Law Exam
October 25 Lecture Notes
Voting Rights
Bush v Gore
Presidential election 270 votes for the electoral college
To win the nomination
States get to decide how they apportion the electoral votes
Some states are all or nothing if you get 51% of the popular votes then you get all the electoral college of the state whereas others will give you the districts you win
Al Gore wanting the recount in the democratic districts
Secretary of state in florida had to certify the votes by November 18th bound by law
Suing to the Florida Supreme Court directly with the recount of the vote and extended the date for the secretary to Florida 26th
Bush sues back to the US Supreme Court
No meaningful method to count
The voting machines
The supreme court overruled the florida supreme court
Then they recounted every single vote
Gore demanding an indefinite amount of time by the people
December 18th all the electors come together and cast their votes
The court on their own brought up an equal protection clause argument every person has a right to have their vote counted so long as it is within our laws and within the federal law
November 26th is the certification date that they used
2 major things
Florida Supreme Court in the past had a swing to democratic side so gore went there
The US Supreme Court in the past had a swing to the conservative side so bush went there
The ruling was Bush won
As a representative democracy the voice of the people is absolutely necessary
For representative process the 3/5 compromise with slaves being counted as 3/5 of a person
538 electors total 100 senators 435 states 3 additional 270 absolute majority
1870 15th amendment is enacted
You can’t stop people from voting based upon their race color and previous servitude
19th amendment—women’s suffrage
24th amendment—no poll tax
26th—age of 18 years old to vote
Voting rights act passed by congress in 1965
Shelby County in Alabama sued the Federal Government as Congress had reauthorized the voting rights act for an additional twenty five more years
Shelby county claimed that congress had extended their powers by extending the voting rights act for the additional time
Especially section 5 being added to the voting rights act to freeze any discriminatory requirements to cover jurisdictions in election laws
Done to guarantee the 14th and 15th amendment
14th amendment—equal protection
15th amendment every citizen has the right to vote not being impeded by race religion or previous condition of servitude
Section 4b: the main argument by Shelby county claiming that Congress had exceeded its powers the formula added in section 4b that stated jurisdictions and/or states that included certain tests or devices to determine eligibility of voting with certain individuals
Shelby county said this was too antiquated and jim crow laws have been out of date for a long time now and congress had exceeded its power
The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the use of the formula covered in section 4b of the law the antiquated formula was outdated
The US Supreme Court did not say that Section 5 was unconstitutional (did not base its ruling on section 5) it focused upon section 4b it claimed that if Congress wanted to reauthorize section4b it needed to come up with a new formula that was able to met the current times and current citizens rights and needs
Nutshell: Shelby v Holder
Cant do anything discriminatory part 2
Section 4 a formula to determine if you have been discriminatory
Section 5 if you are subject under section 4b then you need to go the attorney general
4b still exists in a skeleton form
Voter ID laws: the nun who was running the polling station who had to turn away her fellow sisters for not having ID
Many of these cases are aggregated and they sue
Voter ID—they put all these cases together and the opposing side don’t put up a single person that says they would have voted if they had their id or certificate and the other side couldn’t put up a single person that said there was fraud everywhere
The supreme court said that voter id laws are valid and constitutional
Voter ID law is valid and is on the TEST
Shelby v Holder is on the TEST
