New article by Torey Dolan in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Category Archives: absentee ballots
“Trump, GOP urge early and mail voting while continuing to raise specter of voter fraud”
“Partisan gridlock prevents fixes to Pennsylvania’s voting laws as presidential election looms”
I can co-sign the AP’s lede:
Pennsylvania is seeing lots of action targeting gaps in its vote-by-mail laws. The problem is that it’s in the courtroom and not the legislature.
And no, I’m not suggesting that’s a problem of constitutional magnitude.
“Illinois Republicans grapple with mail voting amid mixed signals from Trump — ‘We have to adapt'”
WBEZ has the story about trying to motivate voters in the face of very mixed messaging.
Related, I recently learned about the origin story for the VRA’s 1970 guarantee of uniform protections for absentee balloting in presidential races: none other than liberal icon Barry Goldwater. His testimony on his proposal starts at p. 277 of the Senate Judiciary hearings available here (though be warned – the file’s a hefty download). (h/t Mike Rosin)
“Nevada has a plan to expand electronic voting. That concerns election security experts”
The AP covers the attempt to expand access for remote Tribal voters via electronic ballot delivery.
FWIW, meaningfully increasing Postal Service presence in remote areas helps connect those voters to the process in a way that isn’t limited to ballots.
“1,900 New Jersey ballots whose envelopes were opened early must be counted, judge rules”
Here’s the follow-up from the story Rick noted last week.
The judge ruled from the bench, I believe, and I don’t know if there’s been a written opinion yet. But reporting indicates that the court’s decision relies on the Democracy Canon (even if not by name).
“Tampa Bay’s vote-by-mail requests plunge as 2024 election nears”
In the wake of a law requiring voters to re-up requests for mail ballots, mail ballot requests look to be way down in Florida, compared to requests in the midterm.
“Trump’s mail-in ballot reversal: As he backs it, GOP lawyers are still fighting against it”
This USA Today piece highlights Republican efforts to tighten mail vote practices.
I’m quoted in the piece explaining a dynamic that I think extends well beyond mail-in voting. Most restrictions on voting practices – and particularly restrictions that may seem counterintuitive to eligible voters unfamiliar with the process, like failing to count mail ballots that are cast on Election Day but arrive in the mail afterward – are more likely to affect infrequent voters than regular voters.
I suspect that many policymakers and some litigants may be making knee-jerk assumptions about who infrequent voters are more likely to support. I don’t know if conventional wisdom about infrequent voters’ preferences ever truly reflected those preferences. But I know that former President Trump has been particularly credited with reshaping the modern Republican party by energizing infrequent voters. And so I suspect that unnecessary restrictions on voting practices may well have a notable impact on infrequently-voting Trump supporters this cycle.
“Dispute over mailed ballots in a New Jersey county delays outcome of congressional primary”
Whether to count more than 1,900 mail ballots cast in one New Jersey county will be up to a judge after their envelopes were unsealed prematurely and members of the local election board deadlocked on how to proceed.
Superior Court Judge Michael J. Blee will hear arguments Friday in Atlantic City. The decision could affect the outcome of the Democratic primary in the race for the state’s 2nd Congressional District, where businessman Joe Salerno holds a 400-vote lead over attorney Tim Alexander in unofficial results.
At the center of the dispute is a state law that allows local election officials to open mail ballots five days before an election day. In Atlantic County this year, the envelopes containing the 1,909 ballots were unsealed about a month before Tuesday’s primary, but the ballots themselves were not removed at that time, said Creed Pogue, a Democrat appointed to the county Board of Elections.
“Lawsuit could complicate absentee voting in Wisconsin”
A lawsuit that could complicate Wisconsin’s absentee voting process, create additional last-minute work for election officials and confuse voters is coming before a Marinette County judge Wednesday.
The lawsuit asks Marinette County Circuit Court Judge James Morrison to require voters who request their ballot through MyVote, Wisconsin’s online voting portal, to return a signed copy of their request with their actual absentee ballot for their vote to count.
Additionally, the lawsuit asks Morrison to bar election officials from using a redesigned absentee ballot envelope that states the envelope is an original or copy of voters’ original absentee ballot request — something that the lawsuit alleges is not the case.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission urged the court to reject those requests in a Friday filing. But even if Morrison were to grant the requests, the commission asked him not to require any changes ahead of this year’s elections because they “would risk disenfranchising tens or even hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in upcoming elections,” something the commission said would be “a stunningly undemocratic result.”
The requested changes to Wisconsin’s absentee ballot voting system would add work for clerks ahead of their June 27 deadline to begin mailing absentee ballots for August’s primary elections. Morrison may be sympathetic to the requests, considering that he granted a temporary injunction May 17 prohibiting the Wisconsin Elections Commission from requiring local clerks to use the redesigned absentee ballot envelope….
“GOP Continues to Wage War on Mail-In Votes in Pennsylvania”
Frank Wilkinson Bloomberg column:
In Pennsylvania, one of the paramount states of our mortal combat electoral system, voting by mail is legal. It’s also safe and readily administered and documented. As in other swing states won by Joe Biden, the 2020 election in Pennsylvania was scrutinized, adjudicated and relentlessly attacked.
Despite months of partisan effort, nonpartisan analysis and well-funded investigations, the “clown car”— former Attorney General William Barr’s phrase — that carried Donald Trump’s claims eventually crashed into an unyielding wall of reality. The wild allegations of fraud were lies. Nearly four years and millions of dollars later, there still isn’t a speck of evidence to support them….
“Wisconsin Supreme Court to revisit ruling that banned most ballot drop boxes”
NBC News: The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a case that could result in the use of absentee ballot drop boxes for the upcoming presidential election. The case provides an opportunity for the Court’s liberal majority to reverse a decision made in the last election cycle that only the legislature can introduce absentee ballot drop boxes. Voting Rights Activists argue that is not correct and that the Wisconsin Elections Commission has discretion to make the decision. Wisconsin requires that absentee ballots be returned by mail or in person, but they argued it is unclear if the latter is limited to returning ballots to the election clerk’s office.
“Kansas GOP lawmakers revive a plan to stop giving voters 3 extra days to return mail ballots”
Republican legislators in Kansas have revived a proposal to stop giving voters three extra days after polls close to return mail ballots after making key concessions in a bid to get enough votes from rural GOP lawmakers to overcome the Democratic governor’s potential veto.
Republicans have argued that allowing election officials to count ballots received after Election Day undermines people’s confidence in the results, through there’s no evidence that the practice has led to fraud or serious mistakes. The Republican-controlled Legislature expects to take final votes this week on a version of the proposal drafted Monday by GOP negotiators for the House and Senate.
The push to end the “grace period” arose as election conspiracy promoters gained influence within the Kansas GOP. They have spread baseless claims that elections are rife with fraud and amplified ex-President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
“GOP scrambles to organize early and mail voting despite Trump’s attacks”
In December, Donald Trump called for the end of mail-in voting in presidential elections. In February, he told Michigan voters that “mail-in voting is totally corrupt.” He later told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that “if you have mail-in balloting, you automatically have fraud.”
“The ballots are a disaster,” he said earlier this month to British TV host Nigel Farage, without offering evidence and despite having voted by mail himself in recent elections. “Any time the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating. It’s too bad people don’t say it. They don’t want to say it.”
That message is complicating plans by officials at Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee to orchestrate aggressive efforts in key battleground states to persuade voters to cast their ballots early and by mail. Party officials say the efforts are crucial to win the election.
In an interview, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said the party would spend considerable money — he would not say how much — to encourage voters to vote by mail and help collect ballots, a practice known as ballot harvesting that is legal in some states but that Trump has decried.
“We’ve got to get every one of our voters to vote, no matter the method,” Whatley said. “We want people to use mail-in voting where it is legal. We want people to ballot harvest where it’s legal. We want to comply with the laws in every state.”
Trump advisers say their get-out-the-vote effort will include persuading people to vote by mail if they believe it is the method the person is likely to use based on their voting history, including making sure ballots are mailed to people who request them.