Richmond County, Georgia.  Link here.

The News-Observer reports:  If things go well for Republicans this fall, a voter ID
bill likely will become law next year, House Speaker Thom Tillis told
the North Carolina delegation to the Republican National Convention.

ALL CAPS no less:

Full story here.

There are so many things that can be said about this loss, but I’ll keep it to just one.  There are fewer and fewer people left who think that Section 5 should survive as reauthorized in 2006.  Here is the opinion.

Odds are in favor of another Texas loss this week on Voter ID.

More coverage of the victory yesterday in Minnesota.

St. Paul Pioneer Press: In two 4-2 rulings Monday, Aug. 27, the court dismissed a challenge to the wording of the proposed voter ID question and rejected Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s attempts to rewrite the titles of the voter ID and marriage amendment questions.”

Star Tribune: “Dan McGrath of the Minnesota Majority, which supports the photo ID amendment, said the title Ritchie chose was “deliberately confusing” and “absolutely” would have suppressed the vote for it. Ritchie’s proposed title was: “Changes to in-person & absentee voting & voter registration; provisional ballots.”

St. Cloud Times: The court rejected the liberal groups’ argument that the proposed photo ID amendment was vague and misleading and sided with Republicans who argued that Ritchie was trying to bias voters against both amendments with prejudicial language. The Legislature pushed both proposed amendments through over opposition from Democrats, including Gov. Mark Dayton.

Mankato Free Press: Citing its own precedent, the court found that when the Legislature includes its own title for ballot questions, then it goes beyond the authority of the secretary of state to replace it. The majority opinion said the secretary of state has “no constitutional authority over the form and manner of proposed constitutional amendments,” and directly ordered Ritchie to restore the original wording as set by the Legislature.

 Link:  “As the Justice Department battles yet another state voter identification law – this time in South Carolina – a friend of the court brief from Arizona argues that the Voting Rights Act essentially denies some states the right to make laws that others are free to enact.”

DOJ and federal observers are monitoring elections today in Arizona and Alabama.

The anti-ID crowd continues to have the wind taken out of its sails. 

I’ve been counsel to Minnesota Majority in the Minnesota Supreme Court Case seeking to preserve the right of Minnesota citizens to vote yes or no this fall to adopt Voter ID there.  The ACLU opposed the right of the voters to choose.  Today, we won.

Here is the opinion.  An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution will appear on the ballot this fall exactly in the form that Minnesota Majority wanted.

I find footnote 8 of the Supreme Court opinion particularly interesting, and familiar (we tend to quote majority opinions around here, not dissents.  Maybe at some law schools, dissents are more worthy of citation):


Even though the parties in this case agree that the standard we adopted in Breza controls, the dissents would overrule this precedent. Because they refuse to adhere to our precedent, the dissents must then set forth a new standard. Justice Page’s dissent articulates no discernible standard. Justice Paul Anderson’s dissent discusses the “eye” through which the judiciary should view the ballot question and, based on the strength of yet another dissent, contends that we must view the ballot question with “a gimlet eye.” See infra at D-21 (citing Crawford v. Marion Cnty. Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181, 210 (2008) (Souter, J., dissenting)). If we overturned precedent based on nothing other than the desires of individual members of this court, we would become a country not of laws, but of men. John Adams, Novanglus No. 7 (1774), reprinted in 4 The Works of John Adams 99, 106 (Charles Francis Adams ed., 1851) (defining a republic as “a government of laws, and not of men”). But we do not disregard our precedent so easily. Instead, we require “compelling” reasons to depart from precedent. SCI Minn. Funeral Servs., Inc. v. Washburn-McReavy Funeral Corp., 795 N.W.2d 855, 862 (Minn. 2011) (noting that “[w]e are ‘extremely reluctant to overrule our precedent . . .’ and ‘require a compelling reason’ to do so.” (citation omitted)). The dissents articulate no such reasons, and we therefore decline the dissents’ invitation to depart from our precedent.

Minnesota Majority also defeated Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s attempt to replace the title of the amendment the Legislature passed.  The Supreme Court adopted all of Minnesota Majority’s arguments.