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A Conversation with Professor Ken Mayer: Voter ID and Election Law in Wisconsin

Election Law Society · February 27, 2019 ·

By Richard J. Batzler

In recent years, Wisconsin has been a battle ground over many controversial election law changes, including a voter ID requirement. I spoke with University of Wisconsin Professor Mayer about his research on the impacts of voter ID in Wisconsin and recent election law changes in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Kenneth Mayer is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Mayer’s election law scholarship includes campaign finance, voter identification, and election administration. Additionally, Professor Mayer has filed expert reports in cases involving voting rights, gerrymandering, and campaign finance, among other issues. [Read more…] about A Conversation with Professor Ken Mayer: Voter ID and Election Law in Wisconsin

League of Women Voters of New Hampshire President Liz Tentarelli on HB 1264 and SB 3

Election Law Society · February 25, 2019 ·

Two controversial New Hampshire election laws, HB 1264 and SB 3, have found their way into the New Hampshire state courts over the past several months. HB 1264, which was discussed in a previous article, will not take effect until 2019. The League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, however, sought a preliminary injunction to enjoin SB 3 from being used in New Hampshire’s midterm election. The New Hampshire Superior Court granted the injunction, finding that the bill placed an undue burden on voters. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, however, overruled the lower court’s order. While the court did not opine on the underlying merits of SB 3, the justices found that the order would create “a substantial risk of confusion and disruption of the orderly conduct of the [midterm] election.”

Massachusetts’s Automatic Voter Registration System to be in Place in Time for 2020 Primaries

Election Law Society · February 20, 2019 ·

By: Jared Mullen

As the final votes are counted following the 2018 midterms, attention inevitably shifts to 2020 and the presidential primaries. In Massachusetts, that will mean a new automatic voter registration (AVR) system, which will automatically register any citizen who completes a transaction at the Registry of Motor Vehicles or signs up for MassHealth, a state insurance provider. The AVR system, which was signed into law by Governor Charlie Baker in August 2018, also allows the Secretary of State to expand the program to other state social agencies once state employees verify that they collect the requisite information to register voters. Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, estimates that AVR could bring 500,000 new voters on to the rolls in the state. Common Cause estimates that there are approximately 650,000 Massachusetts residents who are not registered to vote despite being eligible.

In North Carolina, Voters Choose the Devil(s) They Know

Election Law Society · February 13, 2019 ·

By: Andrew Pardue

North Carolina, a notoriously divided swing state, managed to find a surprising degree of political consensus on a variety of proposed changes to the state constitution in the 2018 midterm elections. Voters considered six potential amendments to the state constitution, three of which concerned various aspects of election law. One amendment would require voters to present photo identification in order to vote in-person. A second would change both the composition and the appointment process for the state’s Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement. The third would allow the legislature to nominate judicial candidates for vacancies that arise in between elections, and then require the governor to select an appointee from among that pool of candidates.

A New Color Under the Voting Rights Act?: Part Two

Election Law Society · February 11, 2019 ·

This is part two. Part I can be viewed here.

Can white minority plaintiffs successfully prove a vote dilution claim under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA)?

Although a federal district court in the Northern District of Texas recently dealt with such a claim, it stopped short of answering this question by sidestepping the question.

Plaintiffs Anne Harding, Gregory R. Jacobs, Holly Knight Morse, and Johannes Peter Schroer challenged a Dallas County Commissioners Court district map from 2011 under Section 2 of the VRA and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment claiming that “the absence of a second county commissioner district that is capable of electing a representative of their choice” diminished their capacity to participate in the political process. [Read more…] about A New Color Under the Voting Rights Act?: Part Two