Election Law

Or so it would seem.  You’ll recall in the aftermath of the 2004 and 2006 elections, Democrats made claims of voter intimidation across America, especially of minorities.  The Democratic report on the Ohio election in 2004 mentions intimidate 36 different times.  The National Campaign for Fair Elections summed it up thus:

Armed gunmen. Crank calls. Poll worker bullies. Do you think those things should be part of fair and free elections?
Neither do we.

In the House, the Democrats responded with HR 1281.  Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton administration official and one of the most partisan Democrats in the House, was able to get the bill passed on a voice vote in June of last year.

In the Senate things haven’t gone as well.  There the bill, S 453, is sponsored by Barack Obama.  The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill in September 2007.  It has languished in the Senate since it was put on the Senate Calendar, ready for a full vote, on October 4, 2007.  With the Senate now in recess until September, the bill is effectively dead for this election.

Is this bill important?  Well, here’s what Barack Obama’s press release had to say about it when it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee

"For too many elections, misinformation and intimidation have kept thousands of Americans from voting,"

If thousands of voters, many of them presumably yours, are being kept from voting, one would think the bill is important. 

Here is what Donna Brazile, Democratic Party strategist, had to say in her testimony before Congress.

"The rise in voter harassment and voter intimidation is a direct result of some political operatives – often with the blessing of their political leaders trying to gain an electoral advantage at the ballot box. This practice of discouraging people from voting, from schemes that misinform or challenge the electoral status of eligible citizens to participate, should be outlawed in this nation."

The list of campaign reform and minority voting rights groups that have chimed in on the importance of this bill is long.  The editorial support from newspapers was substantial.  For a host of links, try the Brennan Center.

What kind of person sponsors legislation to address the voting rights of thousands of people and then fails to call the bill?  What kind of person doesn’t take the time to pick up the phone to one of the cosponsors and tells them how important it is to pass the bill?   Is his Presidential campaign important?  Of course it is.  Does that mean there was no way to get this legislation passed?  Of course not.

The next time you hear these claims of voter intimidation, remember how Barack Obama didn’t even call this bill for a vote.

Just like the headline says, Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden's office has developed new maps for County Board and state Legislative districts, and they're on his website here.  They're looking for feedback, so please give them some.

Today's Chicago Tribune:

The challenge to Calabrese was filed by Patrick Devaney, a local Democratic Party official who is president of a firefighters union that has donated $54,500 to the campaign of Madigan's daughter, state Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan.

The lawyer representing Devaney is Michael Kasper, the treasurer of the state Democratic Party as well as the legal specialist Madigan routinely turns to in election-law cases.

Neither Jakobsson, Devaney nor a spokesman for Madigan responded to requests for comment. Kasper denied Madigan or the party was behind the challenge, which centers on a complaint that GOP officials failed to affix their names to Calabrese's paperwork by an April 7 deadline.

Discuss.

Democrats continue challenge to Calabrese:

The Republican candidate for the 103rd District seat faces another challenge.

Chicago attorney Michael J. Kasper has filed a request for judicial review of the papers for University of Illinois student Frank Calabrese, who is running against incumbent state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-Urbana.

Jakobsson has said she has nothing to do with the challenges.

First, Jakobsson absolutely is involved in the challenges.  She's not signing the papers, and she knows less about election law than even I do, but these challenges are being managed on her behalf by her political master, House Speaker Michael Madigan and his staff.  For the media to keep repeating this mantra of "Jakobsson isn't involved," is just silly, and insulting to anyone who has ever paid attention to politics.  Her largest, most dominant donor, who also supplies both her campaign and legislative staff, is behind the challenge.  Let's not pretend she's not involved; everyone knows better.

Second, in this year, with the massive Obama tidal wave expected among young and more-highly-educated voters, in a district dominated by the UI campus, are the Democrats really iso worried about a 21-year-old GOP candidate that they feel they need to do this?  What are they so worried about?

This may be old news, but I didn't see either a post or a NG story on it:  the Illinois Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in the petition challenge court case involving Democratic County Board member Brendan McGinty, which means that he will remain on the ballot for November's election.

UPDATE:  I missed it - the NG story is here.  Sorry!

From today's News-Gazette:

Board member Valerie Woodruff said she's been approached by individuals who don't know much about the tax but are automatically opposed to new taxes.

But when board members explain that it could provide some property tax relief, "they're good with it" said board member Max McComb.

But one of the forum's attendees, Lea Ehrhardt, said she's not so sure that property tax relief will happen.

"The lottery was supposed to help pay for education. It didn't work," she said. "It looks like a good deal but it doesn't seem to happen that way."

She and two other attendees, Eric Thorsland and Joe Tandy, all said they'd like to see some sort of clause in the legislation that provides for an end to the tax unless it's reapproved by voters.

People are right to be skeptical.  Even in the best-case scenarios, residents of two school districts in Chamapign County would get absolutely no property tax relief, and residents of other districts would get much less property tax relief than this new tax would generate.

Rich Miller over at CapFax is asking for help explaining to the webmaster for the State Board of Elections that their new website is broken and somehow manages to suck even worse than their old, really sucky website.

Head over to the State Board of Elections’ website and try to look up a few candidate filings and campaign contributions. I was supposed to go over to the State Board myself and tell them how badly they screwed up their website, but I just don’t have time to hold their little hands through this disaster.

One of the big problems with campaign finance in Illinos is that the State Board of Elections collects a bunch of data, but they make it as inconvenient as possible for the public and press to access the data and pass it around.  More ease of use and convenience and greater public and media access to the data would do more to clean up Illinois politics than an ineffective feel-good measure like a contribution ban, yet nobody talks about how badly the State Board of Elections is screwing this up.  Their site is so broken that they're basically hiding campaign finance data from the very people they're supposed to be working for.

Please give him a hand if you have a few minutes.

Not that we have any hope of seeing such reasonable legislation in Illinois any time soon:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush.

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

I think, given the number of things for which ID is now required by law, the state shouldn't be charging for them anyway.  And obtaining them (and other services) should be a lot more convenient and efficient, but those are concepts with which the Illinois Secretary of State's office is unfamiliar.

UPDATE:  Thoughts from our County Clerk:

This is a difficult issue.  I have a lot of sympathy for the views of those who find these laws to be burdensome.  And I’d hate to have people lose their right to vote because they happened to leave home without an ID.

However, on balance, with the overwhelming concern from the public about election fraud, I see voter ID laws as being a good idea.  We need to do more to give the public confidence that every vote is being counted and that only those people who are eligible to vote are able to vote.  Of course, any voter ID law should be accompanied by appropriate provisional voting provisions that ensure that people who inadvertently forget their identification are still allowed to vote and given a chance after the election to give their ID.

Seems reasonable to me.

The State Board of Elections has a new website.

Let's see if it's now possible to link directly to someone's fundraising report.  (Testing to see if this works...)

UPDATE:   Nope - doesn't work.  You can link to the list of reports for a committee, as above, but not directly to a specific report.  How asinine.

Today is the last day to vote early at the County Clerk's office for the February 5 Primary election.

UPDATE:  From a comment by County Clerk Mark Shelden: 

Just to be clear, voters who will be out of town on election day can still vote on Friday, Saturday, and Monday.

Here is the appeal filed today of yesterday's decision in the petition complaint case for Brendan McGinty, the Democrat incumbent running/not running for re-election in District 9.

UPDATE:  Link was incorrect before.  Fixed now.  Sorry!

The McGinty decision is certainly an interesting one and the whole process was fascinating, although I'm sure Mr. McGinty doesn't share the fascination.  :)

At the Electoral Board, I argued that the Williams case cited by McGinty was no longer valid, in large part because of the Bowe case and others.  I also argued that it was clear what the intent of the statute was to prevent fraud and tampering and that the provision was mandatory.  On  both of these points the Appellate Court agreed with me.  But after finding the provision mandatory, they decided that his compliance was substantial.  Here was their reasoning in part.

However, given the limited number of pages involved, the fact that the two pages at issue are easily identified by the name of the individuals who circulated them, and the lack of any claim of possible voter confusion, tampering, or fraud by the plaintiff, lead to the conclusion that the evidence before the Board was sufficient to sustain its finding that the defendant substantially complied with the requirements of the statute.

On its face, this reasoning is not particularly difficult to swallow.  But it does blur the future line between compliance and noncompliance on this issue.  Future Electoral Boards will not find much guidance here on that issue.

Of course, the hope is that candidates don't put themselves in such a position.

If you're reading a political blog, I doubt you need any reminders, but in-person absentee voting for the February 5 Primary Election is now available at the County Clerk's office.

The headline "FEC heads toward shutdown" excites me greatly.

In its entire existance, the Federal Election Commission has accomplished nothing positive.  When discussing a potential FEC shutdown, the only question should be how to make it permanent.

From the County Democrats' website (the eighth comment, by Al Klein, to this post):

The Urbana Election Board ruled 3-0 today (12/13) that the IRV referendum cannot be held on 2/5/08 because it was not requested by the minimum number of voters required by law for a binding referendum.

All credit for this victory goes to my able counsel, Ruth Wyman of the Kirchner Law Office.

At a noon meeting of the LWV, Durl Kruse and I presented our views on the IRV concept (under severe time constraints). The meeting was recorded, and I presume it may appear on UPTV Channel 6.

Critiques invited.

Discuss.

UPDATE:  Permalink directly to the relevant comment here.  Thanks, Ben!

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Here is the NG story.

From Saturday's News-Gazette:

The electoral board had three members. Mark Shelden, Champaign County Clerk, chairman; Steve Ziegler from the Champaign Country state's attorney's office; and Fred Wilkinson from the circuit clerk's office. Shelden voted to throw out the petitions; Ziegler and Wilkinson voted not to do so.

Reynolds' written objection was on the grounds that McGinty's petitions were wrongly numbered. Four of the five sheets were numbered "1." The law requires the sheets "be numbered consecutively."

McGinty's written response quoted from the 1976 Fourth District case of Williams v. Butler:

"The statutory requirement ... that the pages be numbered consecutively cannot be said in any way to relate to preservation of the integrity of the electoral process. Noncompliance with the provision in the failure to insert or number a page is a mere technicality and cannot invalidate a petition," the case said.

Wyman said the facts of McGinty's case and the 1976 case were entirely different.

In the 1976 case, only 1 of 323 pages was misnumbered, she said.

"One page is substantial compliance. The facts of law are clear in this case. I think it's extremely important not only to maintain the integrity of the electoral process, but also to maintain the appearance of that process," she said.

Shelden said he voted to reject the petitions because the 1976 case is "30 years old and poorly reasoned in the light of subsequent cases. The provisions of the election code which serve to protect the integrity of the process are mandatory."

I suspect that there will be an appeal, and there are ample opportunities for the courts to overturn this initial ruling and bar McGinty from the ballot.  Will they?  I don't know - I thought that the local Electoral Board would bar him.

Another petition challenge of note: Unit 4 School Board President Dave Tomlinson, who is running in the Republican Primary in the 105th State House District against incumbent Rep. Shane Cultra of Iroquois County, has had his nominating petitions challenged by Ford County Republican Chairman Eric Thompson.

I've been told by multiple sources that a challenge has been filed against the nominating petitions of Brenden Brendan McGinty, the incumbent Democrat running for re-election in County Board District 9.

More details as I get them.

UPDATE:  I'm an idiot - JJ and Mark already confirmed it in the Baldwin challenge comments.

UPDATE:  Typo in Brendan's name fixed.  Sorry again!

UPDATE:  The challenge to McGinty and related documents available on the County Clerk website.

County Clerk Mark Shelden has blogged about the new election law just signed by Gov. Blagojevich.

Allows first time voters to cast an absentee ballot by mail if they provide sufficient ID to the election authority.

Allows people who sign a petition for one political party to cross over and cast a ballot in the primary of a different political party.

There's more, but that second provision was a point of contention in the 2005 Democratic Primary for Urbana Mayor, when some Laurel Prussing supporters claimed that people who signed petitions for GOP candidates shouldn't be allowed to vote in the Democratic Primary.

Read the whole thing - he points out an interesting problem with undervotes.  (At least, it's interesting to me...)

It appears there's going to be a referendum in Urbana on Instant Runoff Voting:

“Citizens for Instant Runoff Voting” have filed a petition with the Urbana City Clerk’s office to place a binding referendum on the Feb. 5, 2007 [sic] ballot.

Urbana, Illinois – A local Urbana organization called “Citizens for Instant Runoff Voting” has formally filed petitions with the Urbana City Clerk’s office on Friday, September 28 to place a binding referendum on the February 5th ballot to change the manner in which municipal elections are conducted in Urbana. The referendum will ask Urbana residents to change the system of electing their local public officials from single plurality to Instant Runoff Voting, IRV for short.

Discuss.  I'd be curious to see what Mark thinks about this.