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Voting rights

February 15, 2012
Let’s Get Voter Registration Right – and Make it Universal
Guest Post

By Rob Richie and Elise Helgesen. Richie is executive director and Helgesen is a democracy fellow at FairVote, a nonprofit organization promoting voting rights and electoral reform.

This November’s presidential election will present a stark choice between President Barack Obama and a Republican challenger, and voter turnout analysts predict a decline in voter turnout from our 62 percent turnout of eligible voters in 2008.

Voter motivation is one reason why American turnout lags behind that of many nations. Most Americans experience limited choice and a relatively low chance of electing strongly favored candidates. For example, in 2010 only one in four eligible voters elected a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (what we call “the Representation Index”). In contrast, in Denmark’s last elections, nearly five in six eligible voters elected representatives to its national legislature from an array of choices, voter turnout was more than 85 percent, and its system of proportional representation led to more than 95 percent of voters electing their preferred choice.

Our broken voter registration system is a more direct barrier to participation. In fact, if every single registered voter participated this November, we still would trail many nations in turnout. According to a new study by the Pew Center on the States Election Initiatives, of some 220 million eligible American votes, more than 50 million aren’t registered to vote. Another 24 million voter registrations have serious data problems that could block or interfere with voting.

It won’t take rocket science to ensure that every eligible voter is registered to vote and that all ineligible voters are not. What we need is a national commitment to take on the challenge, some start-up resources and smart use of existing databases. Other countries continue to modernize their systems, with international norms for voter registration rates typically well above 90 percent of eligible voters.

Two nations provide recent examples of how it can be done. Chile last month adopted a law designed to register all eligible voters automatically. In its last presidential election in 2010, nearly a third of Chile’s 12 million voting-age citizens weren’t registered. With the new law, more than 4.5 million voters, mostly young adults, will be added to the voter rolls.

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Election law, Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Guest Post, universal voter registration, Voter Registration
January 24, 2012
Perry v. Perez: Not That Big a Deal . . . But Wait
Guest Post

By Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and senior fellow for Election Law @ Moritz.

Whenever the U.S. Supreme Court decides a case, especially one involving elections, commentators have a tendency to wax eloquently about its importance. But let’s face it, not all Supreme Court decisions are really that important. A case in point Friday’s opinion in Perry v. Perez, regarding Texas’ redistricting plans.

To be sure, the decision is important to Texans wondering what their congressional and state legislative districts will look like. It also helps clarify a procedural question involving preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”). But the broader significance of Friday’s per curiam decision is limited. What’s most significant is an issue the Court doesn’t address: whether Section 5 is constitutional. That’s the 800 pound gorilla which the justices (with the noteworthy exception of Justice Thomas) avoid mentioning – but will probably come before them in the not-too-distant future.

A bit of context is useful. Every state must redraw its congressional and state legislative maps at the start of each decade to account for population shifts. Section 5 of the VRA requires some jurisdictions to obtain “preclearance” of voting changes – including redistricting plans – before they take effect. As originally enacted, Section 5 covered Southern states that excluded African Americans from voting. Coverage was later expanded to include states with a history of excluding Latinos and other groups from fully participating in the electoral process. Texas is among the states now covered by Section 5, which was reauthorized and extended for another 25 years in 2006. To obtain preclearance, covered jurisdictions must show that their proposed changes don’t have a discriminatory purpose or retrogressive effect on minority voters.

At issue in Perry v. Perez is what should happen when a state legislature has drawn new districts, but no preclearance decision has yet been made. After the 2010 Census, the Texas legislature redrew its congressional and state legislative lines. As required by Section 5, the state then requested preclearance of the legislature’s plan, filing suit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. That court denied Texas’ motion for summary judgment, but hasn’t yet ruled on whether preclearance should be granted. Meanwhile, separate lawsuits were filed in another federal court, alleging that the redistricting plans violate the U.S. Constitution and another section of the VRA. (You can find court filings from the cases here and here.)

Here’s the problem: Under Section 5, the 2011 Texas redistricting plans can’t take effect until they’ve been precleared. But the old districting plan, the one in effect through 2010, can’t be used either – that would violate the one person, one vote rule due to population shifts of the last decade. The lower court was therefore left with no choice but to draw its own map. That map departed from the legislatively-drawn map in significant respects, even though the court didn’t find a likelihood that plaintiffs would prevail in their legal challenges to it. Texas argued that the court didn’t show enough deference to the un-precleared plans drawn by the state legislature.

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Redistricting, Voting rights, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Democracy and Voting, Guest Post, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, Perry v. Perez, Section 5, Texas, Voting Rights Act
January 10, 2012
High Court Struggles with Texas Lawmakers’ Redistricting Debacle
by Jeremy Leaming

During yesterday’s oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court over legal challenges to recently redrawn electoral maps, the justices, according to Adam Liptak, appeared “frustrated” as they grappled with how to resolve the matter, which could have a major impact on which party controls the House of Representatives.

“The justices,” Liptak, The New York Times Supreme Court correspondent, wrote, “in essence must choose between two sets of electoral maps, or at least tell lower courts how to do so. The maps concern the two houses of the Texas Legislature and the House of Representatives.”

Prompted by the 2010 census – which reported that Texas gained more than 4 million new residents, most of them Latinos – the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature created new electoral maps that public interest groups criticized as failing to reflect minority population growth. Texas, because of its history of discrimination against minority voters, is one of the states that must get “preclearance,” pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, from the Department of Justice or a federal court before any electoral changes can take effect. While Texas officials sought preclearance from a federal court in Washington, a federal court in San Antonio created its own electoral maps as a substitute, which state officials challenged. That three-judge court in San Antonio found that the Legislature’s redistricting sharply reduced the number of minority voting opportunities.

During oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the Texas Legislature’s maps could not be used in the state’s primaries, because the maps had not been approved pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

“I don’t see how we can give deference to an enacted new map,” she said, “if Section 5 says don’t give it effect until it’s been precleared.”

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Redistricting, Supreme Court, Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Adam Liptak, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Pamela S. Karlan, preclearance, Richard L. Hasen, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas Legislature, Texas redistricting
December 29, 2011
Brennan Center’s Austin-Hillery Laments Bleak Status of Felon Franchise
Video Interview
by Jonathan Arogeti

While a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice has received wide publicity for spotlighting new state laws that have the potential to suppress access to the polls, the report also highlights the perennial issue of felon disfranchisement. “Many people don’t know that when it comes to voting, your rights are not automatically restored if you’re a felon,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, the director and counsel of the center’s D.C. office during a video interview with ACSblog.

To combat this disenfranchisement, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced the Democracy Restoration Act, which would immediately restore voting rights in federal elections for individuals who have served their time in prison for a felony.

Austin-Hillery points to two states, Florida and Iowa, whose felon voting law have “retrogress[ed].” The same day Republican Gov. Terry Branstad assumed office, he rescinded a law that automatically restores voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences. In 2005, then-Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack issued the opposite order.

Two months after assuming his office, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott announced new rules that required a Clemency Board to review all applications and revoked the automatic restoration of voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences.

Austin-Hillery also points to Kentucky and Virginia, two states where former felons practically “never get [their] right to vote restored.” The Commonwealth of Virginia required many “draconian, cumbersome steps” to restore the rights to vote, including individually petitioning the Governor. It “really goes against the tenets of democracy,” laments Austin-Hillery.

Watch the full interview with Austin-Hillery below.

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Civil rights, Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, Equality and Liberty, Felon Disfranchisement, The Brennan Center for Justice, Video Interview
December 28, 2011
Asian American Communities Have Rights under Voting Rights Act, Says Ao
Video Interview
by Jonathan Arogeti

The Asian American Justice Center’s Terry M. Ao recently spoke with ACSblog about how the Voting Rights Act, which protects American voters generally from disenfranchisement, specifically bolsters the franchise for Asian Americans.

Ao, the director of Census and Voting Programs at AAJC, said that for Asian Americans, “one of the largest hurdles that voters face is the language barrier.” Section 203 of the VRA extends protections to members of language minority communities in jurisdictions with significant language minority populations. “Where it has been properly implemented,” she said, “we’ve seen increased voter participations and it’s really done a lot to help break down these language barriers for the Asian Americans.”

The Voting Rights Act requires the Census Bureau to determine political jurisdictions that are subject to minority language assistance provisions. Following the 2010 Census, the Census Bureau determined that Section 203 covers 43 Asian American populations in 22 jurisdictions (counties, boroughs, census areas or cities) in 11 states. Furthermore, the provisions cover eight language groups, an increase from five from the last determination in 2002.

“Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act requires language assistance for voters, for the covered languages in covered jurisdictions,” said Ao, “but that really means that the assistance has to occur throughout the voting process; so that’s both pre-Election Day as well as on Election Day.”

Increasing voting participation in Asian American communities requires a coordinated public education effort aimed at voters, poll workers and public officials. Ao said, “It includes things like written materials--translated written materials as well as oral assistance at the polls -- and publicity of the availability of language assistance to the covered language groups.”

Watch the full interview with Ao below.

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Voting rights, Democracy and Voting, language access, Video Interview, Voting Rights Act

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