Voting Rights Act and the 2008 election

The following is an interesting article about the Voting Rights Act and the history of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. It is a good summary of the history we have been studying in class with some additional cases we didn't discuss. Let me know what you think.

http://theusconstitution.org/blog.history/?p=442

Senator Stevens found guilty

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5je6Pw1sViz24JRo9F0PNhoqMtzTwD943JDDO0

AP article discussing verdict and ramifications of Senator Stevens trial.

Supreme Court and Gerrymandering case

www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/22/gerrymander-supreme-court-oped-cx_at_1023thernstrom.html

Where the GOP Could get Dirty

Here is an interesting article about voter suppression and the Republican party.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/22/voter_supression_guide/index.html

Are voter fraud fears overblown?

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/10/19/are-voter-fraud-fears-overblown/

What do you think? Even if some of the registrations were fraudulent (e.g., Mickey Mouse), won't that get sorted out when the voters show up to vote. Presumably, the fraudulent registrations won't turn into fraudulent votes especially in the 17 states where newly registered voters must show up with ID.

Speaker on October 21st

Everyone in class is expected to attend the 12:30 -2:00 p.m. talk in ES 313. Attendance at the evening talk is optional. Please post comments with your insights regarding Crayton's presentation.

Western Washington University's Center for Law, Diversity and Justice, Fairhaven College, and the WWU Political Science Department will host a pair of presentations on Tuesday, Oct. 21 on topics with a common theme of elections and social justice.

Both events are free and open to the public, and are co-sponsored by the American Democracy Project; AS Civil Controversy, AS Social Issues and Western Votes.

The presentations, given by Professor Kareem Crayton of the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, are:

• 12:30-2 p.m., Environmental Science 313 - "A New Day in Racial Politics: Understanding Bartlett vs. Strickland."
• 7-8:30 p.m., Communications Facility 115 - "Hopes and Fears of the 2008 Elections."

Kareem Crayton is an expert specializing on issues related to the intersection of law, politics, and race. His academic work explores redistricting, the political representation of racial minorities, and the emerging democracy in South Africa. At USC Law, he teaches Civil Procedure, Election Law and Comparative Constitutional Law. Crayton also holds an appointment in USC's Department of Political Science, where he teaches the undergraduate courses Civil Rights & Civil Liberties as well as The Politics of the American City. Crayton is also a principal research consultant on the design of a computer website, www.redistrictinggame.com, to educate the public about redistricting reform.

Crayton's graduate work focused on the legal and political effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial "racial gerrymandering" cases on Southern legislatures and electorates in the 1990s. His political science dissertation, entitled "What's New About the New South," considered many of the empirical puzzles associated with these themes.

ACORN & Alleged Voter Fraud

This is an interesting article discussing some of the voter fraud issues we heard about from Chris Shortell this week.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5984327&page=1

Ad spending by independent groups rises in race’s homestretch

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/07/ad-spending-by-independent-groups-rises-in-race%E2%80%99s-homestretch/

Here is an article about increased advertising by independent 527 groups. These groups circumvent limits on donations to the candidates by buying their own advertising for or against particular parties.

Voter Roll Purges in Wisconsin

http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/press-3397.html

A discussion of the purpose of the Help Americans Vote Act (HAVA) and a challenge of the Wisconsin efforts to purge names from the registered voters list. Wisconsin is attempting to purge registered voters from the list if there name does not exactly match other Wisconsin databases. The Legal Center is opposing this purge in court.

Judges supresses report on voting machine security

I was disappointed to see that the judge refused to require the report to be published. I was looking forward to reading the assessment of whether the the voting machines are secure prior to the November elections. We will be reading about some of the concerns relating to computerized voting in a few week. See the attached article for a preview.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/appel/judge-suppresses-report-voting-machine-security