National Voter Registration Act

California Voters: Don’t Ignore that Address Confirmation Card

jaboone · October 26, 2020 ·

By Josh Turiel

If you received an address confirmation notice from your local elections official, you may want to pay attention. In early 2019, California reached a settlement with the conservative group, Judicial Watch, concluding a lawsuit that accused the state of failing to fulfill its responsibilities under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The Act requires that states make a reasonable effort to remove inactive voters – those who have moved out of the jurisdiction or passed away – from voter registration lists. Judicial Watch targeted Los Angeles County because they determined its registration rate was 112% of the voting age population – the result of an absence of reasonable effort to clean its voter rolls.

158,000 Ohio Voters Purged Part I: Junk Mail Matters

Election Law Society · December 16, 2019 ·

By: Sadie Peloquin

On September 6^th of this year, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose oversaw the removal of roughly 158,000 registrations from the state’s voter roll. This purge resulted from a controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, handed down in June 2018, which upheld an Ohio voter-purge law that allowed the removal of inactive voters who failed to update their registrations if they moved. Though LaRose implemented a series of removal exemptions over the past year, many voting rights activists are concerned that the purge still resulted in the mistaken removal of active voters. This blog post will cover the 2018 Supreme Court case and will be followed by another that looks at how the voter purge itself was carried out over the last year.

Legal Voter Suppression in New York?: Part I

Election Law Society · October 25, 2017 ·

By: Michael A. Villacrés

In April 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders was closely chasing Hillary Clinton in the delegate race to capture the Democratic presidential nomination. The Sanders campaign staged outdoor rallies and made campaign stops across New York City in an ambitious bid to upset Clinton on her home turf. Sanders was hoping that increased voter turnout from young people across the city, especially in Brooklyn, his former childhood home, would provide enough votes to counter Clinton’s strength among minority voters. As it turned out, Clinton won handily 57% to 42%.

A Bad Year for Kansas’s Kobach and Newby

Election Law Society · March 17, 2017 ·

By: Norma Volkmer

It has not been a good year for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former Johnson County, Kansas Election Commissioner Brian Newby. Newby is currently the executive director of the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, where in January he approved Kobach’s plan to alter the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship.

Breaking Down the Barriers to Automatic Voter Registration in Washington D.C.

Election Law Society · February 13, 2017 ·

By: Mary Boothe

In May 2015, The Automatic Voter Registration Amendment Act was introduced to the D.C. Council by council members Charles Allen, Brianne Nadeau, Jack Evans, Mary Cheh, Elissa Silverman, and Anita Bonds, and former at-large council member Vincent Orange, and co-sponsored by at-large council member David Grosso. The bill has since unanimously passed the D.C. Council. However, to become a law it still needs to be signed by the mayor, Muriel Bowser, and sent for a 30-day review on Capitol Hill. Allowing automatic voter registration will still be a landmark move that will ease the burden of registration for the thousands of eligible D.C. voters.