Thread by @jallen1985

🧵 Declaring that democracy either is or is not on the ballot is too simplistic.

We are at risk of democratic backsliding, and many of today's elections will either increase or decrease our risk. I'll thread some thoughts. 1/

https://twitter.com/grantcallen/status/1589990879082971136

MSians overwhelmingly adopted Initiative 65, yet three of MS's four Congressional reps still oppose:

➡️ Decriminalizing marijuana under federal law
➡️ Allowing banks to serve cannabis businesses operating lawfully under state law
➡️ Allowing even medical marijuana *research* 2/

Moreover, the votes Palazzo, Kelly, and Guest cast against their voters on marijuana policy also run against their own purported view of government—they each claim to value deregulation, a limited federal role, states' rights, and individual liberty. 3/

The obvious conclusion IMO is that MS's electoral system incentivizes partisan elected officials to elevate their median primary voter over their median general election voter.

Even if it means voting against a strong majority of voters and against their own view of gov't. 4/

That begs the question whether #MSleg is capable of passing election reforms designed to empower the median voter.

Let's review the evidence. 5/

The #MSleg could reduce gerrymandering—but didn't.

Instead, @JasonWhiteMS told @RepRJohnson that making MS's districts more polarized by giving Guest part of Jackson would benefit Jackson because Guest would advocate infrastructure funds for Jackson. 6/

But Guest voted against infrastructure funding for Jackson, even though polling shows most voters support it.

At the end of the day, #MSleg's redistricting map produced zero competitive general-election districts out of a possible four. 7/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1575925135475085312

To that end, none of the four candidates favored to win MS's Cong. elections today deigned to appear in a general-election debate.

So, we are back to the problem that MS's partisan elected officials in MS value the median primary voter over the median general election voter. 8/

My approach would be to simply abolish partisan primaries, adopting nonpartisan primaries and/or ranked-choice voting instead.

But a more politically realistic method would be to increase voter participation so the median primary voter better resembles the public at large. 9/

One way is to allow in-person early voting!

As of 2017, Hosemann, Gunn, and this near-unanimous MS House majority support early voting, and Watson says local election officials recommend and request it—but early voting no longer survives committee. 10/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1589345742199885824

Another way is to allow online voter registration.

Hosemann, Gunn, and a near-unanimous MS House support OVR; Watson advocates it; and Tate is spending millions to make broadband universal—but OVR no longer survives committee. 11/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1588959980862189570

We could allow absentee voters to request and track their ballot via the secure online portal we already use for voters to update their address.

Gunn's "Honest Elections Project" supports this idea, which would save MS's clerks a great deal... 12/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1556700845722554369

...of money and strengthen the integrity of MS's elections by reducing human error. Moreover, MS is the only state that requires absentee voters to get TWO notarizations.

Yet, the Senate opposes any alternative to the two-notarization requirement. 13/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1377832964994822146

We could pass @DotyDotySally's bill to allow college students to vote in their registrar's office.

Watson voted against the idea when it passed the Senate in 2017 but now supports it—yet, it can no longer escape committee. 14/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1481102907739099142

In sum, as @DotyDotySally said here, unnecessary complications in state law cause voters' ballots needlessly not to count.

But like so many other bills, this passed one chamber almost unanimously only to die in the other. 15/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1383624390122741760

Here, Judge Jeff Weill proves Doty's point, holding that 33 ballots had to be discarded due to labyrinthine election laws, saddling Humphreys County—which is among the nation's poorest counties—with the cost of a do-over election.

Weill blames #MSleg. 16/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1355985444043972609

#MSleg refuses to fix any problem that prevents MSians from casting votes that count—yet, Watson says the lack of federal voter protections enables it to fix MS's chronic failure to provide accurate polling place info to voters. 17/

https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1589736481731420161

Meanwhile, two statewide elected officials this year openly attacked voting rights by urging #MSleg to strip Jacksonians of the right to elect judges the same as any other community, an attack that bewildered Chief Justice Randolph... 18/

...and that seems plainly disingenuous, as neither Andy nor Shad contributed to, endorsed, or otherwise supported any Hinds County judicial candidate this year—despite urging #MSleg to strip Hinds Countians their rights if they vote the "wrong way." 19/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1586167506594844672

I could go on, but I'll wrap up.

What matters most is our words but our actions, and @EmpowerMS's record is that it almost exclusively funded three of the six MS House members who hand-signed this letter urging Congress to overturn the 2020 election. 20/

https://twitter.com/grantcallen/status/1589990889350627328

Specifically, to unseat GOP incumbents, @EmpowerMS donated:

➡️ $27,750 to Dana Criswell's $29,193 primary campaign.
➡️ $21,000 to Dan Eubanks' $23,746 primary campaign.
➡️ $32,850 to Steve Hopkins' $30,614 primary campaign. (Yes, the donation exceeded the campaign cost.) 21/

Criswell, Eubanks, and Hopkins go further in deeming candidates of the other party an existential threat to freedom and our way of life than any other MMS electeds I can think of.

I hope @EmpowerMS refrains from funding such candidates in the future. 22/

https://twitter.com/grantcallen/status/1589990885441536005

Instead, I think @grantcallen could find #MSleg members who want to fix real-life problems that keep people from voting or their votes from counting—like Sally Doty and Jeff Weill pointed out—and prove democracy is bipartisan by building enough support to enact improvements. 23/

And @grantcallen and @RussLatino could even decide that @EmpowerMS should file an amicus brief urging SCOTUS to bring MS's democracy in line with the original intent of the Reconstruction Amendments, as Cato did in the 5th Circuit. 24/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1586136215954378752

Mississippi currently complies with the constitution's voting-rights amendments the way we "comply" with the speedy trial clause. 25/

https://twitter.com/jallen1985/status/1588223977318670336