Election-Campaign Law

"Visualizing Contributions to the 110th Congress"

Posted on April 11, 2009
Usually, I quote a little portion of the article, but these are primarily visual, so I will just give you the links. Visualizing Contributions to the 110th Congress - The House Edition Visualizing Contributions to the 110th Congress-House Edition (Take...

Texas: Rep. Barton's campaign fund lost $703k in stock market

Posted on April 10, 2009
CQ Politics reports: Texas Rep. Joe L. Barton 's campaign reported losing $703,500 in the financial markets last year. A large chunk of those stock market losses - $196,900 - were in shares of four companies that have a stake...

Free public access to OpenSecrets.org coming soon

Posted on April 09, 2009
The Center for Responsive Politics announces: If you're a dataphile who hasn't been able to get enough of OpenSecrets.org, make sure your champagne glasses are full as you read on. For the first time in CRP's 26-year history as Washington's...

NY-20: Tedisco now challenging votes of 2nd-home owners

Posted on April 09, 2009
Hudson writes on a Daily Kos diary: Here is the short version of the situation shaping up in Columbia, Murphy's strongest county in NY-20: Tedisco's legal team is moving to disenfranchise an entire class of voters. Specifically, virtually all ballots...

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Alabama: Bob Riley gets the Streisand Effect

Posted on April 08, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: Several televi­sion stations have stopped running ads from a pro-bingo group that at­tempt to link Gov. Bob Riley to Choctaw tribal casinos in Mississippi. Riley's deputy legal adviser sent the stations a letter threatening legal action...

Sen. Schumer urges DOJ suits against non-compliance with Motor Voter

Posted on April 08, 2009
From a press release by Sen. Schumer: U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) urged Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday to sue states that fail to comply with a federal law requiring public assistance agencies that administer food stamps and unemployment...

Open Redistricting Project

Posted on April 06, 2009
Travis Crum writes on Balkinization: The OpenRedistricting Project has two separate, but interdependent, components. The development of user-friendly, free redistricting software is a necessary step for bringing ordinary citizens into the process. Once that is completed, a social networking site...

New York-20: 25 votes apart with 6000 absentee ballots uncounted

Posted on April 02, 2009
Michael Barone writes on USNews.com: What's going to happen when the absentee and military ballots are counted in the New York 20th district, where Democrat Scott Murphy currently has a lead of 25 votes out of 154,409 cast on election...

Vernon Burton on Lincoln this Saturday

Posted on April 01, 2009
C-SPAN is airing my friend Vernon Burton's talk at the Woodrow Wilson Center with James McPherson's commentary this Saturday, April 4. It will air as part of C-SPAN's monthly Lincoln programming which begins at 8 p.m. ET/ 7 CT/ 5...

Minnesota: recount court will review 400 absentee ballots

Posted on April 01, 2009
The New York Times reports: Al Franken, the comedian turned politician, won a potentially decisive court ruling on Tuesday in his bid to replace Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican trying to hold on to his Senate seat. A three-judge panel...

"High Court to Weigh Relevance Of Voting Law in Obama Era"

Posted on April 01, 2009
The Washington Post reports: America's next great battle over civil rights could hardly have a less controversial flash point: the benign decision to move the neighborhood polling place from Jack Stueber's garage to the local elementary school. But because Stueber's...

Alabama: Evergreen election contest may affect all future city elections

Posted on March 27, 2009
The Mobile Press- Register reports: The outcome of an election challenge in this city of some 3,630 people could change the way municipalities conduct elections in Alabama, a circuit judge said Thursday. In a hearing five months after a hotly...

Alabama: House committee defeats non-partisan election of judges

Posted on March 26, 2009
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: A House committee voted Wednesday mostly along party lines to defeat two bills supporters said would take partisan politics out of Alabama's judicial elections, which have become among the nation's most costly. Republicans, who currently hold...

Alabama: DOJ objects again to Calera redistricting

Posted on March 25, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: U.S. Department of Justice officials said Tuesday that they will not accept Calera's 2008 redistricting plan, which means the municipal elections were no good. ... "Having reviewed these materials, I remain unable to conclude that the...

Government lawyer claims right to censor political-campaign books paid with corporate funds

Posted on March 25, 2009
The New York Times reports: A quirky case about a slashing documentary attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton would not seem to be the most obvious vehicle for a fundamental re-examination of the interplay between the First Amendment and campaign finance laws...

Texas: veteran VRA lawyers file amicus brief in NAMUDNO

Posted on March 25, 2009
A group of veteran voting-rights attorneys lead by Julius Chambers, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Northwest Austin Municipal Unitily District v. Holder. The attorneys argue: In comparison...

Vote to ask Pres. Obama, "Why Tuesday?"

Posted on March 24, 2009
Jacob Soboroff, Executive Director, Why Tuesday? wrote me: Unbelievable! Because of you all, our question for President Obama about fixing America's broken voting system has shot onto the Ask The President front page in just half a day! We now...

Bill would require birth certificates from presidential candidates (bill linked)

Posted on March 14, 2009
TPM DC reports: Rep. Bill Posey, a freshman Republican from Florida, is now putting forward a bill that should be good news for a particular demographic that cares a whole lot about their issue: Those folks out there who insist...

Alabama: committee approves proportional division of electoral vote

Posted on March 12, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: Alabama, starting in 2012, would divide its nine electoral votes among presidential candidates based on the percentage of the popular vote they won in the general election, under a bill passed by a legislative panel Wednesday...

Pres. Obama supports continued Sec. 5 coverage

Posted on March 12, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: The part of the 44-year-old Voting Rights Act that requires states such as Alabama to get federal permission before making election-related changes is still a necessary protection for minority voters, President Barack Obama said Wednesday...

North Carolina: Scotus decides Bartlett v. Strickland

Posted on March 09, 2009
The Supreme Court has decided Bartlett v. Strickland, No. 07-689. The Justices divided 3-2-4. The Three (Kennedy, C.J. Roberts, and Alito) "concluded that §2 does not require state officials to draw election-district lines to allow a racial minority that would...

Alabama: Montgomery Co. election director pushes for more voters, turnout

Posted on March 08, 2009
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: About 75 percent of Montgom­ery County's registered voters cast their ballots in the presi­dential election, but director of elections Trey Granger thinks there still is work to be done. He continues looking to make improvements that...

United Kingdom: 16-year olds will get the right to vote

Posted on March 08, 2009
Scotland on Sunday reports: THE voting age could soon be reduced from 18 to 16, in a move which could see students sitting their Highers being able to vote in the next Holyrood elections. Energy minister Ed Miliband, who is...

11 Senators introduce anti-caging bill

Posted on March 05, 2009

Alabama: Riley sez we don't need VRA Sec. 5

Posted on March 04, 2009

Alabama: felon-voting bill draws opposition

Posted on March 02, 2009

Alabama: Birmingham moves date of city election to comply with HAVA

Posted on February 25, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: In other business, the council in Tuesday's 7½-hour meeting unanimously approved moving the city and school elections to August. City attorney Lawrence Cooper said the city is violating federal voting rules because there were only three...

District of Columbia: bill to give a House seat to DC advances in Senate

Posted on February 25, 2009
AP reports: The people of the District of Columbia were closer Tuesday to gaining the voting rights they were deprived of more than two centuries ago after the Senate agreed to take up a bill giving them a fully vested...

Vermont: DOJ drops UOCAVA suit after state files reports

Posted on February 25, 2009
From a Justice Department press release: The Justice Department announced today the resolution of the lawsuit filed by the United States against the state of Vermont to enforce the reporting requirements of the Uniformed Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA)...

House to take up proposal for study of earmarks and contributions

Posted on February 25, 2009
Peter Overby reports on Morning Edition: On Wednesday, the House is scheduled to take up a spending package that covers most of the government and is loaded with earmarks, special provisions targeting money for particular projects, places or companies in...

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