* Lawsuits came early in the campaign
* Supreme Court could weigh two big cases soon
By Joan Biskupic
WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – They sued early and often.
Voting-rights advocates, along with the U.S. Department of
Justice and some political party officials, tackled potential
electoral problems early this election year. Judges blocked
stringent voter ID laws, lifted registration restrictions and
rejected limits on early voting.
As a result, Election Day 2012 escaped the legal dramas of
the past. While some local skirmishes landed in court, no
litigation clouded President Barack Obama’s victory on Tuesday
over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
But courtroom wars over the franchise are far from over.
Some voter-identification laws were put on hold only for
this election. More significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court is
poised to consider major disputes – from Arizona and Alabama –
at the heart of the right to vote.
“There’s now going to be a battle royale at the Supreme
Court,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center
for Justice at New York University Law School. The center was
one of the groups taking the lead on recent litigation,
including on behalf of the League of Women Voters in Florida
against restrictions on third-party groups that register voters.
Voting rights advocates have been vigilant in trying to halt
practices that could turn away legitimate voters or toss out
good ballots, especially since the disputed Florida presidential
election of 2000 and the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Bush v.
Gore. Lawyers for political parties, seeing how elections can
come down to a mere hundred votes, have jockeyed for any
electoral advantage.
Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley, an
election law specialist, said advocates have learned the lessons
of past disputed races, including the months-long recount fight
arising from the 2008 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota.
Democrat Al Franken eventually was declared the winner, by 312
votes, over Republican Norm Coleman.
Foley said litigation this year, notably in Ohio and focused
on early-voting rules and provisional ballots, began earlier
than in previous cycles. “In some ways it’s analogous to the
military,” he said. “Lawyers are preparing for the last war and
what the next war would be.”
VOTER ID LAWS
Much of this campaign’s litigation hinged on state attempts
to toughen voter ID laws. Proponents, mainly Republicans, argued
that new requirements were needed to prevent fraud at the polls.
Opponents, mainly Democrats, countered that they burdened
minorities, the elderly and poor, who are less likely to have
the documentation required for an ID. State and federal judges
blocked the most restrictive laws from taking effect.
That chapter is not closed. Texas Attorney General Greg
Abbott, for example, has appealed a decision against the state’s
new ID rule to the Supreme Court. A three-judge federal panel in
Washington, D.C. said Texas could not show that the rule would
not discriminate against blacks and Hispanics who might live
hundreds of miles away from state offices that would issue IDs.
The justices already have agreed to review an Arizona law
that would force voters to show proof of citizenship before they
could register. The mandate, adopted through a ballot initiative
in 2004 and on hold because of the litigation, was intended to
stop illegal immigrants from voting
After Indian tribes and civil rights advocates challenged
the proof-of-citizenship requirement, an appeals court ruled it
conflicted with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. The
standard federal form under that act asks people only to check a
box noting whether they are U.S. citizens and does not demand
proof.
A potentially more consequential case at the Supreme Court’s
door challenges a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, a
landmark law adopted in 1965 to protect blacks and other
minorities historically kept from the polls.
Officials in Shelby County, Alabama – backed by several
southern states – are seeking an end to the act’s mandate that
locales with a history of discrimination obtain federal approval
before making any change in ballot rules or district lines.
Nine states and parts of seven others are covered by the
Voting Rights Act. Federal challenges to Texas and South
Carolina voter ID laws this year relied on the provision.
Yet the current court, which could say as soon as Nov. 13
whether it will hear the dispute, has suggested the requirement
may be outdated.
“Things have changed in the South,” Chief Justice John
Roberts wrote in 2009, the last time the court reviewed the
Voting Rights Act.
(Editing by Howard Goller and Steve Orlofsky)
