the Voting Section, but he is probably the best man to argue that DoJ is openly defying the Court in the few states the DoJ can still cause mischief on voter ID – South Carolina and Texas. 

And mark it down, with the emergence of Rick Perry as a potential Republican nominee, the Voting Section and others will try to cause a bunch of mischief for the Lone Star State on a whole series of voting issues, including the epicenter of angst on the left – Texas Redistricting.  It’s going to be Cowboys vs. Aliens very soon.     

DOJ attorneys visit Ohio and tell Lorian County to use Spanish ballots by November

The Chronicle Telegram reports on a visit from two DOJ Voting Section attorneys late last week:


Elections board Director Paul Adams said the office probably would be able to offer the bilingual voting in the Nov. 8 election, depending on how quickly the office receives final language on a number of ballot issues.


The meeting with four attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department was congenial, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Heyer said the federal prosecutors were willing to take stronger action.


“The reality is this is a requirement of the law,” Heyer said. “If you say no, we’ll take you to court.”

One of the DOJ lawyers is quoted in the story as follows:


“Families are here, and they bring people here,” said Katherine Colliton [sic] -Gonzales, a trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department.


County officials stressed that they are worried about the additional expense involved in some aspects of offering bilingual ballots, especially in mailing out absentee ballots.


It could cost an extra $70,000 in printing and postage costs if the ballots are too large to fit into envelopes the board currently uses to mail absentee ballots.


County Administrator James Cordes said $70,000 is the equivalent of a sheriff’s deputy’s salary and he said, “Somebody is going to lose some money in the county to pay for this unfunded mandate.”


Absentee ballots in Spanish would likely be offered next year. The federal prosecutors agreed that the ballots could be sent out in either Spanish or English based on whether the person requesting the ballot filled out the request in Spanish or English, according to the agreement reached Thursday.


The federal attorneys said they still plan to file a lawsuit so the settlement agreement can be journalized as a legal document.