Brennan Center Updates Report

Voting Laws Roundup: July 2021. I saw this just after posting on Politfact’s caution on the need to be nuanced when characterizing these new state laws. To the Brennan Center’s credit, this July update prominently states up front: “The new laws restricting voting access are not created equal.” It goes on to explain that some of the new statutes are “mixed” and others are “narrower in scope.” Still, I might quibble with how the Brennan Center describes some of the specific measures. For example, it calls “harsher” the requirement for absentee voters to produce a numerical form of identification (like a driver’s license number) rather than to use signature-matching as the way to verify an absentee voter’s ID. I would argue, to the contrary, that an accessible form of numerical ID is actually more voter-friendly than the inherently fraught process of signature-matching. Even so, I consider it a positive development if the public discourse on these laws is becoming more detailed-oriented and less of painting with the broadest possible brush.

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