State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

Redistricting

Former Chief of the DOJ voting section visits William and Mary

· ·

Last week John K. Tanner visited William and Mary Law to talk to students about his 40+ years of experience in election law. Mr. Tanner is the former Chief of the voting section of the DOJ, having joined the section in 1976. Most recently, Mr. Tanner represented the Texas Legislative Black Caucus in the recent Texas redistricting suit.

Mr. Tanner met with students to discuss the complicated issues behind the Texas redistricting plan and the subsequent law suits. The suit represented by Mr. Tanner, along with similar suits filed, led to the Supreme Court’s approval of a federal court drawn plan late last month. Redistricting in Texas was taken out of the hands of the legislature after protests that the plan unlawfully discriminated against minorities. [Read more…] about Former Chief of the DOJ voting section visits William and Mary

New York’s clock continues to count down

· ·

by Alex Custin

New York’s redistricting attempts continue to show little progress towards developing a plan that both the legislature and the governor will approve.  The legislature continues to refuse to pass the redistricting commission bill that the governor proposed earlier this year.  The governor in turn has continued to state that he will veto any redistricting plan that is not formed through an independent process.  The governor has reminded the legislature that if they continue to insist upon using partisan methods to develop the redistricting plan, the courts will end up drawing the lines, and no one can truly predict what will happen if the courts get involved because of all of the changes that have to take place.

Another issue continues to add pressure on the government to develop a plan soon: the need to hold the primary early enough to be able to send absentee ballots to overseas servicemen.  New York managed to get an exemption from this requirement in 2010 – it did not have to worry about it this year because it only applies to federal elections – but its chances of getting another exemption in 2012 appear to be quite slim.  This issue adds even more complexity to New York’s election process because it appears that the government plans on keeping the current date for state and local primaries, which would mean New York would have presidential primaries in April, congressional primaries sometime around August, and state and local primaries in September.  There was some consideration given to changing the state and local primaries to match the date of the congressional ones, but in an unsurprising result, the parties could not agree on a date to change it to.  This is kind of interesting when you think about what it will mean for the congressional primaries. Perhaps the date will be set by the judge deciding New York’s suit requesting another exemption to the timeline for military absentee ballots. [Read more…] about New York’s clock continues to count down

How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state

· ·

by Colleen Nichols

Hurricane Irene was not the only thing to shake up Delaware this year. The 2010 Census has sent County and City Councils scrambling to create redistricting plans that reflect the changes in their districts’ populations and comply with regulations. According to Antonio Prado, Staff Writer for the Dover Post, the Dover Election Board sent a redistricting plan to the Dover City Council that complies with a 1988 consent decree that requires “a minority district with at least 65 percent black voters 18 years old and older.”

This consent decree settled a lawsuit between the NAACP and the city of Dover, in which “the NAACP successfully argued that Dover’s at-large system of council elections was detrimental to the equal representation of the city’s minority voters.” [Read more…] about How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state

Big commission for a small state

· ·

Q&A with John Marion of Common Cause on Redistricting in Rhode Island

1. Can you describe the work the Special Commission on Reapportionment has done?

“They’ve met, six times so far. Going around the state, taking testimony from people concerning what the map should look like. But the Commission has not publicly presented any maps. Starting next week it is expected that they will present three or more sets of maps and take them around the state seeking input from the public. They are required by law to choose a plan which is a set of maps and then the legislature has to vote.”

2. What could the Commission do to improve the quality of elections for Rhode Islanders?

“They could continue to do what they seem to be doing, which is taking public input. Besides the public hearings the Commission is allowing members of the public to use the computers that will be used to do the redistricting and draw their own maps and submit them.”

“The Commission should also be publicly debating and trying to rank the criteria that they plan to use and consider when drawing the plans. There are many different legal criteria that must be satisfied but also political criteria that may be taken into account including political competiveness considerations.”

3. What about the process by which the Commission was picked? [Read more…] about Big commission for a small state

News Brief: A Fox in the Henhouse

· ·

by Allison Handler

Though Ohio’s U.S. House district lines have been approved since September, it was not until February 17th that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that those lines would remain in place for the 2012 elections. Much controversy has surrounded the lines, with claims from Democrats that the redistricting map was gerrymandered to favor the GOP. John Husted, Ohio Secretary of State, has called the state’s line-drawing system “partisan and dysfunctional.” Nevertheless, the Supreme Court based its ruling on timing; the Democrats “unreasonably delayed” the filing of their suit until 96 days after the districts had already been approved.

The redistricting scheme has famously left two veteran liberal incumbents running against each other: Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich. In addition to this high profile contest, the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting said the new map, developed last year when Republicans controlled four of the five seats of the Apportionment Board, reduces the number of competitive legislative districts and increases the number of safe Republican districts.

With primary elections only two weeks away, a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Democrats would have required postponed elections. Logistically, the doubt cast over the redistricting lines has led to some insecurity among candidates regarding where exactly they should be campaigning. Such controversies will be put aside for the upcoming primary, but the Supreme Court has agreed to evaluate the district map again for future elections. The lawsuit charged that GOP line drawing violated Article 11 of the state constitution, which requires that the districts be compact and contiguous and that local units of government not be split unnecessarily. The map divides 51 counties, 108 townships, 55 cities and 41 wards for a total of 255 divisions, according to the lawsuit.

The experience has prompted several advocacy organizations, like the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio, to band together in coalition to improve the way Ohio draws its districts. Known as Voters First Ohio, the group aims to create, by ballot drive, the Ohio Independent Redistricting Commission. The Commission would be charged with drawing lines for the 2014 election. This plan is meant to assuage some of the damage done by the 2011 redistricting in time to affect elections prior to 2021, when the state will undergo redistricting again after the next census.

“The [2011] plan was secretly drawn, the public hearings were a sham and it’s very clear that the sole goal was to maximize partisan advantage,” said Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Daniel Tokaji, one of the leaders of the coalition. “It was the exact opposite of a fair process — you’d be hard-pressed to find a place where the process or end product was uglier than Ohio.”

Allison Handler is a first-year law student at William & Mary.

permalink:http://stateofelections.pages.wm.edu/2012/02/29/newsbrief-oh-redistricting

Waugh wrote up the occasion in his journal:a two day visit to see what ann essaynara.com has been up to.