New York has a huge voting rights problem
Hopefully NYC election officials won't invalidate this email.
(Image via shoehorn99/Creative Commons)
Welcome back democracy heads!
Later, we’ll dig into a disappointing yet unsurprising Supreme Court move that went against an effort to restore voting rights to people in Florida who have served felony sentences.
Last week we talked about how expanding vote by mail and making it accessible is the best possible and necessary solution to our pandemic-era election, despite a misinformation campaign against it by the president and other high-ranking officials.
This week’s main the theme is that we (aka state election officials) are not nearly ready for any of it — and time is running out.
Exhibit A: New York
With an unprecedented number of absentee ballots submitted in its June 23 primaries, NYC officials are reportedly invalidating a huge percent of them for various reasons such as a voter forgetting to sign the envelope or the post office not postmarking it.
The current estimates are in the teens to mid 20% range in many districts, including ones with extremely close primaries.
Estimates for for invalidated ballots in Queens alone are above 20,000.
New York wasn’t doing particularly well before the pandemic. The League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit against the state’s board of elections earlier this month, saying New York’s 14% rejection rate for absentee ballots in the 2018 general election was the highest in the country.
Snail Mail
NPR released a report this week that found at least 65,000 people across the country have had their ballots not counted in primaries, “often through no fault of the voter,” because they arrived late.
Separately, the Associated Press this week reported California alone rejected over 70,000 ballots for being returned late, and over 100,000 overall cast by mail, in its March primary.
The Washington Post this week also reported “scattered problems with mail-in ballots” across the country.
Postal workers found three tubs of uncounted absentee ballots the day after the Wisconsin primary. Some Ohioans did not receive their ballots in time for the election because of mail delays. And in Dallas, absentee ballots some voters sent to the county were returned just days before Election Day, with no explanation.
Early reports from Texas’ runoff this week indicate there were issues with some mail-in ballots being returned to voters and others not receiving their ballots in the first place.
Meanwhile, the brand new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (who has donated $2 million to Trump and other Republicans since 2016) for some reason thought now would be a good time to impose cost-cutting measures that will likely cause postal service delays.
Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey called the timing of the move during the pandemic and ahead of elections “a direct attack on American democracy itself.”
The “Leaders”
From the top down, many (mostly Republican) leaders seem intent on making it harder for people to vote.
In Pennsylvania, Trump and the Republicans sued the state to impose restrictions on vote by mail. They don’t want the state to use secure drop boxes, count votes that were postmarked but not received by the deadline day, and a count ballots that are missing a “secrecy envelope.” Democrats in the state filed their own suit this week to protect the expanded mail voting rules. The Philadelphia Inquirer described what’s at stake:
Rules governing how votes are cast and which ballots are counted can shape election results, especially in a battleground state such as Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016 by just 44,000 votes, fewer than 1% of those cast.
Maryland had high turnout due to expanded mail-in ballots but also experienced some issues with lost ballots in its primary. Instead of tightening up the operation so people can vote safely in November, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan reversed course and the state will focus on in-person voting by opening all polling locations.
While setbacks were the pretense in Maryland, in Nebraska things seemed to work almost too well in the primary. Mail-in voting led to record turnouts. So naturally, the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state are dithering on sending out ballot request forms statewide for the general election.
Tennessee is in a legal battle to try to protect an arcane rule that forces its first-time voters who registered by mail to vote in person on Election Day.
In Michigan, another key battleground state in the presidential election, an appeals court ruled the state will not have to count absentee ballots received after polls close in a suit attempting to force the state to count any ballot sent on or before Election Day and received within a week.
Thousands of voters in Louisiana did not receive the mail ballots they requested, and voters are planning to sue the state.
New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a bill that would have allowed the state’s voters to continue to enjoy expanded access to mail-in voting after the pandemic.
Minority voters and voting rights groups are suing Massachusetts to attempt to compel the state (or commonwealth, as they like to say) to send mail-in ballot applications to all citizens as required by a new law approved earlier this month.
A new lawsuit accuses Alaska of age discrimination for it plans to only proactively send absentee ballot applications to voters who are 65 and older ahead of its primary and general elections. Anyone can request an absentee ballot in the state, but under the current system, those younger than 65 will (1) have to know they’re eligible and (2) figure out where to apply for one.
The news isn’t all negative!
South Carolina has agreed to pay the postage cost for all mail-in ballots in November, though the state has not yet committed to allowing all people to vote absentee as it did for its June primaries.
And Georgia, ground zero for election disasters, reverses course after a short ban on allowing voters to requesting absentee ballots by email instead of having to write a letter, fax, or go in person.
Show Them the Money
As you can see from the examples above, there are many little challenges and considerations to getting this right. Above all, the states need money 🤑
The Associated Press summed up the big picture this week in an article titled “Ready or not: Election costs soar in prep for virus voting.”
COVID-19-related worries are bringing demands for steps to make sure elections just four months away are safe. But long-promised federal aid to help cash-starved states cope is stalled on Capitol Hill.
The money would help pay for transforming the age-old voting process into a pandemic-ready system.
That was a lot on vote by mail! Let’s move onto some big news on other topics.
Supreme Court Declines to Lift Hold on Florida Felony Disenfranchisement Ruling
The voting rights of close to 1 million Florida residents remain in limbo after the Supreme Court declined to act.
This is the latest chapter in a saga so let’s go step by step:
2018: Florida voters pass an amendment to the state’s constitution with nearly 65% approval to restore voting rights to those with who have served a felony sentence after an extremely unlikely grassroots campaign.
2019: Florida’s Republican government passes law saying people must repay fees/fines before getting their voting rights restored.
May 2020: Federal district judge rules Florida’s law is largely unconstitutional.
July 1, 2020: A federal appeals court put a hold on the district court’s decision pending an appeal from the state. The appeals court scheduled a hearing on Aug. 18, the same day as Florida’s primaries.
July 17, 2020: The Supreme Court lets the appeals court’s hold stand. Justice Sotomayor put it simply in her dissenting opinion: “This Court’s inaction continues a trend of condoning dis-franchisement.”
The Supreme Court has been nothing if not reliable of late in its reluctance to protect voting rights.
Rapid Fire Democracy Updates
Rep. Steve Watkins (R-KS) has been charged with felony voter fraud for using a UPS as his address when registering to vote last year, which allowed him to vote in an extremely close city council election that ended up with a 13-vote margin.
Maine will officially be the first state to use ranked choice voting in a presidential election this year, after a challenge by the state’s Republican party fell short.
Advocacy groups from across the political spectrum are pressuring Trump and Biden to release detailed information about their big-money campaign fundraisers or “bundlers.” Pre-Trump, transparency about bundlers was the norm for both parties.
A Democratic super PAC is launching a new $24 million ad campaign on behalf of Biden to encourage minority voters in battleground states to vote by mail. Biden has been “laying low” these past few months while Trump continues to drop in the polls, and in that time outside groups have been responsible for the vast majority of ads on behalf of Biden. Though “dark money” has often been associated with Republican campaigns, Biden’s strong backing from super PACs, which are increasingly funded by dark money, aligns with a trend in recent years of increased spending by outside groups on Democrats.
It seems Arkansas voters will not have a chance to weigh in on gerrymandering reform and adding ranked choice voting to state-level elections after the state invalidated signatures collected for a ballot referendums.
With the increased risk coronavirus brings to older people who typically make up the majority of staff at polling places during elections, states are trying to recruit teens to work on Election Day.
This website tracks how long it has been since the Federal Election Commission, the group responsible for enforcing campaign finance law, has had enough members to act.
Opinions and Perspectives
In case you haven’t had your fill for the week (you masochist), here are some excellent commentary articles on democracy issues.
Baltimore Sun - Will the surge in social activism result in more votes?
Some worried that the protests, combined with missteps from the State Board of Elections and general confusion, would suppress turnout. Instead, Baltimore had the highest turnout of any jurisdiction in the state and its highest turnout for a primary election since 1987. Similar scenarios have played out in other parts of the country.
Al.com - NAACP says our voting system needs more work to ensure justice
The pandemic is a major threat to aging populations of all races; as well as black and brown people who are more likely to be frontline and essential workers, and who are more vulnerable to COVID-19 due to longstanding health care and healthy food access disparities.
Mother Jones - Another Monument to White Supremacy That Should Come Down? The Electoral College
In 2016, for example, every state of the former Confederacy except Virginia voted for Donald Trump, though the region’s Black voters overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton. “In a region whose population was 21 percent African American, only 13 of 160 electoral votes (8 percent) were cast for the candidate favored by Blacks.”
New York Times - Can We Please Pick the President by Popular Vote Now?
This is the system cobbled together at the last minute at the 1787 constitutional convention to address the needs of a country vastly different from ours. It is rotting American democracy from the inside out.
The Bulwark - Ten Ways to (Actually) Drain the Swamp
Because good governance is best established through debate between honest actors. The process of negotiation is the process of removing the extreme and impractical, and amending the shortsighted––it is key to producing sound solutions.
And none of that has really existed in Washington for almost a generation. Why? There’s a pretty good reason, actually: Our political system is driven by inequitable laws that govern our elections, corrupt rules that regulate the crossroads between money and power, and partisan dictatorial processes that guide the legislative process in Congress.
Substack is warning me I’m closing in on the “email length limit.” Here I was thinking the internet has no bottom! Okay, I’ll submit and end here for the week.