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      Texas Republicans Targeting Voting Access Find Their Bull’s-Eye: Cities

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      In Houston, election officials found creative ways to help a struggling and diverse work force vote in a pandemic. Record turnout resulted. Now the G.O.P. is targeting those very measures.HOUSTON — Voting in the 2020 election presented Zoe Douglas with a difficult choice: As a therapist meeting with patients over Zoom late into the evening, she just wasn’t able to wrap up before polls closed during early voting.Then Harris County introduced 24-hour voting for a single day. At 11 p.m. on the Thursday before the election, Ms. Douglas joined fast-food workers, nurses, construction workers, night owls and other late-shift workers at NRG Arena, one of eight 24-hour voting sites in the county, where more than 10,000 people cast their ballots in a single night.“I can distinctly remember people still in their uniforms — you could tell they just got off of work, or maybe they’re going to work; a very diverse mix,” said Ms. Douglas, 27, a Houston native.Twenty-four-hour voting was one of a host of options Harris County introduced to help residents cast ballots, along with drive-through voting and proactively mailing out ballot applications. The new alternatives, tailored to a diverse work force struggling amid a pandemic in Texas’ largest county, helped increase turnout by nearly 10 percent compared with 2016; nearly 70 percent of registered voters cast ballots, and a task force found that there was no evidence of any fraud.A voter in a car used a drive-through voting station at NRG Arena in Houston to cast a ballot in the presidential election.Go Nakamura for The New York TimesYet Republicans are pushing measures through the State Legislature that would take aim at the very process that produced such a large turnout. Two omnibus bills, including one that the House is likely to take up in the coming week, are seeking to roll back virtually every expansion the county put in place for 2020.The bills would make Texas one of the hardest states in the country to cast a ballot in. And they are a prime example of a Republican-led effort to roll back voting access in Democrat-rich cities and populous regions like Atlanta and Arizona’s Maricopa County, while having far less of an impact on voting in rural areas that tend to lean Republican.Bills in several states are, in effect, creating a two-pronged approach to urban and rural areas that raises questions about the disparate treatment of cities and the large number of voters of color who live in them and is helping fuel opposition from corporations that are based in or have work forces in those places.In Texas, Republicans have taken the rare tack of outlining restrictions that would apply only to counties with population of more than one million, targeting the booming and increasingly diverse metropolitan areas of Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas. The Republican focus on diverse urban areas, voting activists say, evokes the state’s history of racially discriminatory voting laws — including poll taxes and “white primary” laws during the Jim Crow era — that essentially excluded Black voters from the electoral process.Most of Harris County’s early voters were white, according to a study by the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit group. But the majority of those who used drive-through or 24-hour voting — the early voting methods the Republican bills would prohibit — were people of color, the group found. “It’s clear they are trying to make it harder for people to vote who face everyday circumstances, especially things like poverty and other situations,” said Chris Hollins, a Democrat and the former interim clerk of Harris County, who oversaw and implemented many of the policies during the November election. “With 24-hour voting, there wasn’t even claims or a legal challenge during the election.”The effort to further restrict voting in Texas is taking place against the backdrop of an increasingly tense showdown between legislators and Texas-based corporations, with Republicans in the House proposing financial retribution for companies that have spoken out.American Airlines and Dell Technologies both voiced strong opposition to the bill, and AT&T issued a statement supporting “voting laws that make it easier for more Americans to vote,” though it did not specifically mention Texas.American Airlines also dispatched Jack McCain, the son of former Senator John McCain, to lobby Republicans in Austin to roll back some of the more stringent restrictions.Republicans in the State Legislature appear unbowed. In amendments filed to the state budget this week, House Republicans proposed that “an entity that publicly threatened any adverse reaction” related to “election integrity” would not be eligible for some state funds.While those amendments will need to be voted on, and may not even rise to the floor for a vote, placing them on the record is seen by lobbyists and operatives in Austin as a thinly veiled warning to businesses to stay quiet on the voting bills.The Perryman Group, an economic research and analysis firm based in Waco, said in a recent study that implementing controversial voting measures could lead to conferences or events being pulled from the state, and prompt businesses or workers to shun it. The group estimated that restrictive new laws would lead to a huge decrease in business activity in the state by 2025 and cost tens of thousands of jobs. Among the restrictions in two omnibus bills in the Texas Legislature are a ban on 24-hour voting, a ban on drive-through voting and harsh criminal penalties for local election officials who provide assistance to voters. There are also new limits on voting machine distribution that could lead to a reduction in numbers of precincts and a ban on encouraging absentee voting.The bills also include a measure that would make it much more difficult to remove a poll watcher for improper conduct. Partisan poll watchers, who are trained and authorized to observe the election on behalf of a candidate or party, have occasionally crossed the line into voter intimidation or other types of misbehavior; Harris County elections officials said they had received several complaints about Republican poll watchers last year.Mr. Hollins, the former Harris County clerk, said Republicans recognized that “Black and brown and poor and young people’’ use the flexible voting options more than others. “They’re scared of that,” he said.While Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia and Arizona are passing new voting laws after Democratic victories in November, Texas is pushing new restrictions despite having backed former President Donald J. Trump by more than 600,000 votes. The effort reflects the dual realities confronting Republicans in the State Legislature: a base eager for changes to voting following Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss and a booming population that is growing more diverse. Bryan Hughes sponsored the bill in the State Senate that seeks to add voting restrictions.Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated PressSenator Bryan Hughes, a Republican from northeastern Texas who sponsored the State Senate bill, defended it as part of a long effort to strengthen “election security” in Texas.“I realize there’s a big national debate now, and maybe we’re getting sucked into that, but this is not something new to Texas,” Mr. Hughes said in an interview. He said that lawmakers were seeking to roll back mail voting access because that process was more prone to fraud. He offered no proof, and numerous studies have shown that voter fraud in the United States is exceptionally rare.Mr. Hughes said that the proposed ban on drive-through voting stemmed from the difficulty of getting access for partisan poll watchers at the locations and that 24-hour voting was problematic because it was difficult to find poll watchers for overnight shifts.But many voters in Harris County, whose population of 4.7 million ranks third in the country and is bigger than 25 states’, see a different motive.Kristie Osi-Shackelford, a costume designer from Houston who was working temporary jobs during the pandemic to help support her family, used 24-hour voting because it offered her the flexibility she needed as she juggled work and raising her three children. She said that it had taken her less than 10 minutes.“I’m sure there are people who may not have gotten to vote in the last couple of elections, but they had the opportunity at night, and it’s kind of sad that the powers that be feel like that has to be taken away in order to, quote unquote, protect election integrity,” Ms. Osi-Shackelford said. “And I struggled to find words, because it’s so irritating, and I’m tired. I’m tired of hearing the same stuff and seeing the same stuff so blatantly over and over again for years.”Brittany Hyman, 35, was eight months pregnant as Election Day was drawing near and was also raising a 4-year-old. Fearful of Covid-19 but also of the sheer logistics of navigating a line at the polls, Ms. Hyman voted at one of the drive-through locations.“Being able to drive-through vote was a savior for me,” Ms. Hyman said. She added that because she had been pregnant, she probably wouldn’t have risked waiting in a long line to vote.Brittany Hyman, who was pregnant as Election Day approached, used drive-through voting.Mark Felix for The New York TimesHarris County’s drive-through voting, which more than 127,000 voters took advantage of in the general election, drew immediate attention from state Republicans, who sued Mr. Hollins and the county in an attempt to ban the practice and discard any votes cast in the drive-through process. The Texas Supreme Court ruled against the Republicans in late October.Other provisions in the G.O.P. bill, while not aimed as directly at Harris County, will most likely still have the biggest impact in the state’s biggest county. One proposal, which calls for a uniform number of voting machines to be deployed in each precinct, could hamper the ability to deploy extra machines in densely populated areas.This month, in a further escalation of public pressure on legislators, Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, a Democrat, gathered more than a dozen speakers, including business executives, civil rights activists and former athletes, for a 90-minute news conference denouncing the bill.“What is happening here in Texas is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” said Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County judge and a Democrat who has pushed for continued expansion of voting access in the county. “First Georgia, then Texas, then it’s more and more states, and soon enough we will have taken the largest step back since Jim Crow. And it’s on all of us to stop that.” More

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      As Republicans Push Voting Laws, They Disagree on Strategy

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      Trump-friendly state lawmakers trying to enact new voting laws are facing pockets of opposition from fellow Republicans who argue that some measures go too far or would hurt the party’s own voters.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.These Republicans see themselves as moderating forces on bad bills. And they are instead proposing less stringent measures that they say will improve the efficiency and security of early voting now that so many more people are using it because of changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. They acknowledge, however, that their timing is bad. Pushing for any bill that includes new requirements for voting after an election that went more smoothly than many expected raises an inevitable question: Why now, if not to try to thwart Democrats?The number of Republicans willing to speak out is modest compared with the many Trump-friendly lawmakers in G.O.P.-controlled state capitols who continue to validate the former president’s false claims of fraud by proposing harsh new voting measures. And even when other lawmakers in the party are successful in softening or stopping these, the outcome often remains new restrictions on voting — however small or subtle — that Democrats say are unnecessary and that are likely to disproportionately affect Black, Latino and poor voters.But there is a difference between the public perception of these new laws and bills and the reality, Republicans say. Many of the most restrictive provisions have never made it past the bill-drafting phase or a legislative committee, halted by Republican leaders who say it is counterproductive to limit forms of voting that are convenient and that people in both parties prefer. (Republicans in states like Arizona have amassed such power in state legislatures in no small part because for many years their own voters embraced voting by mail.) And some Republicans have criticized as anti-democratic efforts to empower state legislators to reject the will of voters.The Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix. A Republican bill to allow the state’s Legislature to overturn certified presidential election results was never assigned to a committee.Courtney Pedroza for The New York TimesThe latest Republican voting proposal to fall flat because of intraparty resistance was a “wet signature” requirement in Florida, which was set to be dropped from a bill that advanced out of a State Senate committee on Tuesday. The rule, which would have mandated a signature written by hand rather than a digital signature, was cut in part over concerns about its potential effect on older voters.In Arizona, Mr. Kavanagh, a committee chairman in the state House of Representatives, noted that Republicans’ bill to allow the Legislature to overturn certified presidential election results had never even been assigned to a committee.Neither was the proposed measure to repeal the permanent early voting list, which is how more than three million voters in Arizona get their ballots.Mr. Kavanagh said the list was “tremendously popular with Democrats, Republicans and independents,” and therefore made no sense to do away with.Most proposals like these — inspired by a misinformation campaign from Mr. Trump and allies like Rudolph W. Giuliani, who pressured Republican lawmakers to interfere with their state’s certification process — are dead, not just in Florida and Arizona but also in other states like Georgia, where Republicans set off a national uproar over voting rights. “But that part never got written, or was rarely covered in the newspapers,” Mr. Kavanagh said.This year in Florida, lawmakers introduced legislation to ban drop boxes, limit who can collect ballots for other voters and restrict access to people in voting lines, among other provisions. The proposals were met with swift and forceful opposition from county elections supervisors, perhaps none whose opinion carried more weight than D. Alan Hays of Lake County. Mr. Hays, a conservative Republican who had previously served in the State Senate for 12 years, told his former colleagues at a legislative hearing last month that their bill was a “travesty.”“In my role as supervisor of elections, I’m focusing on policy,” he said in an interview. “I don’t pay any attention to party. If it’s a good idea, we should give it every opportunity to succeed. And if it’s a bad idea, we should do everything we can to stop it from being implemented.”He and other supervisors worked phones and emails to explain to lawmakers the nuances of how elections are run and why some of their provisions would be impractical. This month, after the controversy over Georgia’s new voting law, the Florida House softened its version of the voting bill; the proposal that ultimately passed out of the State Senate committee on Tuesday did not include some of the most stringent original provisions, like a ban on drop boxes (the availability of which it still limits).“To their credit, the legislators have shown great appreciation and respect for our opinions,” Mr. Hays said.Republicans who want to see changes to election law that would have far less of an impact on how votes are cast say that some of the proposals introduced by pro-Trump lawmakers are not helping. And these bills are muddying the waters, they say, in areas of the law like ballot security, where there used to be more bipartisan agreement.Poll workers sorting absentee ballots in Decatur, Ga., after the state’s Senate runoff elections early this year. Some top Republican election officials in Georgia, including Gabriel Sterling, have voiced opposition to parts of the state’s new voting law.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesSome Republicans say that in less polarized times, these measures wouldn’t be attracting nearly as much controversy because even divisive issues like requiring a form of identification to vote had some bipartisan support.A 2005 bipartisan commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker, the former secretary of state under Ronald Reagan, recommended requiring identification for all voters, but allowed for a flexible interpretation of what that could be, like a utility bill. That report also stated what independent elections experts say is still true: that absentee ballots remain the most susceptible to fraud, though fraud is exceptionally rare. In the very few instances that fraud has been caught and prosecuted, as in North Carolina in 2018, it often involves absentee ballots.Most Republicans argue that measures are needed to safeguard and streamline absentee voting, especially because it was so prevalent last year during the pandemic — and popular with voters. In Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official who bucked his party and Mr. Trump in December by denouncing claims of voter fraud as false and dangerous, said he didn’t agree with everything in the state’s new law. He took particular issue with the provisions that seem intended to punish his boss, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican who also pushed back against Mr. Trump’s voter fraud lies, by stripping him of his voting power as a member of the State Election Board.Mr. Sterling speaking to reporters in Atlanta in November. He said that over all, he believed Georgia’s new voting law was “a boring bill.”Megan Varner/Getty ImagesBut Mr. Sterling said he believed that over all, “It is a boring bill,” adding: “It is not the end of the world.”He argued that “there was going to be a cleanup bill” to address voting given that record numbers of people voted early and by mail for the first time, creating considerable strain on local elections officials. And he pointed to local elections jurisdictions that were overextended with large numbers of signatures to match on absentee ballots.On the one hand, he said, the government can hire staff members and pay them $10 an hour to compare signatures. On the other hand, he said that requiring an I.D. number like the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number or a driver’s license number, as Georgia now does, seemed more efficient. “You’re saying, ‘Does the number match?’” he said. “‘Does it not match?’ It’s a very simple thing.”He blamed Republicans for trying to placate Mr. Trump’s supporters by introducing bills they knew would never pass — and which, in some cases, lawmakers didn’t fully believe were good policy. They just knew it was good base politics, he said.“Essentially the leadership of the House and the Senate said to their members, ‘Introduce whatever you have to so your people are OK,’” Mr. Sterling said.That was a mistake, Mr. Sterling added, but not necessarily surprising. “There’s a lot of voters who believe the lie, and we are a representative democracy.”Patricia Mazzei More

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      In a Charged Environment, France Tackles Its Model of Secularism

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      In an effort to fend off a challenge from the right, President Emmanuel Macron tries to frame a debate on two issues important to conservatives: the country’s “laïcité” model of secularism, and crime.PARIS — The French government on Tuesday initiated a wide-ranging public debate on France’s model of secularism, seeking to gain the upper hand on a contentious topic that has roiled the nation in recent months and is likely to be a battleground in a presidential election next year.Marlène Schiappa, the minister of citizenship, assembled a small group of intellectuals at a gathering in Paris, kicking off what is expected to be a monthslong series of discussions that she described as the “Estates-General on laïcité’’ — referring to the historic assemblies held in France to debate the fundamentals of French society.Known as laïcité, the French secularism separating church and state has served as the bedrock of the country’s political system for more than a century.“In every country, there are words that are important, that can’t be overlooked,’’ Ms. Schiappa said, describing laïcité as an idea in which “French destiny is found.’’The debate, which Ms. Schiappa announced to a French newspaper over the weekend, caught many by surprise because of its timing and its intentions. It is starting just as lawmakers are wrapping up work on a bill that is intended to reinforce the country’s principles of secularism and to combat Islamism.Led by Ms. Schiappa — a high-profile minister who has espoused a strict view on secularism — the debate comes as President Emmanuel Macron tries to fend off an increasing threat from the right and far right ahead of next year’s presidential election.As Mr. Macron tries to burnish his credentials as a defender of a strict vision of laïcité, he has also moved to seize another issue important to right-wing voters: crime.Following months of attention on the government’s stumbling coronavirus vaccination campaign, Mr. Macron pledged on Monday to be tough on crime, to crack down on recreational drugs and to recruit 10,000 additional police officers by the end of his current five-year term. The promises were made in a long, tough-talking interview he gave to a conservative newspaper, Le Figaro, that another publication described as reminiscent of Rudolph Giuliani, the combative former mayor of New York.On Monday, Mr. Macron visited drug-dealing spots in the southern city of Montpellier, talking to police officers and riding along inside a police car. Even as Ms. Schiappa inaugurated the debate on secularism, Mr. Macron’s prime minister and justice minister visited a prison under construction in eastern France to announce details of the government’s expansion of the prison system.French people across the political spectrum adhere to the concepts of laïcité, which was enshrined in law in 1905. But there have been profound disagreements on how to apply the law, especially since the emergence in recent decades of Islam as France’s second-biggest religion after Roman Catholicism.While Mr. Macron expressed a liberal view toward secularism at the beginning of his term, he has gradually moved closer to supporters of a strict vision of laïcité.A mosque in Ivry-sur-Seine, near Paris,  in October. Islam has become France’s second-biggest religion.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesThe government recently announced the dissolution of the Laïcité Observatory, a government watchdog that supporters of a strict laïcité long criticized as being soft. The government’s bill against Islamism also intends to enforce the country’s principles of secularism by gaining greater control over Muslim and other religious organizations, and by restricting home and private schooling.Appearing inside a church that had been converted into a government building, Ms. Schiappa spoke about the need for a “calm’’ discussion on laïcité. But the heated nature of the debate could be seen as some of the six invited intellectuals — four in favor of a strict laïcité and two against — took barely concealed swipes at one another.Conservative intellectuals said that laïcité was a universalist principle and a useful tool to fight against Islamism and an identity-driven fragmentation of society.Raphaël Enthoven, a philosopher, criticized those who, in the name of tolerance toward religions, favor a liberal version of laïcité, saying it plays into the hands of Islamists. “Laïcité is the object of prosecution and despicable propaganda which consists in presenting it almost as racism,” Mr. Enthoven said.Philippe Gaudin, also a philosopher, said that a discussion on laïcité should take into account a changing world in which more people, including the young, hold religious beliefs. “If we don’t want to understand the world in which we find ourselves, we won’t be able to explain our political choices, especially on laïcité,’’ he said.Ms. Schiappa said that through July, groups throughout the country would work on the link between laïcité and issues such as freedom of speech and women’s rights. Some 50,000 young people will be asked how laïcité affects their daily lives on an online platform launched Tuesday.Even before Tuesday’s gathering, some experts and organizations were dismissing the debate as a publicity stunt.Marlène Schiappa, the minister of citizenship, in Paris on Tuesday. Ms. Schiappa described laïcité as an idea in which “French destiny is found.’’Pool photo by Bertrand GuayPatrick Weil, a historian and expert on laïcité who teaches at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris and at Yale, said that, in the past, big public debates called “Estates-General’’ preceded the work of lawmakers so as to inform the discussion.“Estates-General have a long history in France — one preceded the Revolution,’’ Mr. Weil said in an interview. “They have a lot of power. But here, it’s the opposite. It’s very strange.’’Others were even more critical, accusing Mr. Macron’s government of political theater in an effort to woo the right.Responding to Ms. Schiappa’s invitation to participate in the debate, Frédéric Sève, the national secretary of one of France’s biggest unions, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, said it was a bad idea to initiate these discussions while the separatism bill had yet to become law.“We must stop making laïcité a permanent object of media agitation,’’ he said in a tweet.Mr. Macron’s two-pronged efforts on laïcité and crime this week come as polls show him neck-and-neck with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally, in next year’s presidential election. With voters moving to the right and France’s left-leaning parties in shambles, Mr. Macron’s electoral strategy rests on winning over right-leaning voters who might be tempted to migrate to the extreme right.Polls show that while support for Macron has remained steady overall, he has lost support among right-wing voters over the past four months. While 48 percent of conservative voters and 20 percent of far-right supporters said they were satisfied with him in December, according to an IFOP study, that proportion fell to 30 percent and 13 percent in April, according to the same polling firm.Mr. Macron has also been under pressure from the right-controlled Senate, which last week passed a toughened version of his bill against Islamism, adding a series of amendments that critics said risked discriminating against Muslims.Many of the new measures stem from debates over the wearing of the Muslim veil. They include a ban on ostentatious religious symbols or clothing for minors in the public space and in sport tournaments, as well as for parents accompanying children on school outings. They also enable local authorities to ban the full-body swimsuit that some Muslim women wear at swimming pools and empower mayors to ban foreign flags in and around city hall buildings during wedding celebrations.The bill, which was approved earlier by the National Assembly, will now be examined by a cross-party parliamentary commission. If the commission fails to come to an agreement, the National Assembly, which is controlled by Mr. Macron’s party, will have the final say. The Constitutional Council could also revoke some of the new measures. More

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      Florida Voting Restrictions Bill Heads to Legislature

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      The bill, which was recently softened, still includes measures like a ban on giving water to voters near polling places, and it would also empower partisan observers during the ballot-counting process.A bill that would impose a host of new restrictions on voting in Florida passed a key committee in the State Senate on Tuesday after a fiery debate among senators and hours of citizen testimony opposing the measure. The vote set the stage for a possible full floor vote in the Republican-controlled chamber in the coming weeks.The bill, known as S.B. 90, had significantly been revised last week by Dennis K. Baxley, the Republican state senator who introduced it, to roll back some of the more strident restrictions in the original bill, like banning drop boxes. It passed the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday along a mostly party-line vote, with one Republican member of the committee, Jeff Brandes, voting against it.The measure also bans giving water to voters within 150 feet of a voting location; adds more identification requirements for absentee ballots; requires voters to request an absentee ballot every election rather than be on an absentee voting list; limits who can collect and drop off ballots; and empowers partisan observers during the ballot tabulating process.Florida, a major political battleground, is one of a number of Republican-controlled states, including Georgia, Texas and Arizona, that have marched forward with new bills seeking to limit access to voting. Republicans did well in Florida in 2020, with former President Donald J. Trump winning by more than 370,000 votes.State Senator Dennis K. Baxley during a legislative session in Tallahassee. Steve Cannon/Associated PressMr. Baxley, in introducing the bill, said that Florida’s election last year was the “gold standard” for the country, but that the new voting law was necessary to avoid potential problems.But the successful election in Florida was the reason that Democrats, as well as at least one Republican, pushed back on a lot of the provisions in the law. The newly amended bill that was passed limits the availability of drop boxes to early voting hours, rather than the 24-hour option that existed last year.Democratic senators, including Randolph Bracy, noted that there had been no evidence of any tampering with drop boxes, which was later confirmed in testimony by local election officials.Mr. Baxley replied simply that “things could happen.”The Republican sponsor did relent on one provision: requiring a “wet signature” (one handwritten using a pen or pencil) on file for voters who cast their ballots by mail for signature matching, rather than digital signatures, many of which are collected at Department of Motor Vehicle offices around the state.After intense debate and pressure, including from Republican senators, Mr. Baxley said on Tuesday morning that “by listening to others, and understanding your heart, I’m willing, and this Senate is willing, to take it out.”The bill was originally set for a vote last Wednesday, but the debate ran past the allotted meeting time and was abruptly gaveled to a close. The Senate Rules Committee picked up the final debate early Tuesday.During the public testimony last week, dozens of Florida voters spoke against the bill, as well as some local election officials, who took particular issue with the provision granting more authority to partisan poll watchers.Mr. Brandes, in his closing remarks on Tuesday morning, noted that election officials across the state had voiced opposition to the bill.“I need to put on the record that to my knowledge, not one Republican supervisor of elections in the state of Florida supports this bill in its current form,” he said.The lengthy debate last Wednesday grew heated at times, as Democrats grew frustrated with what they viewed as evasive answers from Mr. Baxley.“These are the most nonsensical, off-point answers I think I’ve ever heard to questions in my life,” said Gary Farmer, the Democratic minority leader in the State Senate.The bill that passed through committee on Tuesday brings the Senate effort more in line with a similar bill that has been introduced in the House by Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican representative from the Gulf Coast. The House bill, which passed a key House committee in March, also awaits a full vote later this month.The Florida Legislature is in session this year only through the end of April, so any bills will need to be passed by both chambers before May 1. More

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      The Marriage Between Republicans and Big Business Is on the Rocks

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      But the internal contradictions of “woke capitalism” are a mixed blessing for the Democratic Party.“Woke capitalism” has been a steadily growing phenomenon over the past decade. The muscle of the movement was evident as early as 2015 in Indiana and 2016 in North Carolina, when corporate opposition forced Republicans to back off anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation.Much to the dismay of the right — a recent Fox News headline read “Corporations fear woke left minority more than silent majority” — the movement has been gaining momentum, obscuring classic partisan allegiances in corporate America.This drive has a fast-growing list of backers from the ranks of the Fortune 500, prepared to challenge Republican legislators across the nation.Right now, the focus of chief executives who are attempting to burnish their progressive credentials is on blocking legislation in 24 states that curtails access to the ballot box for racial and ethnic minorities — legislation that, among other things, reduces the number of days for advance voting, that requires photo ID to accompany absentee ballots and that limits or eliminates ballot drop boxes.Perhaps most threatening to Republicans, key corporate strategists attempting to woo liberal consumers have come to believe that their support for progressive initiatives will generate sufficient revenue to counter retaliation by hostile white voters and the Republican politicians who represent them.The corporate embrace of these strategies has generally received favorable press, but there are some doubters.Adam Serwer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, argued in “‘Woke Capital’ Doesn’t Exist” on April 6 that capital “pursues its financial interests in whatever political or social context it finds itself.”As Serwer puts it,For big firms, talk is very cheap. Similarly, the actions of Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, and Delta reflect the political landscape in Georgia and its interaction with their bottom line, not the result of a deep ideological commitment to racial equality.Similarly, Matthew Walther argued in an August 2017 article in The Week, thatWe should not be looking to corporate America for moral instruction or making exemplars of its leaders or heaping approbation upon their bland, cynical consultant-designed utterances.Apple’s Tim Cook, Walther continued, “tells us that he is against racism. I believe it. Good on him.” As commendable as Cook may be for his antiracism, Walther writes, heis the C.E.O. of a corporation that has made profits on a scale hitherto unimaginable in human history by exploiting cheap labor in a poor country ruled by tyrants whose authority is perpetuated in no small part thanks to Apple’s own compliance in its silencing of dissent and hiring the smartest lawyers in the world to make their tax burden negligible.Companies leading the charge against laws promoted by Republican state legislators include Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, Merck & Co., Dell Technologies, Mars Inc., Nestlé USA, Unilever PLC and American Airlines.And just two days ago, 30 chief executives of Michigan’s largest companies, including Ford, General Motors and Quicken Loans, declared their opposition to similar changes in voting rules pending before the legislature.The headline on an April 10 Wall Street Journal story sums up the situation: “With Georgia Voting Law, the Business of Business Becomes Politics.” The law was described by USA Today on April 10 as one “that includes restrictions some activists say haven’t been seen since the Jim Crow era.”Last week, executives from over 100 companies held a video conference call to explore ways to voice their opposition to pending and enacted election legislation.For many Republicans, the future of their party’s dominance in such states as Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia rides on their ability to hold back the rising tide of minority voters.While Republicans are convinced of the effectiveness their legislative strategies, poll data from the 2020 election suggests they may be mistaken. Republicans made inroads last year among Black and Hispanic voters, the constituencies they would now suppress, while losing ground among white voters, their traditional base of support.Growing numbers of Republicans are refusing to buckle under pressure from the corporate establishment.For Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who rejected Donald Trump’s pleas to overturn the state’s presidential election results, the controversy offers the opportunity to claim populist credentials and perhaps to win back the support of Trump loyalists.“I will not be backing down from this fight,” Kemp declared at an April 3 news conference:This is a call to everyone, not only in Georgia but all across the country to wake up and get in the fight and help us in that fight. Because they are coming for you next.In Texas, where American Airlines, Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Southwest Airlines have opposed laws under consideration by Republican state legislators, Republicans have been quick to go on the attack.“Texans are fed up with corporations that don’t share our values trying to dictate public policy,” Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican, declared in a news release attacking liberalized voting protocols. “The majority of Texans support maintaining the integrity of our elections, which is why I made it a priority this legislative session.”Other Republicans are explicitly warning business that it will pay a price if it goes too far. “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, declared at an April 5 news conference. “Our private sector must stop taking cues from the Outrage-Industrial Complex.”In the past, the corporate community has been one of McConnell’s most steadfast allies and its current adversarial stance is a major loss.Alma Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School, and three colleagues, analyzed campaign contributions made by 3,800 individuals who served as chief executive of large companies from 2000 to 2017 in their 2019 paper, “The Politics of C.E.O.s.” They found a decisive Republican tilt: “More than 57 percent of C.E.O.s are Republicans, 19 percent are Democrats and the rest are neutral.”I asked W. Bradford Wilcox, a conservative professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, for his assessment of the conflict between big business and Republicans. His reply suggested that Kemp’s defiant stance will resonate among Republican voters:The decades-long marriage between the G.O.P. and big business is clearly on the rocks. This is especially true because the G.O.P. is increasingly drawn to a pugnacious and populist cultural style that has more appeal to the working class, and Big Business is increasingly inclined to support the progressive cultural agenda popular among the highly educated.Taking on corporate America meshes with the goal of rebranding the Republican Party — from the party of Wall Street to the party of the working class.The response of the white working-class to the leftward shift on social issues by American businesses remains unpredictable.Democracy Corps, a liberal group, conducted focus groups of white Republicans in March and reached the conclusion that conservative voters are cross-pressured:The Trump loyalists and Trump-aligned were angry, but also despondent, feeling powerless and uncertain they will become more involved in politics.While anger is a powerful motivator of political engagement, despondency and the feeling of powerlessness often depress turnout and foster the belief that political participation is futile.Opinion on the motives of corporate leaders diverges widely among those who study the political evolution of American business.Scholars and strategists differ among themselves over how much the growth of activism is driven by market forces, by public opinion, by conviction and by the growing strength of Black and Hispanic Americans as consumers, employees and increasingly as corporate executives.James Davison Hunter, professor of religion, culture and social theory at the University of Virginia, is interested in the psychology of those in the executive suite:At least on the surface, corporate America has accommodated progressive interests on these issues and others, including the larger agenda of Critical Race Theory, the Me-too movement, the gay and transgender rights, etc. There has been a shift leftward.The question he poses is why. His answer is complex:The idea, once held, that what was good for business was good for America is now a distant memory. A reputation, long in the making, for avoiding taxes and opposing unions all in pursuit of profit has done much to undermine the credibility of business as a force for the common good. Embracing the progressive agenda is a way to position itself as a “good” corporate citizen. Corporations gain legitimacy.The fluid ideological commitments of business should be seen in the larger context of American politics and culture, Hunter argues:Over the long haul, conservatives have fought the culture war politically. For them, it was the White House, the Senate and, above all, the Supreme Court that mattered. Political power was pre-eminent.Progressives have struggled in political combat, while in the nation’s cultural disputes, in Hunter’s view, the left has dominated:Even while progressives were losing elections, gay and transgender rights, feminism, Black Lives Matter and critical race perspectives were all gaining credibility — in important cultural institutions including journalism, academia, entertainment, advertising, public education, philanthropy, and elsewhere. Sooner or later, it was bound to influence corporate life, the military, and other so-called conservative institutions not least because there was no credible conservative alternative to these questions; only a defensive rejection.How will this play out?We will continue to see ugly political battles long into the future, but the culture wars are tilting definitively toward a progressive win and not least because they have a new patron in important corporations.Malia Lazu, a lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, argued in an email that the public’s slow but steady shift to the left on racial and social issues is driving corporate decision-making: “Corporations understand consumers want to see their commitment to environmental and social issues.”Lazu cited studies by Cone, a business consulting firm, “showing that 86 percent of Americans would support a brand aligned with their values and 75 percent would refuse to buy a product they saw as contrary to their beliefs.”Lazu contends that “there is a generational shift in America toward increasing justice and collective responsibility” and that as a result, “institutions, including corporations, will make incremental change.”John A. Haigh, co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School, does not agree with those who see business motivated solely by potential profits, arguing instead that idealism has become a major force.“Corporations have an obligation to deliver high performance for their shareholders and other stakeholders — customers, employees, and suppliers,” Haigh wrote in an email. But, he continued, “corporations also have an obligation to do so with high integrity.”In the case of challenges to restrictive voting laws, Haigh believes thatthere is also a possibility that they are behaving with some sense of their moral obligation to society — with integrity. The right to vote could be seen as a pillar of our democratic system, and blatant attempts to suppress votes are offensive to our core values.Haigh says that he does not wantto sound Pollyannish — these are difficult trade-offs within corporations, and it is much more complicated than simply “doing good.” But there are thresholds for moral behavior, and companies do have an obligation to speak up. There is a long history in the U.S. around issues of civil rights and their suppression, and mixed engagement by companies in addressing these issues.Neal Hartman, a senior lecturer who is also at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, argued that in attacking voting rights, Republicans violated a tenet of American democracy important to voters of all stripes.Not only have the restrictive proposals in Georgia and other states awakened “strong levels of activism among many moderate-to-liberal voters,” Hartman wrote by email, butmany people in the United States — including a number of more conservative individuals — believe voting should be as simple and widespread as possible. It is a fundamental principle of our democracy.Corporations, Hartman continued,are responding to calls from the public, their shareholders, and their employees to respond to bills and laws deemed as being unfair.Hartman argues that “voting rights is front and center today,” butnot far behind will be efforts to thwart LGBTQI rights — bills targeting the transgender community are already being introduced and passed — as well as continuing battles regarding abortion and the rights of women to choose.There is some overlap between the thinking of Robert Livingston, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Haigh and Hartman:What we are seeing in Georgia is an affront to people’s basic sense of morality and decency. And people will sometimes subordinate their self-interest to cherished values and beliefs. Many of these companies have credos and core values that are internalized by their leadership and employees, and we see leaders becoming increasingly willing to express their disapproval of the reckless temerity of politically savvy but socially irresponsible politicians.Livingston acknowledges that many companies aremotivated by their own interests as well. Major League Baseball is an organization that depends on people of color. Nike tends to cater to an increasingly youthful and diverse customer base. So, there is something in it for them too.But, he continued, “I’ve worked with a lot of top leaders and can tell you that for many of them, it’s more a question of principle than politics.”Joseph Aldy, a professor of public policy at the Kennedy School, noted in an email that willingness to engage in controversial political issues is most evident in the case of climate change:The climate denial/climate skeptic attitude that characterizes many Republican elected officials is increasingly out of step with the majority of the American public and the American business community.Instead, Alby wrote,the continued focus on cultural issues among Republicans reflects a growing estrangement between the business community and the Republican Party.There are several possible scenarios of how these preoccupations and conflicts will evolve.Insofar as the split between American business and the Republican Party widens and companies begin to cut campaign contributions, the likely loser is Mitch McConnell, the leader of the party’s corporate wing. Any limit on McConnell’s ability to channel business money to campaigns would be a setback.Such a development would further empower the more extreme members of the Republican Party’s Trump wing and would embolden Republican officials to escalate their conflict with corporate America.For example, David Ralston, the speaker of the Georgia House — which has just passed a retaliatory bill penalizing Delta by eliminating a tax break on jet fuel — told reporters: “You don’t feed a dog that bites your hand.”Finally, for Democrats, the leftward shift of business is a mixed blessing.On the plus side, Democrats gain an ally in pressing a liberal agenda on social and racial issues.On the downside, the perception of the party as allied with corporate interests may take root and Democratic officials are very likely to face pressure to make concessions to their new allies on fundamental economic policies — bad for the party, in my view, and bad for the country.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How a Very Weird Quirk Might Let Michigan Republicans Limit Voting Rights

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      State Republicans are pushing a voting law that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she will veto. But a rarely used option for a voter-driven petition could allow the G.O.P. to circumvent her veto.At first glance, the partisan battle over voting rights in Michigan appears similar to that of many other states: The Republican-led Legislature, spurred by former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about election fraud, has introduced a rash of proposals to restrict voting access, angering Democrats, who are fighting back.But plenty of twists and turns are looming as Michigan’s State Senate prepares to hold hearings on a package of voting bills beginning Wednesday. Unlike Georgia, Florida and Texas, which have also moved to limit voting access, Michigan has a Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who said last month she would veto any bill imposing new restrictions. But unlike in other states with divided governments, Michigan’s Constitution offers Republicans a rarely used option for circumventing Ms. Whitmer’s veto.Last month, the state’s Republican chairman told activists that he aimed to do just that — usher new voting restrictions into law using a voter-driven petition process that would bypass the governor’s veto pen.In response, Michigan Democrats and voting rights activists are contemplating a competing petition drive, while also scrambling to round up corporate opposition to the bills; they are hoping to avoid a replay of what happened in Georgia, where the state’s leading businesses didn’t weigh in against new voting rules until after they were signed into law.The maneuvering by both parties has turned Michigan into a test case of how states with divided government will deal with voting laws, and how Republicans in state legislatures are willing to use any administrative tool at their disposal to advance Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud and pursue measures that could disenfranchise many voters. The proposal puts new restrictions on how election officials can distribute absentee ballots and how voters can cast them, limiting the use of drop boxes, for example. “These bills contain some of the most outlandish voter suppression ideas that Michigan has ever seen,” said State Senator Paul Wojno, the lone Democrat on the Michigan Senate’s elections committee. “We’ll find out if what was adopted in Georgia may have backfired, causing legislation like this to be put under a bigger microscope.”Michigan’s two largest companies, the iconic automakers Ford and General Motors, have not weighed in on the proposals specific to the state. But both have indicated they opposed changes to Michigan’s election laws that would make voting harder — an apparent effort to get ahead of the issue, rather that come under pressure after laws are passed, as happened to two big Georgia-based companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines.On Tuesday, GM posted a statement calling on the state legislature to ensure that any new voting law protect “the right for all eligible voters to have their voices included in a fair, free and equitable manner.’’“Anything less falls short of our inclusion and social justice goals,’’ it added, an apparent shot across the bow of G.O.P. lawmakers.The Republican push to tighten Michigan’s election laws comes as the state faces a major spike in coronavirus cases, with the number nearing the peak in late December. Ms. Whitmer, who declined to be interviewed, on Friday called for a two-week pause in youth sports, in-person school and indoor dining and asked President Biden for more vaccine. Republican opposition to Ms. Whitmer in Michigan has intensified during the pandemic.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said last month she would veto any bill imposing new restrictions on voting.Matthew Hatcher/Getty ImagesMichigan is one of just nine states that allow voters to petition lawmakers to take up a piece of legislation; if passed, the law is not subject to a governor’s veto. If the Legislature does not pass the bill within 40 days of receiving it, the measure goes before voters on the next statewide ballot. It is a rarely used procedure: Lawmakers have passed only nine voter-initiated bills since 1963, according to the state Bureau of Elections.But last month, Ron Weiser, the state’s Republican Party chairman, told supporters in a video reported on by The Detroit News that the state party planned to subsidize a petition drive to cut Ms. Whitmer out of the lawmaking process.To do so would require 340,047 voter signatures, or 10 percent of the vote in the last governor’s election. Mr. Weiser said that the signatures would be gathered through county committees with party funding. So far, the signature gathering has not begun, nor has the secretary of state’s office received a proposed bill needed to start a petition drive, as required by law.A spokesman for the state G.O.P., Ted Goodman, said the party could easily gather the needed signatures for the initiative if Ms. Whitmer vetoes a bill that emerges from the Legislature. “We’re confident we can ensure election integrity reforms ahead of the 2022 elections,’’ Mr. Goodman said.A preview of what might be in a voter-initiated bill was suggested by a package of 39 bills to change the state’s voting laws that Republicans in the State Senate introduced on March 24. Democrats denounced most of the proposals.The package would prohibit the secretary of state from mailing unsolicited applications for absentee ballots to voters, require voters to mail in a photocopied or scanned ID to receive an absentee ballot, and restrict the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, among other rule changes. These measures would roll back some of the expanded access to absentee ballots that Michigan voters approved, by a two-to-one margin, in a 2018 vote to amend the Constitution.The bills also include some provisions to make voting easier, such as adding an extra day of early voting on a Saturday and allowing 16-year-olds to preregister to vote.But the bulk of proposed changes would impose new hurdles to absentee voting, after Mr. Trump and Michigan Republicans last year spread misinformation about wide fraud and “irregularities” in the use of mail ballots. They particularly targeted Detroit, the state’s largest city, which has a majority-Black population.Ron Weiser, left, Michigan’s Republican Party chairman, with Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman. Mr. Weiser said the state party planned to subsidize a petition drive to collect the signatures necessary to circumvent a veto by the governor.David Guralnick/Detroit News, via Associated PressIn November’s election, 3.3 million absentee ballots were cast in the midst of a pandemic, out of 5.5 million total votes. Citing scores of audits, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, called the election one of the most secure in Michigan history. Ms. Benson said only 15,300 absentee ballots were rejected, less than 0.5 percent, for reasons such as arriving too late. Mr. Biden carried Michigan by 154,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points.Ms. Benson refused to appear last week before a legislative hearing on the 2020 election, saying it could “further the lies” that undermine faith in voting. The secretary of state has proposed her own election changes, including making Election Day a holiday and allowing clerks two weeks before that date to open absentee ballots and begin processing them; the goal is to shorten the wait for results — one factor that fed misinformation about the 2020 outcome.Despite the courts’ near-universal rejection of claims of fraud, including the Michigan Supreme Court, Ruth Johnson, a Republican state senator and former secretary of state, said there was a “lot of gaming of the system.”“There was more cheating last year in an election than I’ve ever seen in Michigan,” said Ms. Johnson, who is chairwoman of the State Senate’s elections committee.Ms. Johnson, who represents a district in the Detroit suburb of Oakland County, said the suite of Republican voting bills would receive a fair hearing before her committee and said there was “no predetermined outcome” about which ones would be advanced to the full Senate.Michigan Democrats are working under the presumption that they will have to fight off both the legislative proposals and a major petition drive.Lavora Barnes, the party chairwoman, said she was weighing plans that include a competing petition drive and tailing Republican signature gatherers to speak directly to voters and counter G.O.P. claims. She said Democrats might also argue in court that the new voting legislation violates the state Constitution.“We will have our grass-roots folks on the ground making sure folks are educated about what they are signing,” Ms. Barnes said. “I’m imagining a world where they are standing out in front of folks’ grocery stories and we are actively communicating on the ground during that entire process.”Republicans’ proposed measures would roll back some of the expanded access to absentee ballots that Michigan voters approved by a two-to-one margin in 2018.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York TimesNancy Wang, the executive director of a group called Voters Not Politicians, which drove support for the 2018 constitutional amendment, said she was preparing a campaign to pressure Michigan corporations to oppose any new restrictions on voting before a law is passed.“We’re making it known what is happening and what the impact would be if these bills were to pass,” Ms. Wang said. “We’re trying to get the same result they had in Georgia, but earlier.”Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, said last Friday that the company supports “initiatives that promote equitable access and do not disproportionately affect any segment of the population.’’ Michigan Democrats said the prospect of a citizen initiative to bypass the normal lawmaking process would serve to allow a fraction of the state’s white population to disenfranchise Black voters.“It feels almost criminal to me,’’ said Sarah Anthony, a state representative from Lansing. “As an African-American woman who has worked for years now to expand the right to vote, to mobilize and educate people about why it’s so important to vote, and to lower barriers to people, and now be in the Legislature and see these crafty ways that folks are trying to strip us of the right to vote, words can’t describe it.’’ More

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      Election Overhaul Plan Threatens to Sideline Hong Kong’s Opposition

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      The proposal, initiated by the Chinese central government, is intended to make it difficult for democracy advocates to hold office and would criminalize organized protest votes.HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government on Tuesday introduced the final details of a push to drastically overhaul the city’s election system, including a proposal that would make it illegal to encourage voters to cast blank ballots or boycott elections.The electoral changes are the latest effort by the central Chinese government to stamp out political opposition in Hong Kong, after months of fierce antigovernment demonstrations in 2019. Last month, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, an arm of China’s Communist Party-run legislature, unanimously approved a plan that would give national security bodies the authority to select candidates for political office.That proposal, which followed the enactment last year of a harsh national security law, dictated that less than a quarter of Hong Kong’s legislature would be directly elected, compared to half before. It also created a candidate vetting committee with the power to unilaterally bar anyone deemed insufficiently loyal to the government. And it reshuffled the membership of another election committee that selects Hong Kong’s top leader, stacking it with more Beijing loyalists.But some details of the new system, including exactly who would sit on the reconstituted election committee, remained unclear until Tuesday, when the Hong Kong government published a bill of more than 500 pages. The bill made clear that the election committee — already tilted in favor of the central government — would be filled with even more pro-establishment business and interest group leaders, as well as members of pro-Beijing political bodies.Also included was a proposal that would criminalize encouraging voters to cast blank or modified ballots, or to forgo voting altogether. Boycotting elections is an idea that has been discussed among some in the pro-democracy camp.The bill is expected to be passed easily by the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s local lawmaking body which is composed entirely of pro-establishment figures after the mass resignation of the opposition last year.“We all want elections to be very fair, so any manipulation to jeopardize or sabotage an election should not be permitted,” Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said at a news conference.The bill also laid out dates for upcoming electoral contests. The 1,500 members of the election committee are scheduled to be elected on Sept. 19.Legislative elections are set for Dec. 19. They had originally been slated for last September, but the government postponed the vote, citing coronavirus concerns, though opposition figures accused it of trying to forestall an election defeat.A demonstration in September protesting the government’s decision to postpone legislative council elections.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe chief executive election is scheduled to be held in March.While the majority of the proposal focused on the composition of the election committee — which in addition to choosing the chief executive will also be empowered to fill 40 legislative seats — it also included several changes to the few remaining directly elected seats. Some geographic districts for those seats will be redrawn, combining areas that had leaned pro-democracy with those more staunchly pro-establishment.Still, some experts said that the changes were unlikely to have much effect on the already-battered political opposition. After all, the changes to the directly elected seats could disadvantage pro-democracy candidates only if any stood for office in the first place — a scenario that seemed increasingly unlikely given the new vetting procedures, said Ma Ngok, an associate professor of government at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.“The key issue is who in the pro-democracy camp will still run and who will be allowed to run,” Professor Ma said. “If you have already built in a very stringent screening system, then I don’t think it is actually necessary for the government to change” the system.In the weeks since Beijing approved the electoral plans, the authorities have repeatedly said that Hong Kong’s residents had broadly embraced the changes.But in moving to criminalize protest voting, Professor Ma said, the government seemed to be acknowledging that the changes were in fact unpopular, at least among some segment of the population.“It seems that the government thinks that actually a lot of people will try to boycott or cast a protest vote,” he said. More

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      Why Kentucky Just Became the Only Red State to Expand Voting Rights

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      At a time when states with Republican-led legislatures are rushing to restrict ballot access, Kentucky proved the exception to the rule. The reasons are both political and logistical.Jennifer Decker has solid conservative credentials. A first-term Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky who used to work for Senator Rand Paul, she represents a county that voted for Donald J. Trump last year by nearly 30 percentage points.Yet at a time when many of her Republican counterparts around the country are racing to pass stringent new restrictions on voting — fueled in part by Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election — Ms. Decker’s first major bill swerved.It aimed to make it easier for people to vote in the state.Kentucky on Wednesday became the only state in the country with a Republican-controlled legislature to expand voting rights after a bitter presidential election that tested the country’s democratic institutions and elevated ballot access as an animating issue for both parties.In a signing ceremony on Wednesday, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, hailed the bill as a bipartisan effort that cut against the push in other Republican legislatures to put up barriers to voting.“When much of the country has put in more restrictive laws, Kentucky legislators, Kentucky leaders were able to come together to stand up for democracy and to expand the opportunity for people to vote,” Mr. Beshear said.The law in Kentucky establishes three days of early voting in the state; introduces voting centers that would allow for more in-person balloting options; creates an online portal to register and request ballots; and allows voters to fix problems with absentee ballots, a process known as curing.The reasons that Kentucky Republicans have diverged on voting rights range from the political to the logistical. For one, they had an easier sell: With sweeping new rules allowing the election to be held safely during the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans in Kentucky had one of their best cycles in years, with both Senator Mitch McConnell and Mr. Trump easily winning in the state.And expanding voting access in Kentucky was a low bar to clear; the state had some of the tightest voting laws in the country before 2020, with not a single day of early voting, and strict limits on absentee balloting.The push in Kentucky and other states — including the Democratic-controlled Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii and Massachusetts — reflects an odd outcome of the pandemic: The most challenging election in nearly a century brought about expansive changes across the country to ease access to the ballot box.“We did things a little bit differently because of Covid, and I just thought that some of that might help us going forward,” Ms. Decker said in an interview. “And election reform should not be partisan. Partisan majorities can change at any time.”Republicans and Democrats alike in Kentucky have overwhelmingly supported and celebrated the bill, heralding it as a welcome bipartisan achievement. But voting rights advocates have been more muted, pointing to the legislation’s relatively limited scope and its mixture of measures, like the introduction of a short early voting period, as well as new restrictions heralded under the banner of election security. They caution that the proposal represents a modest improvement in a state long hostile to voting rights — a fact even conservatives have acknowledged.“Kentucky actually had probably, until this point, the most restrictive laws in the country on voting,” said Michael Adams, the Republican secretary of state, who was the leading force behind the bill. “And that’s what we’re trying to change.”Michael Adams, the Republican secretary of state of Kentucky, led the push to pass the voting bill. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesIndeed, even with its newly expanded voting access, Kentucky’s voting rules remain comparatively stricter than those of Georgia, which recently overhauled its electoral system with new restrictions on voting. Even under Georgia’s new law, for example, the state still has no-excuse absentee voting and a much longer earlier voting period than Kentucky.Voting rights experts note that three days of early voting is still a short window compared with other states that offer the process, and that the law does not have a provision for no-excuse absentee voting. It also includes restrictions like the banning of ballot collection, a practice in which one person gathers and drops off multiple voters’ ballots.Nearly all of the country’s current efforts to expand voting access are unfolding in states with Democratic-led legislatures, and they go much further in expanding access to the ballot than Kentucky’s law does.Connecticut is trying to make no-excuse absentee voting permanent after the method worked successfully in last year’s election, and Delaware is working on a constitutional amendment to add no-excuse absentee voting. Hawaii is progressing toward the introduction of automatic voter registration. And Massachusetts is seeking a host of changes, including adding same-day voter registration and extending early voting.“The election in 2020 helps give them confidence that they could act quickly in expanding access and not have to go slowly,” Sylvia Albert, the director of the voting rights group Common Cause, said of these states.She said that Kentucky did not fall into the category of true expansion, because its new law will provide fewer options than the emergency orders of 2020. “This might be a political calculation made by Democrats in the state, so that Republicans don’t go even further in suppressing the vote like other states have,” she said. “But as an election, voter access bill, it is not successful.”While Kentucky’s compromise — expanding voting access while enacting some more restrictive policies in the name of election security — could serve as a model for other Republican-controlled states, it is more likely to be a blip in a year of G.O.P.-led pushes for voting restrictions.Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky at the State Capitol in Frankfort.Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader, via Associated PressIndeed, it was a unique set of circumstances and an unlikely coalition in Kentucky that led to the state’s first steps in a generation to expand voting access.Fresh off a successful free, fair and safe election conducted with a host of temporary policies during the pandemic, Mr. Adams began the dutiful task of surveying county election administrators about the new rules. He had expected complaints, but instead found strong support for some of the measures, particularly the multiple days of early voting.So Mr. Adams went to the Republican leadership in the Legislature to gauge its interest in adopting some of the policies. After a 2020 election in which Republicans picked up seats in the State Legislature and Mr. McConnell cruised to an easy victory, G.O.P. leaders in Kentucky had a far different political calculus than Republicans in Georgia, who saw their state turn blue for the first time in a generation. They were open, they said, though not necessarily eager to shake things up.“The hard part at first was finding a sponsor,” Mr. Adams said, “because this was seen as so unlikely that no one wanted to be the sponsor.”Enter Mr. Paul. The junior senator from Kentucky, who is up for re-election next year and has repeatedly made false statements about the 2020 election, had reached out to Mr. Adams with some concerns of his own regarding Kentucky election law. But he soon came around to the idea of a compromise effort, expanding some points of access while restricting others.And he had an idea for a sponsor: Ms. Decker, who had been interested in an election overhaul after the high turnout in last year’s vote.“I’ve been a lifelong Republican, I was chairman of the Republican Party in my county for a long time, and I’ve never felt like voter turnout was anything but good,” Ms. Decker said.The bill quickly began gaining momentum in the Legislature. And Democrats, who eyed the effort warily, would soon come on board.“We saw a bill come forward this year, and you’ve got to recognize some political realities of Kentucky,” said Morgan McGarvey, the Democratic minority leader in the State Senate. “This bill does not do everything that I would like to see in an election reform law, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.”For years, Democrats in the State Legislature had worked to expand voting in Kentucky, both by putting forward large, transformative bills that never had a chance of passing, and pared down efforts like simply seeking to keep polls open until 8 p.m. (Kentucky currently closes polls at 6 p.m. on Election Day, the earliest shuttering time in the country along with Indiana’s.) The party was consistently rebuffed by the State Senate, which has been controlled by Republicans since 1999.“No one can argue: This expands voting options in Kentucky,” Mr. McGarvey said. “Every Kentuckian has more choices of when and how to vote than they did before this law. So that’s something we have been fighting for for years, and I’m not going to slow it up.”Republicans have been quick to praise the bill. Mr. Paul said in a statement that he was “proud” of the effort, and that it would ensure “our elections are accurate and accessible.” The Honest Elections Project, a conservative group that has joined legal efforts seeking to roll back voting access, said the bill had found “a balance” on “the need for both access and security.”Joshua Douglas, a professor of election law at the University of Kentucky who was part of a small team of county election officials and other experts who consulted with Mr. Adams on the initial effort, said that “it’s not the bill I would have written by any means.”He added: “But it has a lot of stuff I like and not a ton I hate.” More