New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner told WMUR that the state's same-day voter registration poses a threat to the integrity of the process. About 35,000 people registered and voted on Nov. 4. No ID was required, just a signature. Rep. Sharon Carson (R-Nashua), who is introducing legislation to impose a 30-day residency requirement, said, "We have a problem with drive-by voting."
By Edwin Meese III and Ken Blackwell Once upon a time, Americans got together on Election Day, went to the polls, and chose our leaders. Voting on the same day helped bind us together as self-governing citizens in a free republic. It even felt like a national holiday -- Independence Day without the fireworks. Except for those traveling or who are infirm and who can use absentee ballots, Election Day puts everyone in the same boat. As a civic exercise in equality, it is unparalleled. It has the added advantage of making vote fraud more difficult, since there is a very short window in which to commit it. But over the past few decades, election laws have been relaxed in the name of convenience, with "reforms" such as early voting, same-day registration, Sunday and evening voting hours, no-excuse absentee voting and allowing out-of-precinct ballots. All of these increase the possibility of vote fraud. At the same time, despite a clear mandate in the National Voter Registration Act (also known as the Motor Voter Law) to keep accurate registrations, the system has grown lax; election authorities have left millions on the voter rolls who should not be there.
In the past few months, a former police chief in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to voter fraud in a town-council election. That fraud had flipped the outcome of a primary election. Former Connecticut legislator Christina Ayala has been indicted on 19 charges of voter fraud, including voting in districts where she didn't reside. (She hasn't entered a plea.) A Mississippi grand jury indicted seven individuals for voter fraud in the 2013 Hattiesburg mayoral contest, which featured voting by ineligible felons and impersonation fraud. A woman in Polk County, Tenn., was indicted on a charge of vote-buying--a practice that the local district attorney said had too long "been accepted as part of life" there. Now come the midterm elections on Nov. 4. What is the likelihood that your vote won't count? That your vote will, in effect, be canceled or stolen as a consequence of mistakes by election officials or fraudulent votes cast by campaign workers or ineligible voters like felons and noncitizens?
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld North Carolina's new voting law, which cuts back on early voting and eliminates same-day registration. The ruling affects North Carolina, scene of a tight Senate race that could help decide which party wins control of that chamber for the final two years of President Obama's term. The justices reversed a federal appeals court's decision that would have allowed same-day registration and counted votes cast mistakenly in the wrong precincts. Those were among several other procedures eliminated by the state Legislature last year.
A federal appeals court granted a temporary order on Wednesday that will allow same-day registration and provisional ballots in this fall's North Carolina elections, but refused to intervene on changes that shortened the early voting period. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Charlotte last Thursday in the case that came after the Republican-led N.C. General Assembly passed a series of changes in 2013. Supporters say the measures are intended to strengthen the integrity of elections. Those who sued to overturn the laws say the changes are unfair because they disproportionately hurt young voters and minorities. Wednesday's ruling means voters can register and vote on the same day during the in-person early voting period, Oct. 23-Nov. 1. The temporary order also allows voters to cast ballots even if they show up at the wrong precinct. All three of the judges who heard the arguments last week were appointed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals by Democratic presidents.
The Obama administration plans to join lawsuits against Republican-backed voting restrictions in Ohio and Wisconsin -- two major swing states, Attorney General Eric Holder has said. The moves would represent the first time that Holder's Justice Department has intervened against statewide voting laws outside the areas that the Supreme Court freed from federal oversight in last year's Shelby County v. Holder ruling. They underline the administration's intention to aggressively protect voting rights across the country, not only in the mostly southern jurisdictions directly affected by Shelby. Earlier this year, Ohio's Republican legislature passed laws that cut six days from the early voting period and ended same-day registration, among other restrictions. Secretary of State Jon Husted then announced that there would be no early voting on Sundays or on week-day evenings. A federal judge recently restored early voting on the last three days before the election, but the other cuts remain in force. They're being challenged by the ACLU and other civil rights groups, which allege that they disproportionately affect non-white voters. A brief filed recently by the laws' challengers uses detailed voting records to establish that blacks are far likelier than whites to take advantage of early voting. In 2012, 20% of blacks did so, compared to just 6% of whites. Wisconsin's strict voter ID law was recently struck down by a federal judge, who ruled that it discriminated against black voters. But the state has appealed the ruling, and the litigation is ongoing.
A politically polarizing new election law will get its first test run during the Sept. 10 recall elections in Pueblo and Colorado Springs. Same-day voter registration became mandatory with an elections overhaul bill that was signed into law in May. Democrats say allowing voters to register on election day provides greater access to the polls; Republicans say it will lead to rampant election fraud.
DENVER (AP) -- In a bitter fight, Colorado Democrats recently muscled through the Statehouse a massive elections reform bill that allows voters to register up until Election Day and still cast their ballots. It's the latest -- and most substantial -- development in a nationwide Democratic Party effort to strike back at two years of Republican success in passing measures to require identification at polling places and purge rolls of suspect voters.
Alaska legislators will soon consider a Republican-sponsored bill that would create stricter rules for what qualifies as an acceptable ID for voting. They'll also take a look at a Democrat-sponsored measure for same-day registration.
What would you call it if some Americans went overseas to the United Nations Human Rights Council and gave aid and comfort to some of the most repressive regimes on the planet?