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Justice Division to step up enforcement of voting rights protections

Justice Department to step up enforcement of voting rights protections

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that the Justice Department will swiftly increase its resources dedicated to enforcing voting rights protections, citing a 2013 decision by the Supreme Court as well as bills being pushed by conservatives across the country that aim to tighten election procedures.

In a speech delivered at the department’s headquarters, Garland said that in the next 30 days he will double the civil rights division’s staff dedicated to protecting the right to vote.

The department, he said, had already begun scrutinizing new laws that he said “seek to curb voter access,” as well as policies and measures that are already on the books.

In particular, Garland said the department was reviewing recent studies that showed that, in some jurisdictions, nonwhite people wait in line much longer than white people to vote.

“To meet the challenge of the current moment, we must rededicate the resources of the Department of Justice to a critical part of its original mission: Enforcing federal law to protect the franchise for all voters,” Garland said.

Garland, a former federal judge, said the department’s new steps were inspired by “a dramatic rise in legislative efforts that will make it harder for citizens to cast a vote that counts.”

“So far this year, at least 14 states have passed new laws that make it harder to vote, and some jurisdictions, based on disinformation, have utilized abnormal post-election audit methodologies that may put the integrity of the voting process at risk and undermine public confidence in our democracy,” Garland said.

The attorney general alluded to a 2020 election recount underway in Arizona’s Maricopa County supported by former President Donald Trump. The Justice Department wrote in a letter last month that the review by the state’s Republican Senate may violate federal law.

“Many of the justifications proffered in support of these post-election audits and restrictions on voting have relied on assertions of material vote fraud in the 2020 election that have been refuted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies of both this administration and the previous one, as well as by every court, federal and state, that has considered them,” Garland said.

He added, “Moreover, many of the changes are not even calibrated to address the kinds of voter fraud that are alleged as their justification.”

Garland has been at pains to emphasize the independence of his Justice Department from President Joe Biden, a Democrat, even as he distances the federal agency from its controversial record under Trump, who at times pushed its lawyers to defend his personal interests. Trump has falsely alleged that his loss in the 2020 election was fraudulent.

In addition to the wave of conservative voting bills in states such as Texas, Georgia and Arizona, Garland also cited a Supreme Court decision from 2013 known as Shelby County v. Holder.

The decision effectively struck down the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act, which forced certain jurisdictions with records of discrimination to have election law changes approved by the Justice Department.

Garland recounted that in 1961, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy called into his office the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Burke Marshall, and Marshall’s first assistant, John Doar.

Before the pre-clearance requirement was signed into law in 1965, Garland said, “the only way to guarantee the right of Black Americans to vote was to bring individual actions in each county and parish that discriminated against them.”

“Kennedy told his assistants that was what he wanted to do,” Garland said. “‘Well, General,’ Burke Marshall replied, ‘if you want that, you’ve got to have a lot more lawyers.'”

“Well, today, we are again without a pre-clearance provision,” Garland said. “So again, the civil rights division is going to need more lawyers.”

In addition to beefing up the staff of the civil rights division, Garland said the Justice Department will publish guidance on post-election audits and on early voting and voting by mail. He said the department will also publish new guidance ahead of the decennial redistricting cycle.

“We will publish new guidance to make clear the voting protections that apply to all jurisdictions as they redraw their new legislative maps,” Garland said.

Garland added that the department, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will also pursue criminal charges against those who violate federal laws in spreading election disinformation in efforts to suppress the vote.

“We have not been blind to the dramatic increase in menacing and violent threats against all manner of state and local election workers,” Garland said. “Such threats undermine our electoral process and violate a myriad of federal laws.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in a case over the Voting Rights Act that could have implications for legal challenges against the new voting restrictions. The court has a 6-3 majority of justices appointed by Republicans.

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Garland Pledges Renewed Efforts to Shield Voting Rights

Garland Pledges Renewed Efforts to Protect Voting Rights

Republican-led legislatures in several states including Georgia, Florida and Iowa have passed laws imposing new voting restrictions, and Texas, New Hampshire, Arizona and Michigan, among other states, are considering changes to their electoral systems.

At the same time, hopes have dimmed on the left that Congress will pass two major election bills after Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said he would not support abolishing the filibuster to advance such measures.

Mr. Garland has said that protecting the right to vote is one of his top priorities as attorney general, and his top lieutenants include high-profile voting rights advocates such as Vanita Gupta, the department’s No. 3 official, and Kristen Clarke, the head of the Civil Rights Division. The division currently has about a dozen employees on its enforcement staff, which is focused on protecting the right to vote, according to a department official familiar with the staff.

Despite his pledge, Mr. Garland is still limited in what he can do unless Democrats in Congress somehow manage to pass new voter protection laws. He can sue states that are found to have violated any of the nation’s four major federal voting rights laws. He can notify state and local governments when he believes that their procedures violate federal law. And federal prosecutors can charge people who are found to have intimidated voters, a federal crime.

The Justice Department’s most powerful tool, the Voting Rights Act, was significantly weakened by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down pieces of the act forcing states with legacies of racial discrimination to receive Justice Department approval before they could change their voting laws.

Now the department can only sue after a law has been passed and found to violate the act, meaning that a restrictive law could stand through multiple election cycles as litigation winds its way through the courts.

Any new steps to protect voting rights are unlikely to move quickly, said Joanna Lydgate, a former deputy attorney general of Massachusetts who co-founded the States United Democracy Center. “People will need to be patient,” she said.

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Garland Particulars Justice Dept. Plan to Shield Voting Rights

Garland Details Justice Dept. Plan to Protect Voting Rights

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Friday tabled a detailed plan to protect voting rights, announcing that the Department of Justice would redouble its enforcement staff on the matter, review and act on new laws aimed at restricting voter access and take action take action if it detects a violation of federal law.

Mr. Garland announced his plan as Republican-led state lawmakers push for new restrictive electoral laws and amid dwindling opportunities for comprehensive state voter protection laws introduced by the Democrats.

“To meet the challenge of the current moment, we must devote the Justice Department’s resources to a critical part of its original mission: enforcing federal laws protecting the right to vote for all eligible voters,” Garland said in an address to the department.

The Justice Department will also review current laws and practices to see if they discriminate against non-white voters, he said. It was not clear how many people were working to enforce voting rights and what the total would be after the department added staff.

At least 22 new laws making voting harder have been passed in more than a dozen states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive public policy institute that is part of the New York University School of Law.

Mr Garland also said the department oversees the use of unorthodox by-election checks that could undermine confidence in the country’s ability to hold free and fair elections, adding that some jurisdictions have used disinformation to justify such checks.

“Much of the reasoning given in support of these by-election reviews and electoral restrictions was based on allegations of material fraud in the 2020 elections that have been refuted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, both this and the previous government, as well as any court – federal and state – which it took into account, ”Garland said.

The ministry’s civil rights division has sent a letter expressing concerns that any of these reviews may have violated the civil rights law, Garland said, in part because it could violate a provision of the law that prohibits voter intimidation . He didn’t state which state, but in Arizona, a week-long exam is widely viewed as a partisan exercise to cultivate complaints about Donald J. Trump’s electoral defeat.

The Department of Justice will publish guidelines explaining the civil and criminal law provisions that apply to by-election reviews, guidelines on early voting and voting by post, and will work with other agencies to combat disinformation.

Democrats have sued over some new electoral laws, but this lawsuit could take years to resolve and may have little power to prevent those laws from affecting the upcoming elections.

Two major federal election laws – the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act – are also the subject of heated debates in Congress.

Earlier this week, West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin III said he would speak out against the For the People Act, which dashed hopes among progressives that the sweeping anti-voter suppression bill would become law.

Mr. Garland has said protecting the right to vote is one of his top priorities as the attorney general, and his top lieutenants include high profile proxy attorneys like Vanita Gupta, the No. 3 ministry, and Kristen Clarke, the civil rights director.

Ms. Clarke’s long career as a vocal protection attorney – including with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the New York Attorney General, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law – will make her a key player in the Justice Department’s work to improve access to To receive voting.

That work is made more difficult, however, by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down portions of the electoral law that forced states with a legacy of racial discrimination to obtain the approval of the Department of Justice before they could change their electoral laws.

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Voting Rights Invoice Falters in Congress as States Race Forward

Voting Rights Bill Falters in Congress as States Race Ahead

WASHINGTON — In the national struggle over voting rights, Democrats have rested their hopes for turning back a wave of new restrictions in Republican-led states and expanding ballot access on their narrow majorities in Congress. Failure, they have repeatedly insisted, “is not an option.”

But as Republican efforts to clamp down on voting prevail across the country, the drive to enact the most sweeping elections overhaul in generations is faltering in the Senate. With a self-imposed Labor Day deadline for action, Democrats are struggling to unite around a strategy to overcome solid Republican opposition and an almost certain filibuster.

Republicans in Congress have dug in against the measure, with even the most moderate dismissing it as bloated and overly prescriptive. That leaves Democrats no option for passing it other than to try to force the bill through by destroying the filibuster rule — which requires 60 votes to put aside any senator’s objection — to pass it on a simple majority, party-line vote.

But Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrats’ decisive swing vote, has repeatedly pledged to protect the filibuster and is refusing to sign on to the voting rights bill. He calls the legislation “too darn broad” and too partisan, despite endorsing such proposals in past sessions. Other Democrats also remain uneasy about some of its core provisions.

Navigating the 800-page For the People Act, or Senate Bill 1, through an evenly split chamber was never going to be an easy task, even after it passed the House with only Democratic votes. But the Democrats’ strategy for moving the measure increasingly hinges on the longest of long shots: persuading Mr. Manchin and the other 49 Democrats to support both the bill and the gutting of the filibuster.

“We ought to be able to pass it — it really would be transformative,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said recently. “But if we have several members of our caucus who have just point-blank said, ‘I will not break the filibuster,’ then what are we even doing?”

Summarizing the party’s challenge, another Democratic senator who asked to remain anonymous to discuss strategy summed it up this way: The path to passage is as narrow as it is rocky, but Democrats have no choice but to die trying to get across.

The hand-wringing is likely to only intensify in the coming weeks. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, vowed to force a floor debate in late June, testing Mr. Manchin’s opposition and laying the groundwork to justify scrapping the filibuster rule.

“Hopefully, we can get bipartisan support,” Mr. Schumer said. “So far, we have not seen any glimmers on S. 1, and if not, everything is on the table.”

The stakes, both politically and for the nation’s election systems, are enormous.

The bill’s failure would allow the enactment of restrictive new voting measures in Republican-led states such as Georgia, Florida and Montana to take effect without legislative challenge. Democrats fear that would empower the Republican Party to pursue a strategy of marginalizing Black and young voters based on former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

If the measure passed, Democrats could effectively overpower the states by putting in place new national mandates that they set up automatic voter registration, hold regular no-excuse early and mail-in voting, and restore the franchise to felons who have served their terms. The legislation would also end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, restructure the Federal Election Commission and require super PACs to disclose their big donors.

A legion of advocacy groups and civil rights veterans argue that the fight is just starting.

“This game isn’t done — we are just gearing up for a floor fight,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United and Let America Vote, which are spending millions of dollars on television ads in states like West Virginia. “At the end of the day, every single senator is going to have to make a choice if they are going to vote to uphold the right to vote or uphold an arcane Senate rule. That is the situation that creates the pressure to act.”

Proponents of the overhaul on and off Capitol Hill have focused their attention for weeks on Mr. Manchin, a centrist who has expressed deep concerns about the consequences of pushing through voting legislation with the support of only one party. So far, they have taken a deliberately hands-off approach, betting that the senator will realize that there is no real compromise to be had with Republicans.

There is little sign that he has come to that conclusion on his own. Democrats huddled last week in a large conference room atop a Senate office building to discuss the bill, making sure Mr. Manchin was there for an elaborate presentation about why it was vital. Mr. Schumer invited Marc E. Elias, the well-known Democratic election lawyer, to explain in detail the extent of the restrictions being pushed through Republican statehouses around the country. Senators as ideologically diverse as Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a progressive, and Jon Tester of Montana, a centrist, warned what might happen if the party did not act.

Mr. Manchin listened silently and emerged saying his position had not changed.

“I’m learning,” he told reporters. “Basically, we’re going to be talking and negotiating, talking and negotiating, and talking and negotiating.”

Despite the intense focus on him, Mr. Manchin is not the only hurdle. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, is a co-sponsor of the election overhaul, but she has also pledged not to change the filibuster. A handful of other Democrats have shied away from definitive statements but are no less eager to do away with the rule.

“I’m not to that point yet,” Mr. Tester said. He also signaled he might be more comfortable modifying the bill, saying he “wouldn’t lose any sleep” if Democrats dropped a provision that would create a new public campaign financing system for congressional candidates. Republicans have pilloried it.

“First of all, we have to figure out if we have all the Democrats on board. Then we have to figure out if we have any Republicans on board,” Mr. Tester said. “Then we can answer that question.”

Republicans are hoping that by banding together, they can doom the measure’s prospects. They succeeded in deadlocking a key committee considering the legislation, though their opposition did not bar it from advancing to the full Senate. They accuse Democrats of using the voting rights provisions to distract from other provisions in the bill, which they argue are designed to give Democrats lasting political advantages. If they can prevent Mr. Manchin and others from changing their minds on keeping the filibuster, they will have thwarted the entire endeavor.

The Battle Over Voting Rights

Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him, Republican lawmakers in many states are marching ahead to pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.

    • A Key Topic: The rules and procedures of elections have become a central issue in American politics. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning law and justice institute at New York University, counts 361 bills in 47 states that seek to tighten voting rules. At the same time, 843 bills have been introduced with provisions to improve access to voting.
    • The Basic Measures: The restrictions vary by state but can include limiting the use of ballot drop boxes, adding identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots, and doing away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.
    • More Extreme Measures: Some measures go beyond altering how one votes, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules, clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives, and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections.
    • Pushback: This Republican effort has led Democrats in Congress to find a way to pass federal voting laws. A sweeping voting rights bill passed the House in March, but faces difficult obstacles in the Senate. Republicans have remained united against the proposal and even if the bill became law, it would likely face steep legal challenges.
    • Florida: Measures here include limiting the use of drop boxes, adding more identification requirements for absentee ballots, requiring voters to request an absentee ballot for each election, limiting who could collect and drop off ballots, and further empowering partisan observers during the ballot-counting process.
    • Texas: The next big move could happen here, where Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers.
    • Other States: Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill that would limit the distribution of mail ballots. The bill, which includes removing voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years, may be only the first in a series of voting restrictions to be enacted there. Georgia Republicans in March enacted far-reaching new voting laws that limit ballot drop-boxes and make the distribution of water within certain boundaries of a polling station a misdemeanor. Iowa has also imposed new limits, including reducing the period for early voting and in-person voting hours on Election Day. And bills to restrict voting have been moving through the Republican-led Legislature in Michigan.

“I don’t think they can convince 50 of their members this is the right thing to do,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri. “I think it would be hard to explain giving government money to politicians, the partisan F.E.C.”

In the meantime, Mr. Manchin is pushing the party to embrace what he sees as a more palatable alternative: legislation named after Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who died last year, that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013.

That measure would revive a mandate that states and localities with patterns of discrimination clear election law changes with the federal government in advance, a requirement Mr. Manchin has suggested should be applied nationwide.

The senator has said he prefers the approach because it would restore a practice that was the law of the land for decades and enjoyed broad bipartisan support of the kind necessary to ensure the public’s trust in election law.

In reality, though, that bill has no better chance of becoming law without getting rid of the filibuster. Since the 2013 decision, when the justices asked Congress to send them an updated pre-clearance formula for reinstatement, Republicans have shown little interest in doing so.

Only one, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, supports legislation reinstating the voting rights provision in the Senate. Asked recently about the prospect of building more Republican support, Ms. Murkowski pointed out that she had been unable to attract another co-sponsor from her party in the six years since the bill was first introduced.

Complicating matters, it has yet to actually be reintroduced this term and may not be for months. Because any new enforcement provision would have to pass muster with the courts, Democrats are proceeding cautiously with a series of public hearings.

All that has created an enormous time crunch. Election lawyers have advised Democrats that they have until Labor Day to make changes for the 2022 elections. Beyond that, they could easily lose control of the House and Senate.

“The time clock for this is running out as we approach a midterm election when we face losing the Senate and even the House,” said Representative Terri A. Sewell, a Democrat who represents the so-called Civil Rights Belt of Alabama and is the lead sponsor of the bill named for Mr. Lewis.

“If the vote and protecting the rights of all Americans to exercise that most precious right isn’t worth overcoming a procedural filibuster,” she said, “then what is?”

Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.

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Texas Democrats Stymie GOP Voting Invoice, for Now

Texas Democrats Stymie GOP Voting Bill, for Now

During debate late Sunday, State Representative Travis Clardy, a Republican, acknowledged that advancing the bill through the conference committee had proved to be a lengthy process, but he defended the panel’s methods.

“A lot of this was done late, I don’t get to control the clock,” Mr. Clardy said. “But I can assure you that the members of the committee did their absolute best, dead-level best, to make sure we’ve provided information to all members, including representative rows. And then we did everything that we could to make sure this was transparent.”

The effort in Texas, a major state with a booming population, represents the apex of the national Republican push to install tall new barriers to voting after President Donald J. Trump’s loss last year to Joseph R. Biden Jr., with expansive restrictions already becoming law in Iowa, Georgia and Florida in 2021. Fueled by Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the election, Republicans have passed the bills almost entirely along partisan lines, brushing off the protestations of Democrats, civil rights groups, voting rights groups, major corporations and faith leaders.

But the party’s setback in Texas is unlikely to calm Democratic pressure in Washington to pass new federal voting laws. President Biden and key Democrats in Congress are confronting rising calls from their party to do whatever is needed — including abolishing the Senate filibuster, which moderate senators have resisted — to push through a major voting rights and elections overhaul that would counteract the wave of Republican laws.

After the Texas bill became public on Saturday, Mr. Biden denounced it, along with similar measures in Georgia and Florida, as “an assault on democracy,” blasting the moves in a statement as “disproportionately targeting Black and Brown Americans.”

The Battle Over Voting Rights

Amid months of false claims by former President Donald J. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him, Republican lawmakers in many states are marching ahead to pass laws making it harder to vote and changing how elections are run, frustrating Democrats and even some election officials in their own party.

    • A Key Topic: The rules and procedures of elections have become a central issue in American politics. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning law and justice institute at New York University, counts 361 bills in 47 states that seek to tighten voting rules. At the same time, 843 bills have been introduced with provisions to improve access to voting.
    • The Basic Measures: The restrictions vary by state but can include limiting the use of ballot drop boxes, adding identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots, and doing away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.
    • More Extreme Measures: Some measures go beyond altering how one votes, including tweaking Electoral College and judicial election rules, clamping down on citizen-led ballot initiatives, and outlawing private donations that provide resources for administering elections.
    • Pushback: This Republican effort has led Democrats in Congress to find a way to pass federal voting laws. A sweeping voting rights bill passed the House in March, but faces difficult obstacles in the Senate. Republicans have remained united against the proposal and even if the bill became law, it would likely face steep legal challenges.
    • Florida: Measures here include limiting the use of drop boxes, adding more identification requirements for absentee ballots, requiring voters to request an absentee ballot for each election, limiting who could collect and drop off ballots, and further empowering partisan observers during the ballot-counting process.
    • Texas: The next big move could happen here, where Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers.
    • Other States: Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill that would limit the distribution of mail ballots. The bill, which includes removing voters from the state’s Permanent Early Voting List if they do not cast a ballot at least once every two years, may be only the first in a series of voting restrictions to be enacted there. Georgia Republicans in March enacted far-reaching new voting laws that limit ballot drop-boxes and make the distribution of water within certain boundaries of a polling station a misdemeanor. Iowa has also imposed new limits, including reducing the period for early voting and in-person voting hours on Election Day. And bills to restrict voting have been moving through the Republican-led Legislature in Michigan.

He urged Congress to pass Democrats’ voting bills, the most ambitious of which, the For the People Act, would expand access to the ballot, reduce the role of money in politics, strengthen enforcement of existing election laws and limit gerrymandering. Another measure, the narrower John Lewis Voting Rights Act, would restore crucial parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, including the requirement that some states receive federal approval before changing their election laws.

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Texas Voting Invoice Nears Passage as Republicans Advance It

Texas Voting Bill Nears Passage as Republicans Advance It

In a statement on Saturday, President Biden called the proposed bill, along with similar measures in Georgia and Florida, “an attack on democracy” that disproportionately targeted “black and brown Americans”. He called on lawmakers to resolve the problem by passing democratic voting laws pending in Congress.

“It’s wrong and un-American,” said Mr. Biden. “In the 21st century, we should make it easier, not harder, for everyone eligible to vote to vote.”

Republican lawmakers have often cited voter concerns about electoral fraud – fears fueled by Trump, other Republicans, and the conservative media – to justify new election restrictions, despite no evidence of widespread fraud in the recent American election.

And in their campaign, Republicans have overcome objections from Democrats, constituencies, and big corporations. Companies like American Airlines, Dell Technologies and Microsoft spoke out against Texan law soon after the law was passed, but the pressure has so far been largely ineffective.

The final 67-page bill, known as SB 7, turned out to be the amalgamation of two bulk votes that had worked their way through state legislation. It contained many of the provisions originally put in place by the Republicans, but lawmakers dropped some of the strictest, such as an ordinance on the allocation of voting machines that would have closed polling stations in color communities, and a measure that would have allowed partisan election observers to record the voting process on video.

However, the bill contains a provision that could make it easier to overthrow an election. Texas electoral law found that reversing election results due to fraud allegations required evidence that illegal votes had indeed resulted in an illegitimate victory. If the bill is passed, the number of fraudulent votes required to do so should simply be equal to the difference in the winning votes. It wouldn’t matter who the fraudulent votes were cast for.

Democrats and constituencies were quick to condemn the bill.

“SB 7 is a ruthless law,” said Sarah Labowitz, director of politics and advocacy for the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas. “It is aimed at color voters and voters with disabilities in a state that is already the most difficult voting place in the country.”

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Texas Republicans Finalize One of many Nation’s Strictest Voting Payments

Texas Republicans Finalize One of the Nation’s Strictest Voting Bills

Republican state lawmakers have often cited voters’ worries about election fraud — fears stoked by Mr. Trump, other Republicans and the conservative media — to justify new voting restrictions, despite the fact that there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in recent American elections.

And in their election push, Republicans have powered past the objections of Democrats, voting rights groups and major corporations. Companies like American Airlines, Dell Technologies and Microsoft spoke out against the Texas Legislation soon after the bill was introduced, but the pressure has been largely ineffective so far.

The final 67-page bill, known as S.B. 7, proved to be an amalgamation of two omnibus voting bills that had worked their way through the state’s Legislature. It included many of the provisions originally introduced by Republicans, but lawmakers dropped some of the most stringent ones, like a regulation on the allocation of voting machines that would have led to the closure of polling places in communities of color and a measure that would have permitted partisan poll watchers to record the voting process on video.

Still, the bill includes a provision that could make overturning an election easier. Previously, Texas election law had stated that reversing the results of an election because of fraud accusations required proving that illicit votes had actually resulted in a wrongful victory. If the bill passes, the number of fraudulent votes required to do so would simply need to be equal to the winning vote differential; it would not matter for whom the fraudulent votes had been cast.

Democrats and voting rights groups were quick to condemn the bill.

“S.B. 7 is a ruthless piece of legislation,” said Sarah Labowitz, the policy and advocacy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “It targets voters of color and voters with disabilities, in a state that’s already the most difficult place to vote in the country.”

But Republicans celebrated the proposed law, and bristled at the criticism from Mr. Biden and others.

“As the White House and national Democrats work together to minimize election integrity, the Texas Legislature continues to fight for accessible and secure elections,” State Senator Bryan Hughes, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement. “In Texas, we do not bend to headlines, corporate virtue signaling, or suppression of election integrity, even if it comes from the president of the United States.”

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How Ranked-Alternative Voting May Have an effect on New York’s Mayoral Race

How Ranked-Choice Voting Could Affect New York’s Mayoral Race

The competition for the nomination of the Democratic Mayor of New York City is wide open. It’s the kind of race that a ranking vote is designed to help with, with voters backing their top poll without losing the opportunity to weigh the most suitable candidates.

It’s also the type of race that could test one of the main risks of a ranked poll: a phenomenon known as ballot exhaustion. A ballot is considered “exhausted” when every candidate classified by a voter has been eliminated and this ballot is no longer included in the election.

With so many viable candidates and most New Yorkers first-time ranking polls, all the ingredients for a large number of depleted ballots are in place. If the race is close enough, it is a factor that could even decide the choice.

This possibility does not necessarily mean that New Yorkers are worse off when it comes to voting according to the rankings. However, the risk of exhaustion of the ballot paper is an underestimated reason why the alleged advantages are not always recognized when voting by ranking.

Cities and other local governments have polled eight states and across Maine nationwide. It will be used for the first time this year in the New York Mayor’s Race, allowing voters to rate up to five candidates in their order of preference.

If no candidate receives a majority of the first preferential votes, the race is decided by an immediate runoff: the candidate with the fewest votes in first place is eliminated, and the votes of those who preferred the eliminated candidate are voted on the second of these voters transfer decisions. The process continues until a candidate wins a majority of the remaining ballots.

However, such a system is complicated. It urges voters to use a new and unusual set of rules to make many more decisions than they would normally have to make. As a result, many will not rate the maximum number of candidates. There is a possibility that the election result will be different if every voter has filled out a complete voting slip.

A recent poll by the Manhattan Institute / Public Opinion Strategies found evidence that ballot exhaustion could be a major factor in New York’s mayoral elections. The poll, which asked voters to complete the full ballot, found that Eric Adams led Andrew Yang by 52 to 48 percent in a simulated instant runoff election. Behind the top scores lurked a group of 23 percent of respondents who had rated some candidates but had not rated Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams. If these voters had preferred Mr. Yang, the poll might have turned out differently.

A fatigue rate of 23 percent would be pretty high, but not without precedent. In the 2011 San Francisco Mayor’s Race, 27 percent of the ballots were neither of the two candidates who made it to the finals. And, on average, 12 percent of the ballots in the three special city council elections held in New York City this year were exhausted.

Even a lower percentage of depleted ballots can make a difference in a tight race. An analogous case is the special mayoral election in San Francisco in 2018, in which London Breed prevailed by just under one percentage point. In that race, 9 percent of the ballots rated neither Ms. Breed nor runner-up Mark Leno.

It’s impossible to know for sure, but there are plausible reasons to believe that if each voter had chosen one of the two final candidates, Mr. Leno would have won the election. Mr. Leno, for example, won broadcast votes – those cast by voters who did not select either Ms. Breed or Mr. Leno as their first choice – by a margin of 69 to 31 percent; he would have won if the exhausted ballots had expressed a similar preference.

The large number of depleted ballots in ranked elections might come as a bit of a surprise as the format is designed to ensure voters don’t waste their ballots by supporting non-viable candidates. In the archetypal case, the choice of rank could allow voters to endorse a small party candidate like Ralph Nader without the risk of jeopardizing their preferred large party candidate, whom they could safely move to second place.

Voters, however, do not always have the same degree of clarity about which candidates will make the final round of voting as they would have in the 2000 presidential election when Mr Nader finished third as the Green candidate with almost three million votes. Even without eligibility to vote, the primaries often have flowing multi-candidate areas where clear favorites in the general election are nowhere near as obvious as a Democrat versus a Republican.

Fortunately, ranking voting tends to increase the number of options available to voters and tarnish what may otherwise be a relatively clear final choice. Interest groups and ideological factions have less incentive to group behind a single candidate in a ranked election, knowing that their voters can still group behind a single candidate on election day.

Partly as a result, the number of depleted ballots is highest in wide-open races, where voters have the least clarity about the likely endgame.

In the three ranked special elections for New York City Council seats, the number of ballots exhausted was higher in races without a strong first-round candidate. For example, when the top candidate had only 28 percent of the vote in the first ballot in the 15th district, 18 percent of voters had not rated either of the two best candidates.

Understand the NYC Mayoral Race

    • Who is running for mayor? There are more than a dozen people in the running to become New York’s next mayor, and the primary is on June 22nd. Here is an overview of the candidates.
    • Get to know the candidates: We’ve hired leading mayoral candidates on everything from police reform and climate change to their preferred bagel order and training routine.
    • What is a ranking poll? New York City started voting in the primary this year, and voters can list up to five candidates in order of preference. Confused? We can help.

In the mayor’s primary today, the New York Democrats can’t be sure whether there will likely be a final matchup. There are currently 13 Democratic candidates in the running, at least five of whom can be considered front runners. Andrew Yang, the lead polling candidate for most of the year, has declined in recent polls; others, like Kathryn Garcia, seem to be on the rise. With so much uncertainty, even political junkies may not be entirely sure whether their vote will have an impact in the finals.

Voters who are not political junkies have a very different challenge. Voting according to the ranking is demanding. Voters have to make informed judgments about many more candidates than they would otherwise. Less informed voters are less likely to make such judgments and are therefore less likely to rate the maximum number of candidates, which increases the likelihood that they will not list either of the last two candidates on the ballot.

Other voters may not fully understand how ranking works. In a NY1 / Ipsos poll in April, only 53 percent of likely voters said they were very familiar with the ranking and 28 percent said they were uncomfortable with it.

According to a 2004 study by the Public Research Institute, only 36 percent of San Francisco voters who did not fully understand the ranking rated the maximum number of candidates in the 2004 mayoral contest, compared with 63 percent of those who said at least they did understood pretty well.

In order to take full advantage of the leaderboard choice, voters need to know something that is often not given: it works through the instant drain. This may seem obvious, but it is not mentioned on the ballot, it is not mentioned in the educational material sent by the city (and received at my address), and it is not highlighted on the city’s election website. There isn’t even an explanation as to why candidates are ranked.

Without an explanation of how their ballots affect election results, voters may not understand why it is in their best interest to rate the maximum number of candidates.

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Politics

Black Democrats, Conflicted on a Voting Rights Push, Concern It’s Too Late

Black Democrats, Conflicted on a Voting Rights Push, Fear It’s Too Late

To Jackson’s close-knit constituency, whose members consider themselves torchbearers in the form of Mr. Figgers and Mr. Evers, all of this is evidence of the continued absence of urgency.

“If the people who were most affected were whites, the Democrats would have done something about it a long time ago,” said Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the People’s Advocacy Institute in Jackson. Her brother is the Mayor of Jackson and her late father also played that role. “They thought, ‘Oh, this is just the South,’ and not that what we saw here was going to the rest of the country.”

Mr Holder, who now leads a group focused on redistribution and access to ballot papers, said he would encourage senators to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass the For the People Act if necessary. His group and partners plan to spend $ 30 million to introduce the legislation to voters in states with key senators, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

“The missions are the condition of our democracy,” said Holder. “This is more than a partisan who wins and who loses?” Game. If we are unsuccessful in HR 1 or HR 4, I am really concerned that our democracy will be fundamentally and irreparably damaged. “

He added: “We will still hold elections every two or four years, but they could become almost meaningless.”

Mr. Holder was also something of a suffrage ambassador among the Democrats: last month, he was brought in on a virtual call to the Black Caucus of Congress because some of the older members of the caucus had deep reservations about the For the People, according to those involved with the Planning the call, there is a rare gap between the democratic leadership and the group that is often referred to as “the conscience of Congress”.

In fact, Rep. Thompson was the only Democrat who voted against the bill in the House of Representatives and reversed his stance as a former co-sponsor. In the weeks since then, Mr Thompson has turned down several requests from the New York Times to explain his vote or respond to voters who say it goes against the Southern Democrats’ rich history of defending black voting rights.

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Politics

Texas Republicans Concentrating on Voting Entry Discover Their Bull’s-Eye: Cities

Texas Republicans Targeting Voting Access Find Their Bull’s-Eye: Cities

HOUSTON – Voting in the 2020 election presented Zoe Douglas with a tough choice: As a therapist who met with patients through Zoom late into the evening, she simply couldn’t complete before the polls closed during the early voting.

Then Harris County introduced 24-hour voting for a single day. On the Thursday before the 11pm election, Ms. Douglas met with fast food workers, nurses, construction workers, night owls and other late shift workers at the NRG Arena, one of eight 24-hour polling stations in the county where more than 10,000 people were voting cast their ballots in a single night.

“I can clearly remember people who still wear uniforms. You can tell that they have just left work or maybe go to work. It’s a very varied mix, ”said Ms. Douglas, 27, a native of Houston.

The 24-hour voting was one of the numerous options Harris County had introduced to help residents cast their votes, along with drive-through voting and proactive sending of ballot requests. The new alternatives, tailored to cater to a diverse workforce struggling amid a pandemic in Texas’ largest county, helped increase voter turnout by nearly 10 percent compared to 2016. Nearly 70 percent of registered voters cast ballots, and a task force found that there was no evidence of fraud.

However, Republicans are pushing for action through state law to target the very process that led to such a large turnout. Two bulk bills, including one the house is slated to tackle in the coming week, aim to undo virtually any expansion of the county for 2020.

The bills would make Texas one of the toughest states in the country to pass. And they’re a prime example of Republican-led efforts to roll back access to elections in Democratic cities and populous regions like Atlanta and Maricopa Counties, Arizona, while having far less control over voting in rural areas that tend to be Republicans lean.

Bills in several states indeed create a two-pronged approach to urban and rural areas, raising questions about the different treatment of cities and the large numbers of color voters who live in them. This gap helps fuel opposition from companies that are based in or have a workforce in these locations.

In Texas, Republicans have taken the rare approach of sketching restrictions that only apply to counties over a million residents and target the booming and increasingly diverse metropolitan areas of Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas.

Republicans’ focus on different urban areas, electoral activists say, is reminiscent of the state’s history of racially discriminatory electoral laws – including election taxes and “white primary laws” during the Jim Crow era – that essentially excluded black voters from the electoral process.

Most early Harris County voters were white, according to a study by the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit group. But the majority of those who used drive-through or 24-hour voting – the early voting methods that Republican bills would ban – were people of color, the group noted.

“It is clear that they are trying to make it harder for people to choose who are exposed to everyday circumstances, particularly things like poverty and other situations,” said Chris Hollins, a Democrat and former Harris County interim clerk who advised many of them overseen and implemented policies during the November elections. “With a 24-hour vote, there weren’t even any claims or legal challenges during the elections.”

Efforts to further restrict voting in Texas come against the backdrop of an increasingly tense showdown between lawmakers and Texas-based companies. Republicans in the House of Representatives are proposing financial retaliation for companies that speak out.

American Airlines and Dell Technologies both strongly opposed the bill, and AT&T issued a statement in support of “electoral laws that make it easier for more Americans to vote,” despite no explicit mention of Texas.

American Airlines also dispatched Jack McCain, son of former Senator John McCain, to the Republican lobby in Austin to help lift some of the more stringent restrictions.

Republicans in state legislature appear to be unbowed. In amendments tabled to the state budget this week, House Republicans suggested that “a company that publicly threatened negative reactions related to” electoral integrity “would be ineligible for some state funding.

While these changes did not end up in the final budget, a broader proposal was added to the state’s “wish list,” a compilation of Longshot proposals, threatening companies who comment on “legislative or executive action”. Even if the likelihood of existence is unlikely, the mere inclusion of the proposals on files is viewed by Austin lobbyists and activists as a thinly veiled warning to corporations to keep quiet on voting bills.

The Perryman Group, an economic research and analysis firm based in Waco, said in a recent study that implementing controversial voting measures could result in conferences or events being taken out of the state and causing companies or workers to avoid them. The group estimated that restrictive new laws would cause a huge decline in business activity in the state by 2025 and cost tens of thousands of jobs.

Restrictions in two bulk acts in Texas law include a ban on 24-hour voting, a ban on drive-through voting, and harsh criminal penalties for local election officials who provide support to voters. There are also new limits on the distribution of voting machines, which could lead to a reduction in the number of districts and a ban on the promotion of postal voting.

The bills also include a measure that would make it much more difficult to remove an election observer for inappropriate behavior. Partisan poll observers trained and empowered to observe elections on behalf of a candidate or party have occasionally crossed the line into voter intimidation or other types of misconduct. Harris County election officials said they had received several complaints about Republican election observers over the past year.

Mr. Hollins, a former Harris County employee, said Republicans have recognized that “blacks and browns and the poor and youth” are more likely than others to use flexible choices. “You’re scared of it,” he said.

As Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia and Arizona pass new electoral bills after November’s Democratic victories, Texas pushes for new restrictions despite the support of former President Donald J. Trump with more than 600,000 votes. The effort reflects the dual reality that Republicans are facing in state lawmaking: a base that is intent on voting changes following the loss of Mr Trump in 2020, and a booming population that is becoming increasingly diverse.

Senator Bryan Hughes, a Northeast Texas Republican who sponsored the Senate bill, defended it as part of a long effort to strengthen “electoral security” in Texas.

“I know there is a big national debate going on now and we may get drawn into this, but this is nothing new to Texas,” said Hughes in an interview. He said lawmakers had tried to reset access to email voting as the process was more prone to fraud. He offered no evidence, and numerous studies have shown that electoral fraud is exceptionally rare in the United States.

Mr Hughes said the proposed ban on thoroughfare was due to the difficulty of gaining access to partisan election observers at the sites and that a 24-hour vote was problematic as it was difficult to find election observers to work night shifts.

But many voters in Harris County, with its 4.7 million population ranks third in the country and larger than 25 states, see a different motive.

Kristie Osi-Shackelford, a Houston costume designer who worked on temporary contracts to support her family during the pandemic, was voting 24/7 because it gave her the flexibility she needed when juggling work and her three Raised children. She said it took her less than 10 minutes.

“I’m sure there are people who may not have voted in the last election but got the chance to do so at night, and it’s kind of sad that the powers that be who feel that way have to be taken away for the integrity of the elections to protect, ”said Ms. Osi-Shackelford. “And I struggled to find words because it’s so irritating and I’m tired. I’m tired of hearing the same stuff and seeing the same stuff so blatantly over and over for years. “

Brittany Hyman, 35, was eight months pregnant by the time election day approached and was also raising a 4-year-old. For fear of Covid-19, but also of the mere logistics of navigating a line in the surveys, Ms. Hyman voted at one of the transit locations.

“The opportunity to go through the set-up was a savior for me,” said Ms. Hyman. She added that because she would have been pregnant, she likely would not have risked waiting in a long line to vote.

The Harris County’s drive-through vote, which was used by more than 127,000 voters in the general election, immediately caught the attention of Republicans, who sued Mr. Hollins and the county to outlaw the practice and overturn all votes cast -through process. The Texas Supreme Court ruled against the Republicans in late October.

Other provisions in the GOP bill, while not targeting Harris County as directly, will most likely still have the greatest impact on the state’s largest county. A proposal to provide a uniform number of voting machines in each district could affect the ability to deploy additional machines in densely populated areas.

This month, in another escalation of public pressure on lawmakers, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, gathered more than a dozen speakers, including business leaders, civil rights activists and former athletes, for a 90-minute press conference in which he denounced the bill.

“What is happening here in Texas is a warning shot for the rest of the country,” said Lina Hidalgo, Harris County judge and Democrat, who is campaigning for more electoral access in the county. “First Georgia, then Texas, then more and more states, and soon we will take the biggest step back since Jim Crow. And it’s up to all of us to stop that. “