Voting rights bills and lawsuits megathread (Updated: April 27th 2020)

[Progressive Pessimist]

NJ passed its automatic registration!

https://patch.com/new-jersey/longvalley/automatic-voter-registration-signed-law-nj

Excellent news!

[junior chįmp]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

[KingSweden]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

Possibly. It may also have been combined with Benisek.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

Roberts getting the opinion isn’t necessarily a disaster.  As Hansen noted, he could easily be a sixth vote to significantly rein in partisan gerrymandering.

[Sestak]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

TBF I think if there was a 5-4 to strike down gerrymandering, Roberts would join the majority; he'll want broad agreement across ideologies. I also thinks that given how much he cares about it, I wouldn't be surprised if he did want to write the opinion himself.

I'm just worried. The outcomes here seem to be either:

1. Cement gerrymandering as legal
2. Codify the efficiency gap (which is a horrible metric)

[Virginiá]

TBF I think if there was a 5-4 to strike down gerrymandering, Roberts would join the majority; he'll want broad agreement across ideologies. I also thinks that given how much he cares about it, I wouldn't be surprised if he did want to write the opinion himself.

[...]

Does he really care, or rather, in what way does he care? He was very skeptical during arguments, and his "intelligent man on the street" argument was the most disingenuous, ridiculous thing I've heard from him in years (as an infrequent, casual reader). Aside from what has to be a smart man playing dumb ("sociological gobbledygook"), he seemed content to let an absurdly corrupt regime of election rigging stand just so long as the people themselves didn't think negatively of the system. God forbid the court smack down corrupt politicians - that might lead to more partisanship!

But I do agree with what you said - this doesn't necessarily mean they will punt partisan gerrymandering to the future or worse, rule that it is acceptable or non-justiciable. He could just want to write the opinion and/or give an inevitable majority opinion a broader consensus.

I'm just not sure which. The justices seemed stuck in Maryland's arguments. I dunno. We'll see I suppose.

[Virginiá]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

[KingSweden]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

This could be the case, or it could have been combined with Benisek.

Who knows.

[GeorgiaModerate]

A federal judge has ruled that Marion County [Indianapolis] must create at least two early voting locations before the November elections:

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[junior chįmp]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

That sounds plausible. Hopefully it's true

[krazen1211]

When the Roberts Court grants a stay and grants cert it has almost always voted to reverse the lower court.

Gerrymandering will win.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Arkansas judge blocks state voter ID law.

[krazen1211]

5th circuit upholds commonsense Texas Voter ID!

Link

[GeorgiaModerate]

5th Circuit upholds Texas voter ID law, reversing lower court.

[Progressive Pessimist]

5th Circuit upholds Texas voter ID law, reversing lower court.

Boo!

[StateBoiler]

5th Circuit upholds Texas voter ID law, reversing lower court.

Boo!

Considering I need a photo ID to drive a car, get on an airplane, get on a train, enter a military facility, be a student at a university, have a bank account, have a credit card, write a check, several other more mundane things of far less importance to a society than voting, I've yet to hear a good argument for why displaying photo ID at a polling booth to demonstrate "yes, I am this person" is a bad idea, especially with the implementation of the Real ID which is required for everyone boarding a commercial aircraft beginning in October 2020. If you don't have a photo ID and are above 18 years of age, that's no different than being Amish when it comes to not keeping up with current technological trends.

[StateBoiler]

Young suburbans often have a hard time comprehending that not everyone was blessed with parents who kept their birth certificate/social security properly stored.  Many a times more elderly, poor, minorities who grew up during the civil rights era will lack proper documentation.  See this example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html?utm_term=.5c33d7df44e4

I've read a good amount of articles on this subject; and yes the barrier for entry is much harder than just going by the BMV and grabbing a government ID real quick.  You need to get all of the other documentation in order first; and that's often very costly.  So even if the government ID is free; it's still essentially a poll tax for voting when it comes to these people.  Especially if your license can be taken away/suspended due to failure of payment of a minor traffic violation (again; another hidden indirect poll tax).  I know many are okay with disenfranchisement of felons (which thankfully Democrats have made strides to correct like McAuliffe in Virginia); but essentially we're putting failure of payment for minor traffic violations by poor people into the same mix.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/08/voter_id_laws_why_do_minorities_lack_id_to_show_at_the_polls_.html

There are many valid reasons why one might not have an ID and why the unnecessary burden of a voter ID functions as an indirect poll tax on millions of them exercising their right to vote for the sake of warm and fuzzy feelings about stopping one or two cases of voter fraud. https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id

I again fall back on:

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First off, the Real ID is happening. That's already done.

If you don't believe photo IDs are required to vote, then there are a ton of things in society where the photo ID requirement should be legislatively banned. Period. There are far too many things that require photo IDs that are far less important than voting. How do these people function in daily society? You have to have a photo ID to drop off or pickup a child according to some daycares. To sit for the SAT exam, you have to have a photo ID. If you don't have a photo ID, you are effectively banned from leaving the country. You can't get into Canada for damn sure. You can't get on an airplane. You can choose to be an illegal and cross into Mexico or hop on an intertube and try to reach Cuba or Haiti. It is preposterous when you consider everything that requires a photo ID, and yet voting is the one thing where people think this should not apply.

To all people that don't think photo ID should be required to vote, I ask you to start pushing for legislation to ban all things that require photo ID. When you actually start doing those bills and they start getting turned into law, I'll treat your argument like it has merit. This is an intellectually bankrupt argument otherwise.


edit: To receive your credentials to get access into the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, you were required to show photo ID.

[KingSweden]

Young suburbans often have a hard time comprehending that not everyone was blessed with parents who kept their birth certificate/social security properly stored.  Many a times more elderly, poor, minorities who grew up during the civil rights era will lack proper documentation.  See this example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html?utm_term=.5c33d7df44e4

I've read a good amount of articles on this subject; and yes the barrier for entry is much harder than just going by the BMV and grabbing a government ID real quick.  You need to get all of the other documentation in order first; and that's often very costly.  So even if the government ID is free; it's still essentially a poll tax for voting when it comes to these people.  Especially if your license can be taken away/suspended due to failure of payment of a minor traffic violation (again; another hidden indirect poll tax).  I know many are okay with disenfranchisement of felons (which thankfully Democrats have made strides to correct like McAuliffe in Virginia); but essentially we're putting failure of payment for minor traffic violations by poor people into the same mix.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/08/voter_id_laws_why_do_minorities_lack_id_to_show_at_the_polls_.html

There are many valid reasons why one might not have an ID and why the unnecessary burden of a voter ID functions as an indirect poll tax on millions of them exercising their right to vote for the sake of warm and fuzzy feelings about stopping one or two cases of voter fraud. https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id

I again fall back on:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

First off, the Real ID is happening. That's already done.

If you don't believe photo IDs are required to vote, then there are a ton of things in society where the photo ID requirement should be legislatively banned. Period. There are far too many things that require photo IDs that are far less important than voting. How do these people function in daily society? You have to have a photo ID to drop off or pickup a child according to some daycares. To sit for the SAT exam, you have to have a photo ID. If you don't have a photo ID, you are effectively banned from leaving the country. You can't get into Canada for damn sure. You can't get on an airplane. You can choose to be an illegal and cross into Mexico or hop on an intertube and try to reach Cuba or Haiti. It is preposterous when you consider everything that requires a photo ID, and yet voting is the one thing where people think this should not apply.

To all people that don't think photo ID should be required to vote, I ask you to start pushing for legislation to ban all things that require photo ID. When you actually start doing those bills and they start getting turned into law, I'll treat your argument like it has merit. This is an intellectually bankrupt argument otherwise.


edit: To receive your credentials to get access into the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, you were required to show photo ID.

Few states have implemented Real ID, fwiw.

Anyways I think you’re debating practice vs principle. There’s nothing wrong with Voter ID in *principle*, hell I’m open to it, but in practice it is often designed to be unfair and keep voters unfavorable to GOP candidates from the polls. Making it hard to get an ID, arbitrary decisions in what kind of ID can be used, shutting down DMVs in minority areas... there are a number of cases in which Republicans pushing these laws have not acted in good faith.

That said, if implemented fairly, I’m not against it. Say, by combining AVR and Voter ID. I’d be open to that. Of course being spoiled to live in a VBM State I think our system is the best.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I don't have a problem with photo ID as a requirement *if* it's free and very easily accessible (e.g., you don't require people in poor rural counties to travel to the next county, as Alabama tried to do not long ago).

The difference between voting and the other activities mentioned is that voting is a foundation, if not the foundation, of our democratic form of government.  As such, if we pretend to be a free and equal society, voting needs to be as easy and convenient as possible for all potential voters. 

In a perfect world, all entitled voters would be able to easily vote, and no unentitled voters would slip through.  But the world isn't perfect, so systems should err on the side of enfranchisement, not disenfranchisement, just as the criminal justice system is designed to err on the side of innocence.  The downside of disenfranchising entitled voters is worse than allowing some unentitled votes to creep in (and studies have consistently shown that the number of unentitled voters to cast votes has been insignificant). 

[KingSweden]

I don't have a problem with photo ID as a requirement *if* it's free and very easily accessible (e.g., you don't require people in poor rural counties to travel to the next county, as Alabama tried to do not long ago).

The difference between voting and the other activities mentioned is that voting is a foundation, if not the foundation, of our democratic form of government.  As such, if we pretend to be a free and equal society, voting needs to be as easy and convenient as possible for all potential voters. 

In a perfect world, all entitled voters would be able to easily vote, and no unentitled voters would slip through.  But the world isn't perfect, so systems should err on the side of enfranchisement, not disenfranchisement, just as the criminal justice system is designed to err on the side of innocence.  The downside of disenfranchising entitled voters is worse than allowing some unentitled votes to creep in (and studies have consistently shown that the number of unentitled voters to cast votes has been insignificant). 

Well said

[StateBoiler]

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So why did the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and 2016 require photo ID in order to gain access to the Convention? If you were a delegate and did not have photo ID, you would not be given access to the Convention and therefore would be unable to vote on who the candidate of the party should be from the Convention as well as any other business matters.

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This one is easy, it's the Democrats' own rules.

[GeorgiaModerate]

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So why did the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and 2016 require photo ID in order to gain access to the Convention? If you were a delegate and did not have photo ID, you would not be given access to the Convention and therefore would be unable to vote on who the candidate of the party should be from the Convention as well as any other business matters.

You're attempting to deflect.  I already said that I have no problem with photo ID as long as it's free and easily accessible.  But in addition, the Democratic Party is not a government entity. 

I answered your comment.  Will you answer one of mine: do you agree or disagree with this paragraph in my previous post?

In a perfect world, all entitled voters would be able to easily vote, and no unentitled voters would slip through.  But the world isn't perfect, so systems should err on the side of enfranchisement, not disenfranchisement, just as the criminal justice system is designed to err on the side of innocence.  The downside of disenfranchising entitled voters is worse than allowing some unentitled votes to creep in (and studies have consistently shown that the number of unentitled voters to cast votes has been insignificant). 

[StateBoiler]

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So why did the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and 2016 require photo ID in order to gain access to the Convention? If you were a delegate and did not have photo ID, you would not be given access to the Convention and therefore would be unable to vote on who the candidate of the party should be from the Convention as well as any other business matters.

You're attempting to deflect.

No, I'm demonstrating how universal the photo ID requirement is and people are being hypocritical.

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Yet it has its candidate selections funded by state governments. It's "not a government entity" but is government-subsidized.

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allright let's give it a shot

In a perfect world, all entitled voters would be able to easily vote, and no unentitled voters would slip through.

yes

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It should be the goal of every single election board in the country to make their systems as accurate as possible. They at present do a horrible job of this and this is acknowledged almost universally regardless of party affiliation by election board administrators. It does not speak well for government bureaucracy. If election boards and administrators do not strive to make their systems as accurate as possible, those individuals need to be removed and replaced with someone more competent as well as laws implemented to aid them in that measure.

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Why not do both? And if we are told we can't, that's cause for the election board administrators to be removed from their office because "voting is a foundation, if not the foundation, of our democratic form of government".

I'm in favor of giving people an ID if they can't get one otherwise. Since the issue is on voting and we're dealing with probably some perennially poor people that do not have a job, have the ID be in exchange for working a day as a poll worker. In my county in Indiana, poll workers are paid $85 base pay plus $10 to attend a training meeting. That's $95. To get a non-driver's license identification card in Indiana, it costs $9. So the training meeting would pay for it. https://www.dmv.org/in-indiana/id-cards.php

Oh, and...

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So in the case of my state, this entire argument would be complete bullsh**t.

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Our former president Lyndon Johnson had the nickname "Landslide Lyndon" because he had a tendency to find votes somewhere in Texas if him or a pal was in trouble. It's widely believed by some and it's not some random conspiracy nuts that Kennedy won Illinois in 1960 in corrupt fashion and thus greatly aided him in defeating Nixon nationally that year. In the 1876 election, a wire came from New York City Republican Party Headquarters telling 3 state parties in the South to publish different results from their state so Hayes could win the national election over Tilden which threw the country into a bit of a constitutional crisis very soon after the conclusion of the Civil War. And that's just dealing with the presidency. That says nothing for lower-level races and far less visible politicians on a national scale, like Tammany Hall or Chicago. So saying that the number of unentitled voter votes is insignificant is being historically disingenuous. Now if you want to deal with the present day, again I go back to everyone knows state election board rolls are in absolutely terrible shape. The dead are not removed, few update their registration when moving. How can you hold a fair election when who is eligible to vote is not accurate?

[Virginiá]

Thanks to DK's VRR:

http://www.komu.com/mobile/story.cfm?id=94405-political-reform-group-submits-petition-to-change-missouris-constitution

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The redistricting changes are only for legislative maps, unfortunately. That was necessary due to restrictions on how much a single initiative can do. This would also require the commission to use the efficiency gap in drawing districts.

-

More information on Missouri and other states:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/4/1762079/-Voting-Rights-Roundup-Missouri-could-vote-on-a-fall-ballot-initiative-to-make-redistricting-fairer

[muon2]

Young suburbans often have a hard time comprehending that not everyone was blessed with parents who kept their birth certificate/social security properly stored.  Many a times more elderly, poor, minorities who grew up during the civil rights era will lack proper documentation.  See this example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html?utm_term=.5c33d7df44e4

I've read a good amount of articles on this subject; and yes the barrier for entry is much harder than just going by the BMV and grabbing a government ID real quick.  You need to get all of the other documentation in order first; and that's often very costly.  So even if the government ID is free; it's still essentially a poll tax for voting when it comes to these people.  Especially if your license can be taken away/suspended due to failure of payment of a minor traffic violation (again; another hidden indirect poll tax).  I know many are okay with disenfranchisement of felons (which thankfully Democrats have made strides to correct like McAuliffe in Virginia); but essentially we're putting failure of payment for minor traffic violations by poor people into the same mix.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/08/voter_id_laws_why_do_minorities_lack_id_to_show_at_the_polls_.html

There are many valid reasons why one might not have an ID and why the unnecessary burden of a voter ID functions as an indirect poll tax on millions of them exercising their right to vote for the sake of warm and fuzzy feelings about stopping one or two cases of voter fraud. https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id

I again fall back on:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

First off, the Real ID is happening. That's already done.

If you don't believe photo IDs are required to vote, then there are a ton of things in society where the photo ID requirement should be legislatively banned. Period. There are far too many things that require photo IDs that are far less important than voting. How do these people function in daily society? You have to have a photo ID to drop off or pickup a child according to some daycares. To sit for the SAT exam, you have to have a photo ID. If you don't have a photo ID, you are effectively banned from leaving the country. You can't get into Canada for damn sure. You can't get on an airplane. You can choose to be an illegal and cross into Mexico or hop on an intertube and try to reach Cuba or Haiti. It is preposterous when you consider everything that requires a photo ID, and yet voting is the one thing where people think this should not apply.

To all people that don't think photo ID should be required to vote, I ask you to start pushing for legislation to ban all things that require photo ID. When you actually start doing those bills and they start getting turned into law, I'll treat your argument like it has merit. This is an intellectually bankrupt argument otherwise.


edit: To receive your credentials to get access into the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, you were required to show photo ID.

Few states have implemented Real ID, fwiw.

Anyways I think you’re debating practice vs principle. There’s nothing wrong with Voter ID in *principle*, hell I’m open to it, but in practice it is often designed to be unfair and keep voters unfavorable to GOP candidates from the polls. Making it hard to get an ID, arbitrary decisions in what kind of ID can be used, shutting down DMVs in minority areas... there are a number of cases in which Republicans pushing these laws have not acted in good faith.

That said, if implemented fairly, I’m not against it. Say, by combining AVR and Voter ID. I’d be open to that. Of course being spoiled to live in a VBM State I think our system is the best.

29 states and DC are compliant with Real ID. IL expects to be compliant by Jan 1, 2019. Real ID is an excellent tool to use in an AVR system. It helps avoid the necessity of a polling place ID when checking the ID was part of the AVR.