This week in the war on voting is a joint project of Joan McCarter and Meteor Blades
Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller has sent a memo to election officials statewide informing them that the use of Democrat Party in the place of "Democratic Party" on official election documents is a no-go from now on. Over the past nearly 75 years, Republicans have said "Democrat" with a sneer. Some of the more prominent spreaders of this have been Joe McCarthy, Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich. But hate-radio maven Rush Limbaugh has no doubt reached the largest audience with his usage:
As a result, the term has been defined as an epithet or denigrating use in reference sources like Garner's Modern American Usage. Some Republican leaders such as Jack Kemp have criticized the tactic as juvenile or loutish.
That hasn't changed many minds, but the term has usually not been applied to ballots. That's no longer the case. Some Democrats who turned out for the June primaries in Reno and Sparks in Washoe County were irked to find themselves voting on the "Official Democrat Primary Election Ballot." There is, after all, no
Democrat Party in Nevada.
"It's being used as a slur," Washoe County Democratic Chairwoman Janice Flanagan told the Reno News & Review. "We have received some complaints lately and there was a recent article about the incorrect usage of 'Democrat Party,'" Miller said in his June 26 memo.
The usage was first brought to the attention of Washoe County registrar Dan Burk in 2008, and he vowed it wouldn't happen again. But it obviously did. And not just in Nevada. In Oregon in May, according to Kari Chisholm at the blog Blue Oregon, Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall got into trouble for labeling an official ballot as “Democrat.”
• Complaint says disabled often barred from voting in Los Angeles:
A Voting Rights Act complaint to be filed Thursday with the U.S. Justice Department goes to a politically delicate subject that states have grappled with over the years: Where is the line to disqualify someone from the voting booth because of a cognitive or developmental impairment?
The complaint by the Disability and Abuse Project argues that intellectual and developmental disabilities, including conditions such as Down syndrome, are not automatic barriers to participating in elections. It seeks a sweeping review of voting eligibility in Los Angeles County in such cases, arguing that thousands of people with those disabilities have lost the right to vote during the last decade.
"We want these past injustices to be corrected, and we want the judges and court-appointed attorneys to protect, not violate, the rights of people with developmental disabilities," Thomas F. Coleman, the group's legal director, said in a statement.
There is more below the fold.
• Law professor ponders where the Constitution gives federal authority for restoring ex-felons' voting rights: Derek T. Muller, associate professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law, writes that the sponsors of two proposed laws that would give ex-felons—or at least some ex-felons—the right to vote don't make clear where the constitutional authority for doing so would come from.
The two bills—S.B. 2235 from Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of and S.B. 2550 from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky—refer to several parts of the Constitution that would underpin such reforms. But Muller argues that only one of them might work to do so.
That one relates to the fact that disenfranchisement of ex-felons "disproportionately impact[s] racial and ethnic minorities." But Muller wonders whether a majority on the Supreme Court would agree that disparate impact actually provides the needed underpinning.
Cardin seeks to bill restore voting rights to all ex-felons, violent and non-violent as well as those convicted of election-related crimes and those on probation. Rand Paul's bill would only apply to non-violent felons and those past the first year of any probation included in their sentences. Unlike Cardin, he makes no specific mention of constitutional authority, something Muller finds odd given Paul's "abiding concern over the scope of federal authority in other areas."
• Witnesses recall Jim Crow voting suppression of blacks in testimony on new suppression in North Carolina: Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, testified in U.S. District Court Wednesday on a preliminary injunction against voting law changes North Carolina passed in 2013. He said that those changes continue a long, post-Civil War tradition in the state of keeping African Americans away from the polls.
When blacks got the right to vote after the Civil War, they did so in large numbers, but white lawmakers soon passed laws to reduce the African American turnout. Burden said these included poll taxes and literacy tests. The latter requirement is still on the books in the state but isn't enforced.
Starting in 2000, early voting and same-day registration laws were passed and again increased black turnout. By 2010, blacks were voting in equal numbers to whites in North Carolina. But the Voter Information Verification Act and cutbacks in early voting passed last year would, he said, reduce those numbers again in comparison with whites because of blacks' socioeconomic conditions that mean they use same-day registration, early voting and voting outside of their home precincts much more than white voters.
Foes of the 2013 changes say they violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended.
Ari Berman wrote an analysis of earlier testimony in the case and included data from the Department of Justice's brief.
• True the Vote files for a restraining against the Mississippi GOP: The voters' right organization filed its motion Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Mississippi. It seeks the restraining order and an injunction against the party to keep it from tampering, editing or destroying voter records in the recent state primary.
“Defendant county commissioners have continued to violate federal law by preventing access to election records. Now, we think we know why,” said True the Vote founder, Catherine Engelbrecht. “If the affidavits we now have regarding the destruction of election documents and other similarly stunning findings are true, then no Mississippian, no American, can trust the results of this election.”
The primary pitted incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran in a contest with neo-Confederate Chris McDaniel. African Americans, who mostly vote for Democrats in Mississippi, turned out for Cochran, a moderate relative to McDaniel, who has raised various issues about the election, including some related to the black crossover vote.
True the Vote had already filed a motion against the Mississippi Secretary of State to open election records to inspection.
• Minor parties in Pennsylvania win procedural victory on ballot access case: The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Wednesday that the Libertarian, Green and Constitution parties have standing in court to challenge a state law that they say makes it tougher for them to get on the ballot. A district court ruling had thrown out the challenge, first filed in 2012.
The law allows judges to impose court costs on candidates who lose challenges to their nomination papers. The plaintiffs complained that it's unfair that the law establishes a higher signature requirement for nomination petitions from minor party candidates than for major party candidates. It also puts those minor party candidates at risk of tens of thousands of dollars in costs if they fail to meet signature deadlines.
• U.S. District Court rejects Texas's effort to dismiss voter ID case: Among the plaintiffs' claims are that the state's voter ID law works as a poll tax. The voter photo ID law had been blocked by the U.S. Department of Justice before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. The district court offered no opinion regarding the potential for success regarding claims plaintiffs are making, merely noting in the 38-page decision that the issues raised are legitimate for the courts to consider.
• Governing magazine interviews L.A. County clerk about designing an entirely new system to replace its outdated hardware.
• Alabama A.G. tells county commissioners they can't bar firearms at the polls.
• Witness in voting rights case says Alaska has long history of discrimination against Native voters.
• Governor signs same-day voter registration into law for Hawai'i.
• Wyoming to consider restoring voting rights to some felons after they serve their sentence.