Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

No-excuse fight revived in Arkansas, 35 years after its top court ruled in favor

absentee ballot
Darylann Elmi/Getty Images

The legal crusade to make mail voting easier this year has finally arrived in Arkansas, where some of the nation's toughest ballot restrictions haven't been challenged until now because the coronavirus pandemic arrived after the primaries.

Two prominent Democrats in the deeply red state filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Arkansas election law flatly violates a 35-year-old state Supreme Court ruling that greatly expanded the right to absentee balloting. They asked a state judge in Little Rock to order election officials to stop demanding a detailed excuse from anyone who requests an absentee ballot — which resulted in 99 percent of votes being cast in person two years ago.

GOP Secretary of State John Thurston signaled he would fight the suit. "Given where we are at with the Covid-19 pandemic," he said, "the current voting system will be adequate."


The plaintiffs are Olly Neal Jr., who retired as the longest-serving Black appeals court judge in state history, and Susan Inman, a former top state elections official. Both are in their 70s and assert they fear catching Covid-19 if they are compelled to vote in person Nov. 3.

Their case, like many others across the country, argues that requiring an excused absence from a polling place — the sort of close-quarters indoor space where the coronavirus can be most easily spread — will force voters to make an unconstitutional choice between participating in democracy and protecting their health.

The novel twist is that the law — which allows absentee voting only for those who are in the military or traveling overseas or can provide evidence they will be "unavoidably absent or unable to attend an election due to illness or physical disability" — seems to fly in the face of the view of the state's highest court.

It held in 1985 that voters are not required to explain why they do not want to vote in person and "that any and all reasons or excuses are valid, legitimate excuses for an Arkansas citizen to be unavoidably absent."

The litigation is the latest in a nationwide wave of efforts in federal and state courthouses to make voting both easy and safe this year — mainly by expanding use of the mail, which President Trump asserts without any evidence will lead to a wave of fraud. But, no matter what, the president can relax about holding the six Arkansas electoral votes and the entirely Republican congressional delegation is sure to stay that way.

The number of Covid-19 cases has doubled in Arkansas the past month, even as the spread of the disease has declined in most states, and 227 people have died.

The state's primaries were in early March, a couple of weeks before the pandemic forced a nearly nationwide shutdown. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson has never issued a statewide stay-at-home order, but he did sign an executive order allowing no-excuse absentee voting in a May special election.

The GOP-dominated General Assembly in April blocked Democratic legislation that would have allowed all voters to choose for this year only whether to cast ballots by mail or in person.

The suit seeks to make the state spend its $4.7 million in federal election aid on sending absentee applications to all registered voters in postage-paid ballot return envelopes and local drop boxes.

Read More

Rear view diverse voters waiting for polling place to open
SDI Productions/Getty Images

Open Primaries Topic Creates a Major Tension for Independents

Open primaries create fine opportunities for citizens who are registered as independents or unaffiliated voters to vote for either Democrats or Republicans in primary elections, but they tacitly undermine the mission of those independents who are opposed to both major parties by luring them into establishment electoral politics. Indeed, independents who are tempted to support independent candidates or an independent political movement can be converted to advocates of our duopoly if their states have one form or another of Open Primaries.

Twenty U.S. states currently have Open Primaries for at least one political party at the presidential, congressional, and state levels, including Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. At least 15 states conduct "semi-closed" primaries, a middle position in which unaffiliated voters still have an option to choose to vote in one of the major party primaries. 

Keep ReadingShow less
Voter registration
The national voter registration form is now available in 20 non-English languages, including three Native American languages.
SDI Productions

With Ranked Choice Voting in NYC, Women Win

As New York prepares to choose its next city council and mayor in primaries this week, it’s worth remembering that the road to gender equality in the nation’s largest city has been long and slow.

Before 2021, New York’s 51-member council had always been majority male. Women hadn’t even gotten close to a majority. The best showing had been 18 seats, just a tick above 35 percent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

"On Las Vegas Boulevard" sign.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash. Unplash+ license obtained by IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths.

Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

CARSON CITY, NEV. - A surprise last-minute bill to open primary elections to Nevada’s largest voting bloc, registered unaffiliated voters, moved quickly through the state legislature and was approved by a majority of lawmakers on the last day of the legislative session Monday.

The bill, AB597, allows voters not registered with a political party to pick between a Republican and Democratic primary ballot in future election cycles. It does not apply to the state’s presidential preference elections, which would remain closed to registered party members.

Keep ReadingShow less
Voter registration

In April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape.

SDI Productions

The SAVE Act: Addressing a Non-Existent Problem at the Cost of Voter Access?

In July 2024, I wrote about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act when it was first introduced in Congress. And Sarah and I discussed it in an episode of Beyond the Bill Number which you can still listen to. Now, in April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape. It's time to revisit this legislation and examine its implications for American voters.

Read the IssueVoter analysis of the bill here for further insight and commentary.

Keep ReadingShow less