HOT POLICY TAKE

Since the 2020 election, state legislatures around the country have transformed the voting landscape, proposing thousands of bills and making hundreds of changes to the patchwork of election laws that govern our democracy. As legislators continue to zero in on the many nuanced policies that determine how and where voters cast their ballots, vote centers are no exception.

In this month’s Hot Policy Take, we take a look at how states are shifting the role that vote centers play – or don’t play – in our local elections.

BY THE NUMBERS

432,000

That’s how many outdated voter registrations Georgia was able to identify on their rolls using information from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. In recent years, nine Republican-led states have withdrawn from ERIC, but in the words of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, “ERIC remains the only large-scale list maintenance tool available to identify voters who have moved out of state and anyone who might fraudulently vote in two ERIC-member states in a general election.”

WHAT WE'RE READING

The 2020 election and its aftermath prompted closer scrutiny of social media platforms’ policies for combating mis/disinformation, but as Elon Musk has moved to reset X (formerly Twitter) policies away from more intensive moderation, industry standards have shifted in lockstep.

Despite press statements from Youtube and Meta affirming a commitment to protecting users from the spread of misinformation, more aggressive efforts to curtail misinformation across platforms have turned back in recent months.

WaPo has more:

“Earlier this month, the founder of a musical cruise company posted a screenshot on Facebook appearing to show Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) falsely signing a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to become police officers and sheriff’s deputies. “In Illinois American citizens will be arrested by illegals,” reads the post, which has been shared more than 26 times.

Fact-checkers at USA Today, one of dozens of media organizations Meta pays to debunk viral conspiracies, deemed the post false, and the company labeled it on Facebook as “false information.” But Meta has quietly begun offering users new controls to opt out of the fact-checking program, allowing debunked posts such as the falsified one about Pritzker to spread in participants’ news-feeds with a warning label.”

With the 2024 campaign season already underway and former president (and current GOP frontrunner) Donald Trump continuing to rally supporters with debunked claims about the 2020 election, continued relaxation of content moderation efforts could spell trouble for voters seeking accurate information about elections on social media platforms.

FROM OUR PARTNERS - All Voting Is Local Arizona

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes recently released a new, 259-page draft of the state’s Election Procedures Manual (EPM) for comment. The EPM is an administrative rulebook designed to help county election officials run elections in accordance with state law. Our partners at All Voting Is Local Arizona coordinated a large coalition of voting rights groups to analyze and respond to the manual, calling for “policies and procedures that make voting as accessible as possible, under the law, for all eligible voters in Arizona.”

In addition to coordinating analysis of the manual by diverse groups of voting rights advocates throughout the state, AVIL-AZ briefed state and national reporters on the Election Procedures Manual and why it matters to Arizona voters.

THE MARKUP

The Markup is VRL’s weekly legislative update for voting rights insiders. If you’d like to get insights straight to your inbox each Monday, head here to sign up.

Here’s a brief update on what we’re watching this week, and a sneak peek into what you can expect from The Markup each week:
 

Governor Cooper vetoes North Carolina Senate Bill 747. Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina vetoed S.B. 747, an elections omnibus bill recently passed by the state legislature. The bill would restrict mail voting by requiring mail ballots to be returned earlier, increase the likelihood of voters’ registrations being challenged, and prohibit private funding for election administration, among other changes. The bill now returns to the legislature for a possible override of the governor’s veto.

Harris County election administrator must leave on September 1. The Texas Supreme Court denied a motion by plaintiffs challenging S.B. 1750 seeking a stay of the bill’s effect while the case is pending in the high court. As a result, the bill’s requirement for the office of Harris County Election Administrator to be eliminated on September 1 will take effect, and November’s election, which includes Houston’s mayoral race and several state constitutional amendments, will be run by the county clerk and collector-assessor.