The Dallas Morning News reports that the Texas House is working to meet the federal 45 day mailing requirement for overseas and military ballots.   

 

Yesterday arguments were held in LaRoque v. Holder.  This story has more information.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootlian says rationale behind 2006 amendments, and perhaps 1982 amendments, to the Voting Rights Act are gone.  He wants changes.  He “will fight to loosen the Voting Rights Act’s restrictions on the role of race in drawing district lines in a bid to remake southern politics.”  The Democratic Party chair seems ready to litigate against the standards, “up to a Supreme Court.”  Politico.

Video here.

More here.

The Sun Sentinel reports as the most recent Florida elections legislation winds through the Legislature on its way to Governor Scott. The changes would require third-party registration groups to turn in registration applications within 48 hours of receipt or face fines.  This legislation is in response to the influx of bogus registrations that unncessarily waste election administration resources.  The legislation also tries to prevent the submission of applications by these organization days past the registration deadlines by threat of penalties. 

From the Sun Sentinel:  Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, the sponsor of the bill, said it’s “about making every vote count” and rooting out fraud.  “The fact is there’s a lot of bad actors out there and there’s an opportunity currently to game the system,” he said.

Third-party registration groups such as ACORN and the League of Women Voters have long complained about these common sense regulatory requirements arguing it is an infringement on their right to free speech.  However, they ignore the legitimate election administration concerns about the often repeated scenario where completed registration applications are submitted to election officials after the registration deadline despite being fully completed by the registrant well in advance of the election. Such recklessness causes voters to be disenfranchised from participating in elections through absolutely no fault of their own.  Despite the importance of these registrations, some voter groups will hold onto the applications unncessarily long, simply to avoid making multiple trips to election offices or to copy the personal identifying information of the applicant for the organizations’ future political purposes.  The right of the citizen to become legitimately registered after they have placed their right to vote in the hands of these groups should outweigh any convenience the registration group might receive by holding onto the applications and waiting until they unilaterally decide the time is ripe to submit these forms to officials.

Meanwhile in the Sunshine State

California Capitol Weekly: 

Upon resolution of the case, the Lawyers Committee requested legal fees of $1.1 million, which, as the successful plaintiff in a case brought under the California Voting Rights Act, means the defendants pay the costs.

“You never want to see a waste of anything, but public school funds of this size being spent on this kind of litigation – against the backdrop of financial hardship we’re all facing – is very difficult,” said Geri Kendall Cox, chief business and administrative services officer for the Madera County Office of Education.

A superior court judge released the county office and the registrar of voters from being responsible for the legal fees, which he said, were excessive.

YNN New York reports “New York State has yet to comply with a new federal law requiring states to send its residents, overseas and in the military, voting ballots at least 45 days before an election, something that’s difficult if not impossible with the state’s short general election calendar.

“It really insists that we give every single military voter and overseas voter an opportunity to get their ballot in a timely fashion and return it in a timely fashion,” said Joan Millman, Assembly Election Committee Chair.”

Despite multiple failures in past New York elections in sending timely ballots to overseas military voters, there may finally be fundamental reforms enacted by the New York legislature to ensure that adequate time is provided to prepare and send ballots to these voters. 

While the White House has instinctively nominated “voter fraud denier” Myrna Perez with absolutely no election administration experience to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the House Administration Committee has been working closely with state and local election officials in crafting substitute language that quietly ends the tenure of the EAC.  It is apparent that the House believes that they must end the current dysfunctionality, regulatory growth, and overhead cost of the EAC and begin again with a different slimmed down model. 

In anticipation of a legislative markup, the committee primarily responsible for election administration oversight is now actively floating a new proposal to the election community, including the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), that address the important issues and functions that election administrators wish to continue in any post-EAC environment.

The proposed amendment by Representative Harper would terminate the EAC and transfer some of its key functions going forward.  The substitute then transfers the EAC’s Office of Voting System Testing and Certification to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).  In the original bill, NIST would have been responsible for these duties.  The second change creates formal committees for development of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG).  The legislation would maintain the current Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) but the current Standards and Advisory Boards would be replaced by a new 56 member Guidelines Review Board that would be composed of state and local election officials and other interested parties.