Many people believe the changes to our voting laws and practices began in 2020 with COVID. But as @ArminRosen reports today, the pandemic panic was an opportunity for activists and lawyers to accelerate changes to America that were already in the works. 🧵 
In California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, it is now possible to vote in person without any form of identification. In Michigan, you can vote without a photo ID, as long as you sign an affidavit saying you don’t have one. Most Americans no longer have to physically show up at a polling place to vote. Instead they have the choice of filling out and submitting their ballots beyond the observation of election officials, which means there is no assurance that the people in whose names ballots are cast actually signed—or saw—their ballots, voted free of duress or the promise of some benefit, or are even still alive.
In the 2020 election, more than two-thirds of voters exercised their franchise by mail or before election day—meaning that election day itself was a mass civic formality, rather than the deciding event of a long campaign.
The same is likely to be true this year. At least 20 states now open the voting more than three weeks before the campaign ends. Fifty days before an election, Pennsylvania begins holding “in-person absentee” voting, where a ballot can be filled out and submitted in a location that does not have poll watchers present or any of the privacy safeguards of a normal polling station. 36 states, including every 2024 swing state, now either have all-mail elections in which a ballot is automatically sent to every registered voter, or no-excuse absentee voting in which any voter can ask to vote by mail for any reason.
In the 2020 election, more than two-thirds of voters exercised their franchise by mail or before election day—meaning that election day itself was a mass civic formality, rather than the deciding event of a long campaign.
The same is likely to be true this year. At least 20 states now open the voting more than three weeks before the campaign ends. Fifty days before an election, Pennsylvania begins holding “in-person absentee” voting, where a ballot can be filled out and submitted in a location that does not have poll watchers present or any of the privacy safeguards of a normal polling station. 36 states, including every 2024 swing state, now either have all-mail elections in which a ballot is automatically sent to every registered voter, or no-excuse absentee voting in which any voter can ask to vote by mail for any reason.
But even before this, in a sweeping move toward increasing the federal government’s control over elections, the outgoing Obama administration declared in January of 2017 that election systems were “critical national infrastructure,” joining a list that included banking and sewage systems and giving the Department of Homeland Security broad new oversight responsibilities. The Trump administration didn’t reverse the decision, though it could have.
Is there a stealth revolution in American voting practices underway--and why does it feel like mistrust is being built into the system?
tabletmag.com/feature/broken…
Is there a stealth revolution in American voting practices underway--and why does it feel like mistrust is being built into the system?
tabletmag.com/feature/broken…
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