Welcome to the October edition of The Lever. This month, we reflect on the movement victories from the 2021 legislative sessions – a reminder to celebrate all the hard work happening across the voting rights space.
Don’t miss our new report on election subversion tactics. And we have some new GIFs to share in honor of Veterans Day and the fight to defend the freedom to vote. Let’s get right to it.
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As the 2021 legislative sessions come to a close, our policy experts take stock of the movement victories in this month’s Hot Policy Take. Voting rights advocates and organizers – like you! – successfully ensured that some of the most restrictive policies failed to get enacted. Movement leaders also successfully pushed for reforms across the country that will expand voter access in red and blue states alike.
Take a look at our Hot Policy Take to learn about the bad bills advocates stopped and the good ones they helped pass. Some of those wins include protecting early voting on Sunday, ensuring voters’ freedom to choose to deposit their ballots in a secure drop box, and enhancing ballot tracking options.
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FROM THE EXPERTS
From Texas to Florida to Georgia, millions of voters have watched as state lawmakers around the country erect new and unnecessary barriers to the ballot box, adopting policies that will curtail participation in our democracy.
Our recent report, A Threat to Our Democracy: Election Subversion in the 2021 Legislative Session, explores the additional and deeply disturbing legislative trend of election subversion legislation. By shifting the allocation of power in election administration to partisan actors, criminalizing non-partisan elections administrators, and initiating sham election reviews to instill further doubt in elections, these bills threaten voter access as well as the most elemental foundations of our democracy.
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WHAT WE'RE READING
In a write-up last week, Forbes told the story of how the Texas legislature adjourned its latest special session without passing two controversial election bills – despite pressure from former President Donald Trump.
Up to $250 million. That’s how much Texas taxpayers would have had to pay for the election audits that would have been ordered if the legislation passed, according to an analysis from AngelouEconomics and Secure Democracy. The cheapest a review could have been would be approximately $35 million, the analysis found.
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To celebrate Veterans Day (November 11), we wanted to share these GIFs with you, linking the service of military members to one of the core freedoms they fight to protect: the freedom to vote. Please share these GIFs widely to encourage everyone to defend the freedom to vote in honor of Veterans Day.
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FROM OUR PARTNERS
A creative idea from election administrators in Florida will establish early voting sites as places for voters to “Vote & Vax.” Early voting sites for Florida’s primary special election in the 20th Congressional District will be offering COVID-19 vaccinations, too.
Because much of FL-20 (Congressional District 20) is an underserved community, I see this as an opportunity to help busy, hardworking people accomplish two important tasks with one-stop,” [Broward County Supervisor of Elections Joe] Scott texted.
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THE MARKUP
The Markup is VRL’s weekly update for insiders on state election legislation. Here’s a snippet from this Monday's edition of The Markup – a sample of what you can expect each week:
Pennsylvania Senate introduces bill to place a moratorium on mail voting. S.B. 914 would place a moratorium on no-excuse absentee voting (called "voting by mail-in ballot" in Pennsylvania) until the earlier of the 2023 primary election and enactment of legislation that "addresses any problem associated with voting by an official mail-in ballot." It remains to be seen if this bill will have any traction in the legislature, but it would likely be vetoed by Governor Tom Wolf, who has stated he would veto any bill that unnecessarily restricts the freedom to vote or undoes the election reforms of Act 77, if it makes it to his desk. Act 77, which was passed in 2019, established no-excuse mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.
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