Voting rights bills and lawsuits megathread (Updated: April 27th 2020)

[Virginiá]

I'm generally in favor of opening the voting process, especially when it comes to AVR and ballot access. I don't understand why anyone thinks straight party ticket options are democratic in a non-parliamentary democracy. I like the CA top two system which is antithetical to straight ticket voting.

I'm kind of indifferent to straight ticket voting, but I see utility in it given that some voters really do only vote party line with or without it. If it saves them time, and perhaps even means the difference between only marking the top races or everything with STV, I'd rather just leave STV. If the voter can vote for the party at the top, then still break on one or two choices, I don't see a problem.

My problem with this is that Michigan is already poor on voter access. They don't have much. I don't appreciate the idea of eliminating straight ticket voting without something else to erase the potential for longer lines. IIRC, Michigan already has problems with lines. Further, there seems to be blatant partisan motivations here, which quite frankly for an issue like this, is a good way to get pushback from someone such as myself. If Republicans had eliminated straight ticket voting but enacted early voting, I'd have been good with that.

[kph14]

HB2541, which would make Hawaii a state which conducts all its elections completely by mail by 2020 has passed the Hawaii House of Representatives 44-3. Hopefully this time around the Hawaii Legislature can get its act together on this issue

[junior chįmp]

Utah legislature passes AVR, heads to Governors desk

[Virginiá]

https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-shorten-atlanta-voting-hours-advances-house/goraM0zz8ft43NldUsjekL/

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Personally I'd rather the state move up by an hour rather than take Atlanta down one, but meh.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-shorten-atlanta-voting-hours-advances-house/goraM0zz8ft43NldUsjekL/

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Personally I'd rather the state move up by an hour rather than take Atlanta down one, but meh.

[junior chįmp]

https://www.twitter.com/Taniel/status/974679383670710273

[junior chįmp]

NJ voting rights bills voted out of committee

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[KingSweden]

NJ voting rights bills voted out of committee

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Sounds like a great package of reforms.

[junior chįmp]

https://www.twitter.com/fineout/status/978748901195952128

[Virginiá]

Admittedly I'm a little disappointed that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't include same-day registration. I was hoping they would just ram through the Democracy Act again, which seemed more comprehensive than this. I also thought they were trying to pass a law forcing Senate vacancy appointments to be from the same party as the previous office holder, but I wonder if they aren't doing that now since Murphy won. That would seem a little shortsighted, unless they are prepared to ram through such a bill in the lame duck period right after a Republican wins another gubernatorial race.

Either way, still excellent news.

[Virginiá]

OK, so I'm just going to put this here (and in the first post) for future posts: This thread's purpose is for updates on pro-voter access reform and to a lesser degree, anti-gerrymandering reform. Big cases like, say, North Carolina's gerrymander getting struck down is OK, but little updates like the DoJ switching to Texas's side to defend their gerrymander is not OK. Not only does that go against the spirit of this thread, but it's such a boring little update to a gerrymandering lawsuit that it's not worth posting here. If some new state passes a completely new voter ID law - eg a big update - that might be something worth posting here too, just don't be a dick about it. Likewise for pro-voter access news please. Little updates like Michigan going from a strict voter ID law to a stricter voter ID law is not really worth mentioning here, just like it's hardly worth mentioning California passing a law requiring public universities to provide voter registration links on student web portals (I posted that here once, but I remarked that it was hardly worth posting, which is true, but iirc it was a slow week/month).

If a conservative/Republican or just plain anti-voter access user would like to keep everyone apprised of the latest efforts to rig Congressional/legislative maps and/or suppress voting via new legislation, by all means, create your own thread and keep it updated. I'm sure there is at least a handful of users here would probably love it. But this thread is not the place to dump what I consider to be a product of this country's worst actors.

The vast majority of users aren't dicks, so this message really is meant for just one person, who probably could care less, but I'm leaving it here to ask that people respectfully post such anti-voting rights news somewhere else.

[Progressive Pessimist]

NJ voting rights bills voted out of committee

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It's nice that I am starting to feel proud of my state again.

[Virginiá]

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/380657-maryland-legislature-passes-automatic-voter-registration

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Given that Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature, this is basically all but guaranteed to pass. I was skeptical that this would pass because a year or so back, the Senate shot down AVR for some reason, but now that it's being sent to Hogan, it seems reasonable to assume its for sure.

[kph14]

https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-shorten-atlanta-voting-hours-advances-house/goraM0zz8ft43NldUsjekL/

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Personally I'd rather the state move up by an hour rather than take Atlanta down one, but meh.

This legislation and another one that was aimed to end Sunday early voting died in the Legislature today.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/981350865859563520

[Virginiá]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

[KingSweden]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

[Virginiá]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

Granted that the backlash was still building at that point, but in hindsight, that must be incredibly frustrating to a lot of party officials. I don't know exactly why that went unopposed, but the rule of thumb should always be that if the president's party is the same party holding that seat, and said president is relatively (or more) unpopular in that state, then every office worth a damn should be contested. Anything less is passing up on an opportunity to rebuild the party. It should have been contested no matter what, but especially that time around!

I mean, looking at it now, that could have meant a state Supreme Court majority before 2020, and maybe even the difference between fair and rigged maps, which is a big deal in WI.

[Gass3268]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

Granted that the backlash was still building at that point, but in hindsight, that must be incredibly frustrating to a lot of party officials. I don't know exactly why that went unopposed, but the rule of thumb should always be that if the president's party is the same party holding that seat, and said president is relatively (or more) unpopular in that state, then every office worth a damn should be contested. Anything less is passing up on an opportunity to rebuild the party. It should have been contested no matter what, but especially that time around!

I mean, looking at it now, that could have meant a state Supreme Court majority before 2020, and maybe even the difference between fair and rigged maps, which is a big deal in WI.

Would have been on the ballot with Tony Evers' landslide. That being said, historically in Wisconsin it's much harder to knock off a sitting Supreme Court Justice, which this would have been. Since 1848, it's only been done twice. Still, it's so stupid they didn't even try.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/982260360320200705

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/982260360320200705

As I understand it, MD also is attempting to get same-day registration passed by putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year. They have it during early voting, but I guess they can't do it on election day without an amendment.

New Jersey and Massachusetts up next

[Slander and/or Libel]

NJ passed its automatic registration!

https://patch.com/new-jersey/longvalley/automatic-voter-registration-signed-law-nj

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

[MasterJedi]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

Just waiting for the "Cuomo is gutter trash, who cares, he's 3vil" posts to come in still.

[Slander and/or Libel]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

Just waiting for the "Cuomo is gutter trash, who cares, he's 3vil" posts to come in still.

Oh, Cuomo is still awful. But awful people sometimes do good things.