Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

“Ohio to appeal early voting case to the Supreme Court”

Wall Street Journal blog.


(Secretary of State)…Husted said the ruling made no sense, because it
empowered individual election boards to decide whether to allow early
voting until the day before the election. But their decisions must apply to all voters in the district.

“That means that one county may close down voting for the final
weekend while a neighboring county may remain open,” Mr. Husted said in a
statement. “How any court could consider this a remedy to an equal
protection problem is stunning.”

He also called it “an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections.”

Spanish Ballot Cost in Fairfax, Virginia: up to $125,000

The Washington Times has this story about the costs to implement Section 203 in Fairfax County Virginia this election:


The October 2011 announcement didn’t leave much time to gird for state and local races a month later, but the county prepared furiously — and continues to do so, registrar Cameron Quinn says.


. . .


She estimated that the federal mandate has cost $75,000 to $125,000, factoring in items such as staff time and copying costs for Spanish signs.

NAACP filed new motion in North Carolina redistricting case

A coalition of civil- and voting-rights groups alleges in a legal motion
filed Friday that political districts approved by the majority-Republican North
Carolina legislature disenfranchise black voters and asks a state court to
declare the lines unconstitutional.

…The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, said the Republicans
who took over control of the North Carolina legislature in 2010 have turned the
Voting Rights Act on its head, packing high concentrations of blacks into a
handful of legislative districts to boost the odds of GOP candidates winning the
rest.

“Before the Voting Rights Act, we called it Jim Crow,” Barber said Friday.
“Jim Crow wouldn’t let you vote. Jim Crow had literacy tests. Jim Crow had poll
taxes. Today in the 21st century, it’s James Crow, esquire. He puts on a suit,
goes in the back room of the General Assembly, gets out a computer and uses race
to split precincts in a deliberate way to try to determine a political
outcome.”

link to full story

The Billion Dollar empty chair

Obama and the party of campaign finance control raise 181 million in one month and approaches 1 billion dollars in campaign funds as they flood the airwaves in battleground states.

The Nielsen Co. said last week that Obama’s campaign had run nearly
230,000 ads in nine battleground states from the beginning of the year
through early September, compared with about 87,000 for Romney.

And its tied.

The New York Times fear Florida citizens in Supreme Court Justices vote

The New York Times in its editorial “Impartial Justice at Risk” doesn’t want the Florida public to have any say or input on the selection or retention of judges.  No, they simply want the citizens of Florida to shut their mouth and give essentially life-time appointments to judges despite their judicial actions.  Just as with campaign finance, the New York Times is just fine with less democracy and free speech and they will defend justices who use their ideology in interpreting the law…. as long as it is a liberal ideology.

With its activism and lack of impartiality, the Florida Supreme Court has already created a perception among Florida legislators and citizens that the dominant left wing of the court does not give conservative philosophy a fair and objective review and too eager to strike down any law not in line with their personal political philosophy.  There is a significant belief that the Court has become way too politicized, substituting their liberal judgment for that of conservative legislation and governance.  The elite in Florida can deny it or ignore it, but in this country if something is politicized the only legal way to change it is through political change and the ballot box.  In this instance, average citizens have only been provided a small morsel of democracy where the public can only retain or not retain a justice.  The people should exercise that right and then seek more.

Unreportable Obama Fundraising Flood

The Obama campaign raised a vast haul of money from individuals who must not be reported or disclosed in FEC reports.  Naturally this means that the usual speech regulators and campaign finance crusaders have fallen silent.  What is interesting about this haul is that since so much of the money not subject to FEC reporting comes in through the internet, it raises questions about who is actually making the contributions, and whether they are legitimate contributors.

In 2008, the Obama campaign failed to implement safeguards against illegal contributions by foreigners.  Whether or not those failures have been remedied remains to be seen.  I’m sure the usual speech regulators and campaign finance crusaders in academia will be all over the issue shortly.