On March 3, a U.S. District Court Magistrate ruled that opponents of North Carolina’s 2013 voting restrictions must reveal internal government messages for the period August 12, 2013, to the present, that were between the Governor’s Office, the State Board of Elections, and legislators. The order came in the combined lawsuits filed by the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, and the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking to overturn 2013 changes in the voting process. Specifically, the plaintiffs are challenging the reduction in early voting days, the loss of same-day voter registration, and the elimination of out-of-precinct provisional voting.

The state argued that the messages between these branches of state government for the period after August 12, 2013, are irrelevant to the lawsuit, because the bill that made those election law changes (HB 589) had been signed that day. The state had already agreed to reveal such messages made prior to August 12, 2013. But the court ruled that the messages for the period after the bill was signed might be just as relevant to the lawsuit as the earlier messages.

The reason the internal government messages are relevant to the lawsuit is that the plaintiffs are trying to show that the 2013 changes were motivated by a desire to discriminate against certain kinds of voters. The lawsuit argues that the changes violate the federal Voting Rights Act, and the 14th amendment. The lawsuit is North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v McCrory, middle district, 1:13cv-658. See this story.

On February 28, an Arkansas Circuit Court declared that six new restrictions on the petitioning process that relate to initiatives and referenda violate the State Constitution. The State Constitution says, “No law shall be passed…in any manner interfering with the freedom of the people in procuring petitions.” Here is the eleven-page opinion. The case is Spencer v Martin, Pulaski County, cv-13-4020. The restrictions had been passed in 2013.

The laws held to violate the State Constitution are: (1) the signer must fill out all blanks himself or herself, which includes printed name, signature, address, birth date, and date of signing; (2) when the sponsors submit a batch of signatures, the petitioning process must stop until the signatures are checked, and then it can start again; (3) the sponsor must submit a list of all paid circulators in advance, with the address of the circulator, and a picture of each petitioner that was taken less than 90 days ago; (4) an entire sheet is invalid if voters from two different counties signed that petition, unless all the signatures from residents of one of those counties are lined out; (5) the law that says a “paid circulator” means a circulator who was given anything of value.

Some of these laws might have been upheld if they weren’t so vague. There are many restrictions on paid circulators that are not applied to volunteer circulators, but plaintiffs argued that under the definition of “paid circulator”, even a volunteer who is given a bottle of water or a T-shirt (with a message about the initiative petition) would perhaps be considered “paid.” Also the law requiring voters to fill in all the blanks doesn’t apply if the voter is “disabled”, but that term is not defined. Thanks to Paul Jacob for this news.

On March 3, six candidates for California Secretary of State debated each other in Los Angeles, including three Democrats, one Republican, one Green, and one independent. See this story, or this story.