[EL] Thoughts on VRAA

[Douglas Johnson]

I whole-heartedly agree about the need to specify what constitutes a voting
change.

 

I would also urge that the Secretary of State's website be the posting
location. This both puts the SoS in charge of educating and enabling the
county officials, and it gives monitors one place per state, instead of one
per county, to watch.

 

In CA, precinct maps are already sent to the SoS. I don't know how many
states have similar rules where at least some voting changes are already
reported to the SoS.

 

-        Doug

 

Douglas Johnson, Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College 

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

310-200-2058 

 

 

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of John
Tanner
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:47 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Thoughts on VRAA

 

A conversation brought another issue to mind -- the transparency requirement
(posting all voting changes on the internet) is one of those ideas that
remind me that "nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do
it."  There are some practical issues -- 

 

A remarkable number of US counties don't even have web sites, and are along
way off from regular postings. 

 

Even after 40+ years, many state and local jurisdictions, large and small,
do not know what constitutes a voting change.  Sometimes I get it wrong
myself.  See Riley v Kennedy.   It is very, very easy to overestimate the
capabilities of state and local governments, many of which suffer severely
from limited resources and institutional dementia. 

 

It would be good for for the Act to include a list of changes or types of
changes - and perhaps excuse jurisdiction with fewer than 5% or 10k minority
population, a la 203, and I'm sure there are other tweaks that can maximize
information, minimize confusion and low-benefit litigation. 

 

I think the Act's approach has a great deal to recommend it, but that there
predictably are a things to iron out.  And  I may, of course, be misreading
parts of the bill. 

 

 

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 12:03 PM, John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>
wrote:

One issue that bears clarifying what constitutes a "violation", especially
for coverage of sub-state jurisdictions.  Taking 4 situations -  

 

Penns Grove NJ and Berks County, PA probably could be covered because both
violated Sections 2, 4e and 208, although all in the same lawsuit.   

 

Boston could be covered because it discriminated against (1) Latino, (2)
Chinese-American and (3) Vietnamese-American voters.  

 

Hamtramck, MI could be covered becasue it violated the rights of Bengali and
Yemeni voters and there were at least 2 extensions of a consent decree based
on failure to comply with the initial decree.  See also Cibola and Sandoval
Counties, NM.  

 

Los Angeles County CA could be covered since there were suits against 4
cities "in" the county.

 

 

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