Beyond Brnovich – How an Arizona Voting Rights Case Will Have Sweeping Consequences
March 11, 2022
By: Mike Arnone
In July, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brnovich v. DNC, arguably its most significant voting rights decision since Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. Two Arizona election restrictions were at issue in Brnovich, but the Court’s holding will have far-reaching consequences beyond the Grand Canyon State.
The restrictions at the heart of Brnovich prohibited out-of-precinct ballots from being counted and criminalized the collection of ballots for delivery to polling places, a common practice sometimes called “ballot harvesting.” In a 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Alito, the Court upheld both provisions under Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The majority ruled that Section Two of the VRA could only be used to invalidate voting restrictions that place “substantial and disproportionate burdens on minority voters.” Because Arizona provided multiple ways to vote, “any burden associated with one option cannot be evaluated without also taking into account the other available means.” Burdens on voting, then, must be evaluated by the totality of the circumstances.
Bready or Not: Texas, 2022 Redistricting, and Donut-Shaped Districts
March 9, 2022
It has been ten years, a decennial census, and the Republican-controlled Texas legislature has redrawn the state maps, with incumbents finding themselves drawn out of their own districts and would-be challengers finding paths to success becoming narrower, donut- and donut-hole districts, and a flurry of legal and public pushback against the announced maps.
Incumbent Representative Vicente Gonzalez, whose district pre-redistricting was the Rio Grande Valley’s District 15, has announced his intent to run in the new District 34 – in part because his home is in the new district’s boundaries. In north Texas, similar issues are taking place: Salman Bhojani, a Democratic candidate for Texas Senate District 9 since May 2021, recently announced the end of his campaign after the redrawn maps completely changed District 9 from a competitive one to a safe Republican district. And when redrawing lines, even the party in charge cannot always avoid collateral damage, as in the odd case of District 34 losing six Republican-leaning counties to an adjacent district, just as the Republican Party had been making meaningful headway and the long-term Democratic incumbent was retiring. However, incumbent district-jumping isn’t new, at least for Texas. Longtime Congressman Lloyd Doggett, first elected to Congress in 1995, has already survived redrawing and jumping into new districts, and is looking to do so again with a jump from District 35 to District 37.
Minnesota ID: Will Voter Id Laws Be Enacted with The Coming Legislative Session?
March 7, 2022
By: Cullen Enabnit
An ongoing trend following the 2020 election pushed state legislatures to introduce more and more laws aimed at curtailing perceived voter fraud or the potential of it. One of the main ways states have approached this is by enacting different levels of voter identification laws. Currently there are 36 states that have some form of voter ID laws. Seven states currently have what is described as “strict” voter ID laws that require the voter to present one of a limited set of government issued IDs, and being without will prevent them from being able to vote.
Ohio: Will Redistricting Remove Its “Swing State” Status?
March 4, 2022
By: Jayde Morgan
With the exception of the last few years, Ohio had always seemed to fall firmly into the category of a “swing-state.” In 2016, it was seen as a vital state for either candidate to claim victory over. However, since 2016, Ohio has come to be seen as a firmly Republican-held state. Some have gone so far as to claim that Ohio should no longer be on the roster of states that Presidential candidates should visit and attempt to win. This is a marked change from 2012 when former President Barack Obama won 50.1% of the vote and United States Senator Sherrod Brown won 50.3% of the vote.
At that time, the Ohio government was divided with a Republican governor, one Republican Senator, one Democratic senator, a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican State Senate and State House of Representatives, but ultimately voted for Democrat, Barack Obama in the presidential election. Comparatively, Republican President Donald Trump received 53.3% of the votes in the 2020 election and Republicans gained a supermajority in the House of Representatives.
With Ohio becoming a staunchly conservative state, it seems inevitable that redistricting would reflect this trend. The Brennan Center recently filed a lawsuit to force the Ohio Redistricting Commission to redraw maps that they claim are “a master class in how to achieve a one-party state” or, in other words, the result of an effort to further solidify the Republican supermajority in the once “purple” state. The lawsuit was filed on Monday, September 27, 2021 and focuses on the alleged violation of equal protection and associational rights and the prohibition of partisan gerrymandering. Though gerrymandering is not a new concept in Ohio, many were outraged that the alleged extreme partisan gerrymandering came on the heels of a 2015 constitutional amendment that was specifically created to reduce partisan gerrymandering.
Ranked Choice Voting: Andrew Yang’s Forward Party Platform Initiative
March 2, 2022
By: Sylvanna Gross
The night “plunged into chaos” when the New York City Board of Elections published, and then immediately removed, the vote tabulations for the next NYC mayor in June, 2021. It was the first time the city implemented ranked-choice voting after a ballot question proposing the shift was approved in 2019. Interestingly, the candidate who eventually won, Eric Adams, opposed the ballot proposition. He predicted the path to his eventual success when he stated, “I am concerned that not enough … has been done … to ensure a smooth transition.”
Voting Rights for People with Felony Conviction Histories in Question in North Carolina
February 28, 2022
By: Emma Postel
On September 3, 2021, the North Carolina Court of Appeals stayed an order from the North Carolina state Superior Court, preventing 56,000 North Carolinians with felony conviction histories from registering to vote. This Court of Appeals order reinstates the voting restrictions established by law in 1973, preventing the affected North Carolinians still under state supervision from registering to vote, and as a result, prevents them from voting in the upcoming fall municipal elections.
The decision was “immediately appealed” by the plaintiffs, who maintained that the “exclusion of our neighbors’ voices is morally and constitutionally wrong.” On the other hand, the defendants in this case believe this reversal is good news, stating that the now overruled Superior Court order was a judicial overreach, essentially amounting to “judges…replac[ing] laws they don’t like with new ones.” North Carolina Republican State Senators further questioned the Superior Court’s discretion, suggesting “[i]f a judge prefers a different path to regaining those rights, then he or she should run for the General Assembly and propose that path.”
Audit Finds Wisconsin 2020 Elections Were “Safe and Secure” – What Comes Next?
February 25, 2022
By: Kayla Burris
The 2020 presidential election was a test of Wisconsin’s election system. Like other states, Wisconsin faced numerous legal challenges to the ways votes were cast and counted. However, as a battleground state in a tight race, calls of fraud were particularly loud. Wisconsin also conducted a recount in two of its counties and Republican groups continued calling for audits long after Biden was sworn into office.
The Republican-controlled legislature agreed that the fraud claims had merit and, voting along party lines, ordered an audit to “be conducted by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.” Democrats were largely opposed to the audit, with Democratic Governor Tony Evers accusing Republican leaders of “drinking the Kool-Aid” and pushing baseless conspiracy theories about the election.
2021 Redistricting in Indiana: Solidifying Incumbent Protection
February 23, 2022
On Monday, October 4, Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law the proposed 2021 redistricting maps for the State of Indiana. In a prepared statement, Holcomb thanked “both the House and Senate for faithfully following through in an orderly and transparent way,” adding “a special thanks to every Hoosier who participated in the process by sharing their local perspective and input.” Critics reacted very differently, decrying both the process—as rushed and secretive—and the result—an unfair dilution of minority and urban voter strength. Ultimately, whatever the validity of either of these statements, the 2021 maps do ensure one thing: solid incumbent protection and a continued advantage to the current party in power in the Indianapolis statehouse. The following considers the process that played out in Indiana, the criticisms leveled against this process, and its likely results.
Like past iterations of redistricting, the 2021 redistricting process in Indiana could not get underway without data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But as it has affected so many other instances of life in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic caused snags, resulting in a census data delay of more than four months—data that was expected to be released in March ended up with a release date in early August. In a series of five redistricting hearings, held in select locations throughout the state from August 6th to August 11th, stakeholders, voting activists, and interested members of the public disagreed on what should occur as a result of the census data delay. Some of those testifying argued the redistricting process must be slowed down to permit the public an opportunity to review proposed maps and voice their concerns—after all, they would be drawn in just about one month, publicly released, and then go to a vote soon after. Instead, Indiana Republicans noted their intention to quickly advance the maps once they obtained the data, raising their own concerns that further delays could cause problems for county officials preparing for the 2022 election.
Partisan Battles Loom Large over Pennsylvania’s Election Audit
February 21, 2022
By: Christopher Chau
Following the contentious 2020 election, controversy surrounded the validity of Pennsylvania’s election process as voters requested and submitted record numbers of mail-in ballots. While no-excuse mail-in voting was legalized under Act 77 in 2019, Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate quickly turned against the practice and claimed that it was vulnerable to voter fraud. On September 3, 2021, the Republican majority announced a “full forensic investigation,” in what seems to be an audit of the election results, voting to subpoena the PA Department of State for voter records along with nonpublic personal identification information, such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers. According to Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman: “This is about looking at our system inside because hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Pennsylvanians, have questions.” While Corman asserted that voters’ information will be kept private, many remained concerned about the invasiveness of the audit. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats and PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro criticized the measure, citing that there was no evidence of voter fraud and that the investigation was a waste of taxpayer money and an invasion of voters’ privacy.
Multi-Member Districts in the U.S. Virgin Islands
February 18, 2022
By: Leo Jobsis-Rossignol
Since the United States Supreme Court first found multi-member districts to be a method of vote dilution in violation of the Voting Rights Act, they have become a less and less popular way of electing legislators. Today, only ten states allow the use of multi-member districts, and only for state legislature elections. Most frequently, these are restricted to state Houses of Representatives in a bicameral legislature, and even there, relatively few members are elected from them. However, they have not gone out of vogue everywhere, and their presence can have a profound impact.
One place still highly reliant on multi-member district-elected representatives is the U.S. Virgin Islands. Made up of just the tiny islands of St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and surrounding cays, drawing 15 districts for all of the territorial senators sitting in its unicameral legislature would be difficult, and given how freely inhabitants can move from place to place in the small space, likely futile. Instead, the territory has opted for just two districts, St. Thomas-St. John and St. Croix, with an additional at-large senator elected across the islands. Each district elects 7 senators.