State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

Felon Voting Rights

Kentucky Felon Voting And The Fate Of HCS HB 70

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by Richard Spoor, Contributor

The restoration of felon voting rights has slowly come to the Blue Grass state.  Section 145 of the Kentucky Constitution excludes those who have been convicted of a felony, bribery in an election, or treason from voting.  Felons, regardless of the variety of crime committed, are prevented from voting for life and the only way they can reestablish their voting rights is by applying to the governor.  Kentucky’s felons are “socially dead” having basic rights permanently withheld, most notably the right to vote.  However, there is a movement in Kentucky to change these somewhat draconian laws.  Bills amending the constitution’s section 145, while unsuccessful to date, have been introduced and have gained popularity.  Additionally, popular politicians have thrown their weight behind the movement.  It is entirely conceivable, if not probable, that Section 145 will be amended in the near future.  [Read more…] about Kentucky Felon Voting And The Fate Of HCS HB 70

News Brief: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Ballot Box

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Former Richmond City Council member Sa’ad El-Amin could be back in the voting booth for this year’s Governor’s race. The irony is that this could frustrate his own efforts to ensure automatic rights restoration for felons in Virginia.

Federal District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ordered a stay in the case of El-Amin v. Commonwealth of Virginia, holding off on deciding whether the convicted felon would have his voting rights restored, because of Governor Bob McDonnell’s announcement that he intends to restore voting rights to all non-violent felons in the state. (Full Disclosure: Two William & Mary Law School students, Kate Ward and Elderidge Nichols, under the supervision of Professor Rebecca Green, filed an amicus curiae brief in El-Amin’s case.) [Read more…] about News Brief: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Ballot Box

Weekly Wrap Up

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No more automatic restoration of rights: Governor Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet have recently attempted to change how released felon regain the right to vote. Their proposal, which the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund suggests must get preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, would prevent people who committed non-violent felonies from regaining the right to vote for 5 years and the 5 year clock would restart if that person were arrested during that period, even if no charges are filed. Some have called these requirements a return to Jim Crow-style voting laws.

Campaign finance again in front of the Supreme Court: As mentioned on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in McComish v. Bennett on Monday morning. The case is a constitutional challenge to Arizona’s Clean Elections Act, which includes a trigger fund provision for publicly-funded candidates. This is one a several such cases that have been heard in federal courts in the last year; several other challenges have come out of Florida, Connecticut, and most recently Wisconsin in the ongoing judicial elections.

“Fair Districts” Amendments go to the Justice Department: Three months after Governor Rick Scott quietly withdrew the preclearance request for the “Fair Districts” amendments (Amendments 5 and 6 to the Florida constitution), the legislature has renewed the request, after reviewing the amendments and deciding they were the proper body to make the request, as opposed to the governor. This, however, will likely not end the battle over these amendments as a lawsuit to block these amendments is still pending.

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Weekly Wrap Up

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“I want to be your second (or third) choice!”: Jean Quan, Oakland’s mayor-elect, won under the city’s new ranked-choice system by concentrating on being voters’ second and third choice, if they were voting for someone else. The campaign manager for Don Pereta, the heavy favorite in the race, said Quan was “gaming the system” by asking people who supported other candidates to rank her second or third.

Too poor to vote: The ACLU is challenging a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 2-1 decision that Tennessee could bar three released felons who were behind on child support or restitution from regaining their voting rights. The ACLU is asking for the court to rehear the case en banc, arguing that the decision creates an unconstitutional poll tax.

Sound it out: In the Alaska Senate race, the Division of Elections has only accepted a few of Joe Miller’s challenges to the spelling of his opponent, Lisa Murkowski’s, name on the write-in ballots.  The Director of the Division of Elections said that she was accepting minor spelling mistakes as long as she could “pronounce the name by the way it’s spelled.”

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain: The spending from outside groups in this campaign season has reached record highs, climbing almost to the $300 million mark.  Now, a new study has shown that nearly half of that money comes from groups which won’t reveal the money’s source.  A few notable candidates who used a huge amount of their personal fortunes are Meg Whitman in California and Linda McMahon in Connecticut.  They spent $140 million and $46 million respectively.

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Can a Tempest, a Tea Party Make?

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The teapot is still boiling briskly in the City of Falls Church, a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., over recent changes in the regulations governing municipal elections. By a 4-3 vote in January 2010, the then Mayor and City Council was successful in changing city elections from even-numbered years in May to odd-numbered years in November. Appropriately, the City submitted the change to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, for review and clearance as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Department subsequently reviewed and approved the change. The result is that, during the transition years, Council-Member terms will be shortened by six months. Then, in the May 2010 election, a major shakeup in the government occurred. The new Mayor, Nader Baroukh, a former City Council member who opposed the change, along with re-elected City-Council-members who were also opponents, is making efforts to “undo” the changes and to submit the matter to the citizens of the City in a referendum. Predictably, many residents of the City are hopping mad.  [Read more…] about Can a Tempest, a Tea Party Make?