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Washington Among the First to Expand Voting Rights This Year

Our Staff
By Our StaffMar 12, 2019
Our Staff
The Fulcrum staff.
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One of the first expansions of voting rights by a state legislature this year is about to become law.

Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to soon sign a measure enhancing access to the polls for American Indians in Washington. The bill would allow tribal members to request voter registration be conducted on reservations, and the county would be required to place at least one voting drop box on a reservation if requested by the tribe. Voters could register using those buildings' address as well, or register using nontraditional addresses. Tribal identifications cards would be an acceptable form of ID for registering to vote, and non-traditional addresses would be acceptable as well.

The bill passed the House 95-3 and the Senate 45-3. "There is nothing more fundamental than democracy. All of us as Americans are meant to have an equal voice," said Democratic state Rep. Debra Lekanoff, a member of the Swinomish tribe, during the legislative debate last week, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported.

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David Becker

Meet the change leaders: David Becker

David Becker is the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, working with election officials of both parties, all around the country, to ensure elections are trustworthy. A key element of Becker’s work with CEIR is managing the Election Official Legal Defense Network, providing pro bono legal assistance to election officials who are threatened with frivolous criminal prosecution, harassment or physical violence.

Prior to founding CEIR, Becker was director of the elections program at the Pew Charitable Trusts. As the lead for Pew’s analysis and advocacy on elections issues, Becker spearheaded development of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which to date has helped the majority of states update tens of millions of out-of-date voter records, and helped those states easily and securely register new eligible voters.

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Long lines of people receiving food

Volunteers distribute food to migrants who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico on June 14, 2024, in Jacumba Hot Springs, California.

Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images

Mediating Mexicans: Immigrant news portrayals time can’t erase

A recent cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz, winner of the Herblock Prize, shows a brown-skinned man standing at a street corner and holding a large homemade sign.

As a couple in a red Volkswagen approach, perhaps expecting to be confronted by a panhandler. They instead read: “Exhausted Immigrant: I don’t want money! Just a vacation from being blamed for everything bad in the U.S.A.! P.S. We Don’t Eat Pets.”

It’s comical and absurd. It’s also an accurate nod to the onslaught of xenophobic media representations that have bombarded this country for decades, well before the results of the recent presidential election and the threat of massive deportations by the incoming administration.

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Republican, Democratic and independent checkboxes, with the third one checked
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Independents, tripartisanship and America's future

The key for independents to gain a voice in American politics over and above influencing a race between a Democrat and a Republican is to find a way to be a player in Washington without creating a war with either of the two major parties, which are basically at war with each other. Independents — more than 40 percent of American voters, according to Gallup — will fail in their efforts to organize if their animating theme is to take down the two major parties.

We need what I have previously called a "tripartisan revolution," namely a revolution that provides a third force in Washington to represent the over 60 million registered voters who do not register as Democrats or Republicans. There are about 160 million registered voters out of 240 million eligible voters.

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Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz campaign signs

Campaign signs for Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz were posted near a polling station in Orlando, Fla.

Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images

What if most Americans aren’t bitterly divided?

Among elites across the ideological spectrum, there’s one point of unifying agreement: Americans are bitterly divided. What if that’s wrong? What if elites are the ones who are bitterly divided while most Americans are fairly unified?

History rarely lines up perfectly with the calendar (the “sixties” didn’t really start until the decade was almost over). But politically, the 21st century neatly began in 2000, when the election ended in a tie and the color coding of electoral maps became enshrined as a kind permanent tribal color war of “red vs. blue.”

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