Block The Vote
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Hundreds of proposed local voting laws threaten the votes of Latinos and others, a new lawsuit charges. The bills are competing against a federal effort to expand mail-in voting and other measures that fueled record turnout last November.
Across the United States, Democrats and Republicans are in a recharged tug of war over how voting will be run in years to come following a tumultuous 2020 presidential election that shattered turnout records.
Iowa is the first state where the debate over expanded voter access or tightened election security is unfolding in the courts. Lawmakers nationwide will be watching as nearly every state Capitol moves to either restrict or open voting to as many eligible voters as possible.
“They call it voter security, we call it voter suppression,” said Joe Enriquez Henry, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Iowa, which is suing the state over more restrictive regulations signed into law last month by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.
LULAC’s lawsuit is blunt: It says the new rules are a targeted attempt to discourage turnout by the state’s growing number of Latino voters, now about 6% percent of Iowa’s electorate.
The LULAC lawsuit also foreshadows the fight in the U.S. Congress. Two bills pushed by Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives would expand voting by mail and enact automatic voter registration. It would also restore key parts of the Voting Rights Act. Advocates argue that if the act was as robust as it once was, it could have put federal barriers in front of some of the restrictive laws now pushed by Republican lawmakers.
Many of the options voters used to cast ballots in Iowa last year are either severely restricted or scratched altogether under the GOP-sponsored legislation.
Among other things, the law:
Shortens early voting, to 20 days before Election Day.
Closes polls an hour earlier, at 8 p.m.
Criminalizes helping voters return absentee ballots unless it’s done by a relative.
Reduces time off employers must provide employees to vote down to two hours.
Requires absentee ballots be returned before polls close Election Day to be counted. Currently, absentee ballots are counted as long as they’re postmarked a day before polls close.
Too much of a good thing?
As in every other state, Iowans shattered turnout records last November. More than 1.7 million voted -- 75% of the state’s registered electorate. The majority of those voters -- more than 1 million -- mailed in ballots as the COVID pandemic kept them home.
A voter shows off her support for then-candidate Joe Biden at a 2020 rally in Los Angeles. Photo by Shutterstock
That trend was repeated throughout the country. Of the 10 states with the highest increase in turnout, seven conducted the election entirely or almost entirely by mail, according to a January analysis by the Pew Research Center.
The popularity of voting by mail has made it a target for changes by lawmakers from both parties, with Republicans focused on restricting the option as a check on Democrats, whose supporters voted early in great numbers.
Vote-altering bills are being debated in 43 state legislatures “that would make it harder to vote,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a voter advocacy group. That’s seven times the number of proposals debated last year, the group said.
A new law in Georgia, and bills proposed in Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania, would make it harder to vote by mail by eliminating “no-excuse absentee voting.” Texas is considering a proposal that would require people with disabilities to prove they can’t make it to their polling location before obtaining a mail-in ballot.
At the same time, Democratic-led efforts in 43 states are considering more than 700 other bills that would, among other things, lengthen early and mail voting, the Brennan Center said.
Protesters at an NAACP voting rights rally in Georgia. Photo by Michael Scott Milner via Shutterstock
In Georgia, Republicans followed Iowa’s steps last week, becoming the second GOP-led state to make election-rule changes to the law. The sweeping legislation Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed reduces the number of ballot drop boxes and shortens early voting in runoffs to just a week before an election.
The new law also makes it more difficult to get an absentee ballot, requiring an ID to verify a voter’s identity instead of using a signature matching system.
Shortly after Kemp signed the election changes into law, and the controversial arrest of a state lawmaker who sought to witness the bill signing, voter advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new requirements.
A bid to enhance voting rights
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last month that would enhance voters’ rights and reform campaign finance. The bill is widely expected to be shelved by the Senate, where Democrats hold a one-vote advantage.
Republican national leaders are stacking a full-court press against the new bill on the airwaves and social media. They argue that the bills, known as the “For the People Act” would scrap states’ voter ID laws and otherwise make it easier for non-citizens to vote and fraud to multiply.
“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It is sick,” President Joe Biden told reporters at his first news conference. “The Republican voters I know find this despicable.”
“Voter fraud in any form is rare and in-person voter fraud is even more rare,” Fact Check, a non-partisan organization that challenges assertions on social media, noted in a recent analysis that seeks to debunk the more prominent Republican claims.
In his first presidential press conference, President Biden described efforts to restrict voting rights as “un-American.”
“It is sick,” Biden said at his first presidential press conference. “The Republican voters I know find this despicable. I’m convinced that we will be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing.”
It’s uncertain how many of the state bills will actually pass. But the sheer volume of legislation reflects the political urgency both parties feel ahead of the next state and local elections. It’s expected that those new legislatures will get opportunities to redraw electoral districts.
Critics have blamed such redistricting for diluting the impact of Latinos and voters from other under-represented groups, even as their populations grow.
A long struggle
Wrangling over voting rules is as old as politics itself, of course. And debates over voter security often heat up following presidential elections or contentious midterm votes.
After Barack Obama won his second term in 2012, Republican election officials began sounding the election-fraud alarm, mostly focusing on “noncitizen” voters casting illegal ballots. They turned up virtually no examples.
This year’s wave of voter security bills follows a presidential election in which 158 million votes were cast. The 60 percent turnout was the highest in a generation, according to the Pew Research Center.
The new voting rules that Gov. Reynolds signed in Iowa are effective immediately, in time for state and local primary elections in June.
The LULAC lawsuit filed March 9 contends that the new guidelines do nothing to make elections more secure. Instead, the regulations “will impose undue and unjustified burdens on a wide range of lawful voters, including some of the state’s most vulnerable and underrepresented citizens.”
Those citizens include “minority voters, elderly voters, disabled voters, voters with chronic health conditions,” the LULAC suit argues, as well as “voters who work multiple jobs, and voters who lack access to reliable transportation or consistent mail service.”
If it’s not broken…
In passing the new voting guidelines without Democratic support, Iowa’s Republican lawmakers did not point to widespread fraud during the 2020 election. In fact, they praised how smoothly last November’s process went, according to LULAC’s lawsuit.
The governor’s office responded by stating that the new law is meant to reassure Iowans that elections are secure by setting “consistent parameters” for local officials to follow.
“It’s our duty and responsibility to protect the integrity of every election,” Gov. Reynolds said in a statement. “All of these additional steps promote more transparency and accountability, giving Iowans even greater confidence to cast their ballot.”
The Republican Party of Iowa did not respond to emails seeking comment. But the party’s state chairman, Jeff Kaufmann, praised the governor’s action and accused critics of just playing politics.
“Democrat spin is strong and wild,” he told reporters. “But truth shines through.”
Henry, president of the LULAC council in Des Moines, said Republicans are targeting younger, liberal-leaning voters and their preference to vote by mail. They’re also attempting to cripple LULAC’s initiative to drop off absentee ballots for those incapable of doing it on their own.
“Clearly the other side has realized it can't win with having all people vote,” Henry said. “So the only way that they can win is by restricting the vote, making it more difficult for everyone except those who are their older white voters.
“That’s who they're counting on for the next election,” he said.
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Ivan Moreno is a Chicago-based freelance journalist with more than 15 years of daily news experience, including 14 years with The Associated Press in Colorado, Illinois and Wisconsin. He’s covered state and national politics and major breaking news in every state he’s worked in and has been on assignment in Mexico City, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque N.M. He began his career in Denver with the Rocky Mountain News.