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CHANGE Illinois

CHANGE Illinois is a nonpartisan, nonprofit leading systemic government and election reforms. CHANGE (the Coalition for Honest and New Government Ethics) champions ethical and efficient government and democracy and includes a diverse group of civic, philanthropic, business, labor, professional, and nonprofit organizations representing millions of Illinoisans. CHANGE Illinois works in collaboration with like-minded reform organizations, playing a leadership role in convening and facilitating efforts around shared policy agendas. The coalition works to improve challenges that undermine our democracy, including gerrymandering, restricted ballot access, voter suppression, uncompetitive elections, corruption, lack of government transparency and unethical lobbying, all of which have led to disillusionment and a decrease in civic participation.

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Redistricting
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Progressives' final indictment of gerrymanders cites voting curbs

Manipulating district lines is just one way politicians stay in power. Another is by making it harder for the electorate to vote them out. A new report by a liberal think tank concludes that partisan gerrymandered legislatures have led to more voting restrictions — "a power grab on top of a power grab."

The Center for American Progress study, released Wednesday, found that Republicans in four states used map-guaranteed statehouse majorities to enact voting restriction (such as photo ID laws) and block easements to the ballot box (like longer early voting periods) — efforts that have proven particularly burdensome for communities of color, which usually vote Democratic.

The report is the fourth and final in a series designed to show why the cause of redistricting reform — turning district map drawing over to independent commissions — should be more of a priority for the left. The first, in December, blamed partisan gerrymandering for an absence of new gun controls this decade. The others cited the system for limiting Medicaid expansions and curtailing government spending on child care and education.

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Voting
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Members of the Crow tribe in Montana, seen participating in a 2018 powwow, are among those who sued over a new law restricting who can pick up and deliver mail-in ballots.

Judge blocks Montana ballot harvesting law at tribes' urging

A Montana judge has blocked new state restrictions on the collecting of others' ballots, a victory for Native American tribes that say their members rely on the help.

The law probably violates the tribal members' right to vote because it would make it especially difficult for them to make sure their own ballots got from reservations and other remote areas to election offices, District Judge Jessica Fehr of Yellowstone County said Tuesday in putting a hold on the requirements.

Her injunction, while not final, is nonetheless the latest voting rights victory for people in Indian Country, who say too many election rules disregard their special circumstances and amount to suppression. It's also the latest turn in the generally partisan battle over so-called ballot harvesting.

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Voting
Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

The convention center was the only polling place in Louisville on primary day, but complaints were limited.

Suit wants Kentucky to keep mail voting rules eased but delay ID law

When it comes to elections during the pandemic, Kentucky has stood apart in two ways. It instituted one of the nation's most restrictive voter identification laws just as the coronavirus was shutting government offices that issue ID cards, but its leaders also cut an unusual bipartisan deal resulting in one of the smoothest vote-by-mail primaries so far.

A civil rights group has now sued to make the state abandon that first move, but stick with the second, at least through the November election.

Filed Tuesday in state court, the lawsuit comes early in what's likely to become a flood of litigation to make voting for president easy and safe this fall. While most states have made accommodations for their primaries, they have not done so for the general election.

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Redistricting
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Michigan has been the biggest redistricting battleground this decade.

Michigan GOP fails again to stop new redistricting panel

Another Republican attempt to block Michigan's independent redistricting commission was dismissed Monday by a federal judge.

The state Republican Party's lawsuit argued that restrictions on who may serve on the new panel violated the free speech and free association rights of potential GOP commissioners — the same argument a federal appeals court rebuffed just three months ago.

Battleground Michigan has been at the heart of the gerrymandering debate since the start of the decade, when Republicans took control of Lansing and drew some of the most assertively partisan legislative and congressional maps in the country. In response, 61 percent in a grassroots-driven 2018 referendum decided to turn the next decade's line-setting over to a panel outside the control of politicians.

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