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The Center for American Progress reports
As residents of Arizona's eighth congressional district cast ballots in a special election to replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in Congress, roughly 140,000 of them may be unaware they are eligible to vote because they did not receive the ID card the county is required to send them after they register.
According to the Arizona Republic, Maricopa County officials have not sent all voters the cards they can use to cast a ballot under Arizona's voter ID law because of an issue with the company used to print the materials. The paper reports that just 60,000 ID cards have been mailed to people who recently registered or changed their registration, while about 140,000 have not been sent.
[...] Arizona was one of the first states in the country to enact a non-photo voter ID law when a ballot measure was approved by voters[1] in November 2004. Under the law, the state must take steps to ensure that all eligible voters have an acceptable form of ID. According to the secretary of state's office[PDF], "a county recorder must issue a voter ID card to any new registrant or an existing registrant who updates his or her name, address, or political party preference".
But because of an error by the company used to print the ID cards, they have not been mailed out since December.
Although these citizens could provide other forms of ID at the polls, some voters told the Arizona Republic they're concerned that less informed voters may not realize they are registered without the card.
[...] During the presidential primary in March 2016, some Maricopa County voters waited in line for up to five hours to cast a ballot. The chaos led to an investigation by the Department of Justice and numerous lawsuits, including one filed by the Democratic National Committee.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Arizona was required to pre-clear any changes to its voting law with the DOJ.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday April 28 2018, @05:26PM (2 children)
There is a lot of misinformation here. The statement in TFA that SCOTUS "gutted" the VRA is also misinformation, but it's the common media narrative, so it's not surprising to see it repeated here (and modded up). Let's be very clear about what happened:
The VRA included "preclearance" restrictions on some states and some areas of the U.S. originally because those areas had RECENT issues with voter suppression, segregation, disenfranchisement, etc. The idea of the VRA was that said "preclearance" requirements would expire in a reasonable amount of time, and they would have. The idea was that if there were further issues in various states (perhaps DIFFERENT STATES), Congress could pass a new list for "preclearance."
Instead, there was obviously a stigma for states and areas with these restrictions, and Congress didn't want to deal with the difficult task of actually quantifying where NEW issues of racism might be occurring. Instead, they took the easy way out and kept reauthorizing the original list of "bad actors"... for decade, after decade, after decade.
Meanwhile, there have been some changes in the U.S. (believe it or not). There are states that want to pass arguably racist laws that weren't subject to preclearance. There are other areas where the attempts to pass racist laws were no longer as pervasive. If you think that voter ID laws are only about racism, then why aren't you concerned about the states which were NOT subject to preclearance under the VRA that have passed said laws?? Shouldn't they be put on a "watch list" too?
Well, Congress failed to do its job here. And SCOTUS stepped in and said, "Dudes, you need to actually use updated data if you're going to justify this list." One potential bad effect is that voters in states not subject to preclearance would actually be potentially disenfranchised even if their state had started passing restrictive laws. And that basically means different states are being treated differently for voting rights, which is a problem under the Constitution. A TEMPORARY fix like was originally intended by the VRA is fine -- but the permanent status of this list is problematic legally.
So SCOTUS overrode that list and said it was potentially outdated. That's all they did to supposedly "gut" the VRA. SCOTUS did not preclude Congress from passing a NEW and updated list based on recent data, and indeed there have been efforts every year since then to introduce said list [wikipedia.org].
Thus, a more accurate statement than appears in TFA would be: "Congress abrogated its responsibility to update the VRA, which SCOTUS pointed out. Congress continues to fail to act."
Personally, due to the pervasive racism in the U.S., I'd be fine with preclearance for ALL states. I don't think it's an ideal solution, and I do think it's federal government overreach, but we've had massive federal government overreach since FDR. Might as well use the overreach for good.
I do have a problem legally with the VRA as it was functioning prior to the SCOTUS ruling a few years ago. It was in fact treating voters of different states differently. If there were a current rationale to do so, based on a good source of data, I'd be okay with it (as stipulated in the recent proposals in Congress), but it wasn't.
And this is where your argument runs off the rails. A hunting license (as far as I know) is issued by states just about everywhere. A university ID card isn't generally issued by states. Generally, the standards for getting a state ID are very clear and follow specific procedures. University IDs may not follow those procedures. If the state is in charge of verifying who you are, you need to show state-issued ID. It's generally that simple. You can't show up to a US Passport office and use your university ID to establish your identity. If you don't already have a state-issued ID, you probably won't be able to use your university ID to get a driver's license or hunting license either. Also, university IDs all look different. How exactly is a voting official to know yours is legit? A hunting license at least has a standard appearance.
I agree that some states may have instituted stupid restrictions that are inconsistent. (And I generally agree that most of this movement behind voter ID laws is probably unnecessary.) But I don't see a good argument for accepting a university ID as government ID.
No.
Indeed. So instead of whining about it, call your senators and congressman and get them to actually USE the freakin' VRA instead of lamenting, "Woe is I! The VRA has been gutted! SCOTUS is evil! Racism will triumph!" The VRA is still in effect. It needs to be used. This stupid media narrative is NOT HELPING.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:11PM (1 child)
That sounds gutted to me.
The reason for the pre-clearance on those issues is because trying to do something about it after the fact tends to render things moot. They're not going to set aside the results of an election because the state broke the law in how the election was run. And we're getting close to another census year, 20202, wherein the number of politicians elected for each party is going to make a massive impact on the elections for the next 10 years because most states don't have restrictions on how districting is done. A small number have bipartisan or nonpartisan committees that draw the lines, but most of the states the majority party gets to set up the committee and generally has it set up so that they gain maximum benefit.
We have similar problems with campaign laws. By the time there's an investigation and any enforcement action taken, the race is already over and the results are never overturned no matter how egregious the violations are. In most case, the groups breaking the laws get dismantled after the election, no matter what the results are, so there's not much in the way of punishment possible.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday April 30 2018, @07:55PM
Not sure if you actually read my comment in full. Congress has the ability to authorize preclearance again just by creating an updated list of states/areas based on current data. They have refused to do so. The VRA is still perfectly capable of being used in the manner you wish -- Congress is just failing to do so.