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Defense Secretary Hegseth Testifies Before Senate Appropriations Committee

Can We Fire Hegseth Yet?

People walking down the steps of the U.S. capitol.

DNC's Proposed RCV Ban Sparks Debate Over 2028 Presidential Primaries

What Will It Take to Rebuild American Democracy?

What Will It Take to Rebuild American Democracy?

Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No.

Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No.

State Gerrymandering Surge Ends Path to Proportional Representation

State Gerrymandering Surge Ends Path to Proportional Representation

Texas adds 500,000 voters thanks to new option for online registration

"I Voted" stickers
Dan Tian/Getty Images
Sara Swann
By Sara SwannMar 08, 2021
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

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A small change in Texas, allowing limited access to online voter registration for the first time, has led to half a million new voter sign-ups over the past five months.

The second most populous state now has 17 million registered voters. But it is one of just nine states that doesn't broadly offer online registration.

This access issue led to a years-long legal battle that concluded in September 2020 when a federal judge ruled Texas must give people the option to register to vote online when updating their driver's license. Previously, Texans had to print and fill out a form and mail it to the county registrar in order to register.

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, also known as the motor voter law, requires states to allow residents to register to vote when updating their driver's licenses. However, when a group of Texas residents were unable to register through this process, the Texas Civil Rights Project sued the state on their behalf.

Judge Orlando Garcia ruled last fall that the Department of Public Safety was "legally obligated" to allow Texans to simultaneously register to vote while updating their driver's licenses through the state's online portal.

His ruling came just two weeks before Texas' Oct. 5 voter registration deadline for the 2020 election. At the time, voting rights advocates celebrated the limited expansion as a step in the right direction.

Now, as the Republican-controlled Legislature considers more than 191 election reform bills (mostly to ease voting, according to the Voting Rights Lab), voting rights advocates hope this recent registration success will tip the scales toward more voting expansions, rather than rollbacks.

While Texans will not vote in any statewide elections this year, there will be special elections for Congress and the Legislature, as well as municipal races.


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How State Constitutions Became the Battleground for American Rights and Liberties – on Both the Left and Right

Beyond picking governors, state legislators, local officials and representatives to serve in Congress, voters in almost every state this year will have the opportunity to amend the language of their state constitution. In one state, they could potentially rewrite the constitution altogether.

Though the U.S. Constitution is rarely amended, voters frequently amend their state constitutions. In every election cycle, voters are asked to ratify constitutional amendments.

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The Double Standard Presidency: When We Watch Leaders Act Above the Law

Americans are told that no one is above the law. Yet every day, they watch a president behave in ways that would get any ordinary citizen fired, disciplined, confronted, or held accountable — and they watch some Americans excuse it. What makes this moment even more striking is that critics across the political spectrum, including conservatives, now warn that the presidency is operating on a dangerous double standard. This is not a partisan concern. It is a constitutional one. And it is tearing at the fabric of our democracy.

For generations, the Constitution has provided guardrails — separation of powers, checks and balances, oversight mechanisms, and limits on executive authority — designed to prevent any leader from functioning above the law. The framers feared concentrated power more than anything else. They believed that the presidency must be constrained not only by written law but by norms of restraint, dignity, and respect for institutions. Those norms held for centuries because presidents understood that the office was larger than any individual, and Congress understood that oversight was not optional.

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Pew’s analysis finds that Latino immigrants are significantly more likely to say their origins are central to their identity, while U.S.-born Latinos — especially those in the third generation or higher — are less likely to feel that connection. The report notes that “U.S. Hispanics are divided on whether their identity helps or hurts them in America,” with some respondents describing their Latino identity as a source of pride and connection, and others saying it is tied to discrimination or barriers.

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A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model

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A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model

Tallying the results of Washington, DC’s first ranked-choice election in June took about 10 days—longer than many voters are used to. In an age when artificial intelligence can generate an answer in seconds, waiting days for election results can feel old-fashioned, inefficient, even suspicious. And it is about to matter far more widely. This November, 17 states, cities, and counties will use ranked-choice voting, including Maine and Alaska statewide, in races that could help decide control of Congress. More voters than ever will watch results take days to resolve, and more will be asked to trust a count they cannot see.

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