News. Debate. Community. Levers for a better democracy.
The State of Reform
Download Unite America’s free report
Download Unite America's free report analyzing the impact of four key political reforms.
MOST READ
Get some leverage.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
Emma Hurt/Twitter
Democrats have filed a lawsuit against Georgia election officials over the long waits voters have had in recent elections, including this scene from the June 9 primary.
Georgia's long lines focus of the latest elections lawsuit
Aug 07 2020
Georgia, which has been sued plenty in recent years for allegedly violating the rights of its electorate, is facing a fresh complaint about voter suppression of the most obvious kind: Making people stand in line for hours to exercise their democratic rights.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court Thursday, is the latest development in the courthouse crusade to make it easier to vote in the presidential election.
In neighboring Alabama, a state judge this week dismissed a lawsuit that sought to ease voting rules for the elderly and disabled. And Friday saw the latest in a series of suits, this time in Pennsylvania, seeking to guarantee a do-over for people who make mistakes on their absentee ballot forms.
These are the latest developments:
<h3>Georgia</h3><p>The new suit will gain particular notice because of the state's evolution into one of the most prominent political battlegrounds of the year. The contest for the state's 16 electoral votes is now a tossup, an array of recent polls shows, and in an unusual twist both Senate seats are on the ballot this fall and have become highly competitive. So Georgia's turnout has taken on extraordinary importance.<br></p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The state Democratic Party and the party's Senate campaign arm are convinced their candidates will do best with as many people voting as possible. Their suit says the long lines that forced people to wait upwards of eight hours in stifling heat to vote in the June 9 primary violated the Constitution.</p>
<p>Sara Alami of Fulton County, which takes in much of Atlanta, arrived at her polling place half an hour before the doors opened — and still had to wait six hours. Another resident of the county, 71-year-old Lucille Anderson, gave up trying to vote after confronting the long lines at her polling place three times — in the morning, midafternoon and evening.</p>
<p>Two years ago voters in Georgia waited to vote longer than in any other state, a full 2.5 times the national average, according to the suit.</p>
<p>The Democrats allege the long lines were because of the reductions in the number of polling places, late opening of polling places, not enough voting machines, not enough technicians to fix broken machines and poor training. They asked a judge to order all those problems get fixed before November.</p>
<h3>Pennsylvania</h3>
<p>The newest litigation in the battleground state mirrors those in several other such presidential tossups, where the rate of absentee ballot rejection could prove decisive in November.</p><p>The suit asks a federal judge to require that voters be notified if their ballots get rejected because the signature line on the envelope is blank or the handwriting does not match what's on file at the election office — and be given a chance to remedy the problem.</p><p>"Pennsylvania must create a uniform process to let voters fix signature-related issues with their mail-in ballots in order to give people confidence that their vote is being counted," said Paul Smith of the <a data-linked-post="2638765151" href="https://thefulcrum.us/campaign-legal-center" target="_blank">Campaign Legal Center</a>, which sued on behalf of the <a data-linked-post="2638675562" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/league-of-women-voters" target="_blank">League of Women Voters</a>, the League of United Latin American Citizens Council and the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.</p>
<h3>Alabama</h3>
<p>Civil Court Judge J.R. Gaines of Montgomery on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and several sick or elderly citizens. It said the health of voters during the pandemic was illegally threatened by the requirement for two witnesses or a notary to countersign an absentee ballot envelope.</p>
<p>The judge said the suit raised political issues that shouldn't be decided in the courts. He also said the plaintiffs had no legal standing to file the suit and that the election officials were protected from being sued.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Georgia's governor cancels Supreme Court election - The Fulcrum ›
- Voting rights suits cause budget pain in Georgia - The Fulcrum ›
- Georgia, primary marred by long waits, voting site confusion - The ... ›
- Georgia latest target of a lawsuit to ease voting by mail - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Gov. Steve Bullock is on the ballot as a Senate candidate and says local officials asked him for the switch.
Montana will move toward a vote-by-mail November election
Aug 07 2020
Gov. Steve Bullock is giving county election officials across Montana permission to conduct the general election entirely by mail, as they did for the June primary.
The governor, who will be on the November ballot as the Democratic candidate for the Senate, said Thursday he was issuing the order at the request of the county clerks and election administrators. During the all-mail primary, the state saw a surge in voter turnout.
California, Nevada, Vermont and Washington, D.C. have already opted to send each voter an absentee ballot this fall due to the coronavirus. Before the pandemic, five other states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington — already had plans to conduct an all-mail election.
<p>Bullock's directive still requires counties to make in-person voting available if they choose to conduct the election primarily by mail. Absentee ballots will be sent by Oct. 9 with return postage paid.</p>
<p>"It only makes sense that we start preparing now to ensure that no Montanan will have to choose between their vote or their health," Bullock said. "They didn't have to in June and they shouldn't have to in November."</p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>All 56 counties opted for an all-mail primary in June, and it's almost certain they will do the same for the general election. The primary saw the highest rate of voter participation in almost 50 years, with 55 percent of registered voters returning ballots — 10 percentage points higher than the 2016 primary.</p>
<p>Bullock is in a highly competitive race against Republican incumbent Steve Daines, who is seeking a second Senate term. President Trump — who has spent months asserting without evidence that expansive mail voting leads to fraud — is likely but not a lock to carry the state's three electoral votes, according to recent polls. The last Democrat to carry the state was Bill Clinton in 1992.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Myth-busting the top 10 objections to 'vote at home' systems - The ... ›
- Native Americans punished by new Montana ballot rules, suit says ›
- Montana tribes win injunction on vote collection law - The Fulcrum ›
- Mailed ballots see huge jump in Tuesday primaries - The Fulcrum ›
- Vote-by-mail group issues guidance for states - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
- Montana Counties To Conduct Primary Election By Mail | MTPR ›
- Montana counties now look toward all-mail ballots for June primary ... ›
- Voting by Absentee Ballot – Montana Secretary of State – Corey ... ›
- Montana allows counties to hold all-mail election in November ... ›
- Montana Election Officials Back Option For All Mail Ballot General ... ›
- Counties will have option to conduct all-mail elections in November ... ›
Keep reading...
Show less
pabradyphoto/Getty Images
The Tennessee Supreme Court's ruling represents the first time a state's top court has used an appeal to restrict absentee voting in November.
Tennessee off the list of states allowing all to vote by mail because of Covid
Aug 06 2020
The persistence of the pandemic is not a sufficient rationale for allowing everyone in Tennessee to vote by mail this fall, the state's top court has ruled, putting the state back on the otherwise shrinking roster of places with excuse requirements for getting an absentee ballot.
Wednesday's 4-1 decision by the state Supreme Court overturned a lower court's declaration two months ago that all eligible voters be permitted to use the mail this year in order to avoid Covid-19 exposure. It stands as the first time a state's top court has used an appeal to make absentee voting in November more restrictive.
As a result, there are now eight states where a reason beyond fear of the coronavirus will be needed to vote for president. Other than New York and Indiana, the rest are spread across the South; of those, all but emerging battleground Texas are reliably Republican red: Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana now joined again by Tennessee.
<p>Eight other states have effectively dropped their excuse requirements for this year, one of the reasons why voting from home is destined to surge — maybe accounting for more than half of all votes cast, double the usual share, despite President Trump's efforts to discredit the practice with <a data-linked-post="2646107277" href="https://thefulcrum.us/vote-by-mail-california" target="_blank">unfounded claims</a> it produces fraud.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The Tennessee justices did not alter the rules for the record number of absentee ballots already cast for the primary Thursday. But their decision came just in time to govern the entire period for applying to vote by mail in the general election, which also began Thursday.</p><p>The state initially wanted the court to block any expansion of mail voting in light of the coronavirus, arguing local election officials could not accommodate, logistically or budgetarily, the subsequent avalanche of ballots. They also cited the risk of election fraud. </p><p>But at oral arguments, government lawyers said that being quarantined as a precaution, caring for someone with the virus or having an "underlying health condition" — which voters were free to decide for themselves — allows voters to check the "illness" box on their application forms.</p><p>"The state's interests in the efficacy and integrity of the election process are sufficient to justify the moderate burden placed on the right to vote" for people not covered by the newly promised easements, Justice Cornelia Clark wrote for the court. </p><p>She also told Tennessee officials to quickly detail for the public the state's new view of Covid-19 and mail voting.</p><p>That prompted a qualified embrace of the decision from the <a data-linked-post="2638969815" href="https://thefulcrum.us/american-civil-liberties-union" target="_blank">American Civil Liberties Union</a>, which helped sue over the expansion. </p><p>"The court should have gone further, however, and ruled that all eligible voters have a right to vote safely by mail," said the ACLU's top voting rights attorney, Dale Ho. "But this ruling remains an important victory for many Tennessee voters."</p><p>The General Assembly also returns next week for a special session, where minority Democrats are expected to take another run at legislation expanding the excuse rules. Republican Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to veto such a measure, though.</p><p>Fewer than 3 percent of the state's votes have arrived in envelopes in recent elections, one of the smallest shares in the nation. Even before the court's decision, Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett was preparing for that percentage to soar — because 1.4 million voters, more than a third of those registered, are automatically eligible to vote absentee because they've had their 60th birthdays.</p><p>The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the <a data-linked-post="2638765151" href="https://thefulcrum.us/campaign-legal-center" target="_blank">Campaign Legal Center</a> have filed a federal lawsuit seeking unfettered mail voting and also challenging three other curbs on the practice. One is an unusual rule preventing the newly registered from casting their first votes by mail unless they apply for the ballot in person and show proof of identity.</p><p>Trump can count on the state's 11 electoral votes, which he won last time by 26 points. Turnout in the 2016 election was 62 percent, but it may be less this year because of a lack of any competitive statewide races. </p><p>The winner of Thursday's hotly contested GOP primary for the Senate seat held by Republican Lamar Alexander, who's retiring, is a near shoe-in come November. That race is between Bill Hagerty, who was Trump's ambassador to Japan, and Manny Sethi, an orthopedic trauma surgeon running as a conservative outsider ready to take on the "establishment" while still supporting the president.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- The 6 toughest states for voting during the pandemic - The Fulcrum ›
- Tenn. judge rules everyone can vote absentee - The Fulcrum ›
- Lawsuits challenge vote-by-mail rules in Texas, Tenn. - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Trump can't delay the election, but he can derail it
Aug 05 2020
Ben-Yehuda is president and CEO of the Truman National Security Project, a progressive defense and foreign policy think tank, and the allied Truman Center for National Policy.
<p>The United States has a long history of voting during periods of intense conflict and division. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton devised the absentee voting system to <a href="https://www.military.com/military-life/how-absentee-voting-us-troops-won-civil-war-and-ended-slavery.html" target="_blank">hold elections during</a> the Civil War and to ensure soldiers on the front lines could exercise their right to vote. </p><p>Today, you might say, it's time to vote like it's 1864. </p><p>Last week, President Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273" target="_blank">suggested on Twitter</a> that the national election be delayed beyond Nov. 3. His supposed reason: a fear of fraud. Let's be clear about three things: First, The president of the United States does not have the authority to change the date of the election. That is a date set by Congress. Even Republican lawmakers <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/509790-senate-republicans-dismiss-trump-proposal-to-delay-election" target="_blank">have distanced themselves</a> from the remark. Second, fraud associated with mail-in ballots is extremely low. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank has<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-vote-by-mail-explainer/explainer-fraud-is-rare-in-us-mail-in-voting-here-are-the-methods-that-prevent-it-idUSKBN2482SA" target="_blank"> conceded this point</a>. Third, the president is spreading disinformation to undermine trust in the democratic process. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Record numbers of Americans will turn to vote-by-mail options this year and there's much work to be done to ensure full enfranchisement. But the purpose of Trump's tweet is to cast doubt, distract and lay down rhetorical track in an effort to discredit the election and its outcome. </p><p>Consider the timing. His statement came on the heels of the country passing 150,000 deaths from Covid-19 — the highest number in the world. It was posted just minutes after the Commerce Department announced the national economy in the second quarter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/30/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">contracted more than at any time on record</a>. And he tweeted just as 19 polls in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/25/nearly-20-swing-state-polls-were-released-todaybiden-leads-in-all-of-them/#37e993f67594" target="_blank">swing states were released </a>— every one of them showing former Vice President Joe Biden in the lead. </p><p>Trump is on the ropes and he knows it. And manufacturing controversy in such moments is his go-to tactic — as true today as it has been over these past weeks, when he deployed federal law enforcement to combat a threat in Portland, Ore., that did not exist.</p><p>Ultimately, however, the president's stated intentions themselves present a very real threat. These are well-worn tactics straight out of the<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-07-22/turkey-mirror-united-states" target="_blank"> authoritarian playbook</a>. Indeed, the last year has brought a steady trickle of democracy-erosion, in which Trump has followed the well-worn path of authoritarian demagogues. </p><p>He has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-warns-2020-election-could-rigged-his-administrations-investigation-found-no-widespread-1506501" target="_blank">sowed doubt</a> about the legitimacy of future elections; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/politics/donald-trump-mail-voter-fraud-most-corrupt-election/index.html" target="_blank">predicted election fraud</a>; questioned the reliability of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-attacks-on-mail-voting-are-turning-republicans-off-absentee-ballots/2020/07/07/640b6126-bbd4-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html" target="_blank">election procedures</a> (in this case, absentee ballots, whose reliability is at least as good as in-person voting); suggested he <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/asked-what-he-d-do-if-he-loses-trump-hedges-n1234360" target="_blank">might not leave</a> even if voted out of office; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/04/july-4th-trumps-white-house-party-scaled-back-over-coronavirus/5355855002/" target="_blank">invented domestic enemies</a> whose defeat requires the aggrandizement of his own power — and, not coincidentally, the preparation of a domestic security force loyal to him; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/upshot/trump-portland.html" target="_blank">trampled local authority</a>; and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/opinion/letters/trump-coronavirus-mount-rushmore.html" target="_blank">telegraphed</a> to anyone familiar with the pattern that he is happy to gut the democratic process to preserve his position.</p><p>We cannot doubt that, given the opportunity, the president would follow further in the footsteps of those authoritarian strongmen — led by Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Hungary's Viktor Orbán and Russia's Vladimir Putin — whom he has so publicly admired. </p><p>There is compelling evidence he might get that chance: Absentee ballots could take weeks to count after Election Day, offering ample space for accusations of "election rigging" as Americans' expectations of a rapid resolution are dashed. States might fail to certify their members of the Electoral College for so long that the election is ultimately decided by Congress rather than with voters. Federal law enforcement has <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/gop-recruits-army-poll-watchers-fight-voter-fraud-no-can-n1217391" target="_blank">threatened</a> to send "monitors" around the country who might discourage voting, and local militias have threatened to do the same. And foreign governments, as well as malicious domestic actors, continue to attack our democracy without fear of reprisal. </p><p>In short, we face the greatest credible threat to a national election in our lifetimes. The chief architect of that instability and corruption: our own president.</p><p>The late great John Lewis <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html" target="_blank">told us</a>, "Democracy is not a state. It is an act." This election's credibility will be bolstered in part by high levels of voters acting — by turning out in big enough numbers to produce a margin of victory too big to credibly challenge.</p><p>But we need to do more than vote. We need to vote now — to help reduce the flood of ballots to be counted in November and ease the burden on local election officials. Go to <a href="http://vote.org/" target="_blank">vote.org</a> to see if your registration is current and request an absentee ballot. It's especially important for the 3 million eligible voters who live overseas and know all too well the implications of Trump's withdrawal from the world — but who vote at shockingly low levels, with just a <a href="https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/OCPANewsRelease_20180911_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">7 percent turnout</a> two years ago. They should go to <a href="https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/overview" target="_blank">fvap.org</a> to request an absentee ballot today.</p><p>But don't stop there. Help family and friends do the same. If you're healthy and able, sign up to work at your local polling location. The <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/06/older-people-account-for-large-shares-of-poll-workers-and-voters-in-u-s-general-elections/" target="_blank">majority of poll workers </a>are older than 60 and more susceptible to dire outcomes after catching Covid-19, meaning our polls are likely to be more under-resourced than usual.</p><p>Trump can't delay the election, but he can derail it. Voting early is the best thing to do to keep our election on track.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Trump's latest baseless claim about mail voting sows doubts that ... ›
- Efforts to grow turnout may delay election results - The Fulcrum ›
- Total bipartisan rejection of Trump's idea the election be postponed ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
