Leading Off
● Michigan: In a huge development for voting rights in Michigan, voting rights groups have turned in more than 430,000 signatures to put a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot that contains a slew of key voting reforms, far above the 316,000 signatures required by law. The measure includes automatic voter registration and same-day voter registration, removes the requirement of an excuse to vote absentee, protects the state’s straight-ticket voting option, and allows for elections to be routinely audited to ensure accuracy.
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Michigan is currently one of the worst states when it comes to making voting as accessible as possible. In particular, it's one of just 13 states that has no early voting at all and also requires an excuse to vote absentee. But Republican lawmakers fought to preserve the status quo, which exempts anyone age 60 or older from the excuse requirement—a transparent way to make it easier for that particular GOP-leaning demographic to cast a ballot.
Similarly, the GOP has tried multiple times to do away with straight-ticket voting because black voters use it more than whites. Eliminating it would likely produce longer lines on Election Day (it’s much quicker to vote a straight ticket than to fill out every race on a ballot) in disproportionately Democratic-leaning precincts—and thus dissuade people from voting. A federal court temporarily blocked the latest repeal effort in 2016, but the GOP is appealing.
If this amendment makes it onto the ballot, which seems likely, and becomes law, Michigan would instantly become one of the states where it’s easiest to register and vote. That’s particularly so because of the automatic registration provision, which would apply to any eligible voter who does business with the secretary of state's office concerning their driver's license or state ID.
What’s more, a separate initiative to end Republican gerrymandering by creating an independent redistricting commission is already on the ballot this fall. Michigan voters will therefore have two crucial opportunities to make their democracy fairer for everyone.
Supreme Court
● Supreme Court: On Monday, Donald Trump announced he would nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who serves on the D.C. Circuit of the Court of Appeals, to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. In addition to being a very partisan, arch-conservative Republican, Kavanaugh's almost certain confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate will swing the court radically to the right in a serious blow to the fight against GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Indeed, Kavanaugh himself voted to uphold the South Carolina voter ID law that Obama's Justice Department had tried to block in 2011. In his opinion, Kavanaugh wrote that the Republican-backed voter ID measure was constitutional even though proponents had put forth no evidence that any actual voter fraud had ever been committed.
Furthermore, Kavanaugh has praised the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist as his "first judicial hero," tipping his hand even more. Rehnquist personally enforced literacy tests in Arizona in the 1960s as a Jim Crow measure to suppress black and Latino voters, and he opposed Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that rejected the racist principle of "separate but equal" that was the foundation of segregation.
Kavanaugh's looming appointment will see Chief Justice John Roberts become the new median vote on the court, shifting the court well to the right and giving partisan Republicans a staunchly conservative majority for the first time since the New Deal era. Given Roberts' long history of undermining voting rights, the Supreme Court is about to make them much weaker.
Voter Registration and Early Voting
● Delaware: In a disappointing outcome for voting rights, Delaware's Democratic-run state legislature has adjourned for the year without taking up two bills that would have established an early voting period and same-day voter registration. State House Democrats had previously passed an early voting bill, but they discovered it would require two-thirds support because it amended the municipal charter of Wilmington, which is Delaware's largest city. With Republicans firmly opposed to expanding voting opportunities, Democrats lacked the supermajorities they needed.
It's unclear why same-day registration, which didn’t face the same obstacles, also failed. However, when the House passed the measure, two Democrats sided with Republicans to oppose it. It's possible that at least one Democratic senator also didn't support the proposal, and since Democrats have just a one-seat majority in the Senate, that would have doomed the bill.
● Indiana: In a victory for voting access, a federal district court judge issued a consent decree that requires Marion County, which is Indiana's largest and home to the state capital of Indianapolis, to open at least six early voting sites this fall instead of just one for this county of nearly one million people. In 2009, Republicans had slashed early voting availability to the bare minimum in Democratic strongholds like Marion County, yet at the same time they expanded the number of sites in staunchly Republican suburban counties.
The NAACP sued, arguing that this arrangement made it disproportionately harder for African Americans to vote, and the court agreed, ruling in April that the GOP's changes discriminated against black voters in Marion County. Consequently, this expansion of early voting will provide a more level playing field in this fall's elections, where Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly is a top Republican target.
● Massachusetts: The Bay State recently saw both a major setback and a major advancement for making the voter registration process easier. First, the bad news: The state Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling that had struck down Massachusetts' requirement that voters register at least 20 days before Election Day. Had the ruling been upheld, it would have allowed voters to register and cast a ballot on the same day.
Democratic Secretary of State William Galvin had appealed the lower court decision even though he claims he supports a same-day registration bill. However, party-endorsed primary challenger Josh Zakim has criticized Galvin for his decision to appeal and has made same-day registration a key part of his campaign for the September primary.
But in positive news, Massachusetts' Democratic-dominated state Senate unanimously passed automatic voter registration, following in the footsteps of the state House's approval of the measure last month. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker hadn't previously signaled his position on the bill, but given the widespread Republican support it received in the legislature, it seems likely that he’ll sign it into law, especially since lawmakers would be able to override a veto.
● New York: Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo in September’s Democratic primary, has unveiled a plan to make voting easier and more accessible. She proposes enacting automatic voter registration and same-day registration; consolidating New York's separate federal and state primaries into one; and easing the registration deadline for voters seeking to change their party ahead of the primary, which is currently almost a year. Cuomo has previously expressed his support for automatic registration, but his longstanding efforts to keep the GOP in control of the state Senate allowed Republicans to block all of these reforms.
● North Carolina: As expected, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has signed a bipartisan bill into law that restores the last Saturday of early voting this fall that Republicans had recently cut in an effort to make voting more difficult for African-Americans. This reversal likely stems from the GOP's fear of litigation, but as we've previously explained, other suppressive measures Republicans passed over Cooper’s veto will still have an impact. In particular, the original GOP bill forces counties to keep all early voting sites open from 7 AM to 7 PM on weekdays in an effort to strain their budgets so they'll cut the number of sites or opt not to have early voting on weekends.
Voter Suppression
● Arizona: A recently filed federal lawsuit is relying on an unusual argument to target a new Republican-backed law that makes voting by mail harder disproportionately for Native Americans and Latinos. The suit claims the GOP overstepped its authority by attempting to regulate the U.S. mail, arguing only Congress has the right to do that. The law in question makes it a felony for anyone to handle someone else's mail ballot unless they're related or a caregiver, but the plaintiffs contend that this violates federal law, which lets private individuals deliver someone's mail so long as they don't charge them for doing so.
This is the second lawsuit to take aim against this law; the other case met with defeat at the district-court level, but plaintiffs there are appealing. That suit made a more conventional argument that the ban on so-called "ballot harvesting" violated federal law by infringing on the rights of Latinos and Native Americans, who were more likely to use the practice in a state that has largely transitioned to voting by mail. With the Supreme Court increasingly hostile to voting rights, this latest lawsuit could stand a better chance thanks to its innovative legal theory.
● New Hampshire: In a surprise outcome, New Hampshire's Supreme Court dealt a major blow to voting rights in the Granite State when it issued an advisory opinion saying that a Republican-backed bill to tighten voter residency requirements doesn't violate the state constitution. One of the court's three Democratic-appointed justices sided with the two GOP appointees in the ruling, paving the way for Republican Gov. Chris Sununu to sign the bill into law, which he did on Friday.
As we’ve detailed, this law requires New Hampshire voters to have legal "residency" in the state and not just simply make it their "domicile," or the place where they live day to day. Becoming a resident under the legal definition requires actions like registering a car in-state and obtaining an in-state driver's license. Effectively, this new requirement is a thinly disguised poll tax on Democratic-leaning college students from other states, who are unlikely to go to the expense and trouble of becoming legal residents even if they live in New Hampshire full-time. The law therefore will likely lead to fewer college students voting in the Granite State.
The state Supreme Court’s decision was unexpected because the state constitution provides an explicit guarantee of voting rights for all citizens who are "inhabitants" of the state, not just those who fulfill the requirements of legal residency. Indeed, in 2015, the court unanimously struck down a very similar GOP-supported law.
A federal lawsuit now appears to be the only option left for opponents. Plaintiffs could argue that the law violates the 24th Amendment's ban on poll taxes or the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Symm v. United States that guaranteed college students the right to vote at their schools if they live there. However, Democrats may not fare much better now that partisan Republicans extremists are poised to take a majority on the high court.
● Texas: Fresh off of their major victory at the Supreme Court allowing them to get away with racially discriminatory gerrymandering last month, Texas Republicans are now asking a lower court to apply the same bogus standard to their voter ID law and reverse a 2017 finding that it intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters. Republicans saw their original 2011 voter ID law thrown out, but they passed less-strict version in 2017 that a district court judge still deemed to have a discriminatory intent.
However, that newer law was eventually upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year, so you might wonder why Republicans are eager to revisit it, seeing as they won their case. There’s a reason, though: Republicans are keen to avoid heightened scrutiny of other discriminatory laws they’ll want to pass in the future.
Their fear is that Texas could wind up back under the Voting Rights Act's "preclearance" regime, where states with a history of racial discrimination had to get Justice Department approval for any voting law changes. Though the Supreme Court largely struck down this system when it invalidated a key part of the VRA in 2013, it’s still possible for a state to find itself subject to preclearance once more upon repeated judicial findings of intentional discrimination.
Republicans would therefore very much like to erase this demerit from the history books. And thanks to the Supreme Court's enablement, they may well be able to—and thus avoid getting placed back under DOJ supervision anytime soon.
This story has been updated.