Welcome to the September edition of The Lever – reaching you as we move into autumn. Our democracy is strongest when everyone has a voice. 

While many are looking ahead to the 2024 elections, the 2023 elections are presently just weeks away. New election policies will be taking effect in five states holding off-year elections this fall. In this month’s Hot Policy Take, we examine the new rules that will impact the ability of more than 18 million registered voters to make their voices heard this fall.

Later in this issue, we highlight the restoration of voting rights for Kentuckians with non-violent felony convictions, and how 200,000 citizens are at risk of losing those rights, depending on this fall’s election results. We also share an analysis of how states who left ERIC are struggling to replicate its function, and spotlight the critical work of our partners at We the Veterans. Finally, we share a few big state legislative updates.

HOT POLICY TAKE

We’re living through an extraordinary era in election law – and we have the data to prove it. Since 2020, well over 5,000 election bills have been introduced, reshaping the conversation – and well over 500 hundred new laws have been enacted that have cumulatively transformed the voting and elections policy landscape.
 
These sweeping changes will certainly impact both voters and election workers in the 2024 presidential election. But even before then, much is on the line for voting rights this fall. In this month’s Hot Policy Take, we examine what’s new and what’s at stake heading into the 2023 elections in five states: Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia.
 

BY THE NUMBERS

200,000
 

In 2019, Kentucky Governor Beshear issued Executive Order 2019-003, which automatically restores voting rights to those charged with non-violent felony offenses upon completion of non-monetary sentence terms. Since the order was signed, nearly 200,000 Kentuckians have had their voting rights restored.
 
While these voters will have an opportunity to make their voices heard in the upcoming 2023 elections, their newly restored rights may be on the line. Governor Beshear is running for reelection to a second term, and his opponent, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, has not committed to leaving Executive Order 2019-003 in place.
 
Under the Kentucky Constitution, disenfranchisement is permanent unless the governor restores an individual’s rights. If Executive Order 2019-003 is reversed, Kentucky would join Alabama and Virginia as the only states where rights are never automatically restored. You can learn more on the state of disenfranchisement and rights restoration in our Tracker.

WHAT WE'RE READING

We have previously covered the rapid and politically-motivated withdrawal of several states from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the bipartisan interstate compact enabling member states to exchange information and improve the accuracy of their voter registration lists. Like many nonpartisan election policy organizations, we questioned the assertions of state officials who claimed that another tool could be developed quickly that would offer the same or better services to states. Recently, several of these states released details about how they plan to self-organize in lieu of participating in ERIC.

Route 50 investigates how these state-by-state data sharing agreements fall short:

“David Becker, an expert in elections administration and one of the founders of ERIC, said the state-by-state approach poses three main problems that ERIC has addressed: low data quality, high costs and inadequate data security.
 
“Becker, who stepped down from ERIC’s board earlier this year after conspiracy theorists spread baseless rumors about him, said the GOP efforts are similar to past attempts to combat voter fraud that fell flat. He said they operate in much the same way as the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program that started in Kansas in 2005.

“The Crosscheck program shut down in 2019, after a Florida open records request exposed the partial Social Security numbers of nearly 1,000 voters. The American Civil Liberties Union sued to shutter the troubled program, which at one point covered half the voters in the country. Before that, the Department of Homeland Security had exposed problems with its data security.”

FROM OUR PARTNERS - We the Veterans

This month we’re spotlighting an organization working to strengthen our democracy across the country: We the Veterans. The organization focuses on engaging and empowering the 17 million+ veterans living in the United States, as well as their family members, to help build a more perfect union through civics education, poll worker recruitment, and solutions to prevent violent extremism in our politics.
 
In 2022, to help alleviate the poll worker shortage, We the Veterans recruited 63,000 volunteers through their Vet the Vote project to serve as poll workers. And they’re just getting started. We the Veterans is continuing to recruit volunteers from their veteran and military family communities in service of the upcoming 2023 and 2024 elections.

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:

New York becomes the 36th state to allow voters to vote by mail without a special, qualifying reason. Governor Kathy Hochul signed a package of election bills into law on Wednesday, which included S.B. 7394, a bill establishing no-excuse mail voting. Previously New Yorkers could only vote by mail if they had a special reason – or excuse – for needing to do so. The new law was promptly challenged in court under the state’s constitution in litigation brought by U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik and others.
 
Pennsylvania becomes the 25th state to implement or enact automatic voter registration. On National Voter Registration Day, Governor Josh Shapiro announced that Pennsylvania implemented automatic voter registration. At Governor Shapiro’s direction, every qualified resident obtaining a new or renewed driver’s license or ID card at the DMV will be automatically registered to vote unless they opt out.
 
North Carolina legislative takeover of boards of elections heads to the governor’s desk. Both chambers of the North Carolina legislature concurred in amendments to S.B. 749, which would give legislative leadership appointment authority over state and county boards of elections. Such authority currently lies with the governor. The bill would also create even-numbered board memberships that could be prone to deadlock over certification of results or designation of early voting locations. The bill now goes to the desk of Governor Roy Cooper, who has said he will veto it.