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

[Virginiá]

Nice!

Ohio might be getting Congressional redistricting reform as well, and Pennsylvania has a lawsuit in state courts challenging the constitutionality of partisan gerrymander under what will be either a 5 - 2 or 6 - 1 Democratic majority. On top of that, Gov Wolf might still be there in 2021 to veto rigged maps.

The best case scenario of Democrats breaking the back of the GOP's northern gerrymanders is actually not that much of a fantasy anymore.

[Virginiá]

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/michigan/articles/2017-11-20/anti-gerrymandering-group-defies-odds-with-2018-ballot-drive

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Looks like this is all but guaranteed to go before voters in 2018, barring some sort of shenanigans or clever legal challenge.

Also lol @ Republicans and their new committee to oppose this:

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So shameless.

[Virginiá]

I don't understand, is that even newsworthy? Has the IDC actually shown any willingness to stop with its shenanigans?

Also this isn't particularly germane to this thread. You could start a thread for this in the Gubernatorial/Statewide elections board if you want.

[Virginiá]

Well that is excellent! You know, if Democrats could just get all the actual Democrats to vote on it, they could pass major election reform - things like same day registration, early voting, etc. It's ridiculous that a state as Democratic as New York has some of the least permissive voter access laws in the country.

Hopefully Democrats can get the IDC to come to their side, but more importantly, hopefully that would be a first step in dismantling it entirely. Long-term, it's not good for Democrats to have those parasites constantly trying to leverage more and more perks, such as sizable stipends, or else threatening to go to Republicans. That is a huge disservice to the voters who thought they were voting for an actual Democrat.

[Virginiá]

That would be an interesting court decision. Wouldn't that make government lists of all sorts illegal? There is nothing requiring states to even have voter registration, and just being registered doesn't force them to vote.

This is a pretty weak argument against pro-voter reforms

[Virginiá]

This would appear to be purely partisan politics here, since younger voters are more likely to be Democratic voters.  

Partisan politics is what guides most changes to election law by Republicans.

[Virginiá]

This would appear to be purely partisan politics here, since younger voters are more likely to be Democratic voters.  

Partisan politics is what guides most changes to election law by Republicans.

Unfortunately what I've seen in IL is that it guides most election law changes when Dems control.a state, too.

True. It might be more fair to replace 'Republicans' in my sentence with 'political parties' but I wanted to dump on Republicans for a moment there.

[Virginiá]

BIG, if true

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Are there any updates on what the IDC is doing? Because these kinds of reforms would take every single non-Republican vote in the state Senate to pass. I really hope he can ram it through but I'm not too confident right now.

[Virginiá]

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Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that either. I knew they had taken up AVR a couple years ago but for one reason or another they dropped it after Republicans kept raising privacy concerns. Also, Maryland does have same-day registration already, but only for early voting (I think it was due to go into effect in 2018). Glad to see they are going full speed ahead with this stuff.

[Virginiá]

Very intredasting map of all the places Dems could pass AVR via ballot initiative:



It's a shame the Dems are so terrible at strategy that they aren't pouring money into this

Arizona and Michigan are the two states that really stand out at me. It's really something else that after somany years of intense Republican efforts to game election rules to their advantage, that Democrats haven't fought back in ways they know could make an impact. AZ and MI are two places where AVR might be of help.

However, some caveats about some of the other states:

1. Nevada - AVR actually is going to be on the ballot in 2018. It was already approved. Sandoval had a chance to sign it into law before it went to the voters but of course he vetoed it.

2. Ohio - There was an effort to get it on the ballot this year but for some reason it fizzled out (afaik)

3. MT/ME (+WA) - These states already have same-day voter registration, and WA doesn't have SDR but it has mail voting which substantially boosts turnout as it is. AVR is not all that necessary in these states, but fwiw, WA might implement some form of AVR due to Democrats taking back the legislature.

4. North Dakota doesn't have voter registration at all

5. Massachusetts is getting a lot of pressure to implement it, so they might. However, recently the state's voter registration deadline was struck down by a state court and iirc, that ruling was upheld on appeal, so in 2018 it should have de-facto same-day registration. If so, AVR isn't particularly useful here. As an intensely pro-voter access proponent, I'd root for it, but it won't make much difference in the end.

6. ID/WY/UT/SD/MO/OK/AR/MS/NE Don't really even need it. Sure, the left could try to get it on an initiative, but what rewards would they get for their efforts? These states are not competitive, except possibly Missouri (mostly downballot). I will concede that NE-02 is competitive, but who knows what it looks like in 2022 and beyond.

7. Florida - This is a big one for me. All this opportunity in Florida and Democrats have done nothing, meanwhile Republicans raised the initiative vote requirement to 60% over a decade ago and have even eyed trying to raise it further due to their dislike of voters actually getting policy they want. Only now are Democrats trying to eliminate the felony disenfranchisement rules that block almost 1/4 of African American adults from voting! HOWEVER, because of the 60% vote requirement and the expensive nature of fielding a viable initiative, there is a decent amount of risk here. If Republicans mounted a large campaign against it and pro-AVR groups had no resources to fight back, it might not be hard for the FLGOP to poison the electorate with incorrect and misleading information about AVR.


At this point, I'd rather Democrats push redistricting reform in Missouri, Ohio and also to get redistricting commission initiatives in Florida, since Rick Scott is attempting to stack the state Supreme Court by illegally replacing 3 retiring justices minutes after his term ends. Since Scott has been aggressive in appointing partisan judges, I think we all know how the state court will rule on future challenges to GOP maps.

[Virginiá]

Mississippi could be much more competitive in Presidential elections with AVR.

Not really, no.

[Virginiá]

Mississippi could be much more competitive in Presidential elections with AVR.

Not really, no.

if someone who inspires black turnout is on the Democratic ticket, then it's possible.

Again, no. You are vastly overestimating the effects of these kinds of services, and maybe also forgetting that automatic registration would also register a ton of white voters who are overwhelmingly Republican in MS. Plus, depending on how comprehensive the AVR bill was, a lot of black voters without drivers licenses wouldn't get registered as well.

Election reform can only go so far. It can't magically erase a double-digit Republican advantage overnight. I'd say maybe at best it could add 0.5% - 1% to the Democratic vote share, if that. If Mississippi is destined to become competitive, it isn't going to happen because of AVR, and it likely won't happen for years yet.

[Virginiá]

^^ This is even better than I thought. I've been waiting years to finally see some major movement on this stuff, and I think the next 2 years will finally satiate me

[Virginiá]

Judge ends consent decree limiting RNC 'ballot security' activities

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/09/rnc-ballot-security-consent-decree-328995

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I wonder how long it will take the party to go back to its roots on this. It's possible they won't, but given all the effort they have put into restricting voter access over the past decade, I'm not too optimistic.

[Virginiá]

Washington Senate Democrats unveil a massive voter access improvement package.

snip

Here is an article about it: https://thinkprogress.org/washington-democrats-ambitious-new-voting-rights-agenda-120f776f9843/

Most of the attention is going towards the proposed Voting Rights Act, which is mainly intended to force local governments to change the way they elect politicians. For instance, there are a number of cities/towns where minorities have less representation than they should mainly due to polarized voting and at-large seats. This bill would make it easier and less costly to sue for relief.

The automatic voter registration bill would only apply to people with commercial licenses, as WA apparently can't verify if people are citizens or not (at least that is the justification they offer). I'm not sure if this AVR bill includes other state agencies.

I'd say same-day registration is probably one of the best provisions, but I wonder how that works here. Doesn't WA conduct all-mail voting? How many places can people in each county vote in-person?

[Virginiá]

Just wanted to add - it doesn't matter what the districts look like. SCOTUS will probably hold it until they rule on Whitford, but if they come out against partisan gerrymandering, North Carolina's lawsuit is open and shut. They admitted it was a partisan gerrymander in a comical effort to insulate themselves from a lawsuit on racial grounds, and Lewis specifically said the only reason he didn't draw an 11R - 2D map was because he didn't think it was possible. In other words, he believed this was the most partisan map he could put together. Of course if SCOTUS opts to allow map rigging to continue, then we might see a different final outcome.

Anyway, there are numerous threads for this topic and an entire board for map-related stuff, so can we please keep discussion of gerrymanders here to a minimum?

[Virginiá]

yayyyy +11111

Finally some movement on election reform. New Jersey should be the next big one this year, hopefully well before November so at least some of the reforms can be in place for the election.

[Virginiá]

yayyyy +11111

Finally some movement on election reform. New Jersey should be the next big one this year, hopefully well before November so at least some of the reforms can be in place for the election.

I should mention I’m unimpressed by what WA Dems are doing, but better than nothing

What other reforms would you like included?

I'm assuming that what they announced was not watered down, in which case pre-registration for 16/17 year olds, same-day registration and limited auto-reg (commercial licenses only), along with the state VRA for reforming local govt elections, is still in effect.

In general I like all of that, but there are a couple things I wish they'd do: (1) Verify citizenship status to enable full auto voter reg, and (2) Prepaid mail ballot postage so people don't have to look around for stamps and such to send in their ballots. I believe Oregon had at least considered this, but I don't think they did it.

[Virginiá]

You hit the nail on the head. 1 and 2 are exactly my quibbles. This is pseudo AVR, not what Oregon has done.

I also still don’t get how Same Day Registration works when all ballots are mailed or deposited in drop boxes.

I guess it would allow people to walk into some sort of government office to register and vote right then and there. I'm not exactly sure where this would be allowed, though.

[Virginiá]

Right, but how do they know what ballot to give you?

I suppose they could always keep ballots there for every possible election going on that takes place in that county. Or, and while I'm not sure how the ballots are made and the rules around that, they could make it there based on the address provided by the voter. They wouldn't be the only state that allows same-day registration at a city/county office. There are a handful of SDR states that only allow registration/voting at such places - Montana, California, etc.

[Virginiá]

I’m sure people smarter than me have thought of all this. I just think this is an odd priority when free postage on ballots would probably have a bigger impact

Yeah, I'm not sure why it doesn't get more consideration. I was thinking that it may be the cost. 2016 would have cost a couple million dollars at least, depending on how many ballots they send out. At least 1.5 million based on the total number of votes. So, off the top of my head, with local elections, midterms and presidential elections throughout the years, you're probably talking about 11 - 13 million per decade, with costs increasing as the electorate grows. With that kind of required budget, lawmakers may want to know if it'll actually boost turnout, or just subsidize the postage of people who were going to vote anyway. AVR would probably boost the costs too if auto-reg'd people automatically get ballots.

Unfortunately, in some states where Democrats actually have power, lawmakers tend to stick to the "big ticket" policies (or worse) that they see working in other states. Few states have all/most-mail voting, and none prepay postage (afaik), so they might be hesitant to pick up tab with no studies on it to back it up.

[Virginiá]

Such an exciting time for gerrymandering lawsuits!

The federal panel that heard a challenge to 12 Virginia House of Delegates districts (as racial gerrymander) should be issuing a ruling sometime in the next 1 - 2 months, at least based on their schedule from the initial hearing, before SCOTUS asked them to reconsider using a different standard.

[Virginiá]

NY Dems introduced their voting rights expansion bill today

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Some of the reforms include:

-Making voter suppression and intimidation a crime punishable with a misdemeanor
-Automatic voter registration
-Pre-register 16 & 17 yr olds
-Expansion of absentee voting abilities
-Allowing casting of ballot by mail
-Early voting
-Unification of state and federal party primaries, which are currently split between June and September

No same-day registration? I would have thought that SDR would make the cut, given how AVR skews the registration benefits more towards non-city regions, even when you add in other state agencies.

Either way, all of this would be a huge achievement and benefit to New York if enacted, but I'm still skeptical it will pass the state Senate. Time will tell I suppose!

[Virginiá]

^ Digging a little more, I found the press release:

https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/andrea-stewart-cousins/new-yorks-broken-democracy-senate-democrats-fight-fix

It's actually a veritable smorgasbord of reforms that make me salivate, but still skeptical of their chances.

Also something I didn't know that I learned from that link is that New York has a registration deadline baked into the state constitution (10 days prior), so they have to amend it first to enact same-day registration. Fortunately, that is part of their efforts.

[Virginiá]

Also, independent redistricting commission bill in PA has gained enough GOP and Dem sponsors to pass:

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Makes sense. Given that Democrats are actually positioned to pass their own map for legislative districts due to the current commission setup, Wolf's reelection prospects and now the state Supreme Court's ruling on partisan gerrymandering, there is really no upside for Republicans to obstruct reform. Not unless they want to play a long (long) game with no guarantee of success.

Also, is that reform bill just a regular bill or maybe part of a package that includes a constitutional amendment? Doesn't seem right to do it in a way that can be reversed easily by the majority party at the time of redistricting.