Going to start a list of the ways that Republican lawmakers and election officials have needlessly made it harder to vote during COVID. Feel free to add on here.
1. Ohio SOS Frank LaRose opposing drop boxes while claiming his hands were tied.
2. TX Gov. Abbott reversing on boxes.
3. Pa. legislators and North Carolina legislators going all the way to the Supreme Court to try to stop extension of receipt of mail-in ballots mailed by election day.
4. Alabama SOS Merrill fighting against allowing counties to offer curbside voting for immunocompromised voters
5. South Carolina not challenging judicial elimination of witness signature during primaries, but challenging (all the way to the Supreme Court) same rule applied in general election; and doing so after instructions told voters no signature needed
6. Wisconsin Republican legislators refusing to postpone April primary election in the height of the pandemic, going all the way to state AND U.S. Supreme Court, and fighting extension of ballot receipt deadline in general election all the way to SCOTUS.
7. RNC and allies seeking to stop sending ballots to all active registered voters in CA, NJ, NV, and some Montana counties.
8. Leonard Leo-backed "Honest Elections Project" fighting against counting of ballots arriving after election day in MN, and getting 8th Circuit to consider
9. Republican legislator and candidate filing last minute case in federal and state court seeking to disenfranchise 120,000 voters using drive-thru voting in Harris County, TX that is allowed by state law.
10. Republican legislators in PA and WI (and to some extent MI) refusing to allow pre-canvassing of mail in ballots (as allowed in places like FL and UT) in the hopes it would give Trump an ephemeral chance to be in the lead.
11. The Oklahoma legislature's reenactment of a notarization requirement for absentee balloting after the state Supreme Court threw it out in light of COVID.
12. Georgia SOS and election officials going to the 11th circuit to reverse a district court order that would have required paper backup of voter registration information for use in polling places in case electronic system goes down AGAIN.
(I'm doing these off the top of my head so no doubt I'm missing many.)
13. Five Republican-dominated states, including TX and Indiana, that refused, even after being sued, to allowing people to vote by mail if they lack immunity to COVID. Texas litigating in US and state Supreme Court to say lack of immunity is not a "disability" or discrimination.
14. Florida officials also fighting the expansion of drop boxes even in the midst of a pandemic and in the middle of a USPS crisis in mail delivery that doubtlessly will disenfranchise thousands of voters who mailed their ballots at least a week before election day.
15. Lawsuits in PA, MN, TX and likely elsewhere seeking to block ballots using a doctrine never accepted by a Supreme Court majority about a kind of unlimited power of state legislatures to set voting rules to exclusion of state courts and state and local election administrators.
16. Lawsuits across the country, one even going all the way to Supreme Court, seeking to block charitable contributions from Zuckerberg foundation to defray cost of running election during pandemic; after Congress allocated only 1/10 of needed funds when Senate Rs blocked.
"The Trump campaign and Republican entities engaged in more than 40 voting and ballot court cases around the country this year. In exactly none — zero — are they trying to make it easier for citizens to vote."--GOP election attorney Ben Ginsberg washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…

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More from @rickhasen

23 Oct
I've been calling on my conservative friends to condemn Leonard Leo, one of the key players in building the Federalist Society and promoting Trump's judges to the federal courts, for backing a group trying to suppress the vote. But now there's evidence of Leo's self-dealing. /1
Here's the piece @Dahlialithwick and I wrote @Slate in May on how same people pushing conservative judges for the court were spawning more voter fraud myths through the "Honest Elections Project" backed by Leo to defend laws making it harder to vote. slate.com/news-and-polit… /2
Then @Dahlialithwick and I followed up in this @Slate piece showing same people providing financial backing to get three former Bush lawyers from Bush v. Gore on Supreme Court are pushing legal theories going to SCOTUS aimed at suppressing the vote. /3 slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 9 tweets
22 Oct
This Tom Cotton guy makes an empirical claim that the reason we have long lines is because of a shortage of volunteers. I say reports show other reasons, such as slow voter registration databases. I ask for receipts, and he says he won't provide proof of his claim.
It reminds me of when @JaneMayerNYer asked von Spakovsky why he would not provide me evidence that a Brooklyn grand jury report showed voter impersonation fraud. He told her he wasn't my "research assistant." When we got the report, it showed no such fraud.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/…
And to be clear, I'm following problems with our election process now all day, every day. If there's a problem somewhere with a lack of volunteers causing long lines I'd like to get the word out to get more volunteers. But everything I've seen suggests this is not the problem.
Read 4 tweets
22 Oct
If you step back for a moment it is simply astounding to me that so many are working so hard to make it more difficult for people to vote. During a pandemic. Unreal.
I wrote an article about this early during the pandemic, and I concluded, contrary to what I've thought for the last 25 years, that the only way out of this mess is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to vote and establishing nonpartisan election administration.
Here's that article: liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/el…
Three Pathologies of American Voting Rights Illuminated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and How to Treat and Cure Them.
Since publication, the Supreme Court's conservative majority, and many lower appeals courts, have made things much worse.
Read 8 tweets
10 Oct
This is not something Joe Biden should say. It is like Trump saying the only way that he loses the election is if it is rigged.
And even if it is likely Biden will win based upon current polling, pollsters still say there is a chance Trump wins in a fair contest. Talking like this can delegitimize election outcomes.
Loving all the people in my mentions telling me that I should learn something about how elections work.
Read 7 tweets
24 Sep
All of a sudden from @BartonGellman's excellent @TheAtlantic piece, people are learning that we only get to vote for President because state legislatures give voters that right, and they can take it away. The risk of this happening in 2020 is not new but also not likely. /1
Here's @mjs_DC writing about this issue in March, and I've picked up on this theme in a number of my writings about the risks of the election with extensive normbreaking and constitutional hardball. /2
slate.com/news-and-polit…
The fact that we don't have a direct right to vote for President in the Constitution is a travesty (just like the potential for faithless electors to change electoral outcomes). In the long run we need constitutional change. /3
nytimes.com/2020/06/29/opi…
Read 10 tweets
23 Sep
My new one @Slate: I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now; The pre-emptive attack on the vote count is a five-alarm fire.
. slate.com/news-and-polit… via @slate
This one was painful to write.
Read 13 tweets

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