State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

Redistricting Reform Part 3

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When the inmates control the asylum

So what happens when we allow partisan redistricting? The short answer is “bad things.” Here’s the longer answer:

[Warning: This post is rife with sarcasm. Most of the time, no offense is meant… most of the time.]

Here’s our scenario – your state legislature has gerrymandered the heck out of your home district. So you, a decently moderate Republican are stuck in a district of lots of Democrats… Say, 65% or so of your neighbors vote for Democrats. Republican performance in your precinct is high, the area of Republicans in your town has been broken up between three different districts, ensuring that any republican votes are effectively diluted. Your Republican friend across the street? He’s in a different district. Your conservative father in law down on Main street? He’s in yet another district. And to top it off, your state legislator, who used to live down the street, has been redistricted right out of his own district! In fact, there are so many Democrats who have been put into this district of yours that there’s almost no reason a republican should run – he’ll lose and lose badly, often even if the Democrat isn’t the greatest candidate.

So what happens in this situation? Well, first thing first, Democrats win. Second, Republicans lose. And third, the primary election becomes more important than the general election.  In the situation where the opposition party has no chance of winning the general election, and one party will always win the General Election, the real competition comes in the primary election, when the parties choose their nominees. Imagine, for a moment, that America was a 70-30 Democratic country. What would be a more important election? The General or the Democratic primary? Yeah, it’s an easy answer.

[Read more…] about Redistricting Reform Part 3

Weekly Wrap Up

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Every Friday, State of Elections brings you the latest news in state election law.

– Events in Virginia’s 21st district are moving quickly, and Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Fredrick Lowe has scheduled a recount for the 14th of December.

-Hawaii’s chief election officer, Kevin Cronin, has resigned abruptly, shortly after proposing a plan that would close 40% of that state’s polling places.   The plan, Cronin says, is a necessary evil after budget cuts have severely hampered the state’s ability to fund its elections.

– A New Jersey judge has extended restrictions on GOP “ballot security” programs.

– A pro “instant runoff” group in Minnesota has been fined for violating that state’s election laws, as they falsely claimed that Barack Obama, John McCain, and others endorsed a Minnesota ballot measure to institute runoff voting in that state.  Instant runoff voting is a form of voting in which voters rank the candidates by preference.  Obama and McCain are active supporters of instant runoff voting, but they have not actively endorsed the Minnesota ballot measure, as was claimed in some of the group’s literature.*

Permalink: http://stateofelections.pages.wm.edu/2009/12/03/weekly-wrap-up-2/

*Editor’s note: This posting originally implied that Obama and McCain do not support instant runoff voting, when in fact they do.   Stateofelections.com regrets the error.

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Discriminatory Disenfranchisement in Virginia

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Of Felons and Taints

Almost all states place some restriction on the rights of felons to vote. Three states–Kentucky, Florida, and Virginia–maintain a system of permanent disenfranchisement for convicted felons. There’s a long historical tradition of voting restrictions against felons, dating to well before the Constitution was ratified. Section 2 of the 14th Amendment explicitly acknowledges the practice of criminal disenfranchisement (and, to a degree, endorses it by not penalizing states during Congressional reapportionment for denying the franchise to those guilty of “participation in rebellion, or other crime”).

Given this long usage and constitutional recognition, lawyers often find it hard to challenge disenfranchisement laws as violating voters’ rights. Yet as we all know, not every law that appears neutral is constitutional. Literacy tests and poll taxes are both facially neutral, but both have long been recognized as acting to deprive non-white voters of their fundamental rights.

Still, challenges to disenfranchisement regimes are rarely successful. For example, a 2005 challenge to Florida’s law, was decimated by the 11th Circuit sitting en banc in the case of Johnson v. Bush (405 F.3d 1214). There, the court heard an appeal to a summary judgment against a group of felons seeking the restoration of their rights. The plaintiffs argued that Florida had re-authorized its felon disenfranchisement law in 1868 for the purpose of discriminating against black voters, and as such the law should be held invalid as intentionally discriminatory.

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Write In Candidates

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While perusing a 2,360 Mb tome on New York’s State laws, I came across a topic that I had to discuss. Strangely enough the state most useful to my interest was on the news for another reason. The state of Alaska, home of Sarah Palin, is the state I choose to focus on.

Most high school students have experiences with write in candidates, the students who don’t run officially but end up running on that empty line. One of my fondest high school memories was when the senior class elected Chimp Pan Gee as their class president via write in. But has anyone ever won by being a write in candidate? While most elections have an empty line for write ins, can a write in actually win? Alaska provides us with the latest in what’s probably a short list of write-in successes. [Read more…] about Write In Candidates

Op Ed: In Response to Tennessee Voter Confidence Act

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Our thanks to Drew Staniewski for this review of where we stand in Tennessee re: free, fair and verifiable elections.

Our group (Gathering To Save OUR Democracy) worked hard to pass the TVCA in time for it to be implemented in 2008, before the last election. There was enough time (and enough remaining HAVA money) to accomplish that. However, as a concession to some, TVCA implementation was delayed until 2010. When Republicans not only won control of our legislature for the first time in 140+ years but also won every open seat in our legislature, they announced that one of their three top legislative priorities was to repeal the TVCA.

It is quite instructive that Tennessee became the ONLY state in 2008 where Republicans won more seats in our legislature, despite Democrats outnumbering Republicans here by a 47-39% margin and despite Democratic voter registration efforts outpacing Republicans by better than 4-to-1 in the months leading up to the 2008 election. [Read more…] about Op Ed: In Response to Tennessee Voter Confidence Act