On October 3, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a case filed by Dallas County, Texas, over the Voting Rights Act and electronic vote-counting machines. The case had been before the U.S. Supreme Court since last year. Today the U.S. Supreme Court says the case is moot. It is Dallas County, Texas v Texas Democratic Party, 10-755. The lower court had ruled that the county must ask the U.S. Justice Department to pre-clear a change in how certain machines count votes. The county had then sought and obtained pre-clearance.
There was a second part of this case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in this same case, no. 10-1183, concerning attorneys fees. The Supreme Court remanded that minor part of the case back to the lower court so it could be re-done.
Also on October 3, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Alan Keyes’ lawsuit against California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, over whether Bowen should have investigated Barack Obama’s qualifications before she listed him on California ballots in 2008. That case is Keyes v Bowen, 10-1351. The case, which had come up from the California state courts, had received a significant decision from the State Court of Appeals. The State Court of Appeals had ruled that the Secretary of State has no authority to reject the presidential nominee of any ballot-qualified party, whether the candidate meets the constitutional qualifications or not. That decision will now stand.
Also on October 3, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Massachusetts Libertarian case over presidential substitution. The party had been hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would leave the party’s case open, until the State Supreme Court rules on what the law actually provides. It is possible the State Supreme Court will construe the law to mean that presidential stand-ins are permitted.
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http://pixelpatriot.blogspot.com/2011/09/statute-in-new-york-state-law-defines.html
The original lawsuit in Dallas was over a particularly close election back in 2008. The Democrats eventually were limited to challenging the actual implementation of interpretation of voter interaction with the voting machine.
A federal district court had already upheld a similar implementation for another brand of voting machine used in Travis County, as did the federal court in the Dallas County case.
But the court ruled that Dallas County should have sought specific pre-clearance for the change in the interpretation of voter interaction. The change was not in the implementation on the voting machine, but rather a change compared to the old system where voters would poke holes in punch cards (your article could leave the impression that the voting machines had been modified).
When you punch a hole next to a 2nd candidate on a punch card, you have overvoted. When you punch a hole next to a candidate a 2nd time on a punch card, you have simply made the hole bigger.
On the voting machines, if you select a 2nd candidate, your vote is changed. When you select the same candidate a 2nd time, the vote is cancelled. All this had been explained when the voting machines had been precleared by the USDOJ (twice, once when they were first used for early voting; and when they were deployed for election day).
On a punch card, there is no interface interaction between a straight ticket punch and an individual candidate punch. That is, the voter would have to remember that they had punched a straight Democrat ticket. If there is a race with only a Republican and Libertarian candidate, you would receive no feedback that you had not voted for that office, and on a punch card system, you can’t see the holes while you are voting, so you can’t even see if you have voted for an office.
On the voting machines, if you selected a straight ticket, the parties candidates are highlighted. So if you come to a race without a candidate of your party it shows that you have not voted for that office; and if there is, the candidate of your party is pre-selected.
If you select the candidate again, the vote for that candidate is cancelled, the same as if you had not voted straight ticket, voted for a candidate, and then changed your mind. If you select a different candidate, then the vote is also changed.
So the federal court in essence ruled that Dallas had not explained to the USDOJ completely how the voting machines differed from the punch card system in its error correcting and feedback capabilities. If you had a voting machine that worked identically to a punch card system, you would reject it as defective, rather than purchase it because it would be easier to get pre-clearance.
Dallas went ahead and filed for ex post facto pre-clearance and the USDOJ did not interpose an objection. This was similar to the Democrats having to file their loyalty oath rule in the case where they barred Dennis Kucinich from the primary ballot.
One of the lawyers for the Democrats, Clay Jenkins, is now Dallas County Judge. In that role, he serves as head of the Dallas County Elections Commission, which does not have oversight over elections, but can hire and fire the independent elections administrator.
Under Texas law, the county clerk and the county tax collector-assessor are responsible for elections, with the tax collector-assessor in charge of voter registration (they used to collect the poll tax). Both offices are partisan elected offices.
But a county may appoint an independent elections administrator. The commission is made up of the county judge, the county clerk, the tax collector-assessor, and the county chairpersons of the two largest parties. In Dallas County, the board had not met for over two decades (when they hired the elections administrator).
The elections administrator filed the appeal to the US Supreme Court. That week, Clay Jenkins (who was a lawyer for the Democrats) called a meeting of the elections commission. The elections administrator found out about the meeting (which was ostensibly to do a performance review) from his assistant who heard it from the assistant to John Wiley Price, a county commissioner. Price has no direct authority, but may control Jenkins.
Price met with the elections administrator, who agreed to resign, effective after the upcoming primary election (May 2011). Price apparently went to the county judge, and then went back to the elections administrator with a resignation letter dated immediately, and said Jenkins wanted it that way.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/01/more_from_yesterdays_elections.php
Be sure to watch the video.
The timing gives the appearance of retaliation for appealing the district court order.
The remand of the billing part of the case means that Clay Jenkins is in a position to say on behalf of Dallas County, “let’s just settle this case to cut our legal fees” and then pocket the money as a lawyer for the Democrats.
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