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

[BudgieForce]

On one hand, we know exactly why Republicans want to prevent out of state college students from voting. But they do have a point. No other state gives out-of-state residents as much freedom when voting locally as New Hampshire does. And when you take into account both Trump and Ayote losing by very tiny margins, why wouldn't NH republicans push for this?

As long as NH college students have the option to vote absentee like everybody else, the outrage from democrats seems a tad disingenuous.


Edit: Also, interesting a democrat on the NH Supreme Court sided with the two republicans.

I mean, they were even mulling getting rid of election day registration, which they've had for a while now, but they didn't because then they would lose their exception to the NVRA. All of this was about Republicans losing two closes races and seeking to flex their legislative muscle to restrict as many Democratic-leaning voters as possible from voting in future elections. That's all it ever is with Republicans. They cry about non-existent fraud and then use the resulting lack of trust they are responsible for to justify voter suppression disguised as "restoring integrity." It all makes me utterly sick to my stomach. This country needs to standardize voting regulations and be done with it. States have discredited themselves as responsible stewards of elections. Some Republican-run states can't even be trusted to offer reasonable early voting sites (re: Indiana and North Carolina), which is something painfully basic.

And Sununu does this all with his sh**t-eating grin on his face, pretending to be reasonable, telling students he doesn't want to keep them from voting, then signing bill after bill designed to reduce their electoral clout. And no doubt Democrats, whenever they take back power, will be true to form and do little to nothing to protect the state from voter suppression schemes in the future. I think only Illinois has passed a constitutional amendment explicitly protecting the right to vote.

edit: Also, I don't understand what the beef these people have with students is about. Students spend more time in NH than not, and going off to college is generally considered leaving the nest for many students, so at least for 4 years or so, that is their home. And don't quote me on it, but iirc, courts have already ruled that students cannot be banned from voting in the state they go to school in, so their enrollment in a college in New Hampshire should be enough.

Republicans are just trying to change the rules to boost their odds in elections, plain and simple.

Yes, this was upheld by the Supreme Court in Symm v. United States, 1979.

So that begs the question, why is New Hampshire the only state college students can vote in local elections without jumping through hurdles?

*raises the question

*puts on ignore*

/s


Yep, looking at it, I definitely used the expression wrong.

[OneJ]

Yeah I think Sununu's chances of reelection may have gone way down with this stunt.

[junior chįmp]

Tremendous news for 2018!

https://www.twitter.com/marceelias/status/1021812227857367041

[ajc0918]

Tremendous news for 2018!

https://www.twitter.com/marceelias/status/1021812227857367041

This is BIG. This means each individual county will likely be able to determine if a university can get an on campus early voting precinct. I'm pretty confidence Alachua (UF) and Leon (FSU) will add them. I could see Orange (UCF) and Hillsborough (USF) doing the same.

I could easily see a few thousand more students vote as a result.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Something good came out Florida!?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Great news!

[Virginiá]

Marion County, Indiana will also get 6 early voting sites after having only one site during the last 4 elections (iirc).

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/25/marion-county-early-voting-election-board-adds-6-satellite-locations/837862002/

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Florida early voting news is huge, though. Not giving universities an early voting site is blatantly unfair treatment of students, considering that there are numerous small towns that have considerably less eligible voters (like mine) but still get early voting sites. On top of that, universities are full of some of the lowest propensity voters, so it hurts twice as much by depriving them of a convenient place to vote.

[Gass3268]

There was good news out of Iowa yesterday.

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There will be an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, but that court tends to lean left.

Source

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024483470406557699

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024484332780568576

[junior chįmp]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024483470406557699

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024484332780568576

MI GOP is finished

[Gass3268]

Colorado, Michigan, Utah and possibly Missouri will have ballot measures for redistricting commissions this November. 

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024483470406557699

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024484332780568576

Really curious to see a summary of the dissent for us non-lawyers. Three dissents is a little close for a comfort.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024483470406557699

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024484332780568576

Oh thank God.

But yeah, as Virginia said, still utterly terrifying that there are 3 GOP hack with so little regard for the rule of law.

[KingSweden]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024483470406557699

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1024484332780568576

Really curious to see a summary of the dissent for us non-lawyers. Three dissents is a little close for a comfort.

IANAL but basically the question hinged on whether the amendment was so substantial a change that it was too substantive to be legal via initiative vs constitutional convention. Neither the opinion nor the dissent turned upon the merits of the proposal itself

[Gass3268]

Good news!

https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1024678204106330112

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good news!

https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1024678204106330112

Every time I see news about a federal judge making a good ruling like this all I can think is "who cares, this is gonna be overturned by Justice Kavanaugh soon enough".

[Gass3268]

Colorado, Michigan, Utah and possibly Missouri will have ballot measures for redistricting commissions this November. 

Missouri will have a redistricting reform measure on the ballot.

https://twitter.com/CleanMissouri/status/1025048463359266816

[Gass3268]

Good news!

https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/1024678204106330112

Every time I see news about a federal judge making a good ruling like this all I can think is "who cares, this is gonna be overturned by Justice Kavanaugh soon enough".

Michigan reinstated it via the ballot box, but then the state legislature overturned and added a monetary portion to it so they couldn't reinstate it again via the ballot box. So this year folks are trying to pass a constitutional amendment that would add straight ballot voting and other pro-voting measures to the state constitution.

[Virginiá]

Unfortunately, Missouri's initiative only appears to have legislative redistricting reform and not Congressional, according to Ballotpedia. Not sure why. I hope they can shoot for CDs in 2020.

Michigan reinstated it via the ballot box, but then the state legislature overturned and added a monetary portion to it so they couldn't reinstate it again via the ballot box. So this year folks are trying to pass a constitutional amendment that would add straight ballot voting and other pro-voting measures to the state constitution.

It's really quite amazing how much effort has been put into initiatives in Michigan this cycle. MI could go from a state with some of the worst gerrymandered lines and stingiest voter access rules to a state with fair maps and some of the best pro-voter rules in the country.

Not to mention the initiatives for minimum wage, paid sick leave and cannabis legalization.

[Torie]

The Missouri proposal would effectively require the legislative seats to be gerrymandered in favor of the Dems to enable them to prevail in the percentage of the seats that matches their statewide percentage.  That is an erroneous way to calculate it, even if you wanted that principle. Muon2 says you need to double the dominant party's margin, so if a minority party got 45% of the statewide vote, they should get only 40% of the seats.

And even with that correction, it would still require gerrymandering for the Dems to offset the geographical concentration of Dems and the VRA (although in Missouri, the CD to be reasonably drawn for the black constituency closely matches what should be drawn anyway, given how the county and City of St. Louis lines lie). So I oppose that approach. Minimize chops and erosity, and then for maps that get basically to the same score, try to go for competitiveness and minimizing partisan skew per the Muon2 formula.

[muon2]

I suspect that the proposal in MO is based on similar state constitutional law as in IL. In IL the state constitution only deals with legislative apportionment, so that is the only type of district where one can impose procedural changes. Congressional districts are purely statutory.

As Torie notes, I have often quoted academic studies that show an ideal legislature should not mirror the statewide vote but should skew about 2 points for every point away from 50-50. If a state has very few districts then that skew can be greater. Consider a state with only one district (like the governor) - it skews 100% in favor of the party winning the statewide vote.

[Gass3268]

Iowa Supreme Court upholds injunction on the new Voter ID law:

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1027961579994734592

[ON Progressive]

Iowa Supreme Court upholds injunction on the new Voter ID law:

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1027961579994734592

Excellent news.

[Virginiá]

^ Is that lawsuit halting the entire ID requirement, or just for absentee voting? I haven't followed it too much.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indiana-marion-county-early-voting_us_5b6dd7cce4b0530743c9c2ef

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Republicans upset Indiana's most populous county is going to have more than one early voting site (they are fine with whiter, more Republican counties next to it having more than one though)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

^ Is that lawsuit halting the entire ID requirement, or just for absentee voting? I haven't followed it too much.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indiana-marion-county-early-voting_us_5b6dd7cce4b0530743c9c2ef

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Republicans upset Indiana's most populous county is going to have more than one early voting site (they are fine with whiter, more Republican counties next to it having more than one though)

Isn't Curtis Hill being accused of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault by four different women including one member of the Indiana legislature?  I thought he'd already resigned.