Redistricting article on Louisiana

This article in Town Talk repeats the common error that only the Department of Justice can approve redistricting plans under Section 5. 

“Lawmakers will be in hurry-up mode. Whatever they propose will have to survive the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and be done in time to accommodate the primary and general elections later this year.”

If lawmakers want to increase the chances that the Louisiana will be approved, they should submit the plan directly to United States District Court for the reasons outlined in this article.

Sixteen year olds improperly registered to vote

Here is a headline you don’t see often: Group tries to combat underage voting in Washington state.

The story notes that multiple underage people were improperly registered to vote:

“they found evidence of several individuals who, since 2006, were only 16-years-old when they registered. ‘We found dozens and dozens of illegal voters and underage voters, so clearly there is a problem here; We felt it was a violation of federal election law that says that Sam Reed has to maintain an accurate election data base.’  Even with the written policy in place now, Reitz says the ideas behind the early registration were bologna. ‘The secretary of state’s office literally argued that if we turn these underage applicants away, they will be so devastated and discouraged that they may never vote again.'”

What about the law?

That federal election law in question would be the Help America Vote Act and/or Section 8 of Motor Voter. Will the Department of Justice make any inquiry at all of how bad the problem was in Washington?  Will anyone quantify if any of these people voted?

Former AG Mukasey hits DOJ over Black Panther dismissal

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey was tapped to revitalize morale and restore integrity to a Justice Department purportedly lacking both.  He is a measured man with a dignified restraint.  Thus, when he decides to hit, his hits land harder.



He is hitting the Justice Department over the dismissal of the New Black Panther case, the racialist scandal that isn’t going away despite the work and wishes of Holder loyalists.




In an interview with Family Security Matters , Mukasey says:




“I think the handling of the New Black Panther Party case is something that seems deeply disturbing, and warrants either a full explanation, or a serious outside inquiry, possibly from Congress, or both.  Two members of the New Black Panther party were seen intimidating voters outside a poll in Philadelphia during the 2008 election, and a case against them resulted in a decision for the government, which the defendants did not contest.  A witness to the intimidation who had served as a highly civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department in the 1960’s, Bartle Bull, said that the defendants’ conduct was the most blatant kind of intimidation he had ever seen, including what he witnessed in Mississippi in the 1960’s.”




Mukasey helped restore integrity to the DOJ once before.   Perhaps he will be available again in 2013?  There is more at the article.

Where will prisons count for redistricting?

The Associated Press has this story about the controversy about where prison population should count in Mississippi for redistricting purposes.  It contains this error:

“And that opens the door for possible challenges of redistricting plans, which require approval of the U.S. Justice Department.”

This is not accurate.   Redistricting plans require approval of the DOJ, or, approval of the federal district court in D.C.  As has been widely reported, states should go straight to court instead of to the DOJ.