Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

A first in Oklahoma: Lawmakers reverse a court to still restrict mail voting

Oklahoma Legislature

The Legislature revived an unusually strict rule for absentee voting: all must include an affidavit signed by a notary.

Jordan McAlister/Getty Images

In just three days, the Republicans in charge of lawmaking in Oklahoma have reversed a decision by the state's top court that absentee ballots don't have to be notarized.

It's the first time this year, when the coronavirus pandemic has launched battles over mail-in voting in courthouses across the country, when the political branches of a state government have reinstated election rules struck down as overly restrictive by the judicial branch.

Oklahoma has now rejoined a roster of just three states — the others are South Carolina and Mississippi — that even during this time of social distancing will require absentee voters to sign an affidavit and then get it stamped in person by a notary public.


The rapid-fire sequence of actions went like this: The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of the League of Women Voters, which argued in its lawsuit that getting a ballot notarized during the pandemic would force people to put their health at risk. The state House passed a measure reversing that ruling on Wednesday, the state Senate cleared the bill Thursday afternoon and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it that evening.

Republicans, who hold 79 percent of the seats in the Legislature, argued the notary requirement was needed to prevent voter fraud and that the state's top court had exceeded its authority.

Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, for example, said the justices had "legislated from the bench" at a time when "Oklahomans need to have confidence that our election process is secure and free from fraud."

Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the state's American Civil Liberties Union chapter, said in a statement: "This legislative attack is based on bogus claims of voter fraud, but it is abundantly clear that the real motivation is to make it harder for Oklahomans to exercise their power at the ballot."

The law — which not only requires mail-in ballots to get notarized but also limits how many documents each notary may witness — has clearly had an effect on voting from home in the state. Just 5 percent of ballots were cast that way in 2018, a midterm election when about a quarter of all votes nationwide were mailed in.

Congressional and state legislative primaries are set for June 30, but the top issue on the ballot is a citizen-driven statewide referendum that would expand Medicaid to cover tens of thousands of lower-income Oklahomans. Stitt and most of the state's GOP leadership oppose the measure.

One potential easement was written into the new law in response to Covid-19. If the governor in the next eight days reinstates his emergency declaration, which he lifted just last week, absentee voters may submit a copy of their driver's license or other ID in lieu of finding a notary.

Read More

U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the phone in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks President Barack Obama talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during a phone call from the Oval Office on November 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, The White House

‘Obama, You're 15 Years Too Late!’

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by the Republican Party to redraw the state's congressional districts, and the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry. This decision, which confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is not prohibited by federal law, was a significant turning point in the acceptance of this practice.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand of a person casting a ballot at a polling station during voting.

Gerrymandering silences communities and distorts elections. Proportional representation offers a proven path to fairer maps and real democracy.

Getty Images, bizoo_n

Gerrymandering Today, Gerrymandering Tomorrow, Gerrymandering Forever

In 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." (Watch the video of his speech.) As a politically aware high school senior, I was shocked by the venom and anger in his voice—the open, defiant embrace of systematic disenfranchisement, so different from the quieter racism I knew growing up outside Boston.

Today, watching politicians openly rig elections, I feel that same disbelief—especially seeing Republican leaders embrace that same systematic approach: gerrymandering now, gerrymandering tomorrow, gerrymandering forever.

Keep ReadingShow less
An oversized ballot box surrounded by people.

Young people worldwide form new parties to reshape politics—yet America’s two-party system blocks them.

Getty Images, J Studios

No Country for Young Politicians—and How To Fix That

In democracies around the world, young people have started new political parties whenever the establishment has sidelined their views or excluded them from policymaking. These parties have sometimes reinvigorated political competition, compelled established parties to take previously neglected issues seriously, or encouraged incumbent leaders to find better ways to include and reach out to young voters.

In Europe, a trio in their twenties started Volt in 2017 as a pan-European response to Brexit, and the party has managed to win seats in the European Parliament and in some national legislatures. In Germany, young people concerned about climate change created Klimaliste, a party committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement. Although the party hasn’t won seats at the federal level, they have managed to win some municipal elections. In Chile, leaders of the 2011 student protests, who then won seats as independent candidates, created political parties like Revolución Democrática and Convergencia Social to institutionalize their movements. In 2022, one of these former student leaders, Gabriel Boric, became the president of Chile at 36 years old.

Keep ReadingShow less
How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

Demonstrators gather outside of The United States Supreme Court during an oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford to call for an end to partisan gerrymandering on October 3, 2017 in Washington, DC

Getty Images, Olivier Douliery

How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Col. Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788

The Problem We Face

The U.S. House of Representatives was designed as the chamber of Congress most directly tethered to the people. Article I of the Constitution mandates that seats be apportioned among the states according to population and that members face election every two years—design features meant to keep representatives responsive to shifting public sentiment. Unlike the Senate, which prioritizes state sovereignty and representation, the House translates raw population counts into political voice: each House district is to contain roughly the same number of residents, ensuring that every citizen’s vote carries comparable weight. In principle, then, the House serves as the nation’s demographic mirror, channeling the diverse preferences of the electorate into lawmaking and acting as a safeguard against unresponsive or oligarchic governance.

Nationally, the mismatch between the overall popular vote and the partisan split in House seats is small, with less than a 1% tilt. But state-level results tell a different story. Take Connecticut: Democrats hold all five seats despite Republicans winning over 40% of the statewide vote. In Oklahoma, the inverse occurs—Republicans control every seat even though Democrats consistently earn around 40% of the vote.

Keep ReadingShow less