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PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona filed a motion in a Washington, D.C. federal court today to intervene in the state of Arizona’s challenge to the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). The ACLU argues that Section 5 of the Act, which since 1965 has protected racial and language minorities’ access to voting, must remain in place.
“Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is critical for ensuring that states do not pass election laws that negatively affect minority voters,” said Katie O'Connor, staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “We are intervening in this case to make sure that this critical piece of legislation is upheld, so that everyone's fundamental right to vote is protected.”
On Aug. 25, Arizona became the first state to challenge this section of the VRA since it was reauthorized in 2006. In Arizona v. Holder, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne claims that during the 2006 reauthorization of the law, Congress did not provide evidence of continuing discrimination in Arizona and that Section 5 imposes a severe burden on the state.
“This latest move by Tom Horne to bail out of the VRA is part of a nationwide effort to rob people of color of their voice at the ballot box,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. “Considering he is leading efforts to defend SB1070 and the Mexican-American studies ban – two laws that scapegoat U.S. citizens of Latino descent – it’s shameful and disingenuous for him to say that discrimination in Arizona doesn’t exist.”
Because of Arizona’s long history of implementing procedures that have had a discriminatory impact on voters, especially Latino voters and those with limited English proficiency, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires the state to get approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before implementing any new voting practices or procedures that could negatively impact or dilute their future votes.
“The ongoing attempts to politicize the re-districting process by the Arizona legislative and executive branches in total disregard of voters’ choice of an independent commission demonstrate the fragile state of the fundamental right to an effective vote for all Arizonans,” added Daniel Pochoda, Legal Director of the ACLU Foundation of Arizona.
The ACLU filed the motion to intervene on behalf of seven voters who live in Arizona. They are: Latino voter and immigrant rights activist Luis Avila, who currently serves as President of the Somos America Coalition, Napoleon Pisaño, a Latino activist from Mesa who worked for the Maricopa County Juvenile Court Center, and Eric Mante, a Filipino American voter who attends Arizona State University; African American voters Dionne Thomas, Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at Progressive Baptist Church in Mesa, Calvin Goode, who served over a period of 22 years on the Phoenix City Council, and Melvin Hannah, former Director of Community Outreach and Job Development of the Greater Phoenix Urban League; and Japanese American voter Kathryn Nakagawa, a board member of the Japanese American Citizens League.
“Civic engagement in Arizona, especially among Latinos, is now more important than ever,” said Luis Avila, 29, who became a citizen in 2009. “We can’t just sit on the sidelines and ignore discriminatory attempts to make it harder for Americans to cast votes. We need to do everything we can to ensure that everyone has access to the polls and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act plays an important role in making that happen.”
The ACLU is arguing the state has a long and persistent history of implementing measures that have a discriminatory impact on voters. For example, despite the absence of significant fraud, Prop 200 dramatically altered Arizona election law by requiring citizens to present documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, and by imposing a restrictive identification requirement as a condition of casting a ballot at the polls. The law, passed in 2004, made it increasingly difficult for voting-age citizens, particularly elderly Native American voters, to register or vote because of lack of requisite documentation, including birth certificates and other federal or state forms of identification. More than 30,000 voter-registration applications in Arizona have been rejected as a result of the law’s onerous identification requirements. A portion of the law relating to registration requirements was struck down in 2010.
More recently, the Arizona Senate passed SB1409, a measure that requires all documents issued by any Arizona agency or political subdivision to be written in English. Although the bill created an exemption for official ballots, there are lingering questions about its potential impact on minority voters because all non-ballot voting materials must be printed in English. This could include important voting guidance and instructions, and summaries of ballot initiatives and referenda. The bill was held in the House of Representatives.
There are currently two other cases filed by sub-jurisdictions in the DC District Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 5: LaRoque v. Holder, filed by residents of Kinston, North Carolina, and Shelby County v. Holder, filed on behalf of Shelby County, Alabama. On September 21, a district court judge issued a 151-page opinion in the Shelby County case upholding Section 5’s constitutionality. That decision has been appealed. A lower court decision is still pending in the North Carolina case on the constitutionality of Section 5. The ACLU represents voter minorities in these challenges.
Attorneys on the case include O'Connor and Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, Pochoda of the ACLU Foundation of Arizona, and Art Spitzer with the ACLU of the Nation's Capital.
Click here to read the ACLU’s response to the lawsuit filed by the state of Arizona.
Click here to read the state’s complaint in the case, State of Arizona v. Holder, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
For more information about the individuals who are serving as interveners, click here.
More information on the work of the ACLU Voting Rights Project is available at: www.aclu.org/voting-rights
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BALTIMORE, MD – Today, a coalition of civil rights groups, including the Prison Policy Initiative, Demos, ACLU of Maryland, Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches, Somerset County Branch of the NAACP, and others announced that they are preparing an amicus brief to defend the “No Representation Without Population Act” currently being challenged before a federal court in Fletcher v. Lamone, a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s Congressional redistricting plan. The brief will make clear that Maryland’s first-in-the-nation law requiring the state to count prisoners at their home addresses is protective of minority voting rights, and will decry the plaintiffs’ attempt to bring back the old system of using disenfranchised – and disproportionately African-American – prison populations to pad white electoral districts.
The plaintiffs in Fletcher raise seven civil rights and partisan gerrymandering claims. The civil rights groups preparing the amicus brief will urge the court to dismiss the three claims challenging application of the “No Representation Without Population Act”.
Passed and signed into law in 2010, the “No Representation Without Population Act” is civil rights reform that requires that state prisoners be counted in their home districts, not where they are incarcerated. It corrects discriminatory vote enhancement and ensures fair representation in legislative redistricting following the latest U.S. Census.
The “No Representation Without Population Act” corrects an unfair enhancement of voting power that a district with a prison receives by diluting the voting power of any district without a prison. The law’s impact has already been felt across the state. Before the law, one Maryland state legislative district’s population was 18 percent prisoners. As a result, four voting residents in this district had as much political influence as five residents elsewhere, because prisoners could not vote. The impact at the local level is even more pronounced. In Somerset County, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, 64 percent of the population in one Commission district was made up of prisoners. This meant a vote in that district was worth 2.8 times more than a vote in neighboring districts.
The distortion of the election system through inclusion of non-voting prisoners has been a longstanding civil rights problem in Maryland, and its effects can be clearly seen in Somerset County. There, over the course of decades, inclusion of prison in a majority-minority district meant that despite the County’s 42 percent African American population, no black official was ever elected until after the No Representation Without Population Act was passed.
Brenda Wright, Director of the Democracy Program at Demos, said: “The No Representation Without Population Act was designed to end distortions caused by counting incarcerated persons as members of communities to which they have no connection. Counting incarcerated persons at their home residence allows Maryland to draw accurate districts in line with the principle of one person one vote.”
Deborah Jeon, Legal Director for the ACLU of Maryland, said: “By enacting this vital civil rights law, Maryland took a giant step toward correcting unfair vote enhancement, and making fair representation possible in legislative redistricting. Democracy now has more meaning in Maryland, especially in a place like Somerset County, where African American voters may finally be heard in proportion to their numbers in the community.”
The No Representation Without Population Act is an important tool to solving these problems, and restoring the idea of “one person, one vote” to Maryland.
Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, and co-author of Importing Constituents: Incarcerated People and Political Clout in Maryland, said: “The State of Maryland should be saluted — not sued — for counting incarcerated people in the correct location.”
Gerald Stansbury, President of the Maryland NAACP, said: “The No Representation Without Population Act ensures that the one man one vote principle is meaningfully applied in Maryland by counting prisoners, who are not allowed to vote, in the district where they last lived. The new law brings us closer to fair representation of minorities throughout the State of Maryland."
Kirkland Hall, President of the Somerset County NAACP, said: “We respect the rights of all citizens residing in our county, including those at the prison, but allowing non-voting prisoners to distort the election system is just not fair. Somerset County's inclusion of the prison in our past redistricting plans has proven to be an obstacle in our efforts to obtain elected minority representation. That's why we wholeheartedly support the ‘No Representation without Population Act.’”
The No Representation Without Population Act was supported by a strong coalition: ACLU of Maryland, Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches, the Somerset County Branch of the NAACP, the Prison Policy Initiative, and DEMOS. The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland played a key role in securing the bill’s passage, especially the leadership of bill sponsors Senator Catherine Pugh (D-Baltimore City) and Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s).
Laura W. Murphy to Testify at Congressional Voting Rights Forum Today
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SPRINGFIELD -- On Monday, teams from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Attorney General's office will arrive in Springfield. They will investigate serious and widespread voting rights violations on preliminary election day, monitor polling places on general election day (Tuesday, Nov. 8) to ensure voter rights are protected, and investigate multiple areas of noncompliance with the settlement order issued in 2006 after the DOJ sued the City of Springfield for violations of the Federal Voter Rights Act of 1965.
On October 20th and 21st, Ward 1 City Councilor Zaida Luna, the NAACP (Springfield Chapter), the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights sent urgent requests to the US Department of Justice for intervention in the City of Springfield regarding widespread voter rights violations. The letters, which cite multiple incidents and areas of noncompliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act and the DOJ's 2006 settlement order with the City of Springfield, can be downloaded as PDFs here:
http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/legal/voting_rights/cv.pdf
http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/legal/voting_rights/springfield_doj_let...
http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/legal/voting_rights/naacp_doj.pdf
Councilor Luna's letter also quantifies the egregious and persistent de facto voter participation disparities in Springfield, and describes an incident in which an African-American voter was handed a ballot with the Mayor's name already checked off. A copy of this exact ballot (signed by the elections commissioner, who has verified that this actually happened) can be downloaded as a PDF here:
http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/legal/voting_rights/ballot.pdf
"In high minority wards like mine," explains Councilor Zaida Luna, "less than a third as many registered voters actually cast a ballot as compared to low minority wards. It now appears that serious voter rights violations are at least part of the explanation."
"The NAACP, both locally and nationally, is concerned about voting irregularities and efforts across the nation to suppress the voting rights of communities of color," explains Springfield NAACP President, Rev. Talbert Swan II. "We welcome the monitoring of the Department of Justice in Springfield, as this historic election will determine our city's leadership for the next four years and set the tone for the 2012 presidential election."
"The City of Springfield appears to again not be complying with the laws designed to insure all voters have equal access to the polls, which fundamentally is undemocratic," said Bill Newman, director of the ACLU's Western Massachusetts Legal Office.
For more information about the ACLU of Massachusetts, see:
http://aclum.org
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Changes in election laws have given Iowa college students more options than ever on how they cast their votes. And it’s especially important that college students vote.
“Of all the people in society, young adults have the most to lose if democracy falls off the rails,” said Ben Stone, ACLU of Iowa Executive Director. “They are the ones who, as older adults, will have to deal with all the problems we create now. It’s important that they make their voices heard.”
Are You Registered?
Before you vote, you must make sure you’re registered to vote. Go online to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office at www.sos.state.ia.us. There’s a handy tool you can use to plug in your zip code and other info to find out if you’re registered. In fact, the entire site has tons of handy college student voter information.
If you’re not registered to vote, the deadline in Iowa to register for the November 8 election is October 28. If you cannot meet this deadline, you can also register on the spot at your polling place on Election Day. To prevent hassles, bring a valid, current driver’s license or a student ID with photo.
As a college student, you have the option of registering to vote in your hometown or in your college town. Your decision of where to register will determine which candidates and what issues will appear on your ballot. You can register in only one location. You can’t register to vote in both your hometown and in your college town.
When it comes to actually voting, you have four options:
1. Absentee Voting
If it's hard for you to get to your polling place; you travel a lot; or you're simply a busy person who doesn't want stand in line or break away from work or classes, an absentee vote is a convenient option.
First, you must request that an absentee ballot be sent to you. Go to the Secretary of State web site (www.sos.state.ia.us) and print out an “absentee ballot request form.” Or call 1-888-SOS-VOTE (1-888-767-8683) to ask for the form.
Once you have the request form in hand, fill it out and mail it to the county auditor's office in the county in which you are registered. <http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html>
A few days later, you'll receive the actual absentee ballot in the mail. Fill out the actual ballot and mail it promptly back to your county auditor's office. Absentee ballots received after November 8 will not be counted.
2. Absentee Voting "In Person"
Another convenient way to vote before the November 8 election is to cast an absentee ballot "in person." Simply show up at your local county auditor's office <http://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/auditors/AuditorsList.html> during normal business hours. For the upcoming election, county auditors' offices will also have special hours Saturday, October 29 and Saturday, November 5.
No need to do any paperwork in advance (other than make sure you're registered <https://www.sos.state.ia.us/elections/voterreg/regtovote/search.aspx> ). Just show up!
3. Satellite Voting
In some counties, to make voting easier, county auditors have set up convenient "satellite" voting stations, usually on college campuses, schools, libraries, or shopping centers. Hours vary so check in advance.
Keep your eye on local media or contact your county auditor's office to find out when and where satellite voting is in your community.
4. Traditional Voting
And, of course, you always have the option of traditional voting--going to the designated voting place for your neighborhood and casting a vote in a voting machine. Polls are open November 8 from 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. If you’re unsure where to vote, simply Google “polling places” and use the handy tool to find your precinct’s voting place.
