RALEIGH -- Voter identification legislation in North Carolina will pick up steam again now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, a key General Assembly leader said.
Last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling partly blocks Georgia from enforcing a law requiring would-be voters to prove U.S. citizenship, Secretary of State Brian Kemp said. In a 7-2 decision on June 24, the court ruled a similar statute in Arizona is pre-empted by federal law. Passed in 2009, Georgia's law requires voter registration applicants to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, such as copies of passports or birth certificates.
As President Obama and his family tour Africa, the White House put out a Fact Sheet that touts a $53 million program in Kenya that helps young people "obtain National identification cards, a prerequisite to voter registration."
Speaking at Netroots, the annual gathering of left wing bloggers, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said voter ID laws should be abolished because they put transgendered Americans at a disadvantage.
ACRU Policy Board member J. Christian Adams has written an extensive survey of state action on voter ID laws in a new white paper for the Federalist Society.
Rulings on two key voting rights cases could reshape how Americans nationwide cast ballots in federal elections. The more high-profile of the two pending rulings involves an Alabama county that is pushing back against federal oversight of its election procedures.
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.
The co-chair President Barack Obama appointed to help lead the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Robert F. Bauer, said during the 2012 election that voter ID laws are a Republican tactic to suppress lawful votes. Read more: https://dailycaller.com/2013/05/23/obama-appoints-anti-voter-id-dem-to-co-lead-voter-commission/#ixzz2VGs3faDZ
Madison -- A state appeals court on May 30 overturned a Dane County judge's decision that found Wisconsin's voter ID law violated the state constitution, but the ID requirement remains blocked because of a ruling in a separate case.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted released a report on May 23 on the 2012 election that liberals claim shows no threat of serious vote fraud in the Buckeye State. For perspective, here's a line from an article from the Wall Street Journal Political Diary, August 4, 2011: "It's somewhat surprising to see a Republican secretary of state, Ohio's Jon Husted, effectively kill a nascent voter ID law before it was put to a vote in the Republican-controlled state Senate."