After the Supreme Court put the pre-clearance section of the Voting Rights Act on hold, the LDF has started to monitor and take part in actions against states that are taking advantage of the decision:
- Alabama: Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange stated that the State’s voter identification law will be implemented immediately.
- Arizona: The state of Arizona, along with the state of Kansas, is suing the Election Assistance Commission seeking to require proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, setting up a two-tiered system of voting for state/local versus federal elections. Multiple groups, including communities of color, have sought to intervene in that action and bring other cases to challenge Arizona’s and Kansas’s proof-of citizenship for voter registration laws. During the Supreme Court’s 2012-2013 term, in Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, the Court found that Proposition 200, Arizona’s proof of citizenship law for voter registration, violated the National Voter Registration Act. Arizona contends that the Court’s Inter Tribal decision only applies to federal elections. Section 5 blocked a similar two-tiered system of voting in Mississippi in the 1990s. Dual registration systems have a historical association with racial discrimination, hearkening back to the pre-VRA era, when segregated voter rolls were maintained to intentionally prevent Black voters from lawfully casting ballots.
The Maricopa County Community College District Board is proposing to add two at-large electoral districts to its existing five-member Board, which is elected by districts. This year, the community college district, which is the largest in the country, enrolled more than 260,000 students. Section 5 previously blocked this plan. Historically, jurisdictions have used at-large voting to dilute the voting strength of communities of color.
- Florida: Following the Shelby decision, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said “[w]e’re free and clear to follow through with our [early voting] law now without any restriction by the Justice Department. In August 2012, under Section 5, a federal court rejected these changes as harmful to Florida voters of color. In particular, the court determined that severe cuts to the state’s early voting period would have serious consequences for African-American Floridians. In 2008, over half of Black voters in Florida cast their ballots during the early voting period."
Governor Rick Scott also seeks to purge purported non-citizens from the state voter database, as he attempted to do in 2012. In 2012, because of Section 5, Florida election officials were blocked from using an error-prone list to purge purported non-citizens from the election rolls.
A voter is suing Florida’s Secretary of State and Attorney General under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for racial and partisan gerrymandering, claiming that the state’s Congressional District 5 packs Black voters into that district.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating allegations that an appointed white city clerk in Sopchoppy, Florida (1) suppressed Black voters in a June 11, 2013 election by questioning their residencies with no reasonable basis; and, (2) failed to remain neutral in her capacity as city clerk, by actively campaigning for three white candidates. Following the clerk’s efforts to prevent Black voters from casting their ballots, the incumbent Black mayor lost by only one vote and a Black city commissioner lost.
In Jacksonville, the Board of Elections has closed and relocated a polling place that served large numbers of Black voters in the City. In 2012, Black voters constituted more than 90 percent of those who voted early at the now closed polling place. The relocated location, according to plaintiffs challenging the closure, is inconvenient to public transportation, among other burdens.
- Georgia: Following the Shelby decision, pending voting changes include a county commission plan in Georgia’s most populous (Fulton) county that, among other things, creates a new overwhelmingly white district and reduces the district sizes of majority-Black districts.
The City of Athens considered eliminating nearly half of its 24 polling places, and replacing them with only two early voting centers, both of which would be located inside police stations. Community members raised concerns that the location of the new centers would intimidate some voters of color and that the proposed closures would be harmful to voters of color and/or students, many of whom would need to travel on three-hour bus rides just to reach the new polling places.
Greene County, implemented a redistricting plan for the five-member County Board of Commissioners. The plan, which one Black member of the Commission denounced, would result in Black voters’ making up less than 51 percent, a bare majority, in all five districts under the plan. Under Section 5, the Department of Justice blocked another redistricting plan in Greene County in 2012 and had been reviewing the above mentioned plan before the Shelby decision.
Morgan County, after initially considering eliminating over half of the County’s polling places, ultimately eliminated more than a third of them. One city council member expressed his belief that the closures would disfranchise low-income, voters of color, many of whom lack cars.
Election officials in Baker County, a majority Black county with high poverty rates, considered eliminating four of its five polling places, requiring some voters to travel upwards of 20 miles to vote.
Election officials in Augusta-Richmond are considering reintroducing a plan that would move County elections from their traditional timing in November to over the summer, when Black voter turnout is typically lower. Under Section 5, the Department of Justice in 2012 blocked this same attempt to switch the election date from November to a summertime month.
- Mississippi: Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said he is moving forward immediately to implement Mississippi’s voter ID law for primaries in June 2014.
- North Carolina: Immediately following the Shelby decision, the lead sponsor of the state’s voter ID law said that he would move ahead with the measure as a result of the ruling. NC State Senator Tom Apodaca also said he would move quickly to pass a voter ID law that some say would bolster the integrity of the balloting process. Other state legislators in North Carolina began engineering an end to the state’s early voting, Sunday voting, and same-day registration provisions. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, said that “[t]he North Carolina General Assembly is now considering legislation that among other changes would limit early voting and require voter I.D."
Within two months of the Shelby decision, Governor Pat McCrory’s signed an omnibus anti-voter bill, which includes numerous provisions designed to make it harder for voters to access the polls (including a strict photo ID requirement, elimination of same-day voter registration, cutting the early voting period by seven days, and throwing out provisional ballots cast at the wrong polling station).
Within hours of the passage of the omnibus anti-voter bill, elections boards in two college towns began efforts to make voting less accessible for students:
The Watauga County Board of Elections voted to eliminate an early voting site and election-day polling precinct on the Appalachian State University campus. The County also is considering a plan to combine three precincts into one to serve 9,300 voters, making it the third-largest voting precinct in the state. That one precinct site has 35 parking spaces, is a mile away from the University, along a campus road with no sidewalks.
The Pasquotank County Board of Elections initially barred, before being reversed by the State Board of Elections, a senior at historically Black Elizabeth City State University from running for city council based on a determination that his on-campus address did not establish local residency. A Pasquotank county leader continues to express his intention to challenge the voter registrations of more students at historically Black colleges and university in advance of upcoming elections.
County commissioners for Benson, North Carolina, are considering lifting limits on at-large voting in the wake of the Shelby County decision. Benson has three commission seats elected by district voting, and three commission seats elected by at-large voting. As a result of earlier Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act litigation, residents can only vote for one at-large seat every three years.
The Board of Elections chairman in Forsyth County, North Carolina, is considering closing an early voting site at Winston Salem State University, a historically Black institution.
- South Carolina: Following the Shelby decision, Adam Piper, a spokesman for Attorney General Alan Wilson, has stated that the assurance that South Carolina gave to a federal court about its interpretation of the reasonable impediment exception to the requirement of voter photo ID, which South Carolina began implementing in 2013, “still applies.”
- Texas: Within two hours of the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that the state’s voter identification law, previously rejected by a federal court as the most discriminatory measure of its kind in the country, would “immediately” go into effect. “With today’s decision, the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately,” Abbott said in a statement. He also stated that “[r]edistricting maps passed by the legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government,” even though those same maps had been deemed intentionally discriminatory by a federal court. Texas Secretary of State John Steen also immediately announced that the state’s voter photo identification law would go into effect.
On June 26, the Texas Department of Public Safety began to offer election identification certificates (“EICs”) to Texas voters lacking other forms of ID. But even though the EIC is “free,” applying for one requires several costly underlying documents. Moreover, as a federal court found, some citizens would need to drive up to 250 miles to the nearest DPS just to apply for an EIC.
The City of Pasadena, changed the structure of the district council by eliminating two seats elected from predominantly Hispanic districts, and replacing those seats with two at-large seats elected from majority white districts. Voters recently approved this change. Pasadena’s 152,000 residents include a large and burgeoning Latino population. Historically, jurisdictions have used at-large voting to dilute the voting strength of communities of color.
Galveston County officials have cut in half (from 8 to 4) the number of constables and justices of the peace districts, a move that was previously rejected under Section 5, and initially put in place by earlier litigation to remedy discrimination and provide electoral opportunity for voters of color. The effect of the reduced number of officials will be to eliminate virtually all of the Black and Latino held positions on both boards. This redistricting comes in the midst of Black and Latino population gains in Galveston between 2000-2010.
In Beaumont, a group of white legislators has acted to eliminate the four-person Black majority school board. Prior to the Shelby decision, Section 5 blocked a plan that would have changed the method of electing from seven single-member districts, to five single-member districts and two at-large. This move would have likely reduced the number of Black representatives on the school board. Having failed in that regard, the group then stated that Black board members’ districts were not up for re-election in that year, but nonetheless allowed white candidates to submit qualifying papers for elections for those same seats. Having been told that their seats were not up for re-election, the Black incumbents did not submit similar papers. A state court determined that the elections could go on, in spite of the Black candidates’ having not filed qualifying papers for elections that they were led to believe were not taking place. Section 5 ultimately blocked that entire scheme. Without Section 5 in place, a state court has allowed Beaumont to implement the redistricting plan, changing the election method of certain seats on the board, while denying the challenges to the three Black board members’ candidacy.
- Virginia: “We will be working with the Attorney General’s Office to determine what, if any, impact the decision will have on the implementation of this [photo ID] legislation in July of 2014,” Paul Shanks, a spokesman for Governor Bob McDonnell, said. State Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment explained that voters worried about discriminatory voting measures can still bring a lawsuit, noting that: “[v]oter discrimination has no place in the Commonwealth and will not be tolerated by members of the Senate of Virginia. As every Virginia voter who believes a voting law or redistricting line to be discriminatory retains the ability to bring a court challenge, protections against voter discrimination remain intact despite the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act.”
A federal court recently dismissed a suit brought by the Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) against the State Board of Elections for removing up to 57,000 registered and qualified voters from voter registration lists. The complaint alleges that the Board’s purge process is error-ridden and that it has required county and city registrars to “use their best judgment,” in determining whether to purge voters. Among others, this purge has the potential to disfranchise voters of color, the elderly and the poor.
Many of these cases are moving through the courts.
We should not wait for Congress to re-instate pre-clearance, but stay vigilant and use the courts to protect voters' right to take part in the political process.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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