Leading Off
● California: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed several election reform bills into law that passed California's Democratic-run legislature earlier this year, including legislation to significantly expand the availability of same-day voter registration and other voting access measures.
Campaign Action
The new registration law will enable voters to register to vote on Election Day at any polling place within their county and cast a provisional ballot that will be counted once their registration information is verified. It replaces a previous system that only offered same-day registration at county elections offices.
Among the other new measures, one will give voters more time to cast mail ballots, setting a deadline that county officials send out mail ballots no later than 29 days before Election Day. Another related law gives voters more time to be notified of the chance to correct any issues with the signature on their mail ballot if it's deemed to not match the signature on file.
Other provisions include efforts to increase turnout by college students. One includes a requirement that counties consider establishing polling places on college campuses, while another law allocates funding to public higher education institutions so that they can conduct civic engagement campaigns to educate their students about voting and election dates and deadlines.
California already has an independent citizens' commission that's in charge of congressional and legislative redistricting, but one of the new laws would apply several of the nonpartisan criteria used by those commissioners to redistricting for county and city governments, too. The provisions include requirements to respect communities of interest, keep political jurisdictions whole, and a ban on favoring or disfavoring a political party. Local officials would also be required to hold several public hearings before finalizing any maps.
On the campaign finance and disclosure front, one of the new laws includes a provision that creates default donor contribution limits for local elections and also gives those governments the ability to set their own limits. Another new measure requires that voters signing ballot initiative or referendum petition signatures be informed of the top three financial backers of that ballot campaign.
This ballot petition law is likely intended to fight back against the ability of large corporate interests to spend tens of millions on ballot measures as they have in recent years. However, it's similar to restrictions Republicans have passed in other states that have targeted the ability of national civil rights groups to support voting rights initiatives.
Newsom hasn't yet taken action on a further bill that would enable all local governments to choose to adopt instant-runoff voting. Currently, that authority is limited to "charter" cities such as San Francisco, which has used instant-runoff voting since 2004. Most cities don't have a charter and are therefore bound by existing state law.
Electoral College
● Washington: In 2016, three presidential electors in Washington violated state law and incurred a fine by voting for former Secretary of State Colin Powell instead of Hillary Clinton, who won the state's electoral votes that year. These electors are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare bans on so-called "faithless" electors unconstitutional after the law was upheld in state court. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a similar ban in Colorado earlier this year, and if the Supreme Court were to rule against these laws, it would mean states couldn't bind the winning candidate's slate of electors to vote for that candidate.
Felony Disenfranchisement
● Florida: The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit challenging Florida Republicans' new poll tax has set a trial date for April 6, although the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to block it sooner. The GOP's poll tax requires that citizens who've finished any sentences for prison, parole, or probation must, in order to regain their voting rights, also pay off all court-ordered fines and fees, which are levied by courts as a predatory way to fund the court system itself. Arguments over the preliminary injunction took place in early October, and a ruling could come later this month.
Elections
● Mississippi: On Friday, federal district court Judge Daniel Jordan heard arguments in a case where plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction against a provision of Mississippi's 1890 Jim Crow-era constitution, which requires candidates for statewide office to win both a majority of the popular vote and carry a majority of state House seats to avoid having the state House choose the winner. With Mississippi's state elections less than a month away, a ruling would have to come soon in order to have an impact.
As we've previously explained, this law was designed to discriminate against black voters. It would likely require any Democratic candidates they support, such as 2019 gubernatorial nominee Jim Hood, to win the popular vote by a very unlikely double digit margin just to carry a majority of the state House districts, which Republicans have gerrymandered. If Hood fails to win by such a landslide, House Republicans could install GOP nominee Tate Reeves as governor even if Hood wins more votes. GOP election officials are defending the law by claiming it doesn't discriminate by race but instead by party.
Election Security
● Tennessee: The plaintiffs who are challenging Tennessee's paperless voting machines have filed an appeal of a federal district court ruling last month that rejected their bid to block the use of those machines and require an alternative, such as paper ballots. A similar lawsuit successfully barred Georgia from continuing to use its own paperless machines earlier this year, although that ruling was not binding on the Tennessee court.
Redistricting
● North Carolina: The panel of three state court judges overseeing the recent lawsuit against North Carolina Republicans' congressional gerrymander has set an Oct. 24 hearing over whether to accept or reject the Democratic plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction against the map. If such an injunction is granted and not overturned on appeal, it would mean the state would have to redraw its districts even while the case remains ongoing over the merits of the lawsuit. That outcome would make it much likelier that new districts are in place in time for 2020.
● Ohio: As expected following the Supreme Court's decision to foreclose all federal court challenges to partisan gerrymandering, the justices have overturned a lower court ruling from earlier this year that had struck down Ohio Republicans' congressional gerrymander for violating the Constitution. Consequently, the GOP's gerrymander will remain in place for 2020.
Voter Suppression
● Kentucky: On Thursday, the Kentucky Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in state court against the state Board of Elections after officials placed 175,000 registered voters on the "inactive" list, arguing that the move is illegal.
The board claims that affected voters can still vote in this November's elections and won't be removed if they update their registration or vote in an election by 2022, but Democrats contend that "improper maintenance" of the inactive list will lead to some voters getting disenfranchised. Democrats furthermore argue that this move violates a consent decree agreed to by the board, the Justice Department, and the notorious right-wing group Judicial Watch, which has pursued legal action in multiple states to require officials to purge their voter rolls.
This lawsuit comes amid a fight between Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and the board. A hearing was recently held in an ongoing lawsuit brought by Grimes challenging a new law Republicans had passed earlier this year to strip her of most of her powers after a damning investigation by ProPublica and the Lexington Herald-Leader alleged several abuses of power by Grimes. (The new board is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, with members appointed by GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and the bipartisan Kentucky County Clerk's Association.)
Grimes had reportedly taken steps to assert greater control over the board in recent years and allegedly had improperly fired employees. Public officials later confirmed that Grimes' office had used the state's voter registration database to look up information on her political opponents, the political affiliation of employees and job applicants, and even the very officials who had been investigating the office over complaints that it had improperly awarded contracts and mishandled sensitive voter information. Grimes, who is term-limited in November, has denied that she or her subordinates acted inappropriately.
● Texas: Earlier this year, Texas Republicans passed a law restricting the use of temporary mobile polling places during early voting, and new reporting by the Texas' Tribune's Alex Ura finds that the law is leading to less voting access than before.
The law requires that any early voting polling place must remain in operation for the entire early voting period. However, local election officials had previously operated certain locations only on some days or for certain hours due to financial constraints or a lack of need, in order to better serve places like rural communities, retirement homes, or college campuses.
With the new requirement, these jurisdictions have resorted to entirely eliminating the availability of early voting at some of the locations previously served by temporary polling places. In one vivid quote, El Paso County's election administrator said it would be impossible to use public places like recreation centers without disrupting their normal activities, stating, "We can either vote or have senior programs. We can’t do both." Colleges are also feeling the brunt of the new law, and many will have fewer locations or none at all on smaller campuses.
Voting Rights Expansions
● Vermont: On Monday, the City Council in Burlington, Vermont's largest city, advanced a resolution to grant voting rights in local elections to noncitizen legal residents. However, there's still a ways to go before this measure can become law. Burlington's move comes after voters in the state capital of Montpelier approved local voting rights in a 2018 referendum, but both changes would require action by state lawmakers to change their city charters.
The heavily Democratic state House approved legislation to amend Montpelier's charter earlier this year largely along party lines; the Democratic-run state Senate didn't take the issue up but could do so in 2020. Republican Gov. Phil Scott says he opposes the change, but Democrats and the left-wing Progressive Party hold enough seats in both chambers to override a potential veto.
Letting noncitizen residents vote in local elections is uncommon in the U.S. VTDigger reports that only 13 municipalities currently allow it, the most prominent being San Francisco, which permits noncitizen voting only in school board elections. However, the practice was widespread in the 19th century and up until around 1920, and it's the norm in many European democracies. In the European Union, EU citizens have the right to vote in elections for local government and the European Parliament in whichever member country they reside, and noncitizen residents have some degree of voting rights in more than a dozen European nations.
