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      Biden Speaks on Voting Rights in Philadelphia

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      WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Tuesday that the fight against restrictive voting laws was the “most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War” and called Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election “a big lie.”In an impassioned speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden tried to reinvigorate the stalled Democratic effort to pass federal voting rights legislation and called on Republicans “in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God’s sake.”“Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote,” the president said in remarks at the National Constitution Center. “Have you no shame?”But his words collided with reality: Even as Republican-led bills meant to restrict voting access make their way through statehouses across the country, two bills aiming to expand voting rights nationwide are languishing in Congress. And Mr. Biden has bucked increasing pressure from Democrats to support pushing the legislation through the Senate by eliminating the filibuster, no matter the political cost.In fact, the president seemed to acknowledge that the legislation had little hope of passing as he shifted his focus to the midterm elections.“We’re going to face another test in 2022,” Mr. Biden said. “A new wave of unprecedented voter suppression, and raw and sustained election subversion. We have to prepare now.”He said he would start an effort “to educate voters about the changing laws, register them to vote and then get the vote out.”The partisan fight over voting rights was playing out even as the president spoke, with a group of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to deny Republicans the quorum they need to pass new voting restrictions there.In his speech, Mr. Biden characterized the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — hatched and spread by his predecessor, Mr. Trump — as a “darker and more sinister” underbelly of American politics. He did not mention Mr. Trump by name but warned that “bullies and merchants of fear” had posed an existential threat to democracy.“No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny, such high standards,” Mr. Biden said. “The big lie is just that: a big lie.”About a dozen Republican-controlled states passed laws this spring to restrict voting or significantly change election rules, in part because of Mr. Trump’s efforts to sow doubt about the 2020 results.Republicans, who have called Democrats’ warnings about democracy hyperbolic, argue that laws are needed to tamp down on voter fraud, despite evidence that it is not a widespread problem. They have mounted an aggressive campaign to portray Mr. Biden’s voting-rights efforts as self-serving federalization of elections to benefit Democrats.The president’s speech, delivered against the backdrop of the birthplace of American democracy, was intended to present the right to vote as a shared ideal, despite the realities of a deeply fractured political landscape.Democratic efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Washington have stalled in the evenly divided Senate. Last month, Republicans filibustered the broad elections overhaul known as the For the People Act, and they are expected to do the same if Democrats try to bring up the other measure — the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, named for a former Georgia congressman and civil rights icon — which would restore parts of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.In a statement, Danielle Álvarez, the communications director for the Republican National Committee, said that Mr. Biden’s speech amounted to “lies and theatrics.” Republicans had unanimously rejected the For the People Act as a Democratic attempt to “pass their federal takeover of our elections,” she said.There were also concerns among more moderate members of Mr. Biden’s party that the legislation was too partisan. Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have publicly said they would not support rolling back the filibuster to enact it.But other Democrats see a worrying increase in efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to restrict voting, along with court rulings that would make it harder to fight encroachments on voting rights.A Supreme Court ruling this month weakened the one enforcement clause of the Voting Rights Act that remained after the court invalidated its major provision in 2013. Mr. Biden said last year that strengthening the act would be one of his first priorities after taking office; but on Tuesday, he sought to shift responsibility to lawmakers.“The court’s decision, as harmful as it is, does not limit the Congress’s ability to repair the damage done,” the president said. “As soon as Congress passes the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, I will sign it and want the whole world to see it.”His rallying cry only underscored the impossibility of the task: Neither bill currently has a path to his desk.Activists who had wondered whether Mr. Biden would stake out a public position on the filibuster got their answer on Tuesday: “I’m not filibustering now,” the president told reporters who shouted questions after his speech.“It was strange to hear,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the anti-filibuster group Fix Our Senate, said after watching the speech. “He did a great job of laying out the problem, but then stopped short of talking about the actual solution that would be needed to passing legislation to address the problem.”As Mr. Biden spoke in Philadelphia, the group of Texas Democrats had traveled to Washington, where they were trying to delay state lawmakers from taking up restrictive voting measures.Representative Marc Veasey, Democrat of Texas, speaking at a press conference with Democratic members of the Texas Legislature on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesBoth measures would ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting; prohibit election officials from proactively sending absentee ballot applications to voters who had not requested them; add new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; limit the types of assistance that can be provided to voters; and greatly expand the authority and autonomy of partisan poll watchers.In Austin, Republicans vented their anger at the fleeing group, and Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to call “special session after special session after special session” until an election bill passed. The handful of Democratic lawmakers who did not go to Washington were rounded up and ordered onto the Statehouse floor. Shawn Thierry, a Democratic state representative from Houston, posted to Twitter a video of a Statehouse sergeant-at-arms and a state trooper entering her office to order her to be locked in the House chamber.“This is not an issue about Democrats or Republicans,” Vice President Kamala Harris told the Texas lawmakers when she met with them on Tuesday. “This is about Americans and how Americans are experiencing this issue.”James Talarico, 32, the youngest member of the Texas Legislature, said the group of Democrats had gone to Washington, in part, to pressure Mr. Biden to do more.“We can’t listen to more speeches,” Mr. Talarico said. “I’m incredibly proud not only as a Democrat but also an American of what President Biden has accomplished in his first few months in office. But protecting our democracy should have been at the very top of the list, because without it none of these issues matter.”The restrictions in the Texas bills mirror key provisions of a restrictive law passed this year in Georgia, which went even further to assert Republican control over the State Election Board and empower the party to suspend county election officials. In June, the Justice Department sued Georgia over the law, the Biden administration’s first significant move to challenge voter restrictions at the state level.“The 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real,” Mr. Biden said as he listed the details of the Texas bills. “It’s unrelenting, and we are going to challenge it vigorously.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      The Voter Fraud Fraud

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      It was March 3, 2020, the day of the Democratic primary in Texas, and Hervis Rogers, a 62-year-old Black man, was intent on making his voice heard at the ballot box. He arrived at the polling place around 7 p.m. and joined the line. More

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      How G.O.P. Laws in Montana Could Complicate Voting for Native Americans

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      STARR SCHOOL, Mont. — One week before the 2020 election, Laura Roundine had emergency open-heart surgery. She returned to her home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation with blunt instructions: Don’t go anywhere while you recover, because if you get Covid-19, you’ll probably die.That meant Ms. Roundine, 59, couldn’t vote in person as planned. Neither could her husband, lest he risk bringing the virus home. It wasn’t safe to go to the post office to vote by mail, and there is no home delivery here in Starr School — or on much of the reservation in northwestern Montana.The couple’s saving grace was Renee LaPlant, a Blackfeet community organizer for the Native American advocacy group Western Native Voice, who ensured that their votes would count by shuttling applications and ballots back and forth between their home and a satellite election office in Browning, one of two on the roughly 2,300-square-mile reservation.But under H.B. 530, a law passed this spring by the Republican-controlled State Legislature, that would not have been allowed. Western Native Voice pays its organizers, and paid ballot collection is now banned.“It’s taking their rights from them, and they still have the right to vote,” Ms. Roundine said of fellow Blackfeet voters who can’t leave their homes. “I wouldn’t have wanted that to be taken from me.”The ballot collection law is part of a nationwide push by Republican state legislators to rewrite election rules, and is similar to an Arizona law that the Supreme Court upheld on Thursday. In Montana — where Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was elected in November to replace Steve Bullock, a Democrat who had held veto power for eight years — the effects of that and a separate law eliminating same-day voter registration are likely to fall heavily on Native Americans, who make up about 7 percent of the state’s population.Laura Roundine at home in Starr School, Mont., on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. She and her husband were two of the last beneficiaries of Western Native Voice’s get-out-the-vote program last year.Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesIt has been less than a century since Native Americans in the United States gained the right to vote by law, and they never attained the ability to do so easily in practice. New restrictions — ballot collection bans, earlier registration deadlines, stricter voter ID laws and more — are likely to make it harder, and the starkest consequences may be seen in places like Montana: sprawling, sparsely populated Western and Great Plains states where Native Americans have a history of playing decisive roles in close elections.In 2018, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, won seven of eight Montana counties containing the headquarters of a federally recognized tribe and received 50.3 percent of the vote statewide, a result without which his party would not currently control the Senate. (One of the eight tribes wasn’t federally recognized at the time but is now.) In 2016, Mr. Bullock carried the same counties and won with 50.2 percent. Both times, Glacier County, which contains the bulk of the Blackfeet reservation, was the most Democratic in the state.In recent years, Republicans in several states have passed laws imposing requirements that Native Americans are disproportionately unlikely to meet or targeting voting methods they are disproportionately likely to use, such as ballot collection, which is common in communities where transportation and other infrastructure are limited. They say ballot collection can enable election fraud or allow advocacy groups to influence votes, though there is no evidence of widespread fraud.On the floor of the Montana House in April, in response to criticism of H.B. 530’s effects on Native Americans who rely on paid ballot collection, the bill’s primary sponsor, State Representative Wendy McKamey, said, “There are going to be habits that are going to have to change because we need to keep our security at the utmost.” She argued that the bill would keep voting as “uninfluenced by monies as possible.”Ms. McKamey did not respond to requests for comment for this article.Geography, poverty and politics all create obstacles for Native Americans. The Blackfeet reservation is roughly the size of Delaware but had only two election offices and four ballot drop-off locations last year, one of which was listed as open for just 14 hours over two days. Many other reservations in Montana have no polling places, meaning residents must go to the county seat to vote, and many don’t have cars or can’t afford to take time off.Renee LaPlant, a Blackfeet community organizer for Western Native Voice, said she couldn’t begin to estimate how many miles she had driven to help people return their ballots.Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesBrowning, Mont., in June. Glacier County has a satellite election office in Browning, the county’s only office on the 2,285-square-mile reservation.Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesAdvocacy groups like Western Native Voice have become central to get-out-the-vote efforts, to the point that the Blackfeet government’s website directs voters who need help not to a tribal office but to W.N.V.Ms. LaPlant, who was one of about a dozen Western Native Voice organizers on the Blackfeet reservation last year, said she couldn’t begin to estimate how far they had collectively driven. One organizer alone logged 700 miles.One of the voters the team helped was Heidi Bull Calf, whose 19-year-old son has a congenital heart defect. Knowing the danger he would be in if he got Covid-19, she and her family barely left their home in Browning for a year.Asked whether there was any way she could have returned her ballot on her own without putting her son’s health at risk, Ms. Bull Calf, the director of after-school programs at an elementary school, said no.Members of Western Native Voice at a three-day community organizing training in Bozeman, Mont., in early June. Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesThe ballot collection law says that “for the purposes of enhancing election security, a person may not provide or offer to provide, and a person may not accept, a pecuniary benefit in exchange for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting or delivering ballots.” Government entities, election administrators, mail carriers and a few others are exempt, but advocacy groups aren’t. Violators will be fined $100 per ballot.In May, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Native American Rights Fund sued the Montana secretary of state, Christi Jacobsen, a Republican, over the new laws. The lawsuit alleges that the ballot collection limits and the elimination of same-day voter registration violate the Montana Constitution and are “part of a broader scheme” to disenfranchise Native voters. It was filed in a state district court that struck down a farther-reaching ballot collection ban as discriminatory last year.A spokesman for Ms. Jacobsen did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Ms. Jacobsen said, “The voters of Montana spoke when they elected a secretary of state that promised improved election integrity with voter ID and voter registration deadlines, and we will work hard to defend those measures.”The state-level legal process may be Native Americans’ only realistic recourse now, because on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a ballot collection law in Arizona, signaling that federal challenges to voting restrictions based on disparate impact on voters of color were unlikely to succeed.Voting difficulties are acute not just for the Blackfeet but also for Montana’s seven other federally recognized tribes: the Crow and Northern Cheyenne, based on reservations of the same names; the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation; the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre of the Fort Belknap Reservation; the Assiniboine and Sioux of the Fort Peck Reservation; the Chippewa Cree of Rocky Boy’s Reservation; and the Little Shell Chippewa in Great Falls.On the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Reservations, many residents have no internet. Often, the only way to register to vote is in person at election offices in Hardin and Forsyth, 60 miles or more one way from parts of the reservations..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}This made same-day voter registration a popular option for people who could make the trip only once. But under a new law, H.B. 176, the registration deadline is noon on the day before the election.Heidi Bull Calf, of Browning, said she would not have been able to vote safely without the help of Western Native Voice.Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesKeaton Sunchild, the political director at Western Native Voice, said that last year, hundreds of Native Americans had registered to vote after that time.Lauri Kindness, a Western Native Voice organizer on the Crow Reservation, where she was born and lives, said: “There are many barriers and hardships in our communities with basic things like transportation. From my community, the majority of our voters were able to gain access to the ballot through same-day voter registration.”State Representative Sharon Greef, the Republican who sponsored H.B. 176, said its purpose was to shorten lines and reduce the burden on county clerks and recorders by enabling them to spend Election Day focusing only on ballots, without also processing registrations. She said that if people voted early, they could still register and cast their ballot in one trip.“I tried to think of any way this could affect all voters, not only the Native Americans, and if I had felt this in any way would have disenfranchised any voter, discouraged any voter from getting to the polls, I couldn’t in good conscience have carried the bill,” Ms. Greef said. “Voting is a right that we all have, but it’s a right that we can’t take lightly, and we have to plan ahead for it.”At a community organizing training in Bozeman in early June, Western Native Voice leaders framed voting rights within the broader context of self-determination and political representation for Native Americans.With the State Legislature adjourned for the year and the lawsuit in the hands of lawyers, organizers are turning their focus to redistricting.Montana will get a second House seat as a result of the 2020 census, and Native Americans want to maximize their influence in electing members of Congress. But arguably more important are the maps that will be drawn for the State Legislature, which could give Native Americans greater power to elect the representatives who make Montana’s voting laws.Redistricting will be handled by a commission consisting of two Republicans, two Democrats and a nonpartisan presiding officer chosen by the Montana Supreme Court: Maylinn Smith, a former tribal judge and tribal law professor who is herself Native American.Ta’jin Perez, deputy director of Western Native Voice, urged the group’s organizers to map out communities with common interests in and around their reservations, down to the street level. W.N.V. would send that data to the Native American Rights Fund, which would use it to inform redistricting suggestions.“You can either define it yourself,” Mr. Perez warned, “or the folks in Helena will do it for you.”The Northern Cheyenne Reservation in June. On the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Reservations, many residents have no internet and must register to vote in person. Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times More

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      Democrats Face High New Bar in Opposing Voting Laws

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      Democrats and voting rights groups say they can no longer count on the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to serve as a backstop for preventing racially discriminatory voting restrictions.The 6-to-3 decision by the Supreme Court on Thursday that upheld voting restrictions in Arizona has effectively left voting rights advocates with a higher bar for bringing federal cases under the Voting Rights Act: proving discriminatory intent.That burden is prompting civil rights and voting groups to recalibrate their approach to challenging in court the raft of new restrictions that Republican-controlled legislatures have passed this year in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s election loss in November. No longer, they say, can they count on the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to serve as a backstop for preventing racially discriminatory voting restrictions.“We have to remember that the Supreme Court is not going to save us — it’s not going to protect our democracy in these moments when it is most necessary that it does so,” Sam Spital, the director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said Friday.The high court gutted the central protection of the Voting Rights Act in a 2013 decision, and on Thursday the court further limited the act’s reach in combating discriminatory laws, establishing strict new guidelines for proving the laws’ effects on voters of color and thus requiring litigants to clear the much higher bar of proving purposeful intent to discriminate.Mr. Spital said his group would have to carefully assess its next moves and “think very carefully” before bringing new cases that, if defeated, could set damaging new precedents. The Arizona case, filed in 2016 by the Democratic National Committee, was considered a weak vehicle for challenging new voting laws; even the Biden administration acknowledged that the Arizona law was not discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. Choosing the wrong cases, in the wrong jurisdictions, could lead to further setbacks, Mr. Spital and other voting rights advocates said.At the same time, Mr. Spital said, it is imperative that voting restrictions enacted by Republicans not go unchallenged.“It will force us to work even harder in the cases that we do bring,” he said. “Once the rules of the game are set, even if they are tilted against us, we have the resources — we have extraordinary lawyers, extraordinary clients, and we have the facts on our side.”Thursday’s ruling also laid bare an uncomfortable new reality for Democrats and voting activists: that under existing law, they can expect little help from the federal courts on election laws that are passed on a partisan basis by the party that controls a state government. Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Florida and Iowa have moved aggressively to push through voting laws, brushing aside protests from Democrats, voting rights groups and even major corporations.Arizona Republicans were candid about the partisan nature of their efforts when the Supreme Court heard the case in March. A lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party told the justices that the restrictions were needed because without them, Republicans in the state would be “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.”“It’s much harder to prove these things — it takes a lot more evidence,” said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in voting rights and redistricting cases. “Courts are often reluctant to label legislators racist. That’s why the effects standard was added in 1982.”The high court’s decision also raises the stakes for 2022 contests for governor in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Democratic governors are poised to block measures proposed by Republican-controlled legislatures. If a Republican won the governor’s seat in any of those states, the legislature would have a clear path to pushing through new voting laws.Republicans on Friday lauded the Supreme Court ruling, calling it a validation of the need to combat voter fraud — though no evidence of widespread fraud emerged in President Biden’s victory.Justin Riemer, the chief counsel at the Republican National Committee, argued that the new “guideposts” set by Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, were welcome and would force a recognition of the broader options for voting available in a state.“It reaffirms, for example, that states have an incredibly important interest in protecting against voter fraud and promoting voter confidence,” Mr. Riemer said. “When the court looked at Arizona’s laws, it noted how generous the voting provisions were.”Mr. Riemer noted that Democrats would also have a harder time in meeting new standards for showing that laws impose unreasonable burdens on voters.“I don’t want to say completely shuts them out of Section 2, but it’s going to make it very difficult for them to strike down laws that are really minimally, if at all, burdensome,” Mr. Riemer said, referring to the section of the Voting Rights Act that addresses racially discriminatory practices.Major Supreme Court decisions affirming a new restriction on voting have historically been followed by waves of new state-level legislation. In 2011, 34 states introduced some form of new voter identification legislation after the court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law in 2008.The first immediate test of a newly emboldened legislature will come next week in Texas, where lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene for a special session, in a second attempt by Republicans to pass an election overhaul bill. The first attempt failed after Democrats in the State Legislature staged a contentious late-night walkout, temporarily halting proposals that were among the most restrictive in the country.Those proposals included bans on new methods of voting, a reduction in Sunday voting hours and provisions that would make it easier to overturn elections and would greatly empower partisan poll watchers.The uncertain legal fights will play out in a federal judiciary remade during Mr. Trump’s administration, and Democrats in Congress have failed to enact federal voter protections.The legal defense fund that Mr. Spital represents sued Georgia in May over its new voting laws, arguing that the laws would have a discriminatory effect. Other lawsuits, including one the Department of Justice filed last week, argue that Georgia acted with intent to discriminate against voters of color.But some Democrats, while lamenting the decision by the Supreme Court, noted that they still had plenty of constitutional tools to challenge repressive voting laws.“Obviously, it is now going to be more difficult to litigate,” said Aneesa McMillan, a deputy executive director at the super PAC Priorities USA, who oversees the organization’s voting rights efforts. “But most of our cases that we challenge, we challenge based on the First, the 14th and the 15th amendments of the Constitution.”Among the guideposts Justice Alito articulated is an assessment of “the standard practice” of voting in 1982, when Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was amended.“It is relevant that in 1982 States typically required nearly all voters to cast their ballots in person on election day and allowed only narrow and tightly defined categories of voters to cast absentee ballots,” Justice Alito wrote.Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling established a series of guideposts for determining whether merely the effect of a voting law is discriminatory, rather than the intent.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe court did not address the purpose clause of Section 2. But those cases often rely on racist statements by lawmakers or irregularities in the legislative process — trickier elements of a legal case to prove than the effects.“You’re not going to get that smoking gun kind of evidence,” said Sophia Lakin, the deputy director of the A.C.L.U.’s Voting Rights Project. “It’s pulling together a lot of circumstantial pieces to show the purpose is to take away the rights of voters of color.”People protested voting restrictions outside the Texas Capitol in Austin in May.Mikala Compton/ReutersIn Texas, some Democrats in the Legislature had been hoping that they could work toward a more moderate version of the bill in the special session that starts next week; it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court decision will induce Republicans to favor an even more restrictive bill.Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and State Representative Briscoe Cain, both Republicans, did not respond to requests for comment. Speaker Dan Phelan and State Senator Bryan Hughes, both Republicans, declined to comment.But whether the Supreme Court decision will open the floodgates for more restrictive voting legislation in other states remains an open question; more than 30 state legislatures have adjourned for the year, and others have already passed their voting laws.“It’s hard to imagine what a spike in voting restrictions would look like now, because we are already seeing such a dramatic surge, more than at any time since Reconstruction,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a research institute. “But passing new waves of legislation has certainly been the response in recent years.”Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin is one of the Democratic governors who are holding off voting measures passed by Republican-led legislatures. On Wednesday, he vetoed the first of several pieces of Republican legislation on the electoral process.In an interview, he said Republicans’ monthslong effort to relitigate the 2020 election had had the effect of placing voting rights on the level of health care and education among the top priorities of Wisconsin voters.“It’s rising up as far as people’s recognizing that it’s an important issue,” Mr. Evers said. “They brought it on themselves, frankly, the Republicans have. I don’t think the people of Wisconsin thought the election was stolen. They understand that it was a fair election. And so the Republicans’ inability to accept Donald Trump’s loss is making it more of a bread-and-butter issue here.” More

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      2020 Election Spurs Resignations and Retirements of Officials

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      The draining work of 2020 has spurred resignations and retirements. In a recent survey, one in three officials said they felt unsafe in the jobs.WASHINGTON — In November, Roxanna Moritz won her fourth term unopposed as the chief election officer in metro Davenport, Iowa, with more votes than any other candidate on the ballot.Five months later, she quit. “I emotionally couldn’t take the stress anymore,” she said in an interview.For Ms. Moritz, a Democrat, the initial trigger was a Republican-led investigation into her decision to give hazard pay to poll workers who had braved the coronavirus pandemic last fall. But what sealed her decision was a new law enacted by the Iowa legislature in February that made voting harder — and imposed fines and criminal penalties on election officials for errors like her failure to seek approval for $9,400 in extra pay.“I could be charged with a felony. I could lose my voting rights,” she said. “So I decided to leave.”Ms. Moritz is one casualty of a year in which election officials were repeatedly threatened, scapegoated and left exhausted — all while managing a historically bitter presidential vote during a pandemic.She has company. In 14 southwestern Ohio counties, one in four directors or deputy auditors of elections has left. One in four election officials in Kansas either quit or lost re-election in November. Twenty-one directors or deputies have left or will leave election posts in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, according to a tally by the reporting consortiums Spotlight PA and Votebeat.Some of those represent ordinary churn in a job where many appointees are nearing retirement, and others are subject to the vagaries of elections. In a survey of some 850 election officials by Reed College and the Democracy Fund in April, more than one in six said they planned to retire before the 2024 election.Others are leaving early, and more departures are in the wings. In Michigan, most of the 1,500 clerks who handle elections run for office, said Mary Clark, the president of the state Association of Municipal Clerks. “That said,” she added, “I am beginning to hear rumblings from a few appointed city clerks who are wondering if this ‘climate’ is worth the stress.”Election workers sorting ballots at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia last November.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesAt a gathering of Florida election officials this month, “multiple people came up to me to say, ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this,’” said David Becker, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “There are the threats, the stress, the attacks on democracy on the officers, on the staff.“We may lose a generation of professionalism and expertise in election administration,” he said. “It’s hard to measure the impact.”In interviews, some election officials said they also worried that a flood of departures in the next two years could drain elections of nonpartisan expertise at a hinge moment for American democracy — or worse, encourage partisans to fill the vacuum. They cite moves by partisans alleging that the last election was stolen in Arizona, Georgia and elsewhere to run for statewide offices that control election administration.That may be less likely at the local level, but the pain is no less acute. “We’re losing awesome election administrators who have tenure and know what they’re doing,” said Michelle Wilcox, the director of the Auglaize County Board of Elections in Wapakoneta, Ohio.The 2020 election was brutal for election officials by any measure. Beyond the added burden of a record turnout, many effectively found themselves conducting two votes — the one they had traditionally overseen at polling places, and a second mail-in vote that dwarfed that of past elections. The pandemic led to shortages of poll workers and money for masks and other protection equipment and vastly complicated voting preparations.Atop that, baseless claims of rigged voting and vote-counting by President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans elevated once-obscure auditors and clerks to public figures. And it made them targets for vilification by Trump supporters.A report issued last week by the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University underscored the consequences: In a survey of election officials, one in three said they felt unsafe in the jobs. One in five said they were concerned about death threats.Better than three in four said the explosion of disinformation about elections had made their jobs harder. More than half said it had made them more dangerous.“The fact that one in three election workers doesn’t feel safe in their jobs is an extraordinary number and a real challenge to our democracy,” said Miles Rapoport, a senior democracy fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. The center contributed to the report.Election challengers yelled as they watched workers count absentee ballots in Detroit last November. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesIf lies and misstatements continue to fuel mistrust of elections and a hostility toward those who run them, “the entire infrastructure of how the nation governs itself becomes at risk,” he said.In Ohio, Ms. Wilcox said she and her office staff logged some 200 additional hours to conduct a November election that drew 25,940 voters — an almost 80 percent turnout.The 2020 vote, she said, was the first to include training in de-escalating standoffs with angry voters who refused to wear masks, and the first in which officials spent considerable time addressing baseless claims of fraud.“It was tough,” she said. “I was like, ‘Is this really what I want to do?’”In Butler County, Pa., Shari Brewer resigned as director of the Board of Elections in April 2020 — even before the state’s presidential primary.“I could see what was coming,” she said. “We had already budgeted for extra help and overtime, and this was the first primary in Pennsylvania where mail-in ballots were implemented” — a state law allowing no-excuse absentee balloting had passed the previous year.The workload increased, and no help arrived. So after 10 years — and still at the bottom of the county’s pay scale, she added — she threw in the towel.Indeed, the report issued last week said election officials singled out the crushing workload as a reason for leaving. Behind that, Mr. Rapoport said, is the failure of governments to address what he called an enormously underfunded election system that is a linchpin of democracy.The report called on the Justice Department to create an election threat task force to track down and prosecute those who terrorize election workers and for states to allot money to add security for officials. It recommended that federal and state governments, social media companies and internet search engines develop ways to better combat false election claims and take them offline more quickly.And it also asked states to take steps to shield election officials from political pressure and politically motivated lawsuits and investigations.Officials processing ballots in Madison, Wis., in November.Lauren Justice for The New York TimesParadoxically, Republican-controlled legislatures have moved in the opposite direction on some of those issues. Texas and Arizona have enacted laws explicitly banning private donations to support election work, embracing false claims from the right that private foundations in 2020 directed contributions to Democratic strongholds. Republicans in a dozen states have considered launching Arizona-style investigations of the 2020 vote despite warnings that they are feeding a movement of election-fraud believers.Ms. Clark, the head of the Michigan clerks’ association, said she believed that the pace of departures there would be influenced by the fate of Republican-backed legislation that would tighten voting rules and restrict election officials’ authority.And in Iowa, the Republican-controlled legislature voted this spring to shorten early-voting periods, clamp down on absentee ballot rules, sharply limit ballot drop boxes — and take aim at the county auditors who run elections. One clause eliminates much of their ability to take steps to make voting easier. Another makes it a felony to disregard election guidance from the secretary of state and levies fines of up to $10,000 for “technical infractions” of their duties.In Davenport, Ms. Moritz said, the pandemic and election-fraud drumbeat all but upended preparations for last year’s election. Tensions rose after she sparred with the Republican-run county board of supervisors over accepting donations to offset rising election costs.When poll workers were hired, she said, she checked with officials to make sure there was enough money in her $80-million-a-year budget to cover hazard pay. But the supervisors had set their pay at $12 an hour, and she failed to ask them for permission to increase it.Ms. Moritz says she made a mistake. “Nobody benefited from it but the poll workers,” she said. Two weeks after the election, when the county attorney called to tell her the pay was being investigated, she said, “I literally puked in my garbage can.”The supervisors have said their inquiry was not politically motivated, and the state auditor, a Democrat, is looking into the misstep. But in the storm of publicity that followed the supervisors’ inquiry, Ms. Moritz said, she began to receive threats. And any thought of staying on vanished after the legislature began to consider reining in auditors’ powers and penalizing them for errors like hers.“People are starting to second-guess if this is the profession they want to be in,” she said. “It was always a stressful job, and now it’s more so. And all these things coming down the pipe make it worse.”Susan C. Beachy More

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      Dear Leader: A Near-Perfect Letter From a Trump Sycophant, Annotated

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      State Senate President Chris Kapenga of Wisconsin.Scott Bauer/Associated PressFormer President Donald Trump recently accused three Wisconsin Republican leaders of “working hard to cover up election corruption” as he continued pushing lies about the November presidential vote. Mr. Trump delights in turning his fire on members of his party who he feels are being insufficiently servile. Many promptly prostrate themselves; a few shrug it off.Then there is State Senate President Chris Kapenga of Wisconsin, one of the Republicans singled out by Mr. Trump. He responded to the former president with a letter that approaches North Korean-style levels of Dear Leader obsequiousness.It is tempting to dismiss Mr. Kapenga’s missive as a desperate plea for Mr. Trump to stop picking on him — which it is. But it also provides a valuable master class in the art of Trump sycophancy. The text of the letter below has been annotated for instructional purposes.Mr. President,One of the most frustrating things to watch during your presidency was the continued attacks on you from fake news outlets with no accountability to truth.It is helpful early on to slip in a common Trumpian term like “fake news” or “Deep State” or “alternative facts.” This makes clear that you are operating in the same alternative reality as Mr. Trump.I can’t imagine the frustration you and your family felt. Unfortunately, in our positions of public service, we have to accept the reality that often “truth” in the media is no longer based on facts but simply what one feels like saying.Media bashing is a requirement when soliciting Mr. Trump. If you’re not willing to go there, don’t even bother.This leads me to your recent press release stating that I am responsible for holding up a forensic audit of the Wisconsin elections. This could not be further from the truth.The segue here from sucking up to gentle criticism is a smidge bumpy. And keep in mind that “truth” is a malleable concept for Mr. Trump.Let me first say that very few people have the honor of being named publicly by a United States president.Now you’re back on track: Having raised your concern, it is best to immediately backpedal and layer on more flattery. Plowing ahead with the details of your complaint without proper fertilizing risks getting Mr. Trump’s dander up.I never imagined mine would be mentioned, much less in this light, from a President that I have publicly supported, and still support.The genius of this sentence is that it sounds as though you’re expressing gratitude, even as you are expressing dismay.I feel I need to respond even though you will likely never hear of it, as the power of your pen to mine is like Thor’s hammer to a Bobby pin.Bonus points for going with a deity from Norse mythology. Mr. Trump clearly has a soft spot for the region, to the point that he expressed a desire for more Norwegian immigrants and even eyed buying Greenland from Denmark.Nevertheless, I need to correct your false claim against me.Oof. Another misstep: “False” is such a harsh, judgmental word. Would have been safer to go with “inaccurate” or, better still, “imprecise.”I never received a call from you or any of your sources asking about the election audit. If you had, I would have told you that long before your press release I called the auditor in charge of the election audit that is taking place in Wisconsin and requested a forensic component to the audit.Suggesting that Mr. Trump has behaved in any way other than perfectly is always dicey. What saves you here is immediately following up with reassurances that you, in fact, behaved exactly as he wanted.Prior to owning several businesses, I was an auditor, so I understand the importance of this being done to determine what took place in the last election. This will help guide us as legislators to put fixes in place for any issues found, and more importantly, to ensure the integrity of elections moving forward.Deft, fast pivot to expressing solidarity with Mr. Trump’s contention that there were serious voting “issues” requiring legislative “fixes.”I made specific requests on procedures and locations, both of which I have not, nor will not, disclose. If I am not satisfied with the procedures performed, I will request additional work be done. If anyone illegally attempts to hinder information from being obtained, I will use my subpoena powers to get it.Always good to throw in a bit of tough-guy posturing about how none of the libs or Deep State plotters can stand in the way of your mission.This leads me back to your press release. It is false, and I don’t appreciate it being done before calling me and finding out the truth. This is what both of us have fought against.It is unclear what anyone is fighting against here, but clarity should never be an impediment to flattery.Being cut from similar cloth in our backgrounds, and knowing that reparation must always be of more value than the wrong done, I have two requests.Curiously, Wikipedia identifies Mr. Kapenga as an accountant and business owner who has been in state politics for more than a decade. This would appear to make him as similar to the high-flying reality TV star and New York real estate scion as corduroy culottes are to cheetah-skin hot pants.First, I ask that you issue a press release in similar fashion that corrects the information and also encourages people to support what I have requested in the audit.Smart to sweeten your real ask by pairing it with something that Mr. Trump wants.Second, you owe me a round of golf at the club of your choice.Valiant attempt to lighten the mood while also playing to Mr. Trump’s vanity regarding the family business. Plus, offering him the chance to beat you at golf is smart, even if it requires you to throw the round.I write this as I am about to board a plane due to a family medical emergency.Bold move to appeal to Mr. Trump’s humanity.In addition to my Trump socks, I will pull up my Trump/Pence mask when I board the plane, as required by federal law.This bit of toadyism may feel like it’s going too far, but, with Mr. Trump, too far is never enough. And it never hurts to take a shot at the feds.I figure, if the liberals are going to force me to wear a mask, I am going to make it as painful for them as possible.Always remember that the throbbing heart of Trumpism is owning the libs.I will continue to do this regardless of whether or not I ever hear from you.Nice dismount! Emphasizes that you have internalized Trumpian values and will live by them even if the former president does not heed your imploration.Thank you for doing great things as our president.Always close with straight-up bootlicking. Don’t try to be fancy — or subtle.Respectfully,Chris KapengaWisconsin Senate President More

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      Michigan Republicans Debunk Voter Fraud Claims in Unsparing Report

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      The report, produced by a G.O.P.-led committee in the State Senate, exposes false claims made about the 2020 election by Trump allies in Michigan and other states.A committee led by Michigan Republicans on Wednesday published an extraordinary debunking of voter fraud claims in the state, delivering a comprehensive rebuke to a litany of accusations about improprieties in the 2020 election and its aftermath.The 55-page report, produced by a Michigan State Senate committee of three Republicans and one Democrat, is a systematic rebuttal to an array of false claims about the election from supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. The authors focus overwhelmingly on Michigan, but they also expose lies perpetuated about the vote-counting process in Georgia.The report is unsparing in its criticism of those who have promoted false theories about the election. It debunks claims from Trump allies including Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former president’s lawyer; and Mr. Trump himself.Yet while the report eviscerates claims about election fraud, its authors also use the allegations to urge their legislative colleagues to change Michigan’s voting laws to make absentee voting harder and limit the availability of drop boxes for absentee ballots, as Republicans have done in other swing states as they try to limit voting.“This committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election,” the authors wrote, before adding: “It is the opinion of this committee that the Legislature has a duty to make statutory improvements to our elections system.”Michigan Republicans, who control the state’s Legislature, have for weeks debated a series of new voting restrictions. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has said she will veto the legislation, but Michigan law allows citizens to circumvent the governor by collecting 340,047 signatures.Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said on Wednesday that she hoped Republican lawmakers would use the report to “cease their attempts to deceive citizens with misinformation and abandon legislation based on the lies that undermine our democracy.”Here are some of the conclusions from the Michigan report that debunked Trump allies’ claims about the election:Referring to Antrim County in Northern Michigan — where local election officials briefly and inadvertently transposed voting numbers before correcting them, leading to false conspiracy theories about voting machines — the report suggests that Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, a Democrat, should “consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.” It adds that anyone who promoted the Antrim County theories as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election had left “all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility.”The Voter Integrity Project, a right-wing group, has said that 289,866 “illegal votes” were cast in Michigan. The report’s authors called 40 people from the group’s list of supposed voters who received absentee ballots without requesting them and found just two who said they had been sent unrequested ballots. One was on the state’s permanent absentee voter list. The other voted absentee in the 2020 primary election and may have forgotten about checking a box then to request an absentee ballot in the general election.The report found that the chaos that unfolded after Election Day as votes were counted at the TCF Center in Detroit was the fault of Republican operatives who called on supporters to protest the count. “The Wayne County Republican Party and other, independent organizations, ought to issue a repudiation of the actions of certain individuals that created a panic and had untrained and unnumbered persons descend on the TCF Center,” the report states.Claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines in Michigan and other states had been hacked to change results were false, the report said. The committee’s chairman, State Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican, called Georgia officials to investigate claims made by Jovan Pulitzer, who said he had access to manipulate vote counts. Mr. Pulitzer’s testimony “has been demonstrated to be untrue and a complete fabrication,” the report said. “He did not, at any time, have access to data or votes, let alone have the ability to manipulate the counts directly or by the introduction of malicious software to the tabulators. Nor could he spot fraudulent ballots from non-fraudulent ones.”Of Mr. Lindell’s wide-ranging claims of fraud and impropriety in vote-counting systems, the report states that “this narrative is ignorant of multiple levels of the actual election process,” before embarking on a lengthy debunking of his claims.While Mr. Trump claimed that more votes had been cast in Detroit than people who live there, the report found that turnout in the city was under 50 percent of eligible voters and about 37 percent of its population.No ballots were secretly “dumped” at the Detroit vote-counting center. “A widely circulated picture in media and online reports allegedly showed ballots secretly being delivered late at night but, in reality, it was a photo of a WXYZ-TV photographer hauling his equipment,” the report states. More

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      In Congress, Republicans Shrug at Warnings of Democracy in Peril

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      As G.O.P. legislatures move to curtail voting rules, congressional Democrats say authoritarianism looms, but Republicans dismiss the concerns as politics as usual.WASHINGTON — Senator Christopher S. Murphy concedes that political rhetoric in the nation’s capital can sometimes stray into hysteria, but when it comes to the precarious state of American democracy, he insisted he was not exaggerating the nation’s tilt toward authoritarianism.“Democrats are always at risk of being hyperbolic,” said Mr. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “I don’t think there’s a risk when it comes to the current state of democratic norms.”After the norm-shattering presidency of Donald J. Trump, the violence-inducing bombast over a stolen election, the pressuring of state vote counters, the Capitol riot and the flood of voter curtailment laws rapidly being enacted in Republican-run states, Washington has found itself in an anguished state.Almost daily, Democrats warn that Republicans are pursuing racist, Jim Crow-inspired voter suppression efforts to disenfranchise tens of millions of citizens, mainly people of color, in a cynical effort to grab power. Metal detectors sit outside the House chamber to prevent lawmakers — particularly Republicans who have boasted of their intention to carry guns everywhere — from bringing weaponry to the floor. Democrats regard their Republican colleagues with suspicion, believing that some of them collaborated with the rioters on Jan. 6.Republican lawmakers have systematically downplayed or dismissed the dangers, with some breezing over the attack on the Capitol as a largely peaceful protest, and many saying the state voting law changes are to restore “integrity” to the process, even as they give credence to Mr. Trump’s false claims of rampant fraud in the 2020 election.They shrug off Democrats’ warnings of grave danger as the overheated language of politics as usual.“I haven’t understood for four or five years why we are so quick to spin into a place where part of the country is sure that we no longer have the strength to move forward, as we always have in the past,” said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of Republican leadership, noting that the passions of Republican voters today match those of Democratic voters after Mr. Trump’s triumph. “Four years ago, there were people in the so-called resistance showing up in all of my offices every week, some of whom were chaining themselves to the door.”For Democrats, the evidence of looming catastrophe mounts daily. Fourteen states, including politically competitive ones like Florida and Georgia, have enacted 22 laws to curtail early and mail-in ballots, limit polling places and empower partisans to police polling, then oversee the vote tally. Others are likely to follow, including Texas, with its huge share of House seats and electoral votes.Because Republicans control the legislatures of many states where the 2020 census will force redistricting, the party is already in a strong position to erase the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House. Even moderate voting-law changes could bolster Republicans’ chances for the net gain of one vote they need to take back the Senate.And in the nightmare outcome promulgated by some academics, Republicans have put themselves in a position to dictate the outcome of the 2024 presidential election if the voting is close in swing states.“Statutory changes in large key electoral battleground states are dangerously politicizing the process of electoral administration, with Republican-controlled legislatures giving themselves the power to override electoral outcomes on unproven allegations,” 188 scholars said in a statement expressing concern about the erosion of democracy.Demonstrators protesting new voting legislation in Atlanta this month. Fourteen states, including Georgia, have enacted laws to restrict practices like early voting. Brynn Anderson/Associated PressSenator Angus King, an independent from Maine who lectured on American politics at Bowdoin College before going to the Senate, put the moment in historical context. He called American democracy “a 240-year experiment that runs against the tide of human history,” and that tide usually leads from and back to authoritarianism.He said he feared the empowerment of state legislatures to decide election results more than the troubling curtailments of the franchise.“This is an incredibly dangerous moment, and I don’t think it’s being sufficiently realized as such,” he said.Republicans contend that much of this is overblown, though some concede the charges sting. Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Democrats were playing a hateful race card to promote voting-rights legislation that is so extreme it would cement Democratic control of Congress for decades.“I hope that damage isn’t being done,” he added, “but it is always very dangerous to falsely play the race card and let’s face it, that’s what’s being done here.”Mr. Toomey, who voted to convict Mr. Trump at his second impeachment trial, said he understood why, in the middle of a deadly pandemic, states sharply liberalized voting rules in 2020, extending mail-in voting, allowing mailed ballots to be counted days after Election Day and setting up ballot drop boxes, curbside polls and weeks of early voting.But he added that Democrats should understand why state election officials wanted to course correct now that the coronavirus was ebbing.“Every state needs to strike a balance between two competing values: making it as easy as possible to cast legitimate votes, but also the other, which is equally important: having everybody confident about the authenticity of the votes,” Mr. Toomey said.Mr. Trump’s lies about a stolen election, he added, “were more likely to resonate because you had this system that went so far the other way.”Some other Republicans embrace the notion that they are trying to use their prerogatives as a minority party to safeguard their own power. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said the endeavor was the essence of America’s system of representative democracy, distinguishing it from direct democracy, where the majority rules and is free to trample the rights of the minority unimpeded.“The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for,” Mr. Paul said. “The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That’s what you get when a majority ignores the rights of others.”Democrats and their allies push back hard on those arguments. Mr. King said the only reason voters lacked confidence in the voting system was that Republicans — especially Mr. Trump — told them for months that it was rigged, despite all evidence to the contrary, and now continued to insist that there were abuses in the process that must be fixed.“That’s like pleading for mercy as an orphan after you killed both your parents,” he said.Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said he feared the empowerment of state legislatures to decide election results more than the troubling curtailments of the franchise.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesSenator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said in no way could some of the new state voting laws be seen as a necessary course correction. “Not being able to serve somebody water who’s waiting in line? I mean, come on,” he said. “There are elements that are in most of these proposals where you look at it and you say, ‘That violates the common-sense test.’”Missteps by Democrats have fortified Republicans’ attempts to downplay the dangers. Some of them, including President Biden, have mischaracterized Georgia’s voting law, handing Republicans ammunition to say that Democrats were willfully distorting what was happening at the state level.The state’s 98-page voting law, passed after the narrow victories for Mr. Biden and two Democratic candidates for Senate, would make absentee voting harder and create restrictions and complications for millions of voters, many of them people of color.But Mr. Biden falsely claimed that the law — which he labeled “un-American” and “sick” — had slapped new restrictions on early voting to bar people from voting after 5 p.m. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said the Georgia law had ended early voting on Sunday. It didn’t.And the sweep — critics say overreach — of the Democrats’ answer to Republican voter laws, the For the People Act, has undermined Democratic claims that the fate of the republic relies on its passage. Even some Democrats are uncomfortable with the act’s breadth, including an advancement of statehood for the District of Columbia with its assurance of two more senators, almost certainly Democratic; its public financing of elections; its nullification of most voter identification laws; and its mandatory prescriptions for early and mail-in voting.“They want to put a thumb on the scale of future elections,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on Wednesday. “They want to take power away from the voters and the states, and give themselves every partisan advantage that they can.”Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, who could conceivably be a partner in Democratic efforts to expand voting rights, called the legislation a “fundamentally unserious” bill.Republican leaders have sought to take the current argument from the lofty heights of history to the nitty-gritty of legislation. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, pointed to the success of bipartisan efforts such as passage of a bill to combat hate crimes against Asian Americans, approval of a broad China competition measure and current talks to forge compromises on infrastructure and criminal justice as proof that Democratic catastrophizing over the state of American governance was overblown.But Democrats are not assuaged.“Not to diminish the importance of the work we’ve done here, but democracy itself is what we’re talking about,” said Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii. “And to point at other bills that don’t have to do with the fair administration of elections is just an attempt to distract while all these state legislatures move systematically toward disenfranchising voters who have historically leaned Democrat.”Mr. King said he had had serious conversations with Republican colleagues about the precarious state of American democracy. Authoritarian leaders like Vladimir V. Putin, Viktor Orban and Adolf Hitler have come to power by election, and stayed in power by warping or obliterating democratic norms.But, he acknowledged, he has yet to get serious engagement, largely because his colleagues fear the wrath of Mr. Trump and his supporters.“I get the feeling they hope this whole thing will go away,” he said. “They make arguments, but you have the feeling their hearts aren’t in it.” More