From the Texas Tribune: Federal judge sanctions Texas in voter registration lawsuit

More on both voter registration, and conflict between the state of Texas and the national government.

- Click here for the article.

A federal judge has ordered sanctions against the state of Texas for blowing past deadlines and ignoring a court order to hand over thousands of pages of documents in a lawsuit challenging its voter registration practices.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office’s “months-long delay” in producing the documents “has been disruptive, time consuming, cost consuming” and has burdened plaintiffs in the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio wrote in an order signed Thursday. Garcia ordered the state to pay some of the plaintiffs’ legal fees, including those tied to the sanctions request.

The Texas Civil Rights Project last March sued on behalf of four Texans who allege the Department of Public Safety denied them the opportunity to cast a ballot — and violated federal law — by failing to update their voter registration records online.

The group, hoping for quick action during the 2018 election cycle, argued in a motion for sanctions last month that foot-dragging from Paxton’s office was hampering its case. State lawyers turned over less than 2 percent of the 55,000 requested pages by Jan. 17 — a court-ordered deadline set after Texas asked for several extensions.

From the Monkey Cage: Trump wants voter registration investigated. This is how 20 states are already doing it.

Here's a topic that bridges 2305 and 2306.

- Click here for the article.

In a Wednesday morning tweet, President Trump returned to his campaign refrain of widespread electoral problems and called for “an investigation into voter fraud, including those registered to vote in two states.”

Within hours, it was revealed that at least five people close to Trump — daughter Tiffany, son-in-law Jared Kushner, adviser Stephen K. Bannon, treasury nominee Steven Mnuchin and press secretary Sean Spicer — are registered to vote in more than one state.

They are not alone. A 2012 Pew Charitable Trusts report estimated that 2.75 million Americans were on the voter rolls in more than one state and that 1.8 million dead people remained on the rolls.

Like Trump’s family members and associates, these are people who registered to vote legally, but when they moved or passed away, their names were not deleted from voter lists.

It’s not illegal to be registered to vote in more than one state, but it is illegal to vote more than once. By holding more than one registration, a voter could conceivably drive across state lines to cast ballots in different places. Or a voter could request an absentee ballot in one state and vote in person in another state. Such scenarios, even if only a few instances have actually occurred, concern many Americans.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure that voter lists are accurate?

Is it the job of the voters? When they move and register in a new state, should they remember to contact the clerk’s office in their former state to cancel their registration? Should relatives or friends of a person who just passed away be charged with notifying the county clerk?

Some diligent Americans do this. But most expect that the state will find out about a move or a death through government records. This is where the system breaks down.

From the Houston Chronicle: Texas hits voter registration milestone, but what does it mean after 2016?

For 2305 and 2306.

- Click here for the article.

On Thursday, Carlos H. Cascos, the Texas secretary of state, reported that 15 million Texans are now registered to vote, an all-time high for a state that routinely ranks near the bottom for voter turnout.

As of Thursday morning, 15,015,700 Texans are registered to vote, which constitutes about 78 percent of the state’s total voting age population, according to a news release from Cascos’ office. The estimate for the entire voting-age population is about 19.3 million voters, meaning there are approximately 4 million Texans who can cast a ballot if only they’d get on the rolls. To put that in perspective, it’s as if the entire population of Houston, the state’s largest city, decided to sit out an election – and then double that effect.

“The number will likely increase a bit as last-minute applications continue to be processed during the next few days,” according to Cascos' office, citing the Oct. 11 deadline to register before the November election.

Let’s look at the historical increases behind the new numbers. The agency said Texas had 13.6 million registered voters, or 75 percent, during the 2012 presidential election. In 2008, that number stood at 13.5 million, or 77 percent.

So, in those four years – bookmarked by a competitive Democratic presidential primary and a fierce attempt to make President Obama a one-term chief executive – only about 71,000 new registrants joined the process. Consider it in this context now, considering, of course, that people turn 18 years old every day: From 2012 to today, the state saw an increase of 1.3 million registered voters.

A lot can happen in four years, to say the least, especially in a state whose booming population tracks younger and less white by the second. So, what accounts for the astronomical growth this time around? For one, the level of attention this presidential race has attracted among voters is unprecedented.

For more:

- Record 15 million Texans registered to vote.

And a caution: Analysis: High Voter Registration Figures Are Great — Sometimes.

Voter registration, however healthy it might be, isn’t a good indicator of voter turnout. It has varied widely in presidential elections over the last 40 years in Texas, and as you might expect, voter turnout — as a percentage of registered voters — has varied widely, too.

From NPR: Automatic Registration Is The Latest Chapter In Fight Over Voting Rights

For our look at elections.

- Click here for it.

President Obama backed a bill in Illinois last week that would automatically register people to vote when they apply for a driver's license or state ID.

"That will protect the fundamental right of everybody," he said. "Democrats, Republicans, independents, seniors, folks with disabilities, the men and women of our military — it would make sure that it was easier for them to vote and have their vote counted."

But so far, support for automatic voter registration — now being considered in about two dozen states — has pretty much broken down along party lines. Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, generally think it's a great way to expand the electorate, as does Bernie Sanders. But Republicans are far more wary. Some say they're worried it could expose voter rolls to mistakes and fraud.

And there's a philosophical divide, too. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, a Republican, says it's important that citizens take the initiative when it comes to registering.

"If they just get it, because they're turning a certain age, it kind of takes away from the value that should be associated with the ability to participate," he said. "Because it's a privilege to participate in the electoral process in our state and in our nation, and people need to recognize that."

Unspoken, is the concern over which, if any, group might benefit from the change. Will more Democrats or Republicans be signed up if it's done automatically at the DMV?

The Galveston County Tax Assessor and Collector defends herself

There apparently snafus regarding registration in the recent election. She offers an explanation.

- Click here for the link.

The article “Amid concerns, county rechecks voter registrations” in The Daily News on Oct. 28 fairly well reported the situation with regard to the Galveston ISD election but, sadly, the entire story was not told. Clarification is necessary for the benefit of all Texas registered voters, voter registrars, county clerks and election administrators.

What was not included in the story is that the Galveston County Tax Office Voter Registration team knew in advance of the GISD election that there were issues with the state’s new system. What we did not know at the onset of that election is that only three system generated reports were working properly.

Over the summer, GCTO created a new election district for League City’s sales tax election. My staff worked overtime creating the new district. During this process, lists were being generated to insure everything was working properly. As we uncovered system errors, they were reported to the Election Division of the SOS’s Office for investigation. Workarounds were implemented to help us complete our task as new issues arose.

We discovered during that time that streets previously coded odd and even located on boundaries of every precinct (county commissioner, state representatives, justice of the peace and constables, city, school district and community college single-member districts, etc.) had been merged into the single category “both” during the state’s conversion. We began working with the EDSOS to identify affected streets and to request assistance correcting them as the existing process is manual and time consuming. Just recently we were provided a listing of more than 6,000 affected streets and a test environment through which the EDSOS will assist with untangling these streets and properly coding the districts.

In the interim, with an important local election underway, we focused on GISD and the League City elections. Another important piece missing from the article is that, for the first time in six years, the County Clerk’s Election Division and the GCTO Voter Registration Department were working in partnership — not at odds — to insure the integrity of the elections was preserved.

Of much greater interest statewide is that Galveston County is not alone. At the September SOS Election Law Conference, county clerks, voter registrars and election administrators from across Texas stood together in communicating to the EDSOS our concerns. Generally, no one could understand why a state agency with such impact on Texas voters prematurely went live in a system that was not ready and continues not be to ready for this election, for 21 million voter registration certificates being mailed out and for 2016 primary and presidential elections.

I have asked the head of the SOS Elections Division to notify other officials of potential issues and to speak to what is being done to correct them. I am still waiting for that communication. In the meantime, I will continue to work with them to correct those in Galveston County.

Automatic registration

Suddenly this has become a flash point of sorts, one that divides the parties. Democrats do better when turnout is higher, so they ant to make it easier for people to vote. Republicans, not so much.

For detail on the proposal:

- Brennan Center for Justice: Automatic Voter Registration.

Odds and ends for today's 2306

- Tim Cole Commission begins work, optimistic for recommendations.

Richard Miles was just 19 years old when his nightmare began. In 1994, Miles was accused of murder and attempted murder and, though he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, he was later convicted and spent 15 years in a Dallas jail — until a court determined he was a victim of prosecutorial misconduct because his Dallas County prosecutor withheld evidence that would have cleared him.

Now 40, Miles recently told the story of his wrongful conviction to the 11 members of the newly created Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission, a panel named after the late Texas Tech student who, in 1986, was convicted of a rape he did not commit. Although Cole died in prison of an asthma attack in 1999 — without being able to prove his innocence — a few years later DNA evidence from the crime posthumously exonerated him.

- Group seeks to repeal ordinances regulating where registered sex offenders can live.

Forty-six small cities across Texas are facing a new legal challenge to their ordinances regulating where registered sex offenders can live, the latest development in a national trend to relax residency limitations that opponents say create more problems with ex-convicts than they solve. On Monday, Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, a statewide criminal justice advocacy group, announced that it has “initiated action to compel, through litigation if necessary,” the repeal of the ordinances in so-called “general law” cities, those with populations of 5,000 or less.

Two Bexar County cities — Balcones Heights and Hollywood Park — are among the 46 whose ordinances are being challenged. Similar ordinances exist in hundreds of larger “home rule” Texas cities, which officials say have the legal authority to enforce them. Nonetheless, several larger cities already face litigation on the issue on the grounds that residency restrictions violate the U.S. Constitution.

- Democratic Group Called iVote Pushes Automatic Voter Registration.

As Republicans across the country mount an aggressive effort to tighten voting laws, a group of former aides to President Obama and President Bill Clinton is pledging to counter by spending up to $10 million on a push to make voter registration automatic whenever someone gets a driver’s license.

The change would supercharge the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter” law, which requires states to offer people the option of registering to vote when they apply for driver’s licenses or other identification cards. The new laws would make registration automatic during those transactions unless a driver objected.

- Straus Forms Select Committee on Mental Health.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced Monday he's formed a select committee on mental health to take an all-encompassing look at the state's behavioral health system. 

The committee will review and make recommendations on issues including substance abuse, care for veterans, identifying illnesses early and improving delivery of mental health care, the speaker said in a news release.

“We have taken some major steps to address the state’s mental health needs,” said Straus, R-San Antonio. “It’s important not to look at these issues in isolation, but rather to take a comprehensive view of how to improve the system. Many legislators asked that we take a closer look at various issues related to mental health, and it became clear that one committee should look at all of those issues together.”

- Lopsided election puts political target on property taxes.

When property tax relief was approved by 86 percent of voters in last week’s election, you can bet Texas politicians noticed.

Calling the lopsided result a mandate for additional action, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick vowed to make property tax reform a priority when the Legislature convenes in 14 months. Any reasonable idea will be on the table, Patrick said, although his initial concepts focus on reining in budget increases for local governments, particularly cities and counties.

“I have the opportunity to put my shoulder behind those issues and push, and I don’t intend to sit on the sidelines,” said Patrick, a Houston Republican. One important idea, Patrick said, is to require a rollback election if city or county property tax revenue grows by more than 4 to 6 percent, though the final trigger number will need to be refined. Currently, tax-rollback elections are possible with 8 percent increases, and only if 7 or 10 percent of registered voters sign a petition, depending on the size of the budget.

Gallup: In U.S., Voter Registration Lags Among Hispanics and Asians

This confirms some points we made in 2305 earlier today about ethnic disparity in registration and voting.

U.S. Hispanics and Asians are much less likely to be registered to vote than whites or blacks. Whereas more than eight in 10 blacks and whites are registered, and therefore able to vote in elections, 60% of Asians and barely half of Hispanics are currently able to participate in the electoral process.

The relevance of greater Hispanic and Asian participation in the political process is clear. Both Hispanics and Asians have decidedly Democratic political leanings. Notably, Hispanics and Asians who are registered to vote are even more Democratic than those who are not registered.

Meet the Unites States Election Assistance Commission

The article linked to in the previous story mentions this agency, so here's a link to it.

From Slate: This Time, Scalia Doesn’t Want to See Your Papers

I'm linking to this because the story highlights a part of the constitution we went over in class today and how it explains Justice Scalia's decision to vote against Arizona in the case regarding whether a state can require additional requirements to register to vote beyond what is required by the national government.

Here is the constitutional text - From Article One:

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators."

The author comments further:

So the states get to make the rules, and then Congress gets to remake them. Scalia says this was the framers’ way of making sure that the states wouldn’t refuse to provide for elections to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Apparently “widespread vociferous opposition to the proposed Constitution” made this a live possibility back in the day. (Now, of course, we like to elect our own representatives to the House and wish that everyone else’s would stay home.)

But the minority opinion points out that other language in the Constitution supports Arizona's argument that they have full discretion over who gets to vote in the state from another part of Article One - which we also discussed in class:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.

This means that the states get to determine who gets to vote in federal elections (except for the modifications we noted in the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments). Scalia acknowledges this, and states that the states have to go through an additional process in order to place the additional requirement of submitting proof of citizenship as a precondition for being able to register to vote:

Thomas is right that the states get to decide who may vote in federal elections. This state authority lies in another part of the Constitution. (For House elections, look in Article I. For Senate elections, it’s in the 17^th Amendment.) Doesn’t that mean Arizona can in fact require aspiring voters to be citizens, as it has since becoming a state in 1912?

Here is the neat answer Scalia comes up with to that question: Yes, Arizona can require proof of citizenship to register to vote—the state just can’t do it by passing a law superseding the federal form. Instead, Arizona has to go to the federal Election Assistance Commission to ask for a change to the federal form, so that it will include all the information the state says is needed to decide voter eligibility. If the EAC turns Arizona down, the state can sue. Arizona hasn’t done this yet, but the court says the state still could. Never mind, as Alito points out, that the EAC has no actual commissioners at the moment. Arizona still has to try to compel the agency to act.

I may be looking at this the wrong way, but I'm drawn to stories that point out areas where the Constitution contradicts itself - or at least creates tensions - and this seems to be one.

State voter laws

Here's an overview of four types of voter laws being considered in state legislatures and the partisan battles over each. Support depends on whether one's interests are helped by expanding or suppressing voter turnout.

1 - voter ID
2 - same day registration
3 - early voting
4 - online registration

Conflict over purging voter rolls continues

A recent controversy between the state of Texas and individual counties in the state has emerged over whether the state can force counties to purge voter registration rolls of the names of people who may be dead, or have moved out of the county.

Counties - especially large ones - are concerned that doing so this close to an election might result in legitimate voters being removed from the rolls - and open themselves up to whatever legal consequences follow. They prefer doing this after the election, but the state in insisting they go forward now.

Here are a few stories related to this. It a good potential future written assignment for GOVT 2306.

- NPR: Many Texans Bereaved Over "Dead" Voter Purge: In Houston, high school nurse Terry Collins got a letter informing her that after 34 years of voting she was off the Harris County rolls. Sorry. "Friday of last week, I got a letter saying that my voting registration would be revoked because I'm deceased, I'm dead. I was like, 'Oh, no I'm not!' " Collins says. In order to stay on the rolls, the 52-year-old nurse had to call and inform the registrar of her status among the living. She tried, but it didn't go so well. "When I tried to call I was on hold for an hour, never got anyone," she says. "I called three days in a row and was on hold for an hour or more."

- HC: Harris County cancels 'dead' voter purge: Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners said Monday that he would not purge from the voter roll before the November election any of the 9,018 citizens who received letters from his office in recent days notifying them that they may be dead and are at risk of having their registrations canceled.

However, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, the office that generated the statewide list of about 80,000 voters, said Sumners' move contradicts legislative directives.

"Our office has federal and state requirements to maintain an accurate and secure voter registration list. If any of those people are deceased, the law requires that they be removed from the voter registration list ," Rich Parsons said. "Mr. Sumners' decision would prevent that."

- HC: Who's afraid of zombie voters?: Voter purges are a common event, but usually not this controversial. The difference? In the search for ghost voters, Texas has replaced a scalpel with a proton pack. Changes to the system have turned a reasonable process into a broad swipe that risks kicking out proper voters and undermining the legitimacy of our elections.

While the state previously used data from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, a bill passed last year now requires it to use data from the Social Security Administration. This new list appears to be less accurate, perhaps explaining why people who had been voting for years suddenly found notices of their own ineligibility in their mailboxes.

And rather than taking the burden on itself to check whether the information was accurate, the Texas Secretary of State's office mailed out notices for both strong and weak matches, and burdened citizens with sorting it out. Sending an unverified mass mailing that asks people to confirm their own deaths seems an inefficient and risky way of maintaining voter rolls, especially so close to a major election. And given the problems with voter registration in Harris County over the past few years, and the continuing debate over the discriminatory effect of statewide voter ID laws, we would hope that Texas would be more careful not to risk disenfranchising voters.

- Businessweek: Texas Court Halts Attempt to Purge Voters as Dead: Texas officials were temporarily barred by a state judge from ordering county election officials to purge presumably dead voters from registration rolls because the initiative may violate the election code.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed yesterday by four Texas voters who were told they would be purged from voter- registration lists as deceased. They asked state court Judge Tim Sulak in Austin to stop the state from striking about 77,000 names from the rolls, arguing the plan violates the Texas election code and the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

The secretary of state is “restrained from further instructing the counties to remove any other names from the voter rolls,” Sulak said in his order. “Plaintiffs are entitled to temporary injunctive relief.”

Lawyers for the voters contended the state was required to get pre-approval for rules changes under the federal Voting Rights Act. The law mandates that Texas and other jurisdictions subject to the act get pre-clearance from the U.S. Justice Department or a special three-judge panel to alter electoral procedures.

“There is no statutory authority for this purge,” civil rights lawyer David Richards, who represents the plaintiffs, said in a phone interview while waiting for the judge to rule.

Texas AG wins court decision on registration rules

After a couple significant loses, the Texas AG won a court ruling allowing the state to proceed with a rule regulating third party voter registration activities.

From the FWST:

Texas can enforce its law regulating third-party voter registration activities while a court ruling blocking the measure is on appeal.


The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Thursday granted a request by Texas to put on hold last month's court order barring enforcement of several provisions of the 2011 law. U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa determined that the law probably conflicted with federal rules and the U.S. Constitution.

The stay will allow enforcement of the 2011 law pending the appeal, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.
A Federal District court had previously granted an infunction against enforcing the law:

U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston ruled that a law that prohibits third-party voter registrars from working in more than one county and another that mandates registrars in Texas be residents of the state violate the First Amendment.

“During the 2011 legislative session, the Governor signed two bills that imposed a number of additional requirements,” Costa wrote in his 94-page opinion. “The result is that Texas now imposes more burdensome regulations on those engaging in third-party voter registration than the vast majority of, if not all, other states.”

The judge also struck down provisions that required deputy voter registrars be paid hourly, that prevented registration certificates from being photocopied and that prohibited completed forms from being mailed in to elections officials. A final judgment must still be rendered, Costa declared. Until then, the laws cannot be enforced.

The suit was filed in February against Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office by Voting for America Inc., the voter registration affiliate of Project Vote, a national nonprofit voter education and advocacy organization.
Click here for the opinion.

The Texas AG had been seeking to overturn the injunction for sometime. The story points out that this change in voting rules had been precleared.

Groups opposed to the law are now seeking to take their complaint to the Supreme Court.