National

If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election restrictions moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures. But passage of the bill, known as H.R. 1, would end a legislative fight and start a legal war that could dwarf the court challenges aimed at the Affordable Care Act over the past decade. “I have no doubt that if H.R. 1 passes, we’re going to have a dozen major Supreme Court cases on different pieces of it,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard. The potential for the bill to set off a sprawling constitutional battle is largely a function of its ambitions. It would end felon disenfranchisement, require independent commissions to draw congressional districts, establish public financing for congressional candidates, order presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, address dark money in political advertising and restructure the Federal Election Commission. The bill’s opponents say that it is, in the words of an editorial in The National Review, “a frontal assault on the Constitution” and “the most comprehensively unconstitutional bill in modern American history.”

Full Article: Constitutional Challenges Loom Over Proposed Voting Bill – The New York Times

National: G.O.P. Seeks to Empower Poll Watchers, Raising Intimidation Worries | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods. “This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area “to have the confidence and courage” to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections. A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: “Can we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?” As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers — citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process. This effort has alarmed election officials and voting rights activists alike: There is a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often in ways that target Democratic-leaning communities of color and stoke fears that have the overall effect of voter suppression. During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promoted its “army” of poll watchers as he publicly implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.

Full Article: G.O.P. Seeks to Empower Poll Watchers, Raising Intimidation Worries – The New York Times

National: The slow, painful death of Trump allies’ voting-machine conspiracy theories | Aaron Blake/The Washington Post

Among the many wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, few rank as high when it comes to both baselessness and reach as those involving voting machines. The theory that voting machines were programmed to steal the election from President Donald Trump had the benefit, while being utterly without merit, of at least being simple and easy for people to grasp. There were big swings in the vote totals! (Because Biden did a lot better in mail balloting, which were often added to the totals en masse!) Unfortunately for its proponents, these theories carried one very significant drawback: legal liability. While broad claims of voter fraud are relatively unspecific and involve many potential perpetrators, there are relatively few voting-machine companies. Claiming such things means impugning them specifically and creating a situation in which your baseless claims can lead to calculable personal and business harm, which is important when it comes to suing someone for defamation. And sue they have. The result: Many if not most of the high-profile purveyors of such claims have since backed off. One by one, they’ve succumbed to legal pressure by issuing corrections, clarifications or apologies. While some true believers of these theories viewed such lawsuits as opportunities to prove malfeasance once and for all, through the discovery process, those facing penalties have repeatedly left them high and dry — almost as if these theories were completely baseless in the first place and they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Full Article: The slow, painful death of Trump allies’ voting-machine conspiracy theories – The Washington Post

National: Newsmax apologizes to Dominion employee Eric Coomer for falsely alleging he manipulated votes against Trump | Amy B Wang/The Washington Post

The conservative news network Newsmax has apologized to an employee of Dominion Voting Systems for baselessly alleging that he had rigged the company’s voting machines and vote counts against President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In a statement Friday, Newsmax said it wanted to “clarify” its coverage of Eric Coomer, the director of product strategy and security at Dominion, who filed a defamation lawsuit against the right-wing network in December. After the election, misinformation about Coomer’s supposed role in manipulating the vote proliferated on right-wing sites, including Newsmax. Coomer said he had been forced into hiding after receiving death threats from Trump supporters, who believed Trump’s false assertion that the election had been stolen from him and that Coomer had played a role. On Friday, Newsmax said there was no evidence that such allegations were true. “There are several facts that our viewers should be aware of,” Newsmax’s statement read. “Newsmax has found no evidence that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software in any way, nor that Dr. Coomer ever claimed to have done so. Nor has Newsmax found any evidence that Dr. Coomer ever participated in any conversation with members of ‘Antifa,’ nor that he was directly involved with any partisan political organization.”

Full Article: Newsmax apologizes to Dominion employee Eric Coomer for falsely alleging he manipulated votes against Trump – The Washington Post

National: Senate Democrats agonize over voting rights strategy | Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine/Politico

Senate Democrats made a major commitment to muscle through Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ethics and voting reform bill. Yet many say they have no idea how to pass it and wonder what exactly the end game is for a signature Democratic priority. Democrats are preparing to kick off a sensitive internal debate over the issue this month as the Senate Rules Committee takes up the sprawling House package. But no Republicans support it, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) hasn’t signed on and at least a half-dozen Democrats have issues with the bill, according to senators and aides. That’s not to mention the constraints of the filibuster in a 50-50 Senate. “We know we’ve got to pass voting rights,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). “We ought to have 10 Republicans … in that sense the ball is in their court. I’m not saying the outcome is in their court.” What’s at stake is not only the party’s promise on a key issue, but also potentially the future Democratic majorities. Many in the party privately worry that frontline Democrats, like Warnock or House Democrats vulnerable to redistricting, could lose their seats if Congress doesn’t send a federal election and ethics bill to President Joe Biden’s desk by this summer.

Full Article: Senate Dems agonize over voting rights strategy – POLITICO

Florida Republicans rushed to curb mail voting after Trump’s attacks on the practice. Now some fear it could lower GOP turnout. | Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Republican operatives worth their salt remember well the Sunshine State’s 1988 U.S. Senate race. Floridians went to sleep that Nov. 8 believing that Democrat Buddy MacKay had prevailed with a slim lead of less than one percentage point. The television networks had called the race for him. The St. Petersburg Times published a story the…

With Florida Bill, Republicans Continue Unrelenting Push to Restrict Voting | Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

The pleas from Florida election officials were direct and dire: Passing the state’s new voting bill would be a “grave security risk,” “unnecessary” and a “travesty.” The restrictions imposed by the new law, they warned, would make it harder to vote and hurt confidence in the balloting process. But their objections were brushed aside on Thursday night as the Legislature gave final passage to a bill that would limit voting by mail, curtail the use of drop boxes and prohibit actions to help people waiting in line to vote, among other restrictions, while imposing penalties on those who do not follow the rules. It was perhaps the clearest sign yet that Republicans are determined to march forward across state capitols to establish new restrictions on voting. The Republican effort puts added pressure on Democrats in Congress to find a way to pass federal voting laws, including a sweeping overhaul known as the For the People Act. But in Washington, just as in state capitols across the country, Republicans have remained united and steadfast against the Democratic efforts. Georgia Republicans in March enacted far-reaching new voting laws that limit ballot drop-boxes and forbid the distribution of food and water to voters waiting in line. Iowa has also imposed new limits, including reducing the period for early voting and in-person voting hours on Election Day. Next up is Texas, where Republicans in the legislature are trampling protestations from corporate titans like Dell Technologies and American Airlines and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers. The main bill passed a key committee in a late-night session on Thursday, and could head to a full floor vote in the House as early as next week. Bills to restrict voting have also been moving through Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and Michigan.

Full Article: With Florida Bill, Republicans Continue Unrelenting Push to Restrict Voting – The New York Times

National: Nine major sports unions join forces to oppose U.S. state voting restrictions | Reuters

May 4, 2021

Nine major U.S. sports unions joined together on Monday to declare their opposition to state legislative efforts restricting the right to vote. A number of voting rights groups say the restrictions passed by Georgia, and being weighed in Texas and Arizona among other states, target Black people and other racial minorities. The statement was co-signed by the National Basketball Players Association, the Basketball Players Union, Major League Soccer Players Association, National Football League Players Association, and the United States Women’s National Team Players Association along with players’ bodies representing elite-level women’s ice hockey, soccer and basketball. The Republican-backed Georgia law strengthened identification requirements for absentee ballots, shortened early voting periods for runoffs and made it a misdemeanor for members of the public to offer food and water to voters waiting in line. The sports unions said they were joining hundreds of individuals and corporations in taking a ‘Stand for Democracy’.

Full Article: Nine major sports unions join forces to oppose U.S. state voting restrictions | Reuters

As Trump seizes on Arizona ballot audit, election officials fear partisan vote counts could be the norm in future elections | Rosalind S. Helderman and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

Full Article: As Trump seizes on Arizona ballot audit, election officials fear partisan vote counts could be the norm in future elections – The Washington Post

More than five months after the 2020 presidential election, and after numerous failed attempts to overturn the results, former president Donald Trump has seized on a new avenue to try to call the outcome into question: a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county. Several advisers said the former president has become fixated on the unorthodox process underway in Phoenix, where the GOP-led state Senate took ballots and voting equipment from Maricopa County and turned them over to Cyber Ninjas, a private contractor whose chief executive has echoed baseless claims that the election was fraudulent but has now promised a fair review of the November results. Ensconced at his private club in Florida, Trump asks aides for updates about the process multiple times a day, advisers said, expressing particular interest in the use of UV lights to scrutinize Maricopa’s ballots — a method that has bewildered election experts, who say it could damage the votes. “He talks about it constantly,” said one person who recently visited Mar-a-Lago and listened to Trump discuss the recount for about 45 minutes, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump’s embrace of the Arizona effort — which he and his allies claim will prove that the election was stolen — has come amid mounting anxiety among election officials that similar partisan vote counts could become the norm. “I’m very concerned this has ramifications for every state in the country,” Kim Wyman, a Republican who serves as secretary of state in Washington state, said in an interview. “This is politicizing an administrative process with no real structure or laws or rules in place to guide how it goes.”

The Republicans’ staggering effort to attack voting rights in Biden’s first 100 days | Sam Levine/The Guardian

The most urgent crisis facing the US during the first 100 days of Joe Biden’s presidency has been a ticking time bomb that has unfolded far from the White House and the halls of Congress.It’s an emergency that has unfolded in state capitols across America, where lawmakers have taken up an unprecedented effort to make it harder to vote. Even as attacks on voting rights have escalated in recent years, the Republican effort since January marks a new, more dangerous phase for American democracy, experts say. From the moment Biden was elected, Republicans have waged an unprecedented effort to undermine confidence in the results in the election, thrusting the foundation of American democracy to the center of American politics. An alarming peak in that effort came on 6 January, when Republican lies about the election fomented the attack on the US capitol and several GOP senators tried to block certification of the electoral college vote.

Full Article: The Republicans’ staggering effort to attack voting rights in Biden’s first 100 days | US news | The Guardian

National: Biden calls on Congress to pass voting, elections reform bills | Max Greenwood/The Hill

President Biden in his address to Congress on Tuesday called on lawmakers to pass a sweeping set of elections and voting reforms that hold the potential to reshape the U.S. political landscape, from how campaigns are financed to the laws governing the decennial redistricting process. In his remarks to a joint session of Congress, Biden boasted that the 2020 election had seen the highest turnout in modern history despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But instead of being celebrated, he said, the right to vote “is being attacked.” “If we truly want to restore the soul of America, we need to protect the sacred right to vote,” Biden said. “More people voted in the last presidential election than any time in American history in the middle of the worst pandemic ever.” He called on Congress to quickly pass H.R. 1, a wide-reaching elections reform bill already approved by the House, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would strengthen or reinstate parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “Congress should pass H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and send them to my desk right away,” Biden said. “The country supports it, and Congress should act now.” H.R. 1 seeks a broad overhaul of the nation’s political systems. Among the proposals included in the measure is a mandate for states to use nonpartisan redistricting commissions to draw congressional lines, as well as new financial disclosure requirements for super PACs and political nonprofits, often dubbed “dark money groups.” The bill would also create a set of national standards for voter registration and mail-in balloting. One provision would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, something that former President Donald Trump never did, despite decades of precedent.

Full Article: Biden calls on Congress to pass voting, elections reform bills | TheHill

National: What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About Mail-In Ballots and Early Voting in 2020 | Ryan Teague Beckwith/Bloomberg

What happened in the 2020 U.S. election? Here’s a quick summary that may sound familiar. Spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, states expanded early voting and voting by mail, leading to historic turnout that helped Joe Biden win. The problem: Almost everything about that summary is likely wrong. Recent studies have confirmed that changes to voting in 2020 had little or no effect on turnout, and even though Democrats took more advantage of mail voting, there’s no evidence that those voters wouldn’t have shown up anyway. And if there was a partisan benefit from expanding voting by mail, it probably helped Republicans, not Democrats. These misconceptions aren’t just a matter of historical interest. Along with other urban legends about how elections work, they appear to be driving legislation at the state and federal level that would change how elections are run in the future. State lawmakers across the country have filed more than 1,200 bills seeking to change voting laws, with Republicans looking to roll back early and absentee voting and Democrats seeking to make voter registration easier. In Congress, House Democrats have passed a bill, H.R. 1, that would require states to offer early voting and expand access to voting by mail, but it remains stalled in the Senate because of Republican opposition.

Full Article: What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About Mail-In Ballots and Early Voting in 2020 – Bloomberg

National: Biden allies launch voting rights initiative | Rebecca Shabad/NBC

An outside political group formed by allies of President Joe Biden is launching a voting rights initiative focused on strengthening pro-voter policies and protecting against suppression efforts. The nonprofit Building Back Together announced the project Wednesday, saying in a release that the group “will work to counter proposed changes to those laws that impede access, particularly for voters of color and historically disadvantaged and densely populated communities.” The group will focus first on a slew of battleground states, some of which have implemented laws that voting rights advocates say seek to prevent people from casting ballots. The states include Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, recently signed a highly restrictive voting measure into law that has prompted lawsuits and threats to boycott of businesses that haven’t voiced opposition to the legislation.

Full Article: Biden allies launch voting rights initiative

National: Veterans group shifts focus from military voting to bigger election reforms | Leo Shane III/Military Times

A group of high-profile veterans and defense leaders who last fall lobbied for military voters’ access to the polls is now shifting their campaign to ensuring free and fair elections for all Americans. Operation Protect Democracy, which grew out of the Count Every Hero Campaign founded last year, is calling for veterans to take a key role in election reform across the country and ensuring that all eligible voters have access to ballots in federal, state and local elections. Organizers said they were inspired to shift the message in part because of widespread misinformation about the 2020 presidential election results, and the attempted insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6. “The fact that veterans participated in that was troubling for us,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. Tony Zinni, chairman of the group. “And of late, legislation seems to be proliferating to try to restrict eligible voters in many ways and make it more difficult to vote.

Full Article: Veterans group shifts focus from military voting to bigger election reforms

Internet Voting is Still Inherently Insecure | Andrew Appel/Freedom to Tinker

April 28, 2021

Legislation for voting by internet is pending in Colorado, and other states have been on the verge of permitted ballots to be returned by internet. But voting by internet is too insecure, too hackable, to use in U.S. elections. Every scientific study comes to the same conclusion—the Defense Department’s study group in 2004, the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, and others. Although the internet has evolved, the fundamental insecurities are the same: insecure client computers (your PC or phone), insecure servers (that collect the votes), and Americans’ lack of universal digital credentials. Vendors of internet voting systems claim it’s different now: they claim “online voting” is not “internet voting”; they say smartphones are not PCs, cloud-computing systems are more secure than privately hosted servers, dedicated apps are not web sites, and because blockchain. So let’s examine the science. Of course “online voting” is internet voting: your smartphones and laptops connect to servers and cloud servers through the public packet-switched network; even the phone network these days is part of the internet. And if the voter sends a ballot electronically to an election office that prints and counts it, that’s certainly not a “paper ballot” in the sense that a voter can check what’s printed on it. Smartphones are client computers on that same internet. Smartphone operating systems (Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android) have improved their security in recent years, but serious new exploitable vulnerabilities are continually discovered: about 25 per year in iOS (2018-2020) and 103 per year in Android. And there are an unknown number of undiscovered vulnerabilities that attackers may be exploiting. If you prepare a ballot on your smartphone voting for candidate Smith, you cannot be sure whether a hacker has caused your voting app to transmit instead a vote for Jones. Major cloud-computing providers such as AWS and Azure do a good job of securing their systems for the companies that they “host” (banks, retailers, voting apps). But a bank or voting-app maker must write their own software to run in that cloud. It’s difficult to get that software right, and bugs can lead to exploitable vulnerabilities that a hacker could use to change votes as they arrive. AWS is not some sort of magical pixie dust that one sprinkles on software to make it unhackable. Blockchain doesn’t help either: the vote can be hacked before it even gets into the blockchain.

Full Article: Internet Voting is Still Inherently Insecure

National: Schumer: Senate deadline for voting rights bill ‘probably by August or so’ | Joseph Choi/The Hill

April 28, 2021

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Sunday that the deadline for passing major election reform legislation “probably by August.” In an interview on “The Mehdi Hasan Show” set to broadcast on Sunday night, host Mehdi Hasan asked Schumer about the timeline for passing the For the People Act – known as both H.R.1 and S.1 for being the first bill introduced this session in both the House and Senate – noting that Schumer’s position as Senate majority leader is threatened by the loss of a single Democratic senator. “I agree we have to move quickly,” Schumer says. “I would say that the deadline for S.1 is a little longer than you say. But it’s probably by August or so. We’re consulting the experts, when is the latest that S.1 can undo some of the despicable and frankly racist changes that these Republican legislatures have made or trying to make in the way people vote.” The New York senator said Democrats needed to remain unified to pass the bills they supported in a 50-50 Senate. “By definition, we need all 50. We’re working hard to obtain that unity. We’ve attained it on everything so far. On the major issues, when we have the minority, the three biggest issues were NCA, the horrible tax cuts of Trump and the impeachment, we were 100 percent united. On the three biggest issues so far here, the president’s cabinet with one exception which I regret, but everything else, with the impeachment trial and with ARP, we were united,” Schumer said.

Full Article: Schumer: Senate deadline for voting rights bill ‘probably by August or so’ | TheHill

Editorial: Republicans Aren’t Done Messing With Elections | Richard L. Hasen/The New York Times

April 28, 2021

A new, more dangerous front has opened in the voting wars, and it’s going to be much harder to counteract than the now-familiar fight over voting rules. At stake is something I never expected to worry about in the United States: the integrity of the vote count. The danger of manipulated election results looms. We already know the contours of the battle over voter suppression. The public has been inundated with stories about Georgia’s new voting law, from Major League Baseball’s decision to pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta to criticism of new restrictions that prevent giving water to people waiting in long lines to vote. With lawsuits already filed against restrictive aspects of that law and with American companies and elite law firms lined up against Republican state efforts to make it harder to register and vote, there’s at least a fighting chance that the worst of these measures will be defeated or weakened. The new threat of election subversion is even more concerning. These efforts target both personnel and policy; it is not clear if they are coordinated. They nonetheless represent a huge threat to American democracy itself. Some of these efforts involve removing from power those who stood up to President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Georgia law removes the secretary of state from decision-making power on the state election board. This seems aimed clearly at Georgia’s current Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, punishing him for rejecting Mr. Trump’s entreaties to “find” 11,780 votes to flip Joe Biden’s lead in the state. But the changes will apply to Mr. Raffensperger’s successor, too, giving the legislature a greater hand in who counts votes and how they are counted. Michigan’s Republican Party refused to renominate Aaron Van Langevelde to the state’s canvassing board. Mr. Van Langevelde voted with Democrats to accept Michigan’s Electoral College vote for Mr. Biden as legitimate. He was replaced by Tony Daunt, the executive director of a conservative Michigan foundation that is financially backed by the DeVos family.

Full Article: Opinion | Republicans Aren’t Done Messing With Elections – The New York Times

National: Senators squabble over voting rights, underscoring deep division on state efforts | Todd Ruger/Roll Call

A divisive Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday made it clear that Senate action on voting rights remains highly unlikely under the chamber’s current rules, as 47 states consider hundreds of proposed laws that would make it harder to vote. Democrats likened the push for new laws in the wake of the 2020 elections to Jim Crow-era laws, using as a main example a Georgia law that changed rules for mail-in ballots and early voting. It can take years and a lot of money for lawsuits to knock down provisions that target minorities, such as a South Carolina proposal to end early voting on Sundays that would effectively prohibit voting participation efforts favored by Black churches, testified Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The Justice Department used to be able to review new voting laws in states like Georgia that had a history of discriminatory voting laws, but the Supreme Court in 2013 gutted that enforcement provision of a landmark voting rights protection law. “This is not a model that can be sustained in a healthy democracy,” Ifill said. “We need Congress to act.” But several Republicans took exception to the “Jim Crow 2021” title of the hearing, and the hearing took a partisan and sometimes personal turn — a sign that the new Democratic majority might need to change filibuster rules if it wants to pass what Democrats consider one of their top priorities.

Full Article: Senators squabble over voting rights, underscoring deep division on state efforts – Roll Call

National: As Republicans Push Voting Laws, They Disagree on Strategy | Jeremy W. Peters/The New York Times

John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative in Arizona, recently ran through a list of what he called “bad election bills that were introduced by Republicans.” One would have allowed the Legislature to overturn the results of a presidential election even after they had been certified. Another would have required that early ballots be dropped off only at drop boxes that are attended. A third would have repealed the state’s hugely popular permanent early voting list, which allows voters to receive a ballot in the mail for every election. All three measures were also stopped by Republicans in Arizona, even as the party pushes other bills that would enact tighter regulations on early voting in the state — just a few months after President Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1996 to carry the Southwestern battleground. This G.O.P. resistance to certain voting legislation reflects an awkward and delicate dance within the party: As state lawmakers loyal to former President Donald J. Trump try to please him and his supporters by enacting new voting limits across the country, they are facing pockets of opposition from other Republicans who argue that some of the bills go too far or would hurt their own voters.

Full Article: As Republicans Push Voting Laws, They Disagree on Strategy – The New York Times

National: Lawmakers Debate Next Chapter of Voting Rights Act | Kaila Philo/Courthouse News Service

Two days after the Senate painted the growing crop of voting restrictions from Republican legislatures as “Jim Crow 2021,” House lawmakers dove into the fray Thursday, grilling leaders from opposite ends of the spectrum on the problem. Videoconferencing in to the hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Reverend William Barber II of North Carolina testified this morning that Jim Crow “dresses in a suit” in his home state of North Carolina, thanks to the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder. The 5-4 decision blithely gutted key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that identified states with histories of racial discrimination, and required states or counties with previous issues to get federal preclearance before changing election procedures or district lines. “Before the VRA, states and localities passed a host of voter suppression laws, secure in the knowledge that it may take many years before the Justice Department could successfully challenge them in court, if at all,” Congressman Jerry Nadler said Thursday. “As soon as one law was overturned, another one would be enacted, essentially setting up a discriminatory game of Whack-a-Mole. “Congress cannot keep letting these challenges to the VRA go unanswered,” he added. Reverend Barber told the committee that, since Shelby, North Carolina saw “the worst voter suppression laws since the days of Jim Crow.” He brought up North Carolina’s “monster” voting law, HB 589, which reduced early voting days, eliminated same-day voter registration, prevented counties from counting provisional ballots if the voter cast the ballot outside of their home precinct, and required photo ID. The law was eventually struck down in the courts as intentionally racially discriminatory.

Full Article: Lawmakers Debate Next Chapter of Voting Rights Act – Courthouse News Service

National: US, Russian officials discuss sanctions | Tal Axelrod/The Hill

U.S. diplomats met with Russian officials Wednesday to discuss a recent spate of sanctions between the U.S. and Russia as the Biden administration looks to take a tough stance on Moscow. “U.S. embassy officials in Moscow met today with Russian officials to discuss various bilateral topics, including the Russian response to our announcement last week,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday at a briefing. “We expect these discussions will continue in the coming days. We’ll review the details of the Russian actions as we were notified officially of some elements today. At the same time, we continue to believe that the best way forward is through thoughtful dialogue and diplomatic engagement going forward.” Price also said the U.S. has received a formal list of diplomats Russia is expelling in response to Washington’s penalties, though he declined to identify which people are being kicked out of Moscow. The U.S. last week slapped a slate of sanctions on Russia over malign behavior, including its cyber espionage operations, election meddling and hostile actions toward Ukraine. The sanctions will block U.S. financial institutions from purchasing bonds from Russia’s Central Bank, National Wealth Fund or Ministry of Finance after June 14 and from lending funds to these institutions. The U.S. is also expelling 10 personnel from the Russian diplomatic mission in Washington.

Full Article: US, Russian officials discuss sanctions | TheHill

National: Secretaries of state ask DHS to expand anti-disinformation fight | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

A bipartisan group of 11 state election chiefs last week asked the Department of Homeland Security to do more in coming elections to push back against foreign disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining the U.S. democratic process. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Brandon Wales, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the officials thanked the agency for its efforts fighting false claims during the 2020 election — such as the Rumor Control website, on which CISA published rebuttals of foreign, and later domestic, disinformation and misinformation about voting procedures and election equipment. But the election officials also said that the heavy circulation of these rumors sowed distrust that continues today. “There have been some good and bad days in the election community since November. On one hand, election officials successfully ran multiple elections during a pandemic,” the letter reads. “The general election was the most secure in recent history. On the other hand, because of disinformation, some Americans now lack confidence in the electoral process.” The letter was led by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, and signed by Griswold’s fellow Democratic secretaries of state in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont. Two Republicans also signed on: Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, and Alaska Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, who oversees elections there.

Full Article: Secretaries of state ask DHS to expand anti-disinformation fight

Republicans Say They Care About Election Fraud. Here’s How They Could Actually Prevent It. | Kaleigh Rogers/FiveThirtyEight

Republicans care a whole lot about election security these days. Fueled in part by the “Big Lie,” the baseless claim that there was widespread fraud in last year’s election, Republican lawmakers around the country have made an aggressive push to pass new laws to prevent what they saw as a nightmare scenario from happening again. While the motivation to improve election security is spurious, the ostensible goal isn’t — everyone would agree that a secure election is important for democracy. Experts say there’s one very effective way for state legislatures to make the voting process more secure: pass legislation to update voting machines. But instead of prioritizing this effort, many Republicans are instead focused on limiting voter access. “It would be terrific to see the focus on election security lead to more investments in better, more trustworthy systems,” said Mark Lindeman, co-director of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election security organization. The gold standard for voting security is hand-marked paper ballots, according to security experts. That’s because a paper ballot eliminates the risk of technical difficulties or certain kinds of malicious acts (think hacking) that could change or destroy your vote, and any concerns can be addressed with a recount. Because of that, most states currently use hand-marked paper ballots or have voting machines that generate paper records for verification. But in six states — Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas — some or all voters still cast ballots on machines that have no paper record whatsoever, according to data from Verified Voting. While there’s no evidence that these machines have ever been hacked during an election, it’s technically possible, and they’re also prone to all kinds of undesirable malfunctions, including losing votes. With no paper backup to audit, these machines are the kind of election security liability that politicians say they’re invested in fixing.

Full Article: Republicans Say They Care About Election Fraud. Here’s How They Could Actually Prevent It. | FiveThirtyEight

National: White House appoints voting rights adviser in federal elections bill push | Dartunorro Clark/NBC

The White House named Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt to be its voting rights adviser Monday in its push for federal legislation that would make sweeping changes to the nation’s elections. “Levitt will assist the President in his efforts to ensure every eligible American has secure, reliable access to a meaningful vote; to provide equitable representation in federal, state and local government; to restore trust in a democracy deserving of that trust; and to shore up and expand the avenues by which all Americans engage in robust civic participation,” said a release announcing his appointment. Levitt, who began teaching at the school in California in 2010, worked on voting rights issues as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration. Democrats are pushing to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, a 791-page measure that would make sweeping changes to the electoral process. The legislation, a wish list of policies that voting rights advocates have urged lawmakers to adopt for years, rethinks the voting process: how people register to vote, how ballots are cast and how states conduct elections.

Full Article: White House appoints voting rights adviser in federal elections bill push

National: MyPillow Sues to Counter Dominion Voting Systems’ Defamation Claims | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

MyPillow Inc. sued voting-machine maker Dominion Voting Systems on Monday, a counter move after Dominion sued the bedding company and its Donald Trump-supporting chief executive for defamation over his unproven claims that its voting machines had rigged the presidential election for Joe Biden. In a suit seeking more than $1.6 billion in damages, the privately held company said it is suing to protect freedom of speech and to rectify the injury the company said it has suffered from Dominion’s own legal campaign, which the complaint said included losing business and harassment and death threats against employees. “Dominion is using the legal process as a weapon to suppress free speech,” the suit in federal district court in Minnesota stated. “This lawsuit is brought in support of the marketplace of ideas and to remedy the grave harm that has been suffered by MyPillow as a result of Dominion’s suppression of speech and attacks on the Company.” The company also noted that it was its founder and CEO Mike Lindell, rather than the company, who spoke against Dominion. “In making these statements, Lindell spoke for himself, not MyPillow,” the suit said. “MyPillow has not engaged in discussion about the 2020 election. However, as an American company supporting American constitutional values, MyPillow unreservedly supports Lindell’s right to exercise his First Amendment freedoms concerning the matters of critical public concern, like election matters.” In February, Denver-based Dominion sued MyPillow and Mr. Lindell in federal court in the District of Columbia. Dominion’s suit alleged that Mr. Lindell had defamed the company with accusations that it had rigged the 2020 election for President Biden, and asked for more than $1.3 billion in damages.

Full Article: MyPillow Sues to Counter Dominion Voting Systems’ Defamation Claims – WSJ

National: As America embraces early voting, GOP hurries to restrict it | Anthony Izaguirre/Associated Press

Nearly seven of every 10 voters cast their ballots before Election Day in 2020. Republicans are moving to make it harder for that to happen again, potentially affecting the voting preferences of millions of Americans. The GOP’s campaign to place new restrictions on mail-in and early voting in certain states will force voters to contend with new rules on what have quickly become popular and proven methods of casting ballots. Though it is difficult to forecast how exactly the changes will affect voter turnout in the years ahead, critics argue that the proposals target a voting method that has had growing appeal for both Democrats and Republicans, and will add additional and needless bureaucratic hurdles to casting ballots before Election Day. In just Georgia and Iowa, states where sweeping new voting restrictions already have been signed into law, more than 5 million voters used absentee or early in-person voting last fall. Restrictive early voting bills also are advancing in other politically important states where Republicans are in control, including Arizona, Florida and Texas. Altogether, nearly 27 million voters in those five states cast ballots in advance of the 2020 presidential election. “They’re trying to make it a hassle to vote,” said Dixie Davis, a 33-year-old seamstress in Fort Worth, Texas, who voted early in the last election. “I feel like voting should be convenient — it’s like the most basic service a government should provide in a democratic society.” The explosion of both early and mail voting in the 2020 election came after state officials across the country relaxed rules around who could cast ballots before Election Day in a one-time effort to avoid coronavirus spread at crowded polling places. Officials and experts have said the result was one of the smoothest elections in recent memory, without any of the widespread fraud alleged by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Full Article: As America embraces early voting, GOP hurries to restrict it

National: As voting fight moves westward, accusations of racism follow | Acacia Coronado and Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press