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

[Virginiá]

Gov. DeSantis continues to look into ways to cripple the ability of reformers to use Florida's ballot initiative process to change state policy:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Suggests Separate Election Day For Ballot Questions

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2019/06/12/florida-governor-ron-desantis-suggests-separate-election-day-for-ballot-questions/

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants to look into the idea of holding a separate election for proposed constitutional amendments.

DeSantis said this would be a way to declutter the ballot and allow voters to focus on ballot proposals.

“If we’re going to do these amendments, maybe have those be stand-alone elections,” DeSantis said during a Jacksonville event. “Maybe it would cost a little more money for the state, but at least people would know when they’re going, that’s the reason I’m going.”

What better way to pass constitutional amendments than with the approval of a tiny sliver of the state voting-age population?

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1139198289784451072

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1140638228887719943

[Virginiá]

Looks like redistricting in Arizona could play out differently this time around:

https://twitter.com/yurijrudensky/status/1170002030854922240

[Virginiá]

Election Day Voter Registration Clears California Legislature

https://www.courthousenews.com/election-day-voter-registration-clears-california-legislature/

California would become the 12th state to allow same-day voter registration at polling places on election day after the Legislature passed a bill Wednesday that heads to the governor’s desk.

California previously passed a law in 2012 that lets voters register on Election Day but only at a limited number of county election offices and satellite locations, sometimes resulting in long lines late into the night.

SB 72, introduced by state Sen. Thomas Umberg (D-Santa Ana), would make same-day registration available at every polling place in the state. If approved by the governor, it would take effect in 2020.

A mere 15% of the state’s 25.2 million eligible voters live in a county with more than one location offering election day registration, according to California chapters of the ACLU and League of Women Voters.

In 2018, voters in Los Angeles and Orange Counties waited in lines up to four hours late into the night to register to vote at county election offices on Election Day.

Umberg said this bill will ease the burden on voters who missed a registration deadline but still want to participate in democracy.

This is great news obviously, but it should go without saying that this provision should have been included in the original SDR bill from 2012. What did they think was going to happen by only allowing same day registration at county offices - often only one location per county? This is what Michigan Republicans did to try and blunt Prop 3 - they restricted SDR to county clerk's offices only, severely limiting the ability of citizens to make use of the service.

Any version of same day voter registration that doesn't allow registration at polling places is not even a half measure. It's like a 1/5th measure. It's just not enough, especially for a state like California, where the poor results in urban centers would be very predictable.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1173629796099579904


*crosses fingers*

[Virginiá]

Spreadsheet of voting rights lawsuits filed or supported by Priorities USA. Dem-aligned groups on seriously flooding the country with lawsuits to reverse voting restrictions ahead of 2020:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tItfaXberubQLhQr5MSm_0-O7vopQauuMb0ekVNfcxI/edit#gid=0

[Virginiá]

lol:

https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1214565062909710338

Not sure how accurate that statement is.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1214576833196281856

New Jersey also moving on things like online voter registration, ending prison gerrymandering, and ending felony disenfranchisement of those on parole/probation.

[Virginiá]

Impressive haul:

https://apnews.com/f6986724bcdaaac6aaed3276b9a97c7e

The political action committee for a voting rights group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams on Wednesday reported raising more than $14.6 million in the last half of 2019.

A big chunk of Fair Fight’s haul came as a single $5 million donation from Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg in December, according to a report filed with the Georgia state ethics commission.

The group reported having $11.1 million in cash on hand.

Although not sure what they plan to spend it on. In service of expanding voting rights, the most effective use of their money would be ballot initiatives, in my opinion. Other groups are already spraying the courts with lawsuits over voting restrictions and voter registration isn't really the purview of a voting rights group.

[Virginiá]

Crazy good Virginia legislative session - better than I was expecting. Some bills yet to be signed by the governor, but the list looks likely to be at least this:

Same-day registration (effective October 2022)
Automatic registration
No-excuse absentee voting, extended absentee voting period
Pre-paid postage for absentee ballots
Permanent absentee mailing list
Extended voting hours during early voting and election day from 7pm to 8pm
Election day made a holiday (not necessarily good for voter access)
Strict voter ID law significantly softened - basically rolls back all Republican-backed changes since Obama was elected.

+ other changes


I'd also note the redistricting amendment, but that has to be approved by voters. I'm also not convinced it is a good thing, either. Democrats had a chance to pass an actual reform amendment, but couldn't seem to force that. This amendment doesn't actually prohibit partisan gerrymandering. It just structures a commission in such a way that it makes it unlikely, because it requires buy-in from members of the other party. Failure to adopt maps punts it to the Virginia State Supreme Court, which in some ways is a partisan body whose members are elected by the General Assembly to 12 year terms. So a court "elected" by Republican lawmakers is responsible for drawing maps that indirectly determine whether or not they keep their jobs when their term(s) are up. Massive conflict of interest if I ever saw one. The bench has a vested interest in seeing Republicans retain control of the GA, so they themselves can keep their judicial positions. But many of the stakeholders were so desperate for anything that they latched onto this flawed amendment as if it were the only option. Another option would have been to pass a better amendment and have it force a redraw of legislative/Congressional maps after it goes into effect, which would be post-2022 elections, if approved.

[Virginiá]

WTF were Virginia Democrats thinking agreeing to this weak tea anti-gerrymandering law?!? They could have either past an amendment creating a bona fide independent redistricting Commission like Iowa, or if they wanted to play true Hardball and say F you two states like North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, etc etc, they could have ran through a vicious redistricting of Their Own after the ongoing census. I'm not in favor of the ladder to be honest, but why they left things up to a court-appointed by the same hacks who were elected to office through gerrymandering to begin with and like you said have a vested interest in maintaining that, is indecipherable.

Most of the Democrats in the House of Delegates did vote no, but like 8 or so voted for it, along with every single Republican. There was a lot of pressure from activists and reformers, and unlike Republicans, who have a lot of experience in ignoring public sentiment and ramming through unpopular power grabs, Democrats cave much more easily.

[Virginiá]

Very impressed with my namesake!

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1251933811396337665

[Virginiá]

You know, before, even I can accept that Republicans aren't all wrong about the idea of people putting a little effort into voting. Of course, even if I think many people are just too lazy about all of it, I still disagree with the idea that voting procedures should remain unfriendly and complicated just because.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic is really driving home how much of the GOP is driven to create complicated and unforgiving election rules for the sake of helping them win, and not because of some belief in a more "dedicated" electorate:

https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1254584413167419392

From @marceelias:

Oklahoma has 2 million registered voters.  If only half of them vote by mail, the state will need a minimum of 50,000 notaries--each notarizing their full 20 max.

There is no good reason to shoot down a small little change like this in the middle of a pandemic. If you're going to require a ballot to be notarized in order to be turned in (seriously?), at least increase the # of ballots a single notary can process. A person who seeks out someone to notarize their ballot should be sufficiently dedicated for any reasonable person. What good does this artificially low limit do? What, are they afraid of rogue actors notarizing bajillions of ballots and stealing elections? Give me a break.

Is this how petty and power-driven things have gotten? Do Oklahoma Republicans seriously think this change is going to make or break them? Oklahoma is basically a one party state, and that is not going to change anytime soon. Utah Republicans get this, which is probably at least part of the reason they have made voting easier, bucking the dominant trend in national conservative election policy.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1255228519279452161

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1258185142553792516

Honestly, once Trump is gone and a Democrat takes over again, I don't want to hear a single godforsaken word about their nominees competence or objectiveness. With Trump, it's been nothing but a parade of unqualified hacks, donors, family members and friends taking positions of power in the government. And  If Republicans are completely fine with Trump doing this, don't expect Democrats to give a single crap about their "concerns" with the nominees of the next Democratic president.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1257648740778868736

Andddd the response from the legislature:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1258516845365059584

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/politvidchannel/status/1272964934872133633

I suppose it's good either way, but much less so since the GOP-led legislature passed a bill instituting the same kind of poll tax Florida Republicans did after the passage of Amendment 4. Granted, the FL judiciary practically runs a racket by shaking down people passing through the court system, so I'm not sure if Iowa has the same issue and thus would block a similar number of felons from getting their rights back.