The hearing begins at 2pm EDT and can be seen by clicking here and finding the stream.

 Fox:

“Time and again, Eric Holder’s Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division has shown how highly partisan it is. From its dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, to its harassment of jurisdictions with voter ID laws, the Division has proven that its far-left liberal ideology determines whether it will enforce (or not enforce) the law. Now it is ignoring the plight of military voters.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/07/disfranchisement-our-military-voters/#ixzz1XJdmYAau

PJ Tatler has the video clip.

 More here.

University of Baltimore Law Professor Garret Epps has this piece in the Atlantic (yes Virginia, people really pay for it) characterizing Arizona’s lawsuit challenging the continued constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as “weird.”

“Arizona’s new Republican Attorney General, Tom Horne, filed a suit last month asking a federal court to declare that § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. Arizona–in some ways the Mississippi of the 21^st Century–is a weird plaintiff, and its claims are even weirder; but weirder claims have succeeded in the past. The Supreme Court signaled in 2009 that it was a bit weary of all this right-to-vote business.”

This is typical of the tactics used by the civil rights industry – claim that the entire right to vote is under attack, and demonize good faith legal efforts to test the limits of federal power.  First the exaggeration: the Supreme Court has never signaled that it is “weary of all this right to vote business.”  Nice way to stoke the mob professor.  In reality, the Court questioned whether the federal government has the power to approve or reject election laws in 16 states based on events that happened almost 50 years ago.  Nobody, particularly the Supreme Court, is questioning the viability of right to vote statutes like Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as the article concedes once the mob is sufficiently stoked.

Second, the complaint is neither bizarre nor weird.  It firmly and credibly tests the limits of federal power using a theory some of the zealous defenders of Section 5 think will prevail.  Worse for Professor Epps, the people charged with defending Section 5 don’t view the complaint as weird or outlandish.  They understand the serious vulnerabilities of the provision and have adjusted their preclearance policies to help preserve this constitutionally vulnerable statute.

 Washington Times. 

An interesting description of facts from Maine.  College students there are registered in more than one state.  In 2008, they voted at their Maine college campus for President; in 2010, they voted back home in Massachusetts.  From Patch:

“I’m surprised to be on this list and I’m surprised that it’s an issue that I voted in Maine at all,” he said. “We were encouraged to vote when we were on campus, and we were told that voting on campus was legal. I think this unfairly targets out-of-state students, as it’s much harder for those of us who are out of state to vote via absentee,” he said in the Daily News.

Who “encouraged” them to register and vote in Maine??  The article is silent.

I recently saw a presentation in Cincinnati by a noted election attorney who walked step by step through the voter registration portion of the Obama for President campaign website.  The website, when encouraging students to participate in the 2008 election, was also encouraging them to register and vote in the state where they attend school – depending on which states are involved. 

For example, a New York resident attending school in Virginia was encouraged to also register to vote in Virginia and vote in Virginia for President.  A Virginia resident attending school in New York, however, was encouraged to vote in Virginia.  The presentation ran through the matrix of several geographic fact patterns.  What became clear was that the Obama campaign was encouraging students to reorient their residence and register to vote in new location, regardless of parental tax status for dependants, tax status, car registration, or any other indicia of residency.  Some states, such as the Virginia Secretary of the State Board of Elections (a partisan appointee) was compliant with this political strategy by dissolving state regulations involving tests of actual domicile.  Election Law Center has previously covered this potentially racially discriminatory practice. 

There is evidence that some of the students in Virginia may have voted twice in the Presidential election – both in Virginia and in their home state.  If so, that is a federal crime and this story hasn’t finished.  Stay tuned.

I will be on WWWI in Brainard MN to discuss DOJ hiring in the civil rights division in the 6:30 pm hour Tuesday.

If you recall in June 2011, this Reuters article reported that New Hampshire Democratic Governor John Lynch vetoed a bill passed by the Republican New Hampshire legislature to require voters to present photo identification before casting a ballot.  Months later, it seems that his veto is not the end of the story with the Legislature now saying “not so fast” and moving to potentially override the veto.  According to local media, the state Senate is expected to vote Wednesday.  The political make-up of the New Hampshire Senate suggests the override should not be too difficult; however it is much easier to trip up a bill than to pass one that meets everyone’s needs and desires.

What is particularly interesting about this debate is that neither the $10 dollar free voucher provided to voters to cover the cost of any non-drivers identification nor the provisional ballot provision has appeased opponents of the bill.  With the significant role that New Hampshire plays in Presidential nomination politics, it would be interesting to see what any requirement for voter id plays in the larger political debate over the issue.