voting rights

Civil rights activists perplexed by incident that had little voting-rights impact.

The U.S. Supreme Court today avoided striking down the Voting Rights Act by broadening the ability of political subdivisions to bail out of the requirement that they get approval from the Justice Department for any changes in their election rules or procedures.
It was clear that some members of the court, at least, were reluctant to [...]

Legal bloggers are abuzz about Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-Pa.) swipe at Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in an exacting letter (pdf) Specter sent to nominee Sonia Sotomayor earlier this week about the kind of questions he plans to ask at her confirmation hearing.
As Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog writes: “Though the letter is [...]

Noting that most of the criticism from the right of Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor has completely ignored her long written record as a court of appeals judge, SCOTUSblog offers a detailed analysis of “an obviously serious candidate to serve on the Supreme Court.”

The Senate this morning voted to end debate (ie, kill a filibuster) on legislation to give residents a voting member in the House of Representatives. The count was 62 to 34, with eight Republicans voting for the measure and two Democrats voting against.
The procedural step all but ensures that the bill will become law. (President [...]

Update: A few hours after this item was posted, the AP reported that ACORN’s Las Vegas offices were raided by the FBI.
When the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, announced yesterday that it had registered more than 1.3 million new voters nationwide so far this year, it was a cause either for [...]

Ohio voters went to the polls yesterday for the first day of early voting, exercising a right in Ohio that the state’s Republicans had fought hard to defeat.
Because of an overlap between the beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day, which started yesterday, and the Oct. 6 end of voter registration, Ohio allows [...]

Over at our sister site Michigan Messenger, Ed Brayton reports that the lawyer representing Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign in a class-action, voting rights lawsuit is calling a GOP tactic to prevent Michigan residents in foreclosure from voting a new form of “caging.”