The American Spectator reports on a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Reid after he requested that DOJ investigate states implementing voter identifcation verification measures.  

The letter noted that “the Rhode Island legislature, which has a majority of Democrats, passed voter ID legislation. Yesterday, Governor Lincoln Chafee, an independent and one of your former colleagues, signed the bill into law.  This law requires voters to show identification at the polls in 2012 and a photo before casting a ballot in 2014.
 
Senator Harold Metts (D – District 6, Providence), a minority and member of your political  party, was the sponsor of this voter ID bill in the Rhode Island Senate.  Confronted with communications about fraud at several Providence polling locations, he proposed a voter ID bill in Rhode Island.  He has said, “Fraud has gone unchallenged and ignored, and it must be stopped.”

Wispolitics reports: GOP legislative leaders this afternoon released long anticipated redistricting maps that would redraw Wisconsin’s political boundaries for the Assembly and Senate.

And JSOnline adds that a quick vote would allow GOP lawmakers to approve the maps before recall elections are held this summer that could shift control of the Senate from Republicans to Democrats. That would let Republicans lock down advantages at the ballot box for the next 10 years by drawing maps in their favor. Democrats in the Legislature won’t necessarily have a say in what the maps look like. But a lawsuit has already been filed, meaning a federal court could still weigh in on the process. A hearing on the new maps is scheduled for Wednesday, and the Legislature could act on it as early as July 19 in extraordinary session.

Link at the New York Times discusses anticipated Texas redistricting litigation including whether Texas Attorney General Abbott will go to Federal court for preclearance of the plans under Section 5.  

In New York, City elections officials note that the state Board of Elections has only until this coming Monday afternoon to respond to the federal Justice Department’s request for a sitdown to discuss New York’s failure to move its primaries to comply with The MOVE Act.

…Gov. Cuomo has addressed the military-voting timeframe issue for special elections, but not for regular ones.

Obviously, the state Legislature ended this year’s session without doing anything about the problem (which is fraught with politics from both major parties’ standpoints).

“It is understandable for the state to have serious pressing issues, the debate on gay marriage, property tax caps, independent redistricting, job creation — so one can see how election law issues don’t grab headlines,” NYC Board of Elections Commissioner J.C. Polanco told me this afternoon. 

The Washington Post reports that opponents of a new law that gives undocumented immigrants in-state tuition discounts at Maryland’s public colleges have gathered enough signatures to suspend the law and force a statewide referendum, election officials said Thursday.  It is the first time in 20 years that a petition drive has forced a vote on a Maryland.

Alabama’s oldest black political group sued the state to block a campaign finance law that bans money transfers between political action committees. The Alabama Democratic Conference says the law is one more blow in the state’s “long history of discrimination in voting”.

Politico Link

Link: A federal appeals court is ordering a new look at a lawsuit over local elections in an eastern North Carolina town.

Interesting Article 

… “several Rhode Island communities that are popular vacation destinations have significantly more registered voters than residents—raising questions about the influence of seasonal residents in state and local elections.

A comparison of the new U.S. Census records with public voter registration records revealed significant discrepancies in at least four communities in 2010.”