Voter ID Archives - Page 122 of 147 - Voting Integrity Institute

Courts Strike Down Wisconsin, Texas Voter ID Laws

The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday blocked Wisconsin from enforcing its strict voter identification law in November's election. By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from civil rights lawyers, who argued it was too late to put the rule into effect this year. Lawyers for the ACLU noted that the state had already sent out thousands of absentee ballots without mentioning the need for voters to return a copy of their photo identification. At nearly the same time, a federal judge in Texas struck down that state's new voter ID law on the grounds that it violated the constitutional right to vote and discriminated against racial minorities. Texas Atty. Gen. Gregg Abbott said the state would appeal. The Wisconsin and Texas cases were the two most closely watched tests of new voter rules this year. In both states, Republican-led legislatures sought to tighten the rules for voting and to require all registered voters who did not have a driver's license to obtain a photo ID card at a state motor vehicles office.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:45+00:00October 10th, 2014|Absentee / Mail-in Voting, Early Voting, In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

Appeals Court Upholds Wisconsin Voter ID Law

MADISON, Wis. - A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Wisconsin's requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls is constitutional, a decision that is not surprising after the court last month allowed for the law to be implemented while it considered the case. State elections officials are preparing for the photo ID law to be in effect for the Nov. 4 election, even as opponents continue their legal fight. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Advancement Project asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to take emergency action and block the law. Opponents argue that requiring voters to show photo ID, a requirement that had, until recently, been on hold since a low-turnout February 2012 primary, will create chaos and confusion at the polls. But supporters say most people already have a valid ID and, if they don't, there is time to get one before the election. The opinion from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes a month before the election involving the closely watched race between Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who supports the law, and Democratic challenger Mary Burke. A lower court judge, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, struck the law down as unconstitutional in April, saying it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters who may lack such identification. Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen asked the 7th Circuit to overturn that ruling.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:45+00:00October 7th, 2014|In the Courts, News, Voter ID|

O’Keefe Releases Second Sting Video of Battleground Texas

HOUSTON, Texas -- Battleground Texas (BGTX) may have failed to take any action regarding the "admission" of an undercover volunteer with BGTX that she had broken multiple election laws, according to a new video investigation by journalist James O'Keefe's organization Project Veritas. The allegations come on the heels of sting earlier this year that busted BGTX, a group attempting to turn Texas blue, for illegally copying voters' personal data for campaign purposes.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:36:59+00:00October 7th, 2014|News, Voter ID|

Democrats Losing War against Voter ID

In one month, voters will go to the polls to elect the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. Will the midterms be clean? Could some elections be stolen? Everyone ostensibly agrees that voters have a right to know that their decision is not being ignored. And a clear majority supports a simple way to make sure: voter ID. You would not know it if you read only the New York Times or watched only MSNBC, but the Left and President Obama are losing their fight to block the widespread introduction of voter ID cards. In courts of law and the court of public opinion, the issue is gaining traction. With few exceptions, liberal pressure groups have lost lawsuits in state after state, with courts tossing out their faux claims that ID laws are discriminatory, unconstitutional or suppress minority voting. Polls show that a large majorities including Republicans, Democrats, whites, blacks and Hispanics support voter ID as a common-sense reform. The myth that voter ID is a new Jim Crow-type effort to reduce minority voting is widely rejected for the rubbish that it is -- except by academia and the glitterati of the mainstream media. One Rasmussen poll found that 72 percent of the public believes all voters should prove their identities before being allowed to cast ballots, and also that when it comes to voter ID, "opinions have not changed much over the years."

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:45+00:00October 6th, 2014|ACRU Commentary, Voter ID|

Federal Court Overturns Part of NC Voting Reforms

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.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:06+00:00October 1st, 2014|Early Voting, In the Courts, News, Same-Day Registration, Voter ID|

Holder’s Legacy of Racial Politics

By Edwin Meese III and J. Kenneth Blackwell Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced his resignation on Thursday, leaves a dismal legacy at the Justice Department, but one of his legal innovations was especially pernicious: the demonizing of state attempts to ensure honest elections. As a former U.S. attorney general under President Reagan, and a former Ohio secretary of state, we would like to say something that might strike some as obvious: Those who oppose photo voter-ID laws and other election-integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud. That conclusion is inescapable, given the well-established evidence that voter-ID laws don't disenfranchise minorities or reduce minority voting, and in many instances enhance it, despite claims to the contrary by Mr. Holder and his allies. As more states adopt such laws, the left has railed against them with increasing fury, even invoking the specter of the Jim Crow era to describe electoral safeguards common to most nations, including in the Third World. Ascribing racial animus to people who are trying to safeguard democratic integrity is a crude yet effective political tactic that obscures the truth. But there's something even worse than name-calling: legal interference from Washington with valid laws. Attorney General Holder has sued Texas and North Carolina since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made inoperable Section 5, a provision requiring the Justice Department or a D.C.-based federal court panel to pre-clear all election-law changes in nine states and multiple jurisdictions. The court rightly noted that the data on which the law was based are no longer valid, and that times have changed.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:06+00:00September 29th, 2014|ACRU Commentary, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

‘Catalist’: Obama’s Database for Fundamentally Transforming America

The Democrats and the institutional left have a new political tool that allows them virtually to ignore moderates yet still win elections. This tool, the Catalist database, was employed in the 2012 election. That election defied conventional wisdom: Mitt Romney sought and won independent voters overwhelmingly, but still lost. If you wondered why the conventional wisdom about independents and moderates didn't seem so wise in 2012, the answer is Catalist. Beyond winning elections, Catalist also allows the Democrats to turn the policy narrative upside down and suffer no political consequence for implementing radical policies which appeal to their base. The Obama administration's lurch to the far left without consequence can be understood by understanding Catalist. Obama thrives politically by satisfying his base. Simply, Catalist is a game changer not just for politics, but for policy. It is the left's machinery for fundamentally transforming America.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:06+00:00September 18th, 2014|ACRU Commentary, Voter ID|

Court Lifts Stay on Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law

In a decision that has little substantive meaning, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction against Wisconsin Voter ID that a lower court imposed. This was not a decision on the merits. It merely means that the 7th Circuit will allow voter ID to go into effect for the November elections absent the injunction being reimposed by the full 7th Circuit or United States Supreme Court. The other significant part of the decision is that it is predictive. It gives an indication what the 7th Circuit will decide in the appeal of the lower court's injunction. The left has been hailing the lower court opinion as providing a new architecture for attacking voter ID under the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act does not provide an easy fit with voter ID laws, largely because of an absence of proof that they were enacted with a discriminatory intent.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:45+00:00September 15th, 2014|ACRU Commentary, In the Courts, Voter ID|

Georgia Secretary of State Probing Possible Vote Fraud

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) said Tuesday his office was investigating allegations of voter fraud by a group led by the state's Democratic House minority leader that it believes may have forged voter registration documents and signatures and filled out voter applications with false information. Kemp said in a memo obtained by WSBTV that his office has received complaints about the group in five counties in northern Georgia outside Atlanta -- Barow, Butts, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry, and Muscogee -- and sent subpoenas to the New Georgia Project and Third Sector Development, its parent organization, led by Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams (D). "We're just not going to put up with fraud," Kemp told WSBTV. "I mean, we have zero tolerance for that in Georgia, so we've opened an investigation and served some subpoenas."

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:38:06+00:00September 10th, 2014|News, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

Trial Begins in Texas Voter ID Law Case

(Reuters) - A U.S. court in Texas heard arguments on Tuesday in a case over a law requiring voters to present photo identification, a move the state's Republican leaders say will prevent fraud and which plaintiffs claim is an attempt at suppressing minority turnout. The case is also part of a new strategy by the Obama administration to challenge voting laws it says discriminate by race in order to counter a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that freed states from strict federal oversight. The trial that started on Tuesday at the U.S. District Court in Corpus Christi stems from a battle over stringent voter ID measures signed into law by Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, in 2011. The law requires voters to present a photo ID such as a concealed handgun license or driver's license, but it excludes student IDs as invalid.

ACRU Staff2020-05-03T23:34:45+00:00September 3rd, 2014|In the Courts, News, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

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