[Lnc-business] Husted v. APRI: Amicus Brief Final Draft

[Oliver Hall]

Greetings,

Please find attached a PDF of the amicus brief as filed on behalf of the 
Libertarian National Committee in /Husted v. A. Philip Randolph 
Institute/, No. 16-980.

After the executive committee meeting addressing this matter, I reviewed 
the draft brief and sent a lengthy list of comments and corrections, 
including those I received from committee members, to our counsel from 
Wilmer Hale. I also discussed these concerns with counsel by telephone. 
I believe the changes the firm made to address committee members' 
concerns are acceptable, although in some cases I would have preferred 
different wording. I have included detailed notes on several of those 
changes below, to provide a sense of how the concerns raised were 
addressed in the final draft.

I wanted to address one point in particular: the Wilmer team thought it 
important to indicate that principled non-voting is not the same as an 
anarchist's complete abstention from the process. Therefore, although I 
had suggested replacing any mention of not voting in "a single election 
cycle" with more general language referencing "abstaining from the 
electoral process," the Wilmer team tried to chart a middle path between 
those two options. I agreed that was an appropriate strategy, since we 
are only arguing for a constitutional right not to vote based upon the 
choices, or lack thereof, in particular election cycles, and not 
necessarily the constitutional right not to vote under any and all 
circumstances.

I know that committee members were not pleased with how little time the 
committee had to review and approve this brief. That is understandable. 
It should not have happened. In the future, I will make sure it doesn't.

Thank you and I hope this final draft meets your approval.

Sincerely,

-- 
Oliver B. Hall
Special Counsel
Libertarian National Committee
617-953-0161


_*Comments on Changes to Final Draft of Amicus Brief*_

Page 3, second sentence: "But the Ohio policy at issue—a 
“use-it-or-loseit” rule whereby a registered voter is deemed 
“inactive,”commencing a process that can result in thevoter being purged 
from the voter rolls, because he orshe did not vote during a single 
election cycle—alsoraises serious constitutional concerns."

  * Inthe draft form, this sentence stated that a voter could be purged
    "merely for not voting in a single election cycle"; the addition of
    "commencing a process that can result..." makes thesentence
    accurate, even thoughit still contains the "single election cycle"
    language

Page 3, last paragraph: reference to "a particular election cycle" 
waschanged to plural, "particular election cycles"

Page 3, last full sentence: "Commencing a process to remove voters from 
the rollsbecause they did not vote in a single election cycle 
underminesvoters’ ability to take this type of political 
action,penalizes them for their acts of political expression,and is akin 
to forced political activity."

  * In the draft form, this sentence simply began, "Removing voters from
    the rolls because..."; again, as revised, this sentence is accurate,
    despite containing the "single election cycle" language

Page 4, first paragraph: the reference to "particular election cycle" 
has been changed to the plural, "particular election cycles"

Page 4, first paragraph: contains acomplete and accurate statement of 
how the statutory scheme works as applied, including the steps of 
mailing a notice, and then failing to vote in two subsequent election cycles

Page 13, first full paragraph: the sentence beginning, "Coercing them to 
vote," now includes the language "if they choose to abstain from the 
electoral process"

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