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      The network of election lawyers who are making it harder for Americans to vote

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      The network of election lawyers who are making it harder for Americans to voteVoting rights watchdogs have warned of a web of attorneys and groups, some who pushed Donald Trump’s big lie after the 2020 election A powerful network of conservative election lawyers and groups with links to Donald Trump have spent millions of dollars promoting new and onerous voting laws that many key battleground states such as Georgia and Texas have enacted.The moves have prompted election and voting rights watchdogs in America to warn about the suppression of non-white voters aimed at providing Republicans an edge in coming elections.The lawyers and groups spearheading self-professed election integrity measures include some figures who pushed Trump’s baseless claims of fraud after the 2020 election. Key advocates include Cleta Mitchell with the Conservative Partnership institute; J Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation; Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation; Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project; and J Kenneth Blackwell with the America First Policy institute.Voting rights advocates frustrated by ‘same-old, same-old’ meeting with White House Read moreThese conservative outfits tout their goal as curbing significant voter fraud, despite the fact that numerous courts, the vast majority of voting experts and even former top Trump officials, such as ex-attorney general Bill Barr, concluded the 2020 elections were without serious problems.Watchdogs say that tightening state voting laws endanger the rights of Black voters and other communities of color who historically back Democrats by creating new rules limiting absentee voting and same day registration, while imposing other voting curbs.Among the election lawyers and groups advocating tougher voting laws, Mitchell, a veteran conservative lawyer , boasts the highest profile and has sparked the most scrutiny. She took part in the 2 January call where Trump prodded Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find” about 11,780 votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there. After details emerged about Mitchell’s role on the call, Foley & Lardner, where she had worked for nearly 20 years, mounted an internal review, and she resigned.Trump’s 2 January call also spawned a criminal investigation by Georgia’s Fulton county district attorney that could create problems for Mitchell, say ex-prosecutors, and may fuel scrutiny of the lawyer by the House committee looking into the 6 January Capitol attack. Mitchell, who reportedly raised $1m to help fund a baseless audit of Arizona’s largest county that Trump pushed aggressively, generated more controversy last month when she was named to an advisory board for the federal Election Assistance Commission with backing from her close legal ally Adams whose foundation Mitchell chairs.Using her perch at CPI and another post with the libertarian FreedomWorks that early this year announced a seven-state drive to revamp voting laws led by Mitchell, the lawyer has helped spearhead new state election measures and block two congressional bills – the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act – which Democrats have been trying to enact to counter the wave of new state laws.According to an October update from the Brennan Center for Justice, 19 states had enacted 33 new laws this year that “will make it harder for Americans to vote”.To press for new state voting laws, Mitchell has worked closely with some key groups quietly backing new measures such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful and shadowy group of state legislators that historically promotes model bills where she used to be outside counsel.At an Alec meeting on 1 December in California, Mitchell helped lead a secretive “process working group” session devoted to election and voting law changes and related matters that included several top legal allies such as Adams and Von Spakovsky, according to reports from the Center for Media and Democracy, and Documented.Adams’ foundation, which in 2020 received about $300,000 from the Bradley Foundation whose board includes Mitchell, has brought lawsuits to defend some of the tough new voting laws in Texas and other states.Top funders of the right’s armada include a family foundation tied to billionaire Richard Uihlein, the Bradley Foundation, and two dark money giants, the Concord Fund and Donors Trust, according to public records.Legal watchdogs raise strong concerns about the new laws promoted by the right in numerous states such as Georgia and Texas, and note that the arguments for changing voting rules seem rife with contradictions.“During the 2021 legislative session, we saw anti-voter organizations push cookie-cutter legislation restricting the right to vote in legislatures across the country,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center“The same language appeared in state after state without regard for the state’s particular needs. For example, strict cutbacks on access to vote by mail were introduced in states that had wholly positive vote by mail experiences in 2020,” she added.Such complaints have not deterred the legislative blitz by Mitchell with allied lawyers and groups nationwide to change voting laws.Mitchell declined to answer questions from the Guardian about her voting law work or the Georgia probe, though in an interview early this year with the AP she boasted “I love legislatures and working with legislators”, and revealed that she talks to Trump “fairly frequently”, but provided no details.Mitchell’s ties to Mark Meadows, Trump’s ex chief of staff, are palpable, too, including post election as a frenzied and baseless drive was under way to overturn Trump’s loss.On 30 December, according to the Washington Post magazine, Mitchell wrote Meadows and “offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to support claims of election fraud”.Meadows, who also has a senior post at CPI, now faces contempt charges for reneging on testifying to the House panel about the 6 January Capitol attack and earlier efforts to block Biden from taking office.Mitchell’s effort to support Trump’s baseless case during the 2 January call with Raffensperger could pose new headaches for the lawyer as the Fulton county district attorney’s investigation proceeds. During the call, Mitchell claimed to have evidence of voter fraud, but a top lawyer for Raffensperger’s office replied she was mistaken and faulted her data.“You can’t make yourself much more of a participant to Trump’s efforts that day than actually making statements during the call,” said Michael J Moore, a former US attorney in Georgia. “That’s what Ms Mitchell did. That conduct alone will be enough bait to get the attention of the prosecutors. Whether it’s enough to snare her in the trap, only the DA and the grand jury can answer that.”TopicsUS voting rightsRepublicansUS elections 2020Donald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Protesting voting rights activists arrested as Biden meets with Manchin

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      Protesting voting rights activists arrested as Biden meets with ManchinSixty were detained as the president met with the key Democrat who has become a roadblock to his agenda During a crucial week for Joe Biden’s agenda that will likely feature a political showdown on his Build Back Better legislation in the Senate, voting rights activists are turning up the pressure in Washington.As the US president met with a key centrist Democrat who has acted as a roadblock to his plans – West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin – more than sixty demonstrators were arrested as they protested: singing songs and blocking traffic near the US Capitol.The diverse group of activists came to Washington from around the country and were focused primarily on issues around voting rights and poverty. When the focus turned to voting rights, the talk became more focused on Manchin and the White House’s apparent inability to apply all of its power to pass federal legislation to protect the vote.Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reformRead more“I think we’re moving the ball but we have to get it across the finish line – we’re going to have to keep pushing. They don’t need to be going home for Christmas. We need to get voting rights taken care of,” said Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, as she waited to speak to the assembled crowd of more than 500 people.As news spread that Manchin was signaling he wants more changes to Biden’s already stripped back Build Back Better legislation because of his concerns over inflation, activists at the rally were not impressed.“That’s his whole game. Slow it down, block it, get things get done for the billionaires, his corporate donors – then to undermine voting rights let all the voting suppression bills get passed that wouldn’t get passed if we had the Voting Rights Act restored and we had federal protection,” said the Rev William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach.“He’s a trickster. The president needs to go to West Virginia. Stop meeting with him in his office. Go to his state,” Barber added shortly before leading activists into a street protest.With talk of direct actions and in-office protests directed at Manchin and others, Barber and other activists promised to apply more pressure on lawmakers this week.Barber and several other voting rights activists have been frustrated by what they view as a lack of focus and from the Biden administration regarding voting rights.Many have warned the White House that Biden’s 7m vote victory, buttressed by strong turnout in predominately Black cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, will be difficult to repeat without cementing the support of those same voters.With 2022 midterm elections on the horizon, the urgency about which agenda items Biden will focus is a hot topic in the activists community.“We go to the streets for non-violent direct action. This is just the precursor,” Barber told the crowd of activists.“If you think this is an action, you watch how we mobilize when we don’t have to be so Covid safe,” said Barber.“There is only one answer to nineteen states that have passed voter suppression laws. There’s only one answer to all this election subversion. There’s only one answer to all this work that they’re doing to purge people from election boards. There’s only one answer to gerrymandering. That is, ‘Pass the acts now!’” said Barbara Arwine, who leads the Transformative Justice Coalition to the crowd.Arnwine was referring to the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bill would restore provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were removed by the supreme court’s Shelby v Holder decision in 2013.TopicsUS voting rightsJoe ManchinBiden administrationUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reform

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      Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reformCollege students say they will be striking indefinitely until Arizona senator agrees to support Freedom to Vote Act Since Monday, a group of 20 college students from the University of Arizona and Arizona State have been on hunger strike in an effort to pressure one of the most heavily criticized Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema, to take action on the passage of crucial voting reform legislation.The students say they will be striking indefinitely until Arizona’s Sinema agrees to support the Freedom to Vote Act, a bill that would ensure fair election measures like automatic voter registration and the protection and expansion of vote by mail.‘Time is running out’: can Congress pass a voting rights bill after months of failure?Read moreTheir target is not easy. Sinema, who was once active in the Green party, has drifted far away from the progressive wing of her party and is now widely seen – along with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin – as a centrist roadblock on much of Joe Biden’s agenda. As such, she has earned the anger of many Democrats, from her fellow elected officials to grassroots organizers.The Freedom to Vote Act would directly benefit those most affected by voter suppression laws and gerrymandering, especially Black and brown communities, immigrants and young voters, and voters with disabilities. The students are working with Un-Pac, a non-partisan group organizing in the hope of restoring the Voting Rights Act through the Freedom to Vote Act and eliminating gerrymandering, dark money and other threats to fair representation.Since its introduction, the bill has been consistently opposed by Republican lawmakers and is held up in the Senate where it has been blocked by Republican senators. Despite his promise to restore the Voting Rights Act during his campaign, Biden and the Democratic majority have failed to advance any voting rights legislation this year, despite a broad push by Republicans across the US to pass laws restricting access to the ballot.In 2021 alone, US Republicans have taken full advantage of the filibuster – the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation – and deterred voting rights bills on four different occasions. According to a recent report from the Brennan Institute for Justice, 19 states enacted 33 different laws that make it more difficult for citizens to vote after the 2020 election, in which record numbers of citizens went to the polls. At the same time there has been widespread gerrymandering in mostly Republican states, chipping away at Democratic seats and splitting up voters from communities of color.Last week Sinema agreed to a private meeting with the students via Zoom, where she listened to their concerns and said she supported the passage of the legislation. However, she has a history of supporting the filibuster.“We are very clear from that meeting that Senator Sinema understands our message – that we are hunger striking until the bill passes and we would rather make this sacrifice than suffer the consequences of inaction on federal voting rights and campaign finance reform now,” said Shana Gallagher, executive director of Un-Pac. “We now believe it is incumbent upon President Biden to call another vote before the end of the year.”The students are now traveling to Washington DC, where Biden held the Summit for Democracy. Student organizers Brandon Ortega and Georgia Linden said the protestors will shift the pressure from Sinema and plan to continue striking indefinitely outside the White House in an effort to persuade Biden to talk to them and ultimately, pass the Freedom to Vote Act into law before the end of the year.“We are honestly confused and disappointed that President Biden hasn’t prioritized this more,” said Gallagher. “We don’t understand why he’s not treating this existential issue with the urgency that we are, but we are still hopeful that he has time to change course and our sacrifice will help the administration to act.”As of now, the group is hopeful of drawing the attention of the White House.“We did not originally request a meeting with Sinema but when she found out about our action, she wanted to meet with us to express her commitment to this legislation,” said Gallagher. “Our remaining demand is a meeting with the Biden administration but as of now, we have not heard a response.”The group is well aware that their hunger strike could last longer than they hope, but they are prepared for the hardships.“It’s definitely been difficult, but we do have a medical team and a support team that is taking care of all of us,” said Ortega. “We’re grateful that we have dozens of people across the country doing solidarity fasts and vigils and there has been a lot of support, most notably from a group of veterans who came to the Arizona state house to thank us and to tell us they were humbled by our actions. 84% of Arizonians support this bill, so we’re united as a generation and as a state.”“I would just say, what’s far more dangerous than putting our bodies on the line is losing our democracy forever,” said Linden.TopicsArizonaUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      New York City’s noncitizens will soon be allowed to vote in local elections

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      New York City’s noncitizens will soon be allowed to vote in local elections A measure approved Thursday makes it the largest city to open the ballot box to its 800,000 green card holders and Dreamers New York City could soon become the largest city in the US to give noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, a historic move that would open the ballot box to 800,000 green card holders and Dreamers.The city council approved the measure on Thursday. Only a potential veto from mayor Bill de Blasio stands in the way of the measure becoming law, but the Democrat has said he would not veto it.The council’s vote was a breakthrough moment for an effort that had long languished. Councilman Francisco Moya, whose family hails from Ecuador, choked up as he spoke in support of the bill.New Yorkers reject expanded voting access in stunning resultRead more“This is for my beautiful mother who will be able to vote for her son,” said Moya, while joining the session by video with his immigrant mother at his side.Legally documented, voting-age noncitizens comprise nearly one in nine of the city’s 7 million voting-age inhabitants. The measure would allow noncitizens who have been lawful permanent residents of the city for at least 30 days, as well as those authorized to work in the US, including Dreamers, the children of undocumented immigrants, to help select the city’s mayor, city council members, borough presidents, comptroller and public advocate.“It is no secret, we are making history today. Fifty years down the line when our children look back at this moment they will see a diverse coalition of advocates who came together to write a new chapter in New York City’s history by giving immigrant New Yorkers the power of the ballot,” said councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, a main sponsor of the bill, after Thursday’s vote.More than a dozen communities across the United States already allow noncitizens to cast ballots in local elections, including 11 towns in Maryland and two in Vermont. But New York City is the largest place by far to give voting rights to noncitizens.Noncitizens still wouldn’t be able to vote for president or members of Congress in federal races, or in the state elections that pick the governor, judges and legislators. The city’s move is likely to enflame an already contentious debate over voting rights. Last year, Alabama, Colorado and Florida adopted rules that would preempt any attempts to pass laws like the one in New York City. Arizona and North Dakota already had prohibitions on the books.“The bill we’re doing today will have national repercussions,” said the council’s majority leader, Laurie Cumbo, a Democrat who opposed the bill. She expressed concern that the measure could diminish the influence of African American voters.Noncitizens wouldn’t be allowed to vote until elections in 2023.It’s unclear whether the bill might face legal challenges. City councilman Joseph Borelli, the Republican leader, said such a challenge is likely. Opponents say the council lacks the authority on its own to grant voting rights to noncitizens and should have first sought action by state lawmakers.TopicsNew YorkUS voting rightsUS immigrationUS politicsDream ActnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Frustrating’ White House meeting escalates fears Biden is failing on voting rights | The fight to vote

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      ‘Frustrating’ White House meeting escalates fears Biden is failing on voting rightsLeaders of major groups pushing for voting reform expected to hear about a strategy to move forward – but they didn’t hear any kind of plan at all Get the latest updates on voting rights in the Guardian’s Fight to vote newsletterHello, and Happy Thursday,Around Thanksgiving, I spoke with a few people who had recently attended a meeting at the White House to discuss voting rights. They were frustrated.They had gone into the meeting quite hopeful. After spending months watching Senate Republicans use the filibuster to block two major federal voting rights bills, there were signs things were moving in the right direction. In late October, Joe Biden gave his public blessing to changing the filibuster, the Senate rule Republicans have relied on to block the voting rights bills. So when hundreds of leaders of groups pushing for voting reform gathered on a 15 November teleconference meeting with White House officials, they expected to hear more details about a plan to move forward.But the people I spoke with said they didn’t hear any kind of plan at all. “They did not lay out a strategy for getting this done,” one person I spoke with said. Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told me it was “very frustrating” and it felt like a “check-the-box kind of call”. Kamala Harris, tapped to lead the White House’s voting rights work, stopped by the meeting briefly, read from prepared remarks that one person described as the “same old, same old” and then left. White House staff answered three questions from participants on the call.The frustration with Biden’s handling of voting rights is not new. For months, activists have said that the president has failed to put muscle behind it. “He’s phoning it in,” Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the grassroots group Indivisible, told me in June. Biden has since given a speech on voting rights.“Nothing comes without a fight, which is why the president and vice-president are working with Speaker Pelosi, leader Schumer, and advocates to protect our democracy and the fundamental right to vote,” Sabrina Singh, a White House spokesperson, told me.In recent weeks, I’ve noticed that frustration is increasingly turning into alarm. State lawmakers across the country are rapidly enacting distorted political maps that will help cement Republican majorities in many places for the next decade. Those districts may well help Republicans retake control of the US House next year. Candidates are already filing for office to run in those districts in Texas and North Carolina. There are rapidly approaching primary elections set to take place in the spring. (The first day of early voting in the Texas primary is 14 February.) And yet, the Senate appears likely to end the year without passing a voting rights bill.Helen Butler, a longtime organizer in Georgia who helped turn out record numbers of Black voters last year, said she thought passing new voting protections would be one of the first things Biden did after he was inaugurated. “It is disheartening, I can tell you, out of all the work we’ve put in to have fair elections, to get people engaged, and to have the Senate that will not act to protect the most sacred right, the right to vote, is unheard of,” she told me.Now, Senate Democrats are looking to January as the earliest point at which they might be able to make changes to the filibuster and pass voting legislation, Politico reported Wednesday. The small group of Democratic senators tasked with finding a way forward on the filibuster is projecting optimism that they’ll be able to get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both staunch defenders of the filibuster, to support changes, according to Politico. We’ll see what happens in January, but when Levin and I spoke a few weeks ago, he wasn’t particularly optimistic.“If Congress doesn’t get this done by the end of the year, it’s hard to see why the political will will be there later. What will have changed in January, in February?” he said.Reader questionsPlease continue to write to me each week with your questions about elections and voting at sam.levine@theguardian.com or DM me on Twitter at @srl and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.Also worth watching …
      The justice department filed its first redistricting lawsuit this year on Monday, challenging Texas’ new congressional and state House maps. Texas Republicans drew districts, in some cases intentionally, to make it harder for Latino and Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
      A Trump-aligned group is looking for a way around Wisconsin’s Democratic governor to enact new voting restrictions.
      Lawyers for Crystal Mason, the Texas woman appealing a five-year prison sentence for illegal voting in 2016, filed an appellate brief arguing that Texas’ new voting law contains a provision that bolsters her argument for why her conviction should be overturned.
      TopicsUS voting rightsFight to voteUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘Time is running out’: can Congress pass a voting rights bill after months of failure?

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      ‘Time is running out’: can Congress pass a voting rights bill after months of failure?The president made it a key plank of his election campaign, but nearly a year on, voting rights reform remains elusive For years, Helen Butler has been on a mission to increase voter turnout, especially among Black voters, in Georgia and across the south. She’s used to the skepticism. People she meets wonder why they should bother, because their vote won’t matter. No matter who’s in office, longstanding problems won’t get solved.More recently, she’s pushed back on efforts by Georgia Republicans to make it harder to vote. She’s seen things like overly aggressive efforts to remove people from the voter rolls and the rapid consolidation of polling places.Last year, she listened as Joe Biden promised he would protect the right to vote if he was elected president. “One thing the Senate and the president can do right away is pass the bill to restore the Voting Rights Act … it’s one of the first things I’ll do as president if elected. We can’t let the fundamental right to vote be denied,” he said in July last year.Months later, Butler and other organizers had a breakthrough that had been years in the making. After years of investing in voter mobilization, turnout among Black voters surged in the November election, helping Joe Biden win a state long seen as a Republican stronghold. In January, Black voters came out again and helped Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock win two upset Senate bids, giving Democrats control of the US Senate.On the night he was elected president, Biden called out the Black voters who helped him capture the presidency, saying: “When this campaign was at its lowest – the African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”And so, after Biden was inaugurated, Butler and many others expected that voting rights would be one of the first things the president and Democrats addressed.Instead, during the president’s first year in office, Butler has watched with dismay as Biden and Democrats have failed to pass any voting rights legislation. Meanwhile, Republicans in Georgia passed sweeping new voting restrictions, one of several places across the country that made it harder to vote.“It is disheartening, I can tell you, out of all the work we’ve put in to have fair elections, to get people engaged, and to have the Senate that will not act to protect the most sacred right, the right to vote, is unheard of,” Butler said.“[It] makes voters say ‘Did I vote for the right people? … you haven’t fought for me. Why should I fight to keep you in office in 2022?’”Democrats have been stymied by the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. Republicans have used the rule to successfully block voting rights bills on four different occasions this year.Democrats need the support of all 50 senators to get rid of the rule, and two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, are strongly opposed. Both senators have argued the rule forges bipartisan compromise, but many believe Republicans have weaponized it into a tool of obstruction and that protecting voting rights is an urgent enough issue to justify getting rid of the rule.There was already simmering frustration from voting advocateswho believe Biden has not taken strong action, especially as several states enacted sweeping new voting restrictions.That frustration is now turning into escalating alarm that time is running out to pass meaningful voting rights legislation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, amid a crammed congressional agenda that is already backed up for December. More than 200 civic action groups urged Congress on Thursday to postpone its December recess until it passes voting rights legislation. “All of the experts and lawyers are telling us the same thing: time is running out. We are not out of time yet, but we are running out of runway to get this bill passed, get it signed into law, be able to clear any legal challenges and actually get it implemented for 2022,” said Tiffany Muller, the president and executive director of End Citizens United/Let America Vote, which strongly supports both bills.Senate Democrats are searching for a path forward around the filibuster, but appear increasingly likely to finish Biden’s first year in office without passing a voting rights bill.“If Congress doesn’t get this done by the end of the year, it’s hard to see why the political will will be there later. What will have changed in January in February?” said Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a grassroots groups that supports the bills. Distress is surging as Republicans in several states, including Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and Ohio, have passed distorted electoral maps that will lock in Republican advantages in Congress for the next decade.These maps show how Republicans are blatantly rigging elections Read moreMany of the new districts blunt the voting power of rapid population growth among Hispanic, Asian and Black voters, who tend to back Democrats, by grouping them into non-competitive districts.The voting rights bills stalled in Congress contain provisions that would limit, and in some cases halt, that kind of severe distortion, called gerrymandering. The bills would also stop many of the new restrictions states have passed this year and guard against similar restrictions in the future.Even if Democrats somehow find a way to pass a voting rights bill, they would face an uphill battle in trying to block already-enacted maps – as primary elections for those congressional seats up for grabs in next year’s midterms.The candidate filing period has already opened in Texas and is set to begin soon in North Carolina, noted Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, making courts more reluctant to step in. Congress has made things “messier”, Li said, because it is harder to challenge maps after they go into effect and the electoral calendar is under way.“If the goal is to fix maps for 2022 … it’s becoming dangerously late in the game,” he said. Several provisions in the Freedom to Vote Act, one of the voting rights bills in limbo on Capitol Hill, also would require some states to make significant changes to the way elections are run.It requires states to offer same-day registration (not currently offered in 30 states), online voter registration (not offered in eight states). Election officials need time to implement those changes, and it will be harder on the eve of elections. If the legislation were enacted, states could probably pivot to implement changes and the more time they have , the smoother that will be, said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, who specializes in election administration.“I think that it’s doable. But if we want to ensure that it’s done correctly and well, it’s going to take some time and definitely some resources. So the sands in the hourglass are slipping away,” she said.As the window to pass legislation closes, some voting rights activists say the White House is too passive.After Biden made his strongest signal to date of altering the filibuster, activists had high hopes for getting details on strategy during a 15 November meeting with Kamala Harris, whom Biden asked to lead the White House’s voting rights effort.Instead, Harris gave six minutes of remarks and then left staff to answer questions. Some attendees were upset and one, Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told the Guardian of the meeting: “Nothing substantive came out of it, it was very frustrating.”Like Butler, Albright said he was concerned about the message to Black voters who turned out and helped elect Biden and Harris.“You’ve got people in the White House and friends of the White House that believe ‘if we get it done, people don’t care how long it took.’ I think that they’re dangerously mistaken,” he said. “People remember that you prioritized everything else above our interests.”TopicsUS voting rightsThe fight to voteUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      A Republican power grab in Ohio might be the GOP’s most brazen yet | The fight to vote

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      A Republican power grab in Ohio might be the GOP’s most brazen yetRepublicans in Ohio recently enacted new maps that would give them a supermajority in the state legislature – completely ignoring reforms that prevent this Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterHello, and Happy Thursday,Over the last few months, we’ve seen lawmakers in several states draw new, distorted political districts that entrench their political power for the next decade. Republicans are carving up Texas, North Carolina and Georgia to hold on to their majorities. Democrats have the power to draw maps in far fewer places, but they’ve also shown a willingness to use it where they have it, in places like Illinois and Maryland.But something uniquely disturbing is happening in Ohio.Republicans control the legislature there and recently enacted new maps that would give them a supermajority in the state legislature and allow them to hold on to at least 12 of the state’s 15 congressional seats. It’s an advantage that doesn’t reflect how politically competitive Ohio is: Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with 53% of the vote.What’s worse is that Ohio voters have specifically enacted reforms in recent years that were supposed to prevent this kind of manipulation. Republicans have completely ignored them. It underscores how challenging it is for reformers to wrest mapmaking power from politicians.“It’s incredibly difficult to get folks to say, ‘OK, we’re just gonna do this fairly after years and years and decades and decades of crafting districts that favor one political party,’” Catherine Turcer, the executive director of the Ohio chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group that backed the reforms, told me earlier this year. “I did not envision this being as shady.”In 2015 and 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved two separate constitutional amendments that were meant to make mapmaking fairer. The 2015 amendment dealt with drawing state legislative districts and gave a seven-person panel, comprised of elected officials from both parties, power to draw districts. If the panel couldn’t agree on new maps, they would only be in effect for four years, as opposed to the usual 10.The 2018 amendment laid out a slightly different process for drawing congressional districts, but the overall idea was the same. Both reforms also said districts could not unfairly favor or disfavor a political party.Something started to seem amiss earlier this fall when the panel got to work trying to create the new state legislative districts. The two top Republicans in the legislature wound up drawing the maps in secret, shutting their fellow GOP members out of the process. After reaching an impasse with Democrats, Republicans on the panel approved a plan that gives the GOP a majority in the state legislature for the next four years.When it came time to draw congressional maps, things did not go much better. The panel barely even attempted to fulfill its mission, kicking mapmaking power back to the state legislature. Lawmakers there quickly enacted the congressional plan that benefits the GOP for the next four years.The new map benefits the GOP by cracking Democratic-heavy Hamilton county, home of Cincinnati, into three different congressional districts, noted the Cook Political Report. It also transforms a district in northern Ohio, currently represented by Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, from one Joe Biden carried by 19 points in 2020 to one Trump would have carried by 5 points.The maps already face several lawsuits, and their fate will ultimately be decided by the Ohio supreme court. Republicans have a 4-3 advantage on the court, though one of the GOP justices is considered a swing vote. We’ll soon see if voter-approved reforms will be completely defanged.Reader questionsPlease continue to write to me each week with your questions about elections and voting at sam.levine@theguardian.com or DM me on Twitter at @srl and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.Also worth watching …
      Few places better encapsulate the new Republican effort to undermine American elections than Wisconsin. Some Republicans there are calling for the removal of the non-partisan head of the state’s election commission.
      Georgia saw a jump in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot requests in one of the first elections after Republicans imposed new requirements. Many of those who had their ballot requests rejected didn’t ultimately vote in person, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
      The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in voting rights lawsuits in Arizona, Texas and Florida. All three filings significantly defend the power and scope of section two of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most powerful remaining provisions of the 1965 civil rights law.
      TopicsUS voting rightsFight to voteRepublicansOhioUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      FBI investigates attempted breach of local election network in Ohio

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      FBI investigates attempted breach of local election network in OhioNews comes at a time when Republicans across the country claim without evidence that America’s electoral system is fraudulent The FBI is investigating an attempted breach of a local election network in the state of Ohio that occurred last spring.A private laptop was plugged into the election network in the office of John Hamercheck, the chairman of the Lake county board of commissioners, on 4 May – the day of Ohio’s spring primary election – according to the Washington Post.State and county officials say that no private information or sensitive data was taken in the breach.The news comes at a time when Republicans across the country are claiming – almost always without evidence – that America’s electoral system is fraudulent. Many such figures are also seeking to win election to offices to roles that oversee voting.Routine network traffic that was captured during the Ohio breach was circulated at an event organized by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow. Over the last year, Lindell has actively promoted the baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump.Lindell is a close ally and friend of Trump, even interviewing him recently in a video where the two men promoted the false idea that Biden’s election win was somehow part of a fraud.At the Ohio event in August, copies of the software from voting equipment in Colorado and Michigan were distributed to attendees, alerting officials of the breaches.The breach in Ohio is a part of a series of attacks on voting systems that have taken place across the country as vigilante hackers embrace the conspiracy theory despite there being no evidence of election fraud during the 2020 election.A similar breach took place in Mesa county, Colorado, in late May. Local election officials have since been accused of allowing outsiders into the county election offices to copy the hard drives of election equipment. Earlier this week, the FBI raided the home of Tina Peters, the county clerk, after she was accused of facilitating the breachOfficials in the Ohio secretary of state’s office say they believe a government employee likely assisted with the breach.“It’s concerning that somebody would – especially somebody in a government office, somebody who is an elected official, or somebody who’s part of county government – would … try to engage in some sort of vigilante investigation,” Frank LaRose, Ohio secretary of state, told the Washington Post.According to the Post, county officials in both Ohio and Colorado discussed election fraud claims with Douglass Frank, a close associate of Lindell who has propagated claims of election fraud, before the breaches occurred.Frank has told the Post that he has been traveling around the country and has met with about 100 election administrators in attempts to convince them election fraud took place.Hamercheck, whose office was the site of the breach in Ohio, told the Post that he is “aware of no criminal activity”.“I have absolute confidence in our board of elections and our IT people,” he said.Public records obtained by the Post show that Hamercheck used his security badge to access the fifth floor offices, where the breaches occurred, multiple times during the six-hour period when the private laptop was connecting to the election network. TopicsOhioUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More