With just four weeks until the midterm elections, access to the polls is unresolved for many voters while others will face new barriers. Wendy Weiser writes in The American Prospect that “for the first time in decades, voters in nearly half the country will find it harder to cast a ballot in the upcoming elections. Voters in 22 states will face tougher rules than in the last midterms.”
This week, the day before early voting was set to begin in Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned a lower court ruling and restored crippling cuts to early voting and same-day registration. Read more from USA Today and The Nation.
Oral arguments were held Thursday in an Arkansas voter ID case. The Brennan Center submitted an amicus brief in support of those challenging the law. Arkansas’s photo ID measure passed in 2013, after a successful veto override by the Republican legislature. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox found the law unconstitutional in two separate cases. The Arkansas Supreme Court overturned one decision but did not decide on the constitutionality of the photo ID requirement, which is now squarely before the court in this second case. Read more in an op-ed by Michael Li and Prof. William Schreckhise in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Finally, a Fourth Circuit panel voted 2-1 to stop two of the most onerous provisions of North Carolina’s restrictive law from going into effect. The court reinstated, for the time being, both same-day registration and provisional ballots, even if they vote in the wrong precinct. However the court allowed North Carolina to cut back on early voting and keep other provisions of the law in place for this November’s election likely to affect minority voters. Read more about current cases and voting laws here and The Washington Post.
What’s at Stake for 2014 and Beyond?
As the midterms approach, issues such as money in politics, voting, criminal justice reform and income inequality will shape the political landscape just as much as who wins control of the Senate. Join the Brennan Center and Mother Jones on Tuesday, October 14 for a pre-election primer on the state of our democracy. What should voters know for the next two weeks? And what’s at stake leading up to 2016 and beyond? Join MSNBC host Alex Wagner, New York Post Editorial Writer Robert A. George, Mother Jones’ Washington D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn, and the Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman as they answer these questions and more. For more information and to RSVP, click here.
