In Sabato’s Crystal Ball this week, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman write that Democrats are hoping to make the 2022 election more of a choice than a referendum. Democrats are benefiting from some damaged Republican candidates in several key races as well as the emergence of abortion as a key issue in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. In this episode, they discuss how the political environment has changed and what it portends for Senate races.
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Harris’ nomination ‘hit a reset button’ for Latinas supporting Democrats
Sep 12, 2024
As the presidential race entered the summer months, President Joe Biden’s level of support among Latinx voters couldn’t match the winning coalition he had built in 2020. Among Latinas, a critical group of voters who tend to back Democrats at higher levels than Latinos, lagging support had begun to worry Stephanie Valencia, who studies voting patterns among Latinx voters across the country for Equis Research, a data analytics and research firm.
Then the big shake-up happened: Biden stepped down and Vice President Kamala Harris took his place at the top of the Democratic ticket fewer than 100 days before the election.
Valencia’s team quickly jumped to action. The goal was to figure out how the move was sitting with Latinx voters in battleground states that will play an outsized role in deciding the election. After surveying more than 2,000 Latinx voters in late July and early August, Equis found a significant jump in support for the Democratic ticket, a shift that the team is referring to as “the Latino Reset.”
That reset was really pronounced among Latinas, especially those under the age of 40. I asked Valencia to dive into Equis’s survey with me and explain what it all means fewer than three months from Election Day.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mel Leonor Barclay: Can you talk about the state of the election — and the gender gap between Latinx men and women — in the first half of the year? What has changed?
Stephanie Valencia: We saw at the beginning part of this election cycle, when Biden was still at the top of the ticket, that more women were trending away from Biden than we had seen previously. And so that was a big red flag.
We saw, basically in the last month, that Harris really hit a reset button with Latinos. We were starting to see a set of trends that could have been pointing to a bigger, longer-term shift among Latinos when Biden was still the candidate. But something did reset when Kamala became the candidate. She has come out of the gate ahead of Trump and she still has a lot of work to do to define herself among Hispanic voters.
For example, she's doing 13 points better among Latinas under 40 than Biden did. That's the kind of swing that we saw. Overall, in our seven most competitive states, she's sitting at 59 percent with Latinas and she's just about 60 percent with Latinos. And again, here is where we saw a lot of attrition in the couple of months prior to the change-up — Latinas under 40 in particular. And now she's doing 13 points better than Biden was doing.
Overall, her support among Latino women is up from 50 percent in early June. She's now sitting at 59 percent among all Latinas. And then with Latino men, they were sitting at 41 percent under Biden and 51 percent under Harris.
With Latinas under the age of 40, what do you think is making a difference?
One of the reasons we saw the bottom fall out — and it was among women as much as it was among men in that under-40 group — was really what was happening in the Middle East, and a desire for a more swift, aggressive response for a ceasefire. And so you get to see that really creating some attrition among that age group.
I think you have seen among that group just also a reaction to the cool factor of who she is. She's young. She's vibrant. Her walk-on song is a Beyoncé song. It's a very different world and I think it opened a door to have a conversation about some of those issues that are unresolved in the minds of some of those voters. They still want to see more action, more aggressiveness as it relates to trying to get to a ceasefire. But I think at the end of the day, what you are seeing is a permission structure that is now open because of who she is and the energy around who she is.
I’ve been taking a look at the campaign’s appeals to Hispanic voters and watched an ad in Spanish released by the campaign in recent weeks that leans on her story as the daughter of immigrants. Do you think that has any appeal here?
Absolutely, and it's not the kind of tired argument we see when candidates come to Latinos and only talk to them about immigration. This is slightly different because she is the child of immigrants and she does have an immigrant story. There's something that is kind of a wink and a nod to Latinos to say, ‘I see you. I know you.’ Obviously, not every Latino in this country is an immigrant themselves, but so many people are or have that immigrant lineage in this country, and know what it means to be a first-generation immigrant. So, that wink and a nod to say, ‘Hey, I see you. I understand you. I understand why you came to this country to pursue the American dream.’ I think that is something that we have not really had from any candidate on the Democratic side, ever.
To have a child of immigrants that is a candidate for president, really, I think, speaks to what we have seen in our research is really important to Latinos, which is the ability to achieve the American dream.
I want to dive into some states. Arizona and Nevada are the two battlegrounds with the largest share of Latinx voters. What did your August research say about the state of the presidential election in these two states? What’s the state of play for Latinas in other battlegrounds?
Six weeks ago, there seemed to be only one very narrow path into the White House, because things were slipping in Nevada and Arizona. And now, we're seeing an expansion of the map in every part of the country.
Let's take Arizona. In 2020, Biden got 63 percent of the vote. Right now in Arizona, Harris is sitting at 61 percent. She needs to, at a minimum, get to 63 percent among Latinos in Arizona. In Nevada, she's sitting at 55 percent and needs to get up to 59 percent or exceed that.
Looking elsewhere, there is a huge, huge, huge role that Latinos can play because these elections, even in Wisconsin and North Carolina, Pennsylvania, are all going to be won on the margins, and that's where Latinos can make a difference.
They're kind of like a sleeper candidate in some of these places. Because I don't think people quite understand how rapidly Latinos have been growing in places like Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia. You know, 10 percent if not, in some places, over 100 percent growth of the population over time, over the last decade. We’re seeing just rapid, rapid growth in these places and people who are engaging in the political process, many for the first time.
Given this new momentum, what do you expect to see from the Harris-Walz campaign to try to close these gaps in the final sprint to the election?
The mantra that Democrats in the Harris campaign should think about with regard to Latinos is treating Latinos with a persuasion mindset. And even though we're seeing more and more Latinas come over to support Harris, you still have to convince them to go vote, right? These are polls, not prophecies, which means that they're a snapshot of a moment in time and that this momentum you're seeing right now has to be converted into real votes.
With Latinas, it's reaffirming that she is the best candidate and it is convincing them and persuading them that they actually need to go vote, and that they have all they need to go vote, and to not be intimidated by the process or complexity of voting to stay home.
The campaign needs to go in and, you know, speak to Latinos in a way that is resonant to the issues they care about in the places they actually are. They just announced yesterday that they're doing a WhatsApp broadcast channel — and we know the prevalence of WhatsApp in Latino communities.
These broadcast channels are used by people like Bad Bunny, and Rosalia, and the New York Times and CNN en Español. We saw Claudia Scheinbaum, the Mexican president-elect, use WhatsApp in her presidential campaign. We've seen candidates in Brazil and other places in the Americas, in Latin America, use WhatsApp broadcast channels as a mass communication tool.
The information landscape is changing very quickly and while people are using TikTok and Instagram, Latinos are still very much on WhatsApp as a medium to communicate with their friends and family. They have it for, you know, their soccer team that they're on on the weekends. They have it for somebody's quinceañera. People are using it as a tool to communicate broadly with their church group or any number of other groups that they're a part of. It's a very smart move by the Harris campaign.
To check your voter registration status or to get more information about registering to vote, text 19thnews to 26797.
Originally pub.lished by The 19th
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Taylor Swift enters the fray
Sep 11, 2024
Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
On Feb. 4, I wrote an article for The Fulcrum with the headline “Will Taylor Swift enter the fray?” Now, seven months later and shortly after the end of the first Harris-Trump debate, Swift made her decision clear when she announced her support for the vice president on Instagram.
Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.
Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.
I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.
I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.
With love and hope,
Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady
What I thought was particularly interesting was that Swift did not ask her supporters to vote for Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as so often happens when celebrities endorse a candidate. Instead she spoke to the reason why she is going to vote for the Harris/Walz ticket and urged her fans to do their own research and to make their own choice.
Additionally, she took a critically important step of urging her fans, many of whom will be voting in the first presidential election, to register and provided a link to where to register and find early voting dates and information.
The question everyone is asking is: Could Taylor Swift be the biggest election influencer of them all?. That’s a question I asked on Feb. 1.
There is a long history in the United States of presidential candidates receiving important celebrity endorsements that many argue have tipped the tide. Will these be one of those cases?
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As far back as 1960, when John F. Kennedy was endorsed by Rat Pack members Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford, celebrity endorsements have been highly courted by presidential candidates. More recently, Oprah Winfrey endorsed Sen. Barack Obama early in the 2008 race when he still lacked much of a national following; in 2020, Joe Biden received endorsements from stars such as Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence just to name a few.
In the age of social media, where the influence and reach of celebrities is greater than ever, one superstar stands above the pack. Taylor Swift, with more than 280 million social media followers, demonstrated her power last year when one Instagram post led to over 30,000 new voter registrations.
The youth vote is critical in the 2024 presidential election and many believe young voters simply won’t show up on Election Day. But enthusiastic support from the 34-year-old pop star, who endorsed Biden in 2020, could tip the tide in this close election. We have seen her power as an influencer during football games as she cheers for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. In early October, her attendance at a game and repeated shots of her cheering contributed to 27 million people tuning in — the most viewers since the previous Super Bowl.
Swift took her time in entering the fray, thinking carefully about the repercussions, perhaps reflecting on a comment she made several years ago:
“Next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you wanna say.”
Taylor Swift made it abundantly clear on debate night that she knows what she stands for and knows her to say it. The full extent of her impact remains to be seen.
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Our election system is failing independent voters
Sep 11, 2024
Gruber is senior vice president of Open Primaries and co-founder of Let Us Vote.
With the race to Election Day entering the homestretch, the Harris and Trump campaigns are in a full out sprint to reach independent voters, knowing full well that independents have been the deciding vote in every presidential contest since the Obama era. And like clockwork every election season, debates are arising about who independent voters are, whether they matter and even whether they actually exist at all.
Lost, perhaps intentionally, in these debates is one undebatable truth: Our electoral system treats the millions of Americans registered as independent voters as second-class citizens by law.
That’s perhaps most well known in our system of primary elections. In 30 states, the government registers voters by party affiliation. The purpose of which is not to ensure election integrity, but to ensure that the government itself can properly segregate voters and advantage some over others. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia bar registered independent voters from participating in primary elections, while 25 more restrict primary voting in certain elections like presidential contests.
Just this year, 27 million Americans who registered as independent were shut out of the presidential primaries. And despite the tired argument that primaries are private affairs, it’s the government that pays for and runs these elections and it’s the government that enforces the Democratic and Republican parties’ desire to shut independent voters out.
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That’s hardly the extent to which independent voters are discriminated against by law. Want to support a candidate? Most states bar independent voters not only from signing party candidate petitions for the ballot but even from serving as witnesses to those signatures. These are not internal party rules but state election law, enforced by state-administered election boards.
Want to work to ensure our elections are safe and fair? Open Primaries’ review of state election laws found that a majority of states bar independent voters from serving as poll workers, poll watchers, election judges and even serving on election boards. America’s entire system of election administration shuts out independent voters.
Additional prohibitions are too numerous to list. Arizona, for example, automatically mails ballots to party voters but requires independent voters to preemptively request a ballot. States without party registration are not spared. Tennessee law now requires polling locations to display signage threatening independents with criminal prosecution if they vote in primaries, even though they have open primaries!
The effect is becoming too large to ignore. Recent Gallup polling found that 51 percent of Americans identify as independent, more than Democrats and Republicans combined. That number is an important symbol of just how many Americans are feeling disaffected from the two major parties. But it also helps obscure the equally large number of Americans who are registering as independent and being subjected to government-administered discrimination as a result. Independents are now the largest group of registered voters in 10 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina. And as our country divides into a sea of red and blue states, it’s independent voters who outnumber one of the two major parties voters as the second largest group of voters in almost every other state.
The irony, of course, is that many of the largest constituencies of independent voters are the same constituencies that the Republican and Democratic parties alike claim to champion. More than half (52 percent) of Latinos are independent. So are nearly half of our military veterans. And today over half of millennials and Gen Z voters, having long surpassed baby boomers as the largest group of voters by age, are independent voters.
Just join a party, some say. Imagine the outrage if Republican voters were asked to register as Democrats or vice versa. No American should be forced by their government into a political affiliation whose values they don't share. And no democratic government has the right to ask their citizens to forfeit their rights for refusing such a false choice.
Independent voters are now the fastest growing group of voters in America today. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what that means for the 2024 election. But what it means to millions of independent Americans is simple: You’re a second-class citizen.
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In swing states, R's and D's oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability
Sep 11, 2024
While policymakers argue over whether abortion should be a right or a crime, the public has a clear policy stance on the matter. A new survey in the six swing states finds that majorities of Republicans and Democrats oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability.
Furthermore, bipartisan majorities favor reducing unintended pregnancies and abortions through policies ensuring access to birth control.
This survey by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation is the fifth in the Swing Six Issue Surveys series, being conducted in the run-up to the November election in six swing states, and nationally, on major policies. Unlike traditional polls, respondents in a public consultation survey go through an online “policymaking simulation” in which they are provided briefings and arguments for and against each policy. Content is reviewed by experts on different sides of the issues to ensure accuracy and balance.
Criminalizing abortion
Large bipartisan majorities in every swing state do not want abortion to be criminalized before fetal viability (73 percent to 80 percent), including Republicans (57 percent to 70 percent) and Democrats (83 percent to 93 percent), as well as 77 percent nationally.
Before making their decision, respondents were informed that criminalizing abortion means prison time or fines for the doctor or the woman. After evaluating strong arguments for and against criminalizing abortion, respondents could choose to make abortion a crime 1) at all stages of pregnancy, 2) only after 15 weeks, 3) only after fetal viability (22-24 weeks), or 4) not make abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy.
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In Arizona and Nevada, there will be measures on the 2024 ballot to prevent the government from criminalizing abortion before fetal viability. In both states, bipartisan majorities of 80 percent do not want abortion to be a crime before viability, including seven in 10 Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats.
Smaller but still robust majorities go further and oppose criminalizing abortion at any stage of pregnancy: 61 percent to 70 percent in the swing states, including large majorities of Democrats (73 percent to 85 percent) and small majorities of Republicans in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada (52 percent to 55 percent). Among Republicans in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, it is less than half (41 percent to 48 percent). Nationally, two-thirds take this position, including eight in 10 Democrats and half of Republicans.
Support for criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy is just 7 percent to 13 percent in the swing states, including just 10 percent to 25 percent of Republicans and 3 percent to 7 percent of Democrats. Nationally, support is just 11 percent (Republicans, 19 percent; Democrats 5 percent).
Public overestimation of support for criminalizing all abortions
Respondents were asked to estimate what percent of Americans support criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy. In all swing states and nationally, the majority estimated 35 percent or more. The actual level of support for that policy is just 11 percent nationally.
Making abortion law federal or leaving it up to states
After choosing which abortion law they favor, respondents were asked whether they want their preferred option to be a federal law that applies nationwide, or only the law in their own state with every other state able to have their own law.
Large majorities in every swing state favor having a federal law (68 percent to 73 percent). This includes majorities of Republicans in five of the swing states (58 percent to 66 percent), but just under half in Nevada (48 percent) — an 18-point spread across states. Among Democrats in the swing states, 76 percent to 87 percent want a federal law. Nationally, 70 percent take this position (Republicans, 56 percent; Democrats, 82 percent).
Majorities nationally support a federal law irrespective of their preference for what the law should be. This includes the full range from those who want to criminalize abortion at any stage of pregnancy to those who oppose any criminalization.
Ensuring access to birth control
Policies that seek to reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions through access to birth control receive large majority support among Republicans and Democrats in every swing state, and nationally.
Requiring all public schools to provide education about birth control is supported by 80 percent to 84 percent in the swing states, including Republicans (74 percent to 80 percent) and Democrats (86 percent to 93 percent), as well as 80 percent nationally.
Ensuring nationwide access to birth control, by prohibiting state governments from restricting or banning birth control, is supported by 80 percent to 85 percent in the swing states, including Republicans (71 percent to 81 percent) and Democrats (86 percent to 93 percent), as well as 81 percent nationally.
Continuing the Affordable Care Act mandate — that most insurance plans cover long-term birth control, such as the pill and IUDs — is supported by 85 percent to 90 percent in the swing states, including Republicans (76 percent to 87 percent) and Democrats (91 percent to 96 percent), as well as 85 percent nationally.
Increasing funding for health care clinics so they can provide long-term birth control for free or at a low cost is supported by 78 percent to 80 percent in the swing states, including 66 percent to 71 percent of Republicans and 88 percent to 93 percent of Democrats, as well as 76 percent nationally.
“Large bipartisan majorities want to greatly limit the role of government when it comes to abortion, but they do want the government to actively ensure access to birth control,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation.
Trying to reduce abortions through mandatory ultrasounds and waiting periods
Respondents were asked about methods for trying to reduce abortions by putting more requirements on the process of getting an abortion, as has been done in several states. Views vary across the swing states, with less than half in support nationally. Majorities of Republicans are generally in support, while majorities of Democrats are opposed.
Requiring doctors to show an ultrasound of the fetus to the woman before providing the abortion is supported by a majority only in Georgia (57 percent) and, barely, in Wisconsin (51 percent), and by less than half in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania (44 percent to 46 percent). Among Republicans in the swing states, 52 percent to 66 percent are in favor, while among Democrats just 26 percent to 49 percent are in favor. Nationally, 48 percent favor this requirement (Republicans, 60 percent; Democrats, 36 percent), while 52 percent oppose it.
Requiring a waiting period of 1-3 days before receiving an abortion is supported by a majority only in Georgia (54 percent), by half in Michigan and Wisconsin, and by less than half in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania (43 percent to 48 percent). Among Republicans, majorities in five of the swing states are in favor (58 percent to 67 percent), but just under half in Nevada (49 percent). Among Democrats in the swing states, just 31 percent to 44 percent are in favor. Nationally, 44 percent are in favor (Republicans, 59 percent; Democrats, 33 percent) and 54 percent opposed.
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How the 14th Amendment prevents state legislatures from subverting popular presidential elections
Sep 11, 2024
Eisner is a Ph.D. student in history at Johns Hopkins University. Froomkin is an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center.
Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election not only failed, but some of them also rested on a misreading of the U.S. Constitution, as our new analysis argues. The relevant constitutional provision dates back to just after the Civil War, and contemporaries recognized it as a key protection of American democracy.
In November 2020, as it became clear that Trump had lost the popular vote and would lose the Electoral College, Trump and his supporters mounted a pressure campaign to convince legislatures in several states whose citizens voted for Joe Biden to appoint electors who would support Trump’s reelection in the Electoral College votes.
Trump and his allies contacted Republican lawmakers in Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania to induce the state legislatures to overturn the results of the popular election. Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed GOP legislators in Arizona, encouraging them to “ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen.”
These efforts were relying on a provision of the Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, that states, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” Trump and his supporters wanted state lawmakers to discard their citizens’ votes and simply appoint electors who would back Trump’s reelection bid.
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As part of their efforts, Trump and his supporters claimed that the Constitution allowed state legislatures to directly choose a slate of electors without a popular vote.
But they were wrong. There was a safeguard already in place – and it remains today, defending against this approach being used to subvert the 2024 presidential election.
An effort to protect voters’ power
In almost every state, the candidate who gets the most popular votes for the presidency receives all of that state’s electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine have slight exceptions – but those states’ laws still deliver the majority of their electoral votes to the person who wins the popular statewide vote.
In the late 1860s, when the 14th Amendment was written and ratified, the same was true – though the right to vote was limited to men until 1920, and states have often denied or abridged the voting rights of some citizens, particularly racial minorities. After the Civil War, Congress sought to remove barriers to Black men’s voting, especially in the South.
In 1866, when Congress debated the 14th Amendment, its drafters wrote Section 2 in an effort to force reluctant white Southerners to allow Black men to vote.
Section 2 of the 14th Amendment provides that “when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States … is denied … or in any way abridged … the basis of representation” for that state in the U.S. House of Representatives “shall be reduced” in proportion to the abridgment.
So if a state took away the voting rights of any of its citizens, it would immediately lose the same percentage of seats in the House as the percentage of people whose right to vote was taken away.
Just weeks after ratification, this provision faced its first challenge.
The Republican-dominated Reconstruction Legislature of Florida decided to choose presidential electors without a popular election. Democrats – at the time, the party supporting the disenfranchisement of Black men – were apoplectic. Many Southern newspaper writers, still angry about the ratification of the 14th Amendment, saw an opportunity to turn the amendment against its Republican authors.
“The plain conclusion is that if in any State the election of Presidential electors is taken out of the hands of the people and placed in the hands of the Legislature, the whole number of citizens of the State … will be excluded,” wrote the Charleston Daily News on Aug. 10, 1868.
This was not a rare or local view: Nine days later, the Anderson Intelligencer, a South Carolina newspaper, published a short article credited to the New York Herald, similarly declaring:
“ When the right of voting for Presidential electors is denied to all voters of a State, then the basis of representation in such State must be reduced by the number of all the voters, which is to say that it is to have no basis of representation at all.”
These opinion articles have no legal authority, but they reflect a common – though contested – understanding of the 14th Amendment’s provisions at the time of its passage. No one brought a legal challenge, so no court had an opportunity to issue an opinion. And the Republican-dominated Congress had no qualms about accepting electoral votes – even without a popular vote – for the Republican presidential candidate.
The right to have your vote counted
In the wake of the 2020 election, Congress took steps to make clear that the voters must be the ones who choose presidential electors. Legislation passed in 2022 revised the federal law governing the selection of electors to specify that state legislatures must determine their state’s method of choosing electors before Election Day and can’t change it after the votes are cast.
That clarification lines up with – and indeed reinforces – the provisions of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment.
As our analysis notes, if a state legislature were to directly choose electors, that would disenfranchise all of the state’s voters. The right to vote, after all, is the right to have one’s vote counted, not the right to have one’s preferred candidate win.
So even if the legislature chose a slate of electors that received significant support in the popular election, the act of the legislature making the choice would abridge the rights of every voter in the state. Disenfranchisement depends on whether the people or the legislature chooses the electors, not which electors are selected.
If all of a state’s voters have their right to vote taken away, Section 2 requires that the state’s House representation immediately and automatically be reduced to zero. The Constitution elsewhere specifies that each state’s representation in the Electoral College is the sum of the state’s House and Senate delegations.
Thus, if a state has no representatives in the House, it would have only two presidential electors, rendering its influence over the presidential election minuscule and largely irrelevant.
A lone exception
To date, besides Florida in 1868, the only other instance of a state legislature choosing presidential electors without a popular election came in 1876.
Election fraud, political violence and voter intimidation undermined the integrity of the 1876 presidential election. The constitution of Colorado, newly admitted as a state, provided that the Legislature would choose the state’s presidential electors without a popular vote in 1876. Overshadowed by an exceptionally acrimonious election, the Legislature’s selection of Colorado’s presidential electors generated relatively little attention or debate.
The overall conclusion is that the Southern newspapers in 1868 correctly read the text of Section 2. The writers may have been cynical opportunists working to defend an indefensible racist hierarchy, but their interpretation of the text is sound.
The plain meaning of Section 2 is clear, and it imposes strong penalties if a state does not allow its citizens to vote for presidential electors. The 14th Amendment continues to protect American democracy more than 150 years after its ratification.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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