Legislative Updates
Federal Legislation: U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA) has introduced a bill that would give states $20 billion over a decade to help hire poll workers, expand early voting access and take other steps to strengthen local election administration. The “Sustaining Our Democracy Act” would create a ‘‘Democracy Advancement and Innovation Program’’ that would dole out money for elections offices to “promote innovation to improve efficiency and smooth functioning in the administration of elections for Federal office” like upgrading voting equipment, boosting cybersecurity capabilities and increasing access to the ballot. The bill’s lead co-sponsors include Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Lawrenceville) and Reps. Colin Allred (D-TX), GeorgiaTerri Sewell (D-AL), and Marc Veasey (D-TX). The legislation also explicitly prevents money from being used for “activities that intimidate, threaten, or coerce voters, poll workers, or election administrators” and specifically mentioning provisions that appeared in Georgia’s 98-page SB 202 and other laws, like bans on giving out food or water to voters in line or sections that could remove local elections officials.
U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) has introduced a bill that would override Executive Order 14019, issued last year by the Biden administration with the goal of promoting access to voting. The executive order requires the heads of federal agencies to develop strategic plans for how each agency will help increase voter registration and participation. The plans are to be submitted to the White House for review. According to the executive order, voter registration plans should include ways to provide information on how to register to vote, request absentee ballots, and how to vote in upcoming elections; ways to streamline access to state and local online voter registration systems, including using the federal vote.gov website; distributing vote-by-mail forms and voter registration applications; and working with third-party organizations to provide various voter registration services at federal agencies. “The federal government has no business forcing itself into the West Virginia’s voter registration process,” Mooney said in a statement. “I am proud to introduce this bill in Congress to return sole authority on this issue to the states, where it belongs.”
Arizona: Gov. Doug Ducey signed several elections-related bills into law including a bill authorizing county election officials to count mail ballots on-site, but no counties will be required to allow it. Anyone wanting to put their mail ballot into a tabulator and watch it be counted will have to show identification as if they were voting in person. Those who prefer to skip the line, drop off their ballot and leave can continue to do so. Those ballots will continue to be counted at election offices after officials have verified that the signature on the envelope matches the signatures on file. Meanwhile, Ducey also signed a bill that seeks to get the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to modify the federal voter registration form so that it requires Arizona’s documentary proof of citizenship. Arizona is required to accept the federal registration form, but anyone who does not provide proof of citizenship is only allowed to vote for president, U.S. Senate and House. The Republican governor also signed a bill making it a felony to knowingly help someone vote in Arizona if they’re registered in another state, such as by forwarding a mail ballot.
Colorado: Gov. Jared Polis has signed two pieces of election legislation into law. SB22-153, which requires new security measures for election systems, and HB22-1273, which makes it a crime to threaten election officials or publish their personal information online to harass them. “We want to make sure that every vote is accurately counted,” Polis said at the signing ceremony. “And we also want to make sure that those that oversee elections themselves don’t have to worry about their about their physical safety.” The election security law is specifically aimed at “insider threats,” such as election workers “embracing conspiracies,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. It includes making it a felony to tamper with voting equipment or knowingly publish confidential information about the system. It also requires key card access and video surveillance for voting systems. The law also requires training for election workers, a move specifically hailed by the Colorado County Clerks Association as bolstering voter confidence in how elections are conducted. The group, which is comprised of Democrat and Republican clerks, backed both bills.
Delaware: A bill that would allow Delaware voters to register on Election Day passed in the Delaware House of Representatives this week. Delaware currently cuts off voter registration for an election four Saturdays prior to Election Day, but House Bill 25 would give voters an opportunity at the polls with specific forms of identification. HB25 spells out acceptable IDs as a valid government photo ID, or a document displaying the name and address of the person wishing to vote, including a utility bill, bank statement, government check, or paycheck, all of which must be issued within 60 days of the registration date. “Currently, we have an arbitrary deadline several weeks before an election to register to vote which disenfranchises potential voters. Upon missing this deadline, they are unable to cast ballots, even if they meet all other eligibility requirements,” said Rep. Sherry Dorsey Walker (D-Wilmington) “This is an outdated and unfair practice. Election Day registration has existed in several states for decades and is proven to safely and effectively increase voter turnout. It is time for Delaware to be a leader in our nation, join other states, take this important step toward removing voting barriers and finally enfranchising our constituents.”
Massachusetts: Mail-in ballots and early voting would become permanent features of the state’s political landscape under a compromise version of a voting overhaul bill unveiled Wednesday at the Statehouse. The bill would also increase ballot access for voters with disabilities and service members overseas; make sure eligible voters who are incarcerated are able to request a mail ballot and vote; and takes steps to modernize the state’s election administration process, according to lawmakers. The legislation — a compromise version of separate bills approved earlier by House and Senate lawmakers — now goes back to both chambers for debate. The Senate could take up the measure as early as Thursday. The final bill does not include any provisions that would allow individuals to both register and vote on Election Day, despite efforts by the Senate to offer multiple compromise approaches
New York: The Legislature has approved the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York. Senate Bill S1046E would make it easier to sue over discriminatory voting policies and require localities with a history of civil right violations to get approval before changing election rules. Under the bill, certain areas, school boards, or local election boards would no longer be able to make changes — like removing people from voter rolls, reducing voting hours or the cutting number of polling sites — without approval from the state attorney general’s office or courts. The legislation would make lawsuits over voter intimidation and suppression easier by laying out an expedited process for New Yorkers or the attorney general to sue over voting violations, including new bans on voter intimidation, deception and obstruction. A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said she will review the legislation. This year, Hochul has called for this type of state-level Voting Rights Act to protect voters of different races and languages.
A bill proposing to move local elections to even-numbered years did not move forward in the Legislature this year. The bill had aimed to change local elections for county executives, county legislators and town supervisors to even-numbered years to coincide with state and national elections. NYS Assemblymember Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale and Sen. James Skoufis, D-Cornwall, both sponsored the bill, saying it would increase voter participation and decrease confusion. “It’s accurate we’d have more people voting if we put local elections in even years, but many people, Republicans and Democrats, say it doesn’t give the same depth … and people are going to be deprived of that debate of what’s happening locally,” Paulin told Spectrum. “We’re going to wait. I’m advocating for hearings so we can really wrap our arms around it.”
Pennsylvania: A controversial bill that eliminates residency requirements for partisan poll watchers to observe voting and ballot counting passed the state Senate. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County, won passage by a nearly 30-19 party-line vote. It now goes to the GOP-controlled House for consideration. A spokeswoman for Gov. Tom Wolf said he is strongly opposed to the measure. The bill also increases the number of poll watchers a candidate can have at a precinct from two to three, which Mastriano said adds another layer of observation and transparency to ensure election laws are being followed. In addition, it permits poll watchers to be inside the space as ballots are being counted but they cannot interfere with that process. The bill also would require poll watchers to have clear line of sight within six feet as mail-in and absentee ballots are being prepped to be counted, and would increase penalties on election officials who impede or intimidate a poll watcher performing their duty.
A House panel advanced a bill barring county officials from soliciting or accepting non-government funding for elections. The Republican-authored Senate bill now appears poised for a repeat in the House of a debate this spring when state election officials and Democratic legislators urged lawmakers to ensure money is available to help counties fund elections. The House State Government Committee reported out Sen. Lisa Baker’s, R-Luzerne, legislation with a 14-10 vote along party lines on Tuesday.
Rhode Island: Governor Dan McKee signed into law the ‘Let RI Vote Act,’ legislation that “expands voter access while ensuring the integrity of Rhode Island elections”. “There is nothing more fundamentally American than the right to vote – it provides every Rhode Islander the opportunity to have a say in how they would like to see their state, and country, shaped,” said Governor McKee. “The Let RI Vote Act makes voting easier, safer, and more secure, and making it easier to give Rhode Islanders a voice in their government should always be our top priority. I thank the bill sponsors, legislators, and advocates who saw to it that this bill got across the finish line.”? The legislation (2022-H 7100A, 2022-S 2007A) makes mail voting easier by allowing online mail ballot applications, and permitting any voter to use a mail ballot or an emergency mail ballot without needing an excuse for why they can’t visit their polling location on Election Day. It also drops the requirement that mail ballots be either signed by two witnesses or notarized. Instead, voters’ signatures will be verified using their registration records using a four-tiered verification process. The bill requires every municipality to maintain at least one drop box where voters can deposit their ballots securely through the close of polls on Election Day. Additionally, the act allows nursing home residents to opt in to automatically receive applications for mail ballots for every subsequent election.
Legal Updates
Alabama: The Campaign Legal Center, Washington D.C.-based civil law group is suing Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill over access to voter registration records. The group filed a lawsuit on behalf of Greater Birmingham Ministries to seek lists of purged voters, as well as Alabamians denied the right to vote due to felony convictions under the National Voter Registration Act. The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Merrill is in violation of the NVRA and to order him to provide those records without cost to the small Birmingham-based nonprofit. The CLC says the state is required to provide electronic copies of registration records that accurately reflect the current official lists of eligible voters free of cost. Greater Birmingham Ministries, which assists with voters registration and restoration of rights, says it needs the lists to better inform those who can legally vote but may be unaware of their rights to do so.
Alaska: The Alaska State Commission for Human Rights is suing the lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections over what it says is a lack of sufficient accommodations for visually impaired voters in the U.S. House primary race — the state’s first all-mail election. In a complaint filed in state Superior Court in Anchorage, plaintiff Robert Corbisier, executive director of the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights, alleges that the ballots that were mailed to every registered voter in the state for the special primary election “do not provide an opportunity to visually impaired voters to vote privately, secretly and independently.” The lawsuit names Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer — who oversees elections in Alaska — and Division of Elections director Gail Fenumiai as defendants. Meyer’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Division of Elections deferred comment to the Department of Law. The commission is asking for the certification of election results to be delayed until “visually impaired Alaska voters are given full and fair opportunity” to vote. On Wednesday, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Una Gandbhir granted a motion for expedited consideration of the request.
Arizona: Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen has ruled that there’s nothing unconstitutional about Arizona’s early voting law. Jantzen boiled down the essence of the case in his four-page ruling to this: “Is the Arizona Legislature prohibited by the Arizona Constitution from enacting voting laws that include no-excuse mail-in voting? The answer is no.” He noted that the no-excuses mail-in voting that lawmakers approved in 1991 provides protections for secrecy. For example, the ballot return envelopes are designed in a way to ensure the voter’s choices are not visible. In addition, the envelopes are “tamper evident” so election workers can notice if someone has tried to open the ballot envelope. Jantzen denied the Republican Party’s case as well as its request for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked almost all early voting for the Nov. 8 general election. That would have required millions of Arizona voters to obtain their ballot at the polls and cast it there. The lawsuit did not seek any change for the upcoming Aug. 2 primary election. Ballots were already printed for that election and early voting begins July 6.
In a new legal filing, an attorney for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is asking a judge to toss out a lawsuit over the Elections Procedures Manual. Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued the secretary of state, demanding changes to the manual that tells local elected officials what they can and cannot due during elections. Attorney Roopali Desai says Hobbs has complied with the state law while drafting the manual, but Brnovich waited more than four months to sue after his deadline to approve the changes. Desai claims there is nothing in the statute that gives the attorney general final say on specific provisions in the manual and that would give Brnovich unilateral power. Furthermore, she said if the changes he wants are implemented, it would cost Maricopa County alone $420,000 to reprint ballot envelopes. The judge set a June 10 hearing.
A gubernatorial candidate and a state lawmaker want the courts to stop Arizona from using electronic voting machines for the upcoming midterm elections. Kari Lake and Rep. Mark Finchem, both Republicans, announced they’re seeking a preliminary injunction for the state not to use “unsecure black box electronic voting machines” in November. The injunction is in connection to a lawsuit that was filed in April calling on a jury trial, so using an electronic voting system to count ballots would be unconstitutional. The pair claim the machines are not “reliably secure” and don’t meet the “constitutional and statutory mandates to guarantee a free and fair election.” Finchem said in a statement the machines are untrustworthy since companies refuse to make their systems and software open to the public and, therefore, violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Lake and Finchem claim the machines have “glaring cybersecurity vulnerabilities,” including allowing for possible remote access, unmonitored network communications and containing secret content. However, a report found on the Arizona Senate’s partisan review of the 2020 election found zero evidence that voting tabulation machines were connected to the internet or the information was compromised. It also found no major problems in the election in Maricopa County.
California: Local Nevada County lawyer and former candidate for Clerk-Recorder Barry Pruett filed a petition for a writ of mandate hearing against Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters Greg Diaz yesterday. The matter was heard in court this morning and dismissed after Pruett withdrew the petition to avoid having it denied by the Court. Pruett alleged candidate Natalie Adona, the current Assistant Clerk-Recorder and candidate to succeed Diaz, did not pay the required filing fee, because the line item didn’t appear on her campaign committee finance filing. In court, Nevada County’s attorneys provided proof Adona paid her filing fee. Pruett was given the option by the judge to withdraw his petition or to have it denied. He withdrew the petition, the court dismissed the case.
Colorado: District Judge Matthew Barrett has ruled that a Mesa County grand jury had enough probable cause to investigate and indict Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and her chief deputy, Belinda Knisley, in March on multiple felony and misdemeanor charges. In responding to a motion from Peters’ and Knisley’s attorneys asking Barrett to review the case to see if there were reasonable grounds to investigate and indict, the judge revealed numerous aspects of that investigation, something that is somewhat unprecedented because grand jury probes are highly secret. In it, Barrett wrote that, over the course of five days, the grand jury heard testimony from numerous witnesses and saw about 60 exhibits. “The acts and/or omissions of Knisley and Peters, as public officials, constituted the crimes of violation of a duty, failure to comply with the requirements of the Secretary of State; and also for Peters, first-degree misconduct,” Barrett concluded in his review. “The record supports a finding of probable cause for these allegations.”
Four agencies have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Colorado Springs seeking to force changing the city’s elections from April to November. Citizens Project, Colorado Latinos Vote, the League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region and the Black/Latino Leadership Coalition filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver on June 1. The group is represented by the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School. The lawsuit argues that Colorado Springs is “nearly alone” among Colorado cities and towns to hold its city election in April of odd-numbered years, noting that only three of the state’s 25 most populous cities and towns do so — Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Grand Junction. “The timing of Colorado Springs’ elections for City Council and Mayor massively disadvantages Hispanic and Black residents,” the lawsuit notes. “Only about 16% of the City’s non-white registered voters participate in these April off-year elections. In contrast, the turnout rate for white registered voters is around 32%. This racial disparity dwarfs those often seen in Voting Rights Act cases.”
Florida: A lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates Black Voters Matter has been defeated in court. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the request to draw different congressional maps than those approved in the previous court effort, meaning the maps offered up by Gov. Ron DeSantis will be the ones used during the 2022 elections. The injunction requested in a Florida district court, to stay the map supported by DeSantis and use a different one drawn by a Harvard professor, was denied. Additionally, the Black Voters Matter request that a judge provide a “constitutional writ” was also denied. The Florida Supreme Court’s decision to preserve the previous map was based on what they said was a lack of jurisdiction. “Here Petitioners ask this Court to intervene in the First District Court of Appeal’s ongoing consideration of an appeal of an order imposing a temporary injunction,” the court wrote. “At this time, this Court does not have jurisdiction over that matter.” Additionally, the court said that they did not know whether the First District’s decision would “provide an appropriate basis for this Court’s exercise of discretionary review—meaning that we cannot say that it is likely that there is any jurisdiction to protect.”
Georgia: A unanimous panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that voting rights organizations cannot challenge a decision by Georgia election officials to provide absentee ballot applications and voting-related information to residents of Gwinnett County in English only. Rejecting arguments made during a September hearing, the panel found that the Gwinnett County Board of Elections had no duty to provide Spanish speakers in the state’s second-most populous county with Spanish translations of voting materials before the 2020 presidential primary election. The panel ruled that Georgia is not a “covered jurisdiction” under Section 203(b) of the Voting Rights Act. While Section 203(c) of the law requires Gwinnett County officials to provide bilingual voting materials, it does not require the county to translate materials supplied by the state. In a 50-page opinion, a three-judge panel of the appeals court disagreed with a Georgia federal judge’s finding that the organizations lacked legal standing but nonetheless upheld the October 2020 decision dismissing the case on the merits. “203(c) only applies to Gwinnett County when it ‘provides’ voting materials, i.e., when it furnishes or supplies the materials. Nothing in the statute requires Gwinnett County to translate voting materials provided by another entity,” U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, wrote on behalf of the panel. “While § 203(c) requires Gwinnett County to provide its voting materials in both English and Spanish, it does not require Gwinnett County to translate voting materials provided by [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger],” the ruling states. “And plaintiffs failed to plead facts to support its conclusory allegations that the Gwinnett County Board of Elections provides English-only voting materials, specifically absentee ballot applications, on its website.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified last week before a Fulton County special grand jury charged with investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies attempted to illegally coerce officials to declare him the winner of the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis initiated the investigation following the public release of a recorded January 2021 phone call between Raffensperger and state election officials in which Trump urged the state elections chief to find enough votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election in Georgia. Raffensperger’s testimony began in the morning and wrapped up after 2 p.m. But while he briefly spoke to the media at the start of the day, he avoided the large media contingent waiting outside when he left the courthouse. The special grand jury rules prohibit prosecutors and jurors from publicly discussing the proceedings, although witnesses can choose to speak if they want, said former longtime Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter. Porter said it appears that the secretary of state doesn’t want to come across as a witness who is just willingly volunteering to appear in court, even behind closed doors. The day prior to the testimony, Raffensperger spoke to media outlets about how he continued to follow the law despite the overtures from Trump and others.
Louisiana: Chief District Judge Shelly D. Dick has ruled that the Louisiana legislature must redraw its recently approved Congressional District maps to include another majority-minority district. Like the map used for the last decade, the new map included five of six U.S. Congressional districts that leaned heavily Republican even though roughly a third of Louisiana’s population is Black. Both the old and new maps have only one majority-minority district and it includes parts of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Michigan: The Sheriff of Barry County is suing Michigan’s Attorney General, Secretary of State, the Michigan State Police, individual troopers and others, according to a court document filed last week. The lawsuit, filed by attorney Stefanie Lambert on behalf of Sheriff Dar Leaf, alleges these parties have interfered with Leaf’s investigation into claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Leaf challenged the validity of the election results, an accusation that was shut down quickly by a federal judge for lack of evidence. That ruling read, “Applications invite the Court to make speculative leaps towards a hazy and nebulous inference that there has been numerous instances of election fraud and that Defendants are destroying the evidence. There is simply nothing of record to infer as much, much less conclude that irreparable injury will occur before the defendants can be heard.”
Nevada: In a last-chance appeal before the Nevada Supreme Court, opponents of a proposed ballot question calling for adopting open primaries and ranked-choice voting in Nevada elections argued the initiative is too broad and should not be allowed to proceed to the ballot. Though the initiative backers say they have gathered enough signatures to qualify the petition for the November ballot, justices on Nevada’s highest court could essentially strike the measure down if they side with Nathan Helton, a Democratic Party-aligned Churchill County voter who filed the lawsuit opposing the initiative. If approved by a majority of voters in 2022 and 2024, the initiative would allow voters to participate in primary elections regardless of party affiliation, and in the general election, voters would be able to rank the top five candidates from the primary by order of preference. Proponents say those changes would empower Nevada’s growing share of nonpartisan voters, who make up nearly a third of the state’s registered voters and are currently unable to vote for partisan offices in primary elections. Attorneys representing Helton and Nevada Voters First, the group backing the so-called “Better Voting Nevada” initiative, made their final pitches to the court in oral arguments before the justices — just 21 days before the signature submittal deadline.
Pennsylvania: Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer counties to count ballots that arrived in time, but did not have date on them. Jubelirer ordered counties to keep the undated ballots separate from other ballots and to count them separately. The ballots in question are roughly 880 mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date on the envelope. State law requires a voter to write a date next to their signature on the outside of their mail-in ballot return envelopes. A handwritten date on a ballot envelope plays no role in determining whether a voter is eligible or whether a ballot is cast on time. GOP Senate Candidate David McCormick sued the state to count the ballots after the 3rd Circuit ruled in a 2021 case that undated ballots should be counted. In an emergency appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the counting of the 2021 ballots. The Supreme Court’s action — called an administrative stay — freezes the matter until the court can give the case further consideration.
Virginia: A three-judge panel dismissed a federal lawsuit that sought to force all 100 members of Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates to face an unscheduled election this year. The panel ruled that Paul Goldman, an attorney and longtime Democratic Party activist, lacked standing to pursue the lawsuit he filed last June. Goldman had argued that House members elected for two-year terms in November 2021 must run again in 2022 under newly redrawn maps that properly align legislative districts with population shifts. The 2021 elections should have been the first held under constitutionally required redistricting based on the 2020 census. But because census results were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state held elections under the old legislative boundaries; new maps weren’t finalized until December. Goldman argued that deprived Virginians of their constitutional voting rights, violating the “one man, one vote” principle outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court. The judges ruled Goldman did not have standing as a voter or a potential candidate and granted Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Following that ruling, Jeff Thomas, a Virginia author has filed a new federal lawsuit seeking a new election.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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