The California Assembly passed a major piece of voting rights legislation Thursday, bucking the trend of new voter suppression laws that have passed in other states like Texas and Florida.

AB 1436, which passed the Assembly by a 47-26 vote, would remove restrictions on when Californians could register to vote. If it becomes law, citizens would also be able to register at the polls on Election Day.

The AP has more:

Californians who forgot to register for next week’s election may have better luck next time if a bill passed by the Assembly becomes law. [...]

Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said he wrote the bill to address the state’s chronically low voter participation rate.

Right now, Californians are only allowed to register up to 15 days before an election. Passing AB 1436 would change that and significantly boost voter turnout in the Golden State.

In the nine states (plus Washington DC) that currently allow Election Day registration, studies have shown the legislation boosted voter turnout by seven percentage points. Most states that have implemented Election Day registration are small or medium-sized; California could pave the way for large states to embrace this important step in voting rights.

AB 1436 will now advance to the Senate, where Democrats enjoy a 25-15 advantage.

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) denied that his effort to purge voters from the rolls disproportionately targets minorities who support Democratic candidates on Friday morning, even as independent investigations have confirmed that 58 percent “of those flagged as potential noncitizens are Hispanics.” “The Secretary of State’s office is doing the right thing,” Scott told the Miami Herald in defending his effort, before insisting that the administration is “absolutely not” targeting minorities.

Asked if he was planning to heed the Department of Justice’s request that the state abandon its voter-cleansing program, Scott said that the Secretary of State is still reviewing the matter.

“The Secretary of State’s office is going to review what the Department of Justice has said,” he said “And then we’re going to make a decision.”

In a letter released on Thursday, the federal government claimed that Scott’s purge violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act — which requires the state to seek federal approval of its campaign — and the National Voter Registration Act. That measure says that “a State shall complete, not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.” As a result, Florida should have finished the process by May 16.

But while Scott is still considering his options, a growing number of election officials have already rejected his error-ridden voter purge list. A ThinkProgress analysis of several county supervisors in Florida has also found that a large number of the voters on the list are indeed eligible voters, including at least two World War II veterans.

Tell Gov. Rick Scott to put a stop to Florida’s voter purge by adding your name here.

On Wednesday, Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher (D) told ThinkProgress her office has rejected the error-ridden list of alleged non-citizen voters sent to county officials by Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) administration. Now, as the Department of Justice has told Florida to stop its illegal purge, other county elections officials across Florida have confirmed their counties will not comply with the state’s effort:

– Sarasota County: Joyce Soltis, administrative assistant to Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent (R) told ThinkProgress that the county received 14 names of from the state as sure-fire non-citizens. At least two to three of them have already proved their citizenship to the county and one was removed after indicating that he or she was not an eligible voter. Soltis said that while the remaining 10 or 11 voters have not responded, due to the significant inaccuracies on the list, the office has decided “we are not purging anyone” from that group.

– Volusia County: Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall (R) told ThinkProgress that that county received 15 names from the state. One was not even sent a letter, because the voter is currently serving in the military and another has already proven citizenship. But she said they have no plans to remove any of the remaining 13 voters unless her office receives clear proof. “To say the least, the list is very suspect,” she explained.

– Hillsborough County: The Tampa Tribune reported today that Supervisors or Elections Earl Lennard (R) has also decided not to remove any voters on the unreliable list from the rolls without first receiving corroborating evidence that the voters are not citizens.

– Pasco County: Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley (R) told the Tribune that the state had told supervisors that this purge list was “the low-hanging fruit” with “rock-solid data that they were not citizens.” He expressed frustration that the state has put them in a catch-22, complaining “If we truly comply and remove those that don’t respond, then folks say we’re suppressing voter rights. If we don’t, we have people saying we’re allowing non-citizens to vote.”

– Marin County: Because it has proven to be anything but “rock-solid” data, Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis (R), president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told the Tribune that she believes “most of the counties” have decided not to purge any voters without other evidence.

Tell Gov. Rick Scott to put a stop to Florida’s voter purge by adding your name here.

Republicans in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania have elected Steve Smith, a lifelong white supremacist with close ties to neo-Nazi groups and groups like Aryan Nations, to the county’s GOP Committee.

The elections, which took place in late April, were certified by the committee two weeks ago, and Smith notified supporters of his victory last week by posting a message to the online forum White News Now.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented Smith’s participation with known skinhead organizations like Keystone State Skinheads, (now Keystone United) which he co-founded in 2001. And his racist activism extends far beyond violent rhetoric as well, into actual violence:

In March 2003, he and two other KSS members were arrested in Scranton for beating up Antoni Williams, a black man, using stones and chunks of pavement. Smith pleaded guilty to terrorist threats and ethnic intimidation and received a 60-day sentence and probation.

Smith is also an active member of local Tea Party groups, a network that he used to gain support for his bid for the committee seat. According to the SPLC, Smith referred to the Tea Party as “fertile grounds for our activists.”

Luzerne County is hardly a small rural county either. According to the 2010 census, over 320,000 people live in Luzerne, many in the county seat of Wilkes-Barre, a large city of over 40,000 people. And in an interesting juxtaposition with the election of an anti-immigrant bigot, Luzerne County saw the nation’s largest county-level increase of Hispanics between 2000 and 2010.