Could members of the electoral college go rogue on Trump?

The election may not be decided in November, even if there are no hanging chads and disputed vote counts. That’s because the electoral college doesn’t cast votes for president and vice president until December, and the votes aren’t counted by Congress until January, Pepperdine University law professor Derek Muller wrote…

Aug 8, 2016 8:00 AM CDT

10 Questions: Kristen Clarke is a leader in 21st century fight for civil rights

Click here to register for 10 Questions Live, a Google Hangout with civil rights warrior Kristen Clarke, today at 2 p.m. ET.

Aug 1, 2016 3:20 AM CDT

4th Circuit strikes down North Carolina voter ID law, finds discriminatory intent

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law, finding that lawmakers acted “with racially discriminatory intent.” The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the voter ID requirement, along with other challenged provisions of the new law, violated the equal protection clause…

Jul 29, 2016 12:25 PM CDT

Perkins Coie lawyer’s ‘push back’ advice on Bernie Sanders is in emails revealed by WikiLeaks

Thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee emails revealed by WikiLeaks includes advice from a Perkins Coie lawyer on the need to “push back” at a fundraising allegation by the Bernie Sanders campaign. Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias offered the advice after the Sanders campaign alleged the DNC was improperly…

Jul 26, 2016 2:27 PM CDT

Virginia governor’s blanket order restoring voting rights for felons is struck down

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down an executive order by the governor that restored voting rights for all felons in the state who had completed their sentences and supervised release. The court ruled 4-3 (PDF) that Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s blanket order violated the state constitution and separation of…

Jul 25, 2016 10:31 AM CDT

5th Circuit blocks Texas voter ID law as violation of the Voting Rights Act

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has again struck down Texas’s controversial voter ID law, according to the Dallas Morning News. The en banc ruling affirms a panel ruling issued in August of 2015, which found the law disproportionately harms Latino and African American Texans’ ability to…

Jul 21, 2016 8:45 AM CDT

Virginia law binding delegates to vote for Trump violates First Amendment, federal judge rules

A federal judge on Monday enjoined a Virginia law that requires delegates to vote on the first ballot for the winner of the state primaries—which would require GOP delegates to vote for Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Robert Payne of Richmond, Virginia, agreed with lawyer and GOP delegate Carroll “Beau”…

Jul 12, 2016 10:14 AM CDT

Protect the Vote, Promote the Vote: New voting laws can infringe on a critical constitutional right

Jul 1, 2016 4:00 AM CDT

Supreme Court to consider racial gerrymandering in Virginia case

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Virginia case involving the use of race in redrawing state legislative districts. The Supreme Court’s note of probable jurisdiction comes a few weeks after the Supreme Court tossed another racial gerrymandering case from Virginia on standing grounds, report Politico, the Hill…

Jun 6, 2016 11:58 AM CDT

Judicial candidates’ self-drafted ballot titles spur legal fights over accuracy

In California, it helps to alert voters that a judicial candidate is a “child molestation prosecutor.” A political consultant drafted that ballot description for a 2012 judicial candidate who won the race, the Los Angeles Times reports. Also popular are descriptions describing judicial candidates as prosecutors of gangs and violent…

Jun 2, 2016 8:26 AM CDT

GOP lawmakers outside challenged congressional district have no standing in appeal, SCOTUS says

GOP members of Congress from Virginia who live outside the state’s only majority black congressional district don’t have standing to appeal a decision striking down its creation, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in a unanimous opinion (PDF) by Justice Stephen G. Breyer. The…

May 23, 2016 12:28 PM CDT

Federal judge orders Kansas to register to vote about 18,000 people who lacked citizenship proof

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Kansas officials to process federal voter-registration applications of about 18,000 Kansans who were turned down for failing to provide documentation of citizenship when they tried to register to vote at state driver’s license facilities. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson of Kansas City, Kansas, issued…

May 18, 2016 11:29 AM CDT

Judicial candidate may be excluded from ballot because of a 20 cent shortage

A Florida lawyer is trying to get his name on the Miami-Dade judicial ballot despite one impediment: The check written to cover his qualifying fee was 20 cents short. Lawyer Daniel Espinosa says in a letter to the division of elections that he would like to qualify for the ballot…

May 10, 2016 8:53 AM CDT

Chemerinsky: Should SCOTUS have turned down these election law cases?

Two recent Supreme Court decisions with regard to voting were significant because they did not change the law. Both were unanimous and both raise the question of whether the court should continue to be obligated to review decisions of three-judge courts concerning voting districting. At a time when the court…

May 5, 2016 8:00 AM CDT

States seek to stop voters from posting ballot selfies

Many people love using cellphones to take selfies and post the pictures on social media. Lately, one version of such photos has drawn the attention of lawmakers, free speech advocates and the courts. They're called ballot selfies, in which people take shots of their election ballots and share them online.

May 1, 2016 2:50 AM CDT