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The ruling could limit prospects for several lawsuits filed surrounding the April primary, when last-minute court decisions compelled thousands to stand in long lines during a surge of Covid-19 cases.
Tight voting curbs in bellwether Wisconsin upheld by federal appeals court
Jun 30 2020
Many of the most severe restrictions on voting in Wisconsin may remain on the books, a federal appeals court has decided, concluding a nine-year partisan battle in time to shape the presidential election in one of the most hotly contested battleground states.
The unanimous decision Monday also likely reduces the chances of success for a wave of fresh lawsuits, filed surrounding the state's nationally notorious April primary. Plaintiffs hope to ease the path to the November polls in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
The sweeping and multifaceted ruling from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds laws restricting early in-person voting, requiring Wisconsinites to live in their neighborhood for a month before voting, and prohibiting the use of email or faxes to deliver absentee ballots.
<p>The three-judge panel concluded none of those rules pose an undue burden, especially because voters still benefit from more liberal absentee ballot regulations and registration rules, and longer poll openings on Election Day, than in most states.</p><p>"Wisconsin has lots of rules that make voting easier," Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote. "These facts matter when assessing challenges to a handful of rules that make voting harder."</p><p>The decision itself made access to the voting booth easier in two ways. It said expired school IDs must be acceptable proof of identity for college students and upheld rules permitting people to vote without an ID after signing an affidavit saying they tried to get one. The court also struck down a requirement that universities provide citizenship information about dorm residents who are registered to vote, saying that violates federal student privacy law.</p><p>The election laws were significantly tightened by Republicans after they secured control of both the Legislature and the governor's mansion in 2011. They set new photo ID requirements for voting, banned the faxing or emailing absentee ballots except to Wisconsinites overseas, shrunk the calendar for in-person early voting to 12 days from 30, ended early voting on weekends, limited early voting to one location in every municipality and lengthened the residency requirement before voting to 28 days instead of 10.</p><p>The decision was the outgrowth of lawsuits pursued soon after by Democrats and voting rights groups. They had scored decisive victories in the trial courts, with one judge tossing out many of the laws four years ago as unconstitutionally crafted to curb the ability of racial minorities to vote.</p><p>The appeals panel, all of them put on the bench by GOP presidents, disagreed — concluding that gaining partisan advantage in elections was the permissible motive.</p><p>"This record does not support a conclusion that the legislators who voted for the contested statutes cared about race; they cared about voters' political preferences," the opinion concluded. "If one party can make changes that it believes help its candidates, the other can restore the original rules or revise the new ones."</p><p>Republicans hailed the decision, asserting the laws would help safeguard against election fraud. President Trump claims, without evidence, that is a main impediment to his re-election, but nothing beyond sporadic and isolated rule-breaking has been identified in Wisconsin.</p><p>Democrats railed against the ruling. It is an "egregious assault on voting rights," state party Chairman Ben Wikler said. "Trump knows his path to victory involves suppressing the vote as much as possible, and as we saw on April 7 when Republicans forced thousands of people to vote in-person during a pandemic, there is no low they aren't willing to stoop to to grab power."</p><p>The Supreme Court has signaled strongly it is not eager to referee disputes over states' voting rules within four months of a national election. That means the rationales of Monday's decision will shape the outcome of suits challenging Wisconsin's rules as improper during Covid-19 — filed in a flurry both before and after the primary, when last-minute court decisions compelled thousands to don masks and stand in long lines during a surge of cases.</p><p>Trump is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in some recent statewide polling. He carried Wisconsin last time by just 23,000 votes (eight tenths of a point), the first Republican to secure its 10 electoral votes since Ronald Reagan 32 years earlier. </p><p>Statewide turnout in 2016, when some of the laws were on hold because of the court challenges, was 69 percent of eligible voters, fifth-highest in the country.</p><p>And when the delay during the appeal continued in 2018, Democrats in charge of the two biggest cities, Madison and Milwaukee, expanded early voting hours and locations and their candidates ended up winning every statewide office.</p><p>The case had been in an unexplained limbo since the 7th Circuit heard oral arguments three years ago. It was the oldest unresolved case on the docket of the Chicago-based court before Monday.</p>
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Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Voting in Alabama was easier March, 3 when Sadie Jone (left) cast her ballot in Montgomery. Now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, a judge on Monday eased some of the restriction on absentee voting for the July 14 runoff.
Federal judge eases Alabama absentee rules for next month
Jun 16 2020
The coronavirus means absentee voting needs to be easier in Alabama, at least in next month's primary runoffs and especially for the elderly, a federal judge says.
A ruling Monday, by District Judge Adbul Kallon of Birmingham, waived the current requirement that absentee ballot return envelopes be notarized or signed by two witnesses — and also contain a copy of the voter's photo ID. No other state requires that much verification of a mail-in voter's authenticity.
The judge also said the state must permit curbside casting of ballots, allowing voters to make their choices without leaving their cars.
<p>But all the easements apply, at least for now, only to the July 14 runoff elections. They have national significance, because the marquee contest is a GOP Senate faceoff between former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. The winner will be favored to unseat Democratic incumbent Doug Jones in one of the nation's reddest states.</p>
<p>Still, the judge's order represents the latest of several modest, recent victories for civil rights groups that have sued to allow more people to vote without risking their health by appearing at a traditional polling place.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.thestate.com/news/coronavirus/article242982576.html" target="_blank">South Carolina</a>, for example, a federal judge ruled the state could not mandate witness signatures on absentee ballots for last week's primary. The state Supreme Court in <a href="https://oklahoman.com/article/5661626/oklahoma-supreme-court-strikes-notary-requirement-for-absentee-ballots" target="_blank">Oklahoma </a>struck down a notary requirement for absentee ballots, but the Legislature just days later put it back.</p><p>The Alabama suit was filed by the <a data-linked-post="2638969877" href="https://thefulcrum.us/naacp" target="_blank">NAACP</a>, People First Alabama and the Greater Birmingham Ministries along with four voters alleging their right to vote was being abridged by state rules that would force them to violate social distancing protocols. The four maintain they are at higher risk of Covid-19 infection because of their age, race or underlying medical conditions.</p>
<p>Alabama doesn't prohibit curbside voting by law, but GOP Secretary of State John Merill has asserted that several counties need to stop making plans to offer it. The judge said that was wrong and that the state must permit curbside balloting as an option.</p>
<p>Kallon, put on the bench by President Barack Obama, made clear that while he was being asked to decide the rules for the runoff only, plaintiffs are free to move for a separate preliminary injunction regarding the other elections.</p>
<p>Alabama's statewide restrictions on businesses are due to last until July 3, and the state has experienced a consistent uptick in coronavirus cases.</p>
<p>Merrill has waived strict excuse requirements for voting absentee, but only through the runoff. Alabama is among 16 states with such rules, making them targets for added scrutiny in a year when voting rights groups and Democrats are pushing to conduct as much of the November election by mail as possible. President Trump and most in the GOP are resisting, saying without evidence that the system makes election cheating easy.</p>
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Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has been pushing to expand voting rights for convicted felons but the GOP-controlled state Senate adjourned Sunday without approving a constitutional amendment along those lines.
Iowa provides double dose of defeat for voter advocates
Jun 15 2020
The weekend brought two setbacks for the expansion of voting rights in Iowa.
The Republicans who control the General Assembly cleared legislation requiring voters to provide identification in order to obtain absentee ballots. But the legislators went home for the year Sunday without taking an expected vote on restoring the franchise to convicted felons.
The debates over mail-in voting and ex-convicts' political rights have been intensifying nationwide, spurred by the coronavirus and nationwide protests over racial injustice. Iowa has taken some steps this year to make remote voting easier because of the pandemic, but it's the only state where felons are forever barred from the voting booth.
<p>Democrats are looking to make it easier to use mailed ballots as a turnout magnifier, especially during the pandemic, and say felons who have done their time deserve to be full-fledged members of civil life. Republicans say loose rules on absentee voting create opportunity for fraud, and many say felons' repayment of debt to society should include tough hurdles to voting.</p><p>The voter ID language, inserted at the last minute Sunday on a must-pass annual budget bill, would require voters to provide proof of identification if they go to their county office to cast ballots before Election Day. Another provision says that, if a voter provides incomplete or incorrect information when applying for a mail-in ballot, counties would be required to contact the voter first by telephone and email, then by regular mail, rather than using an existing registration database to fill in the blanks.</p><p>"The intent of this is to ensure that the person that actually wants a ballot is the person that gets a ballot. This is not voter suppression, no matter how many times you say it," said GOP state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, according to the Des Moines Register.</p><p>Attorney Marc Elias, who has filed numerous voting rights lawsuits on behalf of Democrats nationwide, called the legislation "ridiculous" and said "these unnecessary burdens on voting will only suppress voters and make it more difficult for county officials to send out absentee ballots."</p><p>On felon voting rights, the Republican-controlled Senate did not act despite the support for the idea by GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds.</p><p>Earlier she had signed legislation demanded by her fellow Republicans requiring that felons pay their restitution before being allowed to vote.</p><p>That was thought to be part of a deal that would ensure the advancing of a state constitutional amendment, which still would have required a second approval by the Legislature in the next two years before being placed before the voters. The setback means the earliest day for such a referendum has been pushed back two years, to 2024.</p><p>Iowa is considered to have the most restrictive rules about convicted felons and voting of any state, permanently disenfranchising them unless they go through a complicated restoration process and get approval from the governor.</p><p>Some expect that Reynolds may pursue an executive order to immediately restore felon voting rights.</p>
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Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
Some North Carolina Democrats want Gov. Roy Cooper to veto the compromise voting legislation because enactment could weaken their lawsuit against the law currently on the books.
N.C. legislators clear bill combining easier mail balloting with voter ID
Jun 12 2020
UPDATE: The governor has signed the measure.
Compromise legislation that would make it easier to vote absentee in North Carolina this fall, and safer to vote in person, has been cleared with bipartisan support in the General Assembly.
But it faces an uncertain future on the desk of Gov. Roy Cooper, who is being pressed by fellow Democrats for a veto because of a voter identification provision added at the last hour by majority Republicans.
The measure has produced the last in a long roster of fights over election rules in the 10th largest state. Attention is heightened because North Carolina is hosting the bulk of the Republican convention this summer and is a potential presidential battleground this fall — and its part in the nationwide struggle to assure safe and open balloting during a coronavirus pandemic is being complicated by its vivid role in the South's long struggles over voting rights.
<p>The most important provision in the bill, which won final passage Thursday, would require the state to allow voters to request their vote-by-mail ballots online this fall. </p><p>No excuse is required to vote absentee, but current rules permit applications only by mail or in person — a main reason why 4 percent of votes, or less, have been cast that way in recent elections. </p><p>The state is expecting the number could surge tenfold, to 40 percent, for November.</p><p>Another reason is that North Carolina is among just four states where mail ballots must be witnessed by two people. The compromise measure would drop the number to one for this year only — as in half a dozen states, several of which are defending lawsuits arguing that finding such witnesses is an unconstitutional burden at a time of social distancing. </p><p>Proponents say the requirements guard against fraud, and a prominent conservative group in the state lobbied hard against the entire bill as an invitation to "unlimited voter fraud," supporting President Trump's unsubstantiated position that mail voting is an invitation to easy cheating. </p><p>But the argument was rejected outright in Raleigh. The measure passed the Senate 35-12 on Wednesday, with all Republicans and about half the Democrats in favor, before a 105-14 vote for final passage Thursday in the House.</p><p>The entire dispute was about language that would permit voters to use public assistance documents as proof of identification at the polls — an idea some Democrats approve of in isolation, but not in the context of the long-running fight over the state's voter ID laws.</p><p>The version enacted two years ago has been put on hold by two different courts, which are considering suits by civil rights groups arguing the measure was written with the racist motive of suppressing the black vote — the same argument that prompted courts to strike down as unconstitutional the previous voter ID law.</p><p>The current litigation could be resolved before November, however, and if the Republican lawmakers defending the law win, voters would need to bring a photo ID to their polling places. </p><p>Some Democrats and civil rights groups, who are seeking to have the law thrown out altogether because of its "racially discriminatory intent," worry their case will be badly weakened by an alteration permitting public aid ID cards as an option. That is what they are pressing the governor to reject the measure.</p><p>Turnout is crucial to both sides in the state this fall. President Trump carried it by 4 points last time, but Democrat Joe Biden plans to spend to compete for its 15 electoral votes — hoping to replicate Barack Obama's narrow win in 2008, which was propelled by a wave of votes from urban areas. The state also has a tossup Senate contest between GOP incumbent Thom Tillis and former Democratic state Sen. Cal Cunningham.</p><p>The measure would provide $27 million in funding for local officials to help them sanitize polling places, buy protective clothing for poll workers and enhance the security of voting equipment, and it would explicitly prevent North Carolina from ever conducting elections entirely by mail. </p><p>It also would allow precincts to be staffed with poll workers who don't live in the neighborhood, as is normally required but could prove important because of a huge drop in volunteers. The average poll worker in North Carolina is 70 and the elderly are especially prone to Covid-19 infection.</p>
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