Voter Suppression 2

As a former Wisconsin state Senator expresses regret over restrictions passed there, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to several states that seems to lay the groundwork to further suppress voting rights.

The DOJ sent the letter to 44 states last Wednesday, the same day the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter controversially requesting personal voter information. The DOJ letter requests that election officials respond by detailing their compliance with a section of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which covers 44 states and was enacted to help people register to vote, but also specifies when voters may be kicked off the rolls.

Former Justice Department officials say that while there’s nothing notable about seeking information about compliance with the NVRA, it is unusual for the department to send out such a broad inquiry to so many states seeking information. Such a wide probe could signal the department is broadly fishing for cases of non-compliance to bring suits aimed at purging the voter rolls.

Update (July 7):  Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has a plan.

Election insiders who have warily watched him for years have been saying this latest nationwide data-grab gambit may be a masterful version of three-card Monte. That is, Kobach knew he wouldn’t get anywhere, but baited the election law establishment to create a vacuum where Republicans could claim states need to take new steps to protect the vote, police the process and pass newly restrictive measures.

Steven Rosenfeld explains why.

What’s really going on is darker and needs to be watched beyond the buffoonish politics of the moment and the presidential panel’s clumsy opening steps. Kobach and a handful of other Republican statewide election managers and lawyers—the same crew that were running federal election oversight under George W. Bush—have found weaknesses or ambiguities in federal election laws and are trying to exploit them to restrict who can vote. Their motive is simple. They know the Republican’s white and aging base is a shrinking minority in a diversifying nation. Philosophically, this ilk believe fewer but better qualified voters is perfectly acceptable and even wise.

Update (July 9):  Working hard to solve the non-existent voter fraud problem.

Update (July 15):  Worried about how the "Voter Fraud" Commission might use personal information they collect from states? Don't send them an e-mail.

While many of the emails released on Thursday accused the commission of attempting to build a national database that could be used for targeted voter suppression and potentially leave sensitive information vulnerable to theft, the White House saw fit to release complaints containing such information from hundreds of Americans.

Update (July 19):  Rick Hasen doesn't mince words describing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

[I]t is hard to imagine a list of people less credible on the issue of the extent of voter fraud in the United States, and who have done more to raise the scourge of voter fraud as a means to advocate for laws to make it harder for people to register and to vote.

Update (September 11):  Kristen Clarke also has some criticism.

By stacking the deck with an all-white and male cast of panelists, the Commission has created an echo chamber to support Kris Kobach’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

 Also, the commission chair says that poll taxes and literacy tests would raise turnout.

But more interesting is the ploy Breitbart used to deflect attention from Russia immediately after the election.

Russian meddling, the hijacking of Facebook and Twitter accounts to create and enlarge hyper-partisan echo chambers, and similarities between how the [von Clownstick] campaign and Russian agents operated, are complex stories to report.

Having Kobach change the subject from Russian meddling to illegal electioneering by 5,000-plus people who he falsely accuses of illegally voting in New Hampshire is not merely recycling voter fraud clichés that would appeal to [von Clownstick's] base (accusing their critics of cheating) and inflame moderates and the left (by besmirching legal voters). It’s a deft tactic in the pro-[Fuckface] propaganda war that Bannon promised.

Update (September 13):  Heather Digby Parton sums up our post-truth world.

[O]ur election campaign was clearly tampered with by a foreign country. The president of the United States may or may not have been in on it, but he’s certainly been active in trying to cover it up. Meanwhile he’s convened a commission that’s completely lacking in credibility to investigate election fraud that doesn’t exist.

Update (October 1):  Voter fraud is non-existent but Wisconsin's voter ID law prevented as many as 45,000 people from voting in 2016 in a state carried by Republicans by about 22,000 votes.

Update (October 20):  Ari Berman investigates the Wisconsin voter ID law.

[A] year later, interviews with voters, organizers, and election officials reveal that, in Wisconsin and beyond, voter suppression played a much larger role than is commonly understood.

Todd Allbaugh, a former chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz, a moderate Republican, described the discussions preceding the law’s passage. ... Schultz expressed concern about disenfranchising African American and younger voters, but Glenn Grothman, then a state senator and now a member of Congress, cut him off: “What I’m concerned about is winning. We better get this done while we have the opportunity.”

Update (November 5):  A member of Congress suggests that a special election in Georgia may have been stolen.

Update (December 20):  The latest suppression tactic:

GOP-authored voter restrictions continue to pile up, and increasingly Republicans are branching beyond such familiar tools as voter ID rules to an even more aggressive suppression tactic: Voter purges that wipe voters from the rolls altogether. Done in the name of combating fraud, such purges have stripped hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere, prompting a rash of lawsuits by voting rights advocates who say eligible voters are being disenfranchised.

Update (January 1, 2018):  There is an initiative effort in Florida to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies who have served their time.  "So long, Republicans!"

Update (January 3, 2018):  By executive order, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity has been suddenly disbanded.

Alan King:

I never believed that this commission would be able to produce evidence or testimony to support the claim of a widespread conspiracy of voter fraud in the United States.

Jason Kander:

[Fuckface von Clownstick] created his sham voting commission to substantiate a lie he told about voter fraud in the 2016 election. When he couldn’t come up with any fake evidence, and under relentless pressure, he had no choice but to disband his un-American commission.

Update (January 5, 2018):  Somehow, the Department of Homeland Security is taking over the commission's work.

Update (January 6, 2018):  But the commission will not be turning over voter information to DHS.

Update (January 9, 2018):  Good news against gerrymandering:

A panel of three federal judges in North Carolina struck down North Carolina’s congressional map Tuesday, saying it went so far to benefit Republicans that it violated the U.S. Constitution.

Update (January 11, 2018):  Mandy Velez explains how suppression tactics create greater obstacles for women voters.

Update (January 14, 2018):  Senate Democrats warn against further Russian interference in U.S. elections. And a U.S. District Court decision reversed a previous court order against "caging".

GOP operatives would send postcards to voters in blue epicenters. Those returned as undeliverable would then be used by pro-GOP election officials to purge thousands of otherwise legal voters, ignoring a 1993 federal law laying out how to clean up voter rolls. When those citizens showed up to vote, they were told they could not vote; they had to re-register and wait until the next election.

Steven Rosenfeld further reports that the Supreme Court will decide a case where the Ohio Secretary of State targeted disproportionately Democratic voters for purging.

The specifics concern Husted’s purge of at least 144,000 legal but infrequent voters between 2012 and 2016. At the heart of the case is an ambiguity in the wording of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 that Husted shrewdly exploited. The NVRA said no voter could be purged in the four years after they register. But it also said efforts to contact infrequent voters—such as those who only vote in presidential years—can be used to identify voters to be removed after that initial four-year period. (That contact effort is where the use of postcards comes in, as caging operatives use mail posing as an official NVRA contact.)      

Update (January 19, 2018):  The Supreme Court put a stay on the order to redraw North Carolina's congressional districts.

Update (January 22, 2018):  More good news against gerrymandering:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the state’s congressional map went so far to benefit Republicans that it “clearly, plainly and palpably” violated the state constitution.

Update (February 2, 2018):  Florida's ban on allowing former felons to vote has been ruled unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court has yet to rule on voter purging.

Update (February 4, 2018):  In a book excerpt, Steven Rosenfeld illustrates how controlling the recount process for an election also serves as a means of voter suppression.

Update (February 19, 2018):  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has issued a new congressional map for the state.

And Paul Rosenberg explains how Republican state legislators are fighting back against court rulings not in their favor.

Update (February 21, 2018):  No one can stop Pennsylvania Republicans from impeaching state supreme judges for doing their job.

Update (March 10, 2018):  A Kansas law that requires residents to prove they are citizens before they can register to vote is on trial.

Update (March 11, 2018):  Sarah Okeson explains how a Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act continues to contribute to voter suppression.

Update (March 16, 2018):  Sam Levine explains how Republicans went too far with their zest for gerrymandering. He quotes Jeffrey Wice.

You can draw a plan to benefit a party, but do so in a fair way through a more transparent, objective process that follows criteria. If politicians weren’t as greedy and secretive, then we wouldn’t be seeing as many challenges to plans for the egregious overreaching in the last round.

Update (March 19, 2018):  The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the new Pennsylvania congressional map.

Update (March 21, 2018):  Pennsylvania Republicans are seriously pursuing impeachment.

Update (March 22, 2018):  The Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court criticizes his own party.

I am very concerned by the reported filing of impeachment resolutions against Justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania related to the Court’s decision about congressional redistricting. Threats of impeachment directed against Justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government.

Update (March 28, 2018):  Jacob Sugarman explains how hard it will be for Democrats to win control of the House of Representatives this year.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the GOP could lose the popular vote by as much as 10 percentage points and still hold both chambers of Congress thanks to partisan redistricting. As Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress notes, "congressional races are so heavily rigged in favor of Republicans that the United States can barely be described as a democratic republic."

Update (April 7, 2018):  What if everyone voted?

Update (April 25, 2018):  Florida gets more time to figure out a new way to restore voting rights to ex-felons.

Update (June 11, 2018):  The Supreme Court makes it easier for states to purge voter registration rolls by upholding a law in Ohio.

In Ohio, officials send anyone who doesn’t vote for two consecutive years a notice in the mail to determine whether they’ve moved. If someone fails to respond to the notice and then doesn’t vote for four consecutive years, the state removes them from its voter rolls.

Update (June 25, 2018):  The Court seems to support gerrymandered districts in Texas.

Update (August 5, 2018):  Matt Dunlap was one of four Democrats serving on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

I have reviewed the commission documents made available to me and they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud. Indeed, while staff prepared drafts of a report to be issued to the commission, the sections on evidence of voter fraud are glaringly empty. That the commission predicted it would find widespread evidence of fraud ... reveals a troubling bias.

Update (August 9, 2018):  Sam Levine has the story of how the disbanded commission was much more interested in non-existent voter fraud than all-too-real voter intimidation.

Update (October 10, 2018):  The Republican Georgia Secretary of State who is also running for governor against a black woman had the gall to purge thousands of black voters right before the election. And the Supreme Court let stand a strict ID law that makes it harder for Native Americans in North Dakota to vote. Oh, is there a Democratic Senator running re-election there?

Update (October 28, 2018):  Greg Palast argues voter suppression tactics have already doomed some Democrats this year.

Update (November 2, 2018):  Court orders in Ohio and Georgia are blocking some suppression efforts.

Update (November 16, 2018):  Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith at a campaign stop:

[T]hey remind me that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea.

Update (December 20, 2018):  The person being investigated for stealing absentee ballots in North Carolina this year is also suspected of a similar scheme in 2016.

Update (January 29, 2019):  House Democrats are prioritizing reforms. And so, naturally, we get a headline like this:

Republicans Claim Democrats' Voting Rights Bill Is Just A Play To Steal Elections

Update (January 30, 2019):  Senator McConnell calls this plan a "political power grab".

Create an "Election Day" holiday to make it easier for voters to get to the polls
Launch an automatic voter registration database, requiring people to opt out rather than opt in
Force super PACs and political groups that rely on "dark money" to reveal their funders
Require social media platforms to reveal the sources of their political advertisements
Use government matching funds to enhance the power of individual donors' contributions to presidential and congressional campaigns
Recruit more poll workers to reduce long lines at polling places
Enhance election security

Meanwhile, Texas is asking nearly 100,000 voters to prove citizenship.

Update (January 31, 2019):  Turns out most of those Texans are citizens.

Update (February 2, 2019):  Exaggerating voter fraud is just part of the strategy.

Update (February 3, 2019):  Here come the Texas lawsuits.

A group of Latino voters is suing top state officials who they allege unlawfully conspired to violate their constitutional rights by singling them out for investigation and removal from the voter rolls because they are foreign-born.

Update (February 16, 2019):  No illegal Texas voters, but let's purge them anyway.

Update (February 18, 2019):  Actual election fraud.

The executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections revealed Monday that state officials had uncovered a "coordinated" and "unlawful" effort to collect absentee ballots on behalf of a Republican congressional candidate in the November election.

Update (February 21, 2019):  The North Carolina Board of Elections is calling for a new election in that Congressional district.

Update (March 1, 2019):  U.S. District Judge Fred Biery has ordered the Texas Secretary of State not to remove anyone from the voter registration list without the court's approval.

Update (April 26, 2019):  Texas has halted its effort to purge voter registration rolls.

Update (May 13, 2019):  Dana Liebelson and Sam Levine quote Anthony Gutierrez on election fraud in Texas.

You have a state that’s going out of its way to find people to prosecute so they can trump up this voter fraud bogeyman, so they can use that for all kinds of political purposes.

The party in charge very clearly has no interest in addressing the pitiful levels of political participation in Texas. They clearly love voter roll purges and any prosecution that provides however tenuous an opportunity to say 'voter fraud' in a press release.

Update (August 11, 2019):  It just seems bizarre certain states are obsessed with this.

At least 17 million people were removed from the voter rolls between the 2016 election and the 2018 midterms, according to a new report published by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Update (December 19, 2019):  More voter purges in Georgia and Wisconsin.

Wisconsin and Georgia have a history of voter suppression that has affected the outcome of recent elections. Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law kept tens of thousands from the polls in 2016. ... [B]lack voters were three times more likely than whites to cite the ID law as a reason they did not cast a ballot in the presidential race.

Georgia placed more than 50,000 voters on a suspended registration list before the 2018 election, 80 percent of them voters of color; saw four-hour lines on Election Day in some heavily black precincts; and closed 214 polling places from 2012 to 2018.

Update (December 21, 2019):  Republican campaign official Justin Clark suggests in an audio recording that voter suppression in 2020 is "going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program".