Reclaim Democracy!

Voting Rights: We Need Immediate Action AND Long-Term Strategy

by

Last updated February 11, 2023

Pro-democracy groups are urging people to support at least three essential bills in Congress:

  • The Freedom to Vote Act (slated for reintroduction by May of 2023)
  • The John Lewis Voting Rights Act
  • The Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which would grant voting rights to D.C. residents by making the District a state (the Supreme Court has shut down every other option). 

Each bill is truly necessary and urgent. We urge you to lobby your Senators for their immediate passage and do all you can to make your voice heard through other channels. Yet we are deeply concerned that the approach of focusing on legislative fixes alone does not capture the imagination of Americans and engage them to the degree we need. So, while we wholeheartedly urge passage of the three bills noted above, we also continue building support for a Right to Vote Amendment for three reasons:

  • We need one, clear, compelling message that overwhelming numbers of Americans can support and convey concisely: every citizen must have a right to vote and have their votes count equally.
  • While bills in Congress may change language, names, and even bill numbers, getting commitments from our legislators to support an affirmative right to vote will help hold them accountable to support all voting rights bills.
  • Crucially, advances made solely through legislation can be undone by Congress and by courts. If a neutral person were to look at our 1965 Voting Rights Act, they would conclude we have strong protections that would make many provisions of current legislation unnecessary. Yet the Supreme Court stripped the Voting Rights Act of meaning in 2013 and has become more anti-democratic in subsequent years. A constitutional Amendment expanding civil rights has never been revoked.

If you have not yet contacted both of your U.S. Senators on these bills, please do so today. Let them know the anti-democratic filibuster cannot be used as an excuse to enable the denial of voting rights. You can always reach any U.S. Senator or Representative’s D.C. office via the Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121. #NoMoreExcuses 

See the links above to great bill summaries by the Campaign Legal Center and Brennan Center. For more on the Washington, D.C. Admission Act and all current Senate sponsors, see D.C. Statehood Coalition.

Additional Resources

50+ Ways to Disenfranchise and Suppress Voters

Landmarks in Voting History & Law

Key Elements of a Right to Vote Amendment

Voter Suppression: It’s Not Just for Swing States Anymore

by

By Jeff Milchen
First published by Writers on the Range, March 2021

Colorado’s elections are a bipartisan success story, so when Major League baseball responded to Georgia’s new voting restrictions by moving the All-Star Game to Denver, it made a fine choice.

More than 76% of eligible Coloradans voted in 2020 — second only to Minnesota in statewide turnout. Every registered voter gets a mail-in ballot weeks ahead of election day, there are convenient and safe drop boxes, and in-person voting is also available. People seem to love the choices.

Yet other Rocky Mountain states seem locked in competition to pass the most brazenly anti-democratic election laws.

Montana bills would eliminate Election Day voter registration (now passed) and impose new restrictions on absentee voting. In Wyoming, many lawmakers seek to abolish voting by mail entirely.

Hold my beer, says Arizona. Following Democrats’ success in federal races last fall, GOP legislators unleashed a barrage of bills restricting voting, of which seven are advancing through the legislature. Those measures include requiring absentee voters to get their ballots notarized and banning practices that don’t even exist in Arizona, such as automatic voter registration and Election Day registration.

And in Idaho, GOP state House Majority Leader Mike Moyle said, “Voting shouldn’t be easy,” when introducing a bill to make it a felony to collect and return multiple ballots on behalf of others.

While the most extreme measures may fail, still harmful bills remain, showing the need for federal protection of political rights. U.S. election overseers called November’s contests the most secure in history, yet “stolen election” claims still get pushed to justify rules changes. The first three months of 2021 saw legislators across 47 states introduce more than 360 restrictive bills encompassing dozens of voter suppression tactics.

Obstacles to voting impact people of color most heavily, and in the Interior West, Native Americans are the primary casualty. The 65,000-plus votes cast in the Arizona portion of Navajo Nation overwhelmingly favored President Joe Biden in 2020 and easily exceeded his statewide victory margin. In Tohono O’odham Nation, bordering Mexico, about 90% of ballots went for Biden.

It’s no accident that indigenous voters would be most inconvenienced or deterred by the four Arizona bills that would create new obstacles for absentee voters. The sheer size of the Navajo Reservation — 27,000 square miles spanning three states — makes in-person voting difficult.

Multiple studies have found that mail-in voting has been politically neutral. And despite being dragged down in federal elections last year by a historically unpopular candidate atop the ticket, Republicans dominated state elections and made a net gain in Congressional seats.

Meanwhile, more than 500 state bills were introduced this year to improve voter protections and strengthen procedures, including every West Coast and Plains state but Kansas. Kentucky just proved it possible to pass a bipartisan law that both improves election security and protects voters.

But stopping disenfranchisement of vulnerable groups requires federal reform. For decades, our Voting Rights Act required states with histories of voter suppression to get federal approval for new voting laws, ensuring they had no discriminatory purpose or effect. In practice, the law protected citizens in every state.

In 2006, an overwhelming Congressional majority (and a unanimous Senate) extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. But in 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts — who worked to restrict ballot access prior to his judicial career — joined the 5-4 Supreme Court majority to gut key protections of the law.

The ruling enabled states to resume voter suppression tactics, which Texas did within hours.

In response, the House of Representatives recently passed the “For the People Act,” potentially the most important voting rights advance since the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Now in the Senate, the bill would expand and secure ballot access, increase election security and reduce the power of money over elections.

With not a single Republican supporting the House bill, however, the bill is doomed unless the filibuster is ended. Even if the Act passed, one more task remains: passing a constitutional Amendment that embeds an affirmative right to vote and ensures our votes count equally.

For as long as our ability to vote depends on the state we live in, and the political party controlling it, voting is merely a vulnerable privilege, not a right.

Jeff Milchen (@JMilchen) founded Reclaim Democracy!, which works to expand voting rights and democracy nationwide. This commentary appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune, Las Vegas Sun, Anchorage Press, Grand Junction Sentinel, Aspen Daily News, Logan Herald-Journal, Twin Falls Times, Casper Star Tribune, Rock Springs Rocket Miner, Explore Big Sky, Vail Daily, Montrose Daily Press, Delta County Independent, Craig Daily Press, Big Horn County News, St. George Spectrum, Curry Coastal Pilot, Wyofile, Moab Times Independent, Del Norte Triplicate, and Bandon Western World.

Related Pages

Montana GOP’s Annulment of Voters Shows the Urgent Need for Federal Protections

by

If Montana’s legislature sought to prove the need for Congress to enact federal voting rights protections, mission: accomplished. 

Just six years after Montanans voted overwhelmingly to keep Election Day registration, Republican legislators rendered citizens’ votes meaningless and revoked the opportunity 12,000 voters used to register in 2016, comprising 2.3% of the statewide vote.

The GOP also attacked the freedom of citizens to have someone else deliver or mail their ballot. The people most impacted are Montana’s 78,000 Native Americans, most of whom live on rural reservations. Many residents lack home mail service and travel to distant polling locations is costly in both time and money, so requiring a special trip just to register is a sure tactic to prevent some people from registering. 

The new restrictions on ballot collection reprise a law already struck down in Montana last year. The Western Native Voice v Stapleton ruling declared obstacles for Indigenous voters, “…are simply too high and too burdensome to remain the law.” Disability Rights Montana also denounced the law’s harm to their constituents.

Governor Gianforte and Republicans know their attacks on voters will generate more lawsuits and cost Montana taxpayers, but like local control, fiscal responsibility is just a talking point, not a real principle.

In a separate bill, Republicans manipulated our voter ID law for partisan advantage, so a secure student ID from the University of Montana is no longer sufficient, but a handgun license, whose owners skew Republican, is just fine. 

Montana GOP elephant dung

More anti-democracy bills were crammed in with no chance for meaningful citizen input, including laws that would turn Montana judges into partisan politicians, invite the Attorney General to inject political bias into ballot initiative wording, and interfere with independent redistricting.

Many Democrats claim the GOP can’t win without suppressing voters, but Montana disproves that theory. Republicans dominated the state in free and fair elections last year — they simply reject the core democratic principles of our republic.

Montana is one of many states where Republicans obstruct voting by people of color, students, and any demographic group they fear. For decades, our Voting Rights Act (VRA) required federal approval for election law changes in states with records of disenfranchisement tactics, dissuading abuses nationwide.

In 2006, almost all Congressional Republicans, and every U.S. Senator, joined Democrats to extend the VRA by 25 years. But in 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts — who led campaigns attacking the VRA prior to becoming a judge — led a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in gutting the law.

Now, Republicans are exploiting their own seditious lies to introduce more than 360 voter suppression bills, encompassing at least 49 distinct tactics!

Defending our votes from these attacks again requires federal action. While the John Lewis Voting Rights Act protects against many disenfranchisement tactics, the For the People Act (FPA) creates standards for fair election processes. The FPA, already passed by the House of Representatives, would expand and secure ballot access, increase election security, and reduce the power of money over elections. An overwhelming majority of Americans support these reforms, yet Congressional GOP members remain loyal to conspiracy theories, rather than their own constituents.  

No progress can occur unless the filibuster is eliminated or at least one GOP Senator decides democracy is more important than partisanship. Senator Daines has yet to renounce his “stolen election” claims, but we should persist in demanding he serve Montanans, rather than the extremists dragging the Republican Party into the sewer.

Finally, we must recognize a hard truth: as long as our ability to vote depends on who controls the state we live in, voting is merely a vulnerable privilege and not a right. Ultimately, we must amend our Constitution to embed an affirmative right to vote and ensure our votes count equally. 

The writer, Jeff Milchen, founded the Montana-based Reclaim Democracy!, which works to secure voting rights and empower citizens. Follow him on Twitter: @JMilchen

More Voting Rights Resources

A Leap Forward for Democracy Is Within Our Grasp

by

But Our Chance to Preempt Voter Suppression Could Expire at Any Moment

Editor’s note: for more recent reporting on pending federal voter protection bills, see this update.

March 17, 2021

When the U.S. House of Representatives passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 in the House, S. 1 in the Senate) on March 3, all but one Democrat voted in favor. Every Republican vote opposed it. 

Passing the voter protections of the For the People Act is the only path for democracy advocates to halt many of the 250-plus voter suppression bills stacked up in state capitols around the country. Republican vote suppressors have an easier task: they need only delay passage of S. 1 while more of those state bills become law — putting the onus on voting rights defenders to overturn laws in court, even if S. 1 passes. 

Each passing day also brings another chance for Senate control to flip back to Republicans. Many Democratic elders hail from states where, in the event of their death, a Republican governor would select their replacement or the seat would remain vacant until a special election is held. Such an event would almost certainly flip Senate control to Republicans by at least a 50-49 margin and doom strong voter protection. Democrats don’t have the luxury of moving methodically.

The urgency also comes from the potency of the For the People Act. If passed, S. 1 would be the greatest forward leap for democracy in generations. While voting rights are central to the bill, it also would secure election processes and take vital steps to neutralize the power of big money to determine our choices and control politicians. This includes a 6 to 1 match for small donor candidate contributions, giving candidates a huge incentive to increase time spent engaging normal people, rather than courting megadonors. 

Regarding the 2010 Citizens United v FEC ruling, the For the People Act says, “The Supreme Court’s misinterpretation of the Constitution to empower monied interests at the expense of the American people in elections has seriously eroded over 100 years of congressional action to promote fairness and protect elections from the toxic influence of money.” S. 1 backs up the words with tough controls over corporate electioneering. Corporate executives would be barred from using shareholders’ money for political spending without first demonstrating shareholder support — a step few corporations would attempt.

Filling hundreds of pages, the For the People Act is vast, largely due to its thoroughness. The Brennan Center for Justice created an excellent guide to the Act for those who want to dive deep. To help understand what the Act would do, we summarized the provisions and placed them in 3 groupings.

Preventing Disenfranchisement & Making Voting Easier
  • Establish two weeks of in-person early voting, including Sundays and during non-business hours;
  • Require states to create nonpartisan redistricting commissions (for US Congressional districts) and quantifiable criteria for district drawing (addresses district gerrymandering);
  • Ends prison gerrymandering by counting people as residents of where they last lived for apportioning representation, not where they’re incarcerated;
  • Make it a crime to mislead voters with the intention of preventing them from voting;
  • Allow 16 and 17-year olds to pre-register so they’ll be on voter rolls when they turn 18;
Increasing Election Integrity
Reducing the Power of Money Over Candidates & Elections
  • Improve campaign finance disclosure rules;
  • Ban corporations from spending on campaigns unless they have a process to determine the political will of shareholders;
  • Require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns;
  • Provide public financing for House campaigns by matching small donations at a 6:1 rate, so your $10 donation yields $70 for the candidate. This measure would incentivize candidates to seek out small donations from every constituent, rather than focusing on the wealthy. It also would lead to a more diverse candidate pool since access to wealthy donors would no longer be a prerequisite. The program would not use tax revenue — it will be funded by a surcharge on criminal and civil penalties paid by corporations to the federal government.

What the Act Leaves Undone
The For the People Act does not fully eliminate the need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and fix earlier damage to the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Washington, D.C. Admission Act (HR. 51) is needed to grant full political rights to citizens in our capital and The Vote at Home Act advances vote-by-mail protections. Enacting the For the People Act also will not eliminate the need to drive an affirmative right to vote into our Constitution. Finally, the bill passed by the House needs cleanup to purge overly prescriptive language re election administration (e.g. micromanaging local election officials).

But the For the People Act would transform U.S. elections for the better. It will improve security, transparency, voter access, and protect citizens from the barrage of voter suppression bills encompassing more than 45 distinct tactics across 43 state legislatures.

To be clear, there are some unnecessary, inappropriate and potentially unconstitutional provisions in HR. 1, as passed by the House. Making Election Day a holiday would undermine the importance of opening a two week window to spread out voting and diminish the opportunity to disrupt voters. And the service workers most challenged for time to vote don’t get a day off just because it’s a holiday. The bill also contains measures unrelated to voting (e.g. new ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court) that, regardless of merit, should be expunged to remove easy lines of attack from opponents. Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote (Wa. Post account required) the best good-faith critique of HR. 1 we’ve seen. Jessica Huseman critiques the timeline for demands thrust upon election administrators in the bill (as passed by the House) and the Brennan Center published a thorough response to these critiques.

While expanding democracy should be a non-partisan cause, Republican Senators also have signaled their opposition. So passage of S. 1 will depend on the 48 Democratic and two Independent Senators valuing our voting rights enough to reform (or eliminate) the filibuster and force a vote on the merits of the bill. Democracy advocates received a boost on March 16 when President Biden announced his support for filibuster reform after months of proclaiming Republicans were capable of good faith negotiation.

Failing to pass the For the People Act will enable a wave of state-level voter suppression laws that could lock Republicans into control of (at least) the House of Representatives and many state legislatures for years to come. Let’s contact our Senators’ offices to urge reforming the filibuster and demand that S. 1  receive a hearing and vote. Along with direct communication to Senators, sending a letter to the editor of your local paper and calling in to talk radio shows are key ways to influence your Senators.

By Reclaim Democracy! staff. Research by Brittany Trushel.

Thanks to Stephen Wolf’s Voting Rights Roundup newsletter from Daily Kos for helping follow and understand state and federal voting rights bills. To fully grasp the scope of voter suppression tactics in play, see 50 Ways to Disenfranchise and Suppress Voters.

Pass For the People Act., HR1

Related Reclaim Democracy Resources