Welcome to the May edition of The Lever — reaching you as May flowers bloom. Our democracy is strongest when the will of the people is upheld.
This month’s Hot Policy Take is a thorough examination of election certification — the processes, protocols, and procedures undertaken by state officials to declare final election results. Similar to what we saw in the 2020 election and 2022 midterms, bad-faith actors may block the certification of elections in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of the 2024 election. It is critical that voters, journalists, and advocates have a strong understanding of how exactly election certification works.
In this email, we take a look at the battle over ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin, and its impact on rural voters. Later in this issue, we explore how a new law would influence voter registration challenges in Georgia, spotlight our partners at Black Leaders Organizing for Communities and their recent presentation at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and provide a quick summary of some legislative updates we’re watching.
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The winners of local, state, and federal elections are decided through rigorous vote verification, counting, and canvassing procedures. Certification occurs only after these procedures – and numerous checks and balances therein – confirm the accuracy and validity of election results. However, in recent elections, some certifiers have obstructed the process, and asserted authority they do not have. In this month’s Hot Policy Take, we illustrate how the laws across all 50 states are clear: certification is the stage where winners are not decided, but simply declared.
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BY THE NUMBERS
34
That is the average distance in square miles between rural Wisconsin polling sites, while suburban counties boast a polling location every 13 square miles. Rural voters tend to be older, and many live with disabilities – which further complicates equitable access to the ballot box.
While secure ballot drop boxes were a popular means of casting ballots in the 2020 election in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court banned their usage in 2022, requiring all ballots to be returned either by mail or in person. The story doesn’t end there, though – as advocates from both sides of the aisle continue to be involved in the fight for their usage, including by rural voters.
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WHAT WE'RE READING
The Georgia state legislature recently passed S.B. 189, a new law that would give state residents more time to contest the voter eligibility of their fellow citizens, while making use of additional unreliable sources of evidence to do so. The new bill moved through the legislature thanks in large part due to the support of individuals who pushed for mass voter challenges in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election. Indeed, the Election Confidence Task Force, a partisan political committee that provided sample language to state legislators in drafting the bill, was chaired by the former executive director of True The Vote, an organization that announced challenges to 360,000 Georgia voter registrations after the 2020 election.
The bill codifies two key changes that will assist those hoping to challenge voter registrations, the first being approval of the use of questionable datasets to validate voter eligibility. The second change would allow voter challenges up to 45 days before the election – a shift that is in likely conflict with the National Voting Rights Act’s systematic voter removal cutoff date of 90 days prior to an election.
“It’s bad policy and bad law, and will open the floodgates to bad challenges,” said Caitlin May of the ACLU of Georgia, which has threatened to sue over the law’s potential to violate the NVRA.
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FROM OUR PARTNERS - Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) and WI Democracy
Our partners at Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign have been effectively organizing their communities in Wisconsin for years to advance and protect voting rights in the state. This past week, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign hosted its annual meeting of dedicated members and volunteers to reaffirm and deepen their commitment to building an inclusive democracy – with BLOC’s Executive Director Angela Lang delivering remarks on a panel.
Lang emphasized how the Black community in Wisconsin continues to face particular challenges in exercising their freedom to vote – and why all officials responsible for overseeing elections must demonstrate they are actively working to address them. The event showcased how advocates across the state are banding together to strengthen democracy in Wisconsin not just this year, but over the long haul.
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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 Hampshire legislature sends the governor a bill creating strict ID document requirements for voter registration and in-person voting. Governor Chris Sununu is considering a bill passed by the legislature last week that, if signed, will require voter registration applicants to provide physical documentation proving their eligibility. The bill will also make voter ID requirements for in-person voting stricter by eliminating alternatives for voters without photo ID. Current law allows voters to verify their identity by signing a statement under penalty of perjury and having their photo taken.
Virginia governor vetoes bills that would have established new safeguards in the voter list maintenance process. Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a set of voter list maintenance bills last week that would have protected eligible voters against improper cancellation of their voter registrations.These bills would have required that information from other states used for list maintenance contain unique identifiers such as a Social Security number that could be compared to Virginia records; established standards for what constituted a match between other types of records and a voter registration; provided additional notice before a registration record was canceled; and moved all challenges to voter registrations to the state court system.
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