Thread by @WendyRWeiser

A few takeaways from yesterday’s election: (Thread)

The election ran smoothly. There were far fewer glitches than in most elections we've monitored. And the glitches we saw—like tabulator malfunctions in AZ & ballot numbering problems in MI—were quickly remedied with backup measures in place to ensure everyone can vote securely.

Reasons for this success include: years of improvements of election practices and procedures; high levels of early and absentee voting reducing the pressure on election day; talented professional election administrators; and increased public understanding of election practices.

We continue to see historically high levels of voter turnout for a midterm. 2018 shattered records, and 2022 looks like it will come close to that, according to a forthcoming analysis from my @brennancenter colleagues. That is another win for democracy.

But the news isn’t all good on the voting front. During early voting, voters of color turned out at lower rates than white voters across all key states. The overall Election Day numbers appear to be similarly disappointing. (stay tuned)

While we do not yet have the data to explain the racial turnout gap, some of it is undoubtedly due to the unprecedented number of new voting restrictions in place this year. brennancenter.org/our-work/resea….

Here's an older thread on those laws:

https://twitter.com/WendyRWeiser/status/1578068918698115072

The impact of these vote suppression measures is a sleeper issue. We already know, for ex, that Black voters made up a shrinking share of absentee & early voters in GA, where the legislature passed a discriminatory law targeting those forms of voting. See

https://twitter.com/KevinTMorris/status/1588936822356594690?t=ulPFjcror9sxt_bya7ubZQ&s=19

We also know that at least one of the new barriers to mail voting in Texas caused massive disenfranchisement and racial disparities. We will learn about more about these impacts as data comes out. brennancenter.org/our-work/resea….

Unlike in prior years, almost none of these laws were blocked or mitigated before the election because #scotus has cut off most avenues of relief for voters whose rights have been violated. More on that soon.

While the courts failed to protect against vote suppression laws this year, they did stand up against last-minute attempts to toss out votes, create a pretext for election sabotage, or intimidate voters. They remain critical guardrails, at least some of the time.

This is important because we a new trend metastasized: a flurry of last-minute lawsuits by the GOP & election deniers seeking to toss out ballots or reduce voter access. This is new since 2020. There were more suits seeking to disenfranchise voters than to protect voters' rights.

We also saw a real surge in efforts to intimidate voters and election officials fueled by election conspiracy theories--more than I have seen before. Those were stopped not only by courts, but by well-organized plans by election officials, law enforcement, & civic groups.

These pressures are not going away. Nor is the threat of election sabotage. We dodged a bullet (or a lot of bullets) this year, but we may not be so lucky next time.

Finally, the election was marred by partisan gerrymandering and discriminatory maps. The impacts were immediately visible yesterday. More on that soon.

Here is @mjs_DC on the racial gerrymandering point: slate.com/news-and-polit…

And here is a thread from my colleague @Seth__Sonali on the impact in local races in GA:

https://twitter.com/Seth__Sonali/status/1590408857154891776

And here is a useful thread on how state courts helped protect elections this year:

https://twitter.com/kirstinalv/status/1590438963126226944