The Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network's monthly recap of news, articles, studies and more, on election reform, voter turnout and voter participation.  For more on NVEN's work on nonprofit and democracy issues, please visit us here.

 

This Month:

• Supreme Court Upholds Indiana Voter ID Law
• New Methods for Mobilizing Latino Voters: Lessons from Nevada
  
• Election Assistance Commission Releases New Pollworker Guide
  
• Dorm Utility Bills Help Ohio Students Vote
• One Stop Voting a Hit in North Carolina Primary
• West Virginia and Indiana Vote Early In-Person By the Thousands
• NonprofitVOTE.org Debuts New Voter Turnout Library

Supreme Court Upholds Indiana Voter ID Law in Crawford vs. Marion County Board of Elections

 

On April 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold Indiana's current photo ID law in the case of Crawford vs. Marion County Board of Elections. Indiana is currently one of only two states in the nation requiring voters to produce a government-issued current photo ID, such as a driver's license, state ID card or passport. 
The highly-anticipated decision has heavily scrutinized over the past week, but most analyses generally agree on a number of important points to take away from an assessment of the Court's ruling:

• The majority said there was little evidence the Indiana law had, to date, placed undue burden on Indiana voters. The door is still open for future lawsuits if the evidence is there. The minority said the Indiana law puts the cart before the horse (Brennan Center) requiring photo ID for voting before ensuring 100% of voters have the kinds of ID being asked for or can readily and freely get one.

• The decision throws the debate over ID back to the states.  The Court's decision on Crawford is a powerful reminder that who is elected and what judges are appointed have enormous potential to impact democracy if they don't believe, as four constitutional amendments remind us, that voting is a right "that shall not be abridged" for anyone regardless of background, age (18 and over) or income.
  

• Photo IDs for voting will continue to be debated and, in various states supported as they are in so many other areas and most democracies.  But so should with even greater vigor universal and election day registration, public campaign financing, nonpartisan redistricting and election administration, restoration of voting rights for people with a past felony, more diverse and better trained poll workers, choice voting et al.! 

For further analysis, we recommend:

• Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog
• Election Law @ Moritz
• Brennan Center for Justice
• Electionline.org, Pew Center on the States
• NVEN notes by Policy and Development Director George Pillsbury
  

New Methods for Mobilizing Latino Voters: Lessons from Nevada

In this latest report from a series of issue briefs on the 2008 Primary Elections, Tova Andrea Wang describes the strategies employed by the Nevada Democratic Party that helped raise Latino presence in the state's 2008 Democratic Caucus from 6 to 15% since the last Presidential Election in 2004.

Taking into consideration certain key characteristics of the Latino voting bloc, a group noted for historically low turnout at the polls, the party used a core group of volunteers to employ several demographic-specific approaches.  These methods included:

• Going directly to workplaces and businesses with large Latino employee and clientele
• Working Spanish-speaking media to create messages targeted directly to the Spanish language community, as well as a Spanish language hotline and website
• Agreeing to hold some of its January caucuses at-large right at the Las Vegas casinos and hotels that employ large numbers of  Latinos
• Engaging in voter registration and one-on-one election discussion at informal and fun social events, such as birthday parties and soccer games

Wang's report is a useful case study of how creative, culturally-targeted outreach campaigns can have a big impact in turning out even the most politically disengaged constituency groups.

• Download "New Strategies for Latino Voter Mobilization" by Tova Andrea Wang
• Read the press release from the Century Foundation

EAC Adopts New Poll Worker Training Guide

The U. S. Election Assistance Commission recently adopted Successful Practices in Poll Worker Recruiting, Training and Retention, a guide developed in collaboration with the LWVEF, IFES and the Pollworker Institute.  "The need for trained poll workers is more urgent than ever, and we hope these guidebooks will help election officials find and keep good poll workers as well as recruit a new generation of poll workers," said EAC Chair Donetta Davidson in a press release from the EAC.  "Successful Practices for Poll Worker Recruitment, Training and Retention" and "A Guidebook for Recruiting College Poll Workers" are available from the poll workers section of the Election Assistance Commission's website.

 

In the News

Dorm Utility Bills Issued to Help Ohio College Students Vote 

At the urging of students from Oberlin College and other Ohio schools, Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's new Secretary of State, ruled in late February that colleges and universities can issue utility bills to their students, enabling them to fulfill the state's voter residency requirements. The bills, which require no action, reflect payment for services such as telephone, Internet access and electricity, already covered by the students' tuition and fees (Washington Post).  Supporters hope that this ruling will help Ohio college students exercise their Supreme Court-affirmed right to vote where they attend school, contributing to the state's voter turnout levels in November.

 

"One-Stop Voting"a Hit in North Carolina 

In North Carolina, the number of registered voters has risen by over 200,000 this year - with around 80,000 new voters since April 12th alone - thanks in large part to North Carolina's new One-Stop Absentee voting and registration program allowing citizens to both register and cast their vote in person during the period 19 to 3 days before an election (North Carolina Board of Elections).

"It has never been like this in my 17 years for a primary," said Cherie Poucher, Wake Board of Elections Director (local station WRAL).  Over 471,000 ballots have already been cast in North Carolina during the one-stop voting period, but election officials still anticipate hefty turnout today and have taken preparatory steps, such as hiring extra staff and purchasing extra laptop computers for election workers, to ready county election offices for a busy Primary Day (The Times News).  North Carolina's Primary Election takes place today (May 6th). 

 

West Virginia and Indiana Vote Early In-Person by the Thousands

Over 173,000 people have already cast ballots for today's Indiana primary, compared to 57,000 in-person and mail absentee votes during Indiana's last presidential primary in 2004 (Indiana Secretary of State).  West Virginia's Early Voting system -  which began April 23rd and continues through May 10th -  shows no signs of slumping either, with Secretary of State Betty Ireland predicting that at least one-quarter of primary ballots will be cast before Primary Day on May 13.

 

New at NonprofitVOTE.org's Voter Turnout and Election Reform Pages

NVEN's national website (NonprofitVOTE.org) recently debuted its new Voter Turnout Library, your one-stop resource for free, full PDF downloads of recent reports, studies and articles - as well as books and websites - on voter turnout issues ranging from factors and benefits to gaps, trends and education.

To download literature on voter turnout by CIRCLE, the Pew Research Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, The Century Foundation and others, visit the library today!

 

This month's Election Reform News and Turnout was prepared by Rachel Adams, Program Associate at the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network.