Redstate discusses racial gerrymandering in Maryland

NPR reports.

The Salt Lake Tribune comes out against voter-suppression tactics with an editorial entitled “The Right to Vote.”  Sounds good, except for the fact that this activity isn’t voter suppression rather prudent voter registration list maintenance.  This editorial is really misleading and a disservice to Utah citizens.  Apparently, the paper believes it is a fundamental right to be on the voting rolls even though you have long since moved or no longer eligible to vote in a certain district.  But give them credit, they were able to work in their opposition to voter ID and cite the Brennan Center report – wholly separate issues. 

As a voter-suppression tactic, the latest bill to come out of a Utah Legislature interim committee is fairly weak tea. As part of a growing trend by state governments to reduce the number of citizens who can vote, it is just another sign that our elected servants want to limit the number of people who can fire them.

Acting once again in fear of an imaginary threat of voter fraud, the Legislature’s Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee last week advanced a bill that would direct county elections officials to watch who fails to vote in two consecutive elections and send them a letter. If they don’t reply, and they miss two more general elections, the county officials would be required to remove those voters’ names from the rolls.

never a good headline

from San Francisco— Seven candidates vying to become this city’s next mayor have requested that federal observers and state election monitors be dispatched to San Francisco immediately amid allegations of ballot tampering by interim Mayor Ed Lee’s supporters.

“Depriving someone of their ability to freely exercise their vote is the most unconscionable crime,” Jeff Adachi said during a news conference Monday. The public defender is among those who signed the letter seeking intervention from the U.S. Justice Department and California secretary of state. “What we are seeing here is a pattern of corrupt activity,” Adachi said.

Here.  New Orleans has 17 percent fewer registered voters today than the last time Louisiana held a primary to elect a governor.

The majority of those 50,000 voters came off the New Orleans rolls in
December during the first extensive voter purge since Hurricane
Katrina.

For the congressional election last November, 274,000 New
Orleanians could have cast a ballot, according to secretary of state
figures. That’s despite the fact that the 2010 census now tells us there were only 270,614 adults living in New Orleans at the time.

That
means New Orleans had a whopping 101 percent voter registration. Today,
it’s at a more historically, and logically, reasonable 85 percent.

St.
Bernard Parish likewise had astronomically high numbers, with 102
percent of its adults registered to vote for the 2010 midterm
congressional election. The 2010 census listed 26,720 adults in St.
Bernard, while the secretary of state had about 27,300 registered voters
for that Nov. 2 election.

Despite now having 42 percent fewer
voters than it did for the last pre-Katrina gubernatorial primary in
2003, current numbers still place St. Bernard quite high at 93 percent.

Nationally,
about 65 percent of adults were registered to vote for the November
election, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

In the
metro area, New Orleans and St. Bernard lost the most voters and were
the major anomalies since the 2007 election. St. Charles, St. John and
St. Tammany parishes showed slight increases in the number of registered
voters, along with the state as a whole, and other parishes such as
Jefferson had slight decreases.

Because of inflated registrar of
voter rolls in New Orleans and St. Bernard since Katrina, voter turnout
figures there have been absurdly inaccurate.

The secretary of
state listed turnout in New Orleans at a measly 27 percent for the 2007
gubernatorial primary, whereas the last pre-Katrina gubernatorial
primary in 2003 had 42 percent turnout.

Here at National Journal/HotlineOnCall and a commentary piece at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that opines:  There is a constant refrain from the opponents of voter ID laws: that it
is an attempt by white Republicans to suppress the votes of black
Democrats. I’ve never understood why these opponents are allowed to get
away with making what strikes me as a bigoted statement on its face:
that African Americans are somehow less capable or motivated when it
comes to obtaining a state-issued photo ID. But they do get away with
it.

Here.  It appears that neither the Democratic or Republican Party in Nevada objected to the redistricting maps adopted by the special master appointed by a federal judge.

An analysis of the panel’s reapportionment plan by the Sun’s David
McGrath Schwartz shows the Democrats would have an edge in two of the
four Congressional Districts with one favoring Republicans and one a
toss-up.

Democrats now have an 11-10 edge in the state Senate. An analysis of
the new Senate Districts shows nine safe Democratic seats, three leaning
Democrat, four safe Republican, one leaning Republican and four tossup
seats.

The makeup of the Assembly, according to the examination, shows 22
safe Democrat, four leaning Democrat, nine safe Republican, two leaning
Republican and five tossups. The makeup now is 22 Democrats and 12
Republicans.

and this:  Secretary of State Ross Miller raised the question of what standards
were used by the panel in drawing up a Congressional District in
Southern Nevada that has nearly 43 percent Hispanic. He said the panel
should make it clear whether the figure was based on total population,
voting age population or citizen voting age population or some
combination. He said it was not clear what data the panel relied upon.

That’s the headline and story in Louisiana where Republican Schedler edged out fellow Republican Turner for the position.  The large number of hits on the website by media and the general public with smartphones brought down the site.  Schedler won by about 9,000 votes according to complete but unofficial
returns. He had 50.53 percent of the vote in the two-man race.  With a race that close, the new Secretary will have an appreciation for the next recount. 

The Washington Post puts Injustice on the political bookworm bestseller list.

“Rounding out the list is a new title from conservative publishing house Regnery, taking on the Obama Justice Department (a litany of accusations with overtly racial overtones from a former Justice attorney).”

Stop the press!  A bestseller with “overtly racial overtones” to discuss “overtly racial” policies!  Who could imagine such a thing? 

I will be speaking at Fordham University Law School in New York City Tuesday at 12:30 pm.