In the Courts Archives - Page 12 of 25 - Voting Integrity Institute

ACRU Sues Notorious Mississippi County

ALEXANDRIA, VA (Nov. 16, 2015) -- The on Thursday, Nov. 12, filed a lawsuit against a fourth Mississippi county for its corrupted voter registration rolls. This time, it was against Noxubee County, which has a long history of vote fraud and voter intimidation. As with the other three counties, voter rolls maintained by Noxubee contain more people registered to vote than citizens eligible to vote, according to the lawsuit, filed on ACRU's behalf by the Public Interest Legal Foundation. The complaint argues that Noxubee County's election commission is violating Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Northern Division. The ACRU's Mississippi legal campaign is having a demonstrative effect on other counties. New data show that since 2010, the number of counties with more registered voters than eligible residents has dropped considerably. In 2013, the ACRU won consent decrees in federal court for Walthall and Jefferson Davis counties to clean up their voter rolls. It was the first time in history that a private party had sued under the NVRA (better known as Motor Voter) and reached a consent decree to compel counties to clean up their voter rolls. In July, the ACRU sued Clarke County for having corrupt voter rolls. ACRU's review of databases revealed that as of 2015, more than 110 percent of Noxubee's voting-eligible citizens are registered. This strongly indicates the county has failed to purge the names of people who died, moved away or were convicted of disenfranchising felonies.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:02+00:00November 18th, 2015|ACRU Litigation News, In the Courts, News, Press Releases, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

ACRU’s Complaint against Noxubee County, Mississippi

ALEXANDRIA, VA (Nov. 16, 2015) — The on Thursday, Nov. [...]

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:02+00:00November 16th, 2015|ACRU Complaints, In the Courts, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

Federal Lawsuits Stay Alive over North Carolina Voter ID Law

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- A federal judge has refused to dismiss portions of federal lawsuits challenging North Carolina's upcoming voter identification requirement, setting up a likely trial early next year. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder denied the motion from attorneys for the state during a court hearing Oct. 18 in Winston-Salem. The state wrote that the voter ID claims filed in 2013 by civil rights groups, voters and the federal government are moot because the legislature eased the photo identification requirement that begins in 2016. The plaintiffs argued the modified voter ID mandate still threatens to burden black and Hispanic voters, who are less likely to have qualifying IDs. Photo ID is supposed to begin with the March 15 primary.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:42+00:00November 4th, 2015|In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

Tough Kansas Voter ID Laws Trigger Lawsuits

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Secretary of State Kris Kobach's successful push to require new Kansas voters to document their U.S. citizenship has spawned three lawsuits, including one he pursued against a federal agency in trying to enforce the policy. Kansas is one of only four states that make new voters show a birth certificate, passport or other citizenship papers. The Kansas requirement took effect in 2013, and Kobach has directed county election officials to cancel more than 31,000 incomplete registrations, most from people who've failed to comply with the requirement.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:42+00:00October 20th, 2015|In the Courts, News, Proof of Citizenship, Voter ID|

ACLU Loses Bid to Expand Wisconsin Voter IDs

A federal district court on Tuesday refused to expand the kinds of identification voters can use, rejecting the arguments made by a special interest group that aimed to make voting easier for students, veterans and people with out-of-state driver's licenses. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin's voter ID law earlier this year, claiming the law was unconstitutional due to its limitations. The ACLU asked the court Oct. 5 to expand the law to include IDs for veterans, IDs for technical college students and out-of-state driver's licenses. They argued the law arbitrarily excluded those classes of people. District Judge Lynn Adelman rejected the ACLU's arguments in his decision. Adelman explained that a line must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable forms of ID, otherwise the state would have to create and maintain an infinite list. Adelman believed the logistics of expanding the list of acceptable forms of ID could hinder the state's capability of administering the law, but also conceded the state could have added veteran's IDs to the list. "To be sure, Wisconsin probably could have included veteran's ID on the list ... without significantly increasing its administrative burden," Adelman said in his opinion. "However ... the state had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable forms of ID somewhere."

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:42+00:00October 20th, 2015|In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

Texas: Birth Certificate Lawsuit a Ruse to Validate Foreign ID’s

Attorneys for the state of Texas argued in federal court in Austin on Oct. 2 that a lawsuit joined by dozens of undocumented Texans has nothing to do with their U.S.-born children being denied birth certificates by the state vital statistics unit. Instead, the attorneys claimed, the suit is a ruse to compel the state to accept Mexican consulate-issued identification. "This is more about the legitimacy of the matricula, I'm just throwing that out there," argued Thomas Albright, an assistant attorney general for the state, referring to the contested form of photo identification that Department of State Health Services (DSHS) says it will not accept, and has never accepted, as proof of identity for undocumented parents seeking birth certificates for their American-born kids. Oct. 2 was the first time attorneys have appeared in court over the lawsuit, which was originally filed in May by four undocumented women from the Rio Grande Valley who allege that the state has wrongly denied them access to their children's documents. They allege that in previous years, the state accepted the matricula consular for their now-older children as part of a selection of documents parents could use to prove their relationship. The matricula is a photo ID that the Mexican consulate issues to Mexican nationals living in the United States.

ACRU Staff2015-10-05T10:11:25+00:00October 5th, 2015|In the Courts, News|

ACLU Moves to Strike Down Kansas Citizenship Voting Rule

The American Civil Liberties Union and Secretary of State Kris Kobach jockeyed for legal advantage Friday in a court case challenging Kobach's implementation of the state's voter proof-of-citizenship law. Representing Kansas voters who can cast ballots in federal races, but not state and local elections, the ACLU filed a motion for summary judgment that would strike down Kobach's two-tier voting system without a trial. Nearly simultaneously, Kobach filed a motion that would allow him to immediately appeal a judge's ruling that he overstepped his authority by dividing voters into two voting camps, those who registered using a state form and those who registered using a federal form. The case is important because it could let people work around a state law - authored by Kobach - that requires prospective registrants to show documents proving their citizenship before they are granted voting privileges. The proof-of-citizenship requirement is separate from the requirement that voters have to show photo ID when they cast a ballot. While a driver's license is sufficient for Election Day voter ID, the state's voter-registration form requires a higher level of documentation. That can usually be met only with a birth certificate, passport, or special papers issued to foreign-born and tribal citizens. The federal registration form accepts a sworn statement from the voter, signed under penalty of perjury, as proof of citizenship. At Kobach's direction, only voters who can document proof of citizenship are allowed to vote in all federal, state and local elections. Voters who register with the federal form without providing their citizenship papers are only allowed to vote in federal races for president and members of Congress.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:37:08+00:00September 9th, 2015|Early Voting, In the Courts, News, Proof of Citizenship, Voter ID|

Texas Seeks Full Court Rehearing on Voter ID Law

Texas has asked the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rehear civil rights plaintiffs' case against the state's voter ID law after a three-judge panel from the same court ruled that the law discriminates. Because the state's request for a rehearing is pending, and since Texas may also seek a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit in a Sept. 2 order rejected civil rights plaintiffs' proposals to have the litigation remanded to the trial court, where a judge could have ordered Texas to immediately start changing how it identifies voters. "We will get those decisions pretty quickly," Rolando Rios, of San Antonio's Law Office of Rolando L. Rios, said about the rulings on the en banc Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court hearings. Rios represents the Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and County Commissioners, which is an intervening plaintiff in the litigation. But the U.S. Department of Justice, which has sided with the civil rights plaintiffs in the litigation, wants to avoid any wait for Texas to redo its voter ID procedures. To that end, the DOJ also filed on Sept. 2 a motion requesting that the Fifth Circuit enter an injunction directing Texas to accept as sufficient valid voter registration certificates from voters who lack the specific list of documentation required under the law SB-14, which the Fifth Circuit's three-judge panel struck down. Passed in 2011, SB-14 requires voters to show specific government-issued photo identifications. Among the identifications the law allows voters to show: driver's licenses, concealed handgun licenses, U.S. military identifications, U.S. passports or other U.S. citizenship certificates.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:42+00:00September 9th, 2015|In the Courts, News, Proof of Citizenship, Voter ID|

Fix Sought for Texas Voter ID Law Before Fall Elections

AUSTIN -- The Obama administration and several civil rights groups are urging a federal appeals court to fast-track the process of temporarily fixing Texas' voter ID law in time for the Nov. 3 elections. In court filings Thursday, the Justice Department and civil rights groups asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow a lower court to immediately start working on an interim remedy to the law passed in 2011 by the state's Republican-led Legislature. A three-judge panel at the 5th Circuit ruled in part earlier this month that Texas' strict voter ID measure violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The 5th Circuit bounced a portion of the case back to a federal court in Corpus Christi and instructed it to correct the law ahead of the upcoming elections while the rest of the case works through the courts. The 5th Circuit noted the lower court should craft a remedy that would "avoid election eve uncertainties and emergencies." However, the 5th Circuit is set to retain jurisdiction of the case until Sept. 28. The Justice Department and the civil rights groups argue that timeline might not allow for an interim solution to be put in place across the state for early voting, which starts Oct. 19. They've asked the 5th Circuit to allow the federal court in Corpus Christi to come up with a fix earlier.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:42+00:00August 24th, 2015|Early Voting, In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

Justice Department May Try to Settle ID Part of Voter Law Suit

Charlotte --The U.S. Justice Department and others suing over North Carolina's 2013 election overhaul are looking to settle one part of their case: voter ID. Republican state lawmakers watered down the ID provision this summer, just before a federal trial on the overhaul began. Now there's a list of acceptable excuses for not having an ID, including lack of transportation or disability. So the Justice Department, the League of Women Voters and other plaintiffs are finalizing a settlement offer for that part of the case.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:35:34+00:00August 20th, 2015|In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

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