Voting Law Proposals and Voting Rights Efforts (1 Viewer)

[MT15]

This is, IMO, going to be a big topic in the coming year. Republicans have stated their aim to make voting more restrictive in just about every state where they have the means to do so. Democrats would like to pass the Voting Rights Bill named after John Lewis. I’m going to go look up the map of all the states which have pending legislation to restrict voting. Now that we have the election in the rear view, I thought we could try to make this a general discussion thread, where people who have concerns about voting abuses can post as well and we can discuss it from both sides. Please keep memes out of this thread and put them in the boards where we go to talk about the other side, lol.

 

[brandon]

Alabama GOP releases a second map, that also doesn’t follow the directive from SCOTUS. They are going to run out the clock and then go with their original illegal map, which is exactly what the Ohio GOP did (IIRC).

Yep. This is the new meta. Just do what you want, ignore the court order, burn the clock out before the election.

Unless a judge has the balls to stop an election entirely until the map is corrected, there's no check on the legislative here.

 

[MT15]

Yep. This is the new meta. Just do what you want, ignore the court order, burn the clock out before the election.

Unless a judge has the balls to stop an election entirely until the map is corrected, there's no check on the legislative here.

OH just totally got away with it - I found an article detailing what I dimly remembered.

Dubious distinction for Ohio GOP leaders: Only ones in US to ignore a court order

Ohio's current congressional district maps, which the state Supreme Court has ruled are unconstitutionally gerrymandered for the GOP (Ohio Redistricting Commis

abc6onyourside.com

Now, OH GOP says that because they appealed to SCOTUS, they don’t have to obey the OH SC order. But, that ignores the fact that no stay was requested or granted. They totally just ignored a valid court order and completely got away with it.

 

[brandon]

Yep. This is the new meta. Just do what you want, ignore the court order, burn the clock out before the election.

Unless a judge has the balls to stop an election entirely until the map is corrected, there's no check on the legislative here.

Oh, and without an executive willing to support them, a judge can't actually do anything anyway.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Our democracy is menaced by two dragons: an out-of-balance electoral college and gerrymandering. How can we slay them?


I’ve been going on for many moons about the need to grow the House of Representatives. But there are still two major arguments left for why this is so important. It turns out that growing the House is the way to address both the increasing illegitimacy of the electoral college and the corrosion to our system caused by gerrymandered political districts.


Two dragons, one stone. How can we just leave it lying on the ground?

First, the electoral college. As a basic part of our federalist constitutional architecture, the electoral college was created to give some protection to smaller states, so they wouldn’t simply be drowned out by larger ones in the selection of the president.
Its structure is derived, of course, from Congress, which was shaped by the same dynamic.

The number of electors — currently 538 — equals the number of senators and House members, plus three electors for the District of Columbia. Through this blended approach to representation, each category of state — large and small — had some comfort that they would have protection against the uncertainty of outcomes flowing from the democratic process.

Those hedges allowed them to embrace an uncertain process — a.k.a., democracy — over guaranteed outcomes in their favor.


But things went awry in 1929. After we capped the House then, the national population of course kept growing, while the numbers of representatives did not, and so neither did the number of electors.

Slowly, what had been a modest weighting in favor of less populous parts of the country has become an ever-more-robust one in their favor. This has increased the probability of outcomes where the electoral college vote and the popular vote will be at odds.

This problem is just going to get worse and worse, as long as the House fails to grow with the population.
Many recognize this problem. And many say, well, why don’t we just end the electoral college and go with the popular vote? I am not among those who think that would be wise……

The gerrymander killer


The problem of gerrymandering is harder than the issue of the electoral college. But we can slay this dragon with the same kind of stone — if we’re willing to pick up a bigger one. To reduce the corrosive effect that aggressive gerrymandering of district lines has on our system, we could grow the House still more ambitiously….

Solving gerrymandering would require a larger number — 1,305, specifically. Before I dig into the details, let me note the good news: Our Capitol could accommodate even this number with some redesign of the interior space. As a matter of the architecture of our democracy, a solution to gerrymandering is available to us.

Why is 1,305 the magic number? You’ll notice that it is exactly three times 435. At 1,305, we could simply take all the districts we currently have and let them elect three representatives instead of one.


That alone won’t kill the gerrymandering dragon, however. The solution comes in deciding how we would elect those three members. Nothing improves if we run an election in a three-member district as if it’s three separate elections, and the majority in the district effectively gets three people to represent it.

That wouldn’t change anything. It certainly wouldn’t disincentivize gerrymandering.
Instead, we need to elect those three members in a single election using ranked-choice ballots, which allow voters to record their first, second and third choices.

With ranked-choice voting, nobody’s vote can be counted for more than one candidate, so you can’t have majorities piling multiple votes on three candidates from their party or ethnic group and blocking everyone else. (To avoid having the third seat go to real outlier constituencies, it’s necessary to set the win threshold at 25 percent, and to require every candidate to get over that level by factoring in second- and third-place rankings.)……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/20/gerrymandering-electoral-college-solution-democracy/

 

[LA - L.A.]

Our democracy is menaced by two dragons: an out-of-balance electoral college and gerrymandering. How can we slay them?


I’ve been going on for many moons about the need to grow the House of Representatives. But there are still two major arguments left for why this is so important. It turns out that growing the House is the way to address both the increasing illegitimacy of the electoral college and the corrosion to our system caused by gerrymandered political districts.


Two dragons, one stone. How can we just leave it lying on the ground?

First, the electoral college. As a basic part of our federalist constitutional architecture, the electoral college was created to give some protection to smaller states, so they wouldn’t simply be drowned out by larger ones in the selection of the president.
Its structure is derived, of course, from Congress, which was shaped by the same dynamic.

The number of electors — currently 538 — equals the number of senators and House members, plus three electors for the District of Columbia. Through this blended approach to representation, each category of state — large and small — had some comfort that they would have protection against the uncertainty of outcomes flowing from the democratic process.

Those hedges allowed them to embrace an uncertain process — a.k.a., democracy — over guaranteed outcomes in their favor.


But things went awry in 1929. After we capped the House then, the national population of course kept growing, while the numbers of representatives did not, and so neither did the number of electors.

Slowly, what had been a modest weighting in favor of less populous parts of the country has become an ever-more-robust one in their favor. This has increased the probability of outcomes where the electoral college vote and the popular vote will be at odds.

This problem is just going to get worse and worse, as long as the House fails to grow with the population.
Many recognize this problem. And many say, well, why don’t we just end the electoral college and go with the popular vote? I am not among those who think that would be wise……

The gerrymander killer


The problem of gerrymandering is harder than the issue of the electoral college. But we can slay this dragon with the same kind of stone — if we’re willing to pick up a bigger one. To reduce the corrosive effect that aggressive gerrymandering of district lines has on our system, we could grow the House still more ambitiously….

Solving gerrymandering would require a larger number — 1,305, specifically. Before I dig into the details, let me note the good news: Our Capitol could accommodate even this number with some redesign of the interior space. As a matter of the architecture of our democracy, a solution to gerrymandering is available to us.

Why is 1,305 the magic number? You’ll notice that it is exactly three times 435. At 1,305, we could simply take all the districts we currently have and let them elect three representatives instead of one.


That alone won’t kill the gerrymandering dragon, however. The solution comes in deciding how we would elect those three members. Nothing improves if we run an election in a three-member district as if it’s three separate elections, and the majority in the district effectively gets three people to represent it.

That wouldn’t change anything. It certainly wouldn’t disincentivize gerrymandering.
Instead, we need to elect those three members in a single election using ranked-choice ballots, which allow voters to record their first, second and third choices.

With ranked-choice voting, nobody’s vote can be counted for more than one candidate, so you can’t have majorities piling multiple votes on three candidates from their party or ethnic group and blocking everyone else. (To avoid having the third seat go to real outlier constituencies, it’s necessary to set the win threshold at 25 percent, and to require every candidate to get over that level by factoring in second- and third-place rankings.)……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/20/gerrymandering-electoral-college-solution-democracy/

I'm glad to finally see this conversation starting in the national press. It's long overdue. This is from Nov 2020.

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 is what broke the electoral college system. Permanently freezing the number of seats in the House of Representatives has caused unequal representation in the House.

Since every state has to get at least one house seat, then the way to calculate how many representatives each state gets should be determined by dividing the state's population by the total population of the least populated state and then rounding off to the nearest whole number. That would make the House equally representative on a per capita basis like it's supposed to be. It would also make the proportional representation of the EC more equal.

If we do the above with the electoral college and switched to ranked choice voting, extremists would lose all political influence over the rest of us.

 

[Optimus Prime]

If we do the above with the electoral college and switched to ranked choice voting, extremists would lose all political influence over the rest of us.

Which is why the extremists will fight tooth and nail and by any means necessary to make sure it doesn't happen

 

[LA - L.A.]

Which is why the extremists will fight tooth and nail and by any means necessary to make sure it doesn't happen

Especially the uber wealthy ones who buy crazy amounts of influence under the status quo.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

The Republicans continue to show how wrong the Roberts Court has been on their rulings.

Alabama Republicans refuse to draw a second Black congressional district in defiance of Supreme Court

The Supreme Court this year reaffirmed a federal court order for Alabama to include two districts where Black voters make up voting-age majorities, “or something quite close to it.”

www.nbcnews.com

If only there were laws in place to prevent these actions by the GOP.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

The Republicans continue to show how wrong the Roberts Court has been on their rulings.

Alabama Republicans refuse to draw a second Black congressional district in defiance of Supreme Court

The Supreme Court this year reaffirmed a federal court order for Alabama to include two districts where Black voters make up voting-age majorities, “or something quite close to it.”

www.nbcnews.com

If only there were laws in place to prevent these actions by the GOP.

It's almost like gutting the VRA and eliminating preclearance had drastically negative consequences... who could have seen this coming?

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

It's almost like gutting the VRA and eliminating preclearance had drastically negative consequences... who could have seen this coming?

Yup, and those negative consequences showed themselves immediately and they turned a blind eye them. They choose to repeat that mistake with the Dodds decision, the Roberts Court has proven themselves to be the most reckless Court our nation has ever had.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Tennessee, already one of the strictest and most complicated states in the country for voting rights restoration, has enacted a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for people with felony convictions to regain their right to vote.

Tennessee has one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the United States. More than 9% of the voting age population, or around 471,600 Tennesseans, can’t vote because of a felony conviction, according to a 2022 estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. More than 21% of Black adults are disenfranchised.

The vast majority of people who can’t vote have completed their criminal sentences but have outstanding court debt, including unpaid child support payments.

Previously, someone with a felony who wished to vote again had to pay all debts and then get government officials to sign off on a form – called a certificate of restoration – affirming their eligibility to vote. The process was burdensome, especially compared to the automatic restoration that occurs in a majority of states upon release from prison or after a period of probation or parole.

But on Friday, the state’s division of elections added another hurdle. It said that someone with a felony had to first successfully receive a pardon from the governor or have a court restore their full rights of citizenship. Once that is done, the person must then complete the certificate of restoration process to get their rights restored.

Mark Goins, the state’s director of elections, said in a Friday memo the change was necessarybecause of a recent state supreme court decision in a case called Falls v Goins. In that decision, the state supreme court ruled that a man who had been convicted of a felony decades ago in Virginia and had his voting rights restored there still had to go through Tennessee’s process for restoring voting rights.……

Tennessee toughens voting rules for people with felony convictions

State condemned as ‘the bottom of the barrel on rights restoration’ after change by state’s division of elections

www.theguardian.com

 

[bird]

OH just totally got away with it - I found an article detailing what I dimly remembered.

Dubious distinction for Ohio GOP leaders: Only ones in US to ignore a court order

Ohio's current congressional district maps, which the state Supreme Court has ruled are unconstitutionally gerrymandered for the GOP (Ohio Redistricting Commis

abc6onyourside.com

Now, OH GOP says that because they appealed to SCOTUS, they don’t have to obey the OH SC order. But, that ignores the fact that no stay was requested or granted. They totally just ignored a valid court order and completely got away with it.

That’s my state. Racing to be as stupid as possible.

 

[MT15]

Remember when Roberts said this? How wrong can one guy be?

 

[Optimus Prime]

The current US Supreme Court, stacked with right-wing justices, has in recent years dismantled many of the core civil rights programs of the past 50 years, from voting rights to affirmative action to anti-discrimination law. So it came as a surprise — and for many, a relief — when the court handed down a 5-4 decision in June, declining to gut the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Instead, the court found that Alabama’s new redistricting plan discriminated against Black voters and ordered the state legislature to redraw it.

Their new map is out, and it makes clear that the Republican-controlled legislature in Alabama has flouted the court order. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey seemed content to ignore it as well when she signed the redistricting bill (which must now go to a federal court for approval). “The Legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups,” she said in a statement.

This defiance of the court by Alabama Republicans is notable not because their objection to the ruling is unique or surprising — there has been widespread frustration with the Supreme Court’s other recent rulings as well as calls to question this court’s legitimacy — but rather what they are defying. They are rejecting an order to stop discriminating against Black people. Understood in that historical vein, the action of Alabama Republicans fits into a long, sordid backstory...........

MSN

 

[MT15]

Come on, Gabe. That is the point of doing it that way.

 

[MT15]

A win for the all voters:

 

[Optimus Prime]

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A former Republican attorney general candidate and another supporter of former President Donald Trump have been criminally charged in Michigan in connection with accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election, according to court records.

Matthew DePerno, a Republican lawyer who was endorsed by Trump in an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general last year, was arraigned remotely Tuesday afternoon, according to Richard Lynch, the court administrator for Oakland County’s 6th Circuit.

Lynch also confirmed that Daire Rendon, a former state representative, was also arraigned Tuesday.

Those charged in Michigan are the latest facing legal consequences for alleged crimes committed after embracing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.…..

Michigan prosecutors charge Trump allies in felonies involving voting machines, illegal ‘testing’

Prosecutors in Michigan have filed criminal charges against individuals they say took and tampered with voting machines.

apnews.com

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

A win for the all voters:

funny how many republicans want paper ballots, except the kind that doesn't benefit them..lol

I hear so many talking about paper ballots. they want to go to it 100%. Thats is such an idiotic thing. Somehow they claim counting paper ballots is faster than machine counted ballots..lol