Voting rights debate: watch these states as the Republican Party tries to hinder voting

Here’s what you should know about the battle for voting rights that is going on right now.

Florida, Arizona and Georgia were all battle states in 2020 and will host disputes for the US Senate in 2022. Republican legislative majorities and Republican governors are acting to make voting in those states more difficult.

Texas will not have a run for the Senate in 2022, but it will have a run for governor in 2022. Republican control currently controls all the levers of the state government there.

There are proposals to hinder voting in other major states – Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – with Senate disputes in 2022, but the divided government in those places will make restrictions more difficult to implement.

There is no run for the Senate in Michigan and there is also divided government there. (See an analysis of state government control here.)

What exactly are the restrictions on voting rights and access that we are talking about?

They vary from state to state.

In Georgia, a bill that approaches the governor’s desk would revoke the vote without excuse for absence. It would also reduce Sunday’s vote, which appears to target black churches. The absentee vote and the postal vote were decisive in the state, which leaned towards Biden by a minimal margin.

In Arizona, a bill would revoke the state’s permanent early voting list, whereby voters can automatically receive an absent ballot. The state, where Republicans have lost both seats in the Senate in recent years, but retain the state government, has the most suggested changes. The list is a long one indeed – see here.

In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is promoting a proposal to reduce the sending of ballots to voters and cut access to the ballot box.

Many states are considering changing the signature verification to require voters to include a copy of their driver’s license or other paperwork with a postal ballot.

Others are considering proposals to remove voter registration if they have not voted for four consecutive years.

In texas, there are more than a dozen bills suggested and Republican Governor Greg Abbott said they are needed because Harris County, a Democratic stronghold, made changes at the local level to increase participation during the pandemic.

“We must pass laws to prevent election officials from disrupting the electoral process,” said Abbott, arguing in some way that more people voting are disrupting the process.

Can these changes change the outcome of future elections, if approved?

Absolutely. In 2020, at the national level, President Joe Biden won many millions more votes than former President Donald Trump and decisively won the Electoral College. But he won several states by narrow margins. Changes that marginally affect participation in Georgia, Arizona and any other state could be decisive in 2024.

Why are Republicans making changes now, instead of before the 2020 elections?

Four things:

The pandemic to hit. States made last-minute changes to ease rules on how and when people could vote due to public health issues.
Participation increased. Whether because of these changes or because voters wanted to reject or protect Trump (or both), attendance skyrocketed and Trump lost.
Trump alleged electoral fraud. While there is no evidence that any widespread fraud has taken place, his repeated allegations have made treating the integrity of the voting system a top priority for the Republican Party.
Republicans maintained control of state governments. Trump’s allies at the state level acted swiftly to deal with the electoral fraud he claimed, but it did not occur.

Why not get everyone to vote at the same time and in the same way?

Election day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. (It has been that way for a long time.) But the United States is a country of 50 states and more than 330 million people with varying degrees of education and involvement. There is something to be said for flexibility. Many people work odd hours. They work in various jobs. And the Constitution puts states in charge of their elections, although Congress can regulate them.

The difficulty is ensuring that everyone has the same access to the polls and, at the same time, maintaining the necessary security. One complication is that when there are normal voting hours, it is often people in tight urban areas who end up waiting for hours. Early voting and postal voting are alternatives to remove this barrier.

Can’t everyone over the age of 18 vote in the US? How can states restrict access?

Yea! It took a long time for white landowners to vote in the first presidential election until the 24th Amendment, promulgated in 1964, which says:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for president or vice president, for voters for president or vice president, or for senator or representative in Congress, must not be denied or abbreviated by the United States or any State due to nonpayment of any poll tax or other tax. “

This ended voting rates and, along with the Voting Rights Act, ended many of the tricks of the Jim Crow era that prevented many black Americans from voting.

But not everyone over the age of 18 can vote – not citizens and criminals, in most places, although efforts are being made to reinstate criminals. Notably, they can vote in Florida after voters there approved an electoral initiative in 2018.

States have the power to govern their own elections, but Congress has the power to impose rules on them. And courts often get involved.

Almost all states require some form of voter registration and many require an identity document to vote, and there are many different versions of absentee voting and the times during which people in different states can vote early or on election day.

What is the story of the rules about who can vote in the US elections?

Voter registration is relatively exclusive to the United States and has a long history of racism. It all started in New England in the 1800s, was a key element of Jim Crow in the South, and then saw a huge increase in the early 1900s, when states tried to make it more difficult for American immigrants and Jews and blacks to vote.

What do other countries do?

Instead of blocking the vote, some countries, like Australia, demand this. People who do not vote pay a small fine.

Most countries in the world register voters automatically or require them to register, according to an analysis by Pew.

The government makes people pay taxes, why can’t it just register them to vote?

The United States has been moving slowly towards easier and, in some states, automatic registration, but the rules still vary by state. In the 1990s, under President Bill Clinton, Congress passed a reform that linked the electoral register to the DMV. Most now have some form of online registration. Many states allow voter registration on the same day, but in others there are deadlines. North Dakota has no voter registration.

Is there an effort in Congress to change things at the national level?

yea. House Democrats passed a comprehensive bill that includes a series of electoral reforms, including automatic national electoral registration. Currently, 18 states and Washington, DC, have automatic registration. Expanding this requirement across the country could grant rights to 50 million Americans, according to the Brennan Center.

The bill would do much more, including ending party gerrymandering, whereby parties draw lines in Congress to protect their incumbents, setting an early voting period of two weeks and more.

But a super-majority – 60 votes – would be needed to overcome an obstruction promised by the Republican Party in the Senate. Democrats have suggested changing the Senate rules specifically for this bill, but it is not clear that all Democrats would support the change in the rules.

Would universal postal voting or universal electoral registration automatically help Democrats?

Clearly, Democrats are trying to make it easier for people to vote and Republicans are generally trying to make it more difficult. That says a lot about political calculation here. But it is also true that Republicans did not lose all the contests for the Senate or any state legislature in 2020, when turnout went up.

An analysis 538 suggests that expanding access does not necessarily help one party or the other. But most of that comes from before Trump spewed out fantasies of electoral fraud and questioned the vote in the mail throughout the 2020 election, diverting Republicans to practice – although he himself requested an absentee vote in Florida again this year.

.Source