William & Mary Law School to Host Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium
February 12, 2013
WILLIAMSBURG, VA – The Election Law Society and the Election Law Program at William
& Mary Law School announce the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium to take place on
Thursday, February 21st. The event will feature prominent election law attorneys, the Colorado
Secretary of State, election law scholars, and Virginia registrars. The symposium centers upon
voting delays and is titled “We Have to Fix That: Bipartisan Solutions to Election Day Delays.”
The symposium was inspired by President Obama’s speech following the election when he said,
“I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the
very first time or waited in line for a very long time…. by the way, we have to fix that.“ This
event will draw upon various panelists’ expertise in election law in an attempt to formulate
concrete ideas and bipartisan solutions for how to manage elections and limit voting delays. (more…)
Unlikely Challenge: North Carolina Election Challenge Procedures and Write-In Candidates
February 8, 2013
by Justin Moore
“You can’t beat somebody with nobody”. On Election Day 2012, President Obama was re-elected, and North Carolina elected a Republican Governor for the first time in two decades. But there were thousands of other races further down the ballot, ones that are barely noticed by the public. In one of the most competitive counties in a swing state, on the last race on the ballot, a very odd thing happened. There was an election for an office that no one ran for. This election, for Watauga County Soil and Water Supervisor, had only write-in candidates since no one officially filed to run. Of the 27,764 ballots cast in Watauga County, only 1,839 voted in the race, all write in votes. The election was won by Chris Stevens, a college student who registered to vote in September in Watauga County. The ineligible candidate discussed by this post, Alan Teitleman, finished fifth. (more…)
Politics and courts in Oklahoma: Recipe for Accountability? Or Corruption?
February 7, 2013
Oklahoma Judicial elections have long been afterthoughts. Oklahoma has a two tiered system for selecting judges. Voters elect local trial judges directly through a non-partisan Top Two primary. Every four years local trial judges must run for re-election. Statewide appellate judges are nominated through a nonpartisan judicial nominating commission. The commission is made up of fifteen members, six lawyers and nine non lawyers. The commission sends a list of candidates to the governor, who then appoints those individuals she thinks best to serve. Appellate judges, whether recently appointed or not, then face voters on a nonpartisan retention ballot every four years. Voters have two options: they can either keep the judge; or remove the judge, causing the nominating process to begin anew to fill the vacancy. Prior to this system judges ran in partisan races and were forced to commit a great deal of time to campaigning and raising funds. Since the retention system has been in place in Oklahoma, no judge has ever been removed through a vote of the people. (more…)
Kansas’ Secretary of State: Protecting Voter Privacy, or Politics as Usual?
February 6, 2013
A U.S. District Court ruling handed down Wednesday in Kansas granted disclosure of the names of provisional ballot voters to candidates in a tightly contested state house race, thereby clarifying the scope of voter privacy protection under federal law.
The ruling was issued in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to prevent disclosure of the names.
Kobach argued that federal election law protects voters’ identities from disclosure, citing § 302(a) of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA): “Access to information about an individual provisional ballot shall be restricted to the individual who cast the ballot.” U.S. District Court Judge Marten rejected Kobach’s argument, reading the plain text of the statute to protect only disclosure of how someone voted, not the identity of the voter. (more…)
Reject perennial ‘Etch A Sketch’ redistricting
January 29, 2013
by Brian Cannon
Update: Brian Cannon’s letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch is available here.
Whether Sen. John Watkins’ Martin Luther King Day surprise defies the U.S. Constitution or the federal Voting Rights Act are complicated questions. But the constitutionality of his “re-redisticting” bill might live closer to home. Consider Virginia’s state Constitution.
In Article II Section 6, the Virginia Constitution grants the legislature the authority to redraw district lines with the following passage: “The General Assembly shall reapportion the Commonwealth into electoral districts … in the year 2011 and every ten years thereafter. Any such decennial reapportionment law shall take effect immediately….” (more…)
Hurricane Sandy and Election Day in New York: What Can we Learn From Disaster?
January 23, 2013
Big storms tend to bring out the Eagle Scout in all of us. Nature reminds us that we are not always in control of our access to basic necessities and our ability to move freely so we stock up and hunker down. When the storm passes, most of us end up a little better off. Now we know what our contingency plan is, we have canned goods and bottled water for the next storm, and we figure out what needs to be fixed around the house. You would think that the lessons most people learn from natural disasters would also inform our voting system, but sadly, they have not. If Sandy has taught us anything, it has been how weak our system is when it comes to overcoming disasters. (more…)
Virginia Senate Redistricting Bill Catches Governor by Surprise
January 22, 2013
By Tony Glosson
On Monday, the Virginia Senate approved a redistricting bill that the Virginia Public Access Project claims will shift some traditionally democratic voters from competitive districts into already solidly Democratic ones. This would provide Republicans, who control an evenly divided Senate via Lt. Governor Bill Bolling’s tiebreaker vote, with an advantage going into 2015 elections.
Bolling indicated that he may not have voted for the bill had his vote been required to break a 20-20 tie citing concerns about its effect on bipartisanship for other legislation, but Democrat Henry L. Marsh III was absent from the vote. Marsh took the day off to attend the presidential inauguration. Thus, the bill passed in the Senate on a 20-19 vote without Bolling’s tiebreaker.
The bill will have to pass the Republican-controlled Virginia House, and be cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice, before it reaches Governor Bob McDonnell’s desk.
McDonnell, a Republican, said he was surprised by the move, but will make a decision about signing the legislation should it reach his desk. McDonnell also stated that he did not feel it was a “good way to do business,” and emphasized that he considers his transportation and education initiatives to be higher priorities than redistricting measures like this one. Proponents of the measure, however, argue that the bill creates districts that better comply with the U.S. Voting Rights Act and are more compact than the ones set by current law.
Fighting for the First Amendment in Campaigns: Free Speech in Wyoming
January 22, 2013
The regulation of campaigns is controversial, weighing the interests to prevent corruption and promote disclosure while protecting the First Amendment’s fundamental right to free speech. Such tension is exemplified by the ongoing suit, Free Speech v. Federal Election Commission, filed in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by the Wyoming-based organization, Free Speech. Free Speech first filed a suit in June arguing their advertisements are considered “issue advertisements” and that they should not be subject to the ambiguous reach of the U.S. federal regulation, 11 C.F.R. § 100.22(b). However, on October 3, 2012, Federal District Judge Skavdahl upheld the regulation, deeming it to not be overly vague or uncertain on the grounds that it is consistent with the functional equivalence test. In response, Free Speech filed a motion for emergency injunction so as to allow Free Speech’s campaign advertisements to run prior to the 2012 federal election. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the motion and the case is currently awaiting appeal. (more…)
A Shift in Federal Power? Supreme Court to hear Arizona’s Citizenship Requirements for Voter Registration
January 11, 2013
by James Adam
Arizona law requires individuals to present documents proving U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Acceptable proof includes a photocopied birth certificate, photocopied pages of a passport, U.S. naturalization papers or Alien Registration Number, an Indian Census number, Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, Tribal Treaty Card/Enrollment Number, or a photocopy of one’s Tribal Certificate of Indian Blood or Tribal/Bureau of Indian Affairs Affidavit of Birth. Any change of residence between Arizona counties requires subsequent proof of U.S. citizenship.
In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco struck down this Arizona law. The court declared that federal voting laws requiring only that the applicant sign their name to verify US citizenship supersedes local election law. In June, the Supreme Court overturned a stay of the decision, and Arizona was unable to require proof of citizenship for registration in the November 2012 election cycle. However, the state can still urge voters to fill out Arizona registration ballots requiring this proof, but they may not bar an individual from simply registering by merely swearing their citizenship under the federal form. Also at the time of this decision, the Ninth Circuit upheld Arizona’s photo identification requirement. The Supreme Court will hear the citizenship arguments early next year. (more…)
Investigations into Colorado Secretary of State’s Use of State Funds Highlights Broader Concern about Partisan Election Administration Officials
January 9, 2013
In an era of attenuated public confidence in the electoral process, it’s not reassuring when a state’s chief election official becomes the subject of criminal and ethics investigations on the eve of a major election. Alas, that is what happened in Colorado this year, when, on November 5, both the Denver District Attorney’s Office and the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission announced that they are independently looking into whether Secretary of State Scott Gessler “violated the law by using state funds to attend a partisan event.”
This issue first came to light in October, when Colorado Ethics Watch, a left-leaning nonprofit watchdog organization, filed a request for investigation with the Denver District Attorney and the Denver Police Department, alleging that Gessler misused public funds when he submitted reimbursement forms for expenses incurred while attending the Republican National Convention and a Republican-sponsored election law training in August. Ethics Watch contends that “the Secretary’s Florida trip was manifestly personal and political, in which he participated only in partisan events, not in pursuit of state business.” Ethics Watch characterizes the group that sponsored the election law training, the Republican National Lawyers Association, as “a private organization of lawyers dedicated, among other things, to ‘advancing Republican ideals.’” Gessler was not a delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention. (more…)