On Monday morning, about 40 activists and organizers targeted the offices of the primary insurer of the $109 million police training center under construction in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, that opponents have dubbed “Cop City.” A few activists briefly blocked entrances before rallying outside the Scottsdale, Arizona, offices of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company subsidiary Scottsdale…
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During the early voting period in October 2022, some voters in Maricopa County, Arizona, arrived at a ballot drop box site to an unusual and unnerving scene: people armed with guns and dressed in tactical gear circling a 75-foot perimeter around the drop box. New state laws are urgently needed to stop occurrences like these, which are clear examples of voter intimidation. The small but alarming…
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As the 2024 election approaches, organizers are working hard to preserve voting rights in states that have made it drastically more difficult to vote. After record voter turnout in 2020, several states, including Georgia, Florida, and Iowa, took steps to make voting more difficult. Some reduced drop box access, and others limited vote-by-mail or shortened voting times.
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Native American, Indigenous and Alaska Native voters are set to play a pivotal role in key states in the presidential election and U.S. Senate contests in 2024. But they’ve consistently faced barriers to voting. The Native American Rights Fund (NARF), an organization that provides legal representation and assistance for Native American groups and tribes, detailed these barriers as well as gaps in…
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The 2024 presidential election is a full year away — and many of the rules that will govern the pivotal contest have already been written. The past three years make up one of the most prolific periods for election legislation in American history. Over 560 new laws governing our elections — many of them containing pages and pages of changes — have become law in states all across the country.
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On Monday, a conservative three-judge panel on the United State’s most right-wing federal court struck down the primary enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act in a ruling that experts are saying would be “catastrophic” for voting rights across the country if upheld. In a 2-1 ruling, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that private litigants, like voting and civil rights groups…
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Records received in response to a lawsuit pertaining to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) voting rights restoration process expose that the process is completely lacking in consistency or clear standards, preventing thousands of returning citizens from participating in Virginia’s ongoing elections. The lawsuit was brought by the Virginia State Conference NAACP (Virginia NAACP) and the Lawyers’…
Transgender Kansans will be able to vote in the upcoming 2023 general election this month, despite trans voters’ initial fears that their IDs would be rejected amid ongoing legal challenges to an anti-trans state law that defines a person’s gender as the sex they were assigned at birth. Last month, in response to concerns that transgender Kansans may be turned away from the ballot box by election…
Former President Donald Trump was booked Thursday at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail on 13 felony charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. He paid $20,000, or 10% of his $200,000 bond, through a local bail bondsman, allowing him to be released after about 20 minutes at the jail. He is expected to face trial as early as October. In Atlanta, we speak with two guests: Carol Anderson…
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Of the 91 criminal charges former President Donald Trump is facing, the most consequential is Count 1 of his fourth indictment, which was filed by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis on August 14, 2023. It alleges Trump is the head of a vast criminal conspiracy in violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Congress passed the federal RICO…
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States removed more than 19 million people — or about 8.5% of the registered U.S. electorate — from voter rolls between the 2020 and 2022 electoral cycles, often via flawed practices that prevent many eligible persons from exercising their right to vote, a report released Thursday revealed. The report — Protecting Voter Registration: An Assessment of Voter Purge Policies in 10 States — from the…
Matthew DePerno, a leader of a plot to help former President Donald Trump overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, was arraigned and charged by Michigan prosecutors on Tuesday. DePerno, the former Republican candidate in the 2022 race for state attorney general, is facing four felony charges that come after a yearlong probe into the scheme by D.J. Hilson…
The latest indictment against former President Donald Trump regarding his sweeping campaign to go against the will of the American public and overturn the 2020 election includes one charge under a civil rights law originally enacted to combat the terror and violence perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan. Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with four felony counts on Tuesday…
Turnout among voters with disabilities hit record highs in the 2020 presidential election. Approximately 62% of voters with a disability participated in the 2020 election, compared to around 56% in the election four years earlier — primarily due to policies implemented by states that made it easier to cast a ballot during the pandemic. However, 11% of these voters, or nearly two million people…
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In 1979, the children’s educational television series Schoolhouse Rock! broadcast a now-classic episode titled “Three Ring Government” about the three branches of the U.S. government — executive, legislative and judicial. “No one part can be more powerful than the other,” proclaimed the narrator, who explains that our system of government comes with “checks and balances” — each branch watches the…
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The Supreme Court recently prevented Republicans from hijacking state and county election boards in its 6-3 ruling against North Carolina Republicans in Moore v. Harper. If the state GOP had been successful, they would’ve been able to run federal-level elections in North Carolina and across the country without any pathway for citizens to challenge unfair election laws. But voting rights are still…
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On Monday, House Republicans introduced a sweeping voter suppression bill that the party is touting as the “most conservative election bill” considered in the House in decades. Republicans traveled to Georgia, a major front of the party’s voter suppression campaign, to unveil the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act — a combination of almost 50 standalone bills that would urge states to…
On June 26, the United States Supreme Court sent a redistricting challenge to Louisiana’s congressional maps back to a lower court, which had ruled the maps likely dilute the Black communities’ voting power. The decision paves the way for a second minority-majority district in Louisiana, something for which plaintiffs have advocated for months. The decision — hailed by voting rights advocates in…
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The Delaware House has teed up a vote on a bill that would give businesses a vote in the town of Seaford, Delaware — a proposal with frightening implications for elections in a time when lawmakers are increasingly targeting voting rights. The bill allows Seaford — a town of roughly 8,500 people — to amend its charter to allow non-resident business owners to cast a vote in local elections…
The Supreme Court this week allowed Louisiana to redraw its congressional districts to fairly represent Black voters. This action comes on the heels of the court’s decision earlier this month in Allen v. Milligan, in which one of us was a key plaintiff, finding that Alabama’s new congressional maps dilute the power of Black voters in the state. These developments deliver a much-needed victory for…
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Despite the predictable howling of certain Republicans, the 2022 midterm elections largely went off without a hitch, a much-needed reprieve from the chaos that erupted in 2020 as former President Donald Trump and his allies lied to voters about a stolen election in a brazen attempt to cling to power. But a new report from nonpartisan legal experts shows we’re not out of the woods yet…
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A new Florida law gives Gov. Ron DeSantis’ prosecutors power to pursue more election-related cases — a move explicitly designed to circumvent recent judicial scrutiny of the state’s highly politicized voter prosecutions. The law comes after DeSantis’ new election prosecution team’s first round of cases largely flopped, resulting in dropped charges, a number of dismissals, one plea agreement that…
A government watchdog group filed a complaint against the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week in an attempt to obtain records regarding far right politicians blocking federal election monitors in certain polling places during the 2022 election. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is suing over the DOJ’s failure to turn over records of communications between federal…
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The fundamental right to vote has been a core value of Black politics since the colonial era — and so has the effort to suppress that vote right up to the present moment. In fact, the history of the suppression of Black voters is a first-rate horror story that as yet shows no sign of ending. While Democrats and progressives justifiably celebrated the humbling defeat of some of the most notorious…
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Under new legislation proposed in Texas, the state’s Republican attorney general could send prosecutors from neighboring counties to investigate suspected cases of voter fraud in the state’s large Democratic counties. The bill is one of at least nine filed in Texas since the November midterm elections that would increase criminal penalties for voting-related infractions or extend law enforcement’s…
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A Republican member of Wisconsin’s six-member state elections commission is facing calls to resign after a reporter uncovered that he bragged about a “great and important decrease in Democrat votes” in the 2022 election in an email to fellow Republicans last month, the latest stunning show of the GOP’s willingness to openly state their goals to suppress voters and rig elections.
Under new legislation proposed in Texas, the state’s Republican attorney general could send prosecutors from neighboring counties to investigate suspected cases of voter fraud in the state’s large Democratic counties.
The bill is one of at least nine filed in Texas since the November midterm elections that would increase criminal penalties for voting-related infractions or extend law enforcement’s ability to investigate voters, signaling an intensification of what is already one of the most threatening waves of voter suppression in decades.
Another proposal would allow the attorney general to remove from office a district attorney who chooses not to prosecute election crimes, effectively stripping local prosecutors of discretion over how they use their office’s resources.
The two bills targeting district attorneys, introduced by Reps. Keith Bell and Bryan Slaton, respectively, would set the stage for Republican interference in the state’s Democratic urban centers, as top GOP officials continue to push the myth that widespread voter fraud is undermining elections.
The bills were proposed about a week after Harris County, home of Houston and one of the state’s main Democratic strongholds, experienced ballot shortages and late polling site openings. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, has launched an investigation, but the state’s top Republicans – including Gov. Greg Abbott – immediately seized on the confusion and used the problems as pretext to contest a number of elections, even ones Democrats won by wide margins.
“The allegations of election improprieties in our state’s largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct,” Abbott said.
Bell and Slaton are both Republicans who represent districts adjacent to Dallas County, another center of Democratic power.
Slaton’s bill, which would allow the attorney general to remove elected prosecutors whose policies he disagrees with, would give legislative cover to executive branch efforts to interfere with prosecutorial discretion on a local level – something that has happened elsewhere in the country. In August, for example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, suspended an elected state prosecutor who said he would decline to prosecute those seeking and providing abortions in the state. The Texas bill outlines a process for the attorney general to initiate civil court proceedings against a local prosecutor, whose fate would ultimately be decided by a jury.
Neither Slaton, Bell nor Attorney General Ken Paxton’s offices responded to requests for comment.
Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting’s review of legislative records found at least seven more bills in Texas that would increase law enforcement involvement in the election process. Several bills would increase the penalty for illegal voting. Another would make it a crime for a voter to cast a ballot in a party’s primary election if the voter is not a member of that party.
Republicans were the authors of each of these bills.
The bills are part of a wave of legislation that has followed former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen by fraud. An ongoing Reveal investigation found that lawmakers across the country have introduced and passed bills that would dramatically increase law enforcement involvement in elections. In the two years since the 2020 election, legislators in 42 states introduced bills that would establish new election investigation agencies, create new election-related crimes or give law enforcement officials more power to investigate these crimes. Such laws passed in 20 states.
Dozens of lawsuits and audits have disproven the claim that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud, while multiple studies have shown widespread voter fraud does not exist.
In 2021, for example, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1, which created new election crimes, including making it a felony for any election official to provide a mail-in ballot to someone who didn’t request it. Paxton also created an election integrity team, which has been unsuccessfully targeting election workers, according to ProPublica.
The proposed bills in Texas target phantom problems.
“District attorneys are appropriately investigating fraud, as far as we know,” said Matt Simpson, interim policy director at the ACLU of Texas. “There’s not cases where election fraud is happening and district attorneys just refuse to move forward. There’s just not evidence of these things being problems.”
Moves by the Legislature and statewide officials to undermine local elected officials’ power can also chill the vote.
“When you de-legitimize local or elected officials, you also undermine confidence in democracy,” said civil rights attorney Tom Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “People lose faith that their votes matter.”
Saenz said the true intent of these efforts is to suppress the vote, particularly in marginalized communities.
Threatening people with criminal prosecution is “the most extreme deterrent you can imagine,” he said. “Even if someone has every right to vote, they may hesitate. Or if someone has every right to facilitate participation by their own family members, by their own neighbors, that causes a hesitation.”
“That’s the whole purpose of it,” Saenz said. It’s no coincidence that, in Texas, these efforts come alongside demographic changes that could weaken Republicans’ grip on power, he added.
Another Texas bill would require the secretary of state to designate select state law enforcement as “election marshals” with the power to investigate voting crimes. It was first introduced in 2021 and passed out of the state Senate but floundered in the House.
When the bill’s sponsor, Houston-area Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt, reintroduced it in November, he said he wants to introduce more “voter integrity legislation” in the coming session. He’s also described the 2022 midterm election in Harris County as a “3rd world” contest.
Meanwhile, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s president, has signaled that adopting stricter penalties for election crimes will be a legislative priority in this year’s session.
“We need to restore voter fraud to a felony,” Patrick said at a press conference in late November. “Unfortunately, it was dropped to a misdemeanor last time. It’s a serious crime – you steal someone’s vote.”
SB 1 downgraded illegal voting from a felony to a misdemeanor. Under that law, illegal voting is punishable with a maximum $4,000 fine, a one-year jail term or both.
Ahead of the new legislative session, lawmakers in both legislative chambers filed four separate bills that would make illegal voting punishable by a felony charge.
One of those bills came from Slaton, a former pastor and co-author of SB 1. His bill would make illegal voting a second-degree felony, punishable by prison sentences of two to 20 years, plus a possible $10,000 fine.
Another bill would increase the criminal penalty for election fraud, or tampering with someone else’s vote.
State lawmakers are seeking to make changes to elections in other ways, too. For example, one bill would allow select poll workers, known as election judges, to carry guns at polling places during early voting and at polling places on Election Day.
The ACLU’s Simpson said Texas has a host of pressing issues that its Legislature could be addressing now in its once-every-two-years session.
“Texas, famously, has an electric grid that is different from the rest of the country, that is not that reliable,” he said. “There’s some real issues in Texas, and I think that when we get into these conversations and these policy discussions about district attorney authority and how we’re gonna, in great detail, push different agendas with different local officials – these conversations waste time that should be spent on real issues.”
This story was edited by Maryam Saleh and Andrew Donohue and copy edited by Nikki Frick.
Ese Olumhense can be reached at eolumhense@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @essayolumhense.
Texas Republicans Look to Usurp Power of Local Prosecutors Who Don’t Pursue Their Voter Fraud Agenda is a story from Reveal. Reveal is a registered trademark of The Center for Investigative Reporting and is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
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Special fascist election police units formed in three Republican-led states to perpetuate Donald Trump’s voter fraud lies have so far been unable to uncover evidence of widespread voter fraud in their investigations of the 2022 midterm elections, further cementing that, as election officials have said, such fraud doesn’t exist.
Though these units have been probing isolated incidents — something that local election officials already do otherwise — they have turned up “no indication of systemic problems,” as The Associated Press reports. This undermines the supposed goals of the groups, formed in Florida, Georgia and Virginia, to uncover voter fraud, as even efforts by special groups formed to scour their states for supposed election crimes have turned up empty.
Their findings, or lack thereof, line up with the findings of other government officials who have also found zero evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2022 election — just as masses of agencies, election officials and journalists, even conservative groups and Trump-aligned officials, found no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020, contradicting Trump’s claims.
That didn’t stop Republican officials from continuing to perpetuate the “Big Lie” about the election, however, spurring the creation of a mass voter suppression movement led by Republicans across the country.
The formation of election police — what Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark (D) called a “solution looking for a problem,” per the AP — was a part of that trend. And though they have turned up short on evidence of fraud, election experts say that they have already likely achieved their real goal: placing a chilling effect on the entire electoral process.
On top of existing voter suppression laws, election police units send the message to voters and potential election workers that there is a target on their backs if they step one toe out of line. Indeed, in Florida, far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis’s election police force arrested 20 people earlier this year who had prior convictions but who were nonetheless able to register to vote, apparently leading them to believe that they could cast a ballot.
At least one of those arrested has had his case dismissed, but arrests have achieved their goal: many of those who have been convicted of crimes say they are now afraid of voting, and won’t risk casting a ballot and being arrested.
“We’ve heard stories about voters who are eligible to vote but have a criminal conviction in their past, and they are now scared to register and vote,” which is “deeply concerning,” Michael Pernick, NAACP voting rights attorney, told the AP.
In reality, Republicans are trying to create a pathway, either legal or through force, to ensure that Republicans never lose elections again, as Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels said earlier this month before losing to Democrat Tim Evers.
In Arizona, for instance, a Republican-controlled county is refusing to certify its election results ahead of a Monday deadline to do so, in protest of incumbent Mark Kelly winning his race for U.S. Senate in the state. Though there is no evidence of voter fraud in the state, Republicans seem to be trying to circumvent the Democrat’s win or invalidate it altogether. Democrats have threatened legal action over the move.
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A prominent right-wing group led by former Trump administration officials that is coordinating attacks on election integrity saw its revenue skyrocket last year, according to newly-obtained tax filings.
The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) received more than $45 million in contributions and grants in 2021 — a more than sixfold increase over the previous year’s contributions of $7.1 million. The group and a constellation of partner organizations it launched last year have been influential in spreading conspiracies about stolen elections, as well as in shaping conservative messaging around Big Tech and critical race theory. One CPI offshoot announced last year says it works to “identify, educate, and credential” the next generation of conservative leaders.
In addition to its think tank-style public education and legal work, CPI operates a media production studio that has filmed clips for organizations like Newsmax and PragerU. It also hosts podcasts for the Federalist Society and Republican members of Congress Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs, and in 2021 it was the home to TV shows from Epoch Times and Blaze Media.
The group’s paid officers include former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who received compensation of $559,000 last year as senior partner, and former Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell as senior legal fellow and secretary, who was paid $231,000.
The new highs raised by the CPI went to further Donald Trump’s contentions that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and to promote disinformation about the integrity of elections ahead of the midterms. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit’s Form 990 for 2021, which is not available on CPI’s website and has not yet been released by the Internal Revenue Service, was obtained by the nonpartisan watchdog Accountable.US and shared with Sludge.
Mitchell, who in 2020 worked with Trump to try to pressure Georgia officials to overturn election results, helms CPI’s Election Integrity Network, a project whose mission Mitchell described as recruiting “a volunteer army of citizens” to monitor election offices based on baseless theories of widespread voter fraud. In states such as Arizona this year, armed militia attempted to intimidate voters at polling sites in line with the “Stop the Steal” movement’s calls.
While CPI does not publicly disclose its funding sources, one large donation last year was reported in Federal Election Commission filings: Trump’s Save America PAC gave $1 million to CPI on July 26, 2021, weeks after the U.S. House voted to establish a select committee to investigate Jan. 6’s riot at the Capitol Building. The million-dollar donation to Meadows’ nonprofit made up the vast majority of giving by Trump’s PAC to political allies last year. Meadows’ role in joining CPI, founded by early Tea Party supporter former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, was reported to be building networks of conservative leaders and elected officials in the mold of Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz.
Donors Trust, the “dark money” funding hub, donated a total of $1.3 million to CPI, according to its latest tax filings obtained by Accountable.US. The majority of the grants were for general support, with $200,000 earmarked for the youth-focused American Moment and $10,000 in support of the Election Integrity Project, among other uses.
“It should concern all Americans that a small group of ultra-wealthy donors have increased their investment in an anti-voting rights fringe group by such a massive scale,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Power & Influence at Accountable.US.
More than $25 million of CPI’s revenue came from a single anonymous individual, and at least six other anonymous individuals donated $1 million or more. CPI’s total revenue for 2021 was reported to be more than $45.7 million, compared with $6.2 million the previous year, after accounting for negative revenue.
Mitchell, who participated in the Jan. 2 calls with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump pressured him to “find” thousands of ballots marked for him, was tapped last year by CPI to head a campaign against the For the People Act’s voting reform legislation, introduced by congressional Democrats but blocked last summer by Senate Republicans. In addition to coordinating conservatives’ legal push at CPI, Mitchell last year also helped lead a $10 million initiative by the right-wing advocacy group FreedomWorks training conservative activists on local elections. As she worked with state lawmakers on developing greater voting restrictions, Mitchell said she stayed in contact with Trump.
From its soaring bank accounts, CPI compensated its top officials handsomely. Chairman DeMint received more than $545,000 last year from the organization, while President and CEO Ed Corrigan was paid $382,000. Mitchell’s expanded role is a change compared with the group’s IRS filings for 2019 and 2020, when she was listed as a board secretary working an average of two hours per week without compensation. CPI’s revenue for 2020 totaled $6.2 million, according to IRS figures.
Other former Trump administration officials employed by CPI include Dan Scavino, who is leading efforts related to tech company censorship, and Wesley Denton, the group’s chief operating officer.
The tax filing also reveals that CPI has been building up its network, giving more than $3.9 million last year to its partner organizations, many of which it launched in 2021 and are also controlled by individuals in the Trump administration orbit.
At the forefront of CPI’s giving is its partner the America First Legal Foundation, founded by former Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller, which was issued a donation of $1,334,105 for “mission and program support.” From his position in the White House, Miller worked to “purge” government agencies of those he perceived to be less than loyal and cited the white nationalist website VDARE in advancing anti-immigration policies. Miller describes his legal group as the right’s answer to the ACLU. 
CPI granted more than $1 million to the American Voting Rights Foundation, based in Hudson, Wisconsin, an entity identified in IRS records as the Center for American Restoration and awarded tax-exempt status in August 2021. Announced in January 2021 by Trump’s former OMB Director Russ Vought, the new nonprofits will focus on claims of voter fraud and champion conservative cultural issues like Big Tech regulation and critical race theory. Another group of which Vought is the president, the Center for Renewing America, is a CPI partner and received $583,701 from CPI.
The American Accountability Foundation, an opposition research group that is a CPI partner and whose founder Tom Jones previously worked for Republican senators including Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz, was awarded over $335,000 from CPI. Another partner, the nonprofit American Moment, founded by Saurabh Sharma and Nick Solheim, received $336,000 for work it promotes as developing conservative youth leaders and running fellowship programs. The American Cornerstone Institute, a nonprofit founded by Dr. Ben Carson, the former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, received nearly $161,000 from CPI. The group highlights faith in public life.
The Virginia-based Institute for Citizen Focused Service received $100,000 and the Public Interest Legal Foundation, chaired by Mitchell, received $50,000 from Meadows’ group. The Indiana-based legal group is known for bringing lawsuits against states and localities to eliminate voters from their rolls. Another director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation Hans Von Spakovsky, is a prominent Republican lawyer who promoted voter restrictions such as strict voter I.D. requirements adopted by many states.
Since the 2020 presidential election, nearly two-thirds of Republicans have believed that Biden won due to voter fraud, according to nine polls conducted by Monmouth University.
According to a tally cited by USA Today, out of 62 cases in federal and state courts that challenged the 2020 presidential election, 61 have failed due to lack of standing or evidence — including several dismissed by Trump-appointed federal judges, such as U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Kernodle.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign has filed a lawsuit against Georgia over Republican officials’ decision this week to bar early voting on Saturdays for the upcoming runoff election, slamming officials for their allegedly “cherry-pick[ed]” interpretation of state voting laws.
Over the weekend, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office sent out a memo saying that, due to a combination of restrictive voting laws put in place by Republicans in recent years, voters will not be given the opportunity to cast a ballot on the only eligible Saturday, November 26, for the early voting window because of its proximity to a holiday. In this case, the holidays would be Thanksgiving on the Thursday before and a Confederate holiday commemorating Robert E. Lee on Friday that the state has dubbed “State Holiday.”
However, voting rights advocates and Democrats say that this interpretation of the law is false. In the lawsuit, which was joined by the Democratic Party of Georgia and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, attorneys filing on behalf of the Democrats argue that Raffensperger “misreads” and “cherry-picks” provisions of laws to apply them to the runoff election, when in reality they apply only to general or primary elections.
“Despite the law’s command that counties begin offering advance voting ‘as soon as possible,’ Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the unsupportable position that counties are barred from opening the polls on Saturday, November 26,” the lawsuit reads. The attorneys point out that Raffensperger had previously said that voters would likely have a chance to vote on that Saturday.
The plaintiffs seek to ensure that counties are not precluded from offering early voting on that Saturday.
The Republicans’ argument for the restriction on Saturday voting comes from a 2016 law that supposedly bars early voting on a Saturday following a state holiday. This supposedly wasn’t a problem in the 2020 cycle’s runoff election for both U.S. Senate seats for the state, as those took place nine weeks after the general election.
However, due to a voter suppression law passed last year by the Republican-dominated general assembly, runoff elections now take place four weeks after Election Day, with the early voting window coinciding with Thanksgiving and the state holiday.
But state officials haven’t followed the 2016 law in this way in the past, one voting rights expert found.
“During the 2020/21 GA Senate runoff, multiple GA counties offered early voting on the Saturday following a holiday (Christmas Day); and the same statutory language that [Raffensperger] relies on now was in place back then,” election law expert Marc Elias pointed out on Twitter on Tuesday. “What changed?” Elias is the founder of voting rights group Democracy Docket and a partner in the Elias Law Group, which helped file the lawsuit.
Voting and civil rights groups have also taken issue with Raffensperger’s interpretation, especially frustrated by the symbolism of colonialist and Confederate holidays barring people from voting.
On Tuesday, the Legal Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter to election supervisors in all 159 counties in the state urging them to add at least three additional early voting days on top of and before the currently scheduled five days of early voting, including on Sunday, November 27 and the two days immediately preceding Thanksgiving.
“Georgia law affords you broad discretion to add additional days for advance voting,” the groups write, citing a law that says that early voting should begin “[a]s soon as possible prior to a runoff,” within certain parameters, which they say grants officials the right to offer additional days of voting.
“If you only offer advance voting on the five days required by statute (which, as noted above, is limited to weekdays), there is a significant risk that many voters will be unable to participate due to obligations during the workday,” the letter reads. “Moreover, any voters who are able to vote during the workday are at risk of facing extremely long lines given the limited options that are available.”
The runoff election could be crucial for the Democratic Party. If Warnock wins, it would expand Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate from 50 seats to 51 seats, meaning that the party could potentially work around conservatives in the party like Senators Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona). It would also give the party breathing room in case there are absences or vacancies within the party.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.