Here is the brief in opposition to defendant’s motion to dismiss filed by Arnold Davis in Davis v. Guam.

Happy New Year to everyone.  2011 was a great year.  ElectionLawCenter.com saw record traffic.  It also saw the addition of Tabella as a regular poster, which takes much the burden off me to post the latest news.  Tabella has been particularly vigilant on redistricting issues and sometimes has even better sourcing than I do on various other matters.  See today’s post from Tabella below about the Crawford amicus brief.  News to me.

We’re always happy when we receive the tips we do.  We appreciate the thousands of readers, including the regular level of traffic we get from USDOJ.gov servers (very regular and very frequent) – sometimes even at night and on weekends!

2012 will be busier yet.  We’ve found the readership to be comprised of the predictable sort of election professionals and state officials.  But we also appreciate the many readers who come for election and voting news that they don’t usually find in places like the New York Times, McClatchy Papers or elsewhere in the media.  You are the majority readership of the site – you are the big numbers, and that’s why this website exists – so you can learn about the election process, unfiltered.  Whether it is the very real problem of voter fraud, or the DOJ “puffer fish” on SC Voter ID, this website is intended to take some of the mystery out of the mechanics of the democratic process.  Thank you all and Happy New Year.

Oh, and if you might be interested in a contributing to the site, nomme de guerres are avaiable.

                – Christian Adams

I will be on nationwide with Monica Crowley of Fox News on her radio show Wednesday afternoon.  Details shortly.

 Washington Times.

The evidence of the politicization of the Voting Section and the photo ID issue continues to be exposed. In 2007, the current Voting Section Chief, Chris Herren, helped draft the amicus brief from the Department of Justice supporting Voter ID and also assisted with the oral argument preparation for Solicitor General Paul Clement.  Sources (formerly employed at DOJ) reveal that Chris Herren has inexplicitly reversed himself from the DOJ amicus brief supporting voter ID laws, a position he worked on just a few years ago. Of course, it is very possible that he caved to pressure from the Obama political appointees, which caused his abrupt reversal.

In late 2007, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court asserting that the photo ID provision would not impose any severe burden on voters and that the law had no discriminatory impact on minorities. The amicus was fully briefed and argued as the position of the Department of Justice to the Supreme Court in the seminal photo ID case of Crawford v. Marion County.  Sources indicate that even though his name was not included on the brief, then Deputy Chief Chris Herren was indeed part of the team that drafted and reviewed the amicus brief for content and prepared the arguments for then U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.

These same sources also claim that Chris Herren was one of the senior members of the Voting Section to assist the Solicitor General in multiple oral argument prep sessions.  Herren was then one of the senior deputy chiefs in the Voting Section.  The audio and transcript of the oral argument can be found here.

These sources indicate that Herren signed off on the eventual amicus brief that was filed in the Supreme Court and that during the preparation of the brief, he did not support some changes that had been suggested by then Section Chief John Tanner.

How ironic that Herren, now promoted Voting Section Chief, has suddenly reversed himself and is now objecting to a voter ID law in which the former Solicitor General Clement he assisted will be defending all the way to the Supreme Court. Was he wrong then, or is he wrong now? Or is he just a tool easily influenced by the Obama political appointees?

Story here.  “He has a particularly hard time explaining how the South Carolina requirement of government-issued photo identification amounts to a ‘poll tax’ when the state has also made provisions to provide that identification, free of charge. Hear that, Mr. Attorney General? The only thing the voter has to do is show up and get his or her photo taken. And if that’s too much darn trouble well, then, that person can do something else on election day.”

Lee Stranahan walks you through the statistical sleight of hand employed by some inside the DOJ Voting Section to puff up the South Carolina Voter ID objection.  He names the names of media outlets who fell for the trick, all here at BigGovernment.com.

This analysis by Peach Pundit shows that many liberals are not happy with either the timing or substance of DOJ’s approval of historic redistricting maps in Georgia.  The approval put a stamp of approval of an absolute Republican realignment in the Peach State.  The Democrats should not be surprised at DOJ approval as the proposed maps actually increased minority representation in the legislature.  Minorities should take note how long the Democratic Party establishment kept minority representation numbers artificially low.  The answer would be decades.

Republican political consultant Mark Rountree estimates the new maps will give Georgia a constitutional majority in both the House and Senate, with at least 2/3 of each body held by Republicans. He estimates 122 of 180 Georgia House seats will be held by Republicans, while 37 of Georgia’s 56 Senate seats maintained by the GOP. In Congress, John Barrow’s 12th district will see the largest change, with the district now drawn to heavily favor a Republican challenger.

The officials elected from these new maps will most likely reflect the new racial realities of Georgia politics. Using Rountree’s estimates, the number of elected white Democrats in the Georgia General Assembly will likely be measured in the teens. Should the power of incumbency not outweigh the partisan math of the redrawn 12th district, Georgia’s Congressional delegation will be composed of 10 Caucasian Republicans and 4 African American Democrats. The coalition of urban African American and rural white Democrats which ruled Georgia for decades is now officially a relic of history.

This transition was exacerbated by several mostly rural white Democrats switching to the Republican Party in advance of the redistricting session. Salt was poured into this wound when Rep Doug McKillip, recently elected Minority caucus chairman, bolted from the Democrats to join the GOP.

For the first time in more than a century (and possibly in North Carolina’s history), Republicans in 2011 took control of drawing legislative and congressional voting districts.

The design of district maps is a powerful tool that could influence the outcome of elections. Democrats used it for more than a century to hold down their opposition. Now the Republicans have hit them back.

The new maps in the 2012 elections appear likely to give the Republicans as many as 10 of the 13 congressional seats (Republicans hold six of the seats now), unless the Democrats can persuade the courts to toss out the maps.

Similarly, the new state House and state Senate districts solidify the Republicans’ control of the legislature

Full story at the link.

USA Today reports that the Justice Department’s rejection of South Carolina’s voter ID law probably won’t prevent other states from adopting similar measures, analysts say.