Tag Archives: Brennan Center

Coffee Break Ballot, July 20: Current Trends in Voting Rights

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Election-centered presumptions about voting rights news didn’t take into account the effect a well-placed, well-sourced report can have.

The Washington Post, NPR, the Huffington Post, Reuters, Yahoo!News and the New York Times (today in a lengthy front-page news profile) have referenced and sampled the Brennan Center for Justice study on the difficulties faced by voters who don’t have photo ID as they try to obtain proper identification before the November election.

We’ve enjoyed watching this report spread, and we are definitely impressed by the way well-placed stories can take an issue like voting rights from the realms of political wonks to a more general audience. We’re hope for a similar spread when our project appears next month.

What We’ve Been Reading

“Legal Battles Erupt Over Tough Voter ID Laws,” (Ethan Bronner, 07/19, New York Times)

“AARP Says Senior Voters Will Suffer From Voter-ID Law,” (Randy LoBasso, 07/20, PhillyNOW)

“Colorado election watchers see officials chipping away at public oversight,” (John Tomasic, The Colorado Independent)

“Iowa elections chief seeks to prove voter fraud,” (Ryan J. Foley, 07/14, Associated Press)

“Section 5 challenges reach Court,” (Lyle Denniston, 07/20, SCOTUSBlog)

“Voter suppression — Round 2 in the debate on ID laws,” (Leonard Pitts, Jr., 07/20, Miami Herald)

Twitter Trends

We’re expecting a considerable boost next week when columnists, writers and journalists react to the Supreme Court arrival of two petitions that challenge Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and additional push back from conservative supporters of photo voter ID legislation.

But it’s Friday, and half the News21 newsroom is on the way out of Phoenix. So we’ll join them over some ice cream, and we’ll be back next week.

Remember to follow us @WhoCanVote.

Coffee Break Ballot, July 18: Current Trends in Voting Rights

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This is a week of numbers.

Granted, we regularly look for numbers in our daily Web searches – reports, data sheets and voter surveys that help News21 reporters. But this week has been significant already.

We talked earlier in the week about The New York Times’ Nate Silver. Yesterday evening, the Brennan Center for Justice – a nonpartisan research institute based at New York University School of Law – released a report detailing the potential difficulties that many voters face when attempting to obtain proper photo identification to vote.

The report is worth a read, but highlights from the report include some pretty staggering numbers.

Almost 500,000 eligible voters without ID live more than 10 miles from an identification-issuing office and lack access to a vehicle, while more than 10 million voters are more than 10 miles from their identification-issuing office.

 

Many of those offices have reduced or limited hours, especially in rural areas with high concentrations of the poor and minorities.

 

The states affected by these laws will deliver 127 electoral college votes in the presidential election this fall — almost half of the total needed to win.

We’ve had a lot to read this week in the News21 newsroom.

What We’ve Been Reading

“The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification,” (Keesha Gashkins and Sundeep Iyer, 07/17, Brennan Center for Justice)

“Millions of Felons Barred From Voting Booth,” (Rosa Ramirez, 0718, National Journal)

“Election Officials Respond to Illegal Voter Study,” (Cori Coffin, 07/18, KREX News [CO] )

“Woman cut twice from voter rolls is dead certain she’s alive,” (Scott Powers, 07/17, Orlando Sentinel)

“Study: 500,000 face major challenges with voter-ID laws,” (Aamer Madhani, 07/18, USAToday)

“Wash. to unveil voter registration on Facebook,” (Rachel La Corte, 07/17, Associated Press)

“Analysis: Philly voters over 80 would be most inconvenienced by new ID law,” (Bob Warner, 07/18, Philadelphia Inquirer)

“Dems call for Bolger to step down as speaker over candidate switch,” (Paul Egan, 07/18, Battle Creek Enquirer)

Twitter Trends

The most significant movement among our regular search words this morning isn’t terribly surprising. ‘Voter ID’ is gaining a noticeable uptick, most likely because of stories repackaging the Brennan Center report on voter ID. NPR, Politico, USA Today and other national news outlets detailed findings from the report.

A Philadelphia Inquirer story assessing the effects of Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law on the elderly also is making the Twitter rounds.

These stories are keeping voter ID mentions moving, although the continued tweets and retweets of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s petition against ‘voter suppression’ in Pennsylvania are also showing some movement on social media search engine Topsy.com.

For news and updates, follow us @WhoCanVote.