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Democracy and Voting

November 19, 2012
Leading Civil Rights Attorney and Law Prof. Sherrilyn Ifill to Head NAACP LDF
by Jeremy Leaming

One of the nation’s preeminent civil and human rights groups, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), tapped as its new leader one of the nation’s foremost civil rights attorneys and scholars Sherrilyn Ifill. The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall helped found LDF in 1940 and led the battle in its first couple of decades to end segregation of the public schools.

Ifill (pictured), a frequent ACS participant, who has also occasionally provided guest posts for ACSblog, will be LDF’s next president and director-counsel in January. She is also a Professor of Law at the University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law, and as The Root notes is “no stranger to LDF’s work.”

The Root continues:

Early in her career, before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Law, authoring On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century, and making a name for herself as a respected civil rights strategist, she served as assistant counsel in LDF’s New York office. There, she litigated voting rights cases, including the landmark Voting Rights Act case Houston Lawyers' Association vs. Attorney General of Texas.

In March, LDF’s sixth Director-Counsel and President John Payton died. Payton, like his predecessors at LDF, was also a tireless advocate for civil liberties and human rights. In a tribute piece to Payton, ACS Board member and former LDF Director-Counsel and President Theodore M. Shaw said Payton’s “advocacy on behalf of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the excluded reached beyond the United States. He worked against the apartheid in South Africa, and traveled around the world in support of rights.”

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Tags:
Civil rights, Election law, Voting rights, Racial justice, Democracy and Voting, Equality and Liberty, NAACP LDF, Sec. 5, Shelby County v. Holder, Sherrilyn Ifill, voter ID laws, voter suppression, Voting Rights Act
November 15, 2012
Looking to Other Nations for Voting Reforms
by E. Sebastian Arduengo

For all of the grandstanding some politicians do on the virtues of American democracy, one might think that voting here would be simple and easy. Instead, as shown repeatedly here on ACSblog, it is anything but. American voters, who are more mobile than ever, have to deal with the election bureaucracies of all 50 states, which include over 13,000 election districts and 110,000 polling places nationwide. Getting registered to vote in a new location after a move can be time consuming and cumbersome. The only notable exception to the bureaucratic nightmare that is getting registered and voting in the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions is North Dakota, where citizens to not need to be registered to vote. All they need to do is show up on Election Day.

In her book, Electoral Dysfunction, Victoria Bassetti argues that America is one of the few democracies in the world that places the burden on voters to prove that they are eligible to vote. So let’s look over our lapping shores to other lands to see how they manage the democratic process, and if there’s anything the United States can learn from their experiences.

Our neighbors to the north and south provide us with an immediate frame of reference. In Canada voter registration is largely done by the Canadian federal government as a means of protecting the constitutional rights of Canadian citizens. The government refers to other governmental records, like tax records to keep the voter rolls continuously updated. For people that aren’t registered Canada allows for same day voter registration. The government is legally obliged to keep its voter registration list private, and information from it can only be shared with parties and candidates at the time of an election, and then only for electoral purposes. Canada also imposes strict limits on election financing, curbing the amount of money political parties can spend. Major parties like the Liberal and Conservative parties were limited to about 20 million CAD total, and in 2006 the Canadian Parliament passed a bill allowing only individuals to contribute to parties and political candidates.

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Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Canada, Electoral Dysfunction, Mexico, United Kingdom, Victoria Bassetti, voter ID laws, Voter Registration, voting reforms
November 13, 2012
Elections Reveal Continued Need for Voting Reform
by LaShawn Y. Warren

As we move past the 2012 elections and turn our eyes toward a host of pressing political, social, and economic issues, we must not lose sight of the continuing voting challenges unearthed by these elections. While significant progress has been made to expand access to the ballot box, we cannot ignore the persistent attempts to thwart participation through onerous photo ID requirements and other voting restrictions. Last week’s elections clearly demonstrated just how much more improvement is needed. Poorly trained poll workers, machine breakdowns, and inaccurate voter registration lists produced long lines that forced voters to wait hours simply to vote.

In Florida, voters were still waiting in line at two in the morning, as President Obama ended his victory speech. This was in addition to arbitrary rules for in-person absentee balloting, voting machines paper jams, and election officials in one Florida county informing voters they could vote through Wednesday! Fortunately, this was not a close election and a dramatic replay of 2000 was avoided, but the potential for electoral chaos remains systemic in the administration of our elections. As a key battleground state, the spotlight is frequently on voting issues in Florida, but these types of problems occur over and over again across the nation.

In a country that leads the world in the development of trend setting technology, it is difficult to imagine why our elections remain so antiquated. “We’re the greatest democracy in the world,” Tom Brokaw said, covering yet another election night. “But when voting time comes, we do everything but get a candle and a nightgown and walk in somewhere and make a mark with a sharp stick of some kind. It's crazy.” It is more than crazy; it is shameful. Voting is essential to our constitutional order and the health of our democracy. It is central to the essence of citizenship. We should pride ourselves in making it easy for citizens to participate in the political process.

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Tags:
Election law, Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Help American Vote Act, long lines for voting, President Obama, Professor Dan Tokaji, voter ID laws, voter suppression laws
November 9, 2012
Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court announced today that it will consider the constitutionality of a key section of the historic Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires states and localities – primarily in the South – with a history of discrimination to receive federal review and approval of any changes they want to make to their voting laws. Lawmakers first adopted the provision in 1965, during the midst of the fierce civil rights battles to help guarantee the voting rights of African-Americans.

Congress reauthorized the law in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers; President George W. Bush signed the law. In Shelby County [Alabama] v. Holder, the Court will review a decisionupholding Section 5 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Critics of the law argue that singling out the specific nine states and localities in seven others is outdated and unnecessary now.

Voting rights proponents, though, aggressively used Section 5 this year to challenge a slew of restrictions on voting that Republican-led legislatures enacted in a number of states. Despite a paucity of evidence showing voter fraud to be a serious problem anywhere, supporters of the restrictive measures insisted that they were needed to combat voter impersonation or help election officials do a better job on Election Day.

An ACS Issue Brief by Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt earlier this year, “The New Wave of Election Regulation: Burden without Benefit,” made the case that these restrictive voting laws are “suspect as a matter of constitutional law and fundamentally flawed as a matter of public policy.”

Tags:
Civil rights, Supreme Court, Individual liberties, Voting rights, Racial justice, Democracy and Voting
November 9, 2012
Why Courts Matter: Discussing the Future of the Judiciary Post-Election
By Amanda Simon

ACS president, Caroline Fredrickson, joined experts from the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) on Nov. 8 for a discussion on the future of the courts post-election. The lively discussion, viewable here, covered a range of topics from reproductive rights to voting rights to judicial nominations.

After opening remarks from CAP’s John Podesta, the panelists tackled some of the issues that emerged from this week’s election. Fredrickson immediately pointed out that courts had played a large role in the election, including several court decisions on early voting rules and voter ID laws. And CAC’s Doug Kendall noted the strength of the Voting Rights Act played a large part in getting favorable rulings on voting issues leading up to the election.

Given that a few congressional candidates had made outrageous and offensive remarks about rape and pregnancy, the panelists discussed the influence of women in this week’s election. As Fredrickson put it, “Women voters aren’t stupid…For the moment at least, we can be a little more comfortable that we won’t see Roe v. Wade overturned in the immediate future.” But nothing is a sure thing until and unless progressives start recognizing the importance of the courts as a central issue, as conservatives have for decades. While President Obama may serve for just four more years, his judicial appointees will leave their imprints on the legal system for decades to come.

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Tags:
Federal judicial selection, Supreme Court, Reproductive freedom, Democracy and Voting, Judicial Nominations

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