It’s one of the most anti-democratic trends hiding in plain sight.
Eleven states have adopted new laws that could undermine how elections are run, according to a report from The Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan watchdog. Other states are in the process of drafting similar laws.
More from the report:
So far this session, more than 180 bills shifting election authority have been introduced. These new laws have taken a variety of forms. Some give partisan actors more power to shape and control election outcomes, or limit the autonomy of local election officials. Some give partisan poll watchers the ability to intimidate and harass voters. Others criminalize election workers for simply doing their jobs. The most concerning bills would enable partisan state legislatures to overturn election results.
The Voting Rights Lab spotlights several troubling new laws:
- In Georgia, S.B. 202 “empowers the legislature to appoint the chair of the State Election Board, making a majority of the board beholden to partisan state legislators who have a clear interest in the outcome of elections and how they are administered.”
- In Arizona, a bill enacted in June “threatens local officials with felony prosecution for providing mail ballots to voters who do not first request them.”
- Due to S.B. 1 in Texas, “Election judges may not remove disruptive poll watchers from election locations unless the judge first witnesses the poll watcher commit a violation of law, warns the poll watcher, and the watcher then commits a subsequent offense. Voters’ reports of harassment or intimidation by poll watchers, if not witnessed by election judges, will not be sufficient to remove poll watchers.”
- Iowa’s March omnibus bill “increases the Secretary of State’s oversight of local election officials during the 60 days before and after an election.”
The Voting Rights Lab says the slate of new laws threatening America’s elections are “fueled by rampant disinformation campaigns” associated with the results of the 2020 presidential election, a thinly-veiled reference to Donald Trump’s persistent and false claims that the Oval Office was stolen from him. The report adds “at least seven states have initiated or are trying to initiate reviews of the 2020 election despite a lack of evidence of wrongdoing.” Those states are Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
“Enough states are starting to move these policies that we are, in fact, at a tipping point,” Megan Lewis, the executive director of the Voting Rights Lab, told CNN. “These lawmakers need to stop these efforts or we really run the risk of eroding the fabric of our democracy.”