Legal News

Election Law Litigation ? Everyone?s Doing It

By Dan Slater

Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy walk from voting booth near their home in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 1980. (AP)

If ever there was a time to shine for election law, it’s right now. So let’s take stock with a quick tour through today’s WSJ. Hmmm. Well, beginning from back to front: On the opinion page we have John Fund’s “An Acorn Whistleblower Testifies in Court.” Moving to our left, we see that Peter Carr, flacking for the DOJ, wrote a letter to the editor arguing that, contrary to what the WSJ editorial board says, Justice is, in fact, taking voter fraud seriously.

Moving on to the middle of the A section, there’s a news story, June Kronholz’s “Rising Tide of Suits Filed in Search of Political Edge.” Kronholz reports that the number of suits challenging election procedures could hit an all-time high this year as parties angle for an edge. In the past few days alone, voters and the Republican Party have filed suits challenging the way elections are being run in Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Virginia. By one law prof’s count, 34 major suits are pending involving the presidential race.

Richard Hasen, a Loyola law prof whose Election Law blog we’ve linked to before, predicts that pleas for extended voting hours and other routine complaints could push the election cycle’s lawsuit count into the hundreds.

Here’s a quick round-up of important election law cases in the battleground states (for further explanation go to the article itself).

Virginia: The NAACP has asked a federal judge to order the state to put more voting machines in Richmond and other urban areas, and to keep polls open late in neighborhoods with large minority populations.

Colorado: Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that promotes good government, is asking a federal judge to stop election workers from removing names from the state’s voter rolls and to reinstate about 30,000 voters who it alleges have been illegally purged.

Pennsylvania: Republicans are asking a state court for a list of 140,000 Pennsylvania voters registered by the liberal advocacy group Acorn. The GOP wants to challenge those voters at the polls and force them to vote with provisional ballots, which might not be counted. (Republicans in other states also are challenging Acorn’s registrations.)

Indiana: The state Republican party is challenging a decision by election officials in Lake County, which includes Gary, to open in-person, absentee-voting centers to accommodate expected record turnout. State law requires the county’s bipartisan elections board to unanimously approve such centers.

Florida: The courts have upheld the state’s plan to deny regular ballots to voters whose names and addresses on voter registration databases don’t match those on driver’s license or Social Security databases.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 30, 2008 (boomark / email).