Welcome to the return of our war on voting series, a joint project of Meteor Blades and Joan McCarter.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) is showing the consequences elections can have, and why it's so important not to lose focus on down-ballot races. Every election is critical, and his executive action to restore voting rights to 200,000 felons, demonstrates that.
The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole to register to vote. Most are African-Americans, a core constituency of Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe's political party.
"There's no question that we've had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans—we should remedy it," Mr. McAuliffe said Thursday, previewing the announcement he will make on the steps of Virginia's Capitol, just yards from where President Abraham Lincoln once addressed freed slaves. "We should do it as soon as we possibly can." […]
There is no way to know how many of the newly eligible voters in Virginia will register, but Mr. McAuliffe said he would encourage all to do so. "My message is going to be that I have now done my part," he said. […]
Only two states—Maine and Vermont—have no voting restrictions on felons. Of the remaining 48, 12 states disenfranchise felons after they have completed probation or parole, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington policy organization that advocates restoring felons' voting rights.
It's an executive order, so subject to reversal by the next governor, should the next governor be a vote suppressor. This isn't the only great thing McAuliffe has done lately for voters—last week he vetoed a restrictive voter registration bill that would invalidate registrations that didn't have a box declaring the registrant was 18 or over checked. The form requires a date of birth, so the check box is superfluous.
Below, you'll find some briefs about what's happened this week in the war on voting.
- Want to help fight voter suppression? Election Protection, a coalition of advocacy organizations, is where to start. Go to their website, ourvote.org, to find out what's happening in your state, to volunteer for election protection, or to donate to their efforts.
- In Ohio on primary day, March 15, there was a bad car accident blocking a highway near Cincinnati, timed terribly just before the polls closed. But a local judge was able to respond, granting an emergency expansion of voting hours for the precincts affected. Guess who doesn't like that idea? Right. A Republican legislator. Republican State Senator Bill Seitz has a bill that would require "anyone petitioning a judge to extend voting hours would have to put up a cash bond to cover the cost, which could range in the tens of thousands of dollars." In practice, Democratic Rep. Dan Ramos says, it would mean "the only way a person can have access to courts for voting is if they're a wealthy person. […] What types of places would be allowed to stay open? Only wealthy areas, where people tend to vote Republican. There aren't a lot of people in my district with that kind of cash laying around."
- And the fallout in Arizona continues with the DNC, the Democratic Party of Arizona, and the Clinton and Sanders campaigns suing over voter suppression in the primary there.
The lawsuit alleges that minority voters, who typically vote Democrat, were most affected by the lack of polling locations. "[Arizona's] alarmingly inadequate number of voting centers resulted in severe, inexcusable burdens on voters county-wide, as well as the ultimate disenfranchisement of untold numbers of voters who were unable or unwilling to wait in intolerably long lines," Democrats argue in the lawsuit.
- Alabama did something amazing, becoming the first state in the country to allow Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting online for the presidential election this year.
- If you live in California and think you might have registered as an "independent," you'd better double check that registration before May 23, the last day to correct your registration.
About 400,000 Californians who might be planning to vote in the state's pivotal Democratic presidential primary June 7 could be in for a shock. […] These are the Californians who carelessly signed up with the late George Wallace's obsolete, inconsequential, far-right American Independent Party, apparently believing they were registering as an independent—small "i"—nonpartisan voter.
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Rhode Island could be setting itself up for an Arizona-style primary disaster, in the name of saving money.
The Rhode Island Board of Elections announced this week that two-thirds of the state's polling places would remain closed for the upcoming primary as a cost savings measure.
According to WPRI, the Board of Elections plans to cut costs by opening only 144 of the state's 419 polling places for the April 26 primary.
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