If Virginia Democrats hold onto their state House majority on Tuesday, one critical reform they should pass is a constitutional amendment to move state elections from odd to even years. Turnout could *double* & become much more demographically representative of the citizenry
Just imagine how differently the last several state elections could have played out had Virginia held them in high-turnout even years instead of in odd years when voters of color, young voters, & low income voters are less likely to turn out compared to older wealthy white voters
Constitutional amendments in Virginia must pass both before & after a state election followed by a referendum, so Dems would have to hold the legislature in 2021 & 2023 & get voters to approve an amendment in 2024, meaning even-year state elections would be a ways off regardless
And lest you think I'm only proposing that Virginia move odd-year state elections to even years because it could help Dems, I've advocated for this policy for all levels & states for years, including when the Kentucky GOP tried to do it in 2019

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More from @PoliticsWolf

29 Oct
Voting rights advocates have filed the first North Carolina redistricting lawsuit of the 2020s cycle, & it assuredly won't be the last in a state that has seen more litigation over GOP gerrymandering than nearly any other. The GOP is drafting maps that crack several Black seats
Notably, this lawsuit was filed in state court instead of conservative-dominated federal court. Dems hold a 4-3 majority on North Carolina's Supreme Court in the event that any redistricting lawsuits eventually reach them next year
Voting rights advocates filed their lawsuit noted in my previous tweet roughly an hour after North Carolina Republicans filed their new gerrymander proposals as bills. See @will_doran's story for more details on the proposed maps: newsobserver.com/news/politics-…
Read 4 tweets
24 Sep
🤦‍♂️Several Nebraska Dems voted for the GOP's latest congressional gerrymander. Even though it isn't as bad as their map that split Douglas County, this one still makes #NE02 redder by putting the densest suburbs in Sarpy County with #NE01 & adding rural areas to the suburban #NE02
A more logical nonpartisan configuration would place Bellevue, which is the suburb nearest to Omaha's urban core, with #NE02 & make it even more urban/suburban, not less. This version would be 3-4 points bluer, which could make the difference in this hotly competitive district
I wonder if the GOP threatened to eliminate their filibuster rule & pass a more extreme gerrymander if some Dems didn't agree to this
Read 4 tweets
11 Aug
NEW: Daily Kos Elections presents our guide to 2020s redistricting in all 50 states. We explained how each state's rules work, & these cartograms show which party—if any—is expected to control redistricting for Congress (left) & state legislatures (right) dailykos.com/stories/2021/8…
Republicans are set to draw 2-3 times as many congressional districts as Democrats following their dominance in 2020's elections, which itself was partly due to their previous gerrymanders. This GOP advantage means the national congressional map will remain skewed toward the GOP
The Census Bureau is set to release the key data needed for redistricting tomorrow, & mapmakers will scramble to draw new districts ahead of upcoming deadlines in state law. In some states that means just a few weeks to draw new maps, giving little time for public input
Read 8 tweets
6 Jul
1/4 I'm deleting this thread & redoing it for clarity since many folks are just ignoring what I wrote & reading something into it that I didn't intend. I'm not subtweeting you in particular or telling you what to do if that's not what you're here for, just friendly suggestions ImageImage
2/4 #ElectionTwitter folks do a lot of cool stuff that people want to see, & some of y'all have funny/interesting takes on non-election topics too. But if you tweet 100 times a day & 10:1 about the latter, it makes it hard for people with limited time to follow you for the former
3/4 All I'm saying: Be mindful of your audience if you want to build up a following & get your work more broadly seen, but if you don't care, just ignore! I stay more on topic between 7am-7pm eastern than on weekends & evenings. Readers using lists helps
Read 4 tweets
1 Jul
America did not truly become a liberal democracy until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. It's the most important civil rights law in U.S. history, & the Roberts Court has tried to dismantle it for many years (with Roberts himself spending his whole career on it)
While not the worst-case scenario, SCOTUS just delivered a major blow to the VRA by making it harder to strike down voting laws with discriminatory effects on voters of color.

Proving racist intent is often impossible, which is why banning racist effects has been so effective
Your reminder that a majority of 5 GOP Supreme Court justices were confirmed by Senates where the Dem minority represented more people & had won more votes than the GOP majority, with 3 of those justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote dailykos.com/stories/2020/1…
Read 11 tweets
30 Jun
Re-sharing after last night’s debacle.

Another key thing to know about New York elections is that the GOP had a gerrymandered hold on the state Senate for decades until after 2018 & blocked reform for years.

Dems passed a ton of voting fixes since 2019 but still have much to do
Same goes for slow vote counting, which has nothing to do with ranked-choice voting & everything to do with New York law.

State Dems passed a bill this month to ensure absentee ballots get counted much quicker in future, & almost every Republican voted no dailykos.com/stories/2021/6…
You're going to see a lot of bad-faith Republicans use New York City's unique screw-ups as a pretext to spread lies about ranked-choice voting without so much as acknowledging that their party is fighting to keep things broken.

They want chaos to delegitimize elections they lose
Read 5 tweets

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