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NBC News: Justice Department to challenge Texas voter ID law

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-By Pete Williams, NBC News

August 22, 2013- Justice Department officials say they'll launch a few legal fight to block the Texas voter ID law.

Texas lost the first round when the federal government refused to give the state permission to enforce the law, under the preclearance part of the Voting Rights Act. But now that the Supreme Court has taken that power from the government away, the Obama administration is launching a new effort.

"We will not allow the Supreme Court's recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights," said Attorney General Eric Holder in a written statement.

The government will claim that the voter ID law violates a different section of the Voting Rights Act that was left intact by the Supreme Court's decision.

FULL STORY HERE:

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The Examiner: Jailed: GOP candidate hit with jail time for voter fraud

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-By Robert Sobel

August 9, 2013- A Republican candidate who ran for a Massachusetts state House seat in 2012 has been sentenced to a year in jail after he plead guilty to voter fraud.

During the 2012 election, Jack Villamaino ran in the Republican primary for a state House seat in Massachusetts. Villamaino resigned last year as the scandal broke during the Republican primary and was the East Longmeadow Board of Selectmen chairman. Villamaino plead guilty to felony charges of stealing nearly 300 ballots and changing their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in an attempt to win the election. Only a few days later, the same number of absentee ballot requests found their way to the town clerk’s office and the list was a “name-for-name match” compared to the list that Villamaino had changed.

FULL STORY HERE:

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Huffington Post: Supreme Court Strikes Down Arizona Voter Registration Citizenship Requirement

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-By Jesse J. Holland

June 17, 2013- States can't demand proof of citizenship from people registering to vote in federal elections unless they get federal or court approval to do so, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a decision complicating efforts in Arizona and other states to bar voting by people who are in the country illegally.

The justices' 7-2 ruling closes the door on states independently changing the requirements for those using the voter-registration form produced under the federal "motor voter" registration law. They would need permission from a federally created panel, the Election Assistance Commission, or a federal court ruling overturning the commission's decision, to make tougher requirements stick.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the court's majority opinion, said federal law "precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself."

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Huffington Post: Sheldon Adelson’s Woes Mount With Grand Jury In Las Vegas Sands Money-Laundering Probe

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-By Peter H Stone

June 5, 2013- The legal headaches besetting billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. now include a grand jury in Los Angeles, part of a federal money-laundering probe of his Nevada-based casinos, The Huffington Post has learned.

The involvement of a federal grand jury, not previously reported, suggests an escalation of the money-laundering investigation into Sands and one of its executives, being led by the U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, according to a person with direct knowledge of the inquiry. The person requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the grand jury’s work, which is not public.

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The Hill: Defeated Democrat sues the IRS for
allowing ‘mad scientist’ campaign ads

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-By Bernie Becker

February 19, 2013- A former Democratic congressional candidate and a government watchdog are suing the IRS, claiming the agency has allowed political groups to flout campaign finance laws.

In their lawsuit, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and David Gill, who lost a razor-thin election in 2012, say that the failure of the IRS to keep so-called 501(c)(4) groups out of politics has allowed a flood of anonymous money into the political process.

“Disgracefully, the IRS has sat on its hands for the last two election cycles while 501(c)(4) groups have been formed expressly to run negative attack ads funded by anonymous donors,” Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said in a statement.

“When called out, the IRS has said only that it is ‘aware’ of the public’s concern. Now the IRS can explain its deplorable inaction in federal court.”

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MSNBC: GOP’s electoral vote scheme likely illegal in Virginia

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-By Zachary Roth

January 25, 2013- A scheme under consideration in Virginia to rig the Electoral College in Republicans’ favor could well violate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, experts on the law say. But that very provision is itself under challenge by the GOP, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court later this year.

A Republican bill that would allocate Virginia’s electoral votes based on the popular vote in each congressional district cleared its first hurdle in the state legislature Wednesday. Had the bill been in effect in the last election, Mitt Romney would have won 9 of Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, despite losing the popular vote in the state to President Obama by nearly 5 percentage points.

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Huffington Post: Supreme Court Rejects Republican National Committee Attempt To End Anti-Voter Intimidation Order

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-Associated Press

January 14, 2013- WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has turned down an effort by the Republican National Committee to end a 30-year-old court order aimed at preventing intimidation of minority voters.

The justices did not comment Monday in rejecting an appeal of lower court decisions that left the order in place at least until 2017.

The order stems from a lawsuit filed by Democrats in New Jersey in 1981 that objected to a "ballot security" program the RNC ran in minority neighborhoods.

Republicans said the order hampers efforts to combat voter fraud, but U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise said voter intimidation remains a threat and preventing it outweighs the potential danger of fraud.

FULL STORY HERE:

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