Latino Population Increase Reshapes Elections Districts


NYT discusses redistricting of emerging Hispanic populations in various states.  

excerpt:   Here in Nevada, Democrats, who control the State Legislature, have drawn a new Congressional map that includes a district where Latinos would make up 37 percent of the residents, and two other districts in which Latino residents would make up about a quarter of the population. Under their plan, three of the state’s four districts would be dominated by registered Democrats, while Republicans could keep one.


But Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor, vetoed the Democrats’ plans, arguing that they violated the Voting Rights Act by not establishing a district with a Latino majority even though, the governor said, “such a district can clearly and simply be drawn.”


The state’s Republicans have offered their own plan — one in which Republican residents would control two of the four Congressional seats, and Democrats the other two. In one of the Democratically controlled districts, Latino residents would make up just over 50 percent of the residents — giving them, in essence, their own seat; the other districts would include far fewer Latinos

ACLU using food pantries to undermine voter ID

Clipped from BigGovernment.com:

Their first step was to gather data. And what better place to find all those “disenfranchised voters” than at a food pantry?


On Friday June 24, Director of Advocacy at the Hunger Task Force Jon Janowski sent an email out to the leaders of over 80 food pantries in Wisconsin to inform them of “a survey project that Hunger Task Force is working on with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).”


The email states:



The ACLU is surveying people all over Wisconsin to assess the impact of Wisconsin’s new voter ID law, and they want to hear from people who might be disproportionately impacted by the law’s new requirements.  We are asking your permission to allow Hunger Task Force staffer Mary Ryan and HTF intern Justice Bowers visit your program in the next month or two to conduct the attached survey.

Washington Examiner: Obama’s bumblers damage military voting rights

Washington Examiner. 


” . . . Sadly, a new report shows the problem has only grown worse, no thanks to a lackadaisical Justice Department and a Pentagon with misplaced priorities.


The report by the Military Voter Protection Project and Chapman University’s AMVET’s clinic concludes that participation rates by uniformed service members actually declined in the 2010 election, despite the MOVE Act.


Data collected by congressional mandate reveal that only 4.6 percent of eligible military voters cast an absentee ballot that counted. In 2006, it was 5.5 percent. These numbers came despite the MOVE mandate of a voter registration office on every military installation before the November 2010 election.


Yet Defense Department political appointees waited until three weeks after the 2010 election to issue the order to establish the offices. . . “

NC GOP legislators release Senate Redistricting Plan

Link:  One interesting excerpt from the article:



The proposal also creates a district with a black voting age population of 42.53 percent, which the legislators say exceeds the percentage suggested for that district by the advocacy group Southern Coalition for Social Justice.


“Several of our critics have incorrectly argued that our plans ‘pack’ African American voters,” the statement says. “We have repeatedly asked Democratic leaders and others to provide a legal case which defines ‘packing’ as either a majority black district or creating enough districts to give black voters a substantially equal and proportional opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. To date, we have not received any case citations to this effect from any of our critic