Two New Briefs
Briefs were filed today in two significant voting rights cases pending before federal courts of appeals.

The first is the Plaintiffs' response to the petitions for rehearing in Stewart v. Blackwell. (Disclosure: I'm one of the attorneys for Plaintiffs in this case. I don't yet have the cover page, but will add it when I do.) This is the case in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Ohio's use of non-notice voting equipment violates the Equal Protection Clause, given the substantially greater likelihood that voters in counties using that equipment will have their votes rejected. There's also a claim of race discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which the panel remanded. The Sixth Circuit panel's opinion is described here and available here, and the Defendants' petitions for rehearing may be found here.

The other case is Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections/Indiana Democratic County v. Rokita, which is a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law. The district court rejected the Indiana Democratic Party and Indiana Civil Liberties Union's claims in this order. The IDP today filed this brief in support of their appeal in the Seventh Circuit. - posted by Dan Tokaji @ 5:45 PM