Good news on Voter Suppression front

[Riot]

If you want to check to see if your voter registration has been revoked by changes in your state law (there have been purges of legally registered voters), or if you have to bring new documents to the polls in order to be allowed to vote this fall, this website keeps current for each state www.gottavote.org

Good news on the voter suppression front:


Texas

Texas also overturned this week a Republican-drawn redistricting map that eliminated influence of minorities, map has to be redone.

Court Blocks Texas Voter ID Law, Citing Racial Impact

By CHARLIE SAVAGE and MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: August 30, 2012

WASHINGTON — A federal court on Thursday struck down a Texas law that would have required voters to show government-issued photo identification before casting their ballots in November, ruling that the law would hurt turnout among minority voters and impose “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” by charging those voters who lack proper documentation fees to obtain election ID cards.

The three-judge panel in United States District Court for the District of Columbia called Texas’ voter-identification law the most stringent of its kind in the country. Gov. Rick Perry and the state’s attorney general, Greg Abbott, vowed to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us...pagewanted=all

Update in other ALEC-Republican-passed voter suppression law cases:

Last week, Wisconsin asked its State Supreme Court to overturn a pair of injunctions currently blocking its voter ID law from going into effect. The state would like to apply the law in the coming November elections, according to documents filed with the court. The Wisconsin law would likely render 200,000 to 300,000 people unable to vote, Hair said.

In South Carolina, the state is asking a court to override a Justice Department decision that prevented the state from implementing its voter ID law because the department determined it would have a disproportionate impact on minority voters. The Justice Department found that as many as 500,000 registered South Carolina voters do not have the ID that would have been required to vote under the law, said Hair.

Voting rights groups are also appealing a Pennsylvania state court's decision to uphold that state's voter ID law this month. The groups have offered evidence that perhaps as many as 1.4 million registered voters do not have the IDs required to vote; the state has put that figure closer to 700,000 voters. Pennsylvania is not subject to the section of the Voting Rights Act that requires federal approval for changes in voting laws.

[Riot]

BREAKING: Federal Court Strikes Down Ohio Law Restricting Early Voting

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Aug 31, 2012 at 12:56 pm

Last month, President Obama’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military, violates the Constitution’s guarantee that all voters enjoy equal access to the franchise.

The campaign’s lawsuit called for the right of all voters to cast an early ballot be restored in Ohio — it explicitly stated that expanding the franchise, not taking early voting away from military personnel as well, was the appropriate outcome.

In an opinion by Judge Peter Economus, a federal court agreed with the Obama campaign on Friday that the Ohio anti-voter law must be suspended:

“A citizen has a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.”

In Ohio, that right to participate equally has been abridged by Ohio Revised Code ‘ 3509.03 and the Ohio Secretary of State’s further interpretation of that statute with regard to in-person early voting.

In 2005, Ohio expanded participation in absentee balloting and in-person early voting to include all registered Ohio voters.

Now, “in-person early voting” has been redefined by the Ohio legislature to limit Plaintiffs’ access to the polls.

This Court must determine whether preliminary injunctive relief should be granted to Plaintiffs on their claim that Ohio’s restriction of in-person early voting deprives them of their fundamental right to vote.

Following Supreme Court precedent, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have stated a constitutional claim that is likely to succeed on the merits.

As a result—and as explained below—this Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction.

http://thinkprogress.org/

[lord007]

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012...thout-a-trace/.......Where did they go?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by lord007

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012...thout-a-trace/.......Where did they go?

Erick Erickson's imagination?

[OldDog]

ThinkProgress✔
@thinkprogress

We are aware browsers have flagged ThinkProgress as containing "malware." We are investigating and hope to have it resolved soon.

2 Oct 12 Reply
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Score one for the browsers.

[Riot]

New this week: Pennsylvania Restricted Voter ID law implementation overturned - will not be in place for election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/us...-law.html?_r=0

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday delayed full implementation of a highly contested state law requiring strict photographic identification to vote in next month’s election, saying that the authorities had not done enough to ensure that potential voters had access to the new documents.

The judge, Robert Simpson, who upheld the law in August when it was challenged by liberal and civil rights groups, was instructed by the state’s Supreme Court two weeks ago to hold further hearings. He was told to focus on the question of whether enough had been done to ensure “liberal access” to the picture ID cards or alternatives.

Judge Simpson said in his Tuesday ruling that for the presidential election of Nov. 6, voters in Pennsylvania could be asked to produce the newly required photo IDs, but if they did not have them could still go ahead and vote. The decision could be appealed to the State Supreme Court.

Continued at link above.

[bigrun]

A Pennsylvania judge has blocked enforcement of the key section of a voter identification law which the state legislature enacted and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed last March, meaning that the law will not be in effect for the Nov. 6 election.

Judge Robert Simpson said that even with the streamlined procedures that state officials proposed to make it easier for voters without ID cards to obtain them, “the proposed changes are to occur about five weeks before the general election, and I question whether sufficient time now remains to attain the goal of liberal access” to ID cards.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news...er-id-law?lite