Though Republicans enjoy full control over Maine’s lawmaking process, they’ve dropped a push to require certain photo identification in order to vote.

Though Maine Republicans were considering voter ID legislation at the beginning of the year, Democrats vociferously objected because the bill could prevent thousands of Mainers from voting, particularly elderly individuals. On Friday, Republicans acceded to those objections, striking the voter ID language from an election law bill. This is the second time voter ID has failed to pass the GOP-controlled Maine legislature. Last year, a voter ID bill failed in the Senate after first being passed by the House.

In 2011, half a dozen states passed similar voter ID measures, from Texas to Wisconsin to South Carolina. As a result, millions of poor, rural or minority voters could be barred from voting in the 2012 election, a level of disenfranchisement not seen since the Jim Crow era.

Maine Republicans were chastened during the 2011 session after they passed a bill to eliminate the state’s 38 year-old law allowing for Election Day registration, only to see their move overturned by a citizens veto in November. More than 60 percent of Mainers rebuked the legislature and voted to restore Election Day registration.

State Rep. Diane Russell (D) pointed to this episode to explain why Republicans opted against pursuing voter ID again this year. “Last November, 60% of Maine voters overwhelmingly rejected the Republican election suppression agenda,” Russell, who sits on the committee that removed the voter ID language, told ThinkProgress. “It is a real testament to Maine voters that Republicans decided against pursuing another failed election suppression policy by killing voter ID.”

Former state Sen. David Trahan (R), who served until December 2011, agreed with this take. “I do think that the referendum question–Question 1–changed that dynamic,” Trahan told the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. “And I think you’re going to see some gun-shy folks revisiting something to do with voting.”

Friday’s move likely puts voter ID to rest in Maine for 2012.

Earlier this month, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) set off alarms by claiming there was evidence that over 900 dead people had voted in his state’s recent elections. The charge has since been echoed in a wide array of media outlets, nowhere more prominently than Fox News.

Although the state has not disclosed the names of the 900 zombies who allegedly showed up at the polls, Wilson did provide six names which he claims are on the list. Yet a preliminary review of these six by the South Carolina State Election Commission reveals six far more innocent explanations (bolds are ours):

• One was an absentee ballot cast by a voter who then died before election day;
• Another was the result of an error by a poll worker who mistakenly marked the voter as Samuel Ferguson, Jr. when the voter was in fact Samuel Ferguson, III;
• Two were the result of stray marks on the voter registration list detected by the scanner – again, a clerical error;
• The final two were the result of poll managers incorrectly marking the name of the voter in question instead of the voter listed either above or below on the list.

When ThinkProgress wrote about Wilson’s charge two and a half weeks ago, we noted that nearly every time someone makes dead voter allegations, the culprit ends up being “a spelling error, a check-in error, or simply a death shortly after Election Day.” Indeed, clerical errors and a death close to Election Day is precisely what happened in Abbeville County, not voting from the grave.

Though Fox News ran multiple segments hyping the allegations that dead people had tainted South Carolina’s elections, a preliminary review shows that the cable station has yet to report on the State Election Commission’s review debunking Wilson’s charge.

In many ways, this is the major problem: “dead voter” claims are sexy, getting reported far and wide nearly every election. Yet when the allegations are inevitably shown to be false, far fewer news outlets follow up. As a result, many people never learn that dead voters didn’t taint South Carolina’s recent elections.

Every few years, officials undertake the same Scooby Doo-routine, claiming to have uncovered damning evidence of dead voters, only to ultimately conclude that simpler explanations account for the inconsistencies. Just like Maryland and California in 1994, Georgia in 1998, or New Hampshire in 2004, South Carolina is the latest state to put on the “dead voter” Kabuki performance.

A Romney-affiliated Super PAC is currently airing an attack ad in South Carolina which falsely suggests that Rick Santorum supports allowing felons in prison to vote. Tonight, Santorum confronted Romney about the ad, stating that his record and his view that felons who have served their time and completed their probation and parole should have their right to vote restored.

Santorum then pressed Romney whether he also believes people who have served their time should be allowed to vote, explaining the importance of the issue:

This is Martin Luther King day. This is a huge deal in the African American community because we have very high rates of incarceration, disproportionately higher rates particularly with drug crimes in the African American community. The bill I voted on is the Martin Luther King voting rights bill. And this was a provision that said — it particularly targeted African Americans. And I voted to allow them to have their voting rights back once they completed their sentence.

Romney tried to dodge the issue, finally stating, “I don’t think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.” Santorum pushed back, correctly noting that while Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the state employed a policy of allowing violent felons to vote not only after they completed their sentence but also while they were on probation.

Romney blamed the Democratic legislature in Massachusetts for the bill, and disowned any affiliation from the Super PAC running the attack ad (despite the fact that he’s raised money for the group). Watch the heated exchange:

“Voting is the foundation stone for political action,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once said. “The basic elements so vital to Negro advancement can only be achieved by seeking redress from government at local, state and Federal levels. To do this the vote is essential.”

As ThinkProgress’ Marie Diamond previously reported, “Hispanic and black communities are disproportionately effected by these laws, with 13 percent of adult black men barred from exercising their constitutional right to vote. Denying former felons the vote can also hold back their successful rehabilitation and reintegration into society.”

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) turned heads this week when he initiated an investigation into whether 900 dead people voted in recent Palmetto State elections.

The Republican AG called for an investigation when “evidence was uncovered by Kevin Shwedo, the director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, during an extensive review of data related to the state’s new voter ID law,” according to WSOC TV.

Wilson is hardly the first person to claim that “dead voters” marred his state’s election. However, while salacious accusations like Wilson’s grab headlines, the subsequent investigations that find no voter fraud rarely get as much attention. Indeed, no election would be complete without allegations of dead voters; yet each time, officials perform the same Scooby Doo-routine, investigating wild accusations before discovering a much simpler explanation for the discrepancies.

Consider the following examples of supposedly “dead voters,” courtesy of the Brennan Center for Justice:

Georgia: In 1998, Georgia investigators pointed to a vote cast by Alan J. Mandel, despite his death the year prior. When officials looked into the matter, according to the Washington Post, they realized that the votes had been cast by Alan J. Mandell (with two L’s), a man still very much alive, and poll workers had simply marked off the wrong name.

California: When Michael Huffington lost to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the 1994 Senate race, he contested his defeat by alleging voter fraud, including supposed votes cast by dead people. According to Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Lou Cannon, “A check by voting registrars in two populous counties (Alameda and Fresno) found that this claim was based on clerical errors in which voters signed their names on the wrong lines.”

Maryland: An investigation into a claim that 89 dead Marylanders had voted in the 1994 election proved spurious when FBI officials were unable to find any such cases. According to Timothy P. McNally, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Maryland-Delaware field office, the closest evidence they came to finding fraud was when they “found one person who had voted then died a week after the election.”

New Hampshire: Following allegations that dead people had voted in New Hampshire’s 2004 general election, a subsequent investigation turned up little evidence. When officials sent postcards to the homes of possible “dead voters,” only one was returned as undeliverable; the woman in question died after Election Day but before she received the postcard.

It’s easy to allege that dead voters are undermining the integrity of our electoral process. Producing any evidence that voter fraud by dead people actually exists is far more difficult.

Indeed, behind nearly every dead voter accusation is a far more innocent explanation. Whether it’s a spelling error, a check-in error, or simply a death shortly after Election Day, minor discrepancies do pop up during elections; zombie voters, less so.

Officials like Wilson would do well to apply Occam’s Razor in matters like these before spinning wild accusations.

If voting legislation in 2011 centered largely on hindering access to the ballot box, 2012 will hopefully be defined as the year that voting rights began fighting back.

Last year, a rash of anti-voting legislation popped up in states around the country, from Florida to Texas to Wisconsin. New laws banning anyone without photo IDs from voting (commonly known as “voter ID”) grabbed the headlines, in part because of their potential to disenfranchise over 3 million citizens in the 2012 election, but lesser-known legislation emerged as well. This included shortening early voting periods, permanently disenfranchising felons no longer in prison, trying to remove voters’ ability in some states to register on election day, and making it more difficult for outside groups like League of Women Voters to register citizens.

Reeling from 2011′s setbacks, lawmakers in a number of states are introducing legislation this year to recoup many of those voting rights that were taken away. Courtesy of Project Vote, here is a rundown of some of the state legislation being introduced that will improve, rather than hinder, access to the polls:

FLORIDA: In 2011, Florida passed one of the most onerous election reform bills of any state in the nation. The law reduces early voting from 14 days to eight and drove out third party registration groups like the League of Women Voters by requiring third party registration groups to turn in all registration forms within 48 hours of completion. A new bill, SB 1636, would increase the early voting period to 15 days and allow third party groups 10 days to turn in completed registration applications.

NEW YORK: A number of positive bills have been introduced in New York. AB 293/SB 1556 would establish early voting up to two weeks before an election. AB 1684 would allow citizens to register on Election Day. And AB 5915/SB 1009 would make it illegal to knowingly deceive voters about the time or place of an election.

VIRGINIA: A bill to restore voting rights for people who have been convicted of a felony and completed their sentence was recently prefiled.

WASHINGTON: HB 2204 would allow for citizens to register in person on election day, while setting the deadline for registering to vote online at eight days prior to the election.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) also introduced federal legislation last month to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentence.

Public advocates hope the tide of anti-voting legislation has been stemmed and this rash of new legislation will help restore many of those rights that were recently lost. ThinkProgress will continue to monitor their progress and report on the overall state of voting rights across the country.

Two weeks ago, the Justice Department refused to “preclear” South Carolina’s new voter ID law, ruling that it would discriminate against minorities and therefore violated the Voting Rights Act.

Texas, another state covered under the Voting Rights Act, could soon meet the same fate if it is unable to provide sufficient evidence that its law does not also discriminate against minorities. The Justice Department is currently reviewing Texas’ move and has requested the state for more information about the law’s effect on minorities. Once that information is received, the DOJ will rule within 60 days.

ThinkProgress spoke with Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R), a key proponent of the new law, about the upcoming ruling earlier this week. Dewhurst, who is running for his state’s open Senate seat this year, warned that if the Justice Department rules that Texas’ voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act, such a move would be “unconstitutional.”

KEYES: Do you worry that that same fate (regarding the Justice Department ruling against South Carolina’s voter ID law) is going to happen to Texas as well?

DEWHURST: In Texas we passed what I believe to be a very good and constitutional bill that requires some photo identification to vote. That is a simple procedure for protecting the integrity of our voting system. It’s a principle in America: one person, one vote. For the Justice Department to interfere with that process would be wrong and I believe unconstitutional.

KEYES: You think it’d be unconstitutional if they ruled against the voter ID law in Texas?

DEWHURST: If the Justice Department were to come down on our Texas law, they would be wrong under the Constitution because I believe we’ve had our law looked at over and over again and I feel comfortable it is constitutional.

Listen to it:

Dewhurst’s view that enforcing the Voting Rights Act would be unconstitutional is unfortunately becoming more commonplace among modern conservative cognoscenti. Former senator and current Mitt Romney advisor Norm Coleman told ThinkProgress last year that we should “absolutely” consider gutting the Voting Rights Act, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argued that his state should be exempted because it has “outgrown” racism. Earlier this year, Arizona filed a lawsuit claiming that the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, and there is a very real risk that the Supreme Court’s conservatives will agree with them. If this view should prevail, a pillar of the civil rights movement that has successfully protected the rights of minorities for nearly 50 years could become a relic of history.