Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The state of voting: Aug. 15, 2022

State of voting - election law changes

This weekly update summarizing legislative activity affecting voting and elections is powered by the Voting Rights Lab. Sign up for VRL’s weekly newsletter here.

The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,187 bills so far this session, with 580 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,042 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral or mixed or unclear in their impact.

Last week’s major activity occurred outside the legislative arena.

A conservative organization filed a lawsuit seeking to prohibit the use of staffed mobile election units to conduct in-person absentee voting in Wisconsin. And one of the most populous counties in Georgia expanded in-person early voting options for the 2022 general election by adding a day of Sunday voting. Meanwhile, in Arizona, Latino and Indigenous voters are more likely to be dropped from Arizona’s mail voting list, according to a new study.

Looking ahead: Alaska is conducting its first ranked-choice election tomorrow, Aug. 16. Final results from the election will be released no earlier than Aug, 31.

Here are the details:


Cobb County, Ga., expands early voting for the 2022 general election. The Cobb County Board of Elections voted last week to expand early voting hours to include time one Sunday before Election Day. Lengthy public comments took place ahead of the vote, with those in support of Sunday voting citing flexibility for those with work and caregiving obligations. As a result of S.B. 202, which was passed last year, Georgia law allows for up to two Sundays of early voting at the discretion of county elections boards.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Litigation once again takes aim at Wisconsin mail voting access. Last week, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit seeking to prohibit mobile election units. During the 2022 primaries, the Racine city clerk used a staffed mobile election unit to conduct in-person absentee voting at pre-scheduled times across the district. The lawsuit asserts that the unit is illegal under Wisconsin statute. It’s the latest in a string of lawsuits WILL has filed to make it more difficult to vote by mail in Wisconsin. WILL previously successfully sued to ban drop boxes and policies permitting assistance for those returning mail ballots and recently filed another lawsuit that seeks to stop clerks from counting otherwise eligible mail ballots when the witness address is missing (but known by a clerk). All of these suits allege noncompliance with the text of Wisconsin’s voting laws, but do not assert that any ineligible voters successfully cast ballots.

In Arizona, nonwhite voters are more likely to be dropped from the mail ballot list, according to a new study. Nearly 340,000 Arizona voters are in danger of being removed from the state's mail-in ballot list due to a new law enacted last year, and almost half of those are nonwhite, primarily Latino and Indigenous voters. Under S.B 1485, which was enacted last year, voters are removed from the mail-in ballot list if they fail to vote using an early ballot for two consecutive election cycles.

Read More

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

An illustration of hands putting together a puzzle.

Getty Images, cienpies

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

The concept of the common good in American society has undergone a remarkable transformation since the nation's founding. What began as a clear, if contested, vision of collective welfare has splintered into something far more complex and individualistic. This shift reflects changing times and a fundamental reimagining of what we owe each other as citizens and human beings.

The nation’s progenitors wrestled with this very question. They drew heavily from Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw the social contract as a sacred covenant between citizens and their government. But they also pulled from deeper wells—the Puritan concept of the covenant community, the classical Republican tradition of civic virtue, and the Christian ideal of serving one's neighbor. These threads wove into something uniquely American: a vision of the common good that balances individual liberty with collective responsibility.

Keep ReadingShow less
We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

Students in a classroom.

Getty Images, Maskot

We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

“If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men.” - W.E.B. Du Bois

The current state of public education has many confused, anxious, and even fearful. Depending on the day, I feel any combination of the above, among other less-than-ideal adjectives. Simply, the future is uncertain. Schools are simultaneously cutting budgets and trying to remain relevant, all during an increasingly tense political climate.

Keep ReadingShow less
Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

An oversized gavel surrounded by people.

Getty Images, J Studios

Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

In a recent post we quoted a journalist describing the Republican Party as anti-immigration. Many of our readers wrote back angrily to say that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally.

But that's not true. And we're not shy of telling it like it is.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Importance of Respecting Court Orders
brown wooden chess piece on brown book

The Importance of Respecting Court Orders

The most important question in American politics today is whether Donald Trump will respect court orders. Judges have repeatedly ruled against his administration.

But will he listen?

Keep ReadingShow less