Good news in from Texas. This from Think Progress:

A federal judge in Texas has blocked a key provision of the state’s recent voter suppression law that limited the ability of outside groups to register new voters.

The law, which was passed by the Republican-held legislature in an emergency session last year, placed new restrictions on groups like the League of Women Voters, making it significantly more difficult for them to register voters. The law also imposed a strict voter ID requirement for the state, which has since been blocked by the Department of Justice.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a formal investigation into Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law that, by some estimates, could disenfranchise nearly one in 10 eligible voters—mostly people of color, students, seniors and low-income voters. The bill mirrors other voter suppression laws Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed in recent years based on model legislation from the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

A second Wisconsin judge has found that the state's voter ID restriction—built on a template from the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—creates a “substantial impairment of the right to vote” and violates the state’s constitution.  

Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan wrote the law:

tells more than 300,000 Wisconsin voters who do not now have an acceptable form of photo identification that they cannot vote.

Earlier this year, Ohio Republican lawmakers pushed through legislation curtailing the state’s early voting period. Yesterday, a suit was filed in federal court to block the voter suppression law. Previously early voting had been allowed through the Monday before the election. The Republican bill cuts off voting on the Friday before Election Day for all voters except military personnel. In 2008, an estimated 93,000 votes were cast during the last three days of early voting in Ohio.

Going door to door in a Phoenix neighborhood to register voters, Mari Yepez, a canvasser with UNITEHERE!, met a man who told her he didn’t believe in voting. Yepez, a student at Arizona State University who has worked with the union to mobilize residents around such issues as the state’s harsh immigration law and the struggle to find good jobs, shared with him how she had come to realize the importance of voting.

“We as a community have to come together to make this happen,” Yepez told him. “Imagine what we could do if we all joined together.”

The man ultimately not only registered to vote but was enthusiastic about going to the polls in November.

With tea party politicians attacking voting rights in states throughout the country, Yepez and other volunteers across the nation are trying to make sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot and that every vote will be counted. Together with community groups, unions and the AFL-CIO, these volunteers are making every vote count.

Find out more here.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed three controversial election reform bills Tuesday—going against his fellow Republicans—that would have made it difficult for legitimate voters to participate in elections.

The AFL-CIO today announced a far-reaching, multi-partner campaign to register voters, ensure they can cast their ballots without intimidation and follow through to make sure those votes are counted. Speaking at a press conference here in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said this campaign represents the union movement’s most aggressive push ever because:

the attacks we are seeing on the right to vote are unprecedented.

Thanks to @phyrefyter for the tip on this item from Think Progress:

The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg is claiming that 18-year-olds should be denied the right to vote because they are “so frickin’ stupid about so many things.” In a video first posted by The Daily Caller, Goldberg laments the culture’s obsession with youth and argues that conservatives should “beat out” young people’s belief that “socialism is better than capitalism.” Goldberg is the third National Review writer in two months to face controversy:

Sending a strong signal that voter suppression efforts won't be tolerated, the Justice Department sent a letter Thursday evening to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because its process has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act, according to Talking Points Memo (TPM), which broke the story.

This just in from the Brennan Center for Justice:

A federal judge blocked enforcement of key provisions of a restrictive voting law in Florida today, a breakthrough victory for Florida voters and voting rights advocates nationwide.