On The Docket 11/11/2022

We made it through Election Day. As anticipated, there were some Election Day glitches, but no widespread problems. So far, many election deniers lost in swing states and Americans repeatedly chose reproductive rights and voting rights via ballot measures. We’ll rundown some notable outcomes for American democracy.

And today we also honor those who have served our nation — Happy Veterans Day!

As we head into a potentially contentious post-election period, it’s more important than ever to know what’s happening. Forward our weekly newsletter to a friend, family member or colleague to help everyone stay engaged. If you received this email from someone else, you can subscribe here. [link removed]

Awaiting Results from Arizona and Nevada

All eyes are on Arizona and Nevada. We expect vote tabulation in these two southwestern states to continue throughout the weekend, and potentially beyond. Crucially, control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance, as well as whether extreme election deniers will prevail in key statewide positions. Let’s run down what we can expect.

In Arizona, mail-in ballots must be received by 7 p.m. MST on Election Day. If a ballot has a mismatched signature, Arizona voters are able to cure (meaning fix) it through Wednesday, Nov. 16. (In 2021, the Legislature passed a strict law that limited voters’ ability to cure ballots that were missing signatures altogether.) Results from rural counties will trickle in over the next few days; Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, releases updated results each evening.

Complicating the efforts in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa County faced voting issues on Election Day that didn’t prevent voters from being able to cast ballots, but did spur right-wing misinformation. Reports emerged on Tuesday morning that around 30% of the county’s vote centers were dealing with tabulator machine issues where machines were failing to scan ballots. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer (R) released a statement apologizing to any voter who was “frustrated or inconvenienced” by the Election Day issues, but reiterated that “[e]very legal vote will be tabulated. I promise.” According to the county’s elections department, around 17,000 votes, or 7% of those who voted in person on Tuesday, were placed in the secure ballot box, the fail-safe method for when tabulators failed.

Just over two hours before the polls were set to close in Arizona, the Republican National Committee (RNC), National Republican Senatorial Committee, Blake Masters for Senate and Kari Lake for Arizona filed a lawsuit seeking to extend the polling hours in Maricopa County because of the tabulator issues. The lawsuit asked the court to extend the hours for voting by three hours — from 7 p.m. MST to 10 p.m. MST — among other requests. A judge rapidly held a hearing on the emergency request and soon denied the extension. [link removed]

In Nevada, the state accepts mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials up until Saturday, Nov. 12. Additionally, voters can (and should!) cure mistakes on their mail-in ballots through Monday, Nov. 14 at 5 p.m. PST. A large majority of mail-in ballots that are yet to be counted in the Silver State are from Clark County, home to Las Vegas. As of Nov. 10, Clark County reported that there are upwards of 50,000 mail-in ballots that still must be counted and 7,155 mail-in ballots that need to be cured. As we approach Saturday’s ballot receipt deadline, mail-in ballots will continue to arrive, though the numbers will likely taper off each day.

Tired of waiting for results? Nye County, Nevada and Cochise County, Arizona could derail and delay certification even later. The two counties haven’t given up on their plans to expand hand counting, despite courts repeatedly telling them they would be violating state law. Yesterday, after Cochise County asked the state Supreme Court to step in and block the lower court’s order prohibiting the hand count, the court denied the county’s motion to transfer its appeal directly to the state’s highest court. Then, the county filed a motion for expedited briefing in the appellate court, which was also denied. It’s unclear how the two rogue counties plan to proceed.

Control of the U.S. House Might Depend on Recounts in Close Races

Crucially, control of the U.S. House still remains up in the air as of Nov. 10. Several elections are too close to call; we may see recounts and lawsuits in these districts. Here are a handful that we are watching closely:

Arizona: In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, a Democratic challenger is slightly leading (with many ballots still to be counted) in the race against incumbent Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who voted against certifying the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021. In Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, the race is slightly less tight, but still close.

Numerous districts in California: The Golden State, with its universal vote-by-mail system, is slow to confirm election results. At the moment, a handful of outstanding House races are too close to call.

Colorado: In Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Democrat Adam Frisch is within a couple hundred votes of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), an extreme congresswoman who has not only espoused the “Big Lie”, but is also one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest supporters.

New York: In the open 22nd Congressional District, the Democratic and Republican opponents are separated by fewer than 4,000 votes. The GOP candidate Brandon Williams declared victory Wednesday morning, but there are apparently several thousand mail-in and provisional ballots that have yet to be counted.

Oregon: Similar to California, Oregon conducts all-mail elections; additionally, ballots postmarked on Election Day can be received and counted up until Nov. 15. In the 5th Congressional District, the Republican candidate is leading Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who won an upset primary against a seven-term incumbent. In the 6th Congressional District, the race is separated by around 3,000 votes with only 60% of ballots counted.

Voters Reject Election Deniers in Swing States

Many candidates who denied the results of the 2020 election are coming up short in their races for key positions in election administration in competitive states. At least two of these election deniers have yet to concede. [link removed]

[link removed]

So far, in Michigan:
Tudor Dixon (R), who did not commit to honoring the results of the election, conceded to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) after losing by about 10%.
Kristina Karamo (R), who sued to change absentee ballot procedures in Detroit, lost to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) by about 13%. Karamo has not conceded.
Matthew DePerno (R), currently under investigation for “testing” and tampering with Michigan voting machines, conceded to Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) after losing by about 8%.

In Minnesota, Kim Crockett (R), who called the 2020 election rigged, lost to Secretary of State Steven Simon (D) by about 10%. While Crockett acknowledged she did not win, she claimed the result is “a direct consequence of a false national narrative about elections funded by corrupt elites who do not believe in our right to govern ourselves through clean elections.”

In New Mexico, Audrey Mendonca-Trujillo (R), who labeled 2020 “a huge coup,” lost to Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D) by about 12%.

In Pennsylvania, former state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who bused people to the Capitol on Jan. 6, lost to Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) in the race for governor by about 13%. Mastriano has yet to concede and told supporters he will wait “until every vote counts.”

In Wisconsin, Tim Michels (R), who claimed that no Democrat would win an election in Wisconsin again if he won, lost to Gov. Tony Evers (D) by about 3%. He conceded last night.

We are closely watching the races in Arizona and Nevada that have yet to be called. In Arizona, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and Kari Lake (R) are competing for governor and Adrian Fontes (D) faces election denier Mark Finchem (R) in a race for the state’s chief election official. In Nevada, extreme QAnon candidate Jim Marchant (R) is vying for secretary of state against Cisco Aguilar (D).

Unproblematic Pennsylvania

Ahead of Election Day, all eyes were on Pennsylvania — with its high-profile races and undated mail-in ballot mess — but democracy prevailed on Tuesday. Democrats John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro readily won election to the U.S. Senate and Pennsylvania governorship, respectively. There are still two ongoing lawsuits that argue that rejecting undated and wrongly dated mail-in ballots violates the Civil Rights Act. But, this litigation will not be expedited so it will not affect the outcome of Pennsylvania’s midterm elections. [link removed]

It might not be on the national media’s radar, but a close, still-contested race in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania could determine control of the Pennsylvania state House. In Montgomery County’s 151st House District, two dozen votes separate the Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger. During a Thursday meeting, the county’s elections board voted 2-1 to count a half-dozen ballots that were dropped off in a drop box by someone other than the voter without the proper declaration form (in almost all cases, the voter dropped off their spouse’s ballot while their spouse waited nearby).

Monday’s Last Minute Democracy Wins

On the day before Election Day, we saw eight courtroom victories. These cases dealt directly with how voting would proceed on Election Day. Here’s a few highlights:

In Georgia, Cobb County agreed to provide emergency relief to absentee voters after an error led to the county’s failure to send absentee ballots to over 1,000 voters. The county agreed to overnight ballots to voters and extend the receipt deadline until Nov. 14 for the affected voters. [link removed]

In New York, an appellate court confirmed that an on-campus polling site must be established at Vassar College for Election Day. After some wavering, Dutchess County commissioners complied with the court order and opened a polling location at Vassar College. A win for student voters! [link removed]

In Wisconsin, at the end of a hearing, a judge rejected a Republican request to segregate and halt the counting of absentee ballots cast by voters in the military. [link removed]

In Texas, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting election officials at a polling site in Beaumont from engaging in behavior that the county’s Black voters found to be intimidating and discriminatory. [link removed]

In Michigan, a judge denied a fringe, conspiratorial request from Karamo to impose strict limits on how absentee ballots are administered and counted in Detroit, Michigan. Karamo also asked to halt the counting of thousands of absentee ballots that have already been cast. [link removed]

More News

Counting of certain votes is still up in the air in the Houston area: On Tuesday evening, following a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), the Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court’s order that extended voting in Harris County to 8 p.m. CST last night. This decision puts ballots cast during the extension period at risk of rejection. [link removed]

On Tuesday, the Nevada Supreme Court denied a request by the RNC to add more Republican members to Clark County, Nevada’s “signature verification board.” A lower court found that this “board” does not actually exist. [link removed]

In important, non-election news, a court held that Kentucky’s state House and congressional maps are constitutional. Earlier this year, a group of voters and the Kentucky Democratic Party challenged the new maps for unnecessarily splitting counties and being Republican partisan gerrymanders in violation of the Kentucky Constitution. This week, in the court’s order, the judge noted that “the Kentucky Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the General Assembly from making partisan considerations during the apportionment process.” [link removed]

What We’re Doing

In close races, the ability for voters to fix small mistakes on their mail-in ballots and have those ballots counted is of utmost importance. Help Nevadans cure their ballots with Nevada Democratic Victory. [link removed]

We don’t yet know what the U.S. Senate will look like come January, making it even more urgent for senators to confirm the judicial nominees appointed by President Joe Biden. Call your senators today! [link removed]

One race that will make a difference in Senate composition is the Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia. Help Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) secure his re-election victory next month by volunteering or donating. [link removed]
[link removed]

…

Have a question? Join Marc and Paige today on Twitter Spaces at 2 p.m. EST for a discussion and Q&A on the latest democracy news. (Twitter Spaces is like a podcast, but live. You can listen to it without having a Twitter account.) [link removed]

Can’t join the conversation? Listen to recent episodes here. [link removed]



Democracy Docket
PO Box 733
Great Falls, VA 22066
United States
If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe: [link removed] .