The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will be holding a free phone forum on Rules for Tax-Exempt Organizations During An Election Year. The Forum is scheduled for June 9, 2008, and will be repeated the following day. Space is limited and will be reserved on a first-come basis, and organizations may register as a group. According to the IRS, the forum will discuss the distinctions between political activity, lobbying and general advocacy, and which activities are permissible by 501(c)(3) charities, 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, 501(c)(5), 501(c)(6), and 527 political organizations. Participants can submit questions, in advance, to be answered during the sessions.

The session on June 9 is scheduled for 10:00-11:00 a.m. (EST) and on June 10 for 1:00-2:00 p.m. (EST). For information on how to participate and to reserve a spot, click here.

BNA Money and Politics ($$) reports that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is considering a project to look at 501(c)(4) organizations. During the American Bar Association Section of Taxation conference session on election issues for tax-exempt organizations, Judith Kindell, a tax law specialist in IRS's rulings and agreements section, addressed the issue of 501(c)(4)s. "Immediate contact does not work well for 501(c)(4)s, she said, because the issue for them is 'are they paying the appropriate amount of tax?; do they have an activity that is their primary activity that is in furtherance [of their tax-exempt purposes?] You can't just look at one activity, you have to look at the full scope of their activities, so we do have some plans to do that look-back.' she said." Kindell recommended that lawyers report to the IRS if they witness (c)(4)s that exceed their permitted activity. 501(c)(4) organizations may engage in partisan political activities, as long as it is not their primary purpose.

Greg Colvin of Adler & Colvin, who moderated the panel on election issues, said reporting on political candidate campaign activity includes describing the activities, indicating the amount of money spent, and reporting volunteer hours. Now that the information must be revealed, it could be the basis for IRS determining that some organizations, such as 501(c)(4)s, have violated the prohibition on political activity not being their primary purpose, he said. The reporting will be intense if you are a 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), or 501(c)(6) and engaged in some political activities, he said. Organizations will have to jump through hoops involving a separate segregated fund or political action committee and the Section 162 nondeductible business tax, to name a few.

According to Rock the Vote, more than six million voters under 30 have cast ballots in the 2008 primaries and caucuses so far. A very conservative estimate is that this more than 2.2 million more than voted in the most recent comparable primaries.

To learn more, check out Rock the Vote's recently updated 2008 Primary Turnout Factsheet.

According to a May 12, 2008 story in the New York Times— Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship — lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a constitutional amendment that would enable election officials to require proof of citizenship to register as a voter in the state. Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect— argue that it is necessary to prevent illegal immigrants from voting.

Jon Greenbaum, a former voting rights official at the Department of Justice and now the director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a liberal advocacy group, is quoted in the article, saying,

"Everyone has been focusing on voter ID laws generally, but the most pernicious measures and the ones that really promise to prevent the most eligible voters from voting is what we see in Arizona and now in Missouri."

The amendment pending in Missouri follows the recent Supreme Court decision in April in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, in which the Court ruled that Indiana could require photo-ID of voters at the polls.

Arizona is currently the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. Since the requirement was implemented in 2004, more than 38,000 voter registration applications have been rejected by Arizona election officials.

For more on the repercussions of the recent Supreme Court voter ID decision, see OMB Watch's blog — Supreme Court Voter ID Consequences.

Indiana's primary was Tuesday May 6 and news reports detailed accounts of nuns and students who were unable to vote.

The effects of the Supreme Court decision were also felt outside of Indiana in various state legislatures. In Kansas, lawmakers approved a voter ID measure similar to Indiana's law. It would not go into effect until 2010, and some expect a veto from Governor Kathleen Sebelius. And in Missouri under a proposed constitutional amendment, voters could decide whether to enact a similar photo ID requirement for voting.

These events illustrate why voter education and poll-worker training should be expanded under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Voting should be made easier rather than harder. A compelling editorial in the New York Times titled, "Voting Rights Are Too Important to Leave to the States," recommends that Congress "set minimum voting rights standards that would apply nationwide and ensure that all eligible Americans could vote."

Congress should also regulate voter challenges at the polls. Parties and candidates often use bad-faith challenges as a dirty trick — to intimidate voters or to slow down voting in certain neighborhoods. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has a good bill that would require challengers who are not election officials to sign an affidavit stating why they believe a specific voter is not eligible.

On May 1, 2008, in a 2-1 decision the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled a North Carolina law prohibiting political action committees from accepting individual contributions of more than $4,000 to be unconstitutional.

In North Carolina Right to Life v. Leake, the Court of Appeals found that the contribution limit as applied to committees making only independent expenditures did not further the state's interest in preventing corruption, therefore burdening the right of political association. As in the Supreme Court's Wisconsin Right to Life decision, the Fourth Circuit Court also found that it was unconstitutional to rely on contextual factors to determine whether a communication "supported" or "opposed" a candidate. The opinion states such "standards typically lead to disputes over their meaning and therefore litigation."

[A]ny attempt to identify communications as election-related without focusing on words that explicitly label them as such threatens to infringe on protected First Amendment liberties. . . . Therefore, . . . a communication can be deemed the "functional equivalent of express advocacy only if [it] is susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." The purpose of this requirement is to avoid chilling political expression by forcing a speaker to have to defend his communication from regulation.

Some consider the case to be an "issue that is surely headed to the Supreme Court either in this case or in another case, such as the SpeechNow.org case." SpeechNow.org is challenging federal campaign finance law as too restrictive of independent political groups and as a violation of the First Amendment.

An article in BNA Money and Politics ($$) reports that the new Form 990 requires organizations to provide more information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on their political activities.

Referencing a recent court decision that determined that the IRS should not have revoked the tax exempt status of a 501(c)(4), Craig Engle of the law firm Arent Fox, commented that the "IRS has a mixed record in being able to back up its efforts in court. . . . [the decision] might encourage similar [501(c)(4)]groups to increase their political involvement."

The four-page Schedule C of the new Form 990 requires filers to describe their "direct and indirect political campaign activities." It also asks for detailed information about Section 527 political organizations to which a filer has contributed. Another part of the schedule asks for detailed information about a filer's lobbying activities, including direct lobbying to influence legislation, as well as "grass roots" lobbying to influence public opinion.

When the draft Form 990 was released OMB Watch submitted comments on the political activities section, Schedule C.

A few days after the Supreme Court upheld the Indiana voter ID law, a press release announced that Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) introduced legislation to allow Election Day registration at polling places for all federal elections. "The Election Day Registration Act addresses chronic problems with the American electoral process — low voter turnout and archaic voter registration laws. Election Day registration is also seen as preferable to advance registration since voters are actually present when they register, reducing opportunities for fraud." On May 1, S.2959 was introduced in the Senate and HR 5946 in the House.

And meanwhile, after continuously denying third-party voter registration assistance on the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) property, the VA has issued a directive that creates a "voter assistance program." This includes offering assistance to all incoming patients, and for the first time, the directive also provides a process for allowing third-party voter registration drives. This news comes after an exchange between Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Kerry (D-MA), and VA Secretary James B. Peake over whether VA facilities should be designated as "voter registration agencies" within the definition of the National Voter Registration Act. Senator Feinstein's press release calls that directive "a major step forward in providing voter registration access to veterans in the department's care."

"The directive stops short of designating VA facilities as voter registration agencies. However, the directive requires that VA facilities create comprehensive voter registration plans to assist veterans in registering to vote. It also requires the VA to publicly post voter registration information for veteran facility inpatients and requires that the VA facilities provide absentee voter applications if patients cannot leave the facility."

Unfortunately, the directive may be limited to patients, which may not include resident of homeless shelters on VA property or outpatients who come to VA facilities to receive services.

Read an AlterNet article on the VA's change of policy here.