Welcome to the July edition of The Lever, where our Hot Policy Take explores an alarming new trend at the state level: bills that would inject partisanship into election outcomes. If left unchecked, partisan legislative attacks on election administration could destroy the credibility of our election system as a whole.
You’ll also find a brand new section in our State Voting Rights Tracker detailing shifts in election authority. We share what we’re reading as well as some exciting updates from partners, and don’t miss the new creative content to share in support of voting rights advocates in Texas. Let’s get right to it.
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An alarming new trend is taking hold at the state level this year, with many states introducing bills that give partisan politicians more power to shape and control election outcomes.
From enabling state legislators to refuse to certify results to giving partisan lawmakers power over election administration, state legislatures are taking dangerous steps to inject partisanship into our election systems.
For a rundown of this trend and some of the most egregious bills and new laws we’re tracking this year, check out Party First: How State Legislatures Are Injecting Partisanship into Our Elections.
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BY THE NUMBERS
35 States
35 states have introduced 153 bills that would shift the allocation of authority in election administration. These bills take a number of forms, including legislation that would strip state officials of their emergency powers, increase partisan oversight of local election officials, or grant legislatures power to overturn election results. Other bills would change appointed positions to elected ones or would alter the composition of state or local election boards.
Learn more about Shifts in Election Authority in the State Voting Rights Tracker.
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WHAT WE'RE READING
In The xxxxxx's recent article, Texas’s Voting Restrictions Are a Multi-Level Grift, they dig into the details of Texas’s voting laws and their suppressive intentions:
“From the governor’s mansion down to the statehouse floor, the Republican push for these unnecessary, bad-faith bills is a three-layer grift. At the first level of the grift, SB 1 and HB 3 are all rooted in the Big Lie…”
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MAPS & STATS
As of July 26, 2021, 2,397 elections bills were introduced across all 50 states this session:
- 96 pro-voter bills enacted in 33 states
- 38 anti-voter bills enacted in 20 states
- 45 mixed/unclear bills enacted in 21 states
- 23 neutral bills enacted in 14 states
Voting Rights Lab evaluates the cumulative effect of state policy to rank the direction states are moving.
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How does this affect voters?
- 70.2M eligible voters live in states that expanded voter access this year
- 35.9M eligible voters live in states that restricted voter access this year
- 94.2M eligible voters are awaiting a final tally upon conclusion for their legislative session
- 33.7M eligible voters lives in states that have wrapped up their legislative session – and either made no significant legislative change or the results were a mixed bag
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Our friends at the Bipartisan Policy Center just released a new report evaluating how states verify the identity of mail voters:
“The 2020 election was the most secure in our nation’s history. Yet in response to false claims of rampant voter fraud, some state legislatures have introduced strict identification requirements for mail voting."
Learn more about different ways that states remotely verify voter identity, and the impact these methods have on voter access.
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THE MARKUP
In addition to this monthly newsletter, you can also sign up for The Markup, a weekly insiders’ update on state election legislation. Here’s a snippet from yesterday's edition of The Markup – a sample of what you can expect each week:
Oregon expands mail ballot deadline. Last week, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a law changing the deadline for mail ballots from a received-by Election Day to a postmarked-by Election Day deadline. Under the new law, ballots postmarked by Election Day must be received within seven days of Election Day to be counted. Oregon joins thirteen other states with a postmark deadline for ballots. A postmark deadline centers on the action of the voter rather than the mail system, and instills confidence in voters that their ballots will be counted.
If you’d like to get insights like this straight to your inbox each Monday, head here to sign up. We won't be publishing next week, but we'll be back at it on Monday, August 9.
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#TRENDING
We worked with our friends at IntoAction to create new GIFs for our partners in Texas who are fighting to defend voting rights during the special session.
Will you take a moment to help spread the word by sharing these GIFs with your network?
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