|
As part of Project Vote’s ongoing effort to keep you
informed about the changing landscape of election legislation, we are pleased
to provide the latest installment in our Election Legislation 2010:
Threats and Opportunities Assessment series. All year Project
Vote’s Communications Manager Erin Ferns Lee has been monitoring election
legislation in all 50 states and the U.S. Congress. In this new, fully updated memo she assesses both the threats and opportunities represented by
emerging election reforms that have been enacted or are gaining significant support
in legislatures and Congress, and also assesses the viability of pending bills. To download the memo click here.
|
|
|
February 16, 2010 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - In response to concerns expressed by national voting rights groups Project Vote and the Fair Elections Legal Network (FELN), the Kansas Secretary of State has issued new instructions to county election officials to ensure that eligible voters are not wrongfully removed from the rolls under an ongoing program to update voter registration databases based on interstate matching.
Kansas has partnered with 11 other states – Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota – to run an annual comparison of statewide voter databases to see if voters have moved and re-registered in another state. The new instructions being hailed by voting rights groups clarify how local Kansas election officials should handle potential voter matches sent to them by the Secretary of State based on these interstate crosschecks.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Representational Bias in the 2008 Electorate reviews
the story of who was eligible to vote, who was registered to vote, and
who did vote in the 2008 general election. Analyzing the November
Voting and Registration supplements of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current
Population Survey, the report offers detailed information on
registration rates and voting behavior based on key demographic
factors, including race/ethnicity, age, gender and marital status,
income, education, residential mobility, and disability status. The
report also provides registration and turnout rates for each state,
with comparative rankings.
By comparing this data with those from other recent elections, the
report presents a picture of the growing electorate in the United
States, and identifies the changes in the extent to which participation
in our federal elections is–and is not–representative of the population
that is eligible to vote in America.
To read the full report click here. |
|
|
TRENTON, NJ - The
Department of the Public Advocate has joined a coalition of voting rights
groups to file papers with the State Board of Education today proposing new
regulations aimed at ramping up voter registration efforts in New Jersey
schools.
Joining
with two national nonpartisan advocacy groups, Project Vote and the Fair
Elections Legal Network, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union of New
Jersey in signing the petition, the Department of the Public Advocate has asked
for rules to ensure all New Jersey high schools distribute voter registration
forms to eligible seniors and educate them about the fundamental importance of
voting. Additionally, the proposal would mandate that schools report to
the state with details about their compliance with the law and the number of
students they helped register.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Cleveland, OH--Low-income
Ohio citizens will be ensured access to voter registration at Ohio public
assistance offices as a result of a settlement agreement submitted to Federal
District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan over this past holiday weekend.
The settlement
successfully resolves a three-year old lawsuit filed against the Ohio Secretary
of State (SOS) and the Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family
Services (ODJFS) in September 2006 by Lorain resident Carrie Harkless,
Cleveland resident Tameca Mardis, and the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) charging widespread violations of the
federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Section 7 of the NVRA requires
public assistance agencies to provide voter registration opportunities to their
clients.
Extensive
pre-suit investigation and discovery in the case revealed that many of Ohio’s county public assistance
offices were ignoring their responsibilities to provide voter registration to
their low-income clients.
Currently, only seventy-one percent of low-income Ohioans are registered
to vote compared to ninety percent of affluent Ohioans.
Before the lawsuit,
there was no state official overseeing the state’s compliance with the federal
law. Although Ohio has designated
the Secretary of State as its chief election official responsible for NVRA
compliance, at the time the lawsuit was filed, then-Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell contended that the state’s obligation to provide voter registration
services to its low-income residents was satisfied by the maintenance of a
toll-free hotline for public assistance offices to call. ODJFS claimed that
Ohio law prohibited it from ensuring compliance by county offices.
“As a result of the
steps the Secretary of State and ODJFS Director will take, we expect hundreds
of thousands of voting-eligible low-income Ohioans to be registered to vote,”
said Lisa Danetz, Senior Counsel in the Democracy Program at Demos and co-lead
counsel for the plaintiffs.
"We applaud the integration of voter registration into agency
processes as well as the planned monitoring of the county public assistance
offices."
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 3 of 6 |
