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While a number of states offer curbside voting, Alabama will not be among them.
Disabled dealt harsh blow in latest Supreme Court voting decision
Oct 22 2020
Disabled voters have suffered one of their biggest recent setbacks at the Supreme Court.
The court Wednesday night upheld Alabama's fresh prohibition on curbside voting, which the state's two biggest cities wanted to offer to accommodate people with disabilities or at high risk of serious problems if infected with Covid-19.
The 5-3 decision, with the three liberal justices dissenting, was not only a defeat for the cause of rules protecting the franchise for minority groups. It was also a sign that other election-smoothing moves in response to the pandemic will face rough going if they reach the Supreme Court, especially if ordered by federal judges.
<p>"I am not at all surprised by this ruling," Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, <a href="https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117228" target="_blank">wrote on his blog</a> after the brief and unsigned order was issued. "It is clear that the conservative justices believe that it is up to states, rather than federal courts, to decide how to best balance health concerns related to voting during the pandemic with burdens on voting rights."</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 next election case on the court's docket is an effort by Democrats and voting rights groups to revive a deadline extension for absentee ballots to arrive in battleground Wisconsin, which a federal trial judge ordered but an appeals panel stopped. </p><p>But a handful of other matters affecting how many people get to vote — as well as the speed and accuracy of the results — could get to the justices in the dozen days before the balloting stops Nov. 3, or as soon as the tabulating is close and the parties start fighting about which votes should be tossed.</p><p>Alabama will almost certainly not be part of that fight. President Trump carried the state's 9 electoral votes by a 2-1 margin last time and is assured of extending the GOP nominees' streak in the state to 11 elections. And Doug Jones is the only Democratic senator who's become a clear re-election underdog this fall. </p><p>But the high court's decision has ramifications beyond the state, because it amounts to a rebuke for the one in five Americans who say they have a physical disability. Fewer than half of them vote in most elections, in part because they <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/disability-voters" target="_self">describe the mechanics of the process</a> as too often too difficult.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>The ruling supports "unconscionable voter suppression and potentially genocide, not to mention illegal discrimination," said Valerie Novack, who focuses on the rights of the disabled at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. "It is a blatant form of ableism and disregard for more than 20 percent of the population with a disability."<br></p><p>In the past two elections, several counties in Alabama had curbside voting — allowing people to vote from their cars outside polling places and hand their ballots to poll workers. But when county officials in Birmingham and Montgomery announced a repeat for the primary this year, GOP Secretary of State John Merrill told them they could not.</p><p>Several disabled and high-risk people sued, and federal Judge Abdul Kallon in May ruled the restriction violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. A divided 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his ruling, and Merrill asked the Supreme Court to intervene.</p><p>"Some level of risk is inherent in life and in voting, pandemic or no," his brief said.</p><p>Curbside voting has been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic, and the Justice Department has endorsed it as a way to prevent violations of the ADA.</p><p>Dissenting from the high court's action were Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor wrote a dissent for the group arguing that in-person voting is considerably easier for the disabled than voting by mail in Alabama — because poll workers can offer help and there are no witness or photo ID requirements like there are for absentee ballots.</p><p>But it is illegally discriminatory this year, she said, to make vulnerable voters "wait inside, for as long as it takes, in a crowd of fellow voters whom Alabama does not require to wear face coverings."</p>
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Former felons in Florida still fighting for voting rights
Opaque felony voter laws another young-voter hurdle
Oct 21 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed elections across the country, putting a new focus on the diverse, ever-changing and frequently opaque laws that govern how we go to the polls. It's a muddled landscape of rules about who can vote, where we vote and how we vote. Some of the most confusing laws are for individuals with felony convictions. In more than 30 states, they simply can't vote while still on parole. In others they can, but often only after fulfilling certain requirements. These rules are often unclear and not well-publicized, leading many, including many young people, to wonder whether they are eligible to vote.
After having a considerable difficulty sorting through these laws ourselves this summer, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement decided to learn what younger voters knew about felony voting laws. We found more than half of those aged 18-29 misunderstood convicted-felon laws. About one-third (37 percent) correctly identified whether people with past felony convictions could vote in their state and only 53 percent correctly said individuals who had committed misdemeanors could still vote — something which is true in all states.
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://thefulcrum.us/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1NDE3Ni9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTcxNTMxMX0.h6_9FGx27vz7iT-mITT9D9sjDg3zXoff9_TvWwUfU9k/image.png?width=980" id="f2878" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b547371b7210b1917b1f92d110e80bd1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Lack of knowledge and misconceptions about voting rights for people with felonies and misdeemeeanors">
</p><p>These misconceptions disproportionately affect young Black, Latino and Native American communities. These populations are <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/the-facts/#detail?state1Option=U.S.%20Total&state2Option=0" target="_blank">far more likely to be arrested, placed in juvenile detention facilities or incarcerated</a> than those from other backgrounds, making questions about disenfranchisement and voting rights more pressing. Scholars estimate that one in three Americans <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0011128713514801" target="_blank">will be arrested by the age of 23</a>. And, like most dynamics connected to the criminal justice system in America, Black people are more affected by felony arrests. A 2019 study from The Sentencing Project found that <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-a-primer/" target="_blank">one in 13 Black men in America is denied access to the ballot</a>.<br></p><p>Ultimately, these findings underscore that misconceptions about election laws can make young people believe they cannot vote even when they are indeed eligible. Laws need to be clear and to be communicated properly. We must make sure we're providing all Americans — but especially young people who are new to elections — complete and accurate information about participating in democracy.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>You can read our <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/opaque-landscape-felony-disenfranchisement-laws-poses-challenge-young-voters" target="_blank">full analysis of young people and felony disenfranchisement laws here</a>.</p><p><em>Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg is the director of the <a data-linked-post="2639006380" href="https://thefulcrum.us/center-for-information-and-research-on-civic-learning-andengagement" target="_blank">Center for Information and Research and Civic Learning and Engagement</a>, part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. Alberto Medina is a communications specialist at Tisch College. <em>Read more from The Fulcrum's </em><em><a href="https://thefulcrum.us/election-dissection" target="_self">Election Dissection</a>.</em><em></em></em></p>
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Learning More About the Voters You Serve: Celebrating Voter Education Week
Oct 04 2020
Organizer: Nonprofit VOTE
National Voter Education Week is a new initiative supported by Nonprofit VOTE, Campus Vote Project, Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, Democracy Works, and others that helps voters bridge the gap between registering to vote and actually casting a ballot. During this week of interactive education, voters have the opportunity to find their polling location, understand their ballot, make a plan to vote in person or remotely, and more.
To celebrate, we're bringing in our partners from the Right Question Institute to help you learn more about the voters you serve - what are the issues they care about? What are their questions about voting? Learn about strategies and tools you can use to facilitate meaningful dialogues about voting within and around your organization. Plus, Kathryn Quintin from Students Learn Students Vote will be on hand to share updates and resources from National Voter Education Week.
Location: Webinar
An Unprecedented Election: Protecting Democracy for November 3 and Beyond
Oct 01 2020
Organizer: Campaign Legal Center
Join us virtually for a panel discussion about protecting democracy for Nov. 3 and beyond. The Campaign Legal Center and special guests from the League of Women Voters and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice will discuss successful and active legal fights around some of the most important voting issues this year.
In addition to discussing voting rights legal battles, the panel will also review possible election results scenarios to help us all prepare for an unprecedented Election Day – starting with the possibility of not having the results of the election on election night.
Location: Webinar
