Welcome to the January edition of The Lever – hitting your inbox as state legislative sessions are entering full swing across the country. Our democracy is strongest when everyone has a voice.
This month’s Hot Policy Take takes a deep dive into the first election law to pass in 2023. Ohio's new strict photo ID law requires voters to show physical photo ID when casting a ballot, and prohibits election officials from verifying voter identity any other way. We take a look at how the new Ohio law works, how no-alternative photo ID laws differ from voter ID generally, and show how 40 states allow voters to participate in our democracy without photo ID.
Also in this issue are two updates out of Wisconsin. First, we recommend a story from POLITICO with a look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court election taking place this spring – dubbed "the most important election nobody’s ever heard of." The contest could have a significant impact on the future of voting rights in the state. Second, we look at how the Milwaukee-based Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) is leading the charge to condemn a Wisconsin Elections Commissioner for bragging about efforts to decrease turnout in historically-Black and Hispanic areas in Milwaukee.
Looking for what’s happening in state legislative sessions this year? Look no further than The Markup – our weekly newsletter with legislative updates for voting rights insiders. Check it out to see what we're following as bills are being introduced all over the country. Right now, we're tracking more than 641 individual pieces of legislation in 42 states and DC.
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It's no secret that voter ID is a third rail when it comes to voting and elections policy. On one hand, strict photo ID laws that do not provide eligible, registered voters an alternative way to cast their ballot have been found to be racially discriminatory by some courts. They can disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who don't have a photo ID or whose ID may be expired, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color. On the other hand, the concept of voter ID more broadly – verifying a voter’s identity using a variety of documents and methods, rather than only via photo ID – has engendered fairly broad support in the years since it was first introduced. One national poll conducted in 2022 showed nearly eight in 10 respondents believe some sort of ID should be provided when voting.
Such support for voter ID was cited early and often by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose as he advocated for Ohio's new, no-alternative photo ID law – the first major piece of elections legislation to be signed into law in 2023. But the truth is, it was misleading to suggest that there was broad support for a law as restrictive as Ohio’s – which offers no alternative means of identity verification besides a photo ID.
Here’s why Ohio’s new law is an outlier when compared to other states.
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BY THE NUMBERS
44
That’s how many bills related to voter identification we’re tracking so far in the 2023 legislative session, with varying impacts. Texas leads all states with seven bills impacting voter identification filed in 2023.
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WHAT WE'RE READING
An election with potentially massive ramifications for voting rights is fast approaching. That's right: ideological control of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court will be determined by an April 2023 election, with a nonpartisan primary being held on February 21. The race was dubbed "The most important election nobody’s ever heard of" in an article from POLITICO earlier this month, and it's one to follow throughout the next several months. Check out an excerpt below:
"There are significant policy outcomes hanging on the result. The court chose the state’s political maps for the decade after the Democratic governor and Republican Legislature deadlocked, and it’s likely to hear a case challenging Wisconsin’s 19th-century law banning almost all abortions in the near future. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court also decided major cases on election laws and voting rights before and after the 2020 presidential election."
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FROM OUR PARTNERS
Earlier this month, Robert Spindell, a member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, sent an email to party operatives in Wisconsin bragging about efforts to decrease turnout in historically-Black and Hispanic areas of Milwaukee – further expressing "we can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018."
The Milwaukee-based group Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) did not hesitate to respond and condemn the comments – setting in motion an outpouring of disapproval from voting groups, state lawmakers, and the media, with many calling for Commissioner Spindell's resignation from the body charged with overseeing elections in the state. We recommend reading a column by BLOC Executive Director Angela Lang for more.
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THE MARKUP
The Markup is VRL’s weekly legislative update for voting rights insiders. As state legislative sessions enter full swing, yesterday's edition of The Markup dove into all the activity we're seeing across the country. Here’s a snippet from this week’s edition – a sample of what you can expect each week:
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