Within 24 hours of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the law requiring nine states to submit voting law changes to the federal government for pre-clearance, five* are already moving ahead with voter ID laws, some of which had already been rejected as discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said the law requiring federal approval of voting changes “humiliates Arizona by making it say ‘Mother may I’ to the federal government every time it wants to change some remarkably minor laws.” (The state’s own law requiring voters to submit proof of citizenship was struck down 7-2 by the Supreme Court last week.)
It only took a few hours for TEXAS to move forward on its voter ID law, considered the strictest in the nation.
A court blocked the law in 2012 because it discriminated against Latino and black voters.
Ah, the “humiliation” of the State of Arizona-tough luck, citizens. Your rights came in a distant second to the emotional needs and hurt feelings of… your state. Is this loony, or what? Just crazy. Anyway. I’ll give you the rundown of what we do in Ohio to protect the rights of voters. I’ve never worried all that much about the feelings of the State of Ohio in all this, because I’m mean like that.
An election lawyer in Columbus runs the program. She is paid by the state Party. She then recruits 88 volunteer lawyers to head up the program in each county on the ground. In a rural county like mine it would stop there with one lawyer in a county, but in a more populous county the lead lawyer then recruits other lawyers. She sends us basic information on the Ohio statutes and rules that govern voting. Ohio Republicans often change voting rules in the weeks immediately prior to an election, so we get frequent updates. The lead lawyer will then offer training for the 88 county leads. There will be two or three training days offered, usually on a Saturday. I have been at this a while so I usually attend only the last training prior to the election.
The lead lawyer puts together a packet of the documents we have to file to act as observers. In the past we filed the “entries” individually in our respective counties, but now they’re all filed in Columbus, so we just print them out. We submit a paper copy in each polling place we enter on Election Day and then take an oath that is similar to the oath poll workers take. This is all pursuant to Ohio rules that govern polling places.
We start observation early in Ohio because we have early voting. I just pick days and blocks of time and go to the Board of Elections and observe. I listen to the poll workers and voters interact and if I observe that a poll worker is not following the rules I go and tell the supervisory staff at the Board of Elections. The staff member then corrects the poll worker. I never approach a voter or interact with voters in any way inside a polling place.
Sometime before Election Day, I determine which polling places I will visit. Again, I have been at this a while, so I know which polling places consistently have problems either interpreting the rules or following them. People here also call me with questions or problems they’ve observed or experienced. If I can’t solve a problem by appealing to the lead poll worker or the Board of Elections staff, I would then call the Board of Elections members. If they were no help and we needed a court to intervene I would then contact the lead lawyer in Columbus and she’d direct it from there. On election day, we’re in periodic contact with the lead lawyer using a “boiler room” set up that is separate and apart from the GOTV boiler room candidates and campaigns have running.
I know we’re not the only state that has a voter protection plan in place. It’s not that difficult to set up. Voting enthusiasts here put a lot of work into this after the 2004 election and we get better and more organized every cycle, because the volunteers return year after year. Ideally, we’d have a two-pronged legal approach to voter suppression in the states no longer protected by those VRA section(s) recklessly discarded by the Supreme Court. Laws and rule changes can be challenged pre-election through litigation, but we also need a comprehensive ground effort to respond quickly to individual voter and polling place issues and anything that has to be filed in a hurry. One does that by relying on local lawyers in each county or city.
aimai
I know this was already tried, in a way, and Congress refused to appropriate the money to make it work but I would like to see the Democrats in Congress move forward with a “National Voter ID bill” that would issue every single person a free photo ID as soon as they reach voting age. States would be required to issue each person with such an ID a sticker entitling them to vote in their local/district/ward level elections. They could have to mail such stickers out with the same cards they have to mail out information on the next election. The sticker would have your voter ID number on it so it would not be transferrable. And the costs would have to be borne by the federal government and shared by the states on a percapita basis–if the state wants to increase its congressional representation at the census it also has to demonstrate that it has increased outreach to its voting age population (or something). I think the right wing has successfully muddied the water with the “voter fraud” accusations and we can never get back to an anti-voter ID stance. I think we should jiu-jitsu them and force them to vote against a national voter ID bill that would seek to render their accusations of voter fraud null and void by going them one better and insisting that states themselves/and or the federal government get every single person a realistic, free, updatable voter picture ID.
JDM
So states join corporations in being officially anthropomorphized. Which, ironically, puts actual people in third place, since we lack some of the basic goodies they have: boundless money (even a poor state has far more money than our richest humans) and being effectively immortal.
Yatsuno
Voting in WA:
Get ballot in mail.
Fill out ballot at leisure.
Drop ballot into mailbox or with a local collection box.
It’s not that hard people.
Hunter Gathers
These pig fuckers won’t be happy until white, male, land-owning evangelicals are the only ones allowed to vote.
Kay
@JDM:
It’s true. Corporations speak and states weep. Legal entities have a whole range of ability and emotions!
People, on the other hand, they’re on their own.
Cassidy
@Hunter Gathers: When dealing with people who deal only in delusion and dogma, it’s going to have to get scary and/or violent before it gets better. These people are recklessly steering us down that path.
Jack the Second
Don’t forget religions. Religions get very offended at the slightest thing.
Punchy
@Yatsuno: Seems to be a method reasonably unable to deny Blacks and Hispanics the right to vote, therefore it cannot be considered in at least 30 states.
Kay
@Jack the Second:
True. And “markets”! Jeez, they’re like emotional wrecks.
scav
Just imagine how some of them will feel,once they wake up from their latest binge. Smelling of vomit, snuggled up with unknown entities who may or may not have paid them or just had their way (it’s all a bit fuzzy), with unexplained legal codes tattooed on their face and no money in their pockets.
Sticks and stones dears, but try not hitting youself repeatedly in the face like that.
gene108
@Hunter Gathers:
Over the age of 21, who paid their poll tax and passed their literacy test…like the Founders envisioned
Yatsuno
@Punchy: Could be why it only exists so far in the great socialist paradises of Oregon and Washington.
Haydnseek
@Yatsuno: Bingo. Exactly the same in California. Why does this have to be fucking open heart surgery while skydiving?
cvstoner
Hard to see how this doesn’t come back to bite the Repubs in the ass.
reflectionephemeral
States’ rights are very important to conservatives, as long as those states are impinging on the rights of their citizens.
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: Students too. Gotta deny them the right to vote. At least, that’s how the wingnuts up here in cheeseland roll.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I think they tried to do that Maine too, but that measure was defeated.
TooManyJens
States are people, my friend.
Hoodie
Can a state get an abortion after 20 weeks? If so, we should each declare statehood, although I wonder if my 2nd amendment rights will transfer, seeing how the federal government can requisition the national guard. Can you have dual citizenship?
handsmile
We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…oh no, that can’t be right…..
We the States of the United States…now that’s redundant….
We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
How quaint! Imagine if that were the preamble of a country’s foremost founding document.
NineJean
@Yatsuno:
Ditto for OR.
Also, a bill was submitted in the current leg session [and I think it passed] that would automatically provisionally register anyone who applied for a driver’s license or state ID. Won’t get everyone, but will get a lot.
Violet
Kay, since this is a voting rights thread, I have a question that you might be able to help answer. Is there now anything stopping states from putting in place rules like property ownership as a requirement for voting? Poll tax? I’m guessing those are still illegal? What about something like requiring people to stand on their heads at the polling place or bring a doctor’s permission slip prior to voting or something ridiculous and unrelated to voting, but still designed to create hardship?
gelfling545
Good grief. Corporations are people & states & religions have feelings. What next? What with the anthropomorphizing of all these artificial constructs I do wonder how conservatives can get so upset about the simple fact of 2 humans with similar genitalia marrying. It seems rather modest when compared.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: The voter ID law here was specifically constructed so that no college within had an ID that met the requirements. To their credit, the various public and private schools jumped through a shitload of hoops to provide what was needed to their students.
Kay
@Violet:
No. This is a piece of the voter ID decision that I think explains it:
Yatsuno
@Violet: Poll tax is still unconstitutional although that hasn’t been tested on the state level yet. It would make an interesting court case. I think property ownership fell with the Fifteenth.
Paul in KY
@Hunter Gathers: They will also want right to fill out ballots for their chattel.
Trollhattan
@Yatsuno:
Hasn’t Oregon gone all mail; all the time? (Just answered my own question: yes.)
CA now allows a continual mail-in ballot opetion rather than requiring us to request it each election as before, so the percentage has been creeping upward: 51% in the ’12 general, 65% in the primary.
Some nationwide graphics:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/07/us/voting-by-mail.html?_r=0
A snag, as I see it, is folks who move a lot need to reregister with each move and that’s an opportunity for voter suppression hijinks.
Kay
@Violet:
One really technical fix we could put in would be to fix provisional balloting. IRONICALLY, they were put in after Bush v Gore to solve all our problems but they’re a mess.
If a Presidential election ever comes down to litigation over provisional ballots Bush v Gore will look like a picnic.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
When I get home, I will figure out how to send this to the Battleground Texas people. This would be good for them to learn from. It probably wouldn’t do a whole lot for 2014, but definitely in 2016 and 2020. It might work best in the Rio Grande area. It wouldn’t do a whole lot for increasing Democratic reps, but it would increase our changes at the governor, lt. governor, and US senate levels.
danimal
The greatest danger to voting rights is rigging the game via the distribution of resources. If a state allows voters in some precincts to suffer four hour waits while others complete the voting process in 10 minutes, there’s a problem.
This is the current reality, and I believe this is a crucial place to challenge the system. Redistricting and voter id laws get all the attention, but it is the systemic decisions about the voting process where the real damage occurs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think provisionals would work better with a rebuttable presumption of validity. If you want it tossed, bring in the evidence by Friday after the election or else it counts.
burnspbesq
Kay, the program you describe is great and, if anything, should be expanded, but more is needed now. In a world without pre-clearance, voting rights advocates also need to be ready to file Section 2 litigation in Federal court, and move for TROs and preliminary injunctions.the same day restrictive legislation goes into effect. Waiting on DOJ isn’t going to cut it.
What’s happening on that front?
Higgs Boson's Mate
Arizona doesn’t need anyone’s help to to humiliate itself, Tom.
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I’m not an election lawyer, so I don’t do the pre-election litigation, as you know. OH (liberals and Democrats) have a “star” litigator for election law challenges. He’s hired by labor groups and others every cycle and he usually files one or two cases. I feel pretty good about this state, because it’s a swing state and we’ve been at it so long.
Shalimar
You are not the state of Arizona. The law humiliates you personally by pointing out that you help pass racist laws. This is a good thing. You deserve humiliation for that.
Tokyokie
Funny how the “originalists” on the court agreed with the “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty,” a doctrine for which there is not a scintilla of support in the Constitution. Douglas in finding a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut, at least took the trouble of finding “penumbras” and “emanations” indicating such a right when various parts of the Constitution were weighed together. (Brennan then subsequently relied upon that reasoning in Roe v. Wade.) But because Roberts invented the “principle of equal sovereignty” out of whole cloth in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, it became a matter of stare decisis, so who cares if if has no constitutional authority?
Not that the court’s “originalists” have any difficulty ignoring stare decisis when it’s convenient to do so. Roberts is well on his way to having a legacy even more cringe-worthy of that of Roger Taney or Melville Fuller.
It strikes me that the GOP has become the party of cheaters, the political vehicle for those who get their way by refusing to abide by social norms. Can’t get the pernicious abortion bill through the Texas Senate? Cut off the filibuster on spurious grounds, then fraudently alter the time stamp. (Only Republicans’ thuggish clumsiness prevented the bill’s “passage” from becoming a fait accompli, and I’m not holding my breath waiting for the criminal investigation into the matter.) Want to deep-six the Voting Rights Act? Have a narrow a majority on the high court abrogate the legislative fact-finding function, then ignore those facts, and rely on a constitutional doctrine that’s, you know, not in the Constitution. With the cancers of income inequality and wage stagnation mestasizing throughout American society, which party is adamantly opposed to raising the taxes of rich people, even those of inherited wealth, like the Koch and Walton families? And although a lot of Democrats are in the banskters’ pockets as well, the Republicans, to a man (or woman), oppose any tightening of rules governing the financial industry, even though those crooks continue to make out like bandits despite nearly destorying the world’s economy? Every last asshole in America who seeks to bend the rules to get ahead — I’m looking at you, Sheldon Adelson — can find allies in today’s Republican Party.
Party of cheaters is a meme we need to be trying to popularize.
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
Not that hard is the problem. If you make voting easy, Those People will actually vote, which might endanger the rule of the rich, straight, white, Christian men’s party. If we make sure there are plenty of hoops to jump through to vote, only members of the leisure class will have the time and money to jump through them all, and the vote will be restricted to the Right Kind of People.
Southern Beale
Besides giving me an actual definition of “derp,” this story was awesome for exposing the McCardlism of the right, as excerpted below:
OH! Well, if the brand of non-GMO imported organic hemp milk Tom Anderson buys is now over $6 a gallon, surely EVERYBODY’S is.
And anyway, if that were the case? Why the fuck don’t these people support food stamps, then?
Roger Moore
@handsmile:
Corporations are people, my friend!
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Corporations don’t dance and, if they don’t dance, well, they’re no friends of mine.
Tokyokie
Sure seems like that sort of thing is a lot more worthy of triggering the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment than candidate George W. Bush should have been back in 2000.
Botsplainer
@Hunter Gathers:
One particularly poignant comment over at Free Republic was from a long term commenter the evening that Obama won in 2008. As I recall, it was something along the lines of the following:
It wasn’t snark. He meant it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer:
This guy would let people in Madison, WI, vote. Bwahahaha!
quannlace
‘TEXAS ……….., considered the strictest in the nation.’
**********
From now on, for anything pertaining to Texas, that headline can be kept in permanent typeset.
Redshirt
Can someone help me clarify the new reality? I think it goes like this:
Redneck State passes a voting law which says only white men can vote (for example).
The Feds sue, and take the state to court. In the past, certain states had to get these laws “pre-cleared” with the DOJ, but now they don’t.
Once the law is challenged by the Feds, is it operational? Or would the court case need be resolved before the law could come online (provided it survived the court challenge)?
quannlace
“Anyone who lives within sight of a skyscraper, a river valley, ”
************
A river valley? Wouldn’t that disqualify everybody living along the Mississippi?
Redshirt
@Botsplainer: Sweet! I can still vote!
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshirt: The law would remain in effect until and unless the court enjoins it. A judge would issue an injunction if, briefly, the judge believed there was a good chance that the challenge would succeed and if there would be irreparable harm if the law remained in effect during the lawsuit. In a case like you described, a lawsuit would immediately be filed and any marginally sentient judge would immediately issue the injunction.
Desert Rat
As a lifelong resident of Arizona, I can assure the feckless “Leaders” of our state, that Arizona needs no help in humiliating itself. We do it every two years when the majority keeps reelecting these assclowns.
Felinious Wench
@quannlace: And go ahead and add in “lawsuits pending.”
Roger Moore
@Violet:
The Supreme Court didn’t overturn any of the voting rights parts of the VRA. They overturned part of the enforcement mechanism, more specifically the rules that decided which states are subject to more stringent vetting (preclearance) of their voting rules. So in theory, nothing is legal today that was illegal a week ago.
In practice, the rules have changed so that it will be easier for some states and districts to put new restrictions in place. Under the old rules, states and districts with a history of discriminatory voting rules had to get approval (called “preclearance”) from the federal government before they could make any changes, and those objections could be based on the new rules having a disproportionate effect on minorities. Anywhere else in the country could pass whatever voting rules they liked, the rules didn’t have to get advance approval from the federal government, and the government could only get the new rules thrown out if they could prove that they had a discriminatory intent, not just a disproportionate effect on minorities. The Supreme Court decision basically threw out the list of states and districts that require preclearance, so the whole country is now under the less stringent rules.
Property ownership requirements and poll taxes should be clearly illegal on their face. The 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments clearly include all citizens as having the right to vote, which would make a property ownership requirement illegal, and the 24th Amendment explicitly forbids poll taxes. Any voting restrictions have to be at least a little bit more subtle than that, and there have been plenty of successful challenges to various voting rules under the parts of the Voting Rights Act that still stand.
Paul in KY
@Tokyokie: That’s a good (and true) meme.
burnspbesq
@Redshirt:
There are these nifty things called temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions that DOJ (or, for that matter, private plaintiffs) can ask the district court to grant in VRA Section 2 litigation. If the court grants them, the new law doesn’t go into effect unless or until the court rules for the defendants.
In order to convince the court to issue a TRO or a preliminary injunction, a plaintiff typically has to show (1) that he/she/it is likely to prevail on the merits and (2) that he/she/it will suffer irreparable harm if the new law is allowed to go into effect.
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I read yesterday that one of the problems with Sec 2 is that 5 gave litigants access to the information they would need to bring something under 2.
I don’t know what to do about that. I guess one would start compiling info in each state and prepare ahead of time for a possible challenge? There must be a way to get the info outside of using 5.
scav
@quannlace: Depending on how we define valley and river, the only people able to vote may live on the continental divide.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: He would probably consider the edge of that lake ‘coastline’.
NineJean
@Trollhattan:
Maybe, but depends how you handle it. In Oregon, it goes something like this:
1 – Ballot is sent, addressee doesn’t live there anymore. Ballots aren’t forwarded.
2 – USPO returns ballot to elections office, indicates if addressee has filed an official change of address form with them.
3 – If there’s a change of address, and the new address is within the state, local elections office is notified.
4 – New ballot is sent out, along with a must-return form that affirms that you plan to vote at new address from now on.
5 – Assuming you return the form, voter registration is updated, and ballot is counted.
I spent the first 15 or so years of my adult life moving on an average of every eight months or so. I only remembered to change my voter registration about halt the time, and hated myself all the times I forgot. Seems that the folks now running Oregon elections were probably among my roomies all those years ago…
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: We have four lakes, so you are probably right.
Roger Moore
@Redshirt:
If the judge thinks the Feds have a decent chance of success, he’ll issue an injunction that prevents the new rules from going into effect until after the lawsuit is finished. Something that was obviously unconstitutional, like a law restricting the vote to white male property owners, would get an injunction in a heartbeat.
rikyrah
thanks for this Kay. you have been on it from day one, and I appreciate it.
Kay
@danimal:
This is sometimes malicious but a lot of time it’s incompetence not at the state level but at the county level.
In March or so, we go to each Bd of Election and ask them a series of questions on issues like that. How many machines, what formula do they use to determine that, what they do if they run out of ballots, etc. It’s about 40 questions. They have to answer under sunshine laws. I submit the answers to the lead lawyer and she would then act if they don’t have a plan. It was a response to the long lines in Ohio in 2004. It starts from the assumption they want to do this right, but got caught out thru poor planning, which was actually 90% of the problem in Ohio in 2004. If they need more state resources they have to ask for them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay:
This may be true, but, having stood for a couple of hours in the drizzle in Schiller Park in the German Village area of Columbus, I still have my doubts.
beliebert
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the 2 states most at risk of turning blue are also the 2 most aggressively taking advantage of the SCOTUS gift to try delay the unstoppable demographics tide.
Yup. quite sure it has nothing to do with the reason those struck down laws were there in the first place. Nope. Those laws are definitely not needed anymore….sigh.
Tokyokie
@Paul in KY:
From the notoriously left-wing Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/democracy-texas
Party of cheaters.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I was pulling for you, Omnes. From my warm, dry kitchen.
I think they do better now that we watch them. Also, Blackwell makes more as a pundit, so, markets! It might be cheaper just to buy them out than to go to all this trouble.
Tokyokie
@Roger Moore: The problem is, bascially, under preclearance, the DOJ could throw out proposed changes in procedures if they would have a discriminatory effect, but now all plaintiffs will have to show discriminatory intent, which is a much tougher standard. And in the light of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, which legally sanctified the fiction of in-person voter fraud, that’s a lot harder. (How the traditional test of the legality of a state restriction on a consitutional right — that the restriction promote a legitimate state interest and be no broader than necessary to achieve that purpose — was not applied in Crawford is well beyond my comprehension. And it was the normally reliable Stevens who wrote the damn decision!) It’s like restrictions on abortion: As long as the legislation proports to advance some legitimate state interest (i.e., health and safety, never mind that all the physician professional groups weigh in otherwise), the courts are likely to find the restrictions legal.
@beliebert: Party of cheaters.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay:
I’ve often wondered about that. It might be amoral, but it might work for the greedheads.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think you’ll start running into the hydra problem. You may be able to buy off the guy who’s in office now, but that just encourages more grifters to run in the hopes of getting bribed out of office.
KrisWV
So states are humiliated, eh? There’s a reason that in logic, ascribing human emotions to non-human entities is called “the pathetic fallacy.” Because it’s f’in pathetic.
The only actual humiliation under the VRA was that felt by people — people who were trying to manipulate voting laws to exclude and de-power minorities. And they deserved it.
Omnes Omnibus
@KrisWV: I’ve seen really sad buildings.
Tokyokie
@Omnes Omnibus: Especially cafes.
danimal
@Kay: I hope you’re right, Kay, though I’ve found lack of resources and incompetent planning decisions are often intimately linked.
County official: “We’d like to (insert modern voting procedure), but we don’t have the money/equipment/available facilities/staffing/etc.”
rikyrah
Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960s
By Rebecca Onion
Posted Friday, June 28, 2013, at 12:30 PM
This week’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder overturned Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which mandated federal oversight of changes in voting procedure in jurisdictions that have a history of using a “test or device” to impede enfranchisement. Here is one example of such a test, used in Louisiana in 1964.
After the end of the Civil War, would-be black voters in the South faced an array of disproportionate barriers to enfranchisement. The literacy test—supposedly applicable to both white and black prospective voters who couldn’t prove a certain level of education but in actuality disproportionately administered to black voters—was a classic example of one of these barriers.
The website of the Civil Rights Movement Veterans, which collects materials related to civil rights, hosts a few samples of actual literacy tests used in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s. In many cases, people working within the movement collected these in order to use them in voter education, which is how we ended up with this documentary evidence.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: They’ll just insist on an originalist interpretation of ‘skyscraper’, which when the word was first used in the late 19th century meant a building 10 stories or more.
There’s several buildings in Madison over 10 stories.
And so there ya go. No voting for us. Ergo, in toto, ipso facto, wingnut logic match set and game.
The Other Chuck
@KrisWV: Serious Bag agrees with you
Unsympathetic
@Southern Beale:
Doesn’t matter what the current price is. What matters – and what Tom Blowhard hasn’t recorded because facts are anathema to Republicans – is the trend of that price.
My guess is the price at that store trends just the same as normal milk.. with a $3 offset to take advantage of the fact that he’s an elitist douche.
JR in WV
@Tokyokie:
I agree with this totally. When GWBush “won” election by being selected by a bunch of republican judges, regardless of the fact that Gore won the actual election nationwide, he cheated.
I would not be interested in accepting the role of king of the world by stealing an election, cheating to win is institutionalizing losing. The Republicans know they can’t win fair and square, so they’re working on how to cheat as hard as they can.
Hoping they wind up in a Federal Maximum Security prison for years. I think election fraud should be right next to treason in the sentencing guidelines.