News
Electoral inequality for Native Americans detailed in expansive study
The title of an expansive new report on Native American voting rights, "Obstacles at Every Turn," is no exaggeration in light of the document's contents.
The report, written after nine public hearings over two years featuring 120 witnesses, presents a stark look at the barriers faced by the nearly 5 million American Indians of voting age. It also makes clear that many of them will be effectively disenfranchised if the country embraces voting by mail at the expense of in-person polling places.
"The first people on the land should not be the last to vote," concludes the study by the Native American Rights Fund, which advocates for better treatment for tribal members by the federal and state governments.
Another expansion of voting options ordered by California's governor
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wants more changes to make voting easier this fall in the nation's most populous state. And he's pushing his Democratic colleagues in the Legislature to turn his moves into law, expecting that would brush back Republican lawsuits seeking to keep the status quo in place.
The governor's latest executive order, announced Wednesday, tells all 58 counties to create at least one venue for in-person voting on Election Day and also permit voting on the three days before.
Last month he told those local election officials to send all 20.6 million registered voters a general election ballot as a way to make mail-in voting the dominant system and minimize the public's exposure to the coronavirus.
Partisan fight over Wisconsin's next maps gets a head start
Wisconsin's next election maps will almost certainly be drawn by judges, and deciding which ones could have a profound impact on the dynamics of redistricting and the state's political balance of power for a decade.
Conservatives launched a bid Wednesday to steer the task to the state Supreme Court, which has a reliably right-leaning majority, and away from the less predictable federal courts that have refereed the process in the past.
The coming dispute will be watched closely by critics of partisan gerrymandering. They are keen to prevent a repeat of a successful Republican line-drawing effort a decade ago that has preserved outsized GOP power in the decidedly purple state.
Debate
After two election security documentaries, a firm belief in old-school paper
Michael Golden and Sarah Teale discuss "Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections," Teale's most recent documentary that looks at how vulnerable America's election systems are and what every voter can do to help secure elections.
Community
Documentary Screening: 'Reuniting America'
Join Braver Angels for a screening of a one-hour documentary where you'll get an inside look at how a Democratic voter went from threatening to cut off relationships with Trump voters to becoming dear friends with one—and how a Republican voter moved from disdaining progressives to taking co-leadership with one in a movement that now spans the country.