Legislative Updates
Federal Legislation: Republicans on Wednesday, blocked the Senate from starting debate on a Voting Rights Bill named after the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), marking the latest setback for Democrats in their push for New Elections legislation. Senators Voted 50-49 on whether to bring up the Bill, falling short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. Vice President Harris presided over part of the vote. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) voted no, a procedural step that lets him bring the bill back up in the future for another vote. Unlike this year’s previous failed election reform votes, which were on bills that stretched well beyond bolstering the Voting Rights Act, Democrats picked up a GOP supporter: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). All Senate Democrats except Manchin introduced the bill in October to update the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to strengthen sections that were gutted by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which focused on Section 5 of the VRA and its required Justice Department preclearance before some states could change voting laws, and this year’s Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decision, which advocates believe weakened Section 2, which is focused on racially targeted voting policies. The revised bill that Republicans blocked on Wednesday includes changes such as what factors courts can consider when determining if Section 2 of the VRA has been violated. The bill also drops a requirement for localities with growing minority populations to get preclearance for changes on offering food or drinks to people waiting in line to vote. The change has been included under the earlier version of the bill’s new requirement for “practice-based” preclearance.
Michigan: Democrats have introduced a nine-bill package aimed at reforming elections. The measures would:
- Allow absentee ballots received up to 72 hours after polls close on Election Day to count, as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
- Allow absent voter counting boards to start processing and tabulating ballots up to seven days before Election Day. The bill says boards are “only permitted to open, process, and tabulate absent voter ballots and are not permitted to tally or count the results of those absent voter ballots.” Generally, tabulating a ballot and counting a ballot are considered the same thing. A House Democratic spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a call seeking clarification.
- Mandate at least one absentee ballot drop box for every 20,000 registered voters in a city.
- Require clerks to mail an absentee ballot application and pre-paid return envelope to every registered voter in a city or township. The state would be required to reimburse the local municipality for the cost of postage.
- Nix a part of law that criminalizes the hiring of a vehicle to take anyone other than someone physically unable to walk to a polling place.
- Allow active duty service members and their spouses who are deployed or living overseas to return ballots electronically.
Democrats did not work with House Republican leadership on the measures. Generally, bills from Democratic lawmakers have a harder time advancing through the GOP-controlled Legislature. House Elections and Ethics Committee Chairwoman Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, did not outright reject the package but called the overall announcement a “political stunt.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed a series of GOP election bills that would have imposed strict ID rules on voters, barred election officials from accepting donations and prohibited the Secretary of State’s Office as well as clerks from providing absentee ballot applications unless a voter specifically requested one. In a letter outlining her objections to the bills — SB 303, SB 304 and HB 5007 — Whitmer echoed concerns voiced by Democratic lawmakers that the measures would disenfranchise voters. All three bills passed on party-line votes without any Democratic support. Republican lawmakers who backed the measures argued the changes would boost confidence in elections. While the Michigan Democratic Party celebrated Whitmer’s vetoes as a win for voter access, the Michigan GOP blasted her decision as a blow to legislation the party said would enhance election integrity.
A bill brought before a House committee aims to prohibit election clerks from posting unofficial election results until all precincts in a community are complete. It would change the way voters typically watch unofficial election results come in on clerk’s websites throughout an election night. HB 5474, sponsored by Rep. Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, would bar local clerks from publishing any unofficial results online until all of the precinct ballot returns and absent voter ballot returns for that precinct are complete. The bill would require clerks to have counted every ballot, both in-person and absentee, before posting results on the websites.
Mississippi: The House Judiciary Committee recently held a meeting over restoring the voting rights for people convicted of certain felonies. “To be perfectly clear, we are not going to completely allow people convicted of crimes to vote. We are not going to do that, but I do want the law to be more consistent. I do think it is unfair for someone convicted of a bad check to not be able to vote, but someone convicted of child phonography can vote,” said State Representative Nick Bain. One of the topics that came up during the 90-minute meeting was the idea of expanding on what crimes are eligible for expungement.
Virginia: State Senator Amanda Chase R-Chesterfield said that she is drafting legislation to limit mail-in voting and require a photo ID now that Virginia will have a Republican governor. She also plans to push for a forensic audit of Virginia’s 2020 election results after spending recent months traveling the country participating in election audit protests like the one she organized outside of the Virginia State Capitol in August. ”While I’m thankful freedom won this election cycle, I’m still fully committed to election integrity,” Chase tweeted Wednesday, the day after the Republican statewide ticket swept the Democrats. “Tomorrow, I begin drafting legislation to put the guardrails back on our elections including photo ID to vote. Mail in ballots increase the risk of issues.”
Legal Updates
Federal Lawsuits: Voting technology vendor Smartmatic is suing conservative news outlets One American News Network (OAN) and Newsmax for alleged slander and libel about its voting systems. The case is in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “The first time it happened could be a mistake,” the new suit says of claims of election fraud. “The second, third, fourth and fiftieth times it happened were intentional choices.” The suit says OANN had “every opportunity” to do the right thing: “It could have reported the truth. Instead, OANN chose to do the wrong thing every time. It reported a lie.” Before the 2020 election, Smartmatic’s business was valued in excess of $3 billion based on a modest multiplier, the suit says. “Now … Smartmatic’s business is valued at less than $1 billion. The general and widespread publication and distribution of OANN’s defamatory statements about Smartmatic were a substantial cause of a portion of this business valuation decline.” Smartmatic had previously filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News, Fox News hosts, as well as attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, accusing them of harming the company’s brand with their accusations of the voting machines’ role in alleged widespread election fraud.
Arizona: Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office is investigating the 2020 election after the findings of the Senate’s partisan ballot review and months of pressure from former President Donald Trump to take action. Roger Geisler, a special agent with Brnovich’s major fraud unit, questioned Adrian Fontes, the Democratic former Maricopa County recorder, on Monday about issues stemming from the election. Another investigator also attended the one-hour interview of Fontes, arranged late last week by Geisler. According to The Arizona Republic, it is unclear how far along the probe is or how wide it reaches, but the interview makes clear that Brnovich, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, is taking up an issue that has often dominated GOP politics in the aftermath of Trump’s narrow defeat in Arizona last year. A spokesperson declined to discuss the matter, saying, “We cannot comment on any specifics of an ongoing investigation.” Last week, attorney general officials told The Arizona Republic it had not received any written complaints of election fraud from the Trump campaign, Trump’s lawyer, or key figures from his reelection campaign. Officials did not respond when asked repeatedly whether the office had received any verbal requests.
Georgia: A request for Floyd County Superior Court Judge Bryan Johnson to issue an injunction to stop the municipal election was dismissed Tuesday after local activist Mark Swanson was granted permission to review voting machine testing logs. Swanson filed for an emergency injunction Tuesday morning to stop the Rome City elections, stating that he had not seen evidence that necessary testing on the election machines had been completed. The judge told Swanson that he had to prove irreparable damage has taken place before an injunction could move forward. Representing himself in court, Swanson argued that “if the logic and accuracy testing wasn’t completed as required by law, then the machines that tabulate the vote could be flawed.” Johnson stated that under Georgia law, citizens can contest election results five days after the votes are certified if they feel that the election was corrupted in some way. “If it’s determined through that procedure that the election was impermissibly flawed, it provides that a second election be held,” Johnson said. Since the testing logs were turned over to Swanson to review, he agreed to dismiss the injunction to review the logs. At that point he has the option to go file a complaint after five-day waiting period.
New York: A state appellate court unanimously affirmed Judge Maria Rosa’s decision to split Red Hook’s polling site between its longtime site at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, and the Bard College Bertelsmann Campus Center. The Dutchess County Supreme Court judge originally decided the site would be split in September, as it was for the 2020 general election, because the county’s election commissioners could and the decision on a change. Rosa’s decision has survived a pair of appeals from county Republican Election Commissioner Erik Haight; Democrat Election Commissioner Hannah Black has supported the decision. Bard officials and advocates have pushed to move the site to the campus for years. Bard students, staff and president filed a suit to block Haight from reverting the polling place to where it was in 2019. The elections commissioners agreed on splitting the site in fall 2020 after weeks of last-minute legal arguments in court stemmed around safety and accessibility of the church amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The appeals court this week ruled Haight’s challenge as “arbitrary and capricious.”
Pennsylvania: Common Pleas Court Judge Kelly Eckel largely dismissed a petition over 670 flawed mail-in ballots filed by a lawyer for two Republican candidates running for Delaware County Council the night before the election. Eckel dismissed the bulk of the lawsuit ruling that the board of election will continue to oversee Tuesday’s election after putting safeguards in place and correcting the ballot issues. The judge will allow two watchers — one from each political party — to monitor the mail-in ballots in Delaware County for any irregularities. The 670 ballots in question were mailed to addresses that did not match the voter information on the ballot inside. The county said it has taken steps to identify those ballots and send new ones to the voters who received them. Delaware County Solicitor Bill Martin criticized Republicans for attempting to wrestle control of the election out of the hands of the county board of elections over an issue he said had already been “appropriately remedied.”
Virginia: Judge Michael Devine threw out a lawsuit claiming that the Fairfax County Office of Elections had improperly accepted absentee ballot applications. The suit, filed last week by the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, said that the office was approving mailed absentee-ballot applications of voters who hadn’t provided the last four digits of their Social Security number, as required by law. It included an affidavit by a woman who said she had seen that more than 300 such applications had been approved. In its written response, the elections office pointed to Virginia law that says such a suit can only be brought by an “aggrieved voter,” a candidate or a candidate’s campaign or party. The Virginia Institute for Public Policy, being a nonprofit corporation, isn’t any of those, and Devine agreed that they didn’t have standing to sue. While the institute said it’s dedicated to fair elections, Devine said that didn’t put them into the category of a party with a direct interest: “Everybody who votes shares that interest.”
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
No comments:
Post a Comment