The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia states that the Voting Rights Act has had unintended consequences in that the landmak law seems to hurt those it was supposed to help.   

“The federal Voting Rights Act that was designed in the civil rights era to safeguard black electoral efficacy actually has the opposite effect now that it’s been fully exploited by both parties in the South.”

…. “Since blacks so reliably vote Democratic, where they were put on the district maps became the most visible tool in the partisan battle. When Democrats run the redistricting, they tend to distribute black voters across as many districts as the law allows so they’ll help keep Democratic lawmakers in the statehouse majority.  Democrats ran every Southern state when Congress passed the law in 1965, so it served kept them from spreading the blacks so thin that they would never elect black representatives. Those black legislators, in subsequent redistricting sessions, wanted to maximize the blacks in their districts to ensure re-election. Ironically, that aligned their interests with conservative Republicans who wanted as few blacks in their districts to improve their own re-election chance.”

The Chronicle seems confused in believing the Voting Rights Act was designed to perpetuate the power of the Democratic Party and not to empower Black Americans.  

MySanAntonio points out some potential train wrecks awaiting overseas military voters.  Is anyone listening?  excerpts from the article:

“The MOVE Act mandates ballots must be sent to voters in the military 45 days before an election.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out during the 2012 presidential election. The National Democratic Convention
does not conclude until Thursday, Sept. 6. That is the date when the
Democratic vice-presidential candidate is officially announced.

…..It looks like a train wreck waiting to happen.”

AP:  Arizona’s redistricting commission is already embroiled in partisan controversy even before it starts the politically sensitive job of drawing new congressional and legislative districts for use in elections in the coming decade.

Republicans say key staff choices, including a Democratic-leaning consulting firm whose president did work for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign as mapping consultants, are suspect.

And the commission’s chairman, registered independent Colleen Mathis, is under fire from conservatives. That’s because she sided with the panel’s two Democratic members in outvoting the two Republicans in making the controversial staff choices and because she didn’t disclose that her husband did some 2010 campaign work for a Democratic legislative candidate.

Arizona created its commission system in 2000 when voters approved an initiative measure taking redistricting out of the hands of self-interested legislators

The American Spectator reports on a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Reid after he requested that DOJ investigate states implementing voter identifcation verification measures.  

The letter noted that “the Rhode Island legislature, which has a majority of Democrats, passed voter ID legislation. Yesterday, Governor Lincoln Chafee, an independent and one of your former colleagues, signed the bill into law.  This law requires voters to show identification at the polls in 2012 and a photo before casting a ballot in 2014.
 
Senator Harold Metts (D – District 6, Providence), a minority and member of your political  party, was the sponsor of this voter ID bill in the Rhode Island Senate.  Confronted with communications about fraud at several Providence polling locations, he proposed a voter ID bill in Rhode Island.  He has said, “Fraud has gone unchallenged and ignored, and it must be stopped.”

Wispolitics reports: GOP legislative leaders this afternoon released long anticipated redistricting maps that would redraw Wisconsin’s political boundaries for the Assembly and Senate.

And JSOnline adds that a quick vote would allow GOP lawmakers to approve the maps before recall elections are held this summer that could shift control of the Senate from Republicans to Democrats. That would let Republicans lock down advantages at the ballot box for the next 10 years by drawing maps in their favor. Democrats in the Legislature won’t necessarily have a say in what the maps look like. But a lawsuit has already been filed, meaning a federal court could still weigh in on the process. A hearing on the new maps is scheduled for Wednesday, and the Legislature could act on it as early as July 19 in extraordinary session.

Link at the New York Times discusses anticipated Texas redistricting litigation including whether Texas Attorney General Abbott will go to Federal court for preclearance of the plans under Section 5.  

In New York, City elections officials note that the state Board of Elections has only until this coming Monday afternoon to respond to the federal Justice Department’s request for a sitdown to discuss New York’s failure to move its primaries to comply with The MOVE Act.

…Gov. Cuomo has addressed the military-voting timeframe issue for special elections, but not for regular ones.

Obviously, the state Legislature ended this year’s session without doing anything about the problem (which is fraught with politics from both major parties’ standpoints).

“It is understandable for the state to have serious pressing issues, the debate on gay marriage, property tax caps, independent redistricting, job creation — so one can see how election law issues don’t grab headlines,” NYC Board of Elections Commissioner J.C. Polanco told me this afternoon. 

The Washington Post reports that opponents of a new law that gives undocumented immigrants in-state tuition discounts at Maryland’s public colleges have gathered enough signatures to suspend the law and force a statewide referendum, election officials said Thursday.  It is the first time in 20 years that a petition drive has forced a vote on a Maryland.

Alabama’s oldest black political group sued the state to block a campaign finance law that bans money transfers between political action committees. The Alabama Democratic Conference says the law is one more blow in the state’s “long history of discrimination in voting”.

Politico Link