Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Voting easements made in Virginia and New York, but stopped in Indiana

Indiana voter

Indiana is one of six states that requires voters to have an excuse not related to the coronavirus in order to vote by mail this fall.

Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images

Six states still require voters to provide an excuse not related to the Covid-19 pandemic in order to get a mail-in ballot this year. A judge decided to keep Indiana on that list Friday while a pair of states took action to make voting easier in 2020.

Virginia has waived the witness signature requirement and New York has made improvements to its absentee ballot verification system. In Missouri, meanwhile, a new legal battle over ballot access is just beginning.

Here are the details:


Indiana

A federal judge said Friday he wouldn't force Indiana officials to expand absentee voting eligibility for the general election. The state currently has 11 valid excuses for voting by mail, but fear of the coronavirus is not one of them.

Indiana Vote By Mail Inc. and a group of voters filed a lawsuit claiming the state's restrictive vote-by-mail policy violated voters' constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, however, was not convinced by their argument.

All voters were allowed to cast ballots by mail in the June primary, but the bipartisan Indiana Election Commission has failed to come to a consensus on whether to authorize the similar rules for the fall.

Virginia

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced Friday that voters will not be required to have their absentee ballots signed by a witness for the November election.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

After the state made the same easement for the June primary, a group of GOP voters sued, arguing the Covid-19 pandemic is not a valid excuse to loosen vote-by-mail restrictions.

But U.S. District Judge Norman Moon approved Herring's order, saying "every indication before the Court is that the June primary was conducted without the witness signature requirement and without any corresponding increase in voter confusion or election fraud."

New York

New Yorkers voting by mail in the general election will now be notified about and given the opportunity to correct any issues with their absentee ballots, such as a missing signature.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week he would sign legislation to allow ballot "curing," but the exact provisions have not been finalized due to last-minute negotiations between Cuomo and lawmakers.

New York's absentee ballot verification system has consistently had one of the highest rejection rates in the country — 84,000 primary ballots were rejected in New York City this year. Anticipating a surge in mail voting this fall, state lawmakers wanted to prevent widespread voter disenfranchisement due to voters not being able to correct clerical errors.

The governor also recently signed legislation to add fear of coronavirus infection as a valid excuse to vote absentee this fall.

Missouri

American Women, a national women's advocacy organization, joined with three Missouri residents to sue the secretary of state over five election laws they claim restrict access to the ballot box.

The lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court last week, seeks to make the following changes to Missouri's election laws:

  • Eliminate the notary requirement for absentee ballots.
  • Provide voters a way to return their absentee ballots without mailing them.
  • Ensure absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day, but arrive later due to mail service delays, are still counted.
  • Allow third parties to assist in collecting and submitting mail ballots.
  • Establish fair signature matching protocols and give voters the opportunity to fix errors with their absentee ballot.

Missouri has slightly expanded its vote-by-mail eligibility to those who are considered most at-risk of Covid-19 infection. Earlier this year, the state added a photo ID requirement for voters; anyone who cannot show a photo ID may cast a provisional ballot.

Read More

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.

Keep ReadingShow less
Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less