Attorney General Eric Holder is defending the Justice Department’s opposition to some state laws requiring voters to present photo IDs when they go to the polls.  At a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, Holder says the federal government must think long and hard about the negative impact that photo identification requirements have on the ability of minorities, the elderly and young people to vote. 

DOJ is only opposing those Voter ID laws where they can play political games with the Section 5 preclearance process.

Link here.

 Link here.

Senator Feingold comments provide ELC readers and First Amendment lovers a reminder on the lawlessness and unconstitutionality of the tortured McCain-Feingold scheme that stifled First Amendment political speech.  Excerpt from article :

Calling a Supreme Court decision “lawless” and warning of “corporate domination of our political process,” former Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) spoke Monday night about the dangers stemming from the recent removal of restrictions on financial contributions to political groups.  Feingold spoke out against the Jan. 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, arguing that it opened the door to increased corporate influence in politics.

“The decision issued by the court’s majority was essentially a lawless decision,” Feingold said, “not only because the substance of it gave corporations free reign over our political process — which is so fundamental to our democracy — but also because of its blatant disregard for the mores and traditions of the Supreme Court in handling difficult cases.”

update here. 

The most glaring issue is absentee balloting, which Hosemann reports has been growing. In the past election cycle, 22 counties in the primary and 13 in the general election had more than 10 percent of ballots cast by absentee.

While absentee balloting has long been used to accommodate those who could vote in person at the polls – such as the disabled, the elderly and people out of town on Election Day – the practice has the potential for abuse because of lax laws and lax enforcement.

Hosemann’s observers found such things as several voters witnessed by the same person or no reason stated for the absentee vote.

Another glaring problem is out-of-date voter rolls. Purging voter rolls is a difficult process that can have its own issues with political manipulation. However, the difficulty also has led to other problems.  Those problems are obvious.

Hosemann’s office reports that 16 counties have more registered voters than the 2010 Census Bureau figures indicate are eligible to vote.  And, back to the absentee voting problem, of those 16 counties with bloated voter rolls, seven also had over 10 percent of absentee ballots cast.

Hosemann also points out other issues, including improper voter assistance, campaigning at the polls and improper signage at the polls

The full story can be read here.

The Federalist Society will be sponsoring a debate today at New England Law School in Boston at 4:00.  I will be discussing Perry v. Perez and the redistricting mess in Texas.

As a consequence, I will be light blogging today.  Tabella is sure to pick up the slack with all the latest as Tabella tends to do.

 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:  “Separately Monday, the conservative groups True the Vote and Verify the Recall released their own analysis of the recall signatures against Walker. The governor asked in his filing with the accountability board that state officials take that analysis into account.

But Magney said the accountability board is not allowed by state law to do so.

“There is no legal basis for us to accept third-party challenges,” Magney said.

Mark Antill, executive director of True the Vote, said some people believe the accountability board could consider the petitions. He said the groups were considering whether to sue the accountability board if the elections agency doesn’t consider their findings.

“They would be remiss in not considering it,” he said.

The analysis looked through 138,200 of the total 152,500 pages of recall petitions. It found 534,685 signatures that were valid, 228,940 that needed further review and 55,608 that were ineligible.

Antill said the analysis didn’t reach a conclusion about whether there were enough recall petitions signed to trigger an election.”

 A whiff of the discovery at the Bigs.

 A Marianas Variety story.  “ARNOLD “Dave” Davis yesterday filed a motion in the District Court of Guam to certify his lawsuit as a class action. Davis is challenging the Guam decolonization plebiscite, that it is unconstitutional as it discriminates against non-Chamorros.  Davis argues that the lawsuit should be certified as a class action as the proposed class consists of all registered voters of Guam “who cannot register to vote in the plebiscite solely because they are not ‘native inhabitants of Guam.’”



 

The unofficial partisan count of the unicameral legislature is 34 Republicans and 15 Democrats so the threat of partisan filibuster may be all bluster.